Musk Monitoring Tesla Delivery Issues Every 2 Days

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has begun to hold conference calls every two days with staff in Asia, Europe and the U.S. to find ways to accelerate its pace of electric-car deliveries.

Bloomberg News cites an internal memo from Musk that updates employees on the state of the company’s EV business. In it, he predicts the company will deliver at least 90,000 vehicles in the second quarter. He also says the frequent calls aim to quickly eliminate delivery bottlenecks.

Tesla spooked investors in April by revealing that its EV deliveries plummeted 31% to 63,000 units in January-March compared with the previous quarter. The company sells direct to customers and books each sale upon delivery to the retail buyer.

Most of Tesla’s delivery problems appear to relate to overseas distribution issues with Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, the company’s first mass-market model.

But some analysts fret that demand may have dropped in Tesla’s two biggest markets. They point to shrinking tax credits for U.S. buyers and stiff import tariffs levied by China as part of the U.S.-China trade war.