Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has been a mainstay in the news cycle, struggling to meet production goals, stuck in the center of autopilot crashes with CEO Elon Musk’s tweets sprinkled on top.
In the latest addition to the Tesla saga, a report claims that 23% of Model 3 reservations have been refunded. The report is from Second Measure, an analytics platform that sorts through credit and debit card purchases.
Demand for the car was strong when reservations first began in March 2016 with 61% occurring in the first month, according to the report data shared by Electrek.
Tesla said that Model 3 reservations were stable through the first quarter but did admit to some cancellations due to production delays or delays in availability of certain features such as dual motor all-wheel drive.
READ: Tesla faces tough competition as General Motors’ self-driving unit receives US$2.5bn investment
The electric car company recently production for six days from May 26 to May 31 to address the manufacturing issues that have prevented Tesla from reaching its Model 3 production goals, according to Reuters' sources.
Model 3 production has been suspended before as the company struggled to meet its target, blaming excessive automation for the slow down.
READ: Tesla’s Model 3 receives Consumer Reports recommendation after fixing braking issue
A recent report by Business Insider claims that Model 3 production is costing the automaker a lot of cash and raw material. Around 40% of the raw materials in its Nevada factory are scrapped or reworked before heading to its California factory. The report states that Tesla has spent over US$150mln on scrap, based on internal documents. Tesla disagreed with that figure.
"As is expected with any new manufacturing process, we had high scrap rates earlier in the Model 3 ramp. This is something we planned for and is a normal part of a production ramp," Tesla said in response.
Despite production concerns, the electric vehicle maker counted more than 450,000 Model 3 reservations by the end of the last quarter, as per its May shareholder letter.
Tesla will hold its annual meeting on Tuesday, giving shareholders the opportunity to vote for an independent chairman. Musk has been the chairman since 2004 and the CEO since 2008.
Shares of the California-based company were down less than 1% to US$296.03 in Tuesday pre-market trading.