To drive up production, Tesla Motors hires Audi veteran Peter Hochholdinger

NEW YORK: Tesla Motors, the electric-car maker run by billionaire Elon Musk, hired Audi AG's Peter Hochholdinger to help oversees production as it seeks to boost vehicle output about 10-fold by 2018.

Hochholdinger will be vice-president of vehicle production, Tesla said on Friday in an e-mailed statement. He'll be expected to boost production of Model S and Model X cars while building a manufacturing program for the new Model 3, Tesla said.

“Tesla is excited to have Peter join the team“ the company said in the statement.

Musk, Tesla's chief executive officer, stunned investors last week when he announced the company aims to make 500,000 vehicles by 2018 -two years sooner than originally planned. Tesla delivered just 50,658 vehicles in 2015. Vehicle output might reach 1 million by the end of the decade, Musk said on the first-quarter earnings call.

Tesla's production ambitions aren't playing well on Wall Street.Barclays analyst Brian Johnson has projected a $3-billion equity offering in the second quarter, calling Tesla “more of a cash-hungry startup unicorn than a traditional public company.“ The shares fell 13 per cent this year through Friday, pointing toward the first full-year drop since Tesla's initial public offering in 2010.