Musk aims 10,000 Tesla 'Model 3' cars per week

San Francisco: Buoyed by the increased production of Model 3 cars, electric car maker Tesla has reported a revenue of $4 billion in the second quarter of 2018, with $2.2 billion in cash in hand.

Tesla shares soared nearly 11 per cent in after-hours trading late on Wednesday.

"We are proud of our team for producing roughly 7,000 Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicles during the last week of June.

"A total vehicle output of 7,000 vehicles per week, or 350,000 per year, should enable Tesla to become sustainably profitable for the first time in our history, and we expect to grow our production rate further in Q3," Elon Musk, CEO Tesla, said in a statement.

In July 2018, Model 3 -- that comes with a base price tag of $35,000 -- not only had the top market share position in its segment in the US, but it also outsold all other mid-sized premium sedans combined -- accounting for 52 per cent of the segment overall.

"The popularity of Model 3 is a true testament to the product. Based on trade-ins that we've received so far, we can see that its total addressable market is much larger than mid-sized premium sedans," Musk informed.

The company expects to produce 50,000-55,000 Model 3s in Q3.

"Having achieved our 5,000 per week milestone, we will now continue to increase that further, with our aim to produce 6,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late August.

"We aim to increase production to 10,000 Model 3s per week as fast as we can. We believe that the majority of Tesla's production lines will be ready to produce at this rate by the end of 2018," Musk said.