It's no secret that early Tesla Model 3 production was a major issue for the automaker. CEO Elon Musk admitted this back in 2017 as it went through "production hell." Fortunately, everything worked out just fine for Tesla and the Model 3 has now become the world's best-selling all-electric vehicle with well over half a million units delivered and counting. Tesla also now has a Model 3 factory up and running in Shanghai that's also been recently assigned to supply the vehicle for ten European countries.

In short, not only have Model 3 production issues been completely resolved but the automaker itself continues to expand at a rapid pace with two new factories (Austin, Texas and Berlin, Germany) currently under construction. The Model Y crossover's launch has been mostly problem-free as well.

But the period from 2017 to 2019 wasn't so rosy, as Musk just fully admitted. Responding to a question on Twitter about how close Tesla was to outright bankruptcy, Musk stated that the "Closest we got was about a month. The Model 3 ramp was extreme stress & pain for a long time - from mid 2017 to mid 2019. Production and logistics hell."

Many industry analysts had predicted Tesla's downfall due to bankruptcy during that time period as well, but, clearly, they underestimated the company's and its outspoken CEO's resolve. Today, Tesla is worth somewhere around $400 billion, earning it the prestige of being the world's most valuable automaker.

Another interesting development is the rollout of its full self-driving (FSD) beta testing. As the system continues to collect driver data, new updates will occur every 5 to 10 days and Musk aims to have a wider rollout by the end of the year. So far, there have not been any reports of accidents involving FSD, which is more good news for Tesla.

This advanced Autopilot feature is being closely monitored by US safety regulators and the last thing Tesla needs is some sort of a system failure involving a serious accident. Even if that were to happen, Tesla's future would not be in question the way it was not so long ago.