The improvement is welcome news for a company that has been rocked by upheaval since Elon Musk, its chief executive, unveiled an abortive buyout plan.
Tesla said Tuesday that it produced 80,142 cars in the third quarter, a 50 percent rise from the second quarter, as the Model 3 sedan began rolling off its assembly line in larger volumes.
The total included 53,239 Model 3s, nearly doubling the number Tesla made in the previous quarter. That implies that the company’s output averaged about 4,000 Model 3s a week, fewer than the 5,000 that Elon Musk, the chief executive, has been pushing for.
The increase in production is a rare bit of good news for a company that has been shaken by a succession of unsettling developments over the last two months. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Mr. Musk in a securities-fraud case, and two days later Mr. Musk accepted a settlement with the agency.
The case arose from Mr. Musk’s tweet on Aug. 7 in which he said he planned to turn Tesla into a private company at $420 a share and had “funding secured,” a plan that turned out to be less fleshed out than he suggested.
The S. E. C. is still looking into Mr. Musk’s past claims about the company’s production goals.
[ Read more: A group of internet sleuths is tracking clues to Tesla’s production and delivery issues.]
The Model 3, its most affordable offering so far, is crucial to Tesla’s success. But while the company has increased the production of Model 3s, Tesla has run into a new problem: It can’t seem to deliver all the cars it is making to its customers. Mr. Musk called this “delivery logistics hell.”
Mr. Musk has vowed that Tesla will generate a profit and show positive cash flow in the third and fourth quarters, thanks to the Model 3. But while the company is making more cars, the delivery problems could hurt its bottom line, because the company can book revenue only when it puts its cars into customers’ hands.
The company needs revenue because it has suffered substantial losses and uses up nearly $1 billion in cash almost every quarter. At the start of the third quarter, Tesla had $2.2 billion in cash, but it owed suppliers $3 billion. It also had about $11 billion in debt on its balance sheet.
