Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule. Expecting to complete SN1 on Friday," tweeted Musk, last week. Guess what? It happened. Just sixteen months after the product announcement of the Model 3, Tesla reaches the start of production (SOP). In the automotive engineering world, this is a significant achievement. If you look at the production scale up of the plant, not just the Model 3, it can only be modeled by an exponential line.