Law enforcement is primarily concerned about the wide gap between Tesla's early production promises and the cold reality. It had signaled plans to produce 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of 2017 after announcing its earnings in February 2017 and reiterated those plans when production was imminent in July of that year, but it only made a total of 2,700 units that entire year. It wasn't until July 2018, several months later, that Tesla started achieving that 5,000-per-week figure. The WSJ heard that the early production line didn't even have a completed body shop until September 2017.

Tesla told Engadget in a statement about the prior document request and said that it hadn't received subpoenas, official requests for testimony or "any other formal process." There hasn't been a DOJ document request "for months," it said. This doesn't rule out the DOJ reaching out to individual staff, but the company itself wouldn't have received anything. The automaker also stressed that it was "transparent" about the difficulties of improving manufacturing rates and that it set "truthful targets" that were neither unrealistic nor overly conservative. You can read the full statement below.

Whether or not anything comes from the investigation is unclear. To pursue a case, the FBI might have to show that Tesla knew it was unlikely to make its stated production goals. If there's evidence Tesla was simply grappling with "difficulties that [it] did not foresee," as the company said in a statement, the FBI's investigation might amount to nothing. Whatever the outcome, this likely isn't what Tesla wants to deal with right as it's returning to profitability.