ELON MUSK, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has had two bits of good news recently about his various bets on new technology. SpaceX, his privately-held launch company, last month became the first successfully to reuse a rocket to put a satellite into orbit. And this week Tesla, his electric-car manufacturer, at last hit its production targets.

Some analysts doubted Tesla would meet its goals after a series of production difficulties. But the carmaker said first-quarter deliveries were just over 25,000 vehicles, a record for the firm and a 69% increase over the same period in 2016. Some 13,450 were its sleek Model S saloons and about 11,550 were the firm’s new SUV, the Model X. This puts Tesla on track to produce the 50,000 vehicles it has promised to make in the first half of this year. That is good progress. But Tesla is going to have to crank production up by an awful lot more to make the 500,000 cars a year which Mr Musk wants to see pouring off the production line by 2018, let alone the 1m intended for just two years later.

To reach those volumes, Tesla is counting on its forthcoming Model 3. Priced at around $35,000, the new car will cost around half that of the other two models. Due to begin production later this year, the Model 3 is supposed to take Tesla into the mass market, where it will face stiff competition from plug-in vehicles produced by existing mass manufacturers, including GM, Nissan and BMW.

Bringing any new car to market burns cash, and Tesla has been busy raising funds. On March 24th Tencent, a Chinese internet giant that owns WeChat, a popular messaging service, paid $1.8bn for a 5% stake in Tesla. Tencent could help accelerate Tesla’s drive into the vast Chinese market, where some 28m cars were sold last year. With Donald Trump trying to dismantle some environmental standards in America, China seems likelier to push green technologies. It is already the world’s biggest market for electric cars; some 700,000 plug-in cars are expected to be sold there this year. But to compete against low-cost local brands, Tesla urgently needs to start churning out its cheaper car.

Many investors are betting that Tesla can become a mass producer. This has pushed up the value of the firm’s shares, which have increased by 38% since the start of 2017. On April 3rd Tesla’s market capitalisation exceeded $48bn, overtaking Ford (at $45bn). Ford may not be as technologically glamorous but it is well-versed in mass-producing cars, having made 6.7m last year. An awful lot will be riding on the Model 3. If Tesla fails to hit future targets then a cashflow crisis may loom. Investors, though, will have an exit: the company’s brand and whizzy technology are easily valuable enough to drive the firm into the arms of a bigger manufacturer that can hit its numbers.