SAN FRANCISCO • Tesla chief Elon Musk literally needs the help of company employees to drive the company's expansion efforts.

He is asking for volunteers to drive the vehicles to customer pick-up points.

On Thursday, he urged workers to make the "biggest wave" of deliveries in the electric car maker's history their top priority.

Business Insider news website posted a copy of an internal e-mail from Mr Musk, 47, rallying Tesla troops to pitch in with "a massive wave of deliveries" throughout Europe, China and North America.

"This is the biggest wave in Tesla's history," the e-mail read.

"For the last 10 days of the quarter, please consider your primary priority to be helping with vehicle deliveries.

"This applies to everyone."

The firm is experiencing the kind of tremendous increase in delivery demand seen in North America last year in Europe and China, according to the e-mail, which added that the situation was exacerbated by component supplier shortages in Europe.

Mr Musk was reportedly seeking volunteers to drive Tesla cars to destinations such as shipping points, but said he did not expect the delivery crunch to recur in future quarters.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, a message from Tesla's official Twitter account on Tuesday said that due to trouble processing an unusually high volume of online orders, a planned slight increase in prices of some models was postponed a day.

Tesla currently makes all its cars at a plant in the northern California city of Fremont and aims to deliver 400,000 cars this year.

The company recently introduced an electric sport utility vehicle slightly bigger and more expensive than its Model 3, pitched as an electric car for the masses.

Last week, it showed the all-electric Model Y with a starting price of US$39,000 (S$53,000) for a version with a 370km range.

Deliveries are expected to begin late next year for that model, according to the company.

Mr Musk, 47, is a visionary and inventive boss, but also highly unpredictable, especially on social network Twitter, where he has often communicated in defiance of rules imposed on executives of publicly traded companies.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE