Much ado has been made about Tesla Motors' profitable first quarter of 2013, as well as its 4,750-unit production during the same period. Now, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] appears to be on track to exceed even its rather optimistic goals.

The goal for the first full year of production of the Model S was 20,000 units. Telsa's Q1 volume of 4,750 cars was very nearly on that mark, but now the company says it is cranking out more than 400 cars per week and "not trivially" more, either, reports The Detroit News.

Elon Musk has predicted total production and sales of the Model S at 21,000 units this year, including global sales to Europe and Asia. Next year, the company plans to ramp that up to more than 800 cars per day, or 40,000 Model Ses for 2014.

Despite the production pickup and plans for more in the near future, and Tesla's listing on the NASDAQ-100 index announced earlier this week, it's not clear that the second quarter of 2013 will be as financially positive as the first.

It's important to remember that Tesla's Q1 profit wasn't based on its car production and sales, however, but on several clever financial tricks. For a full run-down on how Tesla came out profitable in the first three months of the year, read John Voelcker's explanation at Green Car Reports.

Whatever your feelings about Tesla Motors as a company, it's clear the Model S itself is filling a space in the market that has a solid base of built-in fans. Whether the wider public will continue to buy the car once pre-orders and early adopters are exhausted remains to be seen. With 90-second battery swaps demonstrated recently, using hardware already built into every Tesla Model S, we think it has a good chance.