Elon Musk's electric car manufacturer Tesla announced Friday it is cutting its workforce by about seven percent as it works to meet its timetable for producing the Model 3.

Tesla is cutting seven percent of its workforce (Photo: AFP)

Musk said in a blog post that Tesla is making the staff cut as it aims to reach more customers who can afford its vehicles.

He said that currently Tesla's most affordable offering is the mid-range (264 mile) Model 3 at $44,000.

"The need for a lower priced variants of Model 3 becomes even greater on July 1," when a US tax credit drops by half, making the car $1,875 more expensive, and again at the end of the year when it goes away entirely.

"Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause," Musk wrote.