Tesla is putting a lot of pressure on itself to deliver 55,000 cars in 2015

Tesla just reported first-quarter 2015 earnings, and they were a beat: an adjusted loss per share of $0.36 on adjusted revenue of $1.1 billion.

Wall Street expected $0.49 on revenue of $1.05 billion, according to data from Bloomberg.

However, the company said in its investor letter that it plans to deliver 10,000-11,000 vehicles in the second quarter, after delivering just over 10,000 in the first quarter.

Tesla said that it remains on track "to deliver approximately 55,000 Model S and X cars in 2015," but what's left to achieve that ambitious goal is deliveries that would match or outpace all of last year, when the company managed to build 35,000 cars, but sell about a thousand less (those deliveries slipped into the first quarter of 2015).

The Model X may help Tesla achieve its goal. But even with the new SUV still scheduled to arrive in the third quarter, it's not going to make a large contribution, at first.

Currently, Tesla is still building its only car, the Model S, at its only factory, in Fremont, CA.

So the company is going to have to go like hell to hit that 55,000-deliveries target.

Tesla has done this before. Last year, it made such an "Herculean" effort, as the company put it, to produce as many cars as possible that it gave all of its line workers a week off in early January.

More of the same could be in store for Tesla's workforce in the second half of 2015.