diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 4cd47bc..3743609 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -45,8 +45,5 @@ ENV MODEL_NAME=$MODEL_NAME \
 # Set the entrypoint
 ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
 
-# Run the Python script to download the model
-RUN python3.11 -u /download_model.py --model_name $MODEL_NAME --model_revision $MODEL_REVISION --model_base_path $MODEL_BASE_PATH
-
 # Start the handler
 CMD STREAMING=$STREAMING MODEL_NAME=$MODEL_NAME MODEL_BASE_PATH=$MODEL_BASE_PATH TOKENIZER=$TOKENIZER QUANTIZATION=$QUANTIZATION  python3.11 /handler.py
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f6d4eca..06dbf8b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -16,10 +16,11 @@
 - `STREAMING`: Whether to use HTTP Streaming or not.
 More information on receiving streaming responses from Serverless Endpoints can be found at [Endpoint URLs](https://docs.runpod.io/docs/serverless-endpoint-urls#streamjob_id), and a detailed example at [Llama2 7B Chat | Streaming Token Outputs](https://docs.runpod.io/reference/llama2-7b-chat#streaming-token-outputs). 
 #### Optional:
-- `HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN`: Your Hugging Face token to access private or gated models. You can get your token [here](https://huggingface.co/settings/token).
 - `TOKENIZER`: The specified tokenizer to use. If you want to use the default tokenizer for the model, do not provide this docker argument at all.
 - `QUANTIZATION`: `awq` to use AWQ Quantization (Base model must be in AWQ format). `squeezellm` for SqueezeLLM quantization - preliminary support.
-
+### Environment Variables:
+#### Optional:
+- `HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN`: Your Hugging Face token to access private or gated models. You can get your token [here](https://huggingface.co/settings/token).
 ### Compatible Models
 - LLaMA & LLaMA-2 
 - Mistral 
diff --git a/src/download_model.py b/src/download_model.py
deleted file mode 100644
index d7944e0..0000000
--- a/src/download_model.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,24 +0,0 @@
-import os
-import argparse
-from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download
-
-
-MODEL_NAME = os.environ.get('MODEL_NAME')
-MODEL_REVISION = os.environ.get('MODEL_REVISION', "main")
-MODEL_BASE_PATH = os.environ.get('MODEL_BASE_PATH', '/runpod-volume/')
-HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN = os.environ.get('HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN')
-
-
-if __name__ == "__main__":
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
-    parser.add_argument('--model_name', type=str, default=MODEL_NAME)
-    parser.add_argument('--model_revision', type=str, default=MODEL_REVISION)
-    parser.add_argument('--model_base_path', type=str, default=MODEL_BASE_PATH)
-
-    args = parser.parse_args()
-
-    snapshot_download(
-        args.model_name,
-        revision=args.model_revision,
-        local_dir=f"{args.model_base_path}{args.model_name.split('/')[1]}",
-    )
diff --git a/src/handler.py b/src/handler.py
index f3e2cc3..3a8fb6d 100644
--- a/src/handler.py
+++ b/src/handler.py
@@ -12,12 +12,15 @@ import os
 
 # Prepare the model and tokenizer
 MODEL_NAME = os.environ.get('MODEL_NAME')
-MODEL_NAME = MODEL_NAME.replace(".", "_")
-MODEL_BASE_PATH = os.environ.get('MODEfL_BASE_PATH', '/runpod-volume/')
 STREAMING = os.environ.get('STREAMING', False) == 'True'
 TOKENIZER = os.environ.get('TOKENIZER', None)
-USE_FULL_METRICS = os.environ.get('USE_FULL_METRICS', True)
 DTYPE = "auto"
+
+MODEL_BASE_PATH = os.environ.get('MODEL_BASE_PATH')
+if not os.path.exists(BASE_VOLUME):
+    os.makedirs(BASE_VOLUME)
+
+USE_FULL_METRICS = os.environ.get('USE_FULL_METRICS', True)
 MAX_CONCURRENCY = os.environ.get('MAX_CONCURRENCY', 200)
 TOTAL_RUNNING_JOBS = 0
 
@@ -46,7 +49,8 @@ except ValueError:
 
 # Prepare the engine's arguments
 engine_args = AsyncEngineArgs(
-    model=f"{MODEL_BASE_PATH}{MODEL_NAME.split('/')[1]}",
+    model=MODEL_NAME,
+    download_dir=MODEL_BASE_PATH,
     tokenizer=TOKENIZER,
     tokenizer_mode="auto",
     tensor_parallel_size=NUM_GPU_SHARD,