Tesla says it produced a record 365,923 cars across its factories in China, Germany and the US during the third quarter (Q3) of 2022.
The world’s leading EV maker said it made 345,988 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and 19,935 Model S and Model X models over Q3.
The bumper Q3 saw Tesla deliveries jump 41 per cent over the quarter two of 2022 result, which was heavily impacted by factors including supply chain snags and updates at the Giga Shanghai factory.
This production tally was also up 54 per cent on the output during Q3 of 2021.
As well as producing 365,923 EVs between July 1 and September 30, Tesla says it delivered 343,830 – meaning it built around 22,000 more cars than it put into customer hands.
The company cited current issues with its logistics and transportation arrangements – it’s a global issue at the moment – and said it would look to more evenly spread out its deliveries over a quarter.
“Historically, our delivery volumes have skewed towards the end of each quarter due to regional batch building of cars,” the company said.
“As our production volumes continue to grow, it is becoming increasingly challenging to secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks.
“In Q3, we began transitioning to a more even regional mix of vehicle builds each week, which led to an increase in cars in transit at the end of the quarter.
“These cars have been ordered and will be delivered to customers upon arrival at their destination.”
Via Twitter (where else?), Elon Musk responded to a question asking him to expand on these delivery snags.
“Smoothing out crazy end of quarter delivery wave to reduce expedite costs & relieve stress on Tesla team. Aiming for steadier deliveries intra-quarter,” he said.
“Customer experience suffers when there is an end of quarter rush. Steady as she goes is the right move.”
Tesla adds it will post its financial results for the third quarter of 2022 after market close on Wednesday, October 19.
Australia
Tesla dominates Australia’s nascent EV market. It delivered 8054 cars this year to the end of August, which is 55 per cent of the total number of EVs delivered by all brands.
We’re expecting a sales spike for Tesla in Australia across the latter parts of 2022 as well – with the Shanghai plant that supplies our market running hot.
Tesla Inc. Chair Robyn Denholm, an Australian who once worked at Telstra, recently said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if the number of Teslas on local roads doubled by the end of this year.
Ms Denholm reportedly told the Clean Energy Summit in Sydney in July that “we now have more than 26,500 Teslas on Australian roads, and the momentum is there”.
“I personally wouldn’t be surprised if we double that number by the end of the year,” Ms Denholm claimed.
Doubling its existing fleet by year’s end would be remarkable, given it delivered less than 5000 cars in the first half of 2022 due to plant showdowns during the updates.
However it delivered a further 3397 cars to Australians in August and demand remains strong – August being the launch month of the Model Y here.
Shanghai already has highest claimed installed annual capacity of any Tesla plant, said to be capable of making north of 750,000 cars a year, compared to 650,000 in California and about 250,000 each for Berlin and Texas.
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