Despite CEO Elon Musk noting on a few occasions that Tesla would be wise to put an end to these huge end-of-quarter delivery waves, it seems the company is at it again. After opening 2023 with surprising and significant price cuts, the electric automaker is preparing to deliver every last car it can produce before the month’s end.
Tesla has been setting sales records across the globe over the last few months, which is far from common in the first quarter of the year. However, after a rocky 2022 and high prices for a number of reasons, Tesla dialed back its prices, its EVs became newly eligible for the US federal EV tax credit and other local credits, and the cars have seemingly been leaving the factory as quickly as Tesla can produce them.
As you can see in the video above, which was published by Tesla fan and drone photographer Met God in Wilderness, it appears the frenzy of prepping deliveries at Fremont has already begun. You can see that the automaker is lining up EVs in its parking lots in every direction, and there are car carriers ready to be loaded, some already full and leaving the factory to open up space to park more customer cars.
It’s only the middle of March, so there are a few weeks left. Fortunately, it looks like Tesla has many more parking spots available to continue stockpiling vehicles before the biggest push happens in the final days of the quarter.
Tesla tends to deliver vehicles furthest from its factories early in the quarter, when the timing isn’t as critical. As the quarter nears its end, the focus shifts to local deliveries, which are quicker and have fewer logistical challenges.
Why would Tesla still be pushing so hard to get all these cars produced and delivered by March 31 rather than just making sure they get into customers’ driveways sooner rather than later?
Despite the apparent success of Tesla’s recent price reductions, it won’t look promising to Wall Street if the automaker ends the quarter with a bunch of leftover inventory. Even if Tesla claims it’s because it’s ramping up production, or that the undelivered vehicles are spoken for, it still tends to come off as a negative.
Tesla has often struggled to deliver every car it produces each quarter, and now it produces many more EVs than it ever has before.
According to Teslarati, Tesla is expected to deliver 445,000 EVs globally in the first quarter of 2023. Wall Street estimates that the US EV maker will deliver 1.8 million cars over the course of the entire year. Meanwhile, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla has the potential to produce 2 million vehicles in 2023, so we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out.
How many electric cars and SUVs do you think Tesla will deliver in Q1 2023? Leave us your educated guesstimates in the comment section below.
