Despite some significant price reductions applied by Tesla, its new electric car inventory is increasing in the United States.
According to the latest reports, based on data tracked by tesladata.mattjung.net and tesla-info.com, the total inventory (Model 3, Model S, Model X and Model Y) reached a new all-time high of almost 2,700 units as of April 25 (currently around 2,500).
Troy Teslike explains that those are cars that don’t have a buyer yet (not the ones in transit to buyers). We can find them on Tesla‘s New Inventory website.
In October 2022, there was a very small number of new Tesla cars, available for immediate purchase (below 500), but the number increased at the end of the year which prompted Tesla to add some promotions. In early January 2023, the number once again increased, to over 2,600 on January 12. Tesla announced significant price reductions then, which resulted in lowering the number to less than around 1,500 cars.
After a period of some stabilization between 750 and 1,500, the total once again started to increase. There were new price reductions and price adjustments after that.
Overall, it seems that this metric is a very valuable indicator – just like the estimated Tesla global electric car order backlog – that combined with price adjustments, might tell us a lot about what is happening in terms of supply and demand.
Things are even more interesting when we take a look at the individual charts for each model – Model 3, Model S, Model X and Model Y. For example, the bulk of overall cars that await customers in the US are Model X. It seems then that the bath of early adopters of the refreshed Model X dried up at the end of 2022. Now, Tesla is ramping up the export of Model S/Model X to Europe and Asia and also lowered prices in the US.
Some of the changes on the chart might be associated with a production cycle of particular car versions for particular markets (a high number of vehicles produced ahead of switching to another type for a different market), so let’s just remember that things might be more complex than just simple price and supply/demand.
Anyway, with some 2,500 vehicles waiting (including 1,500 Model S/X) in a parking lot, Tesla must move more carefully than when there were multi-month queues for new cars. On the other hand, this number is still very small compared to the overall sales volume (annually) and compared to the new inventory of other manufacturers/dealers.
