Tesla delivered 14,820 vehicles worldwide during Quarter 1 2016 — representing a roughly 50% year-on-year increase from Quarter 1 2015 deliveries — according to the company’s most recent financials release. Of that figure — 12,420 of the units were Model S vehicles; and 2,400 were Model X vehicles.
The company noted that it remains on track to achieve its delivery guidance for the year of 80,000 to 90,000 new vehicles. Quarter 1 deliveries were greatly lessened by “severe” supplier parts shortages during January and February which were resolved by the end of March, reportedly. Following the resolution of these supplier issues, the Model X build rate increased to 750 units a week (most of these weren’t delivered during Quarter 1, having been produced too late).
The root cause of the production issues was, as CEO Elon Musk has stated previously, the choice to implement so many new features and design elements at the Model X launch — rather than slowly introducing them over time. This was compounded by unsatisfactory supplier capability validation, and the company’s lack of in-house manufacture ability for many of the parts in question.
The company will reportedly be working to ensure that these issues aren’t repeated with the mass-market Model 3 launch. (Which is of course one of the main advantages of starting with higher-priced, lower-volume models first — there’s time to work out the production kinks first.)
Green Car Congress provides more:
Because production is now on plan and Q1 orders exceeded Q1 deliveries by a wide margin, with Q1 Model S orders being 45% higher than Q1 last year, Tesla reaffirmed its full-year delivery guidance. There may be small changes to the Q1 delivery count (usually well under 1%), as Tesla only counts a delivery if it is transferred to the end customer and all paperwork is correct.
While those that would like to see Tesla fail will probably interpret these figures negatively, they do seem to show that the company’s Model S deliveries are continuing to grow nicely, and that Model X production and delivery is continuing to ramp up. We’ll have to wait for the Quarter 2 figures to really get an idea of where 2016 is headed though.
GREAT NEWS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
I’m a huge fan, I own stock, and I preordered the model 3.
But this was a pretty terrible quarter for Tesla. They actually delivered fewer cars in Q1 (14,820) than they did in Q4 (17,400). At the end of Q4 they said:
On February 10, they said:
“In January 2016, we limited Model X production for a period
of time to maintain our quality production standards. We are
already seeing improvement from these efforts and we are
now significantly increasing our Model X production throughout
the balance of the quarter. We anticipate approaching a Model
X production rate of 1,000 vehicles a week in Q2.”
Producing 2400 cars in a 13 week quarter when you anticipated approaching 1000 a week isn’t great at all, though comparing to year-ago numbers helps hide that. Last November they still said:
“Looking ahead, we still remain highly confident of
average production and deliveries of 1,600 to 1,800
vehicles per week for Model S and Model X combined
during 2016.”
But the issues with the Model X apparently depressed production of the Model S – they didn’t even hit 1000 per week vs 1600, the number they were highly confident of.
I think blaming suppliers is not the whole story. No reason why Model X supply issues should depress Model S production.
I’m still very bullish on the Model 3 and EVs in general, but I hope there is some serious soul searching going on. Do people at Tesla not dare to be honest with Elon when there are problems, or what’s going on?