Tesla is expecting a “very high volume” of vehicle deliveries during the end of the quarter, and it is asking all employees to help – even those outside of the sale and delivery organization.
Over the last year, CEO Elon Musk has said that Tesla would try to move away from its model that results in large pushes for deliveries at the end of quarters, but it had a difficult time achieving that.
Last quarter ended up being another “nutty” one, according to the CEO.
While the end of Q3 was expected to be a more manageable delivery push, we have been starting to get indications that it could be another intense delivery push.
Earlier this month, we reported that Tesla moved back sales employees that it sent to service in order to address the end-of-quarter push.
Today, Electrek can report that Tesla is expecting a “high volume” end of the quarter. Tesla management wrote in an email to employees obtained byElectrek:
We will be delivering a very high volume of vehicles to eagerly waiting customers during the final days of Q3. To help ensure we can delight as many customers as possible, the delivery team is requesting additional support with key delivery-execution tasks.
In the email, Tesla requests that all employees, even those who don’t work in the sales and delivery department, help with the tasks to deliver vehicles to customers at the end of the quarter.
These tasks can include moving vehicles around, washing and preparing vehicles, delivering vehicles directly to customers, and answering customer questions on delivery day.
In the past, Tesla had engineers, managers, and even executives come down to delivery centers to help with those tasks during end-of-quarter delivery pushes.
Virtually all analysts are predicting that Tesla is going to deliver a record number of vehicles during the third quarter. Most delivery estimates place Tesla’s deliveries in Q3 between 350,000 and 370,000 units.
It would be significant jump fromits previous all-time delivery record of ~310,000 units back in Q1 2022.
Tesla is expected to report its delivery and production numbers during the weekend.
Electrek’s Take
While there are negatives to these end-of-quarter delivery pushes, people should underestimate how much of a difference they can make.
During some of the pushes, Tesla has been able to deliver extra tens of thousands of vehicles.
There’s no doubt that this quarter is going to be another delivery record, but the last few days of the month could make the difference between Tesla hitting the lower end or the higher end of those 350,000- to 370,000-unit delivery estimates.
In turn, 10,000 to 20,000 fewer vehicles in inventory would make a giant difference in its earnings for the quarter. Hence the importance of the end-of-quarter delivery push.