Tesla CEO Elon Musk hoped to ease the ridiculousness that comes at the end of each quarter for Tesla and its employees. However, he may not have expected the closures at Giga Shanghai, and, like most automakers, Tesla is working hard to battle against the chip shortage and supply chain constraints.
As you may be aware, Tesla has a reputation for delivering a massive number of vehicles close to the end of each quarter. The past delivery waves have been so crazy that even Tesla fans, owners, investors, and friends have shown up to help Tesla deliver a record number of cars on occasion.
According to a recent report published by Electrek, Elon Musk already alerted employees during a global company meeting to be prepared for a "nutty" end-of-quarter delivery wave. Toward the end of last year, Musk publically shared that Tesla hoped to bring an end to these crazy waves, noting that if a car doesn't get delivered at the end of a quarter, it's certainly going to be delivered at the beginning of the next quarter, so timing shouldn't matter so much.
Tesla doesn't rely on a traditional dealer network, which has its benefits, though it arguably makes delivery pushes difficult. The automaker has many strategies to help with the process, but perhaps the most obvious one is that it delivers the largest number of cars at the end of each quarter by being laser-focused on local deliveries.
To be clear, Tesla delivers cars to areas that are furthest from its factories at the beginning of the quarter. It also focuses more on exports during that time. As the quarter nears its end, people living in cities very close to the EV brand's Gigafactories will likely take delivery. This cuts down on transit time and eases logistics, but also makes life challenging for factory workers on the final days of each quarter.
Electrek reported that, during a company-wide meeting, an employee asked Musk when to expect the “insane end-of-quarter delivery push” to become a thing of the past. Musk responded via Electrek:
“This has been a challenge since late 2008. There always seems to be something that happens and causes the end of the quarter to be nutty and this quarter will not be an exception – mostly because we had this huge challenge with the COVID restrictions in Shanghai. It basically shut down the Shanghai factory for much of the early part of the quarter. It is only now getting back to full production. It will be pretty intense this quarter.”
That said, Musk did go on to say that Tesla should have smaller waves going forward, as long as something doesn't happen. The EV maker just opened two new factories, one in Germany and the other in Texas, and its Gigafactory in China is nearly back to producing at full capacity. However, the chances of nothing happening in upcoming quarters seems slim.
Electrek also reminds us that Musk isn't expecting a record quarter in Q2 2022, though he did suggest the potential for the delivery of about 300,000 electric cars and SUVs.
