Electric vehicle uptake rose rapidly in Queensland in the first three months of 2022. But, new registration data tells a different story for April: It was a month where Polestar started to make some customer deliveries and the Kia EV6 topped the table.
The biggest surprise was the massive decline in Tesla uptake in Queensland. As we reported earlier, Tesla fell of its perch as best selling EV brand in April, partly due to the seasonal nature of its deliveries (it tends to bulk up deliveries at the end of a quarter).
But data from carloop shows that only one new 2022-built Tesla was delivered to a single lucky customer in Queensland last month. This brought the new 2022 Tesla total to 962 cars in the sunshine state.
The main reason for this spectacular decline is the fact that the Tesla delivery cycle for Australia, but there is also pressure on the supply chain, and a suspicion that Teslsa is prioritising other markets.
It has already warned that Australian deliveries for the June quarter will be pushed back to the second half of the year, and new reservations will not be met until 2023.
The only exception to the delivery cycle rule in April was Tasmania, which bucked the trend and had 24 cars delivered there in April. This was more than the March deliveries.
Polestar 2 edges the Model 3 in the sunshine state during April
Polestar 2 did slightly better than Tesla for deliveries of their new 2022 built cars in Queensland during April. A tortal of 15 new 2022 built Polestar 2 EVs were delivered to customers. That’s after Polestar reported 93 new sales in April 2022 across the country.
April deliveries of new Polestar 2 were slightly above March 2022 when only 11 new EVs were delivered in the state.
That’s miniscule compared to the 2022 built Tesla Model 3 deliveries there. Data from March 2022 showed that over 630 new EV owners in Queensland took Tesla Model 3 onto Queensland roads.
Prediction after Tesla’s Quarter 2 deliveries now written off
Recently Tesla pushed back Australian deliveries for all Tesla Model 3 owners who were expecting cars in Q2 2022 due to Shanghai lockdowns. Some owners in Queensland have been waiting for nearly 6 months after placing an order back in December 2021.
This means that the third quarter of the year will see an influx of Tesla EV deliveries in Queensland. Carloop predicts over 2000 new Tesla Model 3s to end up on sunshine state’s roads by Q3.
EV uptake in Queensland looks to be slowing down due to supply issues. This will change in the second half of 2022 with Tesla resuming production and deliveries.
Combined with the launch of the new EVs such as the updated MG ZS EV and the BYD’s Atto3, more Queenslanders will end up behind the wheel of an EV in 2022 than ever before.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.