Tesla deliveries could nearly double in coming months as Shanghai production reboots

Last year, nearly 80% of the EVs that made up Australia’s EV uptake arrived from China. This included Australia’s best selling EV, the Tesla Model 3.

With recent lockdowns in China, Australian customers are waiting much longer than they expected when they placed their orders. Some have been told of waits of up to 12 months, and the Model Y is still not available to order.

This is set to change as Tesla added a second shift to the Shanghai factory earlier this week. And it could mean that over the coming three to four months, Tesla deliveries to Australia could nearly double over the strong first quarter of more than 4,000 vehicles.

Tesla in Shanghai was forced to reduce its factory staffing by 75% in March 2022. This placed a big delay on customers’ orders. Many Australian Tesla customers that had put in an order in the last 6 months were told that their cars will be delivered in the second half of 2022.

Tesla adding a second shift in the latter half of May to the production line. This will be a big relief to a factory that went from producing over 55,000 cars in March to just over 10,000 in April.

It is predicted that the Shanghai Tesla factory will produce 36,300 vehicles during the month of May 2022. The total daily production rate for May from the Shanghai Gigafactory is predicted to be averaged out to 1,530 units per day. This is up from April’s 912 cars per day. The actual May production numbers will be released by CPCA in early June.

This should be great news for Australian Tesla customers, who are waiting longer for their new EVs to be delivered. A lot more Model 3s will be produced in June and July, ready for shipping to Australian customers.

With Tesla production ramping up to 2,500 vehicles a day, June will see many cars built for the local and export markets like ours.

Tesla shipped 4,000 cars to Australia in the first quarter of 2022. This improvement in production will see many more arrive for customers as the demand for their EVs increases in Australia. Tesla will be aiming for 7,000 deliveries to customers in the coming 3-4 months.

On top of that, as logistics get back to normal in Shanghai and surrounding areas, BYD, MG, Volvo & Polestar will start to see their production levels improve. This would be good news for EV uptake in Australia with many new owners ready to make the switch to EVs.