Even Tesla customers in China are now facing long waits for the Model 3, as the EV maker tries to make up for lost production during April’s Covid-19 shutdowns.
The Model 3 is available in China in either a rear-wheel-drive or dual-motor, all-wheel-drive variant. The Performance variant is not available for order.
While there is a four to five-month wait for the AWD Long Range variant, wait times for new RWD Model 3s now sit at 20-24 months, CNEV Post reports.
The Model Y is available in all three variants, and as of writing is not facing the same delays as the Model 3. In fact, the wait times for the RWD Model Y is the shortest at just 10-14 weeks, while the AWD Long Range sits at 16-20 weeks and the Performance variant at 12-16 weeks.
While it is not clear why the RWD Model 3 in particular is facing the longest wait times, it is not without note that supply of the Model 3 has dried up in certain export markets.
In Australia, new customers are being told they will be waiting until 2023. As tweeted by Vedaprime on Sunday, the only ship to arrive from China in the second quarter of 2022 has arrived in recent days.
It is estimated to be carrying 150-200 cars, just one-tenth of that arriving in the same period in 2021. This caught some Tesla watchers off guard, who had thought that Tesla would deliver no cars to Australia this quarter.
“It’s a late diversion of replacement demo cars and some diverted for another market I suspect,” said Vedaprime in a follow-up post.
“It’s a mis-mash of cars built in March & late April – manually vin allocated whilst on ship. Some local demo Teslas are also being sold to waiting customers – waiting from late last year.”
The only Q2 #Tesla ship for Australia has arrived in Port Kembla. It is rumoured to be carrying 150-200 Tesla which were earmarked as demo vehicles and either partially or fully assigned to customers instead.
These cars were built in March and April in Shanghai
Archive Image pic.twitter.com/jrnO0jLp5Z
— VedaPrime (@VedaPrime) June 5, 2022
It is understood that Tesla Shanghai has some serious catching up to because of the April lockdowns, having missed out on making some 42,000 estimated cars.
Tesla was able to recommence one shift of production after negotiating a “closed-loop” system with Shanghai authorities wherein workers would sleep by their workstations.
A second shift has now been added to the closed-loop system, with workers transported to and from accommodation by the company as it endeavours to ramp production up to previous levels.
While supply of Tesla Model 3s has dried up for Australia, there is some speculation that an extension of wait times in China could mean it is turning its focus to export markets for now.
Despite the local supply crunch, the Tesla Model 3 still heads the EV sales ladder in Australia. However, it would seem there is still no launch of the Model Y on the horizon which is a best-seller in China.
Despite recent testing of the local Model Y sales page, Tesla has still not officially opened orders for the popular electric crossover – for the time being at least.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.