Tesla Model Y has been a huge success in Australia for the biggest EV maker in the world. This SUV was launched just under 2 weeks ago and has already racked up over 10,000 orders.
Today, we look at data that supports the popularity of the Model Y locally and see what Tesla is doing to ensure we get the cars delivered on time.
New data from Google Trends reveals huge interest in Model Y. Comparing Tesla Model Y to 3 other popular cars shows a huge increase in Australian search inquiries on Google in June.
There was a particular spike in search results on Friday, June 10 when the Tesla Model Y was officially launched. It showed a ten-fold increase over the day before.
The search interest started to increase after exclusive images of the Tesla Model Y appeared on The Driven on June 9. Before that, Model Y local searches were indexed on Google with a score of about 2.
With this high interest in the right-hand drive Tesla Model Y, the question turns to what Tesla is doing to ensure the wait times are not excessive for Australian customers.
Tesla Production ramps up high in June
After numerous weeks of minimal production in March and April at Tesla’s Shanghai factory, things are starting to get back on track. Local reports have suggested that the closed-loop production system in the factory is now opened with daily production levels exceeding 2600 cars a day.
June daily production levels are predicted to be closer to 2750 cars which is great news for thousands of Australian customers who missed out on deliveries this quarter. It’s worth noting that June production will mainly cover the local market in China. July and August will cover export production for markets like Australia, Europe and other parts of Asia.
The internal sources at Tesla in Shanghai have noted on local social media that they expect production in June 2022 to be around 70,000 cars for the month. This is a huge jump from May when just over 33,000 cars were produced.
Impact on local deliveries
This ramp up of production is great news for Australian EV customers as July production would be at similar levels to June.
Next month’s production at Tesla GigaShanghai will start to cover Australian right-hand drive orders along with UK, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand too. This would mean a record quarter of deliveries for Tesla to Australia of both Model 3 and Model Y.
Delivery data from the coming months will reveal the total number and would contribute significantly to the EV uptake in Australia, making 2022 the best year for EV adoption so far.
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.