If you’ve noticed more Tesla electric cars on the roads since the EV maker began delivering its latest model to Australian drivers, get ready to see even more.
The Tesla Model Y went on sale in June in Australia after a long wait. We estimated as many as 12,000 were ordered within days of the Model Y order page opening.
Now, a record number of Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys have been snapped lined up Shanghai dockyards ahead of a massive influx, as well as more than 300 Model 3s at Fremantle docks.
“Glovis loaded with Teslas just left last week, and this week the dock was once again filled with more Teslas,” said Giga Shanghai watcher Wu Wa posting a video of more than 8,000 cars at dock in China on Friday (see the end of this article for the video.)
Images shared by him on Twitter show the thousands of Tesla cars awaiting shipping at South Port terminal, Shanghai, with many built-in right-hand drive for markets such as Australia and New Zealand.
“We noticed that most of the cars in this batch are right-hand steering, and we understand from the factory that most of the cars in this batch are aimed at the AU market,” said Wu Wa.
Shanghai South Port Terminal surprised us again@Tesla#Tesla #TeslaShanghai pic.twitter.com/6MQW2nMP56
— WuWa (@bentv_sh) August 12, 2022
And it’s a record number, according to Sawyer Merritt, a Tesla investor who posts regularly on the EV maker. He says he counted more than 8,800 cars waiting at the dock.
“This batch of Teslas above beat the previous record of about 7,000 that were there in mid-July for export. This to me is partly an indication that production output is indeed increasing following the recent Giga Shanghai factory upgrades. INSANE amount of Teslas!” he said in a follow up post.
BREAKING: A record 8,800+ (I counted) Teslas spotted at Shanghai's Southport Terminal today ready to be loaded for export onto cargo ships!
Pics/Video by @bentv_sh: https://t.co/cA69Inoox8 pic.twitter.com/yTEZ34kJhT
— Sawyer Merritt 📈🚀 (@SawyerMerritt) August 12, 2022
Tesla shipping tracker Vedaprime says there are as many as 7,000 to 8,000 Tesla cars already on ships headed for Australia.
“It’s just the craziest thing,” said Vedaprime in a note to The Driven.
To deal with the massive influx, Tesla is decentralising its delivery processes, and ships are headed to Port Kembla, the Port of Melbourne as well as, for the first time, straight to Fremantle in Western Australia.
This image shared exclusively to The Driven by Tesla owners and Tesla Owners Club of Western Australia (TOCWA) secretary Harald Murphy shows 334 Model 3s at Fremantle docks on Sunday.
Tesla’s export production dropped by a significant 64% in July compared to June as the carmaker shut down its assembly line for an upgrade.
As reported by The Driven’s Riz Akhtar, the upgrade allows Tesla to produce 2,000 more cars a day.
The production ramp couldn’t come soon enough for some. For some Tesla customers who ordered a Model 3 as far back as January, it’s been a long, long wait (although, no doubt some will point out, not as long as the three-year wait for the Model 3 before it arrived in 2019!)
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.