Thousands of Tesla Model 3s spotted as new model production looms

Thousands of right-hand-drive Teslas have been spotted at the port in Shanghai with many bound for Australian shores. It was spotted in the latest Tesla Shanghai video from a drone operator Wu Wa on YouTube.

This is slightly unusual as many of these vehicles should already be on ships heading our way.

In the video description, Wu Wa rightly points out that export production has ended but there are still many right-hand-drive Teslas still to be loaded onto ships:

“Export production has ended for the time being this quarter, and Tesla from Shanghai port has been shipped in batches to Europe and other places, and now there is still a right-hand drive Tesla left parked at the site waiting for shipping,” he says.

Tesla produces cars differently from many other automotive manufacturers by having production batched in quarters. 

Since all of Tesla’s vehicles in Australia currently come from China, these have to be produced in the beginning to mid quarter so they can make it to our shores on time for customer deliveries within the quarter.

Wu Wa follows this up by mentioning that these would be the last produced batch for the current Tesla Model 3 as the best-selling EV maker’s factory in Shanghai is being upgraded in preparation for the new Tesla Model 3 version.

“Now the Shanghai factory is being upgraded for the new Model 3, Shanghai port parked Model 3 may be the last batch… And the previous production of MODEL 3 mostly overseas orders.”

The new Tesla Model 3 will make the nearly five-year-old model much more compelling. As per previous reports, there are some significant interior and exterior changes coming as part of this upgrade. 

One of these changes on the interior was recently reported by a Tesla enthusiast and news source, Chris Zheng, on Twitter. This was the removal of the iconic wood trim on the inside of every Tesla Model 3 and Model Y delivered to Australian customers.

Very little is known about the exact timing of this change which is similar to how Tesla has made significant changes on the fly in the past. We do expect to get more details on this change this week from Tesla directly at the upcoming investor day.

Tesla is keeping things under wrap quite well given how much speculation there is around the updated Tesla Model 3. 

With only a few nights’ sleep left, there may be more that comes out on this update with thousands of already produced right-hand-drive Tesla Model 3s in Shanghai making it to our shores in the coming months. Every EV we can get in Australia will help our decarbonising efforts. 

Tesla continues to make great strides in manufacturing more affordable EVs, in a way only seen once before in the automotive industry. That was with the launch of the Ford Model T which was well over 100 years ago. It feels like history is about to repeat itself, only this time, it’s going to be all-electric.