Tesla Deliveries Up 110% In Q1 2019 vs. Q1 2018

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Tesla delivered 110% more vehicles in the 1st quarter of 2019 versus the 1st quarter of 2018. The Q1 2019 delivery total was approximately 63,000.

That said, the deliveries were 31% less than the 4th quarter of 2018, due in part to a high number of vehicles in transit, over 10,000. The deliveries were broken down as follows:

  • 50,900 Tesla Model 3
  • 12,100 Tesla Model S and X (not sure of the exact split there)

As far as production, the numbers were of course higher than deliveries — 77,100. Those were broken down as follows:

  • 62,950 Tesla Model 3
  • 14,150 Tesla Model S and X

There’s actually quite an interesting aspect to the S & X numbers, and I’m going to have to backtrack to a rather old article of mine to discuss it, but that’ll be a story for another day.

We’ll have more to discuss regarding the Q1 numbers — much more. For now, though, it’s 2:30am where I’m based so pasted below is most of Tesla’s press release on the numbers for extra context.


Due to a massive increase in deliveries in Europe and China, which at times exceeded 5x that of prior peak delivery levels, and many challenges encountered for the first time, we had only delivered half of the entire quarter’s numbers by March 21, ten days before end of quarter. This caused a large number of vehicle deliveries to shift to the second quarter. At the end of the first quarter, approximately 10,600 vehicles were in transit to customers globally.

Because of the lower than expected delivery volumes and several pricing adjustments, we expect Q1 net income to be negatively impacted. Even so, we ended the quarter with sufficient cash on hand.

In North America, Model 3 was yet again the best-selling mid-sized premium sedan, selling 60% more units than the runner up. Inventory of Model 3 vehicles in North America remains exceptionally low, reaching about two weeks of supply at the end of Q1, compared to the industry average of 2-3 months.

Despite pull forward of demand from Q1 2019 into Q4 2018 due to the step down in the federal tax credit, US orders for Model 3 vehicles significantly outpaced what we were able to deliver in Q1. We reaffirm our prior guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries in 2019.

Given that Tesla vehicle production currently occurs entirely from one factory in the San Francisco Bay Area, but must be delivered to customers all around the world, production could be significantly higher than deliveries, as it was this quarter, when production exceeded deliveries by 22%.

We’ve just begun the global expansion of Model 3, and we want to thank our employees for their hard work and our customers for supporting our mission. We are doing everything we can to deliver cars globally as quickly as possible and look forward to continuing to scale deliveries throughout the year.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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