Tesla hits new delivery and production records

Tesla has presented its delivery and production figures for the fourth quarter of 2022 – and thus also for the year as a whole. With 439,701 electric cars built and 405,278 delivered, Q4 was unsurprisingly a new record for both figures.

For the full year 2022, Tesla’s brief announcement states 1,369,611 vehicles built and 1,313,851 delivered – the first time the million mark has been broken. Tesla has thus made enormous gains at the end of the year, with the factories in Texas and Brandenburg, which came on stream in 2022, contributing increasingly rising unit numbers to the overall result. As is well known, vehicles built in the Giga Berlin (Model Y) were delivered for the first time last March; for the Giga Texas, this was the case in April.

In 2021, Tesla narrowly failed to reach the one million vehicle mark – in the end, the statistics showed 930,422 vehicles built and 936,172 vehicles delivered. The latter figure corresponded to an increase of 87 per cent on the 499,550 Teslas delivered in 2020. The current jump to 1,313,851 vehicles in customer hands, by the way, represents an increase of 40 per cent, while production rose by 47 per cent.

The fact that growth slowed down so much over the year despite the quarterly records was partly due to the covid outbreak in China. In Q1/2022, Tesla had built 305,407 vehicles and delivered 310,048 electric cars. In Q2, there was a dip in the statistics curve (258,580 vehicles produced, 254,695 delivered) due to ongoing supply chain issues and the temporary closures of the Shanghai plant. In Q3/2022 there were 365,923 cars built and 343,830 delivered, the new records valid at that time – which have now been surpassed again in the final quarter.

Broken down by model series, Tesla built 20,613 Model S/X in Q4 and handed over 17,147 units to customers. The two models have also been delivered in Europe again since December. The Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 419,088 vehicles built and 388,131 delivered. So even without the international deliveries of Model S and Model X, it would have been enough for a new quarterly record. However, significantly more Model 3/Y cars were built than delivered, which could indicate logistical problems. There are reports that Tesla has parked countless Model Ys from the factory in Grünheide on the airport grounds of the BER – they have been built, but not delivered.

In its famously brief release on production and delivery figures, Tesla states that it is “continuing the transition to a more even regional mix of vehicle types”, “which again led to a further increase in cars in transit at the end of the quarter”. Nevertheless, Tesla speaks of a “great 2022” and thanks all customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and supporters who contributed to this result “in the face of significant COVID and supply chain challenges”.

tesla.com