Cleantechnica: Tesla 4th Quarter Sales Forecast HUGE, According To Internal Tesla Leak 002281

It’s the beginning of a new quarter, which means we will be getting Tesla’s global sales for the previous quarter very soon. There’s all kinds of speculation around what that total will be for the 3rd quarter, but what no one is forecasting is that it will be close to half a million vehicles. However, Reuters claims to have received an internal sales forecast from Tesla that has the company achieving production of nearly 500,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the 4th quarter, right around 500,000 for the 1st quarter of 2023, and more than 500,000 for both the 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2023. This will represent a huge increase in Tesla sales, given that Tesla’s previous best quarterly result was 310,048 deliveries in the 1st quarter of 2022.
Tesla’s main two car factories — in Fremont, California, and Shanghai, China — are approaching their max production capacity, but the company’s newest vehicle factories — in Texas and Germany — are barely launched and have enormous room for production growth. As production ramps up there, Tesla is expected to go from an annual production capacity of a little more than 1 million vehicles to an annual production capacity of a little more than 2 million vehicles. This will also help Tesla to launch the Cybertruck, which has reportedly been held back by limited production capacity and high demand for the Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3. Perhaps it will even allow for the production of the Tesla Semi at last.
If this production forecast is achieved, it should also put Tesla around BMW’s production and sales level globally.

If one annualized the first three quarters of the 2023 Reuters forecast of 1.59M for M-3 and M-Y, that equals 2.1M. Adding S+X of 75K and Cytruck of 50K would imply FY’23 production of 2.2M vs WS 2023 est of 2.0M. $TSLA does not give forward guidance when it posts qtrly vols.
— Gary Black (@garyblack00) September 30, 2022

One thing to keep in mind: this is an internal forecast that reportedly leaked to Reuters, and Tesla has been known to have very ambitious internal targets that are sometimes quite unrealistic but are used to push everyone to move as fast as possible. That said, this forecast matches up quite well with Tesla’s public goals, and it certainly seems possible that Tesla might ramp up production that quickly at its newest gigafactories now that production is underway.
Getting back to the 3rd quarter, analysts are expecting anywhere from about 340,000 vehicle deliveries to 380,000 vehicle deliveries (surely with some more pessimistic and optimistic outliers beyond). If deliveries do fall within that range, Tesla will have achieved another quarter of record deliveries. Update: 3rd quarter delivery and production numbers are now in. Tesla has again achieved record production and record deliveries, with 343,830 vehicle delivered in Q3 and 365,923 vehicles produced. Vehicle deliveries were a bit lower than many expected due to changes in Tesla’s logistics at the end of the quarter.

The 2nd quarter of 2022 was the first quarter in 9 quarters that Tesla didn’t achieve a quarter-over-quarter increase in deliveries. That was reportedly due to some factory shutdowns and supply chain issues. Though, production lines have reportedly been added since then and supply chain issues have been smoothening out a bit.
Tesla is unlikely to reach 1.5 million vehicle sales in 2022, but its current forecast puts it above 2 million vehicle sales in 2023.
Right now, pretty much all of Tesla’s growth relies on production and sales of the Model Y and Model 3. However, starting in 2023, the Cybertruck could get rolling, production could ramp up, and it could become a significant addition to Tesla’s lineup.
As I wrote a few days ago, Tesla’s share of the global auto market has now reached ~2%. It did drop slightly in Q2 2022, but as you can see with this forecast, its rapid growth should have it climbing up that metric again. Its forecast going deep into 2023 could have it reaching and passing 3% of the global auto market. However, there are many variables on the table, so we’ll have to wait and see.
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