Recently, a French Model 3 owner shared his order information, which showed that the Model 3 was made in China. The Model 3 for the European market was previously produced by Tesla’s Fremont factory in the United States. However, due to the high demand for the Model 3 in the global market, the factory is currently unable to keep up with production.
After the price reduction of the domestic Model 3 during the National Day holiday, some users were informed by Tesla sales that there are still inventory cars of the standard range version and the three-element lithium battery version available for delivery. In addition, the delivery volume of Model 3 in China has been stable in recent months, and has not continued to grow as it did in the first half of the year. The combination of these factors shows that the Shanghai factory has excess production capacity to provide production for the European market.
In an all-staff email sent by Elon on October 18th, Tesla stated that it wants to achieve an annual delivery target of 500,000 vehicles. To achieve this goal, the delivery volume in the fourth quarter needs to exceed 180,000 vehicles.
Due to the impact of the pandemic, the production capacity of the Fremont factory fell short of expectations. As a result, the delivery progress for Model 3 in Europe this year has not been satisfactory, and many European users have received notification of delivery delays. Recently, some European users were also informed that their standard range upgrade version will come from China.
However, Elon previously stated that vehicles produced by the Shanghai factory will only be supplied to the Chinese market and will not be exported. However, in the face of insufficient production capacity and the goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles annually, this previous statement seems to have changed.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.