Tesla announced that it had delivered 254,695 vehicles in the second quarter of 2022, down about 18 percent from the previous quarter. The report, which was published on Tesla’s sitesignals an end to a nearly two-year streak of record quarterly deliveries for Elon Musk’s company, which can mainly be attributed to prolonged COVID-related shutdowns of its Shanghai factory.
Tesla said the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles made up 238,533 of these deliveries, while 16,162 were for the Model S and Model X vehicles. On the production side, Tesla said it has managed to build a total of 258,580 vehicles.
China has been instrumental in the company’s rise to become one of the most valuable automakers in the world. But Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has been caught in a seemingly endless loop of openings and closures in recent months as the country’s strict COVID lockdown policies have taken its toll.
In March, Tesla closes its factory in Shanghai for two days amid a spike in COVID-19 cases, and the factory closed again in April as Shanghai continues to struggle with citywide lockdown† The Shanghai plant is the company’s largest, producing both Model 3s and Model Ys.
Tesla recently opened its first European factory in Berlin, Germany, and held a “cyberrodeo” to celebrate the grand opening of its Austin, Texas Gigafactory — both of which could help offset manufacturing problems caused by Shanghai’s COVID-related lockdowns. . Musk recently described both plants as “giant money-making furnaces” that are “losing billions of dollars” as supply chain restrictions continue to limit the company’s plans.