Tesla “Drastically Accelerating” Model Y Delivery Timeline As Demand Appears To Collapse

As always happens when you have an enormous backlog of reservations for a brand new vehicle you barely just started manufacturing, Tesla has “drastically” accelerated its timeline for delivering its Model Y after restarting its Fremont factory earlier this month.

The Model Y delivery timeline has moved from 8-12 weeks for new orders earlier this month to now 4-8 weeks for delivery of new orders in the United States. It marks a relatively meaningful bump up in delivery time for a Tesla model that should have amassed a significant amount of reservations.

Even the pro-Tesla lot at electrek was befuddled by the quick change in delivery timing. 

“This is a significant reduction in delivery delay for a brand new model for which Tesla had been accumulating reservations for over a year,” they noted before stating “…it’s definitely not normal for a new Tesla model to have new orders available within 4 to 8 weeks after only what adds up to barely a month of deliveries.” 

Then, editor Frederic Lambert finally got to the obvious conclusion of a demand issue: “What I think is happening is that Tesla had its smoothest production ramp of any new vehicle to date on top of having a demand issue with the global pandemic.”

We’re going to bet its more of the latter, Fred. 

Lambert then begrudgingly expounds on his analysis:

“I’ve heard from dozens of owners who decided to cancel or delay their Model Y orders due to the economic downturn and some were also disappointed by how Tesla and Elon Musk handled the shutdown order.

I think demand problems have also led to Tesla’s price cuts last week for every vehicle except Model Y.”

But it wouldn’t be electrek if the blog didn’t immediately start making excuses for Tesla:

“Of course, Tesla is not alone having important issues selling cars currently. Virtually every automaker is seeing a massive downturn in demand.

There’s no doubt that Tesla still has an important backlog of orders for Model Y in other markets, but with Model Y deliveries only happening in the US right now, Tesla is limited in demand and it is working through its backlog of people still willing to take delivery a lot quicker.”

The Model 3 delivery timeline has remained mostly unchanged, at 5-7 weeks from its prior 4-8 weeks. 

If Lambert continues to have difficulty figuring out why the timeline has moved up, one well known Tesla skeptic on Twitter had an eloquent way of conveying a theory that we think even he could understand…

What the fuck do you THINK is “happening”?

Nobody wants these paint-peeling shit boxes in a depression.$TSLA https://t.co/vVFHdYnYeH

— Mark B. Spiegel (@markbspiegel) May 31, 2020