“Industry Insiders Are Furious” After Tesla Admits Inflated Sales Numbers In Australia

Just yesterday, we wrote that Tesla was being accused of inflating its sales in Australia, after the company’s reported numbers didn’t jibe with the continents official registration data.

Today, we now know that Tesla did, in fact, report incorrect sales numbers for Australia, according to follow up reporting from The Drive. 

“Tesla Australia has done a U-turn over yesterday’s bold claim 15,000 examples of the Tesla Model 3 were sold last year,” the report, released overnight Tuesday morning, said. 

Beyhad Jafari, the CEO of the Electric Vehicle Council, had previously told The Drive he didn’t know why Tesla’s numbers stood at odds with the official data: “Our figures are directly from Tesla. We now are officially getting Tesla sales figures and we can start reporting what they have (sold in Australia). We’re confident our numbers are right.”

“I can’t explain it, I don’t know what’s gone wrong there,” he continued.

But apparently, the Electric Vehicle Council on behalf of Tesla Australia was suddenly able to figure out what was wrong. These released a statement yesterday confirming the numbers were inaccurate. 

The EVC said: “Yesterday the Electric Vehicle Council released (electric-car) sales figures for 2021, which showed a massive leap from 2020 numbers. While the massive year-on-year leap reported was correct, there was an error in the numbers the (Electric Vehicle Council) was provided relating to Tesla deliveries. Due to a human error, the Tesla delivery figures for 2020 were erroneously added to the delivery figures for 2021 by Tesla before the figure was provided to the Electric Vehicle Council.”

It continued: “So instead of 15,054 Tesla Model 3 deliveries in 2021, the figure reported should have been 12,094. Correcting the total Tesla deliveries (all models) reduces the total number of EVs delivered in 2021 from 24,078 to 20,665.”

The Drive commented that “Industry insiders are furious with Tesla and the Electric Vehicle Council for reporting false numbers yesterday” because the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries had recently switched to a “truth in reporting” policy for new car sales data. 

One senior car company executive said: “They need to be subject to the same counting methods as every other car brand in Australia. It’s time for Tesla to grow up and stop acting like a start-up.”