I wonder if Tesla's delivery estimates account for the number of people who place orders for vehicles then end up not buying them for various reasons including, but not limited to:
- Unable to pay for the vehicle by the time of delivery (insufficient cash or equity, not qualified for financing, etc.)
- Changed mind (decided not to buy, bought something else, etc.)
- Unacceptable quality
- Vehicle didn't arrive in time
- Tax credit falls from $7,500 to $3,750
I can see a number of cancellations happening for that last possibility.
A three-month or even a one-month delivery window estimate seems wide to me - it may be
accurate, but it's certainly not
precise.
Tesla knows how many vehicles they can build and they know exactly how many orders are placed. The second you place an order, you should have an EDD accurate to within a week, if not a day. Now, I understand that EDDs can and will move depending on a lot of factors such as weather, parts shortages, labor shortages, etc.
Let's say you're a cake decorator that can make 4 cakes per day. You normally get orders for 4 cakes per day on average and maintain a backlog of 20 cakes. If someone orders a cake today, you know that cake will be ready a week from now. If the government starts subsidizing cakes resulting in a sudden demand increase to 8 cakes per day, but you can only make 4 cakes per day, the lead time for each new order can be easily calculated to the day. Because demand becomes twice production capacity, each passing day add two days to the backlog. At some point, the backlog will become too great and one of four things will have to happen:
- You'll stop taking orders
- You'll raise prices to curb demand
- Customers will not purchase the cake because the wait time is too long
- You could increase production capacity, but that would involve an expensive and time-consuming kitchen remodel and you run the risk of the demand falling and your operation becomes less efficient because you have too much production capacity.
I work for a company that manufactures industrial machinery. Unless something major and expected happens, we know down to the week when your order will be ready months before it is actually manufactured. Sometimes delays happen, but we adjust the delivery date if and when those delays occur. Sometimes, we even deliver orders ahead of schedule if raw materials arrive sooner than expected and our labor force is more productive than usual for some reason.