In addition to parts suppliers and overall production, I have always thought delivery itself will be a key bottleneck as well.
The fact is car delivery is a pretty complex process. I think everyone has been in dealers where we shook hands with the salesman and signed term sheets, agreed to everything, when the sun was still high in the sky. Yet by the time we actually drove the car off the dealer lot, it was like 8-9pm. This is because buying a car requires tons of paperwork, for the dealership, bank, between you, dealership and bank, and various government paperwork, etc.
The thing is, Tesla just doesn't have enough people doing that when volume is expected to go up like 5x with Model 3. You can't expect the same number of delivery and finance specialists to do 5x the deliveries. That just doesn't work...
I have long expected that this will turn into a major bottleneck. Your car may have been produced and shipped, but it may sit in the Tesla store for weeks because of a backlog of deliveries before you.
The fact is car delivery is a pretty complex process. I think everyone has been in dealers where we shook hands with the salesman and signed term sheets, agreed to everything, when the sun was still high in the sky. Yet by the time we actually drove the car off the dealer lot, it was like 8-9pm. This is because buying a car requires tons of paperwork, for the dealership, bank, between you, dealership and bank, and various government paperwork, etc.
The thing is, Tesla just doesn't have enough people doing that when volume is expected to go up like 5x with Model 3. You can't expect the same number of delivery and finance specialists to do 5x the deliveries. That just doesn't work...
I have long expected that this will turn into a major bottleneck. Your car may have been produced and shipped, but it may sit in the Tesla store for weeks because of a backlog of deliveries before you.