Look, I have my X. Ordered 2/5/21, delivered 5/7/22. It was worth the wait. Seeing all the frustration, I almost feel guilty, but not really.
When things go wrong, humans typically want someone to blame. IT'S YOUR DAMNED FAULT, PUTZ! Usually, the wrong target is chosen if there is an actual target at all.
1. If I was still in you guys' shoes, I'd believe the parts shortage line. Why? Because China does 27% of the world's manufacturing now. FoxConn is gigantic, for example. Shanghai has been shut down tight for weeks, including Tesla Shanghai due to China's Zero COVID policy. The government has literally welded peoples' front doors shut so they can't get out of their apartments. In the 1990s, as I've said before, our oh so wise CEO's moved tons of their manufacturing to China to take advantage of low wages. Labor accounts for ~12% of the cost of a new vehicle. That's what these guys go after every time. Autos, steel, seats, hoses of all kinds, electronics, it was all outsourced. That worked out for 'em for 20 years. Then the communist party of China grew nervous. They started to fear the billionaires their form of capitalism created. Notice how prominent Chinese have been disappearing the past several years. Like all centrally planned economies do, CCP made several gigantic mistakes running from real estate to consumer investing, to taking on too much debt. It's all crashing around their ears right now. As for Tesla getting the parts they must purchase from the world's factory, well the Chinese made another boo boo, in their hubris they went for homemade COVID vaccines that don't work well at all. The government also went for 100% lockdowns anywhere COVID cropped up. So, now we have supply chains issues across the board. ICE car manufacturers are experiencing the same issues.
2. New buyers are flocking to EVs thanks to sky high gas prices. This is a good thing, but it's overwhelming manufacturing capacity that's only now starting to move at a fast walk. Tesla is miles ahead in turning out EVs, but all that's accomplished is to attract more and more orders. Gas prices are high because that lousy sociopath Putin decided to invade Ukraine. He didn't get the 4 day war he planned and is in a mess. One piece of that mess is other countries have stopped buying Russian oil as a means to force the Russians to the negotiating table for real. That move, however, removed several of the 9 million barrels of oil, and natural gas on top of that, Russia used to export daily. The world's daily oil supply balanced on a knife edge all along. Outfits like OPEC want to keep prices ups, always have, always will. The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer @ 12 million barrels a day. Much production was shut down when COVID struck. Remember the news stories about overflowing storage tanks with gasoline dirt cheap? Well, now we're out and about and production hasn't caught up as quickly as needed. Bottom line: This oil fiasco is driving more people to EVs at a faster pace than predicted. That means a whole lot of waiting in line for a Tesla 'cause Ford, Mercedes, GM, Kia et al have no idea how to mass produce EVs profitably as Tesla does.
3. Look for food prices to skyrocket next. Ukraine produces gazillions of baskets of wheat. We don't need it, but Europe and Asia do. You can't plant crops when Russian planes are dropping bombs on you. This is going to cause much hunger, even starvation in many parts of the world.
4. Tesla sucks at leveling with customers on what is going down and why. No argument from me on that point. OTOH, you kinda already know what's happening if you follow world events at all. Your SA, Musk, anyone at Tesla is not responsible for parts not arriving because Chinese factories are shut down. POTUS is not responsible for gasoline prices. The U.S. didn't invade Ukraine and start mass murdering people, Putin did. We Americans like to blame our Presidents when things go wrong. But not POTUS ever has had the power to set the price for a barrel of oil that eventually shows up at the gas pump in Peoria. There is some evidence of price gouging by the oil companies. Yes, they do this, always have. See the OPEC embargo in 1973-74 punishing the US for resupplying Israel with arms in the 1973 war. Hours waits at gas stations, ridiculous pricing, public panic. Been there, done that more than once.
5. This is just a guess on my part, but I still think Tesla has been shocked at the number of MX orders that have rolled in. Not sure about this, but it looks like X orders outnumber S orders, which is not typically the case. With all this expansion, IMO Tesla should open another line with one churning out the S and the other the X.
THE VILLAINS HERE: Putin, COVID, dumb corporate CEOs, legacy OEMs with their heads up their butts, the CCP and the usual suspects in the oil industry.