To be fair, the "anti-Tesla" media also isn't harping on about the fact that Jan and Feb U.S. sales in 2019 were less than a single week's capacity [each month]
(FTFY)
Says the lowest of the three estimates. InsideEVs is the low estimate, AlphaHat is the middle estimate, and Edmunds is the high estimate. IMHO, AlphaHat's (9,3k in January, similar in February) looks like the most unassailable methodology (tracking cell phone IMEIs; each car is effectively a cell phone, allowing it to be tracked from Fremont to delivery centres to customers). InsideEVs involves some user-contributed data, which can be very prone to participation biases and changes in order distributions as time goes on.
If you go with InsideEV's estimates, you'd have to believe that Canada (4,7k Teslas Jan+Feb, so somewhere around 4k M3) had nearly a third as many Model 3 deliveries as the US. Do you believe that? I mean, it's technically possible, but sure seems bloody unlikely, even with the tax credit phasedown. Remember that 40% of Canada's population (Ontario) lost their (very nice, $14k CAD) EV credits last year, and the rest never had such nice incentives to begin with (Quebec still has $8k, BC $5k, but everyone else, nothing).
Next, you have to ignore that Tesla's deliveries do this
every bloody year.
Check out past data for yourself. Tesla focuses heavily on international deliveries in January and February, then switches to a domestic push for March.
Every year.
Year: Jan+Feb : Mar
2018: 7960 : 10020
2017: 4150 : 6200
2016: 2940 : 5850
2015: 2250 : 2450
... etc.
And the domestic push this year is a real doozy. SR orders are already pushed out a month and a half; they're going to be delivering nonstop until the end of the quarter, as fast as they can. And just purchased more delivery capacity to make it happen as fast as possible.
If you take a rounded-down AlphaHat of 18k for Jan+Feb, and use a historical 1-2x March delivery factor, that would be 36-54k domestic in Q1. I'd be highly surprised if it was under 30k. Don't forget to add Canada back in on the top.
As for European and Chinese sales, [
citation needed]. We can watch Norway's Tesla deliveries realtime, for example. Do so:
Tesla Registration Stats
Over 100 per day, 700 per week.
Just in Norway. This will continue for the rest of the quarter. Based on February numbers (when they just started, and weren't quite apace), Germany is getting faster deliveries than Norway, Netherlands about 2/3rds the speed, France about half the speed as Norway, etc. All of Europe together (well, the parts that they're selling to right now, which is only part of Europe), you're looking at maybe 3,5x Norway's delivery rate. Say an average of 2,5k for six weeks in Q1 (actual time was longer, but the ramp started slower). That's 15k. Possibly even more; it might accelerate toward the end of the month. They've sent about an equal number to China, so add another "at least 15k". That's "at least 30k" international. Typical ship loads would be up to 40k or so international.
