Tesla delivers record 343,830 vehicles in Q3, Musk elated

San Francisco, Oct 3

Electric car-maker Tesla delivered a record 343,830 vehicles in the third quarter (Q3), after a weak performance in the second quarter owing to Covid shutdowns especially in China.

The company said it produced over 365,000 vehicles and delivered over 343,000 vehicles.

Historically, our delivery volumes have skewed towards the end of each quarter due to regional batch building of cars. As our production volumes continue to grow, it is becoming increasingly challenging to secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks," Elon Musk-run company said in a statement late on Sunday.

It added that in Q3, "we began transitioning to a more even regional mix of vehicle builds each week, which led to an increase in cars in transit at the end of the quarter".

The cars have been ordered and will be delivered to customers upon arrival at their destination, according to Tesla.

The company said Model S and X made up 18,672 of its quarterly deliveries, while the Model 3 and Y accounted for 325,158.

Musk tweeted: "Smoothing out the crazy end of quarter delivery wave to reduce expedite costs and relieve stress on the Tesla team. Aiming for steadier deliveries intra-quarter".

"Customer experience suffers when there is an end of quarter rush. Steady as she goes is the right move," he added.