Tesla Inc. has announced plans to push global production of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter and keep growth going as newer factories in Austin and Berlin come online in 2023, show internal plans revealed by Reuters.
The uptick will put the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer on track to meet Elon Musk’s goal for production in the next quarter and close to BMW’s production scale by the end of 2023.
The new forecast, which covers the next four consecutive quarters, sets an ambitious target to produce almost 495,000 Model Y and Model 3s in the fourth quarter of this year. If achieved, Tesla would surpass projected growth in the auto global market by close to a factor of 10 in 2023 with a production increase of over 50% for the year.
Tesla will announce third-quarter deliveries and output this week. The forecast is expected to show that the automaker bounced back sharply from the slowdown in the second quarter when COVID-19 shutdown Shanghai.
According to an article in Automotive News, brokerage Piper Sandler reported Tesla will deliver 354,000 vehicles in the third quarter; Citi expects deliveries of 369,800 vehicles; and Troy Teslike, a Tesla-watcher who tracks production and delivery data, projects sales of 343,779 Model Y compact crossovers and Model 3 sedans.
If Tesla hits or exceeds these forecasts, the company will achieve global sales of around 1.4 million vehicles in 2022.
And if its forecast production of 1.59 million Model Y and Model 3s through the first three quarters of 2023 are correct, Tesla will be on track to end 2023 with sales of over 2.1 million EVs. BMW, in comparison, will sell 2.5 million vehicles in 2021.
Musk, Tesla’s CEO and product architect, told analysts in the second quarter, that the company had a “good chance” of hitting a global production run rate of 40,000 vehicles a week by the end of 2022. The internal forecast shared with Reuters expects Tesla to hit and maintain those production levels through the first quarter.
The forecast also shows a gain in output at Tesla's newer factories in Austin, Texas, and Berlin. It is forecast that production in Austin would jump to almost 101,000 by the end of Quarter 3 in 2023.
