Investor's Corner
Dissecting Tesla’s Q3 2022 delivery count, and why it missed expectations
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) released its Delivery and Production numbers for Q3 2022 on Sunday, and while the automaker delivered its most productive quarter as a company yet, it missed Wall Street’s expectations. But, there’s a lot more to take away from the figures than just a company record and a miss on analyst predictions.
For those who missed the press release, Tesla stated on Sunday morning that it had delivered 343,830 vehicles in Q3 2022, with 325,158 of them being Model 3 and Model Y, and the remaining 18,672 being Model S and Model X. Tesla reported that it produced over 22,100 vehicles more than it delivered, citing supply chain and logistics challenges as the culprit for the miss in deliveries. “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,” it said regarding the final few weeks of the quarter, which have historically been where the company makes more deliveries compared to other weeks due to its end-of-quarter sales push.
Tesla Q3 2022 vehicle delivery and production results: 344k delivered and 365k produced
There’s more to Q3, and here’s why:
Tesla still showed growth, rebounding from a miss in Q2
Tesla missed quarterly delivery growth for the first time in two-and-a-half years in Q2 2022. This was due to “ongoing supply chain challenges and factory shutdowns beyond our control,” Tesla said. As Gigafactory Shanghai battled shutdowns, Tesla clawed its way back to over 254,600 deliveries but did not sustain its streak of consecutive quarters with proven growth.
Nevertheless, Tesla beat Q2 handily and delivered more vehicles in Q3 than it ever has before, and it should. With two new production facilities launched this year in Austin and Germany, Tesla should be on the path to quarterly delivery and production growth for several years. This should not plateau for several years if things run ideally and Tesla, in a perfect world, would not experience any unforeseen interruptions in production. However, the world has weird plans, and the last two years are proof of that.
Tesla’s rebound to a new quarterly record is undoubtedly putting the company back on the right track. As Q4 begins, the final three months of 2022 will be Tesla’s final chance to not only establish another quarter of growth, but also a chance to beat analyst expectations, which it has done nearly every quarter since 2019.
Model S and Model X production reached its highest levels in three years
Tesla delivered 18,672 Model S and Model X vehicles last quarter, what Sawyer Merritt recognized as the most since Q4 2019.
This is interesting to note, as the vehicles have been in increased demand for the past year and a half since the release of the “Refreshed” and Plaid versions of the cars. Tesla has struggled to ramp and complete deliveries of the Model S and Model X since releasing the new trim levels, but the growth shows that, while they’re still “sentimental,” as CEO Elon Musk said, consumers are still interested in Tesla’s two flagship vehicles.
Tesla is not immune to supply chain issues. They are struggling like other automakers
Tesla put a paragraph in its press release explaining the “lighter” delivery figure it reported on Sunday:
“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. 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. These cars have been ordered and will be delivered to customers upon arrival at their destination.”
Tesla is not immune to supply chain issues, despite being incredibly vertically integrated. It seems as if the company did not necessarily get the timing right on some of the deliveries planned for the end of Q3, which bodes negatively for that quarter. However, it is a great way to start Q4, and investors can likely expect an extremely strong final quarter due to this, and the company’s notoriety of having the final three months of the year be its strongest.
Tesla is feeling the heat from the miss on Wall Street. At the time of writing, shares were down over 8 percent on the day.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
SpaceX filed its public S-1, revealing $18.7 billion in revenue and billions in losses.
SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20, 2026, making its financial details available to the public for the first time ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history.
An S-1 is the formal document a company must submit to the SEC before going public. It includes audited financials, risk factors, business descriptions, and how the company plans to use the money it raises. Companies are required to file one before selling shares to the public, and it must be published at least 15 days before the investor roadshow begins. SpaceX had already submitted a confidential draft to the SEC in April, which allowed regulators to review the filing privately before it went public.
The S-1 reveals that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division, which posted $11.4 billion in revenue, growing nearly 50% year over year. Despite that growth, the company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and has burned through more than $37 billion since its founding.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
A significant portion of those losses trace back to xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which was recently merged into SpaceX. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, totaling around $20 billion, yet that division lost billions and grew revenue by only about 22%.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America leading the offering. The dual-class share structure means going public will not meaningfully reduce Musk’s control, as Class B shares he holds carry 10 votes per share compared to one vote for public Class A shares.
The company is targeting a raise of around $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO ever. The investor roadshow is reportedly planned for June 5.
Elon Musk
Tesla ditches India after years of broken promises
Tesla has ditched its plans to build a factory in India after years of failed negotiations.
Tesla’s long-running effort to establish a manufacturing presence in India is officially over. India’s Minister of Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy confirmed on May 19, 2026 that Tesla has informed authorities it will not proceed with a manufacturing facility in the country.
Tesla first signaled serious interest in India around 2021, when it began hiring local staff and lobbying the Indian government for lower import tariffs. The ask was straightforward: reduce duties enough for Tesla to test the market with imported vehicles before committing capital to a local factory. India’s position was equally firm, with an ask of Tesla to commit to manufacturing first, then receive tariff relief. Neither side moved, and the talks quietly collapsed.
Tesla to open first India experience center in Mumbai on July 15
India had offered a policy that would reduce import duties from 110% down to 15% on EVs priced above $35,000, provided companies committed at least $500 million toward local manufacturing investment within three years. Tesla declined to participate. The tariff standoff was only part of the problem. Analysts pointed to significant gaps in India’s local supply chain, inadequate industrial infrastructure, and a mismatch between Tesla’s premium pricing and the purchasing power of India’s automotive market as additional factors that made the investment difficult to justify.
First signs of an unraveling relationship came in April 2024, when Musk abruptly cancelled a planned trip to India where he was set to meet Prime Minister Modi and announce Tesla’s market entry. By July 2024, Fortune reported that Tesla executives had stopped contacting Indian government officials entirely. The government at that point understood Tesla had capital constraints and no plans to invest.
The more fundamental issue is that Tesla’s existing factories are currently operating at approximately 60% capacity, making a commitment to building new manufacturing capacity in a new market difficult to defend to investors. Tesla will continue selling imported Model Y vehicles through its existing showrooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram, and Bengaluru, but local production is no longer part of the plan.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon just joined forces for one reason: Starlink is winning.
America’s three largest wireless carriers, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, announced on On May 14, 2026 that they had agreed in principle to form a joint venture aimed at pooling their spectrum resources to expand satellite-based direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity across the United States in what can be seen as a direct response to SpaceX’s Starlink initiative. D2D, in plain terms, is technology that lets a standard smartphone connect directly to a satellite in orbit, the same way it connects to a cell tower, with no extra hardware required.
The alliance is widely seen as a means to slow Starlink’s rapid expansion in the satellite internet and mobile markets. SpaceX’s Starlink Mobile service launched commercially in July 2025 through a partnership with T-Mobile, starting with messaging before expanding to broadband data. SpaceX secured access to valuable wireless spectrum through its $17 billion deal with EchoStar, paving the way for significantly faster satellite-to-phone speeds.
SpaceX was not shy about its reaction. SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell responded on X: “Weeeelllll, I guess Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David.” SpaceX’s VP of Satellite Policy David Goldman went further, flagging potential antitrust concerns and asking whether the DOJ would even allow three dominant competitors to coordinate in a market where a new rival is actively entering.
Weeeelllll, I guess @Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David 🙂 https://t.co/5GzS752mxL
— Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell) May 14, 2026
Financial analysts at LightShed Partners were blunt, saying the announcement showed the three carriers are “nervous,” and pointed to the timing: “You announce an agreement in principle when the point is the announcement, not the deal. The timing, weeks ahead of the SpaceX roadshow, was the point.”
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX’s next generation Starlink V2 satellites will deliver up to 100 times the data density of the current system, with custom silicon and phased array antennas enabling around 20 times the throughput of the first generation. The carriers’ JV, which has no definitive agreement, no financial structure, and no deployment timeline yet, will need to move quickly to matter.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is targeting a Nasdaq listing as early as June 12, aiming for what would be the largest IPO in history. With Starlink now serving over 9 million subscribers across 155 countries, holding 59 carrier partnerships globally, and now powering Air Force One, the carriers’ joint venture announcement landed at exactly the wrong time to look like anything other than a defensive move.
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