As we approach the end of Q4 and the end of the year, analysts are correctly pointing out that a successful quarter for Tesla hinges on a successful delivery of vehicles to Europe.
Tesla has had an incredibly successful 2022, especially considering the circumstances that have rocked the auto industry; the supply shortages, the COVID lockdowns in China, and even the invasion of Ukraine. Nonetheless, Tesla rebounded from a difficult second quarter and posted a record Q3. Analysts have high expectations for the year’s final quarter, and Tesla’s ability to achieve them hinges on European success.
Despite challenges earlier in the year, many experts expect Tesla to achieve its 50% growth target compared to last year, equating to roughly 1.4 million deliveries cumulatively in 2022. To achieve this goal, Tesla will need to deliver approximately 500,000 units in Q4, and many experts think the company can do it.
Hi everybody. Tesla’s guidance for this year is 50% growth in production and deliveries. To achieve that, they would need 1,404,333 deliveries in 2022 which means 495,760 in Q4. That’s not going to happen. However, they still have a shot at achieving 50% growth in production. pic.twitter.com/AOFwUEHtP5
— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) October 16, 2022
Analyst Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities Research comes to a similar conclusion.
Experts have good reason to believe Tesla can hit the half million vehicles mark for Q4. Foremost, demand for Tesla vehicles worldwide remains very high. Tesla China recently announced the astonishing achievement of selling over 100,000 vehicles in November. In the U.S., Tesla remains the top EV seller despite rising competition from legacy brands. And in Europe, the Tesla Model Y has become an overnight sensation, becoming a contender for the top-selling vehicle overall in multiple countries during Q4.
On the flip side, Tesla has been able to vastly expand production during the same timeframe. Notably, Giga Texas and Giga Berlin have been physically expanding, while Giga Texas and Giga Shanghai each hit notable production goals within Q4.
That leads us to the weakest link; Europe. Europe has the smallest source of domestic production as they rely solely on Tesla’s newest facility, Giga Berlin. At the same time, many of this year’s economic challenges have hit the old world particularly hard, including inflation, supply shortages, and the ongoing energy crisis.
So how is Tesla addressing this to meet its half-a-million vehicle goal? First, Tesla is employing its favorite trick of delivering as many vehicles as possible at the end of the quarter. One indicator of this push occurring is the large number of boats leaving from Shanghai and Texas towards Europe.
Because of the long transit times, that means in order to deliver all China exports in Europe by 31 Dec, the last ship needed to depart by 21 Nov. It did. This is how Tesla always used to do things. Therefore Dec deliveries in Europe will be again super high but then
2/5
— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) December 4, 2022
According to data cumulated by TTF-Forum.de and initially posted by MaratimeTraffic, 15 ships have already delivered Teslas to Europe in Q4, and seven more ships from China and two from the U.S. are on their way.
But does this number of ships indicate that Tesla is on track to have a record quarter? That remains a little unclear. Cumulating data from a series of sources (TTF-Forum.de, TeslaCarriers, Tesla Ship Tracker, and MaratimeTraffic), this number of boats this quarter is a new high for Tesla but not entirely outside of the norm. In total, Tesla will be sending 22 ships to Europe this quarter, but this is only two more boats than the previous high of 20 that delivered vehicles to Europe in Q4 2021.
Another indicator that Tesla is putting the pedal to the metal in this final quarter is hiring. In a previous message from CEO Elon Musk (ironically advising against these end-of-the-quarter pushes), he notes that Tesla is forced to hire a large number of new employees and temp workers to keep up with demand during these times. Sometimes even calling on Tesla enthusiasts to help new customers take delivery of their vehicles. This is precisely what is being seen on Tesla’s hiring site now, as the company has hit a record number of openings in recent weeks.
Finally, Tesla is even employing discounts to entice buyers in the final month of the year. Tesla has issued discounts on inventory vehicles in the U.S. and China already and could give a similar deal in Europe in the coming weeks.
While these three factors individually don’t necessarily indicate that Tesla is headed for a record Q4, they both positively display the company is headed in the right direction.
With such positive indicators, it is clear why experts have high expectations for Tesla. Demand remains high, supply has continued to grow, and indicators of a robust end-of-the-quarter push (increased number of ship deliveries to Europe, significant hiring, inventory discounts) are clearly visible. But to say that the achievement is “in the bag” would be short-sighted. Tesla still has a mountain to climb to achieve the monumental half a million vehicles sold in a single quarter. Even so, many remain optimistic for the end of this year.
What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!
Elon Musk
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
Elon Musk says SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI, marking its second rebrand in under three months.
Elon Musk wants to rename his artificial intelligence company again, less than three months after its last rebrand.
In a string of posts on X early Sunday morning, Musk wrote “No more AI,” followed by “SI” and “It’s better.” He then added, “SpaceX is a super intelligence company.” When a user asked whether SpaceXAI could become SpaceXSI, Musk replied, “Yes, we will make that change.”
The posts extend a terminology push that began at the White House last week. On September 29, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” on government websites, policy documents and press releases. The same day, Musk sat beside Trump as the heads of the largest AI companies signed a voluntary safety accord, as Teslarati reported. Speaking to reporters afterward, Musk caught himself mid sentence: “I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”
Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
SpaceXSI would be the third name for the business since February. SpaceX acquired xAI on February 2 in a deal that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion. In May, Musk said xAI would be dissolved as a separate company, and on July 6 the division adopted the SpaceXAI name and a new logo that placed the xAI letters inside the SpaceX identity.
Musk gave no timeline. He did not say whether SpaceXSI would be a legal name change or a branding update, whether the @SpaceXAI handle on X would change, or how the shift would apply to products like Grok. The company had not issued a formal announcement as of Sunday morning.
The change would reach well beyond a chatbot. SpaceXAI now houses Grok, the X platform, the Colossus training clusters in Memphis and the coding tool Cursor, which SpaceX acquired in August. It also runs the orbital compute effort SpaceX is building around Nvidia hardware, which Musk said during the company’s first earnings call would be exclusive to Nvidia.
It’s unclear if rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia have plans to also rename their companies or products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has continued to say “AI” in public, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has gone partway, describing data centers as “super intelligence factories.”
The rename would also line up SpaceX’s AI branding with the federal government’s language as Musk takes on a new advisory role at the Pentagon, where he is helping lead the Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.
Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.
Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.
Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.
Big news! SpaceX is introducing a new @Starlink for Communities program that lets you earn money by providing Starlink internet to your neighbors or people nearby, who can pay for access by the hour, day, week, or month.
Neighbors pay for the access they need, while the person… pic.twitter.com/DtOUs0Ekvt
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 1, 2026
The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.
A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.
Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.
Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.
Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.
The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.
The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing
