Model X Delay May Cost Tesla Its Delivery Target

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Tesla Motors may not be able to hit its target of 55,000 deliveries this year. The EV manufacturer recently announced that it will begin deliveries of the Model X toward the end of the third quarter. However, that may be too late to help the automaker meet its target of 55,000 deliveries this year.

Tesla needs the Model X this year

By the end of the current quarter, Tesla expects to have delivered only about 21,000 vehicles. In other words, the company is going to have to really ramp up production in the second half of the year to meet its goal because it will have more than half of its delivery target to go.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Charley Grant notes that Tesla only delivered 10,045 Model S sedans in the first quarter and intends to deliver between 10,000 and 11,000 in the June quarter. That’s about 40% of the year-end goal.

It certainly seems like Tesla needs the Model X in order to meet its delivery target, but not starting deliveries until late in the third quarter suggests that it will miss its target, according to Grant. One thing he doesn’t mention is that Tesla said recently (indirectly) that demand for the Model S is on the rise, which could set the automaker up for a beat on deliveries in the current quarter.

Tesla Model 3 coming in crossovers too

The Model X won’t be Tesla’s only crossover vehicle. According to John D. Stoll of The Wall Street Journal, Tesla Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel said at a conference that they’re planning not only a Model 3 car but also a crossover.

The Model 3 is the vehicle Tesla will release next after the Model X, sometime in 2017. The EV manufacturer is targeting the mass market with the Model 3 and is expecting to offer a starting price tag of around $35,000. The Model 3 is also expected to offer 200 miles of range on the battery. Straubel also said that General Motors and other automakers are planning to release similar vehicles by that time, which he said means the EV market will begin the mass adoption stage.

Tesla is currently building its gigafactory with the goal of increasing the supply of lithium-ion batteries and making them less expensive with the end goal of cutting the price of its cars. The automaker expects the batteries to become the main fuel source for light vehicles as a result of significant price reductions on lithium-ion batteries.

As of this writing, shares of Tesla Motors were down 0.25% at $250.07 per share.

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