Customers who place an order for the Standard Range Plus (SR+) Tesla Model 3 today will have to wait until next year to receive their new cars.
In an update to the Design Studio today, estimated delivery dates for the entry-level variant of the electric sedan have slipped to January 2022. Until today’s update, the automaker was estimating new orders would arrive in November (h/t: @SawyerMerritt).
The change applies to orders in both Canada and the US.
Opting for the more expensive Long Range (LR) variant will also see a lengthy wait, estimated to arrive in November. If you need a Model 3 quickly, your best bet is the Performance variant which can be delivered in as little as 4-7 weeks.
As with other updates to its website like those in regards to pricing, Tesla provided no explanation for the extended wait times, but it is likely due to two main issues that has been plaguing Tesla in 2021.
The first is a positive one – increased demand. Tesla has reported record deliveries so far this year, surpassing 200,000 for the first time ever in the second quarter. That record demand leads into the second issue, which is component supply chain problems.
The global semiconductor shortage has been well publicized, and impacted not just Tesla but all automakers. They have been able to minimize the impact by pivoting and using chips from other suppliers, as CEO Elon Musk highlighted in the Q2 2021 earnings call, but it appears to still be having a large impact on their volume growth in the second half of the year.
“We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks. It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software,” Musk said.
Long wait times are not just reserved for the Model 3. The estimated delivery dates for the LR Model Y are showing as December, but that has been the case since we reported on it on July 31, so it would not be surprising if that slipped into 2022 very soon.
