After sending untrained sales workers to work on vehicles amid a service crisis, we now learn that Tesla is bringing the workers back to sales for another end-of-quarter push.
Earlier this year, we reported on Tesla CEO Elon Musk renewing efforts to improve the automaker’s service, especially in North America where many Tesla owners are experiencing long wait times to get their cars into service in some markets.
Electrek exclusively reported that Tesla was launching a new effort to “revolutionize” service with bigger centers and more specialization.
In June, we learned that Musk’s renewed attention on Tesla’s service came due to the department experiencing bigger issues than previously believed. The CEO made service a new top priority for Tesla and even canceled sales and delivery targets to focus on it.
We even learned that Tesla pulled untrained sales workers from their positions to work on cars in service centers.
A few months later, Electrek has learned that Tesla is now starting to gradually bring the employees back into their roles in sales as the automaker is trying to deliver as many vehicles as possible at the end of the quarter, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Over the last year, Musk has said that Tesla would try to move away from its model that results in large pushes for deliveries at the end of quarters, but it had a difficult time achieving that.
Last quarter ended up being another “nutty” one, according to the CEO.
While the end of Q3 should have a more manageable delivery push, sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model S production is going to be a bit higher than its sale backlog – hence why the automaker is pulling the sales workers back from Tesla Service.
Sources told Electrek that Tesla is seeing a decent number of customers trying to delay their orders to 2023 in an attempt to have access to the new federal tax credit for electric vehicles. However, Tesla has decided to stick to the original order contracts with customers and cancel orders if delivery is delayed too long.
This results in factory build slots opening for some Model 3 and Model S variants for the end of the quarter.
Electrek’s Take
I wouldn’t necessarily take this as a bad sign for Tesla’s demand. After all, Tesla literally stopped taking orders on some more popular versions of its vehicles due to the backlog getting too long.
It just looks like some production allotment is not matching orders, and Tesla is short on staff in sales to rectify the situation since it sent a decent number of employees to work on service.
While Tesla is not pushing as much for end-of-quarter delivery waves, the automaker still doesn’t want to be sitting on too many vehicles in inventory at the end of the quarter because it looks bad on its financials.
It has been a while since Tesla had to pull a demand trigger, but it doesn’t look like it is going for a major one.
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