Late last month, Tesla (TSLA -1.57%) CEO Elon Musk told employees that demand was "strong" for the company's vehicles, and urged them to "execute well" and help it achieve a new quarterly record for deliveries. Now, there's another piece of positive news about its recent sales: Deliveries in North America are seeing notable momentum, Electrek reported Wednesday night.
The automaker's ability to boost its second-quarter delivery numbers will be key, as it's targeting a 45% to 65% increase in vehicle deliveries for the full year. How it fares this quarter will be especially important given its Q1 sales flop, when challenges with delivering vehicles outside of North America led to a lower-than-expected delivery total.
Image source: Tesla.
Aiming for 66,000 deliveries in North America
In a call with sales and delivery managers on Wednesday, Tesla executives told employees the company had already delivered 33,000 vehicles in North America so far in Q2, "sources familiar with the matter" told Electrek. In addition, the company is aiming to deliver an additional 33,000 vehicles in the market during the final month of the quarter (June), Electrek said.
To incentivize sales and a high volume of deliveries, the company is offering a $1,200 bonus to every sales employee and a $550 bonus to every delivery employee if the automaker delivers 33,000 vehicles in June. In addition, if deliveries hit 36,000 during the month, Tesla will double these bonuses, the sources said.
Already in June, Tesla has delivered more than 2,500 vehicles, scheduled 10,000 more deliveries, and has 6,000 orders about to have a scheduled delivery, Electrek reported.
While Tesla doesn't typically break out its quarterly deliveries by geography, the automaker did say it delivered 63,359 Model 3 vehicles to customers in North America during its fourth quarter -- the period in which the electric-car maker set a record for total quarterly vehicle deliveries. Presumably, a significant portion of the 27,607 combined Model S and X deliveries during Q4 were also delivered in North America. This means fourth-quarter North America deliveries were likely well ahead of what Tesla appears on track for in Q2.
But the automaker has significantly ramped up international Model 3 shipments since its fourth quarter. Including international Model 3 deliveries during Q2, Wednesday's news about the company's sales momentum in North America suggests the automaker could see record deliveries this quarter.
Impressive momentum
Beating its fourth-quarter delivery record of 91,000 vehicles would solidify the company's incredible momentum, as trailing-12-month deliveries would be up nearly 160% year over year.
In Tesla's first-quarter shareholder letter, management was confident the company was on track to hit its full-year guidance for 360,000 to 400,000 deliveries. "With the recently announced product improvements on Model S and Model X, as well as continued expansion of Model 3 globally, we expect our order rate to continue to increase throughout the year as our production levels increase," the company said in its first-quarter shareholder letter.
Investors will find out whether management maintains this rosy outlook for demand and production when the company reports second-quarter deliveries early next month.
