Tesla’s run of record quarterly deliveries comes to an end thanks to China’s COVID shutdowns

Tesla announced it had delivered 254,695 vehicles during the second quarter of 2022, about an 18 percent drop from the previous quarter. The report, which was published on Tesla’s site, signals an end to a nearly two-year-long run of record quarterly deliveries for Elon Musk’s company, which can mostly be attributed to lengthy COVID-related shutdowns of its factory in Shanghai.

Tesla said the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles made up 238,533 of these deliveries, while 16,162 were for the Model S and Model X vehicles. On the production side of things, Tesla said it managed to build a total of 258,580 vehicles.

China has been crucial to the company’s rise to its status as one of the most valuable automakers in the world. But Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has been caught in a seemingly endless loop of openings and closures in recent months, as the nation’s strict COVID lockdown policy has taken its toll.

In March, Tesla shuttered its Shanghai factory for two days amid a spike in COVID-19 cases, and closed the factory once again in April as Shanghai continues to grapple with a city-wide lockdown. The Shanghai plant is the company’s largest, producing both Model 3s and Model Ys.

Tesla recently opened its first European factory in Berlin, Germany, and held a “cyber rodeo” to celebrate the grand opening of its Austin, Texas Gigafactory — both of which could help offset production issues caused by the COVID-related lockdowns in Shanghai. Musk recently described both factories as “gigantic money furnaces” that are “losing billions of dollars” as supply chain constraints continue to constrain the company’s plans.