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Tesla Model 3 Leads Jan-Feb 2018 EV Sales In The U.S. Despite Numerous Production Delays

By Patricia Grannum
Published on: 10:09 PST, Mar 5, 2018

It looks like Tesla’s Model 3 has defied its critics’ expectations and now leads January to February electric vehicle sales, according to a report published by Inside EV’s. Based on the report, Tesla sold 4,360 units in the first two months of 2018. They sold 1,875 Model 3 vehicles in January and 2,485 vehicles in February. Toyota’s Prius Prime came in second with 1,496 vehicles sold in January and 2,050 units sold in February.

The Telsa Model 3 sales numbers even surpassed other vehicles made by the brand, such as Model S and Model X. The Model S placed fourth in the rankings while the Model X placed eighth. While these figures are insightful, Inside EV’s notes that they do not take EV splits into account as companies will no longer be providing information on splits for plug-in models.

These positive sales numbers come after the Model 3 faced numerous production delays before the California-based electric vehicle company was able to begin shipping the car to customers on the waiting list. As The Inquisitr previously reported, a lot of the delays seemed to center around issues with the automated production of the Model 3’s batteries. Even Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, publicly commented about a “production hell” as he camped out on the roof of the Gigafactory where the batteries were being made.

As Teslarati reports, the company was only able to deliver 1,770 Model 3’s by the beginning of 2018. But Tesla did admit to upping their production rate to 1,000 vehicles per week by the end of December 2017. As Forbes reports, the vehicle had over 50,000 reservations for the vehicle as of July last year.

According to Forbes, Tesla’s guidance for Model 3 predicts that the company will be able to fully manufacture 2,500 Model 3 cars per week by the end of the first quarter of 2018 and 5,000 a week when Q2 comes to a close. But given their broken production deadlines in the past, it’s hard to imagine that there will be a smooth journey to reach these production numbers.

But Forbes does expect that the demand for the Model 3 will outshine the Model X and Model S. The numbers from Inside EV’s indicate that this is happening already. Tesla has previously said that they expect the sales of the S and X vehicles will remain flat. Only time will tell whether this sales trend continues beyond the second quarter of 2018.

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