Tesla temporarily called for a suspension in partial Model Y delivery this week. Owners were told that the problem came from faulty electric motors, which prompted a postponement in delivery. The faulty motors were delivered from Giga Shanghai, and are being investigated as we speak.

Giga Berlin that began mass production this year was had just announced earlier this month of a capacity that can go up to 1,000 units each week, and is now hit with this incident. Germany car owners reported at forums that partial delivery of Model Y has been delayed due to issues discovered in the power unit.

The affected units are the Performance variation of Model Y, and the other two variations were not impacted. As the supply chain is not yet fully localized for Giga Berlin, the motors are provided by Giga Shanghai and transported to Berlin for assembly, which makes it difficult to trace back to the source of error.

Although Tesla wishes to produce batteries and motors in Germany, the recovery of local supply chain has been falling under anticipation due to regulations and international turmoil. This batch of Model Y Performance would be delayed to the end of the year at the latest.

Tesla has been hit with constant issues this year. Giga Shanghai that has the most stable capacity was suspended for almost a month under Shanghai’s lockdown, while Giga Texas has been unable to elevate production volume of Model Y due to insufficient capacity for the new 4680 battery, and now Giga Berlin is having trouble in ascending capacity due to the Russia-Ukraine warfare and motor issues, despite still adopting the old 2170 battery.

The two new factories are not only the most important targets of Tesla for the current phase, but also spending the most money, and the failure in attaining the target capacity is definitely going to induce negative impacts on Tesla’s financial performance, where the controversy surrounding labor rights has yielded a heavy blow to the company at the same time. As a result, Tesla’s stock price has fallen for two consecutive days, and closed at US$685.47 today under a slight reduction of 1.79%.

 (Cover photo source: Tesla)