Tesla delivered 76,230 vehicles in 2016, narrowly missing its target of 80,000 for the year.
The car-maker sold a total of 22,200 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2016, of which 12,700 were Model S models and 9,500 were Model X, slightly below the 24,500 vehicles Tesla delivered in the third quarter.
Tesla stressed that its delivery count should be viewed as “slightly conservative”, given that it only counts a car as “delivered” if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct.
The company did not count 2,750 vehicles as fourth quarter deliveries because they were “delayed in transport or because the customer was unable to take the delivery.” A further 6,450 vehicles were on their way to customers at year’s end, but Tesla will count them at the end of the first quarter of 2017.
Tesla said in a press release that a delay in production resulted in challenges that impacted quarterly deliveries:
“Because of short-term production challenges starting at the end of October and lasting through early December from the transition to new Autopilot hardware, Q4 vehicle production was weighted more heavily towards the end of the quarter than we had originally planned.
“We were ultimately able to recover and hit our production goal, but the delay in production resulted in challenges that impacted quarterly deliveries, including, among other things, cars missing shipping cutoffs for Europe and Asia.
“Although we tried to recover these deliveries and expedite others by the end of the quarter, time ran out before we could deliver all customer cars. In total, about 2,750 vehicles missed being counted as deliveries in Q4 either due to last-minute delays in transport or because the customer was unable to physically take delivery.
“Even where these customers had already fully paid for their vehicle, we still did not count these as deliveries in Q4,” Tesla said.