By Sam Boughedda
Piper Sandler analyst Alex Potter said Thursday that European wait times for Tesla's (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model Y are rising sharply.
The analyst explained that they started monitoring delivery wait times for Tesla vehicles in Germany, the U.S., and China a few months ago, with a previous rise in German wait times put down to a factory shutdown in Shanghai (Tesla's export hub).
Potter said they noticed "another sudden upward inflection" for German Model Y buyers, who now have to wait approximately 23.5 weeks (or ~5.5 months) before they receive their vehicle, up from 15.5 weeks (3.5 months) just a few days ago.
However, they are less sure about the reason this time, pointing to three potential factors: 1) Tesla's new factory in Berlin is taking longer than expected to ramp 2) Model Y orders in Europe have increased suddenly, leading to a bigger backlog 3) Exported vehicles (from China) may be taking longer than expected to reach Europe.
"Any one of these factors, or a combination of these factors, could explain the longer wait times," concluded Potter.