With the gradually improving Model 3 production, Tesla’s delivery volume is higher than ever and it could even become a bigger bottleneck than production.
Now Electrek has learned that Tesla has been building a new delivery organization to support the insane workload of Model 3 deliveries.
Earlier this year, Tesla hired Kate Pearson, former Vice President Strategy, Operations and Digital Acceleration at Wal-Mart, to lead its new delivery operations as Director of Field Delivery Operations.
Electrek has learned that the department underwent a significant restructuring to separate it from the sales department in North America, according to sources familiar with the change.
The automaker has now appointed 4 new General Delivery Managers for North America.
Most of them were promoted from within the company, but Tesla also hired an operation exec from Best Buy:
- West: Brett Zriny – previously District General Manager for Tesla
- Central: Rodney Broyles – former Sr. Director Field Sales & Operations, Strategic Growth Office at Best Buy
- East: Bridget Teeter – previously General Manager for West US and Texas for Tesla.
Along with new top leadership positions, the new delivery leadership structure also includes new delivery managers for each of the smaller regions, most of them also promoted from within Tesla, but a few external hires are also now leading operations, like former Apple operation manager Justin Harden, who is now in charge of deliveries in the southwest, and former Amazon area manager and Air Force One operation director Mark Mason, who is now in charge of Tesla deliveries in Texas and Mexico.
The changes began over the last month or so and Tesla is still looking to fill a few positions. Tesla currently has over 100 positions related to deliveries listed on its website.
It comes as the automaker is trying to significantly ramp up its delivery volume capacity for Model 3 through new delivery centers and new delivery methods.
Tesla has also been testing a new ‘Sign and Drive’ program for pick up appointments to get new Model 3 buyers out the door in 5 minutes.
The company has been guiding record deliveries this quarter. They have been guiding the production of 50,000 to 55,000 Model 3 vehicles and CEO Elon Musk said that they expect to deliver even more than they produced due to the high number of vehicles in transit during the last quarter.
In order to achieve that, Electrek has learned that Tesla is also looking to hire a record number of temporary employees to help with deliveries. Those positions are available in several locations, but the number is particularly high in Fremont, where Tesla is trying to hire 50 to 100 new people.
We contacted Tesla for a comment on this report, but the automaker declined to comment.
Electrek’s Take
It appears that it is how Tesla plans to handle the insane workload that comes with delivering 4 times the number of cars they were used to.
We have been hearing about difficulties to execute on that front from buyers in the past few months.
Some Tesla locations have so many cars that they need to rent nearby spaces in order to hold them until they are able to deliver.
It’s definitely not an ideal situation, but it now looks like they have new leadership to tackle the problem
A few scoops today including this. I hear they are pushing for a 20-min turnaround from truck to delivery. I wish those guys good luck on delivering over 50,000 Model 3's this quarter. I don't know how they'll do it. https://t.co/QwoqAlEiIQ
— Fred Lambert (@FredericLambert) August 30, 2018
We will see how they do in the next few months and especially their first end-of-quarter rush next month.
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