How the Speed with Which Tesla is Assigned New VINs Can Help Estimate Production Progress

There has been much speculation regarding how fast Tesla’s Model 3 production is progressing. From the start of initial problems, Tesla’s fight with time and ambitious production goals is gripping many car enthusiasts. And those who have already ordered their Models 3s are doubly invested in the forecasts.

Bloomberg is closely monitoring the pace at which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is assigning tesla new VINs. VINs are registered before releasing a vehicle so that the number of new VINs can serve as a basis for making informed guesses. Bloomberg is getting the information from the NHTSA’s website and from its readers who have already obtained the VINs of the cars they are buying. Bloomberg’s estimates seem optimistic, setting the expectation at almost 25,000 Model 3s already completed. But this method is not fool-proof – there is no telling when the VINs registered will be assigned to actually produced cars. This may lead to some overestimation.

There is another, more exact way of interpreting the rate at which Tesla is being assigned new VINs with regard to the production rate. The official requirements for manufacturers by the NHTSA can be interpreted as requiring that a new VIN must be provided to the NHTSA 60 days prior to putting the car for sale. This practice is supposed to allow the NHTSA time necessary to process decoding of the VIN before a customer registers a car with this VIN. This interpretation has led to some more advanced guesswork and calculations: if the VINs reported now will only be assigned to newly produced cars in 60 days’ time, it means, that Tesla’s rate of production is slower than Bloomberg’s estimates.

There is a lot of very specific information encoded in a VIN. Not only does VIN provide information of a car’s brand and model, it also states its place and date of production, as well as the history of recalls and current recalls. Apparently, VINs also hold the key to encoding Tesla’s production rate.

If you already have your Tesla’s VIN, you can check it out using the VIN decoder by ESP Data Solutions, Inc., which records even the vehicles freshly off the conveyor belt.