Tesla's production is up but deliveries are down in Q1

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Well kids, gather 'round because it's that time of year once again where we discuss Tesla's Q1 production and delivery numbers, now that they've been released.

The report, which was released by Tesla on Wednesday evening, outlines much of what we already expected.

Tesla managed to build a total of 77,100 vehicles in Q1 of 2019, over 80 percent of which were Model 3s. This means that Model 3 production is indeed humming along, something which would have been hard to imagine a year ago.

The company delivered significantly more cars than it did this time last year, but also considerably fewer vehicles than it delivered in Q4 2018. The explanation for this, according to the Big T, is predominantly deliveries to China and Europe.

Tesla had only delivered half the number of vehicles for the entire quarter by March 21, so it had to ramp things for the last couple of weeks in order to catch up. Despite its delivery issues and several price fluctuations, the company asserts that it finished the quarter with plenty of cash on hand.

Tesla is working to streamline its vehicle delivery system, particularly where Model 3 is concerned, to get cars from Fremont to customers all over the world. This process should, in theory, get some help once the Chinese Gigafactory comes online later in 2019 -- and it'll need help. Tesla reaffirmed it plans to deliver between 360,000 to 400,000 cars in 2019.