Bloomberg Tesla Tracker

Bloomberg Tesla Model 3 Tracker is a data journalism project created by Bloomberg News that estimated the real-time production output of the Tesla Model 3 electric car between 2018 and 2019.

The tracker combined Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) that Tesla registered with United States safety regulators before production with VINs submitted voluntarily by vehicle owners after delivery, producing daily forecasts of cumulative output and weekly production rates at Tesla's Fremont, California factory.^[1][2]

The project is frequently cited as a prominent early example of crowdsourced alternative data being used to monitor a public company between its official quarterly disclosures.

Overview

The Tesla Model 3 Tracker was launched by Bloomberg News in February 2018, during a period when Tesla reported production totals only quarterly while investors debated whether the company could reach mass-production targets for its newly released Model 3 sedan.^[1]

The tool displayed continuously updated estimates of cumulative Model 3 production and of the weekly production rate, alongside charts comparing those estimates against Tesla's own reported figures and stated production targets.^[1]

Methodology

The tracker relied on two complementary VIN datasets. The first gathered batches of VINs that Tesla registered with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ahead of manufacturing, which served as a forward-looking gauge of planned output. The second collected VINs sent to Bloomberg by owners after taking delivery of vehicles, sourced largely from communities such as Reddit and Tesla Motors Club forums.^[2]

Neither dataset alone performed well as an estimator, but a combined model that averaged the two methods, adjusted for non-sequential registration and delivery patterns, produced daily production estimates. The methodology was described publicly by Bloomberg, including adjustments such as removing VINs attributable to test cars.^[2]

Accuracy

During the North American rollout, the tracker proved notably accurate. According to Bloomberg, its quarterly estimates were closer than Wall Street consensus forecasts for four consecutive quarters, coming within roughly half a percent of Tesla's actual reported production on two occasions.^[2]

The model's performance deteriorated once Tesla began international deliveries in 2019. Restricted access to Bloomberg websites in mainland China limited contributions from Chinese owners, and new overseas VIN sequences inflated both datasets, leading the tracker to overestimate first-quarter 2019 production by about 26 percent.^[2]

Reception

The tracker attracted wide attention among investors and became a reference point in coverage of Tesla's so-called "production hell" period. Analysts at firms including Sanford C. Bernstein and UBS used its results when advising clients, and Bloomberg published more than one hundred interpretive posts on the project's companion blog.^[2]

Bloomberg reported that the tracker page was viewed more than five million times following its launch and featured prominently in numerous Bloomberg News stories about Tesla.^[2]

Retirement

In May 2019, Bloomberg retired the production forecasting model, stating that stabilizing output had diminished the value of month-to-month tracking and that investor attention had shifted toward demand and quality metrics. The publication continued to update its two underlying VIN datasets and launched an extensive survey of Model 3 owners covering customer experience and long-term reliability.^[2]

The project remains accessible through Bloomberg's graphics section and through archived copies maintained by the Internet Archive.^[1][2]

More datasets from Bloomberg Tesla Tracker

Bloomberg Tesla Tracker lists 1 datasets on this encyclopedia. The most representative listings:

More about News & Sentiment

News & Sentiment is one of the signal families covered by The Alternative Data Encyclopedia, with 38 providers and 172 datasets listed in the register. For how the signal is generated, its caveats and the compliance considerations, and the full provider list, see the category article.