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A Tesla Model S car is displayed at a Tesla showroom on November 5, 2013 in Palo Alto, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Some Tesla customers in Florida and California have experienced delivery delays of weeks or months, forcing them to rely on borrowed cars, costly rentals and ride-hailing apps while they weather the unexpected wait.

Tesla acknowledged Model S delays earlier this year, but the delivery issues extend to the Model Y, Tesla’s crossover SUV and most popular vehicle in North America, according to several customers who spoke to CNBC.

The continuing delays are a sign that Tesla is still struggling with the “delivery logistics hell” that Elon Musk referenced in 2018 as the company dramatically increases its vehicle production. The company delivered more than 201,250 vehicles in Q2, a company record and a 144% increase from the year-ago quarter. Supply chain shortages, which the company discussed on its last two earnings calls, may also be playing a part in the delays.

A Tesla sales employee in California told CNBC that sales and delivery staff are doing the best they can to answer questions from upset customers, but do not have enough information from higher-ups or the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, to answer them precisely. This person asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press about company matters.

The employee said a colleague in another state resigned after managers threatened to fire him last quarter because he “broke the chain of command” by sending an e-mail to CEO Elon Musk and other managers in Fremont seeking information about the Model S delays.

After that, some sales staff felt hesitant to seek further details on behalf of customers, the sales employee said. CNBC reviewed internal correspondence corroborating the sales employee’s account of events.

Generally, sales and delivery workers are aware that Tesla has faced parts shortages and challenges implementing the use of new machinery at the Fremont plant, this person said. Those issues were discussed by executives on prior Tesla earnings calls.

The dates keep slipping

One bemused Tesla customer, Steve Salem, placed his order for a long-range all wheel drive Model Y with premium interior and silver metallic paint on May 31. He had test-driven the vehicle outside of New York City, and later ordered online, arranging to pick up the car in Los Angeles where he would soon be living.

According to records and correspondence he shared with CNBC, Tesla’s site initially said a Model Y should be available in an estimated 4 to 8 weeks, putting the late end of his estimated delivery window around the week of July 26.

After placing his order online, paying a $100 non-refundable fee to do so, the Tesla site showed Salem a new estimated delivery window with Aug. 10 as the latest possible delivery date. The dates continued to change in his Tesla account, and Salem says he did not receive apologies from sales staff or even email notifications with each change. The date range shifted all the way into October at one point, and then back to a date in late August. As of Monday this week, the estimated date was between Sept. 4 and Sept. 24.

Three other customers who are waiting for Model Y and Model S vehicles also told CNBC that they had to keep checking their accounts to detect changes to their estimated delivery dates.

While he hasn’t given up on his Tesla, Salem said he might have to eventually. “I’m fortunate that I’m not in desperate need for a vehicle. But I’d like to drive the car,” he said.

He arranged financing through a third-party lender, and doesn’t expect any trouble getting another loan approved. But delays could effect his loan rate, and he will also need to get a new insurance quote. “It’s a hassle,” he said. “At a certain point do you say the heck with this and try to get something else? It’s frustrating — not just the delays but the total lack of communication.”

Tesla cars are delivered to a showroom in Brooklyn, New York on April 25, 2019.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

If Tesla cannot firm up a delivery date, Salem said he may order a Ford Mach-E or revert to a high-performance internal combustion engine vehicle. The Model Y was going to be his first battery electric.

Another would-be owner of a long-range, all-wheel-drive Model Y in Southern California ordered from the Tesla site and received a confirmation by e-mail on June 6. This customer, who asked to remain unnamed to avoid confrontations on social media, had roughly the same experience as Salem.

She shared records indicating that her original estimated window for delivery was between Aug. 4 and Aug. 24 in Burbank, California. The date slipped repeatedly, and she says the company never proactively reached out to her about the changes.

When she saw the dates changing in her Tesla account online, she texted a sales employee to ask whether the delivery dates would keep getting pushed further out. The employee failed to give specifics, but reassured her that staff would keep an eye out for a black Model Y that may become available sooner in the area.

In one text message to this sales employee, this customer asked if there were problems in manufacturing. The employee replied in early August that Tesla had manufacturing delays due to a chip shortage, and said many other car companies were dealing with the same thing.

As CNBC has previously reported, chip shortages have recently caused production and delivery delays of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E crossover and in July, caused Rivian to delay production and deliveries of its debut RIT electric pickup, and R1S SUV (but not its commercial delivery vans which it is making for Amazon).

This customer is now expecting to receive her Tesla some time between Sept. 8th and Sept. 28th. She told CNBC she has spent more on rentals and ride-sharing than she and her finacee planned to spend leasing and insuring their Model Y from Tesla.

She’s willing to wait for the Tesla, but wants an explanation from the company. And now, since she’s planning to be out of town for a few weeks, she is worried the company will make her wait months more if she can’t take delivery.

Finally, two customers who have been waiting for Tesla’s higher-end Model S luxury sedans told CNBC they have been waiting for months.

One engineer, who works in utility-scale renewables, ordered his Model S Plaid in January, and planned to take delivery at the Ft. Meyers, Florida, Tesla dealership. He asked to remain un-named citing privacy concerns, and said he is annoyed every time a YouTuber shows up in a video with a Model S Plaid. It made him wonder if the company is allowing people to cut the line if they have dedicated fan accounts on social media.

While he has already waited for months, he said he will never give up on getting his dream car from Tesla. He is drawn to the Model S Plaid’s design, performance and the appeal of a vehicle that will have new features added or old features refined via over the air software updates.

Barry Stuppler, founder of a rare coins and precious metals wholesale business, first ordered a Model S Plaid in January, as CNBC previously reported. On Aug. 10, he told CNBC, Tesla moved his delivery date to the very end of the third quarter — Sept. 21 through Sept. 30.

Last week, he went to a Mercedes dealer and configured and ordered an all-electric Mercedes 450 EQS, with no deposit required. The sales staff there said he would have a price quote and vehicle identification number by late September, and he could take delivery in November. He said if the Mercedes arrives before his Tesla, and isn’t more than the price he’s expecting, he’ll cancel the Model S Plaid order.

Even famous people aren’t immune. On Tuesday, rock musician David Crosby tweeted that a Tesla he ordered seven months ago has still not showed up, and alleged that Tesla had “lied to us 4 times about when we would get it.”

Crosby was not immediately available for comment.

Tesla and Troy Jones, the company’s Vice President of North American Sales, Service and Delivery, did not immediately respond to a request for further information.

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Mark Zuckerberg names ex-OpenAI employee chief scientist of new Meta AI lab

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Mark Zuckerberg names ex-OpenAI employee chief scientist of new Meta AI lab

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers. 

Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in the June memo, but Zuckerberg said Friday that Zhao co-founded the lab and “has been our lead scientist from day one.” Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI who is acting as Meta’s chief AI officer.

“Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field,” Zuckerberg wrote in a social media post. “I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.”

Read more CNBC tech news

In addition to co-creating ChatGPT, Zhao helped build OpenAI’s GPT-4, mini models, 4.1 and o3, and he previously led synthetic data at OpenAI, according to Zuckerberg’s June memo.

Meta Superintelligence Labs will be where employees work on foundation models such as the open-source Llama family of AI models, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects.

The social media company will invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure, Zuckerberg said earlier this month.

“The next few years are going to be very exciting!” Zuckerberg wrote Friday.

WATCH: Meta announces massive ‘Prometheus’ & ‘Hyperion’ data center plans

Meta announces massive 'Prometheus' & 'Hyperion' data center plans

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Palantir joins list of 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025

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Palantir joins list of 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, speaks on a panel titled Power, Purpose, and the New American Century at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Palantir has hit another major milestone in its meteoric stock rise. It’s now one of the 20 most valuable U.S. companies.

The provider of software and data analytics technology to defense agencies saw its stock rise more than 2% on Friday to another record, lifting the company’s market cap to $375 billion, which puts it ahead of Home Depot and Procter & Gamble. The company’s market value was already higher than Bank of America and Coca-Cola.

Palantir has more than doubled in value this year as investors ramp up bets on the company’s artificial intelligence business and closer ties to the U.S. government. Since its founding in 2003 by Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp and others, the company has steadily accrued a growing list of customers.

Revenue in Palantir’s U.S. government business increased 45% to $373 million in its most recent quarter, while total sales rose 39% to $884 million. The company next reports results on Aug. 4.

Earlier this year, Palantir soared ahead of Salesforce, IBM and Cisco into the top 10 U.S. tech companies by market cap.

Buying the stock at these levels requires investors to pay hefty multiples. Palantir currently trades for 273 times forward earnings, according to FactSet. The only other company in the top 20 with a triple-digit ratio is Tesla at 175.

With $3.1 billion in total revenue over the past year, Palantir is a fraction the size of the next smallest company by sales among the top 20 by market cap. Mastercard, which is valued at $518 billion, is closest with sales over the past four quarters of roughly $29 billion.

WATCH: Palantir’s Mike Gallagher: Enforcing a ceasefire will require a greater investment of American power

Palantir's Mike Gallagher: Enforcing a ceasefire will require a greater investment of American power

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Inside Tesla’s new retro-futuristic Supercharger diner

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Inside Tesla's new retro-futuristic Supercharger diner

Tesla has opened the doors to its first diner Supercharger station in Los Angeles.

CEO Elon Musk first teased the concept of building a drive-in themed charging station in 2018. On Monday, that vision was finally realized. Tesla describes the two-story restaurant, constructed of a steel exterior inspired by the Cybertruck, as retro-futuristic. It features 80 charging stalls and two 66-foot megascreens playing a rotation of short films, feature-length movies and Tesla videos.

The diner operates 24/7 serving classic American comfort food, such as burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes, to both electric vehicle owners charging their cars and the general public. CNBC visited the site and spoke with early patrons, who praised both the design and the food.

“It’s pretty cool. It has a very vintage vibe, but futuristic vibe at the same time” said Taju, who stopped by with a friend who drives a Tesla.

“I would bring friends from out of town, they would be very impressed coming to a place like this” said Don, a Model 3 owner who visited with his wife and neighbor.

Also on display for a limited time was Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, which served popcorn and interacted playfully with guests. Less than 24 hours after opening, the line to order food stretched around the block.

Musk has said that if the concept proves successful, Tesla may open similar diner Supercharger stations in other major cities.

Watch the video to see what it’s like inside Tesla’s first diner charging station. 

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