Mine was Nov-Jan, and now shows Dec-Feb (LR model). Interesting. I’m not a current Tesla owner, but had an early Mar 31 reservation (~10:20 am) at the Fremont location.
A statement that is not actually completely true (Kindle, Fire, Echo, entertainment content …) but debating it is immaterial.
And?
The question is why investors kept pouring into AMZN during the extended period of their running losses. Why for the many other companies that have seen their stock prices go up during periods of losses and why now they price it at such a high P/E?
And the answer is always that investors believe, sometimes correctly sometimes not, that the losses are because the company is spending wisely positioning themselves for the future and that the future therefore includes dramatic growth, the sort of growth that comes from being completely disruptive to an industry (or at least one). True enough that few traditional manufacturing concerns have ever promised such sorts of growth. Well AAPL did, and it stayed afloat in the '90s while running losses, but by the time they were demonstrating how disruptive they could be to industries they were no longer running losses.
TSLA is pitching themselves as that disruptive actor in vehicle manufacture. And there are enough who believe they are on track to be such and who want a piece of that action to keep them far from “tanking” even as they run losses consistently for a few years and run three or likely even six months behind their target dates for ramping up production.
If they do ramp up during next year to that 200K+ annual rate then those who see the possibility of their being that disruptive force, of their being the AMZN, the AAPL, the Uber, of the vehicle manufacturing world, will keep buying the story. A several month delay is nothing to that story. A minor bump.
Now longer term I do not think they will be. Personally I do not buy it. I think the automotive industry has seen disruptive actors in other sectors and are not sitting on their asses. Chevy is willing to compete in quality and price in the space even if the name does have the same cachet right now. Others are going to enter as well over the next several years (Volvo is most vocal about going “all in” on electric architecture for all new models over the next few years and a planned release of a model right in the Tesla 3 and Bolt space to be released likely by the 2021 model year, but most are similarly investing in their own lines). Within a few years the pent up demand for the Model 3 will be met and there will be others who also look fine on the dance floor and know all the newest steps. The industry is prepared to be disrupted. (I am expecting my next car will be a Volvo all electric and likely one that is minimally semi-autonomous for example. Tesla has no special appeal to me and I am in no rush as my five year old PHEV, a Ford C-Max Energi, will do me just fine for more than enough time for them to have come out with what I want and to have a year or so to work any bugs out.)
Well, I agree with you there, because Tesla will sure have moved on to its next unbelievable promise that will grab people’s imaginations, and all of the earlier deceptions will be forgotten… because Elon is the real life Tony Stark or whatever.
That buffer space would be occupied by vehicles in other car plants. 
And if Tesla has a start-stop method of running the line which improves efficiency? I don’t know. I mean, Tesla is known for doing things differently than other car makers, they may have arrived at a line setup that works for them, but is different than what others use. Or not, and they could be at 10k/week and profitability if they just moved their line at all steps of assembly.
Sure, in some cases. But like I said, Tesla’s not the only one doing this; it’s just somewhat unusual. Here’s the dashboard install for the Mercedes C-class:
Robotic assembly; line isn’t moving. On the other hand, here’s the seat install from the same video:
It’s like jz78817 described, where the line keeps moving. It requires a moving platform system so that people can walk around it, and clearly has costs of its own. So it goes both ways, and obviously is situation dependent, but Tesla has leaned more on the automation side here than most others.
Yes, they’ll have moved on because by then they’ll be quietly making tons of Model 3s and no one cares if you made 100 or 1000 cars/month during bringup if you’re making 20-40k cars/month now.
The X was 2 years late and then took like another year to work out the production kinks. Today, no one cares and Tesla is selling as many Xes as Ses. All those articles about the Falcon Wing Doors or whatever being unmanufacturable were so much bullshit in the long run.
Tesla stock is down 7% today, which a laughably tiny dip. Oh no, they’re only 50% over the price from a year ago. So investors don’t care either.
Of interest to all potential EV buyers, the tax reform bill introduced by Republicans yesterday includes an elimination of the $7,500 tax credit as of December 31, 2017.
I would think this might not be a huge deal to most Tesla buyers, I think many of which are interested in the Model 3 because they couldn’t quite afford a Model S at twice the price, but I think it would really be a huge blow to the entire EV lease market. EVs have terrible residual values, and the tax credit is what made leases affordable (or even cheap). Without that subsidy, the cost of leasing an EV would probably skyrocket by $200 a month.
The article you link to includes some interesting details.
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The credit was already structured such that it would begin phasing out soon for both GM and Tesla (and Nissan), at the 200,000 vehicles sold mark. To some degree eliminating it helps those companies as otherwise the playing field gives a leg up to those companies entering the EV field later than them in the next few years, who are well below the 200,000 vehicle sold mark, whose vehicles would still qualify for the credit for a good long time.
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The interplay between the Fed tax credit and the need to meet state ZEV mandates, of most note as set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and followed by nine other states making up about a third of all U.S. new car sales, is also interesting:
Seems though that it would result in wider marketing in those CARB states and less motivation to sell in other ones. The list, besides CA: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
this would be considered disastrous at any other car company. It would certainly mean a stop-build/stop-ship scenario.
and they’re trying to spin this as a positive:
spin, spin, spin. maybe don’t start shipping cars until the design is done?
But hey, if Tesla thinks it’s wise to burn millions of dollars constantly changing production tooling, more power to them. But that just means their path to profitability just got longer.
That story cracks me up.
When Lockheed builds the F-35 that needs a lot of things fixed and tweaked after it leaves the factory floor, it’s called “rework” and is a sign of how screwed up the program is, because inefficient and expensive touch labor is correcting things that should have been done efficiently in sequence.
When Tesla pushes out a car without key parts, it is a clever upgrade program to insure customers love their car.
I’m starting to wonder whether Tesla is even less honest than Enron.
Any source for what the context of the Tesla statement was. Because I am suspicious that it was not in reference to the issue Jalopnik juxtaposed it with, but a statement that a Tesla spokesman indeed made … but in a different context.
But yes, IF cars end up getting delivered without having passed quality control then the company would be seriously hurt. If standard operating procedure is to finish assembly at dealer sites then they will be a failed company.
It remains to be seen whether or not Tesla can indeed ramp the scale and do so with efficiency. Reports like these though do not seem to me to inform on the question.
it’s not my job to disprove your suspicions.
as there were no luxury EV’s to compete against it wasn’t much of a market hit. Apple could be 2 years late on each phone if there was no competition. The Model 3 has competition. The Bolt alone has produced 17,000 units this year. That’s 77 times the number of Model 3’s. That’s from a company that has the experience to produce cars in large numbers and back them up with dealership service.
so far Tesla has produced 220 of the 1500units they planned this year. They’re at 15% of their goal. They’re not quietly making tons of anything except debt and promises.
You guys are a hoot. The only dishonesty here is among moronic financial journalists, and clickbaity Gawker network crap.
Anyone that pays even a modicum of attention to Tesla knows that they have a continuous upgrade cycle instead of model years. They upgrade stuff as soon as it’s ready instead of bundling a bunch of things together. Criticize it if you want, but they’ve been operating this way for years and made no secret of it. Anyone surprised by this should not be covering Tesla.
As for shipping incomplete cars, I have a hard time believing that other car manufacturers have never done the same thing (just less frequently). It would be unbelievably dumb for them to stop a line while waiting on, say, a replacement headlamp assembly that’s been recalled, when they can just ship it to the dealer and let them retrofit it later. Shipping cars is slow… why would you ever hold that up for parts that can be trivially swapped in later?
All credit to the Bolt–it’s selling ok, though not fantastically. It’s a very decent EV, if not for everyone. A coworker has one and says it’s great.
But it’s not really competition to the Model 3. The Bolt just isn’t suitable for someone looking for a sporty EV sedan. It’s too practical-looking, it’s not fast enough, and the handling isn’t good enough. As best I can tell, people disappointed in Model 3 delays are switching to… a Model S. An entry-level S is not much more than a loaded 3, and has some advantages.
Personally, I can wait. I don’t see any circumstances where I’d buy a Bolt, not because it sucks but because it’s not what I want in a car, EV or not.
Anyway, I think it’s great that EVs don’t have to be competition to each other. They’re mainstream enough that they can exist across a wide variety of niches–large luxury sedan, SUV, small luxury sedan, hatchback, commuter car, etc.
True 'dat. And not my job to get you to think critically about what you read
Meanwhile Dr. Strangelove, I do not think that the big automakers do that completing assembly at dealers. One, it leaves a final inspection outside of the QA process. Two it just does not work with any sort of volume. Three there just is not usually the urgency of high unmet demand in which saving a wee bit of time matters so much. Tesla can get away with creating some time efficiency by not waiting at the factory on final parts that may have been updated or retooled with the teeny tiny low volumes they are running now. But that will not fly in a ramp up phase. They will need to have adequate inventory available there even if it is “just in time.”
Still, they are not in the ramp up phase yet. They are running at least a few months behind schedule to get there. The question that matter involves that “at least” … if it stretches much farther, or if there are significant build quality issues as volumes come off the line, then tank talk is indicated.
To be clear, I’m not talking about ordinary assembly stuff–that’s surely Tesla exclusive. But dealers do recall rework all the time and somehow they manage. Surely there are cases where a known defective component was either shipped with a vehicle or left off, and it was the dealer’s responsibility to replace it.
It’s illegal to sell a new car with unfixed recalls, so at a bare minimum any cars in transit when a recall is issued must be reworked when they arrive at a dealer (or sold as used). I have a hard time believing that some would not take it a step further and knowingly ship vehicles that require a rework. It would be dumb to shut down the entire production and transportation chain for relatively easy replacement jobs.
My point is really just that Jalopnik seems to be shocked and appalled at the very idea of a vehicle needing a dealer rework before being handed over to the consumer, when really that happens all the time. Tesla’s takes it to a new level but there’s nothing unique about the basic idea.
The issue here is that you clearly are paying attention only to Tesla and assuming you know everything you need to know about how to manufacture cars. You are in error.
And no, this is NOT how the industry works in general. If you don’t have parts, the line stops. You don’t build new cars with parts that are known subject to recall; once updated/fixed parts are available the priority is to fill the pipeline at the plants then provide service replacements. If you have a run of bad parts from a supplier, you issue a stop build order and haul the supplier in to sort and certify their parts.
Because it’s a hell of a lot less expensive to quarantine cars in a yard hold at the plant or a marshaling lot for rework by plant personnel than it is to ship parts around the country and pay dealers to finish the cars for you. Do you know how much it costs to ship something the size of a seat via common carrier?
Jalopnik is “shocked and appalled” because this is not normal. This is not what goes on in the industry, your refusal to believe that is your own problem. This is not a case of “oh we identified a defective part after the fact, dealers replace this part before delivery.” This is a case of “we couldn’t build a complete car so you have to do it once we ship you parts.” Trust me, Jalopnik has at least a couple of writers on staff who are industry veterans, they know that this is all kinds of fucked up.
Tesla is shooting for F-150 volumes on the Model 3, and this kind of behavior assures they’ll never make any money on it.
Wait - this isn’t an issue of tabloids making stuff up. You can’t cry FAKE NEWS. Remember how Elon talked about his management style being based on setting unrealistic deadlines to force his people to work as hard as possible?
Well, for each unrealistic deadline that is put forth just to up the pressure on his workers, that same statement is taken by customers as what Elon is going to deliver on. To me, that’s a pattern of deception.
And there’s plenty of industry analysts saying similar things; and these analysts work for places like JP Morgan, not clickbaitlisticle.com. You can’t dismiss this issue of basic honesty just because you like the product.
You are free to go find evidence of manufacturers doing the same thing.