Tesla Q1 2018 Vehicle Production and Deliveries

http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1062670

by beltex • 8 years ago

141 186 8 years ago

ir.tesla.com

beltex2• 8 years ago

"Tesla Goes Bankrupt

Palo Alto, California, April 1, 2018 --

Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt. So bankrupt, you can't believe it."

- Elon Musk

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980566101124722688

jjevanoorschot• 8 years ago

For those who didn't already get it, it's an April Fool's joke.

beltex2• 8 years ago

Indeed. Given the number of down votes, either folks didn't catch that, or it's all the short sellers :)

davedx2• 8 years ago

CNN this morning: "Tesla will soon report whether it met its target to make 2,500 Model 3s a week. It is on pace to make about half that number, according to Bloomberg." [1]

From the statement: "In the past seven days, Tesla produced 2,020 Model 3 vehicles."

A pretty big improvement, still some hard work to do, but they really are ramping up.

I'm relieved at the announcement they won't need another debt/equity raise this year. Let's see where we are in 3 months.

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-a...

agumonkey6• 8 years ago

Depends on what made these numbers. Late night burn or proper automation ?

Someone12343• 8 years ago

Indeed. They say last week and next week will be ballpark 2K Model 3s, and that's good, but is that their new sustainable number or just an artificially inflated figure for this report? Their carefully chosen wording leans me more towards the latter.

But I hope they succeed in general and I guess we'll know one way or the other by next quarter.

Robotbeat11• 8 years ago

They won't reach proper automation until they're getting 5,000 to 8,000 Model 3s per week. But, of course, nobody really does automation to the level that Tesla is trying to do, so their current mix between labor and automation (as they continue to build up their automation line) is approximately what other car makers do.

Getting full automation to work is really hard, takes a lot of labor and time. I think they'll do it, but the task should not be under-estimated. In the meantime, they've already achieved a production rate per factory line similar to what a typical automaker like VW would do (on the order of 100,000 per year for a factory).

Like SpaceX around 2015 or so. Respectable, but not yet Earth-shattering (i.e. 2017).

jacquesm21• 8 years ago

What matters is not how many they made, what matters is if they cut corners just to boost that number. Ideally those would be better quality cars but it looks very much like they were doing everything they could to just increase that one number without qualifying it in any way.

john_minsk• 8 years ago

How do you know that?

ckastner• 8 years ago

The Model 3 output increased exponentially, representing a fourfold increase over last quarter. This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T.

Way to spin all the production issues and delay of the previous quarter into a positive.

They're way behind the goals they set for themselves, but instead of measuring by those goals, they measure themselves by their weakest performance, and suddenly their performance becomes historic.

lallysingh• 8 years ago

Musk is a good salesman.

kbody• 8 years ago

Musk is a genius, but still not everything that a company does is done by the CEO.

adventured4• 8 years ago

Their critics are very loudly proclaiming Tesla is an immense failure, that the Model 3 is a failure, and that they're going bankrupt in a matter of months. The FUD being broadly directed at Tesla is astounding and reeks of bias of one sort or another.

The other major automakers are running years behind where Tesla is at today. That's where the embarrassment should be today: those automakers are still gleefully selling tens of millions of fossil-fuel-only vehicles.

Producing 20,000 Model 3 vehicles per quarter this year will be an accomplishment (even in spite of Musk's absurd prior goal). It implies they can push well over 100,000 units in 2019. These days they're being given little credit for what they are accomplishing. When they hit that 20,000 quarterly marker, the Model 3 becomes one of the best selling mid-priced luxury vehicles on the planet in its first year.

elvirs• 8 years ago

they are given a ton of credit. their stock value was a good proof of how much credit they were given but you can't keep being late and not delivering on promises to hundreds of thousands of customers who made deposits while the CEO is busy building flamethrowers amd hats to sell them on twitter

danso6• 8 years ago

How are the other makers "years behind" Tesla? The Model S is the best-selling EV but not by an order of magnitude. GM was pretty close last year in sales and I don't think it's a bad bet to bet that GM will beat Tesla in getting self-driving tech (GM Cruise is only second to Waymo in testing self-driving, at least in California).

https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/30/the-5-best-selling...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/31/16956902/california-dmv-s...

Tesla deserves credit for getting other automakers to take the EV market seriously, but they are by no means years behind Tesla in terms of production and sales.

Someone12343• 8 years ago

Their critics are very loudly proclaiming Tesla is an immense failure, that the Model 3 is a failure, and that they're going bankrupt in a matter of months.

This is a classic straw man. You've created a fictional persona which you then describe as:

The FUD being broadly directed at Tesla is astounding and reeks of bias of one sort or another.

How about we stick to what other posters you're replying to are actually saying rather than creating fictional personas in order to then attack them.

dahdum• 8 years ago

I tend to think Tesla benefits far more from hype and Elon charisma than is being hurt by FUD. There are still many real risks to their success, from outright failure to middling future sales. It wouldn't be shocking to see them eventually exit sales and license their tech / batteries to major automakers down the road as the major revenue stream.

All that said, their fanciful production plans can't hold much weight with institutional investors after so many misses, so it should be priced into the market.

Fins7• 8 years ago

Calling Model 3 a luxury vehicle is rather a stretch. Even Model S lacks things Hyundai one third the price has.

While no other company can come close to Tesla in selling half-baked (or altogether nonexistent) stuff to the gullible, packaging Panasonic batteries in an overpriced golf cart isn't something that any company that knows how to actually build cars would be particularly concerned about.

mgiannopoulos• 8 years ago

Why shouldn’t they be judged according to the performance of their competitors? If you aim high but your “failure” is better than the rest, it’s still something positive.

twtw• 8 years ago

The Model T is not a competitor.

empath752• 8 years ago

If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T.

https://xkcd.com/605/

gwbas1c• 8 years ago

I never expected Tesla to deliver the Model 3 on time. I just "delayed" my order to AWD because my Leaf lease is up before I'll get the 2WD Tesla. (Also, because my wife wants a minivan and Chrysler now offers a plugin minivan.)

Remember, no car in history ever had 500,000 pre-orders. No car even came close. If anyone expected Tesla to ramp up to that kind of production overnight, they are delusional.

Besides, when I ordered my model 3, I assumed that it would be very late... So late, that I assumed I'd just wait for the AWD one to replace our AWD car.

frgtpsswrdlame• 8 years ago

Remember, no car in history ever had 500,000 pre-orders. No car even came close. If anyone expected Tesla to ramp up to that kind of production overnight, they are delusional.

At the same time this is an admission that Musk is/was selling a delusion to people when Tesla set it's production goals.

jacquesm21• 8 years ago

Remember, no car in history ever had 500,000 pre-orders.

That's true, Citroen had a pretty good run with their record of 80,000 pre-orders (it stood for 60 years). But that was before the internet, all of the orders were made in person, they were non-refundable orders and there never was any doubt that Citroen would deliver the cars.

lgbr• 8 years ago

Remember, no car in history ever had 500,000 pre-orders. No car even came close. If anyone expected Tesla to ramp up to that kind of production overnight, they are delusional.

Although you could be pedantic about what consitutes a pre-order, this isn't strictly true. Demand for the Mustang is truly unprecedented, even by the Model 3. Have a look at the Mustang production from that timeframe: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/19...

maxerickson2• 8 years ago

The pre-orders are such a silly point.

Ford builds more pickups than that a year, with basically 0 pre-orders. They simply don't bother with pre-orders, they don't need the money, they don't need the promotion, etc.

Is the lack of pre-orders for the F-150 a sign of weakness? NO!, even though the thing is super popular they are able to produce enough to meet ongoing demand.

dsfyu404ed• 8 years ago

You don't need to pre-order if you expect the thing you want to buy to be readily available in enough volume to meet demand. There's millions of fleet trucks out there on a fixed age/mileage replacement schedule. Nobody is rushing to pre-order F150s because they know they'll be available when they want them.

mariusmg• 8 years ago

they measure themselves by their weakest performance, and suddenly their performance becomes historic.

Yeah, is called PR. Shitty, but everyone does it.

ucaetano3• 8 years ago

Yeah, and you need more than 2 data points to claim it is exponentially. This is bullshitty PR.

TO: 10 vehicles

T1: 40 vehicles

Is production growing 4x per T, or 30 vehicles per T?

Robotbeat11• 8 years ago

But there WERE more than two points; surely you know that. Q4 was not the first quarter that Model 3s were produced. Q3 of 2017 is. So that's three points.

To use your example:

T-1: 2 vehicles

T0: 10 vehicles

T1: 40 vehicles

That is exponential. If it was only a linear ramp-up, that'd imply negative 20 Model 3s were produced in Quarter 3 of 2017.

You might think this is being pedantic, or that "exponential" is just a buzzword, but it's not: the point about exponential ramp-up is that if you're off by a factor of, say, 4x in production, that may mean you're only behind a few months. A relatively small time change corresponds to a very large difference in production.

Exponentials don't last forever; eventually a plateau is reached. But as you're bringing automation/production up, you're still in the exponential phase (as the data shows), and so small delays can make a big difference in production without telling you much about how many you'll produce once production is fully up and running.

thisisit2• 8 years ago

Way to spin all the production issues and delay of the previous quarter into a positive.

I don't really like Musk but sending positive messages in Investment relations is the key to keeping the company afloat. At one of my previous employers we lost top 4 customers and 10% of our revenue. But, the investment relationship site said - "We are up 1% in revenue, if we discount top 4 customers".

If Tesla admits and says - "We have improved but we are still behind on our original promise" then the stock price is going to drop like a rock.

misja1112• 8 years ago

No, investors are not that stupid. They might buy these marketing talks for a while but eventually they will see through. The recent drop in Tesla's share price is a testament of that.

"You can fool some people all of the time, and you can fool all people some of the time, but you can't fool all people all of the time."

ProAm• 8 years ago

then the stock price is going to drop like a rock

Shouldn't investors know the truth about their investment? Give people a chance to keep their money if the are making a poor investment? (Im not saying Tesla is, but smoke and mirrors is a poor way to present your company to the public)

ballenf• 8 years ago

The message to investors is more about demonstrating that they haven't given up and are still enthusiastic about improving.

What investors flee from is demoralized companies where the leaders are burned out or have stopped trying to make gains.

_pmf_• 8 years ago

I don't really like Musk but sending positive messages in Investment relations is the key to keeping the company afloat.

Let's see how the SEC will like this line of argumentation.

jimrandomh• 8 years ago

Stock price is mostly controlled by the sort of investor for whom figuring out a company's prospects is a full-time job for multiple days. PR spin matters, but you should expect the stock price to mainly reflect the numbers, not the spin.

justicezyx• 8 years ago

Dishonest is the norm of doing business That does not make them right

dmode5• 8 years ago

It IS a massive positive. The only reason you are complaining is because Musk set some super ambitious goals. But if you read the report, they are already producing as many Model 3s as Model S and S has been in production for 5 years. It is a monumental achievement for a company that only has been selling mass produced cars from 2012

saas_co_de3• 8 years ago

It really reeks of desperation. They are frantically doing anything they can to keep investor confidence but all of their tricks are so worn out and tired now and their debt load and burn rate is so much higher that it isn't going to change anything.

They will go bankrupt. 100%. Maybe they can arrange some buy out or merger to try and save face, but doubtful.

Given their level of candor I am sure their accounting is an Enron style sh-t-show of epic proportions.

That is almost certainly why they had to buy SolarCity. Other than paying off Musk and SpaceX loans they also couldn't afford to have the books opened in bankruptcy court because it would destroy Musk's reputation.

It is coming though.

mjamesaustin• 8 years ago

If you're 100% sure, then you should dump your life savings into shorting Tesla. You'll make a fortune.

dmode5• 8 years ago

I have been hearing this bankruptcy coming for the last 7 years. Yet, Tesla keeps delivering. I remember when the Model X production started, people had already written the obituary because of quality issues. The key thing to note is that Tesla's demand far outstrips supply and Tesla's customer satisfaction rate is over 90%. They can raise any amount of liquidity with those numbers.

ksherlock• 8 years ago

“Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people” -- Nido Qubein

throwawaydream• 8 years ago

Beyond all the spin, they stated the following important facts:

- Produced 2020 cars and expect to produce the 2000 next week. - Tesla does not require an equity or debt raise this year

I think these two facts laid to rest a number of concerns from last couple week: production rate, running out of money, moody's rating cut. The one major thing that's still pending is the last week's fatal crash.

As far as I can tell, this is a great progress from where we were last week.

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 8 years ago

The initial 2020 target was 500,000 cars (forecast made early 2016).

Today, they maintain a production target for 2020 of… 1M cars. Despite the delays.

They can achieve 50% of that goal and still be one of the best performing company in recent history. But you would probably insist that it's the biggest miss ever (only half the production target!).

cjhopman2• 8 years ago

The initial 2018 target was 500,000 cars (forecast made mid 2017).

Today, they are on track to make 120,000.

When this particular company says that their 2020 target is 1M cars, it's a totally meaningless statement.

danso6• 8 years ago

Worth posting Bloomberg's Tesla Model 3 Tracker, which contains a model attempting to independently estimate production, as well as background info about Tesla's past projections: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

pavs3• 8 years ago

I think most people shouldn't take this tracker seriously as it was wildly off most of the time and was often manually adjusted.

danso6• 8 years ago

The tracker on Apr. 2 (Google Cache) has an estimate of 12,245 units, which is based off of a confirmed production total of 2,686 at the end of Q4.

http://archive.is/WXoXw

Today's announcement says 9,766 M3s were produced in Q1: 9766 + 2686, i.e. 12452.

They don't seem that far off?

ekrebs• 8 years ago

2,020 is under Elon's 2,500 prediction, but well above the 1,000-1,500 expectations of those shorting the stock (unless the shorts' articles were deliberately misleading, of course).

Also, according to the release, those are customer-delivered numbers. Overall, a good trajectory and a sign of long-term health.

dgritsko• 8 years ago

Yeah, if they're able to consistently hit that weekly number (and continue to improve upon it) this is some much-needed good news for Tesla.

jacquesm21• 8 years ago

They need to improve on it, badly. Operating a line at 40% capacity is terrible for your bankaccount.

InTheArena4• 8 years ago

Shorts? Misleading? Never.

The game around Tesla stock is pure and simple speculation - by all sides. There is no world that justifies the current value of Tesla's stock, and there is also clear evidence that there is significant illegal market manipulation by shorts.. This is becoming more of a problem. Remember the fairly benign AMD "security" issue where it was discovered that root users could update security code? The announcement of that exploit came with a "this should drive AMD stock to zero" comment.

Just a little bit over oversight please, SEC?

misja1112• 8 years ago

Originally Tesla was predicting to produce 5,000 per week in March 2018. The prediction was later downsized to 2,500 and now they didn't even reach that.

Investors have been funding Tesla so far based on all these predictions. I don't see any sign of long-term health here now that both targets have not been met.

JumpCrisscross• 8 years ago

2,020 is about halfway between 1,500 and 2,500. It’s almost like both sides are selling hyperbole around a truth in the middle.

jacquesm21• 8 years ago

Except that wasn't the prediction, the prediction was 5K / week:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/tesla-predicts-production-...

_ph_• 8 years ago

Despite the disappointment of missing the goal of 2500 cars, this is good news. Tesla came reasonably close to their goal and certainly won't stop at that number. To put the number into scale, they made as many Model 3 in the last week as Model S and X combined. That means, Tesla is on a good track to produce at least twice as many cars in 2018 as they did in 2017, which already was a record year.

InTheArena4• 8 years ago

The "leaks" on email this last week have changed the narrative a lot. The leak last week (probably not planned) of "prove the haters wrong" resulted in a sell off, while the leak over the weekend cushioned the final numbers.

That said, TSLA, just like SpaceX plays really close to the edge with equity and risk in pursuit of a vision. What most Tesla shorts fail to recognize is that Tesla has already gotten to the point that if something really really bad where to happen, any number of well capitalized tech firms would scoop them up in a instant (looking at Apple in particular). The cars are really a minimal amount of hardware, with software wrapped around them. They have loyalty like the iPhone had loyalty and Alexa has loyalty.

The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic. Now they need to prove they can start scaling more linearly.

The press reaction to all of this is a good example of the media not knowing what they are talking about. The press has issued breathless reports about there being too much skilled labor and parts by hand, then too much robotic automation. They point at the low uptake of reservation holders (30%) without noting that the reservations are holding constant, and that this is mostly a effect of only the most premium of the premium going on sale right now.

Tesla's barb on the Model T is interesting as well. "This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T. "

What Tesla is trying to do is hard. There is a reason no one has been successful in doing it in more then 50+ years. Watching the people who are opposed to what Tesla is doing is just as interesting.

pavlov• 8 years ago

The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic.

I like Tesla, but it doesn't give me a good vibe if they're blaming partners at this point.

InTheArena4• 8 years ago

This was a couple of quarters ago. To the best of my knowledge, Tesla never stated this explicitly, but it was in the press.

empath752• 8 years ago

What most Tesla shorts fail to recognize is that Tesla has already gotten to the point that if something really really bad where to happen, any number of well capitalized tech firms would scoop them up in a instant (looking at Apple in particular).

Maybe -- or they could wait to buy their assets in bankruptcy.

ISL• 8 years ago

Bankruptcy is precisely when a well-capitalized buyer might buy Tesla.

If TSLA fell that far, the shorts would get paid.

bigtex• 8 years ago

No potential suitor in their right mind would buy a car company whose main factory is in one of the most heavily regulated areas in regard to air pollution.

Someone12343• 8 years ago

The cars are really a minimal amount of hardware, with software wrapped around them.

It is a car... An electric car at that, where battery tech and costs have pretty much been the cornerstone of Tesla's success. Claiming hardware doesn't matter to a car company is like claiming foundation doesn't matter for a house.

Plus there's nothing particularly minimalist about any of Tesla's cars. They take relatively simple mechanical parts and replace them with complex electrical parts. Look at the door handles in the Model 3 for a perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIADZHLHGL0

projectramo3• 8 years ago

I don't know enough about all the parts of the car, but generally speaking, many people have argued that an electric car is much simpler than a mechanical car. (Something to do with the complexity of the engine, gear, drive train etc).

If I recall, one study indicated that maintenance costs on an ev are a fraction of the current costs for that reason.

planetjones2• 8 years ago

I used to be one of the people who poked fun at Musk and suggested people short Tesla stock (as the valuation is crazy compared to the production and penetration numbers).

But I am no longer that person. I read his biography (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future) and this is a guy who genuinely wants to change things on a macro scale: opening up space, changing transportation. He is also a genuine risk taker, who will bet his own money and risk everything for something he believes in. I now root for Musk and his companies to succeed. I wouldn't take short positions on Tesla now.

Plus the deletion of the SpaceX and Tesla facebook pages, when told over Twitter they existed was pretty funny.

vermontdevil• 8 years ago

That biography was mind blowing. Shows all sides of Elon good or bad. But showed how hard he really worked to build companies to scale.

jacquesm21• 8 years ago

Reading a book doesn't change fundamentals. Tesla is heading for a rough time, I sincerely hope they make it through and hope that Musk will not come to regret making that stupid joke.

pm902• 8 years ago

Very astute comment. And lets remember that Musk himself is a big fan of "first principles". By the first principles (fundamentals) of business and finance, it doesn't look very good. But I too sincerely hope that Tesla does succeed.

xutopia• 8 years ago

How are they headed for hard times? I'm genuinely uneducated on the matter and want to know more.

qaq4• 8 years ago

On the scale of Tesla's own history how would you rate that rough time? E.g. is it more rough vs 1st year of Tesla 2nd year? 3rd Year? How rough is it for people who actually pulled through all the challenges they faced from the founding till now. I think people are overestimating the "rough times" part. Musk and Tesla have a ton of good will that no other automaker has and they can leverage that in a rough situation.

WhompingWindows2• 8 years ago

The problem with your comment is the book addresses the history of the company and puts those fundamentals into perspective. I'd argue Tesla has been in rough times for most if not all of its existence. Do you think having 200 problem Roadsters in a warehouse in their first year was great? They had colossal issues with the conversion of Lotus Elise chasses to Tesla Roadsters, they were hand-building and customizing every single vehicle.

Then, when they wanted to build the Model S, they wasted a lot of time on luxury features like having flush door handles. Their output was delayed, despite having numerous pre-orders waiting.

Again, with Model X, they faced substantial delays with the falcon wing doors and the single-pylon-seat in the 2nd row. They received a lot of flak for that, and got past it in time.

Now with Model 3, they've had problems mainly at the Gigafactory with battery-pack assembly, as well as with the costly up-front labor that goes into automation of assembly lines.

And yet, here they are. They have substantial debt yes, and their credit rating is B- which isn't great, but compared to other automakers their financials are somewhat middle of the road. Look at Ford, they have a massive debt problem, or look at Chevy's electrification program, which has faced much weaker demand than Tesla will ever face with its legions of fans.

If you ask me, the "fundamentals" have never been great, but the simple fact is Tesla has hundreds of thousands of die-hard fans who have put up their own money in pre-orders and equity to keep the company going. No other car brand has this amount of loyalty and fandom, and that "fundamental" has been enough to get Tesla where they are now.

Tough times? Yes. But hoards of Muskivites will throw in cash to ensure this ship keeps sailing.

justacat• 8 years ago

Plus the deletion of the SpaceX and Tesla facebook pages, when told over Twitter they existed was pretty funny.

Wait, did Elon not know about them and then just got them deleted upon finding out?

projectramo3• 8 years ago

Yes!

edit: I should say "apparently!" since I wasn't there myself

solarkraft• 8 years ago

- as part of the whole "Delete Facebook" movement.

uniformlyrandom• 8 years ago

I think there is a high probability that some of his risk-taking initiatives backfire at some point in time, but I cannot deny that this guy is moving several industries forward at much faster pace than said industries would move on their own.

This observation is not going to affect my investment decisions though. I will not go as far as shorting TSLA ('the market can stay irrational longer than any investor can stay solvent'), but I would not buy TSLA either.

paulcole2• 8 years ago

You think the author of the biography would’ve been given “exclusive access to Musk, his family and friends” if the book didn’t portray him in a positive way?

It’s marketing and (among other things) Elon Musk is an excellent marketer.

planetjones2• 8 years ago

Did you read the biography? This point is specifically addressed by the author and the author also refused Musk the control he wanted e.g. in terms of a right of reply to all points in the book. Some of the book is very vivid in its portrayal of Musk’a flaws and others’ opinions of him.

dsugarman• 8 years ago

Valuation isn't everything, people compare Tesla to other car makers and say "hey, they are way smaller and getting valued higher, what a sham!", what people should be looking at is Enterprise Value. GM has 10x the debt as Tesla, and 2x the Enterprise Value. People are worried about Tesla burning billions of dollars, if they were to solve this problem with level of debt GM has, they would have another $85B to spend.

Tesla has done the hard things, they've made a great product, they've created a ton of demand and they found an entry point into a really tough market to enter. If the biggest worry right now is their need for cash to scale, I'm very bullish on their future.

cdibona• 8 years ago

GM/Toyota/NUUMI would produce four times vehicles in the same amount of time in that plant. (about 120 to 130k/quarter, depending on the nuumi production numbers you believe)

52-6F-62• 8 years ago

Maybe. Some of the production process is brilliant. At the same time, some of it is far less sophisticated than you might imagine from much publicized reports. And they have skeletons, alright.

benjaminl• 8 years ago

You could be comparing apples and grapefruits here.

It has been reported that Tesla makes a lot of thier own parts. So more of the total supply chain for manufacturing the car exists in that plant.

For example Tesla manufacturers thier own motor in the plant were the NUMMI plant would have had thier ICE motors pre-assembled.

joezydeco2• 8 years ago

I was next to Model X at a stoplight last night.

They look nice from a distance, but when you sit up close you can see where every panel and piece of trim just doesn't line up quite right. Sitting in my cheap little Mazda3, I've never noticed any problem with simple fit-and-finish details like that.

I truly hope the Model 3s catch up, but I really think those owners will be in for a world of headaches after delivery.

solaarphunk• 8 years ago

As much as I want Tesla to win, I messed around with the back-seat center cup-holders in a friend's model 3, and they seem to be constructed with extremely cheap plastic that is quite embarrassing.

nopriorarrests3• 8 years ago

It's not just owners. In fact, guarantee service can eat a lot of planned margin for TSLA.

Simply put, carmakers sell each car for X and they assume that on average each car will require Y dollars in a free service, and automaker will end up with Z of profits. If Y is severely underestimated, it may hurt the bottom line.

marrone12• 8 years ago

Yes, honestly every time I've seen one they look kind of cheap.

TeeWEE• 8 years ago

I also saw a model X, and the doors didnt line up correctly with the chassis. Maybe it was not closed properly? Maybe it was bad construction. I'm not sure.

Edit, added link: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-alignment-norma...

joezydeco2• 8 years ago

The rear doors are a 100% given, especially where the upper chrome trim meets the C pillar. It's like they just threw up their hands at that part of the manufacturing spinup.

But, the longer you look, the more mistakes you see.

davedx2• 8 years ago

That’s a photo from 2 years ago?

shiftpgdn• 8 years ago

I have a Model S expensive Ford Truck and the panels don't line up perfectly either. It's not JUST a Tesla problem.

buvanshak3• 8 years ago

Why is this posted on HN?

I know there are a lot of people here who are so into Tesla. But this does not fit the HN content guidelines in anyway...

danso6• 8 years ago

Which content guidelines are you talking about?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

buvanshak3• 8 years ago

Anything that good hackers would find interesting.

How is quarterly statement from a Car company interesting to "good hackers" or how is this gratifying intellectual curiosity in anyway? If you want to discuss the financial/production reports of the company you can go to the forums dedicated to it...

icegreentea2• 8 years ago

They built 9766 Model 3 in Q1 and were able to surge out 2000 in the last 7 days, and claim a doubling in their Model 3 production rate over Q1.

Something doesn't really add up there. Regardless of their spin their Q1 must have been hellish on the guys and gals on the floor and in production support.

I hope they can do a sustainable ramp soon so my friends can get their Model 3s.

I would REALLY love to see what their internal messaging on this is.

dragontamer2• 8 years ago

I can't find the actual memo. But Bloomberg wrote about a leaked memo.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg...

Tesla will suspend Model S and Model X production Thursday and Friday because it’s ahead of target on building those this quarter, Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production, wrote to employees in a March 21 email obtained by Bloomberg News. An unspecified “limited number” of workers who build those vehicles will have the option to work on the Model 3 line on those two days and Saturday, he said.

They moved workers from the Model S & X lines over to the Model 3. And an unspecified number of "volunteers" also got cracking to make the final spurt.

wiremine• 8 years ago

There's a number of questions on this thread about Telsa's production uptick being about "burning the late night oil" or automation. Does anyone have any reliable insight into this question?

And, regarding their automation, a few honest questions:

1. How much automation are we talking about, compared to the status quo?

2. How much of the automation is reusable across other models? Are they building up a repeatable model to increase scale at a lower cost?

Robotbeat11• 8 years ago

Both are important.

They haven't ramped up automation yet, so right now they're burning the midnight oil on both regular production (i.e. likely with a similar labor/automation mix as typical manufacturers) AND tuning automation. Trying to do both simultaneously on a compressed timescale is what makes this hard.

dragontamer2• 8 years ago

Tesla asked for volunteers to staff the assembly lines last week. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg...

I personally am bearish on this. If they worked so hard, but only made it to 2000 / week (their goal was 5000/week by December2017. They lowered it to 2500 this past week), then its all just marketing spin to make 2000/week look better, which is still missing their original targets.

Volunteer staff while cutting Model S / Model X production (and moving that staff over to the Model 3 lines) is not sustainable. They could do it for one week to pad out the numbers, but they need real growth to remain solvent over the next year.

Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks. That's roughly 650ish Model3 cars made per week, on the average (when looking at it across the quarter). This is actually less than the 793/week Model 3 they did at the end of Q4.

Bloomberg estimates that Tesla's overall production has grown to 1000/week or maybe a little bit above that, which might be closer to the "sustainable" size (ie: not counting the volunteer staff + spurt last week).

I'd be surprised if Tesla makes 30,000 Model 3s next quarter (which is still grossly below their target of 5000/week by Dec2017).

Tesla NEEDS 5000/week. 2000/week is still very low and unsustainable for this company.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2018-04-03/...

"Tesla continues to target a production rate of approximately 5,000 units per week in about three months, laying the groundwork for Q3 to have the long-sought ideal combination of high volume, good gross margin and strong positive operating cash flow," it said.
"As a result, Tesla does not require an equity or debt raise this year, apart from standard credit lines."

saas_co_de3• 8 years ago

Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks

Exactly. The 2000 number is complete B.S. They just held back nearly finished units and the "completed" them all in the last week so they could release a semi-decent number without technically lying, but they are nowhere close to target.

"Q1 deliveries totaled 29,980 vehicles, of which 11,730 were Model S, 10,070 were Model X, and 8,180 were Model 3"

"In Q4, Tesla delivered 29,870 vehicles, of which 15,200 were Model S, 13,120 were Model X, and 1,550 were Model 3." - http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1053245

Model S/X: -23% deliveries. That is a BIG problem. Falling demand for S/X and inability to sell at sticker price (where they still lose money) and replacing that with another model that they lose even more money on is not a great "growth" story.

badosu• 8 years ago

The quality of Model 3 coming out of production is at the highest level we have seen across all our products.

I am dumbfounded by this statement, weren't tons of images and videos of huge gaps between sections on Model 3s?

He does not even acknowledge it happened, so I cannot assume that it is meant to say that the issues were fixed.

Am I missing something? Otherwise that's incredibly misleading.

JepZ• 8 years ago

Well, I think many people don't want to understand that ambitious targets are most likely to be missed. So missing the target is actually what is going to happen and the real question is by how much.

So some might ask, why setting a goal that is unlikely to be reached and not simply set a realistic target?

Changing the automotive world isn't realistic. So if you would go with a realistic target you could have shutdown Tesla years ago. Nevertheless, there is an actual risk involved in setting the targets too high as burning people and investors can cause real problems.

Yet, I think it is best to judge Tesla by their actual performance and not so much by the fact that they missed their ambitious targets.

maxander• 8 years ago

I clicked on this article expecting a graph of an exponential curve, and they utterly failed to deliver. Who cares how many cars they’re making, if they can’t make a decent exponential curve? That is the #1 priority product of any California hype house! How are we supposed to believe they’ll amount to anything if they can’t show us a trend line that would consume all matter on the planet by 2045?

robotkdick• 8 years ago

The joke is an indication their position is stronger than perceived. That's his warped sense of humor, and something he's probably been longing to do (once the time was right). I predict this press will be the first of many positive releases from Tesla. While they flew very close to the sun, the wings have held, and they will be soaring from here.

Tesla Q1 2018 Vehicle Production and Deliveries

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