RegGuheert said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
Here ya go. Best breakdown of potential costs and effect on profitability of the LeMR I've seen: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/3134655/
TL;DR: the new MR model is an attempt to maximize the number of cars they can deliver despite being constrained by current cell production capacity, while maintaining gross profit margin.
It seems to me that about the worst thing that could happen to Tesla right now is that they run out of customers for every Model 3 that they can produce. Lowering the minimum price point certainly is a move in the right direction to ensure that potential customers continue to turn into actual customers at a high rate.
I don't think that would be the worst thing to happen to Tesla, but I know that's what the shorts want people to believe.
From an objective view, lowering the price point would indeed bring in more customers. But you can't jump to the conclusion on that data point alone.
Keep in mind that simultaneous to that introduction, the LR effectively got a price increase, as it's now AWD only. And the order split leans towards AWD ( https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/3133060/ ), so people aren't mostly buying the cheapest model 3 yet.
Panasonic owned up to being the gating factor: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/09/panasonic-completing-3-new-cell-production-lines-at-teslas-gigafactory/:
" "In the interview, Panasonic automotive executive Yoshio Ito told Bloomberg that "the bottleneck for Model 3 production has been our batteries." Ito added, "they just want us to make as many as possible." "
Those 3 cell lines aren't scheduled to come online until the end of the year.
So if Fremont can build more cars than battery cells can be made? Why not reduce the cells per car (estimating at 20% less), so that more cars can be sold, bringing in even more revenue for Q4?
The running TMC joke is that LEMR = Limited Edition Medium Range, because as soon as those cell lines get up to speed, the MR will be pulled.