Official Tesla Model S thread

[cwerdna]

There is an interesting thread in the Tesla Forum (TF for short ;-) )

That's new one. I guess you're referring to http://www.teslamotors.com/forums" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

It irks me/throws me off sometimes to hear acronyms like TMC and people using TM at http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

To me, TM is Toyota Motor Corporation as that is its stock symbol. TMC is a TLA for Toyota Motor Corporation and has been well before Tesla existed (or jokingly, by the Prius' chief engineer: Toyota Meeting Company).

People at Tesla Motors Club ought to be saying TSLA, since that's their stock symbol...

 

[evnow]

There is an interesting thread in the Tesla Forum (TF for short ;-) )

That's new one. I guess you're referring to http://www.teslamotors.com/forums" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

It irks me/throws me off sometimes to hear acronyms like TMC and people using TM at http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I actually meant TMC.

 

[Zythryn]

...
People at Tesla Motors Club ought to be saying TSLA, since that's their stock symbol...

Tesla Motor Club predates the existence of the stock symbol by many years.
While I agree another choice would have been better, when read in context it is usually quite clear which is being spoken of.

 

[tbleakne]

Thank you for this very nice enumeration of Model-S maintenance and functional issues. For those items that cannot be fixed with software updates, it appears that my access to Tesla service would be important. I live 40 miles north of the Costa Mesa Service Center, and the week-day traffic is usually heavy. Devoting most of a day to service would be a real drag. Compare that to my Nissan dealership, which is 12 miles away. Their service department is not really on top of things, but I have only had to visit them 2 or 3 times in 20 months, including the mandatory 1-yr battery check.

It's just crazy that Tesla has released the car without functional charge timers.

Agreed, from what I have been told that is a very high priority and should be updated soon.

severe vampire load when the car is "off" so that one loses 5-15 mi range daily if not used,

Yep, that definitely needed fixing and has been fixed by an update. Used to drain about 21/2%, now it drains less than 1%, also keep in mind, 8 miles is a bigger deal when your range is 73 miles than when it is 265.

For any other error, I call Tesla and they let me know what the error means, if it isn't obvious, and can run the logs to see what needs to be done.

I really hope that Tesla gets their act together because otherwise, it's an awesome car.

Many of the issues you bring up have been fixed, and many more will be. Yes, they are a young company and are making a huge jump into higher production levels. As an owner, I am very happy with how quickly they have addressed issues, how well they have taken care of me as an individual, and frankly, how minor the issues have been.

Q about vampire load: 1% per day would be .8 kWh, or about 3 miles, which is modest. However, might this increase substantially when my garage reaches 85-95 F during the summer afternoons ? Any estimate as to kWh expenditure for that ?
I have an annual solar surplus with the Edison Time-of-Use rate that is wasted now. This surplus might handle the 50% higher kWh/mile of the Model-S vs my Leaf, but vampire load on top of this might push me into a positive bill.

 

[Train]

I'm telling you folks, the number of reservations and early delivery dates don't add up. I realize 85 batteries first, then 60, some delays for red paint and such. I also realize they may be producing 400 cars a week. But late Dec reservationists are being told their car will be ready in Feb.

I believe a substantial amount of people have got their $5000 back and did not go through with their order.

I'm not sure if Tesla is going to sell 20,000 cars the U.S. this year. In fact, I'd be surprised if they sell 15,000.

 

[TomT]

Yep, a coworker here ordered a Performance Model with everything in November and was told yesterday to expect a late Feb/early Mar delivery...

I'm telling you folks, the number of reservations and early delivery dates don't add up. I realize 85 batteries first, then 60, some delays for red paint and such. I also realize they may be producing 400 cars a week. But late Dec reservationists are being told their car will be ready in Feb.

 

[evnow]

I'm telling you folks, the number of reservations and early delivery dates don't add up. I realize 85 batteries first, then 60, some delays for red paint and such. I also realize they may be producing 400 cars a week. But late Dec reservationists are being told their car will be ready in Feb.

Yes - thats what I meant by low conversion rate (as reported by insideevs). Just because there is a $5k reservation fee(refundable) some are assuming those are all firm orders. Hardly.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

an interesting read about Tesla's success with the batteries...

http://www.torquenews.com/1079/why-tesla-motors-electric-vehicles-are-so-great

 

[mitch672]

I'm telling you folks, the number of reservations and early delivery dates don't add up. I realize 85 batteries first, then 60, some delays for red paint and such. I also realize they may be producing 400 cars a week. But late Dec reservationists are being told their car will be ready in Feb.

Yes - thats what I meant by low conversion rate (as reported by insideevs). Just because there is a $5k reservation fee(refundable) some are assuming those are all firm orders. Hardly.

There's several options and models they have not started production on, if you have any of those options, your car is delayed.

They just started manufacturing on the 60KW version, anyone with a 40 or 60 KW model, could not have been manufactured and was passed over for cars ordered with the 85KW packs.

If you picked Sunset Red, back of the line.
If you chose "standard" suspension, instead of the optional air suspension, back of the line.

Given all of this, it doesn't surprise me at all that many have "jumped the line". Don't read too much into any of this, the cancellation rate is remarkably low, and will be getting even lower as the time from placing your deposit, to being asked to "finalize" your order, to delivery of your car keeps shrinking.

Listen to the conference call on February 11th, you will hear how many cars where delivered in the 4th quarter of 2012, and what the production rate is currently (estimates run from 400-450 week now, bringing them similar to GM's Volt line)

BTW, I'm still very happy with mine, it continues to amaze me, FYI, mine was manufactured in December of 2012, but not delivered until 1/17/2013. It's currently installing a software update.

 

[evnow]

Don't read too much into any of this, the cancellation rate is remarkably low, and will be getting even lower as the time from placing your deposit, to being asked to "finalize" your order, to delivery of your car keeps shrinking.

How do you "know" this ? You stated this as fact earlier too (IIRC) and I asked the same question.

Converion rate low = High cancellation rate.

I hope someone asks this question to Musk in the quarterly call and he answers, so we have something official.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The first 60kW car was driven from the factory to SoCal:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/11754-First-60kWH-delivery-notice-or-email-who-will-it-be/page43?p=259860&viewfull=1#post259860" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[mitch672]

As long as the reservation rate is greater than they can produce them, the cancellation rate doesn't really matter, does it?

Remember, Europe is comming online now as well, they have the "Get Amped Tour" over in the more affluent countries, so overseas shipments will soon begin to Japan and Europe, combined with the 18,000 or so U.S. reservations, Tesla has nothing to worry about.

There are 2 questions that matter (cancellation rate does not), they are:

what is the current production rate and what is the profit margin per car, is it at the claimed %25 margin, if not, when will it be? When will Tesla be profitable?

These are the questions that investors want answered. There is still a large market for the car, and the more that are seen, the more interest there is in the car... when your time to order/delivery is 2-3 months, the cancellation rate will be very small. You can't really determine anything from someone waiting 2-3 years for a car, many other factors come into play, they couldn't wait and had to by something else, they lost their job, life moved on etc.

 

[evnow]

As long as the reservation rate is greater than they can produce them, the cancellation rate doesn't really matter, does it?

Yes, it does. What you want is "order" rate be >= production rate. Not reservation rate. order rate = reservation rate * (1- cancellation rate).

 

[mitch672]

As long as the reservation rate is greater than they can produce them, the cancellation rate doesn't really matter, does it?

Yes, it does. What you want is "order" rate be >= production rate. Not reservation rate. order rate = reservation rate * (1- cancellation rate).

A few words: $9/gallon gasoline in Europe. How do you think a luxury EV with a 250 mile range will sell their? Many of the governments in those countries also have heavy taxes on gasoline powered cars, and many incentives for EVs. If all U.S. sales stopped tomorrow, Tesla will still be wildly successful, just with international sales to the rest of the world. Tesla only has to be concerned with eventually setting up an assembly line/factory in the EU, to cut down on shipping time and to be able to produce enough for those markets.. They'll probably wait for BlueStar to do that though.

 

[cwerdna]

A few words: $9/gallon gasoline in Europe. How do you think a luxury EV with a 250 mile range will sell their? Many of the governments in those countries also have heavy taxes on gasoline powered cars, and many incentives for EVs. If all U.S. sales stopped tomorrow, Tesla will still be wildly successful, just with international sales to the rest of the world. Tesla only has to be concerned with eventually setting up an assembly line/factory in the EU, to cut down on shipping time and to be able to produce enough for those markets.. They'll probably wait for BlueStar to do that though.

Thing is, throughout much of Europe (except say Norway), it doesn't seem like BEVs have really taken off there either.

Also, some countries in the EU aren't doing so hot w/their high unemployment, true recessions (actual contractions) and debt crisis. The ones that were/are at the forefront of the debt crisis include Greece, Spain, Italy and earlier Portugal. Per http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/08/eurozone-crisis-unemployment-rate-merkel-samaras" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20943292" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, Eurozone is at a record high 11.8% unemployment. Per that article, Spain is at 26.6%. Greece at 26.8%: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greek-unemployment-hits-high-123622927--finance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I posted a link to http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7404666n" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; about the situation in Europe (aired in April 2012) at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11021&p=255152&hilit=europe#p255152" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

 

[mitch672]

Germany, Sweden/Norway, Japan all doing fine, many affluent people. No worries.

 

[cwerdna]

Germany, Sweden/Norway, Japan all doing fine, many affluent people. No worries.

I can't speak to Sweden and Norway, but OTOH, Germany and France are the two best off in the Eurozone right now. Japan's suffering from slow growth and has been for a long time.

My first visit to Japan was in 01 and I recall the were still in or had just started recovering from a 10 year recession. Honestly, things felt ok there and I asked some locals what they thought about that. They basically said "you get used to it".

 

[WetEV]

I'm not sure if Tesla is going to sell 20,000 cars the U.S. this year. In fact, I'd be surprised if they sell 15,000.

I'll bet you a coffee that Tesla sells more than 15,000 cars this year.

 

[jkirkebo]

I'm not sure if Tesla is going to sell 20,000 cars the U.S. this year. In fact, I'd be surprised if they sell 15,000.

I'd be surprised if they sell more than 20,000 in the US too. That would mean that they either got production rate way up or delivered next no to cars to Europe. Hopefully Europe will get at least 3-4000 cars this year, maybe even 5000. I think Norway alone will absorb around 1500-2000 cars easy this year.

 

[mitch672]

As I said, no worries about cancellations: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/780081" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;