palmermd
Well-known member
I thought this was a nice analysis of the situation as was discussed in a thread at TMC. Both are clearly answers based on very little information. Info from the quarterly report in Feb is going to be very interesting. Somebody has heard something good as the stock has shot up in the last few days.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13033-Concerned-about-weak-demand?p=259918#post259918" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
pbrulott said:Understand the concern. I am also puzzled about the dates we are seeing for people finalizing in the 15K. I am P179 and just signed my paperwork last week and was told March/April. In front of me is:
100 Founders and others + 1200 Sig + 12,000 P US + 178 P Can = Total of 13,500 - 3000 already delivered in 2012 that is 10,500 before me.
@ 400 a week and 13 weeks to go (middle of the Marh/April range) = 5200 delivered
That is half of the 10,500
What happened with the remaining 5,300 = delayed, standard suspension, mc red, 40 kWh, no that can't be
Most of the rest would be cancels, could be as high as 4000 out of the 13,500, suspect closer to 2000 (15%) since my math might be wrong
CapitalistOppressor said:Why not? You just assert that 4,000 cars are cancellations, which means you actually think that fewer than 10% of Model S customers want a 40kWh battery, standard suspension or a red car? It might surprise you, but red tends to be a rather popular color (5th most popular overall).
If I was conservatively estimating demand, I'd guess that 6-8% of customers would want the 40kWh battery
(TMC user poll was 6%), and 15% of the remaining customers would want the standard suspension. According to Forbes 10% of North American cars sold are red (5. Red - Top 10 Most Popular Car Colors - Forbes).
Under those assumptions that would leave us with ~3,200 customers of your remaining 10.5k who want options not yet manufactured. That leaves 2,100 which are potential cancellations, which is ~16% of your 13,500 cars. Tesla has reported a 5-10% cancellation rate, so that's not a massive increase. But we have reports from Zextraterrestrial (and others) that production right now is actually closer to 480 cars per week. During the last conference call Elon stated that production would be HIGHER than 400 cars per week by the end of 2012 in order to start trimming the wait list and meet demand, and we have info which indicates that Tesla has reached that goal.
The extra 80 cars per week delivers ~1000 cars in your 13 weeks, which pushes potential cancellations down to ~1,100 which is ~8%, or right in the range that Tesla has reported. Again, there is no reason to believe that we have an exceptionally high number of cancellations. There might be, but there is no evidence, and it's very much at odds with the real data we have on increasing demand.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13033-Concerned-about-weak-demand?p=259918#post259918" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;