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RegGuheert said:
jlv said:
Truly terrible that they outsold ever other plug-in in the US.
OTOH, worldwide it appears the 2018 Nissan LEAF may have outsold ALL 3 Tesla models added together during its first month of sales in the US and Europe. If not, it should be close.
Not surprised at that; had Tesla scaled up the production rate to anywhere near what they projected the first, second, or sixth times, that wouldn't have happened. If Tesla does scale up the rate, they'll likely outsell the LEAF. The sales numbers in the middle and end of year will be very interesting.
 
jlv said:
Not surprised at that; had Tesla scaled up the production rate to anywhere near what they projected the first, second, or sixth times, that wouldn't have happened. If Tesla does scale up the rate, they'll likely outsell the LEAF.
Agreed. I guess I am kinda wondering if Model S and Model X sales are being cannibalized by Model 3 sales, even while these difficulties with the ramp-up are ongoing.
jlv said:
The sales numbers in the middle and end of year will be very interesting.
Agreed. The contrast between Nissan's nearly-instant ramp of the LEAF 2 (not without product problems, mind you) and Tesla's glacial ramp of the Model 3 are quite stark. I am wondering when the crossover (worldwide) will occur. As you know, some here would say, "Never!"
 
RegGuheert said:
I guess I am kinda wondering if Model S and Model X sales are being cannibalized by Model 3 sales, even while these difficulties with the ramp-up are ongoing.

You think! Since many view the M3 as just a less expensive MS with basically the key desired features of the MS and for just $35K. Wonder who predicted that last year? Hum? Been re-reading my posts from last year?
 
jlv said:
edatoakrun said:
2,485 total model 3 sales in February as reported:
Truly terrible that they outsold every other plug-in in the US.

Yes, "Truly terrible" for Tesla's bottom line as a result of the M3 selling 2X the number of MS vehicles at less gross profit per vehicle.
Leave it to Elon having been dreaming about his "Mars Trip" in his Strategic Marketing class as an undergrad at Wharton and not taking notes.
 
An interesting historical perspective on the current state of Tesla: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/03/tesla-pattern-emerged-mean-model-3/
In one year, will we still have people claiming Tesla can’t mass produce the Model S … er, the Model X … er, the Model 3? I doubt it. Most likely, we’ll have people claiming Tesla can’t mass produce the Tesla Model Y or Tesla Pickup or Tesla Semi. Perhaps I will then revisit this post and take a stroll down memory lane again.
 
jlv said:
An interesting historical perspective on the current state of Tesla: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/03/tesla-pattern-emerged-mean-model-3/
In one year, will we still have people claiming Tesla can’t mass produce the Model S … er, the Model X … er, the Model 3? I doubt it. Most likely, we’ll have people claiming Tesla can’t mass produce the Tesla Model Y or Tesla Pickup or Tesla Semi. Perhaps I will then revisit this post and take a stroll down memory lane again.

And then we come back to reality:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4153066-will-tesla-pre-announce-42-percent-q1-sales-miss?auth_param=1adagi:1d9oiod:a7df313906b9e0f8f53b678209d4200d&uprof=44&dr=1#alt1

We now have sales numbers for January and February for Tesla’s biggest countries, including the US and Europe.
For some, we have only January as of yet, but they are remarkably consistent with the ones from whom we also have February numbers.
Adding it all up, it’s looking like a 42% shortfall for Tesla.
Adding up all geographies, it looks like Tesla sold an estimated 11,548 cars in January and February combined.  Can Tesla deliver a similar number - 11,548 - in March alone?
If so, the quarter would end at 23,096 units - a 42% shortfall from a 40,000 unit consensus (25,000 Model S and X combined, plus 15,000 Model 3).

And most importantly:
With 1,875 Model 3 units in January and 2,485 in February, the Model 3 already is looking like an epic miss of Olympian proportions. At 2,500 per month, that would be a measly 30,000 a year, or more than a 90% shortfall from the 400,000 per year guidance. Adding insult to injury, Tesla admitted in its February 7 financial report that the Model 3 has negative gross margin even at a selling price that's currently starting at $50,000. One certainly understands the company's reluctance to start selling the $36,000 version.

Remember, the strategy/goal with the M3 was that Tesla would finally become a profitable entity long term! Without long term profitability
in sight, the ability of Tesla to access funding will soon end.
 
The interesting thing about the pro and anti-tesla arguments is that most of them are very good, at the very same time. It's extremely difficult to predict where they will go.

The naysayers keep getting it wrong in a lot of ways. Tesla is stronger than ever with products people love and are lusting after for them to produce as many as possible. EV is the future and they are its vanguard, poised to obliterate the competition.

At the same time they are burning cash like that's the main business, their production estimates month after month and quarter after quarter are complete garbage, and in the next few years the giants will turn their guns on the EV market and flood it with competition, created on matured product lines, leveraging experience in manufacturing that Tesla can only dream of.

My personal view continues to be I'm frustrated at how slowly they are ramping this up, and their Q1 estimate of 2500/week is obviously, yet again, not going to happen. The dream of 5000 cars/week consistently by end of Q2 is so obviously fake that anybody who still believes it should be medicated.
 
TSLA market cap stands where it did about 9 months ago, about 56B today, following some spectacular runs.

It should be interesting to watch the ticker over the next ~6 months to see how the Model 3 rollout progresses and how investors value the company then.

To this point the naysayers appear to have mostly called it wrong. But like Apple and other juggernauts before, insane market performance eventually cools off. Some companies remain leaders and giants in their sector while others ultimately wither and some die away.
 
Hadn't realized this until someone posted this on "TMC".

Tesla’s Chief Accounting Officer leaves the automaker (posted March 8, 2018, not to be confused with a CFO)
https://electrek.co/2018/03/08/tesla-tsla-chief-accounting-officer-leaves/

Tesla loses one of its most senior engineers and director of manufacturing
https://electrek.co/2018/01/17/tesla-senior-enginee-director-manufacturing/
Jalopnik reported that both Jason Mendez, senior director for manufacturing engineering, and Will McColl, senior manager for equipment engineering, both left the automaker in recent weeks.

Mendez has been with Tesla since 2005 – making him one of its most senior engineers.
 
iPlug said:
TSLA market cap stands where it did about 9 months ago, about 56B today

As has been said before, the typical TSLA investor is irrational and indifferent to Tesla's financial position. Neither classical fundamental nor
technical analysis, typical for most stocks, applies to TSLA.

iPlug said:
It should be interesting to watch the ticker over the next ~6 months to see how the Model 3 rollout progresses and how investors value the company then.

Not really! Given the irrational behavior of the typical TSLA investor, it won't be until mid 2019 for the market to realize that the M3
isn't the financial savior Tesla needed.

iPlug said:
To this point the naysayers appear to have mostly called it wrong.

Again, not really. As you stated in the first quote, TSLA is basically unchanged for the last 9 months, the M3 deliveries have missed
even the revised guidance a number of times, and Tesla losses continue to increase each quarter. Most naysayers predicted that the
M3 wouldn't be delivered to reservation holders for a price less than $50K, if ever. For 2018 deliveries, this has even been confirmed
by Tesla.
 
lorenfb said:
Given the irrational behavior of the typical TSLA investor, it won't be until mid 2019 for the market to realize that the M3
isn't the financial savior Tesla needed...Most naysayers predicted that the M3 wouldn't be delivered to reservation holders for a price less than $50K, if ever. For 2018 deliveries, this has even been confirmed by Tesla.
Agree with skepticism on Tesla to deliver a significant quantity (to meet demand or qualify for the full federal tax credit) of the $35k-36k version for a long time beyond fan predictions. I had also maintained this stance from the beginning.

But it’s hard to deny how well they have done to this point. I am not so confident in the market to correct the TSLA stock as described. You may be right. But if I were that certain, I would be shorting the stock.
 
iPlug said:
But it’s hard to deny how well they have done to this point.
From my spreadsheet we've I've been tracking their profits and losses, they've racked up a net loss of of about $4.5 billion since they started reporting publicly (I've almost always been choosing the "net loss attributable to common shareholders" from their SEC filings).

And they have also racked up over $10 billion in debt. From http://ir.tesla.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1564590-18-2956&CIK=1318605
As of December 31, 2017, we and our subsidiaries had outstanding $10.17 billion in aggregate principal amount of indebtedness (see Note 13, Convertible and Long-Term Debt Obligations, to the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K).
They only recently passed producing 300K vehicles since inception: https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehicle/.

The large automakers (e.g. GM, VW Group, Toyota and Nissan-Renault alliance) sell and produce do about 10 million EACH. They each produce what TSLA has done since inception in under 34 days.

See my comment at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=463875#p463875, as well.
 
cwerdna said:
iPlug said:
But it’s hard to deny how well they have done to this point.
From my spreadsheet we've I've been tracking their profits and losses, they've racked up a net loss of of about $4.5 billion since they started reporting publicly (I've almost always been choosing the "net loss attributable to common shareholders" from their SEC filings).
My comment was a continuation from my prior post. To be clear, I was referring to the run up in stock price that shareholders had enjoyed as much as Tesla navigating an interesting balance sheet and keeping investors interested and optimistic.

Truly, their massive borrowing and debt issues are unprecedented when looking at stock price and valuation. But there still remains a line of faithful willing to buy debt and stock. That must be read that investors believe future, real, and sufficiently large profits still await, even though Musk has never delivered anything on time and scale.

Since the distant future is murkier than now or the near future, TSLA is still a gamble much more than a value stock. But it's 2018 and they're still here and more intriguing products are dangled for the pipeline.

I have no skin ($) in the game either way because I feel neither confident that they will fail or continue on their run. These are uncharted waters.
 
cwerdna said:
From my spreadsheet we've I've been tracking their profits and losses, they've racked up a net loss of of about $4.5 billion since they started reporting publicly (I've almost always been choosing the "net loss attributable to common shareholders" from their SEC filings).

And they have also racked up over $10 billion in debt. From http://ir.tesla.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1564590-18-2956&CIK=1318605
...

They only recently passed producing 300K vehicles since inception: https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehicle/.

The large automakers (e.g. GM, VW Group, Toyota and Nissan-Renault alliance) sell and produce do about 10 million EACH. They each produce what TSLA has done since inception in under 34 days.

I can't say whether Tesla will ultimately thrive, but I'd suggest that their debt and their size vs the majors are consistent, not contradictory facts. Going from startup to major auto-maker is a totally different proposition today than it was in the early 1900's when the majors grew to their might in an organic fashion. Today a new maker must either remain a niche player, or grow with extreme aggressiveness. And to do it as an EV maker has its own challenges. Doubling the world's production of batteries isn't an inexpensive proposition.
 
X-post from Tesla Supercharger network, via IEVS:
Tesla Quietly Jacks Up Supercharging Rates In U.S.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-quietly-raises-u-s-supercharging-rates/

This does call into even further question how Tesla can provide electricity at Megachargers for $0.07/kWh. It's been suggested that the purpose of this move is to get the people who should be charging at home off the SCs, and that may be valid, but you'd think Tesla would announce it publicly if that was the rationale, much as they did earlier to try and prevent commercial users from hogging SCs.
 
GRA said:
X-post from Tesla Supercharger network, via IEVS:
Tesla Quietly Jacks Up Supercharging Rates In U.S.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-quietly-raises-u-s-supercharging-rates/

This does call into even further question how Tesla can provide electricity at Megachargers for $0.07/kWh. It's been suggested that the purpose of this move is to get the people who should be charging at home off the SCs, and that may be valid, but you'd think Tesla would announce it publicly if that was the rationale, much as they did earlier to try and prevent commercial users from hogging SCs.

Musk has commented on it SEVERAL times but apparently no one cared.

Bu there is still the legion of Teslas out there with lifetime privileges. I guess we have to see how long it takes for those few screw it up for the rest...
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
[...Bu there is still the legion of Teslas out there with lifetime privileges. I guess we have to see how long it takes for those few screw it up for the rest...
Those of us with "free" Supercharging — paid for in the price of our cars — will become an increasingly small proportion of the total users. Given the low number of Model 3s at present that isn't currently the case, but in a couple of years it ought to change in a big way as the fleet of Model 3s and Ys greatly outnumbers the S and X. Assuming that Tesla doesn't collapse, as some here so fervently hope.

I'm wondering whether "free" Supercharging will go away for new S and X sales or whether it will stay as a way to distinguish the higher end models from the less costly ones.
 
GRA said:
This does call into even further question how Tesla can provide electricity at Megachargers for $0.07/kWh.
How does it do that? Why would you think retail rates of over $0.20/kWh at a Supercharger network which is distributed to meet the disparate needs of a wide variety of consumers implies that Tesla cannot manage a $0.07/kWh wholesale rate for a customer where they can optimize location and utilization in order to minimize overhead costs. Postalized rates allow Tesla to balance their costs between various locations, but they will need to use a combination of PV production and buying power to achieve rates which average to be low across the country.

Additionally, I expect many Tesla Semi customers will want to have Superchargers at their own facilities, as has been discussed previously in this thread. In those cases, Tesla will likely be selling the equipment and service contracts to the trucking customers, so they will NOT have to amortize those capital and maintenance costs in the price of the electricity.
 
Musk sees self-driving cars being able to handle all modes of driving by the end of 2019 and sees Tesla's autopilot safer than human drivers within two years.

Thank God! I’ll live to see no more auto accidents by the end of 2019. What would this world be without Elon?

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3338446-tesla-rallies-musk-sxsw-appearance?uprof=44&dr=1#email_link
 
cwerdna said:
Hadn't realized this until someone posted this on "TMC".

Tesla’s Chief Accounting Officer leaves the automaker (posted March 8, 2018, not to be confused with a CFO)
https://electrek.co/2018/03/08/tesla-tsla-chief-accounting-officer-leaves/

Tesla loses one of its most senior engineers and director of manufacturing
https://electrek.co/2018/01/17/tesla-senior-enginee-director-manufacturing/
Jalopnik reported that both Jason Mendez, senior director for manufacturing engineering, and Will McColl, senior manager for equipment engineering, both left the automaker in recent weeks.

Mendez has been with Tesla since 2005 – making him one of its most senior engineers.
Along these lines, https://www.autoblog.com/2018/03/14/tesla-loses-2-senior-executives-model-3/ and others report that
Bloomberg reports that Susan Repo, Tesla's corporate treasurer and vice president of finance, has left the company to become chief financial officer at another company. Her departure comes on the heels of the exit of Chief Accounting Officer Eric Branderiz, who left "for personal reasons," Tesla said in a March 7 SEC filing.
 
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