Official Tesla Model 3 thread

edatoakrun said:

jlv said:

edatoakrun said:

Any day now it will be just as easy to buy a $35k model 3, as it is today to buy yourself a new model S for "around $50,000"...

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Tesla sold S40s (software-limited S60s) at that price to those who placed deposits at that price.

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And then cancelled that option, and has subsequently raised the base price several times, to the point where the minimum price of one of these dinosaurs today is $74,500.

Do you expect that the starting price of a model 3 will be ~$50,000, in 2025, when it is also an obsolete ~seven-year-old design?

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Dinosaurs- People seem to be lining up for them.

EVDRIVER said:

edatoakrun said:

jlv said:

Tesla sold S40s (software-limited S60s) at that price to those who placed deposits at that price.

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And then cancelled that option, and has subsequently raised the base price several times, to the point where the minimum price of one of these dinosaurs today is $74,500.

Do you expect that the starting price of a model 3 will be ~$50,000, in 2025, when it is also an obsolete ~seven-year-old design?

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Dinosaurs- People seem to be lining up for them.

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...in your imagination.

Model S sales peaked in Q 4 2015:

Here’s a chart of Tesla’s quarterly deliveries since the launch of the Model S in 2012:

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https://electrek.co/2018/04/03/tesla-record-production-model-3-vehicles-q1-2018/

But I expect the S and X will appear really old to buyers, once they can test drive more advanced large BEVs from multiple competitors, due to be on the market within the year.

And, back on topic, after Musk's recent announcements that TSLA will need to limit current capital spending to save some of the cash lost due to model 3 production failures, it seems like there might still be a long wait for a more competitive model S or X successor.

edatoakrun said:

Model S sales peaked in 2015:

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Hmmmm....so what happened in 2016 to cause this? Oh yeah, the Model X came onto the market which displaced some of the Model S demand from people that wanted a Tesla in an SUV form factor and previously had no other option! Tesla still got those sales Ed! And, between Model S & X, it ended up filling up the factory to capacity for those models.

lpickup said:

edatoakrun said:

Model S sales peaked in 2015:

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Hmmmm....so what happened in 2016 to cause this? Oh yeah, the Model X came onto the market which displaced some of the Model S demand from people that wanted a Tesla in an SUV form factor and previously had no other option! Tesla still got those sales Ed! And, between Model S & X, it ended up filling up the factory to capacity for those models.

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You are wasting your time. Ed the Tesla troll just keeps on spewing BS

Ignore trolls.

Ed- you may want to see how many people have model 3 reservations. It’s not an illusion or dream. You are more than delusional and clearly bitter you can’t get the 3 in the timeline you want. You and others are just pissed you won’t get the car so now you need it to fail to make you feel better. Good luck.

Another production shutdown?

LTLFTcomposite said:

Another production shutdown?

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Same one they already spoke about in the last earnings call. We just have a specific date now.

Tesla 1Q18 Earnings Report said:

During Q2, we expect to shut down production for about 10 days, which includes the shutdown we took in April, to address bottlenecks
across the lines and increase production to new levels.

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The April shutdown is believed to have been April 16-19 IIRC, and this one (May 26-31) combines to make up the planned 10 day pause during 2Q.

While they will clearly use the time for maintenance/upgrades/repairs/whatever, I personally think they are also making a play to delay delivering vehicle #200K in the US until July 1, so the pause is almost inconsequential as 2Q sales are going to take a hit anyway. Of course I hope they still run full steam ahead and prime the delivery pipeline to deliver as many vehicles as possible in the first 2 weeks of July by having a nice stockpile of vehicles at each delivery center. If this pause allows another incremental increase in production, even better.

lpickup said:

The April shutdown is believed to have been April 16-19 IIRC, and this one (May 26-31) combines to make up the planned 10 day pause during 2Q.

While they will clearly use the time for maintenance/upgrades/repairs/whatever, I personally think they are also making a play to delay delivering vehicle #200K in the US until July 1, so the pause is almost inconsequential as 2Q sales are going to take a hit anyway. Of course I hope they still run full steam ahead and prime the delivery pipeline to deliver as many vehicles as possible in the first 2 weeks of July by having a nice stockpile of vehicles at each delivery center. If this pause allows another incremental increase in production, even better.

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They've begun delivering Model 3s to Canada, so no need to hold back production to stay under 200k for Q2 - they can control that through deliveries.

GRA said:

They've begun delivering Model 3s to Canada, so no need to hold back production to stay under 200k for Q2 - they can control that through deliveries.

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I think the question is whether there is enough demand in Canada for RWD vehicles to give them a big enough relief valve to Canada. It appears the deferral rate for AWD is pretty high in Canada (understandably so).

lpickup said:

GRA said:

They've begun delivering Model 3s to Canada, so no need to hold back production to stay under 200k for Q2 - they can control that through deliveries.

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I think the question is whether there is enough demand in Canada for RWD vehicles to give them a big enough relief valve to Canada. It appears the deferral rate for AWD is pretty high in Canada (understandably so).

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I agree. I think that Tesla will have to stockpile some Model 3s for delivery in July to avoid hitting 200k USA deliveries in June. Canadian orders help, but the total figures to be fairly low for RWD.

Several Canadian orders have been assigned VINs in the 29,000 and 30,000 ranges, so production continues to ramp up quickly. So far as we can tell, VINs are assigned after cars are built and while they are in transit. Transit will take awhile for cars going to Ontario, for example (possible provincial tax changes there, depending on election results, from what I've read).

Washington state deliveries have been speeded up recently, before state tax changes there, according to some WA reservation holders.

Seeking Apha is stocking thousands to drive the stock down.

Electrek: Tesla is currently holding a hackathon to try to address the two biggest automation bottlenecks to try to recover the areas where automation has been lost:

Electrek said:

In an attempt to bring back some of that automation, Musk said today that a hackathon is currently underway with the goal to “fix the 2 worst robot production chokepoints.”

Fair criticism, but we’re fixing it fast. Hackathon going on right now to fix 2 worst robot production chokepoints. Looks promising.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2018

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A hackathon is a sprint event where programmers are invited to compete in fixing a problem or creating a product in a short period of time with prize money for the highest performing participants.

The news of Tesla’s holding a hackathon is especially interesting in the context that Musk has been claiming for a while that manufacturing is mostly a software problem right now.

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lpickup said:

GRA said:

They've begun delivering Model 3s to Canada, so no need to hold back production to stay under 200k for Q2 - they can control that through deliveries.

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I think the question is whether there is enough demand in Canada for RWD vehicles to give them a big enough relief valve to Canada. It appears the deferral rate for AWD is pretty high in Canada (understandably so).

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With AWD available to order this week, that doesn't appear to be a major problem (depending on the lead time).

lorenfb said:

WetEV said:

lorenfb said:

But some claim that Tesla is now even profitable selling the M3 at $35K.

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Not enough public information to support that claim. Especially as T esla isn't selling the Model 3 SR yet.

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Agreed, naivete on the part of some. But based on past Tesla GAAP financial reports over 5+ years one can conclude:

1. During the production & sales of the MS and during the product development of the MX, Tesla was not profitable.
2. During the production & sales of the MS & MX and during the product development of the M3, Tesla was not profitable.
3. During the production & sales of the MS & MX & M3 to ending YTD Q1 2018, Tesla has not been profitable.

Given the above historical record, one would most likely question the likelihood of Tesla's future profitability even if Tesla
only delivered M3s at ASPs greater than $50K. Furthermore, as the M3 cannibalizes MS sales, a GAAP profitable Tesla
will become even less likely. But then again, to some, Tesla doesn't ever need to be profitable, i.e. it's all about growth
as many shareholders seem to believe, right?

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https://goo.gl/images/iXoabM

GRA said:

With AWD available to order this week, that doesn't appear to be a major problem (depending on the lead time).

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AWD's ordered "late" this week (that's Elon time, so I predict it goes at least into next week) delivered to Canada will not be delivered prior to July 1 anyway. Not to mention Elon said that they weren't going to actual deliver (and probably build) AWDs until after July 1.

In fact I would go so far as to say ANY car ordered after this week will not be delivered until after July 1. Thanks to huge back-to-back invite batches on 4/13 and 4/18 they are still working through a backlog of orders. I ordered mine on 4/21 and have yet to receive a VIN assignment (an indication that the car has completed or is nearing completion and will be shipped soon). We are definitely looking at a 6-8 week backlog at this point (Bay Area and SoCal customers may have slightly better delivery times if they choose to deliver there). Add in the planned factory shutdown 5/26-31, and whatever actions they may or may not have taken to avoid crossing #200K are probably in the past. They could go ahead and start taking orders next week without any fear of impacting whether or not they hit 200K in June or not.

edatoakrun said:

EVDRIVER said:

Dinosaurs- People seem to be lining up for them.

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...in your imagination.

Model S sales peaked in Q 4 2015:
...
But I expect the S and X will appear really old to buyers, once they can test drive more advanced large BEVs from multiple competitors, due to be on the market within the year.

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US LEAF sales peaked in Aug 2014, where in that one month they sold almost as many as they've sold in the first 4 months of this year of the new "redesigned" 2018: https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ . Are the LEAFs dinosaurs, too?


FWIW, I drove my nice blue dinosaur 200 miles from NYC back to MA the other day. I stopped for a bathroom break at the Greenwich SC, one of the older sites (opened in 2014) with just 4 stalls in each direction (8 total). I was surprised to see a pair of CHAdeMO chargers just across the parking lot, but looking close I found that both had "OUT OF ORDER" signs screwed onto them. And the signs looked like they'd been there a while.

People are going to balk when they find they can't reliably take their competitor "more advanced large BEV" on a real trip, because they can't depend upon the DCFC infrastructure to be either reliable or fairly priced.


(edited to add "US" in front of "LEAF sales peaked")

jlv said:

LEAF sales peaked in Aug 2014, ...

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Nissan LEAF sales peaked in March 2018, with 11,105 vehicles sold worldwide.

Tesla's performance Model 3 delivers 3.5 second 0-60 for $78,000
https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/20/model-3-performance-awd-dual-motor-tesla-musk/

I wonder if the claim "simply adding a second motor for all-wheel-drive (and extra reliability -- Musk said either one can drive the car if the other breaks)" is actually true on the 3.

On AWD Model S, there were cases where it didn't help.

Top of the line M3 for $78k compared to what, $140k+ for top of the line MS?

I got my Model 3 on April 27. The car is amazing. It is the electric car I always wanted. I have already made a trip from Phoenix to Las Vegas. Made a 20 min. stop at a supercharger in Kingman to make sure I had enough juice, but in hindsight I may have been able to make the entire trip on a full battery charge (310 miles), because of a fairly hefty tailwind.

Range anxiety is a thing of the past. I'm still keeping the 2011 Leaf I bought used from MX5 Racer (which had a new, 2015 battery). That car still shows 11 bars, although an 80% charge is now 198 gids. I expect to lose a bar any second now.

But back to the Model 3. This car is going to be wildly popular. It drives like a dream and is super quick. So far the only problem I've had is my Moto G phone isn't working well as key. But Tesla will figure out the solution and in the mean time, I don't care. :mrgreen: