1 million Teslas by 2020 - what does it take?

[voyager]

Elon Musk has a habit of setting ambitious goals and timelines and missing them. He has said Tesla would make 500,000 cars a year by the end of 2018 and 1 million vehicles in 2020. The company is a long way off from that mark. Last year, Tesla produced nearly 84,000 vehicles.

Tesla misses vehicle sales goal despite late surge

What do you think will make Musk achieve this goal? Considering that
1. some countries will (gradually) reduce fiscal incentives to purchase an EV (the Netherlands is already doing so);
2. car- and ride-sharing might influence ownership and therefore sales

Choose two out of five options. If you think that I have forgotten one, let me know.
TNC is Transportation Network Company, the official term for companies like Uber.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Tesla will need to add additional models. A Model 3-based crossover and pickup would be high on the list of priorities. Beyond that, they just need to keep improving the cars and expanding the supercharger network. Plus a factory in Europe would help.

 

[deonb]

Your poll is inherently biased in that it implies that Tesla needs to somehow improve something external in order to drive up demand.

There should be an option that states: "Just build a million Model 3s".

[EDIT] Thanks for adding the option.

 

[kort677]

#6 a miracle.

 

[voyager]

There should be an option that states: "Just build a million Model 3s".

Just added. Thx. Now three choices allowed.

 

[RobStark]

Build a .4M Model 3s and .6M Model Y.

 

[EinSV]

If they can ramp production fast enough they'll have no trouble selling 1,000,000 vehicles in 2020 -- S3XY plus whatever else they have introduced by then (Minibus, Semi, maybe Pickup).

It's all about production.

 

[neroden]

Lotta work ramping up car production.

Now, to get to 2 million... let's see that pickup truck.

 

[Topher]

If they continue on the path they are on: end 2017 - 200k, 2018 - 500k, 2019 - 1M.

What they should (and will) do: More car models, more and better Superchargers, better batteries, beat the competition, improve car and ride share. (note: none of this affects production numbers, they are production limited, not demand limited.)

What they should (and won't) do: Make a cheaper car.

Thank you kindly.

 

[11thIndian]

It all depends on how many Model 3s they can crank out. End of this year should be a good indicator of how the ramp up is going. Then 2018 will be the big push to try and make those 500,000 Model 3s. If demand remains high once the M3 hits the road, then they could easily see demand for another 500K in 2019. Then there's the Model Y, which is the big question mark- do they try to get that going or wait until they've stabilized Model 3 production.

If production could keep up with demand, then I'd bet Telsa could sell 800K Model 3 by 2020, and as many Model Ys as they could produce. Maybe 200-300K?

 

[adiggs]

I see demand from the world market today for 1M Model 3's per year, so the "just build the 1M cars" option is the limit that I see.

Going beyond that will require additional vehicle models, and it'll be a lot easier to get to 1M/year with additional models (besides S/X which I see as contributing more like ~100k/year than ~200k/year, and any case - nothing like 500k/year). The first two big additions I see adding volume will be a crossover / SUV / station wagon / hatch type body style, and a pickup body style.


The other poll options will clearly enhance demand. I don't see any of the additional poll options as being needed to increase demand just to reach 1M/year.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Lotta work ramping up car production.

Now, to get to 2 million... let's see that pickup truck.

My plan has always been to stick with the Jeep(I don't commute) and then add a Model 3 or used S at some point. Now I'm starting to think I'll sell the Jeep when the Tesla pickup comes out and transition.

A full-sized "skateboard" truck platform would literally never run out of domestic demand if executed properly. Imagine a vehicle that can do an entire day's work far better AND power the entire job site. Tesla wouldn't even need to build out the body or interior, just the drive-train and controls then let the secondary market build out "models". You could charge anything you wanted.

 

[BestRadar]

The infrastructure now can barely keep up with the amount of Tesla's out on the road. There is no way they could double or triple the amount of vehicles without everything collapsing.

 

[WannabeOwner]

some countries will (gradually) reduce fiscal incentives to purchase an EV (the Netherlands is already doing so);

In UK and, I think, other EU countries the price of gas is 4x to 8x electricity, so for high mileage drivers its affordable in its own right. (My Man-Maths is that for each 10,000 miles/p.a. Electricity saves 100 GBP a month - (which can be added to the finance deal to afford a higher sticker-price vehicle).

 

[11thIndian]

My plan has always been to stick with the Jeep(I don't commute) and then add a Model 3 or used S at some point. Now I'm starting to think I'll sell the Jeep when the Tesla pickup comes out and transition.

That's my plan as well, except substitute Jeep for Forester and Pickup for Model Y.

The infrastructure now can barely keep up with the amount of Tesla's out on the road. There is no way they could double or triple the amount of vehicles without everything collapsing.

The production for the Model 3 is completely different from the S and X, which never needed to be "mass market" volumes. The Model 3 is from everything we've heard, been designed around fast production and automation. They may not succeed, but that's the plan.

 

[adiggs]

The infrastructure now can barely keep up with the amount of Tesla's out on the road. There is no way they could double or triple the amount of vehicles without everything collapsing.

I'll add to this point and my earlier post - there is clearly a need for a dramatic expansion in the service capacity as part of the Model 3 ramp. Going from 100k vehicles/year to 1M/year sure sounds like a 10 fold increase in service capacity. And the wrong way to do that is expanding the existing service centers (exclusively or primarily). We need service centers in more locations (my personal example - 1 service center in the Portland, OR area, with the next closest either 3h north or >5h south, makes for a gargantuan geographical area with at best inconvenient service support; the fact I'm moving an hour and a half away is going to be .. difficult).

I see this as organic to the building of 1M model 3's, but I can't argue against listing this as being a second necessary action to achieve 1M/year vehicle production. We need a bunch of additional service centers, and current service centers need additional capacity. I see this is an area where Tesla needs to do something extraordinarily more than they've been doing.


The obvious new service center strategy that I haven't yet seen Tesla pursue, but I expect we'll see in the next 4 years, is to start training and certifying 3rd party mechanics / service centers. I wonder if we'd see many Tesla certified body shops also getting certified as mechanics? Especially if Tesla does a good job of integrating the 3rd party shops with the manufacturer service centers - that starts sounding like a good source of business for mechanics, and a good source of service capacity for Tesla.


Similar but different - there will need to be more Superchargers built. But I don't see any particular need for that build out to be something extraordinarily more or different than what is already going on (hence I didn't check that).

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Model 3 + Model Y with a ridiculously fast ramp that's not going to happen.

 

[flankspeed8]

The infrastructure now can barely keep up with the amount of Tesla's out on the road. There is no way they could double or triple the amount of vehicles without everything collapsing.

I am more concerned about the lack of delivery/service centers in the midwest. We have one in Minnesota that services MN as well as parts of ND/SD and IA. I wonder how far people are willing to drive to pick up their cars? We need to see some more built. They have done a great job building out the SuperCharger network in MN though.

 

[3Victoria]

AND power the entire job site

How much power does a job site use in a day? That is a great application. Could one not just use a PowerWall, even today?

 

[SteveG3]

I thought this was going to be a thread discussing what it would take to build capacity and train employees for this massive ramp up. literally did not occur to me that having a compelling enough product in 2020 to generate the demand is not quite clear to anyone here.