2014 1 QTR predictions/results

[marvinat0rz]

vgrinshpun, I think the "Europe" column includes Norway, unless Tesla only sold 170 cars in Continental Europe in February. The Norway numers I am certain of. We need further details on Germany, Belgium and other markets if we are going to be certain on these numbers. Your overview seems a bit optimistic to me.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

The big question is US sales numbers. How reliable are those. Also, I'm hard pressed to believe EU has >1k deliveries in January so that's a tough sell with February at 800 or so which is still a tough sell. So it's kind of hard to put together the numbers still ...

 

[vgrinshpun]

vgrinshpun, I think the "Europe" column includes Norway, unless Tesla only sold 170 cars in Continental Europe in February. The Norway numers I am certain of. We need further details on Germany, Belgium and other markets if we are going to be certain on these numbers. Your overview seems a bit optimistic to me.

The Europe column for January and February includes Norway numbers. The reason the Norway, Netherlands and Sweden for March are listed separately is because the Blog I linked in my original post does not yet have sales information from other European countries.

- - - Updated - - -

Just got a clarification e-mail from the author of the Blog that was used in the table in my post #14 above. The US numbers are coming from insideevs.com. Just to Note the 3,800 of US deliveries is the lowest of any five last quarters. The next lowest quarter, Q4 2013 had 4,154 US deliveries. Another thing to note that my summary table did not include the Canada deliveries, so it is conservative for NA.

 

[dirkhh]

vgrinshpun, I think the "Europe" column includes Norway, unless Tesla only sold 170 cars in Continental Europe in February. The Norway numers I am certain of. We need further details on Germany, Belgium and other markets if we are going to be certain on these numbers. Your overview seems a bit optimistic to me.

Germany had 30 / 66 / can't find March
Austria 6 / 7 / 26
Switzerland doesn't break out Tesla in its reporting

 

[vgrinshpun]

The big question is US sales numbers. How reliable are those. Also, I'm hard pressed to believe EU has >1k deliveries in January so that's a tough sell with February at 800 or so which is still a tough sell. So it's kind of hard to put together the numbers still ...

You are right about January European sales - it appears that I copied a number from a wrong Table on the referenced Blog. The actual number for January is 298. I have updated my original post.

 

[mrdoubleb]

You are right about January European sales - it appears that I copied a number from a wrong Table on the referenced Blog. The actual number for January is 298. I have updated my original post.

Ok, so it was too good to be true...

So I'll stick with my original expectation of better than what they projected (6400) but worse than Q4. Which is fine, we know they had to fill the channel outside the US too.

 

[marvinat0rz]

Good job on the numbers collection though I hope my posts didn't sound negative; just trying to add more facts to the equation.

 

[austinEV]

What was the official Q1 guidance for deliveries?

 

[pz1975]

Some local info (Vancouver, BC): A SC employee told me that Q1 was one of their best quarters ever. Not sure how that extrapolates to other Canadian markets but a good sign nonetheless.

 

[anon]

What was the official Q1 guidance for deliveries?

6400.

 

[techmaven]

Do we have evidence that RHD cars were being made in Q1 and if any made it onto boats for delivery in April?

 

[FredTMC]

Some local info (Vancouver, BC): A SC employee told me that Q1 was one of their best quarters ever. Not sure how that extrapolates to other Canadian markets but a good sign nonetheless.

wonder what he was basing this on... "best qtr ever"? He simply could have meant that their SC was very busy during the QTR.

That being said, I'm inclined to trust that TM will beat their 6400 guidance. Question is by how much.
As others have mentioned, if TM delivered 15% or more over guidance then they are obligated to pre announce. I'd be fine with that...

 

[jra]

Another thing to note that my summary table did not include the Canada deliveries, so it is conservative for NA.[/QUOTE]

There numbers from January for Canada here:
Image: Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Feb 2014, size: 1024 x 413, type: gif, posted on: March 15, 2014, 7:40 am - Green Car Reports

 

[pz1975]

wonder what he was basing this on... "best qtr ever"? He simply could have meant that their SC was very busy during the QTR.

That being said, I'm inclined to trust that TM will beat their 6400 guidance. Question is by how much.
As others have mentioned, if TM delivered 15% or more over guidance then they are obligated to pre announce. I'd be fine with that...

I specifically asked about sales deliveries.

 

[FredTMC]

I specifically asked about sales deliveries.

nice! Wtg... I was at my SC last week and they were busier than hell with deliveries. I saw a couple semi car carrier trucks coming there and one employee told me that they had 75 cars sitting in their new building down the block. And, I heard another employee say they were doing 16 deliveries that day (a lot for them). So, I can say that the end of qtr looked very busy for this SC

 

[marvinat0rz]

Okay, so from the available numbers we currently have:

USA: 3800
Norway: 2056
Sweden: 34
Belgium: 55
Germany: 239
Austria: 39
Netherlands: 207
Switzerland: ?
Estonia: 4
Finland: 14
Austria: 26
Italy: 11

= 3800 + 2685 = 6385.

So Canada is missing.

Canadian Model S sales for 2013 were 43, 55, 64, 26, 48, 60 from Jul-Dec.
By ev-sales.blogspot.com, I get Switzerland deliveries at 2, 42, 66, 18, 37, 47, 16 from Jul 2013-Jan 2014.

Modelling conservatively, we get

60x3 = 180 for Canada ("best month ever") [134 by others' estimate?]
36x2 + 16 = 52 for Switzerland

Image: Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Jan 2014, size: 1024 x 392, type: gif, posted on: February 4, 2014, 1:58 pm - Green Car Reports

=> 6679 Model S registered in 2014 globally. Eyeballing it, there's maybe a 60 vehicle upside from sales higher than previously in the three latter countries, plus maybe a small two-digit number of sales to other countries (Finland, Denmark). Crucially, I am also missing France in this summary. Not sure if there have been significant sales here, ideally we would have a French-speaker to go Googling.

So my estimation would be 6750 deliveries in Q1, assuming correct reporting and no big surprises. One such surprise could be temporary reductions in deliveries for other markets e.g. due to prioritizing Norway (seems like a likely possibility). Another would be sales which are not yet counted as registrations at the respective DMVs in each country, or conversely registrations not yet counted as sales. Regardless, it seems like a very safe assumption that guidance will be met. Maybe a +/- 150 vehicle margin of error to my estimate, with emphasis on the downside? I believe the higher end of this range is unlikely, but the lower end seems quite plausible.

Have I forgotten any major markets or concerns?

[Edit: techmaven and FredTMC point out that the USA numbers are pulled out of someone's ass, so that obviously adds another layer of uncertainty. Thanks ]

 

[pz1975]

Just to be clear on my Vancouver info, he said it was "one of the best quarters", not "the best quarter" and he was only referring to Vancouver so I can't speak for other SC's in Canada. I don't want the estimates to get overdone (hello Q3). Thanks for the nice breakdown and assessment though!

 

[techmaven]

Okay, so from the available numbers we currently have:

USA: 3800

AFAIK, this number is a WAG (Wild Ass Guess).

 

[FredTMC]

AFAIK, this number is a WAG (Wild Ass Guess).

100% agree. No entity in the US has ever been shown to have any reliable measure of TM US deliveries each month.

 

[32no]

*If you do not want to read, my most conservative estimate for deliveries is about 6700, and my most optimistic estimate for deliveries is about 7000.

The 3800 number for US is conservative. The source is Inside EVs which has completely wild guesses for Tesla every month. In Q3, they estimated 3000 deliveries in the US and Tesla delivered 4086 (5500 TOTAL-1252 Europe- 162 Canada). In Q4, they estimated 3500 deliveries and Tesla delivered 4154 (6892 TOTAL-2604 Europe-134 Canada).

Tesla delivered 35 cars in Canada in January, 20 cars in Canada in February, and I estimated 60 cars in Canada in March (the usual deliveries are ~60 in the third month of the quarter). This brings the total to 115. Tesla also delivered 298 cars in Europe in January, 601 cars in Europe in February, and at least 1709 (1493 Norway+190 Netherlands+26 Sweden) cars in Europe in March. This brings the total to 2608. However, this number doesn't include Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. I estimate that Tesla delivered between 4000 and 4200 in the US in Q1, and I also estimate that Tesla sold between 0 and 200 cars in the 8 countries mentioned. Here are the estimates compiled:

The final row is to show what kind of US deliveries are needed in order for Tesla to exceed guidance of 6400 by 15%, which would be 7360.