Yes, and that was after they'd repeatedly refused to forecast any numbers for next year yet. In other words, this number is incredibly conservative, he literally feels it would be impossible not to beat it.
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2014 Q2 Prediction Thread
- Thread starter hershey101
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Yes, and that was after they'd repeatedly refused to forecast any numbers for next year yet. In other words, this number is incredibly conservative, he literally feels it would be impossible not to beat it.
I'm shocked by the low Q3 production guidance. There are 64 workdays, of which 10 produced at 160 cars/day (800/week), 10 days will be producing no cars, the question is the last 44 days. In order to meet the 9000 production guidance, they only need to produce 170 cars/day (850/week), and that will take them to 9,080. Are you telling me that Tesla, whose demand is growing everywhere, who has people in China smashing their cars due to wait times, is shutting down their plant for 2 whole weeks only for a modest production increase of 10 cars per day? Tesla said this upgrade was supposed to increase the production by 25% (or were they just talking about the capacity?). 170 cars per day is only a 6.25% increase. Consider that Musk got the whole Fremont plant up and running in 20 months. Yet it takes 2 weeks of completely halted production to increase production by 6.25%? Either Musk wants to beat guidance by at least 500 cars, or there is something wrong.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
You don't take an entirely new line and instantly crank it up to full capacity. They'll likely start out real slow on the new line, then ramp it up.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
Doesn't matter whether it's new or a configuration change. They'll ramp it up cautiously to ensure robots don't ram into each other, smash parts together, or do other naughty and expensive things. They'll also want to ensure flush/gap meets or exceeds tolerances, etc. they might even do "first article inspections" on the cars newly assembled off the line to ensure everything is as it should be.
Chickenlittle
Banned
Are you sure of this? My very early car attached with machine screws (bumper to body) now Alcoa has a totally different bonding tech for cars with new aluminum treated alloy. Would be surprised if tesla not going to use it in new line
I had the feeling Elon was like a little kid trying real hard to keep a secret. I am sure he has more ambitious Gould for 2015 than 60k cars, and even for this year they were pretty confident about "over 35k". When they were challenged about the huge gap q4 will have to close if q3 is "only" 9k cars, they didn't even blink. All 3 of them were like "yeah, we know, not going to be a problem at all, to say the least". That was my impression anyway.
I think everyone was a bit surprised by the low production guidance : DaveT estimated 10k production for Q3 as well. What we forgot to include was the ramp up period mentioned in the shareholders letter after the retooling of the factory. Assuming 10 working days of ramping up with only 80 cars/day, they need 195 cars/day in the remaining 34 working days to get to 9000 for the full quarter. That number is pretty close to the 200 cars/day production guidance for Q4 which confirms the assumption on the ramp up period.
Conservatism. Underpromise to over deliver. It's difficult to extrapolate what could have been, what matters is the retooling is nearly done. Their new guidance is cautiously optimistic and I think when it's up we have to build in time for small optimization a or slight delays. I also, like others, suspect a more comprehensive quality inspection before a significant volume ramp.
My thought: TM has 2-3K cars 'in the pipeline' if my math is correct. Production>Deliveries by about 1-1.5K/quarter last two quarters.....some are for loaners/etc.....They can empty the pipeline, if needed, during Q3 and replenish over Q4 and 2015Q1, if needed to make up for some of the lost manufacturing time and ramp up.
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