2014 Q3 Data Points & Estimates

[SBenson]

I don't remember this type of statement at all. Can you site this statement? The only thing I ever remember EM stating was that TM has been unable to really test demand for the model S and at one point he wanted to do that.....Fortunately for all the TSLA longs it does not appear that has happened.

This is what I see from 2013 Q2 conference call:

"So that's what we're really spending our time on, is clearing out the - those production bottlenecks or supply chain bottlenecks, and I think we should have probably cleared most of them out in the next six months. I think by maybe end of Q1, Q2, we should - certainly by Q2, I think, unlock a bit of more production potential. And we'll obviously - we'll see what the demand looks like at that point. But we're striving to become - we're striving to become demand-limited, as opposed to production-limited."

Another snippet from the same call:

<A - Elon R. Musk>: Right. And yes - and as I said earlier, while we have the ability to produce S at the 40,000 unit level, all of our suppliers must also have that ability. So that's the thing that's holding us back. I think we -there's certainly room to grow beyond that. We have a big factory. But, yes, so we'll have to see how demand settles out. As I mentioned, we want to get to being demand constrained as soon as possible. Hopefully we'll get there next year. That's our goal, by the end of - at least by the end of next year. And then, of course, we'll bring the Model X online in limited numbers end of next year and then in bigger numbers in 2015. And the potential is obviously very significant. But I don't want to overpromise or - yes, I think there's a lot of potential, but we'll have to see how it turns out.

- - - Updated - - -

We have all been too spoiled in our thinking by the supply constrained scenario for this long.

As I said before, I surely believe Tesla will be able to sell lot more than 50K/annum in the long run.

But I really don't know if there is enough demand at 50K rate right now. I hope there is. Either the estimated-delivery-dates should move or Musk should say so on the call. Otherwise I don't know how to believe that.

If we think about it, none of the key components of Tesla Business: Superchargers/Stores/ServiceCenters have matured or saturated. They are not even half done. If we were to believe demand for 50K run rate is already here right now, then logically we should believe that Model S demand will be 100K or 150K run rate once Tesla Business covers the entire world map. I don't know which way to believe to be honest.

Finally, don't get me wrong. Tesla is extra-ordinarily creative. So I believe they will be able to create the necessary demand, if it's not there (maybe D is an attempt to do so). So we can always take it easy by saying "In Elon we trust". That's a very legitimate option too in my opinion.

Nutshell, As I think about this I don't want to play with short term options betting on (smooth) growth trajectories at this point. It's too risky, too many unknowns. I believe it will all be good in the long run though.

Buy shares, live long.

 

[FluxCap]

If you guys remember, in one of the last year's Conf Calls, Musk said Tesla will increase production such that they will be demand constrained next year (which is this year). I wonder if we are getting there now.

No.

 

[Johan]

No.

No you don't remember or no you don't think we're getting there yet?

 

[chickensevil]

I don't remember this type of statement at all. Can you site this statement? The only thing I ever remember EM stating was that TM has been unable to really test demand for the model S and at one point he wanted to do that.....Fortunately for all the TSLA longs it does not appear that has happened.

Yeah from my recollection they wanted to test the limits of demand this year which was a lot of the reason given for the model x delay (to focus on the S). But it was made last year and I think demand has just continued to surprise them to the point where they have continued to state Q after Q that demand is there if they need to increase it. Keep in mind at one point it was the expectation that NA sales would be 10-15 k and globally they were looking at something like 30k (way back in 2012) that number has continued to go up much to everyone's surprise

So if I recall the statement was made that they really wanted to try to pish the limits of demand this year since Panasonic was supposed to be finally upping their production (which they have) and I think the 1000 a week is their best attempt at trying to see what happens.

Another point of refence is the final assembly line having to be redone to accommodate higher than 800 a week. After they overshot their old estimates they pushed the production up to 40k a year and even that wasn't enough which caused them to want to go to 50k and beyond.

I would say that if Tesla were appropriately established they should be able to hit 75-80k globally on just the S without batting an eye. Keeping in mind much of China and much of the US are still untapped.

 

[FluxCap]

No you don't remember or no you don't think we're getting there yet?

No, we're nowhere near the end of being production constrained on any product Tesla Motors produces now or for the foreseeable future, worldwide.

 

[Johan]

No, we're nowhere near the end of being production constrained on any product Tesla Motors produces now or for the foreseeable future, worldwide.

I very much agree. And with regards to S vs. X mix in 2015 and 2016 my attitude is more or less "who cares?". And listening to Elon and his team in interviews and on conference calls it seems they too think in "units" or "cars" without caring about the mix ratio. All this will hold until Gen 3 debuts, at that point we turn a corner.

The reason I say this is so people don't get hung up too much on Model S demand when it's total S+X demand that is important.

 

[chickensevil]

This is what I see from 2013 Q2 conference call:

"So that's what we're really spending our time on, is clearing out the - those production bottlenecks or supply chain bottlenecks, and I think we should have probably cleared most of them out in the next six months. I think by maybe end of Q1, Q2, we should - certainly by Q2, I think, unlock a bit of more production potential. And we'll obviously - we'll see what the demand looks like at that point. But we're striving to become - we're striving to become demand-limited, as opposed to production-limited."

Another snippet from the same call:

<A - Elon R. Musk>: Right. And yes - and as I said earlier, while we have the ability to produce S at the 40,000 unit level, all of our suppliers must also have that ability. So that's the thing that's holding us back. I think we -there's certainly room to grow beyond that. We have a big factory. But, yes, so we'll have to see how demand settles out. As I mentioned, we want to get to being demand constrained as soon as possible. Hopefully we'll get there next year. That's our goal, by the end of - at least by the end of next year. And then, of course, we'll bring the Model X online in limited numbers end of next year and then in bigger numbers in 2015. And the potential is obviously very significant. But I don't want to overpromise or - yes, I think there's a lot of potential, but we'll have to see how it turns out.

- - - Updated - - -

We have all been too spoiled in our thinking by the supply constrained scenario for this long.

As I said before, I surely believe Tesla will be able to sell lot more than 50K/annum in the long run.

But I really don't know if there is enough demand at 50K rate right now. I hope there is. Either the estimated-delivery-dates should move or Musk should say so on the call. Otherwise I don't know how to believe that.

If we think about it, none of the key components of Tesla Business: Superchargers/Stores/ServiceCenters have matured or saturated. They are not even half done. If we were to believe demand for 50K run rate is already here right now, then logically we should believe that Model S demand will be 100K or 150K run rate once Tesla Business covers the entire world map. I don't know which way to believe to be honest.

Finally, don't get me wrong. Tesla is extra-ordinarily creative. So I believe they will be able to create the necessary demand, if it's not there (maybe D is an attempt to do so). So we can always take it easy by saying "In Elon we trust". That's a very legitimate option too in my opinion.

Nutshell, As I think about this I don't want to play with short term options betting on (smooth) growth trajectories at this point. It's too risky, too many unknowns. I believe it will all be good in the long run though.

Buy shares, live long.

Yeah, the way I remember that coming across was that the 40k cap was intended to test that limit and just as we were upping to 40k the wait times shot through the roof! Their target wait time for all models is actually 2 months, so until they start to track lower than that for everything I don't think we will see them push for higher demand. And note that they are expanding demand by saturating more areas. So this means more stores and service centers globally to increase demand. When was the last store opening? Or better yet, how many stores (straight stores mind you, I don't count the store/service hybrids as just a demand driver since they need the service center there in order to service customers) have they opened this year? In the past 6 months? in just Q3? I ask this because that should give you an idea for how "afraid" TM is over their demand. When you see more stores start cropping up then I would look at that as a driver that they need more demand.

 

[Benz]

This information from "Best Selling Cars Blog" regarding the period "USA October 2014" might be interesting in regards to this thread:

Tesla October 2014: 1,400
Tesla 2014: 19,530

That means:
Tesla 2014 (Q1+Q2+Q3) = 19,530 - 1,400 = 18,130


Here is a link: http://bestsellingcarsblog.com/2014/11/usa-october-2014-honda-cr-v-up-30-to-5th-place/

 

[techmaven]

This information from "Best Selling Cars Blog" regarding the period "USA October 2014" might be interesting in regards to this thread

Thier source is goodcarbadcar and that number for October is definitely off by a lot.

 

[AlMc]

Data point: BABA getting wacked premarket because of profit miss despite otherwise good ER. Will be interesting to see if CC can break the bots early reaction. Reason for posting here: Scenario could be similar to upcoming TM ER/CC where, as usual, the CC/guidance will be key to short term TSLA price.

 

[techmaven]

I've been working the numbers and here is a summary of what I have for Q3. Some caveats... registered != delivered. It is usually the same, but not necessarily. China numbers may be imports, not deliveries and definitely not registered.

3310 cars from reasonably reliable sources. Mostly Europe and counting in China and Japan.

The unknown category includes:
USA
Canada
UK
Hong Kong

So 7800 is the guidance, and these 4 territories have to have 4490 deliveries to meet guidance. We know Tesla certainly tried.

For the UK, SMMT does not break out Tesla. Therefore, the unknown category caps the total possible Tesla sales. I took a roughly average of the sales in the unknown category in months before Tesla shipped to subtract from the reported unknown category to get an estimate of 247 cars sold in the UK in Q3.

For Hong Kong, I could not find any reliable data. The few estimates are very, very wrong. EV-sales for instance shows an estimate of 18 YTD for Hong Kong through Sept. We have more than that delivered just in the TMC delivery sheet. I used 70 in my low ball estimate, with 20 in Aug and 50 in Sept. I could use help to sort out this number.

That leave 4173 cars left. Goodcarbadcar.net has very specific Canada numbers. Everyone else has round estimate numbers. They use RL Polk data, and so without any other evidence (and especially contradictory evidence from known quarters in 2013), I use their numbers. They do *not* have Sept numbers. We know there was a push in CA, so I have 48 + 25 + 125 (estimated) = 198 to Canada in Q3. 125 is not particularly high, as Mar '14 was 119 and Jun '14 was 104.

That's 3975 cars left.

So that leaves the U.S.A. From Elon Musk's tweet, we have 65% YoY growth in Sept. However, we have no real numbers for Sept. '13, we have the Q3 2013 number of 4500. Back out those R.L. Polk specific Canada numbers, and we have 4338 for the quarter in Q3 2013. But the problem is, we don't have just Sept numbers. Given that quarters are likely backloaded, especially in the U.S. as Tesla scrambles to make numbers and delivering in the U.S. has the lowest shipping times.

GoodCarBadCar lists:

Jul 1757/Aug 1505/Sept 1071

I think they have it backwards - it should be 1071/1505/1757
Matter of fact, I think they have every monthly number in each quarter in 2013 backwards.

InsideEV's numbers for Q3 2013:
1300/1300/1500

Basically a wild guess, but that is expected. However, neither GCBC's nor InsideEV's numbers really add up anyways.

So I used 1071/1505/1762 for Sept 2013, basically using GCBC's numbers and making them add up to the real 4500 number with Canada.

65% up means 2907 in the U.S. in Sept 2014.

That's leaves 1097 cars. So the question is, how many Tesla's were delivered to the U.S. in July and August? GCBC says 1200 and 1300 while InsideEV's says 500 and 600. I think both are even wilder guesses and have no real basis on reality.

There is a very good chance that the number in July was very low - like 200-300. And August was much higher. If you take 2907 as the number in Sept and basically all production was delivered pretty quickly, that means the factory was averaging 725 cars/week. It is not unreasonable to expect that the prior average was 1/3 of that as the factory ramped. So August at 950 cars? And July at 250.

That would mean a slight beat at 7932 cars.

However, all of this hinges on the Sept 2013 figure. Take a lower figure, like 1500 cars delivered to the U.S. in that month. Then the Sept 2014 figure is now 2475, and 1/3 of that is 825 for July and we have a 7375 figure.

I then also tried to test against the world wide record number for Sept, and the only single quarter I can think of that might be similarly large was Mar 2014 with all those Norwegian deliveries. That was likely near 3600 deliveries, so that doesn't help us calibrate, as we likely need more like 4500 deliveries in Sept to make guidance.

There is enough slop here that I can't say we won't miss by as much as 200-300 cars. If I were to guess, I'd say that Tesla likely just barely made guidance. If someone piped up with a much better and reliable Hong Kong number, that would help.

 

[chickensevil]

Thanks for putting together a solid attempt at getting an estimate. Based on comments from Elon and others I would put us at a really good chance of meeting deliveries (Elon wouldn't have tweeted some grandiose comment about deliveries if they didn't have it in the bag), I still think the big unknown for Q3 is more hinged on production numbers coming in high enough, because the overlap of 1200 cars are going to be the assumed starting point for deliveries in Oct and beyond... which makes up for a lack of deliveries off of the end of the year production that won't make it in time for a December delivery (specifically the last week/week and a half of December).

 

[pGo]

Anyone sees current S85 delivery date as being December (not late December or Jan) a cause of concern (order to delivery in ~40 days) ?

Another concern I have is higher number of people changing the orders to S85D to be released in Q1 (again aligns current wait time in US). If Tesla gives this as a reason to not meet the 35K goal, that could be looked at very negatively.

 

[FredTMC]

Anyone sees current S85 delivery date as being December (not late December or Jan) a cause of concern (order to delivery in ~40 days) ?

Another concern I have is higher number of people changing the orders to S85D to be released in Q1 (again aligns current wait time in US). If Tesla gives this as a reason to not meet the 35K goal, that could be looked at very negatively.

i don't see a problem with dec deliveries for U.S.

Tesla likes to deliver a lot of cars at end of qtr to the U.S. Q4 is especially important for TM to make their 2014 guidance.

 

[maoing]

which makes up for a lack of deliveries off of the end of the year production that won't make it in time for a December delivery (specifically the last week/week and a half of December).

Don't we have >3000 cars in delivery pipe from Q1/Q2 reports and Q3 guidance?
Q1: production 7535, delivery 6457, 1078 in pipe
Q2: production 8763, delivery 7579, 1184 in pipe
Q3: production 9000, delivery 7800, 1200 in pipe (per guidance)
=========================================
Total cars in the pipe by Q3: 3462

So it accounts about 3 weeks' production rate.

- - - Updated - - -

P85D production starts from the last week of November and delivery starts from 2nd week of December I guess. I think as soon as we have backlogged P85D order until Jan/Feb, I wouldn't worry about the 85D/60D impact.

Anyone sees current S85 delivery date as being December (not late December or Jan) a cause of concern (order to delivery in ~40 days) ?

Another concern I have is higher number of people changing the orders to S85D to be released in Q1 (again aligns current wait time in US). If Tesla gives this as a reason to not meet the 35K goal, that could be looked at very negatively.

 

[chickensevil]

Anyone sees current S85 delivery date as being December (not late December or Jan) a cause of concern (order to delivery in ~40 days) ?

Another concern I have is higher number of people changing the orders to S85D to be released in Q1 (again aligns current wait time in US). If Tesla gives this as a reason to not meet the 35K goal, that could be looked at very negatively.

I think the number of people that are selling their current P85s plus the people who have ditched their Model X orders plus random other new people who just want a super fast awesome P85D will all three combine into a nice make-up for any people deflecting their 85 or 60 for an 85D or 60D.

The also has the added benefit of greatly increasing their uptake on the expensive options. Especially since most people who first ordered the P85D had no choice but to spend 120k on the car... and even if you could choose not to take certain options I still don't see how someone would go for a P85D and NOT still spend around 115-130 on it because of other "mandatory" options (they aren't really mandatory... but who isn't going to get the new tech package or the new seats)

- - - Updated - - -

Don't we have >3000 cars in delivery pipe from Q1/Q2 reports and Q3 guidance?
Q1: production 7535, delivery 6457, 1078 in pipe
Q2: production 8763, delivery 7579, 1184 in pipe
Q3: production 9000, delivery 7800, 1200 in pipe (per guidance)
=========================================
Total cars in the pipe by Q3: 3462

So it accounts about 3 weeks' production rate.

I think others have estimated a higher number by pulling numbers going all the way back to 2013. But yes, I would assume that there are enough cars floating around out there that they could sell to meet their guidance.

 

[maoing]

VIN # assignment right now is above 64000. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...elivery-thread?p=804928&viewfull=1#post804928

We all understand VIN # can't be counted on delivery estimation. But can we use it for "conservative" order # estimation because it takes some time to assign VIN # after the order confirmed. If I remember correctly, ~6000 Model S delivered in 2012, ~22000 Mode S delivered in 2013, ~22000 Model S delivered by Q3 of 2014. So total model S delivered by end of Q3 should be ~50K. If we have VIN # 64K assigned, does that mean we at least have 14K backlog? If so, then we should have sufficient demand to saturate Q4 production.

 

[Chickenlittle]

VIN # assignment right now is above 64000. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...elivery-thread?p=804928&viewfull=1#post804928

We all understand VIN # can't be counted on delivery estimation. But can we use it for "conservative" order # estimation because it takes some time to assign VIN # after the order confirmed. If I remember correctly, ~6000 Model S delivered in 2012, ~22000 Mode S delivered in 2013, ~22000 Model S delivered by Q3 of 2014. So total model S delivered by end of Q3 should be ~50K. If we have VIN # 64K assigned, does that mean we at least have 14K backlog? If so, then we should have sufficient demand to saturate Q4 production.

I thought it was 300 delivered in 2012
sorry 3000

 

[InTheShadows]

VIN # assignment right now is above 64000. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...elivery-thread?p=804928&viewfull=1#post804928

We all understand VIN # can't be counted on delivery estimation. But can we use it for "conservative" order # estimation because it takes some time to assign VIN # after the order confirmed. If I remember correctly, ~6000 Model S delivered in 2012, ~22000 Mode S delivered in 2013, ~22000 Model S delivered by Q3 of 2014. So total model S delivered by end of Q3 should be ~50K. If we have VIN # 64K assigned, does that mean we at least have 14K backlog? If so, then we should have sufficient demand to saturate Q4 production.

However I think that the vin assigned is as good as a car being built. If the purchaser backs out they just sell it as an inventory vehicle. There is no shortage of people wanting to drive home a new Tesla tomorrow. That being said we really have no way of knowing how many cars it takes to fill the global pipeline.

 

[maoing]

double checked the 2012 Q4 letter, 3100 built and 2650 delivered in 2012.

I thought it was 300 delivered in 2012