i see! thats interesting. i wonder if they will disclose whether or not it is a limited 90. that could explain the quicker sprint time. but if thats true, will they really allow removing of the software restriction? that doesn't sound likely since we could all buy 90's for the price of a 75. i read your last note on the tax rebate. very informative! thank you!
If it is really a 90, it is 100% guaranteed they will allow removing the restriction. They are not going to put batteries in cars that can't get used. That costs them money, and it's good advertising.
They did it before when they went from the 70-75. The last 70 KWh packs were really software limited 75s and they didn't announce it until they had been in production a month or so.
Any proof that the new 75's are limited 90's or is this just a hunch?
Educated guess.
1) Tesla only wants to make one pack module. That's more economical for them. With the old 75/90 and the 100 they had two module types in production. They will want to get the old module out of production ASAP and standardize on the new module.
2) They are having a fire sale on inventory 90s right now. I've never seen them be so aggressive about getting rid of an old version of the car so fast. When they did the refresh, the pre-refresh cars were discounted a little, but not like the 90s are right now. I think they want to get rid of all the inventory 90s before announcing the upgrade.
Can't see it myself given they don't make a 90 any more - and it's unlikely to be excess 90 stock given they claim it was a shortage of batteries that led to poor volume last quarter.
I've read that the problem was a shortfall in pack production, not in access to battery cells. It's quite possible they ran into some unexpected glitch converting production of the old 75/90 modules to the 100 modules that caused a production shortfall for a couple of weeks.
They have almost certainly been running two pack production lines for the last 8 months as they had two module types in production. The 100 pack line might have been humming along fine, but when they shut down the 75/90 line to convert it to making the 100 pack modules, they may have run into some kind of problem. This could be anything from realizing they got a wrong piece of equipment and the line was shut down until the new piece was delivered, it could mean an accident during switch over broke something that needed to be repaired, or it could be from some kind of IT problem with the line after switch over.
I've spent a week or more trying to find a bug. It can happen.
Sorry to tell you but it's just 3-6 months full credit, after the 200k mark is hit. The rest of the quarter in which the 200 thousandth sale was and then another quarter. So if they sell #200,000 on January 1st, the halved credit will start out July 1st, until Jan 1st 2019, when the incentives drop to $1,875 for another 6 months.
The real bad thing is that the timeframe would be the same, if they reached 200k in February, or March, but I expect them to hit the magic number some time in January, or early February. So maybe they will hold off on topping 200k US sales until May and squeeze in some EU/China/Canada sales? Probably not.
So better get your car before July 1st 2018.
My bad. I forgot it was only 3-6 months, not 6-9 at the $7500 level.