All Part Of The Plan?

[Dan Detweiler]

It has been very interesting to watch the news and announcements come out over the last few weeks regarding the Model 3...culminating in yesterday's production ramp up announcement. It seems to me that all of this is happening in a pre ordained sequence. The more information that comes out, the more I think that this is all playing out as Elon expected it would.

I think he knew that Tesla was going to be able to produce 500,000 cars by 2018. I think he knew that the battery size would be smaller, more efficient and much cheaper. I think he is playing the negative media and his competitors like a conductor leads an orchestra. Promising one thing, getting people talking and then surpassing those with ever more enticing tidbits of where the company really stands. I am new to Tesla but it is becoming more and more evident to me that Elon Musk is a freaking marketing genius.

I think the company learned many valuable lessons from the Model X role out and Elon and the rest of Tesla Motors is going to make sure that they under promise and over deliver with the Model 3. I know a lot is riding on the success of this car. They have invested huge sums of money on this gamble...but I am not so sure it has been the gamble everyone thought it was. I think Elon knows, and has known for a while the cards he was holding and has played his poker face to perfection.

Of course we are a long way from delivery and anything can happen. I just don't think this is as much guess work, and "wing and a prayer" as was being let on. Bravo Mr. Musk! You just keep doing what you're doing and we will all get to enjoy our cars that much sooner!

Dan

 

[LectrikPower]

Could be, although it seemed like even they were surprised by the number of pre orders. Then again maybe they were really looking at all the speculation and excitement and knew it would be a winner.

Either way its pure Musk. They knew and had planned all along to have production up to 500k because he knew the market or he pulled another "give me the impossible" and told the crew to say goodbye to their families so they can get it done.

 

[pinski]

Part of me wonders if the announcement to move the production timetable up had anything to do with the departure of Reichow and Ensign. I'm hoping that Elon didn't call a meeting with them and tell them the timetable was moving up two years and they both laughed and turned in their notice.

 

[Xaff]

I think he knew that Tesla was going to be able to produce 500,000 cars by 2018.

He did know that it could be done, he even said the same factory could potentially produce one million cars a year by 2020. The key factor here is cost and time. When the number of pre-orders for the car is over 3x the amount you originally expected, you have to and can afford to speed up overall production capacity .

I think he knew that the battery size would be smaller, more efficient and much cheaper.

Yes, he knew this all along and was the premise behind Model 3 success and building the Gigafactory.

I am new to Tesla but it is becoming more and more evident to me that Elon Musk is a freaking marketing genius.

Yes, yes he is.

Part of me wonders if the announcement to move the production timetable up had anything to do with the departure of Reichow ...

Musk said on the Q1 2016 Earnings Call that Reichow is actually still with Tesla, he's just taking a leave of absence.

 

[182RG]

I am new to Tesla but it is becoming more and more evident to me that Elon Musk is a freaking marketing genius.

Being a marketing genius, and pulling it off are 2 very different things. Perhaps it's real, and he'll surpass his "Steve-ness" in marketing savvy. But you also have to have production, quality, and delivery savvy as well. It's all one package. Perhaps it's to continue to fill the pipeline with Model 3 reservations to generate cash flow? Reservations were tapering off as the queue was looking to be 3-4 years out for new entrants. Perhaps it's to generate enough investor sentiment to raise the next round of capital funding to build the infrastructure needed to meet his projections?

Regardless, a "meet" will elevate him higher than he already is and he truly will be regarded as genius. A "miss" will punish him, and Tesla brutally, perhaps even fatally. The higher the climb, the further the fall.

Those of us with executive level manufacturing backgrounds are scratching our collective heads, trying to do "Elon math" on how it's all going to all come together. While I hope he, and Tesla succeed, I'm frankly struggling to make the math work.

I think the company learned many valuable lessons from the Model X role out and Elon and the rest of Tesla Motors is going to make sure that they under promise and over deliver with the Model 3.

The company is still learning from the Model X roll out. They probably have much more to learn. They've delivered less than 5,000 units, and QA, communications, and customer service have been incredibly spotty for a $140K vehicle.

 

[LectrikPower]

I feel like there is kind of an emergency back up plan in that if it ever hits the fan Google could save them. I hope that would be the case. I think people see that Tesla has potential to be massively successful at this point and it would be silly to let it fail.

There is too much actual sucess and future potential to be excited about to let die.

 

[Waiting4M3]

If the majority of the remaining work is tooling and getting vendors going, then I can see how it may be possible to speed up the process by increasing the budget. You can hire twice as many people to work with 2x more vendors in parallel and speed things up, you can pay for more tools/parts upfront so you can avoid being constrained by parts, at a cost of having extra $$$ tied up in pre-built parts.

I just hope we're not looking at a "hiring 9 women to birth a baby in 1 month" situation, where there may be things that need to be done sequentially, and can't be pulled in even given a larger budget, the most obvious ones are testing prototypes -> redesign -> build new prototypes -> test -> redesign cycle. If the design is mostly done then I hope the most risky part of the schedule is behind us.