From Q1 2015 conference call Elon Musk "I think we'll pass on sort of answering super-detailed questions about the X ramp. But the thing that really matters is not like when do the first deliveries of the X occur, but rather when do significant deliveries of the X occur. And for the S, we had quite a long ramp from – we're like six months from the very first deliveries to a significant volume. We're trying to compress that to maybe like two months or three months at most. I'll cut that in half or more for the X. And we want to make sure we're really delivering a product that has been thoroughly validated in hot and cold weather and through millions of miles of travel and everything." Concidering, that it has now been almost four months since launch Elon's "two months or three months at most" doesn't hold. - - - Updated - - - That CC gives also others priceless quotes; Deepak Ahuja - Chief Financial Officer We do expect to be free cash flow positive in Q4. That doesn't change. And as we go along, clearly, we are optimizing for efficiency, which results in increase of our finished goods inventory. That makes sense for us to then establish some asset pipelines or credit which is backed by our finished goods inventory or raw materials. So we'll take those actions to make sure we have a solid balance sheet. Elon Reeve Musk - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Yes. Things are looking pretty good for Q4. I think it's hard to predict full quarter exactly because that whole quarterly boundary and where does the exponential ramp of production fall exactly on that side of Q4 boundary. But I think it's extremely likely that cash flow is really good at the end of Q4.
What is going to matter is the quality of the car and its features. Tesla has done very well with X in that area in my opinion. I think Tesla is going to sell a lot more cars than 50000 in this year.
Agreed that making an uniquely great car, if you can, is a good thing even with issues come with it. It would have been much easier if Tesla just go to make a bigger Leaf with a bigger battery and call it a day but in the long run that will never get Tesla to where it wants to. Pretty much every high end car company, Mercedes, BMW or Porsche are looking to expand into the lower "mass" market while lower market companies, Toyota, Honda and even the Koreans want to attack the more profitable high end market. The thing is it's always easier for a high end car company to go after the lower market than the other way around. The estabilshed brand image make it much easier, or harder, to do depending on what customer's perception of that brand has been. Tesla in a few short years has established a brand image that Toyota/Lexus and Honda/Acure tried for a quarter century but still could not achieve. People still buy those Japanes "luxery" brands only for the lower cost. Yes reliability too but reliabilty is just an ownership cost issue. Few, if any, would buy a LS over a S class or 7 series if total five year ownership cost of the them is the same. Tesla has no problem of luring any luxury, or non-luxury, buyers to buy its car with merits alone. Tesla does need to grow it manufacturing prowees but that's a much smaller challenge than try to alter people's perception of your car. It does not take a rocket sicentist, or even if it takes a rocket scientist, to figure that out.
It would appear that eds was pretty much spot on with predictions some 7 or 8 months ago re model x state of affairs. Could have saved a lot of money if I listen to them. But I chose not to as many people on this forum stated that statements made had to be wrong and I believed them. ...
I was just at the Dania SC and was told that they have started a second shift and expect to be running a 3rd shift in the future for 24-7 operation. Perhaps this is a part of the plan to increase SC availability for the X and eventually the 3.
This statement scares me quite a bit unless it's just temporary to deal with all the 'hand holding' early Model X cars need. But I thought they were taking the pressure off of the SC by moving initial quality control at the factory instead of at the SC? Some of us speculated that they initially used the SC's to get 'all hands on deck' to help push the first units out before end of year. IF they are truly going to a more people based model, this does not bode well. One of the biggest draws to me is that Tesla is trying to get so much automation into the process. Needing people, in any stage of the game from manufacturing to service, is going to kill them. This reminds me of the push the airline industry did a number of years ago with regional jets. They looked at the numbers and discovered they were flying a bunch of empty seats around using expensive fuel. So they cut the planes down in size to be more efficient. Now they have an issue that the staff (pilots/attendants) ratio is much higher (and that is a huge cost - such items as salaries, benefits and healthcare skyrocketed), pilots are getting in short supply (another subject) and fuel is cheap. Add to that you cannot just add seats to a plane. So the regional jet idea turned out to be real bad.
I think the point was that some SCs are adding shifts for SERVICE since in some areas like the SF Bay Area just the Model S has a long wait time for appointments
But even adding for service, and not just MX quality control is troubling. People costs will kill you. For the Tesla (EV) model to work, service needs to be minimized. This is an area of concern I have (and that came out with the Consumer Reports report and dismissed by many that it was just early Model S's). I only want to go into service when something wears out, not needs adjustments or fixes.
Sorry to disagree, but it is less expensive to add additional shifts than to build out additional SC's, and add people, due to the increasing numbers of Tesla's on the road.
This is what I was assuming (when told of the current second shift) and it sounded like a good thing.
I am all for that if the increased need is based on increased sales rather than increased service needs. Let's see where it goes.
It's a more global problem unfortunately I had an 8 week wait for a service in the UK. TBH as a non-shareholder I really don't care how they fix it: multiple shifts, more SC's, heck I wouldn't be adverse to them offering an "approved partner" for routine servicing and sharing the investment burden. (The service checklist is so simple even I could do it!) I'm lucky as I didn't finance my car, but I know how aggressive "off hire penalties" are for late service stamps in our primarily lease hired ICE company fleet from experience. (Yes these same penalties are in the small print of the Tesla finance agreements, so while you can skip them and still keep warranty, there could be a nasty surprise bill down the line from the finance company.)
Todays X recall reminded me of Ed, since his posts were deleted all I can find that sums up his predictions are found in "WarpedOnes" reply.
Hi guys. Moderation is theoretically right, but in practice it was different: I was open-endedly banned from writing PMs and all public posts were moderation-queued, of which most (very benign messages) never did appear on the forum - I wrote tons more than appeared - at least not within a period of several days I kept track. Effectively it was an open-ended ban, at least in practice if not in theory. When you consider the effort i used to put into my messages, it got kind of wasted effort very fast. It was probably a bit more difficult than a normal timed ban. It was open-ended and you never knew if the messages would get through or not. Also, just to clarify, my account was put on moderation by a moderator, for no particular reason I know of - there was a vague email of reports and it happened during the time when a record number of people were banned or moderated on TMC. Continuing the conversation was difficult in that sense as well, because there was no specific point to avoid. A few messages did get through. Since all moderated messages appear inside old threads, not as the latest, they probably didn't get read by many anyway - so it was kind of pointless to continue writing messages that may or may not appear several days later inside old pages of threads that few people read, as the conversation has moved on. This continued at least until early 2016 and then I lost track of it. Just wanted to set the record straight to those who asked, no need to dwell on it further. Peace. -AR
Thank you, mkjayakumar. I am the first to admit the longevity of my posting style is characteristic as it can be irritating. I doubt it had much to do with anything in this scenario, though, but that is water under the bridge. Krugerrand, I would have been surprised to say this a year ago, I missed you - and all you guys. In all seriousness. After a year of doing so much else than hanging around here, it is surprising how nostalgic one can feel popping back a bit. So, good to virtually see you.