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You should stop saying that one can get Model S in 4 weeks after ordering. Since your goal is to roughly estimate the backlog, you need to consider lead times in all regions, not just NA. I've pointed this before, not sure if you missed it (unlikely), or just insisting on being right when you are not.

As of 5/19/16 it was:

NA...........................4.0 weeks
Europe..................10.6 weeks
Asia/Pacific.........15.0 weeks

Have you read my post just above yours? There is a lot of water between the US and EU/China. And I'm pretty sure they have to ready the car too when it gets there. Are you really arguing that Tesla has the policy of waiting much longer before producing cars for the EU and China than for the US market? How would that make any sense?
 
Have you read my post just above yours? There is a lot of water between the US and EU/China. And I'm pretty sure they have to ready the car too when it gets there. Are you really arguing that Tesla has the policy of waiting much longer before producing cars for the EU and China than for the US market? How would that make any sense?
Don't be silly. I am well aware of shipping times. Are you?

Delivery to US is 2 weeks
Delivery to Europe is 5 to 6 weeks, 4 weeks more than to US, while the delivery time is 6.6 more than to US
Cargo ship travel time from San Francisco to China is 4 weeks tops, while wait time is 11 weeks more.
 
How is that moving the goal post? Calculating S and X seperately just makes the estimates more precise. The 3 month wait is because of shipping by boat takes a long time, and I also believe they need to ready the car when it gets there before delivery. It's impossible to say exactly how long that shipping process is so it makes more sense to just go by the US wait.

I thought the basis of this demand discussion was whether or not we can expect Tesla to meet their guidance? Couple this with the intent of line 2 being able to build both model S & X so that variations in demand can be accommodated, and you have a situation where model S & X demand can fluctuate (and thus introduce huge variability into any equation) and guidance would still be met.

As for the 3 month wait, the point was that you can't reconcile them. We don't know the exact transit time of those boats, so you don't know how many weeks worth of production is "being delivered". So you can't apply the NA wait times to global deliveries/demand.

It would make no sense for Tesla to have the cars for overseas wait much longer before they went into production (which would result in a larger backlog), it's probably more likely that they are producing these first at the beginning of each quarter and then clear up the US orders near the end to meet guidance best possible.

If you count the cars in the shipping process on their way to China the total "backlog" is larger than my estimates, but it doesn't really make sense to count these as they might as well be delivered, it's just a delayed delivery.

Of course it makes sense to count them as backlog. Until they're in the hands of the customer, they're NOT included in the earnings reports. 40k deposits, regardless of where it is being delivered to (or produced for), is still 40k vehicles that will be counted within the next 3 quarters.

So long as vgrinshpun's wait time tracker continues to inch forward, demand will continue to be ahead of production.
 
Don't be silly. I am well aware of shipping times. Are you?

Delivery to US is 2 weeks
Delivery to Europe is 5 to 6 weeks, 4 weeks more than to US, while the delivery time is 6.6 more than to US
Cargo ship travel time from San Francisco to China is 4 weeks tops, while wait time is 11 weeks more.

Let me just link you this blog post Tesla Motors Opens Assembly Plant in Tilburg, Netherlands

I will let you put 2 and 2 together.
 
I thought the basis of this demand discussion was whether or not we can expect Tesla to meet their guidance? Couple this with the intent of line 2 being able to build both model S & X so that variations in demand can be accommodated, and you have a situation where model S & X demand can fluctuate (and thus introduce huge variability into any equation) and guidance would still be met.

As for the 3 month wait, the point was that you can't reconcile them. We don't know the exact transit time of those boats, so you don't know how many weeks worth of production is "being delivered". So you can't apply the NA wait times to global deliveries/demand.



Of course it makes sense to count them as backlog. Until they're in the hands of the customer, they're NOT included in the earnings reports. 40k deposits, regardless of where it is being delivered to (or produced for), is still 40k vehicles that will be counted within the next 3 quarters.

So long as vgrinshpun's wait time tracker continues to inch forward, demand will continue to be ahead of production.

So you two are really going with the argument that Tesla for some odd reason chooses to wait much longer before letting overseas orders go into production. Literally how does this make any sense? You guys are grasping at straws.

It doesn't matter if the cars on the boat to China hasn't been counted as revenue yet, it still isn't part of the backlog. The backlog is cars in queue waiting to go into production. That is the relevant number when discussing how much leeway they have to fill the upcoming increase in capacity. But it isn't even relevant to the demand discussion as it has no influence in the fluctuations of the wait, which has been steady.
 
Let me just link you this blog post Tesla Motors Opens Assembly Plant in Tilburg, Netherlands

I will let you put 2 and 2 together.

Take it easy. No need to get snarky.

As I said, delivery to Europe takes 5 to 6 weeks, only four weeks more than to US.

On a side note, My friendly suggestion to you is to study subject a little more before lecturing people and making sweeping conclusions.

From the transcript of Q2 2014 ER Call:

Elon Musk

Production in Q4 significantly exceeds deliveries. I mean the time from when a car is produced to when it is delivered, it depends on the mix of domestic versus international, because when you -- when cars are sent to Europe or China, they've got -- obviously get on a boat and they got to get through customs, and it's sort of a more lengthy process. So, average time for delivery of a car in North America is about two weeks-ish, thereabout. And then for -- but for international deliveries, you've got to add another three to four weeks on top of that.

We try to tighten that down a little bit, but then if you blend the two, then maybe it's an average delivery time four or five weeks. So, you know, for cars made in October, they would all be delivered in Q4.
 
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Take it easy. No need to get snarky.

As I said, delivery to Europe takes 5 to 6 weeks, only four weeks more than to US.

On a side note, My friendly suggestion to you is to study subject a little more before lecturing people and making sweeping conclusions.

From the transcript of Q2 2014 ER Call:

Elon Musk

Production in Q4 significantly exceeds deliveries. I mean the time from when a car is produced to when it is delivered, it depends on the mix of domestic versus international, because when you -- when cars are sent to Europe or China, they've got -- obviously get on a boat and they got to get through customs, and it's sort of a more lengthy process. So, average time for delivery of a car in North America is about two weeks-ish, thereabout. And then for -- but for international deliveries, you've got to add another three to four weeks on top of that.

We try to tighten that down a little bit, but then if you blend the two, then maybe it's an average delivery time four or five weeks. So, you know, for cars made in October, they would all be delivered in Q4.

Good info. Even if there is an extra 2 or 3000 cars in the backlog (which I still don't think is likely) it doesn't change anything about the demand. That is all about waiting time fluctuations and production rate. But sure the more cars they have in the backlog the easier the yearly guidance will be to meet.
 
So you two are really going with the argument that Tesla for some odd reason chooses to wait much longer before letting overseas orders go into production. Literally how does this make any sense? You guys are grasping at straws.

It makes perfect sense. They have limited production capacity. And it's cheaper to batch shipments together. They can choose to build for NA, Europe, or Asia at any given time, but choose to build the asia cars that are all going on the boat together. Same with Europe, and especially the UK right-hand drive models. Optimizing production capacity just so happens to coincide with regional shipments.

It's only when you choose to ignore that constraint that all the logic falls apart and you start looking for reasons like "Musk is lying" to explain away your internal inconsistencies.

It doesn't matter if the cars on the boat to China hasn't been counted as revenue yet, it still isn't part of the backlog. The backlog is cars in queue waiting to go into production. That is the relevant number when discussing how much leeway they have to fill the upcoming increase in capacity. But it isn't even relevant to the demand discussion as it has no influence in the fluctuations of the wait, which has been steady.

Hmmm, I can see how you'd define backlog that way, but for the sake of discussing demand, I don't think it matters. Whether or not the car is in production, in queue, or on a boat, it's still a car that hasn't been "delivered" and whose money is still in "customer deposits". There's ~40,000 of them, conservatively. If you don't like my use of the term backlog, then call it a "demand buffer".

The real kicker is that you should see that number increase to $760 million in the Q2 earnings report if model S/X deposits stayed stagnant (due to the model 3 deposits actually counting).
 
So you two are really going with the argument that Tesla for some odd reason chooses to wait much longer before letting overseas orders go into production. Literally how does this make any sense? You guys are grasping at straws.

As you might know I am the one who updates the Wait Time tables for more than a year. Based on my close observation of the delivery times and a host of other contemporaneous information, gleaned from various sources, including EM interviews, ERs, shareholders meetings, etc, I've pieced together the process of how Tesla manages reservations.

Here is my understanding of how it works.

Allocation of the production to a particular country by Tesla is the first step in the process of assigning the estimated delivery time to a particular region of the world. It is done based on Tesla projection of the relative share of the incoming orders from a particular geographic area of the market, so that in steady state the delivery time estimates are more or less uniform across the geographic markets. As part of the allocation of production, ordering of parts is based on the above projections as well.

If the delivery time estimate for a particular geographic area is ahead (sooner) of other areas, it means that incoming orders from this area are lower than expected by Tesla. The opposite, i.e. if estimated delivery time for an area is behind (later) the other areas, means that incoming orders from this area are stronger than anticipated by Tesla.

For example wait time for Europe and Asia currently is much longer than for US, which is consistent with the healthy increase of incoming order from overseas, especially Asia. As mentioned in the latest shareholders letter, the growth of orders from Asia in Q1 was more than 160%

So once again, gauging backlog by just considering wait time in US is wrong, and you should stop doing it.

It doesn't matter if the cars on the boat to China hasn't been counted as revenue yet, it still isn't part of the backlog. The backlog is cars in queue waiting to go into production. That is the relevant number when discussing how much leeway they have to fill the upcoming increase in capacity. But it isn't even relevant to the demand discussion as it has no influence in the fluctuations of the wait, which has been steady.

Once again, the cargo ship time to China is 4 weeks, while delivery in US is about two. The difference is only two weeks. The difference in wait time dwarfs this as it is, as I mentioned before, 11 weeks.

I suggest acknowledging the obvious, accepting that you've been wrong on this, and stop perpetuating inaccurate information on this Forum.
 
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Good info. Even if there is an extra 2 or 3000 cars in the backlog (which I still don't think is likely) it doesn't change anything about the demand. That is all about waiting time fluctuations and production rate. But sure the more cars they have in the backlog the easier the yearly guidance will be to meet.

I've been posting about this for a while, your estimate of current demand for Model S being 50K per year is way off.

Even without accounting for 3K of MS deliveries that were pulled forward from Q1 2016 to Q4 2015, i.e. conservatively, the current demand is north of 62K cars per year. I've posted about it here.
 
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It makes perfect sense. They have limited production capacity. And it's cheaper to batch shipments together. They can choose to build for NA, Europe, or Asia at any given time, but choose to build the asia cars that are all going on the boat together. Same with Europe, and especially the UK right-hand drive models. Optimizing production capacity just so happens to coincide with regional shipments.

It's only when you choose to ignore that constraint that all the logic falls apart and you start looking for reasons like "Musk is lying" to explain away your internal inconsistencies.



Hmmm, I can see how you'd define backlog that way, but for the sake of discussing demand, I don't think it matters. Whether or not the car is in production, in queue, or on a boat, it's still a car that hasn't been "delivered" and whose money is still in "customer deposits". There's ~40,000 of them, conservatively. If you don't like my use of the term backlog, then call it a "demand buffer".

The real kicker is that you should see that number increase to $760 million in the Q2 earnings report if model S/X deposits stayed stagnant (due to the model 3 deposits actually counting).

I have never said Musk is lying, nor have I implied it. You are only embarrasing yourself by using straw men.

40k cars is absurd, they expect to deliver 17k this quarter. You are a lost cause.
 
As you might know I am the one who updates the Wait Time tables for more than a year. Based on my close observation of the delivery times and a host of other contemporaneous information, gleaned from various sources, including EM interviews, ERs, shareholders meetings, etc, I've pieced together the process of how Tesla manages reservations.

Here is my understanding of how it works.

Allocation of the production to a particular country by Tesla is the first step in the process of assigning the estimated delivery time to a particular region of the world. It is done based on Tesla projection of the relative share of the incoming orders from a particular geographic area of the market, so that in steady state the delivery time estimates are more or less uniform across the geographic markets. As part of the allocation of production, ordering of parts is based on the above projections as well.

If the delivery time estimate for a particular geographic area is ahead (sooner) of other areas, it means that incoming orders from this area are lower than expected by Tesla. The opposite, i.e. if estimated delivery time for an area is behind (later) the other areas, means that incoming orders from this area are stronger than anticipated by Tesla.

For example wait time for Europe and Asia currently is much longer than for US, which is consistent with the healthy increase of incoming order from overseas, especially Asia. As mentioned in the latest shareholders letter, the growth of orders from Asia in Q1 was more than 160%

So once again, gauging backlog by just considering wait time in US is wrong, and you should stop doing it.



Once again, the cargo ship time to China is 4 weeks, while delivery in US is about two. The difference is only two weeks. The difference in wait time dwarfs this as it is, as I mentioned before, 11 weeks.

I suggest acknowledging the obvious, accepting that you've been wrong on this, and stop perpetuating inaccurate information on this Forum.

Listen, you try to obfuscate the facts but they are really simple and shown perfectly by the graph Schonlucht posted in the waiting time thread. The average waiting time has gone down. The waiting time has gone down for Tesla's biggest market the US, which carries the most weight. The wait has gone up only for their smallest market, China, over the past year. I think you need to lose the arrogance and confirmation bias and take a look at the facts again. It isn't complicated.
 
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Listen, you try to obfuscate the facts but they are really simple and shown perfectly by the graph Schonlucht posted in the waiting time thread. The average waiting time has gone down. The waiting time has gone down for Tesla's biggest market the US, which carries the most weight. The wait has gone up only for their smallest market, China, over the past year. I think you need to lose the arrogance and confirmation bias and take a look at the facts again. It isn't complicated.

First, I do not believe that Schonelucht graph is accurate, I posted about it here.

Second, as I mentioned before, average waiting time is NOT a correct indicator of the backlog, it need to be weighted by the percentage of the deliveries in a given geographical region. Since deliveries to Europe and Asia increased, the weight of the delivery times to these regions increased as compared to the past as well.

I would need to crunch the numbers, but in my preliminary estimation the average weighted delivery time actually increased, while deliveries increased as well. This indicates increased backlog.

You've got to stop this. Your estimate of demand is just wrong.
 
I have never said Musk is lying, nor have I implied it. You are only embarrasing yourself by using straw men.

40k cars is absurd, they expect to deliver 17k this quarter. You are a lost cause.

Oh, but you did. You claimed that Tesla doesn't have enough demand to fill their production capacity (Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016 Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016 ). That's why this thread was created, to separate the demand discussion from the rest of the short-term thread. You claimed demand-issues despite Musk saying demand is not a problem and that they're at production capacity.

As for the ad-hominim, I don't need to address it.

As for 17k vs 40k: June is the last month of Q2, so some of the European and most of the Asian cars won't be delivered until Q3.
 
It seems we're left with this being an issue of how to correctly interpret the facts. In other words beliefs about reality or "faith". During the remainder of 2016 we will have an answer as to who was right in their interpretation and who was wrong.

I'll argue that if Tesla sell only 55k MS and below 15k MX in 2016 in addition to things occurring that point to this being caused by failing demand, namely for example: price cuts, Tesla taking delivery of the cars themselves in some type of fleet or ride sharing arrangement, reintroduction of a referral program (perhaps even one with a bigger rebate), a sharp increase in inventory cars and aggressive advertising then Perfectlogic's logic may indeed be perfect.

If not, he should return to this thread and apologize for being wrong and for insulting some of our most valued long time contributors, who are basing their argument on a more nuanced understanding of the situation.
 
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So you two are really going with the argument that Tesla for some odd reason chooses to wait much longer before letting overseas orders go into production. Literally how does this make any sense? You guys are grasping at straws.
It makes perfect sense for the Model X. It doesn't seem as if the development of the EU charger is entirely done (or at least the production hasn't scaled up), and the homologation probably isn't completed yet. After EU delivereries start, Tesla still has to finish the development of the RHD-version of the car, both for the EU spec (UK, Australia?) and Asia spec (Japan).

These cars can't be delivered, as there is still work that needs to be done first, so not only do you have a backlog of several thousand Model X just waiting to be produced, but also, the backlog of cars that they *can* produce (US cars), will start to empty quite fast as production ramps up. In the past, Tesla has talked about a ballpark distribution of demand where one third is in the US, one third is in Asia and one third is in the EU. To the extent to this is accurate, it means that as long as they are only delivering the Model X in the US, and production ramps above one third of global demand, the US backlog will start to clear.
 
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If demand were a problem then wouldn't Tesla reinstate the referral program? Also the price of the car has been steadily rising. They just raised prices 1.5k and then the base model will get another 3k price increase when they discontinue the 70. Furthermore, with the upcoming 100kw battery prices at the top end will probably rise another 5k.
 
Oh, but you did. You claimed that Tesla doesn't have enough demand to fill their production capacity (Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016 Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016 ). That's why this thread was created, to separate the demand discussion from the rest of the short-term thread. You claimed demand-issues despite Musk saying demand is not a problem and that they're at production capacity.

As for the ad-hominim, I don't need to address it.

As for 17k vs 40k: June is the last month of Q2, so some of the European and most of the Asian cars won't be delivered until Q3.

I haven't said Tesla isn't at production capacity right now. It is all about the ramp from 1300 to 2000/week end of Q2. The wording Elon has used about the second half of the year is that the plan is to sell 50k, and of course it is.

First, I do not believe that Schonelucht graph is accurate, I posted about it here.

Second, as I mentioned before, average waiting time is NOT a correct indicator of the backlog, it need to be weighted by the percentage of the deliveries in a given geographical region. Since deliveries to Europe and Asia increased, the weight of the delivery times to these regions increased as compared to the past as well.

I would need to crunch the numbers, but in my preliminary estimation the average weighted delivery time actually increased, while deliveries increased as well. This indicates increased backlog.

You've got to stop this. Your estimate of demand is just wrong.

Indeed you have to account for the weight of each region to the the most precise, but the difference in wait fluctuations isn't nearly big enough for this factor to skew the whole picture. Compared to previous quarters China has gone up maybe 2 weeks on average in wait while the US has gone down about the same, 2 weeks on average.

So unless China for Q2 was a larger market than the US, the (small) influence from this principle is actually the opposite of what you are trying to prove. And the last time I checked, China sales are very small compared to the US.

It seems we're left with this being an issue of how to correctly interpret the facts. In other words beliefs about reality or "faith". During the remainder of 2016 we will have an answer as to who was right in their interpretation and who was wrong.

I'll argue that if Tesla sell only 55k MS and below 15k MX in 2016 in addition to things occurring that point to this being caused by failing demand, namely for example: price cuts, Tesla taking delivery of the cars themselves in some type of fleet or ride sharing arrangement, reintroduction of a referral program (perhaps even one with a bigger rebate), a sharp increase in inventory cars and aggressive advertising then Perfectlogic's logic may indeed be perfect.

If not, he should return to this thread and apologize for being wrong and for insulting some of our most valued long time contributors, who are basing their argument on a more nuanced understanding of the situation.

I appreciate the notion that I might be right, that seems to be progress. We will indeed soon find out who is right, already after the Q2 earnings call we should get some color on the demand picture.
 
If demand were a problem then wouldn't Tesla reinstate the referral program? Also the price of the car has been steadily rising. They just raised prices 1.5k and then the base model will get another 3k price increase when they discontinue the 70. Furthermore, with the upcoming 100kw battery prices at the top end will probably rise another 5k.

While the price of the car has been rising Tesla has also improved the car significantly making it more expensive to produce. Clearly a bigger battery option will be more expensive, likewise in production. Lowering prices hurts the GM which is already under pressure. I don't know if Tesla will think it's worth it to trade some GM for more demand.