Sorry to go back several days of topics (was mostly out of pocket since last Thursday), but you all are still talking about it, so I guess it's still relevant:
Super-wrapped Model 3s: Sorry to burst the conspiracy theory bubble, but phigment already shared what I was going to: one of these super wrapped vehicles was spotted in Canada as far back as May 16 as you can see in this video:
Almost certainly not performance, white interior, or Model Y or anything special. I suppose it could be a showroom model, but I really doubt that as well. More likely they are just experimenting with different wrapping techniques, or they found Flufferbot something he was good at.
As for the "stockpiling" situation. The word "stockpile" has a connotation here that I don't think is accurate. I think people are thinking that they are going to park the whole lot of stockpiled vehicles in a single lot either in Fremont, or Oakland, or Sparks. If in fact that's what Tesla is doing (and I think they are), that is definitely not how they would do it. They would distribute those vehicles around the country to delivery hubs and centers close to or at the locations of final delivery so that they are sitting there ready to be delivered that first week of July. Not only does this expedite the delivery process for all those folks that got the "July" e-mail, but it also means they don't have to lease a giant parking lot or store cars in the middle of the desert for 4 weeks.
I've run the numbers and to defer to 200K until July means they will have to ship about 10K Model 3's to Canada and "store" 12K Model 3's around the US. But I really think those are going to be spread across the whole country, so you end up with only 100 at each delivery center on average.
Yes, that's still a huge number and probably far exceeds the capacity at most delivery centers. Each delivery center might have to arrange for some offsite parking. Or not. The Charlotte, NC delivery center (located at a former dealership) for example can hold over 250 vehicles parked in the spots and could easily store 300+ if they park in the aisles. I'm not in Charlotte, but if I was looking for a LOT of Model 3s, that's one place I would look. We should all have our eyes open for these kinds of lots.
As for whether it makes business sense for Tesla to do this...well perhaps off-topic for this thread, but you better believe it makes sense!
First of all, even if they push ahead and not defer until 3Q, they will probably not be profitable in 2Q anyway. On the other hand, they can make a good case for WHY their numbers look the way they do in 2Q by stating what will probably be a massive "12,000 vehicles in transit". The smart investor (and note that this group does not include your classic shorts, but I think even most of them will see what's going on) will realize that the 2Q sales were simply deferred a few weeks into 3Q, so as much as they love quarterly results, they know the revenue will soon be realized and it is practically immaterial to the financial health of the company. PLUS, it sets them up to practically guarantee a profitable 3Q because all that revenue will be claimed in that quarter. It's a bit of a smoke and mirrors play and not sustainable, but while the ramp still continues, it will certainly guarantee getting them over the transitional quarter. And if that weren't enough of a business reason, look ahead to when the tax credit does expire. At this point, Tesla will face a price headwind against the competition. If they don't defer, the headwind will be an additional 1 quarter than if they don't defer. In the grand scheme, I suppose 3 months isn't going to make a huge difference, but in business, every advantage helps.