Highest production VIN in the wild

[Max*]

I work in logistics. I've heard that a Bay Area railroad yard is working on the Model 3 ramp up for delivery to the mid-west and beyond. The numbers mentioned were 2000 cars a week starting by the end of November. None of these are for California delivery. Take that for what you will.

If true, that's what, a 2-month delay on the S-curve? Not bad at all.

My prediction is that after the earnings announcement next week the delivery estimates will be updated.

2017 will quietly become 2018, and 2018 quietly becomes 2019.

 

[McHoffa]

If true, that's what, a 2-month delay on the S-curve? Not bad at all.

2017 will quietly become 2018, and 2018 quietly becomes 2019.

A two month delay in the S curve means pushing the 40k May/June people (5k per week) into July/August, effectively meaning they lose half of the tax credit.

A six month delay in the S curve is the only way we’d possibly get #200k pushed into Q2.

 

[smartypnz]

I took that 2000 per week delivery to the mid-west and beyond to mean in addition to local and west.
Could mean 2001, could mean 10,000.

So, basically, nothing can be assumed by it.

 

[bro1999]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

 

[BobbyKings]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

Anything is possible.

 

[Mkorpal]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

There have been plenty of deliveries based on social media. Either they are lower VINs that are being finished and mixed back in, or higher VINs that simply haven't been spotted yet.

 

[RubberToe]

End of November shipping implies opening up the configurator "soon" to process orders. And those would be non-employee orders too, since 2,000 per week going East gets all employees their cars lickety split.

Maybe Elon spills all the beans during the earnings call on 11-1. That's earlier than usual, maybe not coincidental.

Please provide any additional info you can from the rail yard source!

RT

 

[Fallenone]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

They didn't deliver 521 cars, at the end of September. Only half of that number were produced. Many holes to be filled here. VIN is not strictly following delivery sequentially

 

[bro1999]

From the ever bulletproof "some dude on Facebook" sourcing, a supposed relative of a Tesla employee posted yesterday he received notice that his Model 3 was scheduled to be built soon. He posted a photo of the configurator page showing a $49k long range 3 with an estimated Nov 17-Jan 18 delivery window. Take it for what it's worth.

I tried to get him to divulge more (if he's under a NDA, last 3 of VIN), but he replied with a "Can't say anything more" meme, but did give the one photo. mentioned above.

 

[Trips]

End of November shipping implies opening up the configurator "soon" to process orders. And those would be non-employee orders too, since 2,000 per week going East gets all employees their cars lickety split....

RT

On October 6th Elon said "Probably 5-8 weeks" for the design studio. That puts it "Probably" at November 20th - Dec 4th + Elon Time means Christmas - New Years.

 

[Waiting4M3]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

There are photos of a white M3 being toured in NY state, and another M3 delivered in NY 2 days ago, 1st M3 delivered in Ohio 2 days ago, 1st M3 delivered in Oregon yesterday.

Looking through the 2 TMC threads on production M3 photos, and this VIN thread, and the M3OC VIN thread, I count about 20 some new VINs sighted this month.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Well, for what it's worth, my projected order date of Oct-Dec of this year has never changed.

So you only have a little over a month to get your car. Congratulations.

 

[McHoffa]

So are we still on VIN#521 as being the highest spotted in the wild? That VIN was spotted end of Sep, correct?
Is it possible that not a single Model 3 will be delivered this month?

It was spotted September 30 at the factory, but we don't know if it was technically "delivered" yet at that point or on its way.

We know 220 were delivered in Q3, and 260 were produced. So 521 was either part of that 220 or 260.

Most likely a lot more than 260 cars were built and unfinished, with VINs being out of sequence. Then they have since finished some of those up and filled in the VIN gaps.

There have definitely been cars delivered this month, but not very many it seems. From social media postings, in the double digits. At the most, probably ~200

But still, we haven't seen a single VIN over 521 in the past 4 weeks. Considering they were supposed to build 1500 in September, but they didn't build 1500 in September OR October, we're now at 2 months behind schedule on the ramp up. See my post above on why that's potentially going to be really bad for a lot of people.

 

[gregincal]

It was spotted September 30 at the factory, but we don't know if it was technically "delivered" yet at that point or on its way.

We know 220 were delivered in Q3, and 260 were produced. So 521 was either part of that 220 or 260.

Most likely a lot more than 260 cars were built and unfinished, with VINs being out of sequence. Then they have since finished some of those up and filled in the VIN gaps.

There have definitely been cars delivered this month, but not very many it seems. From social media postings, in the double digits. At the most, probably ~200

But still, we haven't seen a single VIN over 521 in the past 4 weeks. Considering they were supposed to build 1500 in September, but they didn't build 1500 in September OR October, we're now at 2 months behind schedule on the ramp up. See my post above on why that's potentially going to be really bad for a lot of people.

Potentially. I see two possible scenarios. They are having a variety of problems (like happened with the X) and the ramp will continue to be slow as they work out the problems. Or there is a particular hold-up that has gummed up the works, but they are making progress needed to ramp in other areas, in which case the floodgates could open and they make up some of the lost time. I know that the first scenario is probably more likely than the second, but it's still too early to tell what the long term effect will be. Hopefully we'll get more information next week. Definitely it feels like the deliveries in October have been finishing up cars made in September rather than new production, but who knows.

 

[azred]

I’m in that first Oct-Dec timeframe so I thought I’d just pick up my car when we take our factory tour in two weeks.
I’ll probably post here after our tour and anticipate that I will report seeing scores of Model 3s with high vin’s ready to ship. How’s that for optimism??

On a more serious note, I just hope they get the mass rollout right even if it is late by weeks or months. For example, if you have a Tesla now, you probably know about the recent problem with Homelink (garage door opener). Tesla has taken a flawless feature and broken it while trying to upgrade it for auto opening/closing. Service centers are being inundated with phone calls. This is just an example but there have been many others. Tesla needs to learn what Microsoft and others learned: Accuracy is much more important than speed. When I get my 3, I want it to work.

 

[bro1999]

I’m in that first Oct-Dec timeframe so I thought I’d just pick up my car when we take our factory tour in two weeks.
I’ll probably post here after our tour and anticipate that I will report seeing scores of Model 3s with high vin’s ready to ship. How’s that for optimism??

On a more serious note, I just hope they get the mass rollout right even if it is late by weeks or months. For example, if you have a Tesla now, you probably know about the recent problem with Homelink (garage door opener). Tesla has taken a flawless feature and broken it while trying to upgrade it for auto opening/closing. Service centers are being inundated with phone calls. This is just an example but there have been many others. Tesla needs to learn what Microsoft and others learned: Accuracy is much more important than speed. When I get my 3, I want it to work.

Only thing worse than an official delay would be a mass recall due to some critical issues not caught in QC.
I'm really hoping Tesla is taking the "slow and easy" approach versus the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am, get the cars out as fast as possible because investors are expecting us to" approach.

 

[ohmman]

Only thing worse than an official delay would be a mass recall due to some critical issues not caught in QC.
I'm really hoping Tesla is taking the "slow and easy" approach versus the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am, get the cars out as fast as possible because investors are expecting us to" approach.

I agree. The latter approach did not work out very well with the X.

 

[jelloslug]

Only thing worse than an official delay would be a mass recall due to some critical issues not caught in QC.
I'm really hoping Tesla is taking the "slow and easy" approach versus the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am, get the cars out as fast as possible because investors are expecting us to" approach.

The fact of the matter is that Tesla CAN'T screw this up. The cars have to be in the upper 25% of the initial quality range to be successful in the price range they are in and for most of the naysayers, they better be Lexus quality.

 

[voip-ninja]

The fact of the matter is that Tesla CAN'T screw this up. The cars have to be in the upper 25% of the initial quality range to be successful in the price range they are in and for most of the naysayers, they better be Lexus quality.

Why would you say that? What history has shown as so far is that it doesn't matter how much Tesla messes up, their stock price just goes up whenever Elon speaks.

Any other automaker would have been dealt a serious blow in market cap after having the types of rollout problems Tesla is experiencing with not only the X but now the 3. If GM said they were going to build 500 Bolts a week and were only able to scrape out a couple of hundred over the course of 3+ months they would be getting their asses handed to them.

Somehow Tesla gets rewarded with higher stock valuation.

I don't own any Tesla stock and I wouldn't. Perhaps the stock will be at $500 in a year, perhaps $50.

Honestly I think that the best possible thing that could happen to Tesla is to have their stock price impacted and then get acquired by someone like Toyota who has mass manufacturing completely down. Then again, I have been accused of being a cynic before.

 

[ElecFan]

The fact of the matter is that Tesla CAN'T screw this up.

I think that, if they have similar technical issues as model S, they will be in trouble. Costs will be very high and also the imago of bad reliability will follow them for years.
From the pretty sharp Tesla reaction towards CR-reports on alleged average reliabilty of model 3, we can see how bad Tesla wants to do it right this time. And frankly, I thing they are right given the high numbers in which the car will be produced.