I've been following InsideEV for almost 2 years. Historically they have been VERY accurate. Most recently, they completely pegged the 2014 sales number and the 4Q number.
InsideEVs pegged the 2014 sales number (I am not sure how you can know the Q4 number, so I will just discuss the 2014 number), but so did Hybrid Cars (by the way, I can't find Hybrid cars numbers directly, so I used
Good Car Bad Car, which posts Hybrid Cars estimates). Hybrid cars just does US estimates, but when you add the Canadian results to those estimates to get a comparable number to InsideEVs, you will see that they had very close estimates for 2014. InsideEVs estimated 17,300 and Hybrid Cars estimated 16,550 for US (add 847 from Canada to get 17,397). Tesla stated that North America made up 55% of its 2014 deliveries, which would works out to 17,410 cars. On a month to month basis, the average difference between the two estimations was 488 cars in 2014. That should tell you that they are guessing wildly for the months and adjusting data in the following months to be more accurate overall. Here is their estimates for 2014 (I added Canadian results to HC's numbers to get a comparable number to InsideEVs):
Month (2014) | Hybrid Cars | InsideEVs | Difference |
January | 1320 | 800 | 520 |
February | 1419 | 1400 | 19 |
March | 1419 | 1300 | 119 |
April | 1471 | 1100 | 371 |
May | 1461 | 1000 | 461 |
June | 1504 | 1800 | 296 |
July | 1448 | 800 | 648 |
August | 1225 | 600 | 625 |
September | 1494 | 2500 | 1006 |
October | 1337 | 1300 | 37 |
November | 1476 | 1200 | 276 |
December | 2023 | 3500 | 1477 |
TOTAL | 17,397 | 17,300 | 5855 |
Also, InsideEVs was WAY off the mark in 2013. They estimated 17,650 deliveries in North America. Total deliveries in North America and Europe in 2013 were 22,477, and when we subtract 3,892 in European registrations, we get to 18,585 delivered in North America in 2013. Hybrid Cars, on the other hand, estimated 18,195 cars in US, and adding the Canadian results of 638 takes us to 18,833 total for NA, which is MUCH closer than InsideEVs. I don't think we should call any of these sources *VERY* accurate, and instead accept them for what they are: educated guesses. By the way, Hybrid Cars estimates 1500 cars in January.
Yeah, based on forum rumors, I was expected Tesla to announce a CPO program 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting and kicking myself for believing it. They probably will have a CPO program ... a year from now.
They already have a CPO program, at least 2 people have posted about their experience buying a CPO car from Tesla. The only question is when they will announce it, which certainly will not be a year from now.
They pegged deliveries not sales. There's a big difference there for the point you are making about waning demand. Deliveries do not = demand. And it doesn't hold water because your reasoning implies that Tesla isn't supply constrained. Its not doing as well as Tesla hoped in multiple regions? As I mentioned its to prepare for growth and to ensure long term organic growth by focusing on specific markets and tastes for Model X, S, and 3 configurations. For example, if they had a regional manager for sales in China they could have waited to roll out Model S till Tesla created the executive back seat option. Its not -- demand is bad here therefore we need to assign a dedicated person. There's no point generating the demand if the supply isn't there which leads me to think its a long term preparation moves.
Well, on this front, Cosmacelf does have a point. It doesn't look good for demand when you miss delivery guidance 3 quarters in a row (Q3 2014-Q1 2015), especially when one of those quarters you missed lowered guidance, and another quarter you missed lower than the previous quarter guidance. So while deliveries might not necessarily be an accurate proxy into demand, if Tesla consistently misses guidance, you have to consider that maybe they are an accurate proxy. However, I highly doubt Tesla will miss Q1 guidance, and I trust Tesla by believing that deliveries are indeed decoupled from demand as of now, but if Tesla misses in Q1, it will be extremely difficult to continue to believe it.
Huh I thought they were Romans saluting their emperor. Anyway, no French Revolution symbolism was meant in posting that image, just to illustrate that pioneers always deserve credit for courage and for going ahead of others to clear the way.
Specifically, the image you posted is of the
Tennis Court Oath. Gotta love history.