- Add white interior to the configurator
Here's my thoughts on the white interior vis a vis the other alternatives:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no actual manufacturing delta to do a white interior vs a black one, is there? Short of possibly having a conveyance system capable of handling multiple options. There is no physical difference between the white and black interiors that the actual main assembly line would care about is there?
That assumption being true, the only reason I can see for not offering the white interior option is this:
Tesla's strategy for delivering 3s in high volume is to pre-build all options and start getting them out to the field and then match buyers with existing vehicles.
Adding another interior option (assuming demand for white vs black is roughly 50/50) would cut the potential number of vehicles to match a given buyer's preference in half. Add a cream option in and it's down to a third. Granted, there would be a bigger pool of buyers to draw from, so in the end it may not seem to make a difference, but when you are sending a train load of vehicles to a smaller, more specific market, you run the risk of running out of a specific configuration and having an excess of vehicles in another.
If this wasn't a concern in the first place, I don't see why they wouldn't have offered a white interior right from the start. But since that would apparently be the reason, I don't see that they would change direction on that until the volumes of cars coming out of the factory are at least 2-3 times higher, and in my opinion, not until they reach the 5K/week level.
Now the AWD & non-PUP reasoning is much the same, except now you also have added complexity in the manufacturing line itself that needs to be addressed. Although in the case of AWD you could make the argument that there would be strong geographical tendencies that would enable them to predict more confidently the ratios they would need to build out.
At any rate, I can't see them offering too many more options until they start to build a lot more inventory out (or until they shift to a build-to-order model, but with a mainstream vehicle, that doesn't seem likely until the backlog is down to a month or two).
But I do think the Canadian AWD play (and maybe ONLY AWD?) is a possibility. Of course I would expect them to release pricing information pretty soon if that's their intent.
