Even if the products are the same, there are always marketing, sales and distribution costs that are per country, so it doesn't make sense to incur all those costs at once (Tesla certainly will have to ramp up delivery and service personnel before shipping the Model 3 to a given area). However, I think in this case they also have to manufacture and get approval for a different version of the car, so it makes it worse.
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Even if the products are the same, there are always marketing, sales and distribution costs that are per country, so it doesn't make sense to incur all those costs at once (Tesla certainly will have to ramp up delivery and service personnel before shipping the Model 3 to a given area). However, I think in this case they also have to manufacture and get approval for a different version of the car, so it makes it worse.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
Everything you say is true, I'll only add that this is not Tesla's first rodeo. They have been doing this now for 5+ years and you would think that they would have a handle on their designs and supplier competency.
Other manufacturers do not announce they are in production with a vehicle and then several months later admit they only made a handful of them.
powertoold
Active Member
It's funny when Apple releases a product that runs out of stock for months, no one says anything about their production fail. (Airpods, certain new iPhones, Apple Pencil, etc.)
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
Apple doesn't announce their production expectations by model whereas Tesla does.
All reports indicate that Apple is facing enormous supplier issues getting enough of the Romeo & Juliet components for the new iPhone X, but analysts still expect them to ship millions of them.
Tim Cook, despite all of his flaws is a supply chain zen master of the highest order. Apple books billions of dollars of business with suppliers who move mountains to meet Apples demands... or risk losing the biggest and most profitable customer most of them will ever have.
Elon and Tesla's board make really lofty expectation statements that are pretty much never met and they don't really get penalized for it.
Based on what we now know about the #s of Model 3 vehicles built in Q3 it makes the prediction of 100K-200K cars in 2017 more laughable.
If production problems are "solved" as Tesla asserts and there are fewer than 120 days left in 2017 then I would expect they are extremely close to hitting their 1,000+ a week production rate... but based on VINs and sightings that is not the case at all.
When we see thousands of non-Tesla employees rapidly getting their build finalization requests in the next week or two I will believe they really have overcome the problems.
People here think I'm down on Tesla. I'm not. I think they are the #1 innovator in automotive technology today, bar none. That doesn't mean that they will ever figure this mass production thing out under current management.
You could say I'm more of a pragmatist than a rainbows and unicorns (and thinks Elon whizzes lemonade) guy.
I'd say Apple differs from Tesla on a few levels, but mainly because there are plenty of sufficient alternatives to Apple products (or the items aren't as hot as a "sell-out" may indicate). The newest iPhone hasn't been all that important over the last few years, manly because an old iPhone with software updates is perfectly fine, or some people find Android devices to be just as good or better for their needs. Further, Apple sell-outs are probably just another PR ploy - under produce or under release on purpose initially to keep interest high, then meet most or all of the demand later with a restock.
There are currently no sufficient alternatives to a Model 3 available. The Bolt and i3 might satisfy a minority, but really they are less vehicle for more money.
I've been down on Tesla this week after the low M3 numbers came out, but I'd like to think that they're doing all they can to bring a brand new product to market as quickly as possible.
I'd liken Tesla to a young rock star. The sudden onslaught of fame and money doesn't necessarily align with the maturity to handle it. They're maturing, albeit slowly.
Tesla makes amazing drivetrains and has done more than any other automaker to change the conversation about electric cars. Many of us give them a pass (perhaps bigger than they deserve) for this achievement. There are plenty of valid complaints about their consistently lofty expectations and fit and finish, etc. I don't mean to minimize those, but we do a disservice to those arguments by using invalid or misleading data to support them.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
I don't see that anything misleading is coming out in the way of data other than what Tesla have provided.
Tesla stated in multiple communications that they were confident of getting 1500+ units out in the quarter. The unit was "in production" in July, almost a full quarter ago... and yet somehow they only built a total of 260 cars in the last 100 days. If that happened with any automaker other than Tesla the manufacturer's stock would have taken a huge hit. Imagine Chevy announcing Bolt was in production and then 100 days later says they only built a handful of them? They would not get the pass Tesla is getting.
Only people at Tesla know what the issues are, but speculation can be fun.
Tesla also made huge waves earlier this year (or was it late last year?) by announcing that Model 3 ramp was going to happen dramatically faster than anyone could have expected.... 100K-200K vehicles before end of 2017, woo hoo!!!!
I do think people here give them too much of a pass (and up until recently pounded on the "naysayers" quite relentlessly). Yes, they've done amazing things and they've done more than anyone for EV technology and acceptance, by a mile, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give them flak when it's deserved.
I was referring to the comments that roped me into this discussion in the first place, nothing you've said.
Strawman argument. You've been on these forums long time. When you placed a reservation with Tesla, did you think it was a sequential number regardless of all factors? Or considering factors like location, configuration, manufacturing batches accessories etc? Didn't you assume some of these factors would be both invisible and un-influentiable by you? And that they would be influenced by physics, markets, Tesla's ultimate goals, etc? I don't think you are helping other forum members understand the variance and the lack of rigid expectations that come with an RN number by claiming these unfounded expectations to be self-explanatory.
I believe you will find that Elon emphasized that any fail by any supplier could derail plans. There are thousands of things that can/Will go wrong. Some of them did. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME A MANUFACTURER HAS HAD PROBLEMS . Of course if all you unhappy people cancel, I will get mine sooner. If I get it in 2018, I will be happy and I’m 77.
N5329K
Active Member
I'm of a mind that until a Model 3 is on display and is available for test drives at my local Tesla Store, the car doesn't really exist as a mass-market product. Counting how far below "mass market product" it is or isn't is important if you have a stock position to worry about, but not so much otherwise. The car will show up in its own sweet time.
Robin
Robin
Garlan Garner
Banned
I don't know why brining up the fact that Tesla missed 1500 Model 3's in September equates to someone being angry and disgruntled.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not angry. Just disappointed hoping they can get going soon. Very soon.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not angry. Just disappointed hoping they can get going soon. Very soon.
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OK, then our disagreement is small. I agree that the production numbers were not 'promised', and it is possible Tesla was confident in their projection of just over 1,500 Models 3 for the quarter, though I continue to doubt it.
If they were confident, then either it was a one-off error that could happen to anybody, or else it's time for Tesla's management to develop a firmer grasp of the realities - and challenges - of its business. They are confident of lots of other very important things - AP2 hardware supports Level 5 autonomy, Model 3 will be profitable at a base price of $35k, etc. How confident can we be that Tesla is right about these things? Depends on their track record with forward looking predictions, I'd say.
Thanks again for the courteous reply.
On that note - I just walked 3 minutes from my office to the SLU Tesla Store in Seattle to ask when they'd have a 3 in-store. Several employees were adamant that an employee-owned 3 would be there sometime this month for viewing (not test driving), and that 1 or more test drive 3's would be there in November. The employees said that they couldn;t elaborate on why they were so confident these cars would be there soon, just that they would be there. Seemed like really nice people, no slime balls. I plan to check back daily M-F, schedule permitting.
Not angry here, just SUPER disappointed, lol
Ubbe
Member
When we are talking about the anticipated 1500 produced for September, we really don't know what the run rates were supposed to be going in to and coming out of September.
My guess is that the vast majority of cars of those 1500 were expected be produced in the last 2 weeks, as part of a steep ramp up. So the delay is not necessarily a month, it might as well be just a week or two. By the end of October that production shortfall would disappear in the even higher production rate.
Early days, that's what I'm saying. We've been waiting a long time for the car, but in relation to the production ramp up it's still early days... It's not like they are designing the car still. It is ready, the production line is ready. Maybe they are still tweaking it, but there is a vastly different thing to ramp up from a rate of 30-100 to 1500 than when from a rate of 1500... to 10000.
My guess is that the vast majority of cars of those 1500 were expected be produced in the last 2 weeks, as part of a steep ramp up. So the delay is not necessarily a month, it might as well be just a week or two. By the end of October that production shortfall would disappear in the even higher production rate.
Early days, that's what I'm saying. We've been waiting a long time for the car, but in relation to the production ramp up it's still early days... It's not like they are designing the car still. It is ready, the production line is ready. Maybe they are still tweaking it, but there is a vastly different thing to ramp up from a rate of 30-100 to 1500 than when from a rate of 1500... to 10000.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
At some point build configuration emails have to go out, and normally they go out around 30 days before a customer's car is expected to be delivered.
When the first public MS/MX owners get those invites and advertise them publicly we will have a better idea of where things are at. At this point, based on my calendar, the very soonest those owners would be receiving their cars is sometime in November.
tempest in a f'ing teapot - non-issue. Remember everybody b*tching and moaning over AP1's release delays? No? How about Model X delays? Model X quality issues? Model S delays? Yada yada yada blah blah blah - you'll forget about this also. They will ramp.
