Model X Ramp Tracking

[SBenson]

Given the importance of this subject thought that a separate thread is warranted.

As a first post I will present something purely analytical.

Data:
- As per InsideEVs there were 370 Model X deliveries in Jan. Here is the link.
- Per Elon Musk in Paris Model X production will reach 1000/week sometime in Q2. Here is the link.
- Musk said numerous times that Model X ramp will be exponential.

Just working with round numbers we need to go from about 100/week deliveries to 1000/week in roughly about 20 weeks.

If we were to fit that projection to a compounding curve (I assume that's what exponential means), we get a growth rate of approx. 12% per week.

Maybe we can track against this to see if things are progressing as well as expected.

 

[hobbes]

Given the importance of this subject thought that a separate thread is warranted.

As a first post I will present something purely analytical.

Data:
- As per InsideEVs there were 370 Model X deliveries in Jan. Here is the link.
- Per Elon Musk in Paris Model X production will reach 1000/week sometime in Q2. Here is the link.
- Musk said numerous times that Model X ramp will be exponential.

Just working with round numbers we need to go from about 100/week deliveries to 1000/week in roughly about 20 weeks.

If we were to fit that projection to a compounding curve (I assume that's what exponential means), we get a growth rate of approx. 12% per week.

Maybe we can track against this to see if things are progressing as well as expected.

Just a note on the meaning of exponential, which seems not to be clear to many people here. An exponential curve is defined by its growth rate rising in proportion to its amount. (Typical example would be a bacteria culture, where every bacteria splits after a certain time, and the more bacteria there are, the faster the culture grows). So a compounding curve is the same if I understand it correctly (coming from science, not finance).

If you only have two points on your curve (100/week and 1000/week), you cannot fit an exponential unambiguously (parameter missing). You might want to take the start point of the ramp into account. For calculating a (constant) growth rate of 12%/week you don´t need an exponential.

 

[Benz]

Tesla Model X deliveries in 2016:

Q1: about 2,000
Q2: about 4,000
Q3: about 8,000
Q4: about 12,000

They will need more time to reach 1,000 per week.

 

[Matias]

This thread was allready started in September

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/52935-Model-X-Production-ramp-up-discussion

 

[schonelucht]

The best data we have is from the model x tracker. For the last 3 weeks of 2015, the tracker reported respectively 1/4/15 deliveries (out of 208 total). That means we have data for about 1 in 10 deliveries. For 2016 the reported deliveries currently stand at 4/7/9/4/6. It's pretty damning evidence that the exponential phase of Model X deliveries has not yet arrived. I think we can be fairly confident in total 2016 deliveries hovering around 300, growing by between 50 and 100 each week.

The Model X tracker also tracks owners who received a status update that their car is in assembly. I'd consider those numbers however less accurate. A delivery is a pretty significant event of which an owner must be aware, while a car could enter production with the owner being unaware of it for various reasons. That said, the numbers are still interesting : for 2016 the weekly totals are 14/6/12/0/1. You can interpret that any way you like but a continued exponential production ramp up is pretty hard to match with that series. The most positive explanation would be that the factory produced all signature/founders and is slowing down a few weeks with model X to gear up for a huge production push.

 

[Matias]

Data:

- Per Elon Musk in Paris Model X production will reach 1000/week sometime in .

Actually he said "roughly comparable"
"sometime in Q2"


https://youtu.be/cQDYU-t8TiI?t=4m10s

So that is rather vague statement.

 

[ZachShahan]

Given the importance of this subject thought that a separate thread is warranted.

As a first post I will present something purely analytical.

Data:
- As per InsideEVs there were 370 Model X deliveries in Jan. Here is the link.
- Per Elon Musk in Paris Model X production will reach 1000/week sometime in Q2. Here is the link.
- Musk said numerous times that Model X ramp will be exponential.

Just working with round numbers we need to go from about 100/week deliveries to 1000/week in roughly about 20 weeks.

If we were to fit that projection to a compounding curve (I assume that's what exponential means), we get a growth rate of approx. 12% per week.

Maybe we can track against this to see if things are progressing as well as expected.

First of all, do you have any clue how InsideEVs is coming to its estimate? Any indication the folks there aren't basically guessing?

It's not super explicit, but I explain my process here: "Tesla Model X deliveries were based on an estimated total number of US Signature Xs, anecdotal delivery announcements from customers, and the Q4 delivery total announced by Tesla."

Naturally, no one on the outside knows, so anyone's "educated estimate/guess" is surely going to be wrong to some degree.

As far as "exponentially," it seems pretty clear that the expected exponential increase in production is coming much later than Elon thought (was supposed to be kicking in around the new year), since (as schonelucht noted), there aren't really any indicators that has been happening.

So, I think the big questions are: 1) what are the big holdups to ramping up of production? 2) how are those being dealt with? 3) is Elon's latest claim/estimate going to hold? "sometime in Q2" is still a bit aways.

In any case, though, less than 1000/week is less than initially estimated from Elon/Tesla, so if Model S production hasn't been jacked up to fill in (key assumption being that there's enough demand to do that), am afraid we're going to see some disappointing numbers in the coming months & the stock will take more of a hit (unless that's why it's been taking a hit since the beginning of the year).

 

[anticitizen13.7]

It's going slowly, but observational evidence indicates that more Model X are making it into customer hands: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/54661-Random-Model-X-sightings/page149

For a week or two, the "Random Model X sightings" thread was barely moving, but recently there's been a jump in activity, which could be an indicator of deliveries.

There's no way to tell for sure, but I suspect that the Conference Call on Wednesday should give us a better sense of what is going on.