ReflexFunds
Active Member
No problem. The reason they do not run the configurator after the last ship has left because they do optimize the yet unsold inventories not just based on their best prediction for future orders but also for optimizing Tesla's financial interest. E.g. last quarter that we understand pretty well they have shipped the SR+ -s that had already been ordered and the inventories were higher end.
They could have stated that SR+ -s cannot be ordered, but that was not their choice. Both last quarter and this quarter they cut off delivery promise for the quarter roughly at the time of the last batches. Also the cars are likely batched together by delivery centers at the shipment to minimize logistics cost. 30 configurations are still too big numbers to send a multiples of each to all delivery centers.
Otherwise i do not really think we disagree.
In Europe SR+ switched from December to February delivery estimate at the start of November while AWD/P switched on November 28th. The cutoff date varied by country and not by shipment date.
In Q3 September deliveries were available until late in the quarter.
I guess the quarters production allocation is decided per model option and per local region.
So Tesla will estimate demand for all 30 Model 3 configs for each European country or each US state.
The cars will be sent into ships and already dedicated to local distribution hubs at that stage - they will not be put on the ship as generic European cars or as cars for a specific customer, but as cars for a specific country.
Once all 10 configs for each sub model (sub model being SR+ vs AWD vs P) for a country are no longer available, that sub model delivery date will move to month two of the next quarter.
This will still leave 9 option variants in each country to be delivered as available inventory. Tesla likely also holds back from selling some inventory on each ship to maintain some store inventory, but the majority will already have been bought by customers at this stage.
But there is no incentive for Tesla to show a 2-3 month estimate delivery wait and lose customers to competitors when they still have all options available for delivery within 4 weeks.
So it is fair to assume broadly that when Tesla shows next Q delivery for a specific sub model in a specific country, then there is no longer all 10 options available for that sub model allocated to that country and unsold on incoming shipments.