No inventory cars available at all - S, X or 3

[whitex]

I noticed recently that inventory cars seem to have disappeared on-line. I read here that Tesla may be holding back and not want to make their inventory public online. I visited a Tesla store today to see what they had in new inventory, as my wife's car is about to get totaled (pending insurance adjustment, chances very slim they would even attempt to fix - DUI driver slammed into the car on the highway, front and rear damage, airbags popped). The answer I got at Tesla was surprising, "we have no inventory at all - S, X or 3, all new cars have to be custom ordered". When I asked about the lonely S on the showroom floor, the answer was "not for sale".

So, it's not that Tesla is holding back, apparently they cleared out their own inventory cars. Maybe a refresh, or maybe production resourced diverted to Model 3?

 

[HankLloydRight]

Wow. Thanks for posting that. Some people are reporting new inventory available "in-store" but not online.

No matter what the reason, it really appears to be an intentional/strategic move and not just high demand buying up all the inventory.

 

[Hey_Hey]

They mentioned in the Q4 earnings call that production would slow down for Q1 2018 because of increased attention on the Model 3 line. However, I do wonder if that was the public position while the true reason was to clear inventory for an upcoming refresh of Model S.

It would be a great time to juice Model S sales by increasing battery sizes to 100 and 130 kWh while refreshing the interior.

 

[Jigglypuff]

At the end of last year, we looked at getting an X. The sales guy said we could order one and then wait for production, and that if our order exactly matched something nearby, we might get that car sooner. However, there were loads of vehicles in the lot and not in the local system or the online system. He said they didn't want to put those cars online as available or searchable because then they'd sell all their cars used as loaners. Utterly stupid bullshit. Cost them their last chance at selling me a car. I bought a pickup truck instead. A lot cheaper and better built, TBH.

 

[Electroman]

I bought a pickup truck instead. A lot cheaper and better built, TBH.

I agree.

What kWh battery does your pick truck have? AP1 or 2?

 

[JonG]

I run the a uk inventry tracker website and typically have 50-100% more cars than any other tracker out there and the available cars I can find has fallen by 1/3 across all channels (Tesla new, Tesla used and Indy garages) in the last month. What inventory there is has also been reduced by a few hundred £/$ every few days. Something is happening I recon.

Has anyone seen or taken delivery of a 2018 built car? Given the factory to delivery timescales in the uk are about 6 weeks we’ve not seen any yet but should fairly soon.if they’re actually making cars.

 

[whitex]

WTF? I just looked at the configurator, the deliver estimate for Seattle is now late May! That's the end of NEXT quarter. No inventory and limited or no production capacity for over a quarter. Something big must be coming. I've ordered 3 Teslas so far an none of them took this long.

PS> WTF for me is because I am just waiting on the insurance company to determine whether fixing my wife's MS is a lost cause, and if so I will need a new one and really don't want to wait 4 months to get it.

 

[TEG]

Tesla had mentioned trying to maximize (USA) tax credits by timing when they hit 200K total deliveries, and then having lots of cars to deliver in the following quarter when the full tax credit is still available.

I have no idea if this is that case, but one theory could be some delivery staging to maximize tax credits.

 

[TEG]

Related other thread:
No end of quarter push/incentives this quarter

 

[whitex]

Tesla had mentioned trying to maximize (USA) tax credits by timing when they hit 200K total deliveries, and then having lots of cars to deliver in the following quarter when the full tax credit is still available.

I have no idea if this is that case, but one theory could be some delivery staging to maximize tax credits.

Wonderful, if I tell my wife she has to wait till May for her new car, I see a possibility of an ICE replacing the Model S. I guess Tesla is going for the greater good, more Model 3's on the road offsets a few ICE cars replacing Model S's on the road.

 

[TEG]

Again, I am only mentioning a theory as to what may be happening. I have no idea if that is the actual reason.

 

[whitex]

Again, I am only mentioning a theory as to what may be happening. I have no idea if that is the actual reason.

If true, that would also mean that Model 3 delays are affecting Model S and X deliveries too.

 

[DIL]

Late May is only for 75D MX. If you click on 100D or P100D, it goes back to “Late March”

 

[dcmetro]

WTF? I just looked at the configurator, the deliver estimate for Seattle is now late May! That's the end of NEXT quarter. No inventory and limited or no production capacity for over a quarter. Something big must be coming. I've ordered 3 Teslas so far an none of them took this long.

PS> WTF for me is because I am just waiting on the insurance company to determine whether fixing my wife's MS is a lost cause, and if so I will need a new one and really don't want to wait 4 months to get it.

It just may be the push to get Model 3s to 5000/Qtr as Elon's been promising on Quarterly calls. Wall street is watching it very closely this time. Stock could fall big or go to 400+ if he's able to deliver.

 

[David29]

Makes me wonder what the strategy might be. What about this idea: By keeping inventory low, it keeps prices higher, and might help to discourage people from buying a used Model S (or X) rather than waiting for Model 3. Not sure what their incentive would be for that.
Another possibility: It helps keep prices high for used cars so that people coming off lease (as I will be shortly, hence this line of thought) are perhaps more prone to order a new car, rather than to buy out their lease or buy a used car. I was expecting that the prices for used Model S cars would drop once Model 3 was in production, which might have given me some room to negotiate a lower buy-out price, OR to find another comparable used car that was priced even better.
Or it could be none of these. Fun to speculate, though.

 

[Yinn]

I'm not sure why, but this happens every single year. The inventory gets re-released in mid February. My OA called me last year in a frenzy and every OA must have been doing the same because those things were flying off the inventory list.

My best speculation is that it forces people to order off and might set the production tone for the quarter/year. IE - shifting a line to MS or MX production. Or the silly side of me pictures a single guy walking the lots....One Red. One Blue..no no, two blue.

 

[JonG]

Or it’s simply a new year and they try and swap every order to inventory to get rid of stuff built in 2017 forcing a turn over of stock. Inventory falls as they dont release 2018 inventory, when the numbers are low enough we get an explosion of inventory appear as they put the 2018 inventory up.

 

[Petra]

EV-CPO shows 127 used Model S in Tesla's US inventory and 1 new Model S... what am I missing here? I mean, yeah, that's low but it's not zero.

 

[thegooch49]

EV-CPO shows 127 used Model S in Tesla's US inventory and 1 new Model S... what am I missing here? I mean, yeah, that's low but it's not zero.

Remember that December 2017 was the opposite. There was practically zero CPO cars for the entire month of December, and they loaded up on new inventory cars available. They flipped the table in January 2018, releasing hundreds of used Model S throughout the month and new inventory dried up. They do this manipulation on purpose, I'm just not sure what that purpose is.......

 

[JonG]

EV-cpo as far as I can tell only really shows what Tesla shows. Just tracking what Tesla publically shows is relatively pointless as if Tesla withdraw it from their listings they disappear from most inventory sites.

For the uk market I do it differently they had about 250 cars split between new and used (Tesla were showing about 100), since Christmas the new have have halved and the used gone down by 2/3, the used fall is partly because Tesla are selling on block to independent dealers and removing from the Tesla website and advertising them through the generic used car sites.

What I’m basically saying is anything that bases the market on what Tesla show which includes most cpo sites are being manipulated by Tesla.