During the yesterday's interview with NYT financial columnist Andrew Sorkin, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla Motors has "almost 25,000 cars on the road" 1min 20sec mark: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/elon-musks-next-blue-sky-idea/?_r=0 So, pulling out my abacus and doing the math: Roadsters sold: 2,400 Q4 2012 Model S sold: 2,600 Q1 2013 Model S sold: 4,900 Q2 2013 Model S sold: 5,150 Q3 2013 Model S sold: 5,500 TOTAL delivered to customers: 20,550 Total worldwide demo fleet: 69 stores x 5 cars = 345 cars Total worldwide loaner fleet: 53 SC x 5 cars = 265 cars TOTAL on the road: 21,160 Assuming that "almost 25,000 cars on the road" equal to a minimum of 24,500 cars, Tesla as of yesterday delivered 24,500-21,160 = 3,340 cars. It is not clear if deliveries will be linear throughout the quarter, but assuming that they are, means that Tesla could deliver 3,340 x 6 /12 = 6680 vehicles in Q4. This seem to be kind of in line with their projection of 6,000 cars and the level of conservatism that they usually build into the projections. It also yields average production of 556 cars per week. There is a maximum of 500 cars per quarter (41 cars/week) upside for these numbers if there are more than 24,500 cars on the road. The downside depens on the average quantity of demo cars/store and loaner cars/SC. Assuming that each has an additional car above the 5 cars used in calculation will yield reduction by 69 + 53 = 122 cars/quarter (10 cars/week). There is no allowance to cars in transition to Europe because Deepak Ahuja mentioned during the Q3 call that pipe of the deliveries to Europe is filled.
Previously Elon had said real ramp up after 25% margin met. I don't know how to interpret that. If prior to end of qtr at 25% will large ramp up start or only into 1st qtr. i think the date of start of ramp up more important than plus minus 500 cars. Also guidance for next year will trump as well.
Nice research. It always puzzles me why it takes so long for them to produce their quarterly earnings. Like... it's 5 weeks. Alcoa does a better job I guess the upside is, by the time ER comes along, Tesla already have good intel on how good the next quarter is going. Perhaps this is what led to Elon's remark. Based on my personal experience ordering a car right now, I can say that the delays talked about by U.S. buyers appear to have been cleared up... they're back on their normal timeframe, like perhaps 6 weeks (i.e. 4-8 weeks depending on what is ordered). So perhaps there was a delay, but now they are really moving.
Data point from Tilburg. I was discussing with my Tesla contact there about a few last minute things and while asking if they had any spare sets of rims around so that I could swap the silver 21" for gray 21" wheels he said that they are fully crammed up with cars and have 0 space for anything else because they are going to deliver 25 cars / day in November and December so they need all the space they have for just the cars. Now the part in his wording that was vague to me is if they already do that (from the discussion I'd strongly imply they are) and if that is since mid-November now or already all of November. If we assume Nov+Dec doing just weekdays we get ~80 days of 25/day we get to 2000 cars delivered in Tilburg in November and December alone. I have no clue if they consider delivering cars in Tilburg also for cars that go to Germany etc or only Tilburg pickup cars. I would assume it's all of EU (except Norway and Switzerland that gets the cars straight from Fremont). If this is true and there were also deliveries in October, then of the Tesla guidance 6000 cars delivered we might see a good half in Europe (adding NO, CH to the ~2200-2500 EU other cars).
Interesting! (Especially the part where you find 80 weekdays in Nov+Dec ;-)) I would probably at least halve that amount for max 1000 cars out the door before New Year. Edited: I mean, after October. Do we know how many delivered in October?
Bwahaha I don't know what kind of nice magic math I did Indeed 8 weeks meaning 40 weekdays So yeah 1000 cars, which is far less impressive now It's still a QoQ increase I think, but not as much as I'd have hoped.
Sorry I missed that. Wikipedia is certainly missing the 100 extra roadsters that were added near the end of the production run. I believe the correct number to use is 2500. (not that that affects your calculations significantly)
According to post from The Model S Delivery Update thread (#6152, dated 11-02) there was a ramp-up in production. It would be nice if we can get a confirmation from another source:I just asked the question. My DS just called and told me that my s85 would go into production on December 16th and scheduled my pick up for December 20th. He said that they have ramped up production and there is a good chance my car will even go into production before that. I just checked my dashboard and it has not changed since the day i placed my order. When do you recieve your vin numbers?
Without too many datapoints, save for the famed 570/week photo from early q4, and knowing they like to underpromise and slightly overdeliver, I am expecting 6200-6300 cars sold (delivered) this quarter.
We need pic of a big red bow on a Tesla Model S to send to people as Christmas gift hints (a la Lexus ads).
Higher than expected deliveries would be consistent with the ramped-up production reported on Model S Delivery Update thread - reference post #10 in this thread.
Anyone know anyone who's been to the factory lately? wouodbe interesting to see what their take is as perhaps they have gotten a glimpse of what the current weekly run rate is.
Somewhere I thought someone said they were at the factory like last week and still being quoted a 550/wk production rate.
Bummer, I hope Panasonic gets their act together soon. I'm under the impression that the battery supply constraint is the only thing holding us back right now from ramping up further.
The 550 cars per week with two running shifts was reported by DJ Frustration yesterday - in the Tesla Fremont Factory Work Schedule thread (post #6): I was on a factory tour last week. They are working two shifts and producing 550 cars per day as of the end of last week.