Should Tesla publish monthly sales numbers?

[ggr]

They don't need to be that granular or regional. Global or per continent (NA, Asia, Europe) is ok. Global daily order count, quarterly delivery count.

My wife, who is a newly minted lawyer, always yells at the crime suspect on TV: "SHUT UP! DON'T VOLUNTEER INFORMATION!" So Tesla moves some production around so that US sales are down in June, but they don't get to China until August, and the headline in the US is "Sales Falling! No Demand!" and the headline in China is "Tesla Dumping Model S!".

I'm very solidly in the camp of keeping 'em guessing.

 

[AudubonB]

My reaction to my suggestion...:wink:...is that TMC would best be served by releasing the sales numbers daily but the geographic agglomerated data only quarterly or, if SEC-allowable, yearly.

 

[austinEV]

Taking this to the logical extreme, why not just post every internal Tesla Motors document online on google docs for anyone to read? They have released their patents after all, whats the harm? By the logic that the more disclosure equals less FUD, this must therefore be optimal.

The reason of course, aside from stealing non-patent secret info, is that every armchair carmaker would be in tesla's shorts about every line down, every pay report, every meeting minutes. It would be a noisy distraction, reducing productivity to zero. Such it is with frequent sales reporting. They would be distracted by what the "dailies" would look like and make poor decisions for the long term.

This is the reason its a bad idea to make all congressional meetings open record. Sometimes you just have to close doors and make the sausage.

 

[jhm]

Third question. Suppose had a dashboard on its website that provided information on the current number of order and cumulative deliveries by region. How might customers and prospective buyers use that information? Would it generate interest and help customers better understand delivery issues or might reveal too much of the unsavory inner workings of the sausage factory? Should the games being played to hit quarterly numbers be hidden from customer sight or would games not be played if they were in plain sight?

 

[Krugerrand]

There's a reason Tesla has decided to 'keep their cards close to the chest'. Let's just go with it and enjoy the surprises as they unfold.

 

[Phil Seastrand]

I believe only the Tesla management knows the best way to report this data and I leave it up to them to decide. If quarterly is the right answer for the business today then that's the way it should be. No one else has enough information or is privy to the discussions that resulted in the decision for quarterly reporting so I don't see how anyone can seriously suggest otherwise. I've been in management and know that many factors go into a decision and it's best that many of these factors are not made public. Either you trust the Tesla management or you don't, but it doesn't make any sense to nitpick each decision without all the facts.

 

[jhm]

I am all in favor of Tesla holding cards close to its chest where there is a strategic rationale for so doing. Am I to believe that it in Tesla's strategic interest to allow Wards Auto to publish fictitious monthly sales figures on its behalf? Does Tesla's management believe that publishing accurate monthly sales data would impede its progress? Should I as a shareholder not be asking such questions for fear that doing so might harm my investment?

I have every confidence in Elon Musk and his management team, but the suggestion that they are withholding monthly sales data because they know or believe it would be damaging to Tesla to do so is not at all comforting. The thing I most appreciate about Mr Musk is his candor. To suggest that releasing accurate monthly sales data would harm Tesla strains credibility.

 

[techmaven]

To suggest that releasing accurate monthly sales data would harm Tesla strains credibility.

After following Tesla and TSLA closely for almost two years now and interacting with both bulls and bears, it is my opinion that releasing accurate monthly sales data is definitely harm Tesla. Before the Model 3 is firmly established, Tesla is a relatively fragile state. People buying $100,000 ASP cars do not like uncertainty with the company and monthly sales data will only serve to increase volatility. No strategic reason for Tesla to disclose more information that required.

 

[eepic]

Taking this to the logical extreme, why not just post every internal Tesla Motors document online on google docs for anyone to read? They have released their patents after all, whats the harm? By the logic that the more disclosure equals less FUD, this must therefore be optimal.

The reason of course, aside from stealing non-patent secret info, is that every armchair carmaker would be in tesla's shorts about every line down, every pay report, every meeting minutes. It would be a noisy distraction, reducing productivity to zero. Such it is with frequent sales reporting. They would be distracted by what the "dailies" would look like and make poor decisions for the long term.

This is the reason its a bad idea to make all congressional meetings open record. Sometimes you just have to close doors and make the sausage.

Agreed on this. Increasing the frequency and breaking them down further by geography is going to generate more volatility and will take a magnitude more effort to calm the public explaining temporary blips. Imagine Elon having to rebutt misleading reports like the recent Wards/WSJ one every couple of weeks. That same time and energy could be used actually designing and producing amazing products, and moving the company forward.

Let's face it, more detailed and frequent information mainly benefits our enthusiasts' thirst for incremental news and short term traders, at the expense of long term investors.

 

[chickensevil]

Look at what happens in countries/regions where it is relatively easy to get registration data. Every few months we go through the same cycle with Norway. You get a headline of "sales collapse in Norway - Is this the end of Tesla?" and then a couple months later you get "record sales in Norway - Tesla is as strong as ever"... Well which is it? Is Tesla on the verge of losing all their demand, or are they still getting crazy high uptake in Norway? I think it is more likely somewhere in the middle, but the swings are so hard because of how Tesla allocates it's production based on whatever internal metric they choose in order to try to make customers as happy as possible. Combine that with the occasional shutdown and other logistics nightmare and it is a recipe for problems.

So then you say, geographics doesn't matter just give us the monthly data! But then you would still go through the same thing as Norway (or whatever other country) but now, on a global scale. If it takes 1-2 months to ship something over seas, a car made in Sept destined for overseas wouldn't get counted in Sept, or even possibly Oct... So you would continue to see wild swings in the month to month where if you break down the deliveries for July - Sept, we all KNOW that you can't take 7800 and divide by 3 and expect them to have delivered 2600 cars globally each month. It is probably MUCH closer for this Quarter to looking like 1500 / 1000 / 5300. If they had posted publically 1500 deliveries in July can you imagine the ruckus that would cause? And THEN publish some number in August that was LOWER than July? OH, the media would have a field day with that!

Look, it is bad enough that Tesla already kills themselves to do crazy logistics to meet their quarterly numbers. If they could get away with it, it would be much better for the company to only tell their Yearly numbers so they stop doing all these "end of quarter push" nightmares that end up making the US service centers way over booked and not allowing them to get the proper attention to detail to each customer and then you get all these delivery issues (door dings, scratched paint, chipped glass, etc) and customers get mad, and it is already a headache. If they switched to some kind of Monthly reporting are you telling me you wouldn't think Tesla would totally shift to balance the numbers out better? You honestly think that they would just carry on as they are? There is no way, because public image is everything to them right now (look what they did in response to the car fires)...

As much as I would love to have the information because I understand the company, it would do more harm than good at this stage in the game. When they get bigger and things balance out more, then it might be OK. But I just can't see how this would help reduce volatility and uncertainty.

 

[jhm]

It looks like the author of this article has been reading our thread. I get the impression that in the world outside of Tesla fandom, Tesla does not look so good on this issue. Tesla exceptionalism wears pretty thin.
Elon Musk Vs Ward's: A Sales Battle Tesla Brought On Itself

 

[mrdoubleb]

Look at what happens in countries/regions where it is relatively easy to get registration data. Every few months we go through the same cycle with Norway. You get a headline of "sales collapse in Norway - Is this the end of Tesla?" and then a couple months later you get "record sales in Norway - Tesla is as strong as ever"... Well which is it? Is Tesla on the verge of losing all their demand, or are they still getting crazy high uptake in Norway? I think it is more likely somewhere in the middle, but the swings are so hard because of how Tesla allocates it's production based on whatever internal metric they choose in order to try to make customers as happy as possible. Combine that with the occasional shutdown and other logistics nightmare and it is a recipe for problems.

So then you say, geographics doesn't matter just give us the monthly data! But then you would still go through the same thing as Norway (or whatever other country) but now, on a global scale. If it takes 1-2 months to ship something over seas, a car made in Sept destined for overseas wouldn't get counted in Sept, or even possibly Oct... So you would continue to see wild swings in the month to month where if you break down the deliveries for July - Sept, we all KNOW that you can't take 7800 and divide by 3 and expect them to have delivered 2600 cars globally each month. It is probably MUCH closer for this Quarter to looking like 1500 / 1000 / 5300. If they had posted publically 1500 deliveries in July can you imagine the ruckus that would cause? And THEN publish some number in August that was LOWER than July? OH, the media would have a field day with that!

Look, it is bad enough that Tesla already kills themselves to do crazy logistics to meet their quarterly numbers. If they could get away with it, it would be much better for the company to only tell their Yearly numbers so they stop doing all these "end of quarter push" nightmares that end up making the US service centers way over booked and not allowing them to get the proper attention to detail to each customer and then you get all these delivery issues (door dings, scratched paint, chipped glass, etc) and customers get mad, and it is already a headache. If they switched to some kind of Monthly reporting are you telling me you wouldn't think Tesla would totally shift to balance the numbers out better? You honestly think that they would just carry on as they are? There is no way, because public image is everything to them right now (look what they did in response to the car fires)...

As much as I would love to have the information because I understand the company, it would do more harm than good at this stage in the game. When they get bigger and things balance out more, then it might be OK. But I just can't see how this would help reduce volatility and uncertainty.

+1.

 

[Krugerrand]

I get the impression that in the world outside of Tesla fandom, Tesla does not look so good on this issue. Tesla exceptionalism wears pretty thin.

And I get the impression it makes no difference what Tesla does, it just isn't going to be good enough for those looking to pick them apart. They can't make everyone in fandom happy, they certainly won't ever be able to make those not in it happy.

It's interesting (and I don't mean in a good interesting way) that it's Tesla's fault because somebody made up some numbers for a report, then someone else didn't do the proper research and repeated them (including in an authoritative - these are real numbers - manner) and then bam! What a strange and warped way to think. There is zero problem with Tesla not publicizing the number. The problem is that people are nasty pieces of work and when they can't get something they feel they're entitled to have (even when they clearly aren't entitled), they will go to all sorts of lengths to force the issue.

Anybody who thinks that suddenly all 'this' will disappear if Tesla reports monthly sales/deliveries/production (fill in the blank) either hasn't been paying close enough attention to the Tesla moving goalpost game, or is seriously delusional.

 

[techmaven]

It looks like the author of this article has been reading our thread. I get the impression that in the world outside of Tesla fandom, Tesla does not look so good on this issue. Tesla exceptionalism wears pretty thin.
Elon Musk Vs Ward's: A Sales Battle Tesla Brought On Itself

Actually, a number of the well known Tesla bears have asked for this loudly and publically since they lost big money in the aftermath of Q2 2013 ER. Of course, they are also the most prominent is spreading FUD on publically available registration data as Chickensevil pointed out. Tesla has made many enemies. Disruption by an upstart is not looked kindly upon by the establishment.

 

[Johan]

And I get the impression it makes no difference what Tesla does, it just isn't going to be good enough for those looking to pick them apart. They can't make everyone in fandom happy, they certainly won't ever be able to make those not in it happy.

It's interesting (and I don't mean in a good interesting way) that it's Tesla's fault because somebody made up some numbers for a report, then someone else didn't do the proper research and repeated them (including in an authoritative - these are real numbers - manner) and then bam! What a strange and warped way to think. There is zero problem with Tesla not publicizing the number. The problem is that people are nasty pieces of work and when they can't get something they feel they're entitled to have (even when they clearly aren't entitled), they will go to all sorts of lengths to force the issue.

Anybody who thinks that suddenly all 'this' will disappear if Tesla reports monthly sales/deliveries/production (fill in the blank) either hasn't been paying close enough attention to the Tesla moving goalpost game, or is seriously delusional.

This! It's all of a sudden Tesla's fault that Ward made up a number and went with it??? But like you say, just like the whole dealership law change in Michigan, the main tactic to try to hinder Tesla is to keep moving the goalposts or as michiganmodels wrote in the other thread regarding the change of wording in the law: don't keep changing the rules of the game as we're playing.

Any investor who lost money last week due to believing the erraneous sales data an acting on it got what they deserve (and in the process transferred some of that money to me, thank you). If they should blame anyone but themselves it would have to be Wards and all the publications who regurgitated the nonsense. Haven't seen any class action suits being filed towards Wards by the ambulance chasers yet...

 

[ggr]

Actually, a number of the well known Tesla bears have asked for this loudly and publically since they lost big money in the aftermath of Q2 2013 ER. Of course, they are also the most prominent is spreading FUD on publically available registration data as Chickensevil pointed out. Tesla has made many enemies. Disruption by an upstart is not looked kindly upon by the establishment.

If the bears want it, all the more reason not to.

 

[jhm]

Thanks, everyone who participated in this discussion. It has been an eye opener for me. I had no idea that this was such a sensitive issue. This seems to touch on some fairly raw insecurity about how Tesla might be perceived if accurate data were revealed to the public. I happen to believe that Tesla is ready for the prime time and am confident that Tesla's sales numbers can stand to scrutiny, but apparently not many here share my outlook. I hope that Tesla's management will someday move forward on this as a gesture of confidence. I think if Elon Musk were to lead on this, shareholders would come along and feel pretty good about it. In the meantime, I don't think I'll press this issue any longer as little good comes from stiring up insecurities. I wish us all the best for quarterly results.

 

[chickensevil]

Don't beat yourself up, it was worth bringing up. I think at some point it will be helpful to switch to that.

My personal view is they should wait until they fully get pushed out on production to the point where the number of sales would show the true demand levels. I think that is why those numbers won't do much good for anything right now because they are still production constrained.

And if they did show it, I wouldn't complain, I was just expressing why I thought it might not be helpful.

 

[dalalsid]

Don't beat yourself up, it was worth bringing up. I think at some point it will be helpful to switch to that.

My personal view is they should wait until they fully get pushed out on production to the point where the number of sales would show the true demand levels. I think that is why those numbers won't do much good for anything right now because they are still production constrained.

And if they did show it, I wouldn't complain, I was just expressing why I thought it might not be helpful.

I still don't see why they cant just show order numbers. That would also take the focus away from deliveries which causes volatility.

 

[Krugerrand]

I still don't see why they cant just show order numbers. That would also take the focus away from deliveries which causes volatility.

It's not a matter of 'can't', it's a matter of don't want to. Changing the focus from deliveries to orders will not decrease volatility. Until the microscope is lifted, there's no good reason to add more fuel to the combusting object.