Should Tesla publish monthly sales numbers?

[adiggs]

But to say in a timely and consistent manner, "here are the numbers," would make much more credible any explanation that may be required to understand what the numbers mean.

I'm a data geek . I totally believe in this, and the value of consistently provided numbers.

And in this case, consistently provided numbers that are monthly instead of quarterly.


I have previously been in the "don't publish monthly" camp, and still am with regards to sales numbers. I see too many management judgements, explanations - too many moving parts that takes the worst of quarterly reporting, and turns it into a monthly experience, to be worth doing.


Now if only we had a way to put this bug into Elon's ear. I figure a couple of app developers in IT could have this system developed and running with a few weeks of effort. Another week or two for Legal review, and this could be a new page on the investor website, complete with historical production data too.

Present it every month with no management guidance or commentary - just publish the numbers and automate it so nobody is in the loop and expending further energy.


(If you want to get really fancy, time the new month numbers to become visible well after market close on the first Friday after the end of the month, so that everybody has the weekend to review the new numbers and decide what they mean).

 

[jhm]

I'm a data geek . I totally believe in this, and the value of consistently provided numbers.

And in this case, consistently provided numbers that are monthly instead of quarterly.


I have previously been in the "don't publish monthly" camp, and still am with regards to sales numbers. I see too many management judgements, explanations - too many moving parts that takes the worst of quarterly reporting, and turns it into a monthly experience, to be worth doing.


Now if only we had a way to put this bug into Elon's ear. I figure a couple of app developers in IT could have this system developed and running with a few weeks of effort. Another week or two for Legal review, and this could be a new page on the investor website, complete with historical production data too.

Present it every month with no management guidance or commentary - just publish the numbers and automate it so nobody is in the loop and expending further energy.


(If you want to get really fancy, time the new month numbers to become visible well after market close on the first Friday after the end of the month, so that everybody has the weekend to review the new numbers and decide what they mean).

As a statistician, I am a data geek too. SolarCity used to a have real-time reporting tool too. It actually identified what every installation team was building out. This perhaps goes too far, but within the world of Musk companies there is this kind of capability and thinking. One element of that tool, no doubt, was to motivate installation teams to keep up the pace of work. Likewise a regular feed of production counts could be a motivational tool for Elon. They've got daily reports (which have been leaked to bears, Skabooshka) and week objectives for employees, but the knowledge that monthly tallies would go public could be strongly motivating. Of course, as you point out, if this gets too involved with too many judgments and explanations from management, it could become a real time waster. But to keep it simple, they already have a daily production count. Publishing a monthly summary of the daily counts need not get in anybody's way.

 

[adiggs]

Exactly.