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Tesla Production & Profitability

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If you see ev-cpo, there are just 488 Model 3s in US. That is less than 1/2 day worth of sales ! So, they are clearly very low on 3 inventory.
500 is low for a model selling some 10k per month.

Ok, then I'll rephrase. For the entire life of the Tesla's (previously CPO) inventory website, they've never listed all of their available inventory for any model, new or used. So if there are 50 cars on EV-CPO or 500, that's just because Tesla decided to list that many online. It really has no bearing on the actual number of Model 3s in inventory available for sale. It could be 500, or 5000, we really do not know. It's up to the remarketing department to decide what cars they want to list, and how many. They always hold back cars that remain unlisted.
 
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Hank’s point in the above post has been made many times by many different people - yet it still doesn’t seem to register for some folks. Any Tesla sales person, assuming you can find one, can consult their “non-customer facing” inventory list and find hundreds of cars available in locations that only show a few on the Tesla site.

I’ve never understood nor liked Tesla’s secrecy about this. It seems they are still trying to propagate the notion that Teslas are scarce and hard to find. And that certainly is no longer true.
 
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Pretty much any model3 variant - I can order and get delivered very quickly.

Except apparently white on white. Apparently the five people who have ordered that combo are suffering.

I'm not sure what makes you think this. Scraping all of their available inventory from their public facing website is not hindered (currently). And there are other websites also scraping for new inventory by doing brute-force VIN hunting for pre-production, in-production, or in-transit cars that have never been listed on the Tesla public facing website. Tesla stopped this practice by now requiring a token for Model 3 listings, but Model S and X inventory VINs can still be found by brute force.

Tesla could defeat screen scraping by simply not ever showing duplicate vehicles. I could easily manage their inventory system to not forgo any sales while not revealing all inventory.
 
And there are other websites also scraping for new inventory by doing brute-force VIN hunting for pre-production, in-production, or in-transit cars that have never been listed on the Tesla public facing website. Tesla stopped this practice by now requiring a token for Model 3 listings
Yes, this is what I mean.

They have this hidden inventory they don't want anybody to see under pretenses that it does not really exist. Also I am sure you have seen inventory cars (same vin) adding and dropping from showing on the public from time to time for unknown reasons.

One school of thought is they should list all theyir inventory to maximize chances of selling it. Though there are arguments why not to do this too. Either way the concealment of inventory is a real thing.

If the inventory is so low, it shouldn't surprise you that some other VIN gets delivered
that does not make any sense. So inventory is low, but magically deliveries are made with cars that were made long ago even though there's no inventory?

Also, I don't think they show the car unless it is already in a delivery center
So if the car is stored somewhere for months and months, it's not an inventory, its.... what exactly? Scrap? Appreciating assets?

500 is low for a model selling some 10k per month.
You are asking the wrong question here. The right question is - how long do those public VINs are sitting on the public before disappearing for good?

If every time you order a car based on what you see on the site, but they deliver something else - this is also a sign of vastly bigger inventory than what's showing on the site.
 
It really would not work for Tesla to expose their complete inventory IMO. Every time inventory increased it would make news.

If I were Musk I would never reveal inventory. What I would rather Tesla do for me as a buyer is not relevant.

So basically you think by just hiding the problem it goes away? Or what's the logic here, again?
 
How would daily reporting of inventory by Tesla make the problem go away (assuming there is a problem)?
Daily reporting of inventory does not make the problem go away, but it does not hide it. That's what we need in efficient markets - transparent actors. Hiding a problem (if you don't think inventory buildup is a problem, that's a different topic altogether) is a disservice to shareholders (as is hiding of any other problems).

Some people would also tell oyu that by showing all inventory it's easier for interested buyers to arrive at the car they really want. I am not sure I 100% agree with that, but it should not hurt either.
 
Ok, then I'll rephrase. For the entire life of the Tesla's (previously CPO) inventory website, they've never listed all of their available inventory for any model, new or used. So if there are 50 cars on EV-CPO or 500, that's just because Tesla decided to list that many online. It really has no bearing on the actual number of Model 3s in inventory available for sale. It could be 500, or 5000, we really do not know. It's up to the remarketing department to decide what cars they want to list, and how many. They always hold back cars that remain unlisted.
How confident are you that Tesla is doing this even for new vehicles ? Do they do this only for unallocated inventory coming out of factory or even vehicles already shipped to a location ?

For eg. if I go to my local Bellevue, WA delivery center and count all the inventory cars (including in offsite lots), will the numbers match with what we see on your site ?
 
If you see ev-cpo, there are just 488 Model 3s in US. That is less than 1/2 day worth of sales ! So, they are clearly very low on 3 inventory. Only in some kind of la-la land would that be considered soft demand. 997 Model S and 256 Model X. So, they do have quite a few Model S to sell (they had 13k S+X at the end of Q1 globally, including floor models). I'd say demand for older version of Model S is soft. Model 3 and X are robust.
Today from the same site I see
Model 3: 132
Model S : 1,046
Model X : 137​

So, even lower Model 3 number. X has gone down some 40% and S has actually gone up a little.

I'd guess, they have all the pre-refresh S & X in the list - because they do want to sell all those cars quickly.
 
Daily reporting of inventory does not make the problem go away, but it does not hide it. That's what we need in efficient markets - transparent actors. Hiding a problem (if you don't think inventory buildup is a problem, that's a different topic altogether) is a disservice to shareholders (as is hiding of any other problems).
That is a hot topic. For eg. I think Tesla should disclose production, delivery and thus inventory position every month. But many on this site (and Musk) think the numbers will be twisted and used for FUD and shorting the stock.

We can't ignore the fact that Billions of dollars are behind shorts and there is an epic attack against Tesla.

So, may be disclosing every little problem does not actually serve shareholders, but actually helps the hedge funds & shorts.
 
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think the numbers will be twisted and used for FUD and shorting the stock.
here's the thing.

If you have strong fundamentals, people that short your stock out of ignorance are just giving you money for free! Have you seen Apple leashing on short sellers? Amazon? Other healthy companies?

It's absolutely paramount for market participants to be transparent in my opinion. Nontransparent entities are high risk because you essentially invest into them based on just faith (which is absolutely the case with Tesla, BTW). This is why security regulations exist, but they were created long time ago when it was hard to disseminate information. It's much easier nowadays so companies should look into being more transparent than regulations require, not less.

Also consider that it's much easier to twist lack of information than it is to twist trusted information. Information vacuum filled with gossip and speculation is a very fertile grounds for all sorts of lies dissemination. And this is obviously bad for investors.
 
If you have strong fundamentals, people that short your stock out of ignorance are just giving you money for free! Have you seen Apple leashing on short sellers? Amazon? Other healthy companies?

It's absolutely paramount for market participants to be transparent in my opinion.
Are Amazon or Apple taking on fossil fuel & auto companies ? Amazon didn't have strong "fundamentals" for over a decade.

When we have good transparency on shorting, let us talk about transparency by Tesla.

Don't be naïve. There is zero "transparency" on wall st.

BTW, here is the real fundamentals I'm looking at. Really all that is needed.

- Industry growing at 60%+ annually.
- All the regulations will more and more favor less polluting/toxic cars.
- Tesla is the market leader.
 
Are Amazon or Apple taking on fossil fuel & auto companies ? Amazon didn't have strong "fundamentals" for over a decade.
It's irrelevant, they take on other important and deep pocketed industries. Did you see Amazon attacking short sellers and hiding their financials for over a decade?

BTW, here is the real fundamentals I'm looking at. Really all that is needed.
those are not as important as you might think.

The important fundamentals are: "do they make money or at least not lose money" doing their stuff? If the answer is no, the company is on a shaky ground as far as fundamentals go. Remember the oft. compared to Amazon did not borrow on the open market, they financed their operations from their cashflow for quite a while, therefore showing ~zero profit. See here: Amazon Net Income 2006-2019 | AMZN

Compare to: Tesla Net Income 2009-2019 | TSLA

I hope you can see the difference.
 
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Tesla is manufacturing products while Amazon is selling other companies' products. That's a huge difference. You can't compare the two. Manufacturing is difficult and expensive, especially here in the USA. We should stand up and cheer for Tesla doing the hard work here (it's not only the hard work but the incredible innovation). Compare that to an AAPL, who designs here but contracts out the manufacture to lesser countries. We need both here: design and manufacturing.