I've test drove MS on Sunday in Philadelphia during the test drive event. The event was staffed with several people and some cars from the NJ Paramus store. I was told that reservations at the NJ Paramus store, which is open 6 days a week, lately average at about 60 cars per month. I was also told that delivery time shown on Tesla Design Studio page will soon increase as European delivery cars will start blending into the production.
If above rate of reservations is seen at other US stores, the rate might be picking up as warm spring months are upon us. The total yearly rate of reservations for all 25 US stores would be 60 * 25 * 12 = 18,000.
There were a lot discussions and modeling done on this Forum indicating strong Q1 results, with the slowing reservation rate as the only possible relatively weak spot. The uncertainty about the rate of reservations was partially based on shrinking delivery times quoted by Tesla (from 5 months during the Q4 2012 CC to currently 3 months given on the Design Studio pages of Tesla Motors site), and partially on a guess work about current reservation rate in which all of us got engaged once Tesla stopped using sequential reservation No's in US.
The shrinking reservation time given by Tesla, however, is not necessarily an indication of lower backlog of reservations. Another possibility is that Tesla stealthily increased production and are now operating at the weekly rate of well above 500 cars a week. If true, it would explain away another question that I had for a while: why Tesla would pre-announce profitable quarter, risking stealing thunder from the official Q1 CC? This seemed to me a smart idea only if there is another, potentially as big or bigger piece of news
which Tesla is planning to reveal during the Q1 call. The increased production as well as increased guidance for total deliveries in 2013 could be just such piece of news, especially when coupled with details on increasing margins and reservation list which does not look as bad as speculated by numerous professional analysts. It could also underscore Tesla's confidence in strong European and later this year Asian reservations.
Such turn of events could have explosive effect on the seemingly slow process of short covering, forcing all remaining holders of short positions to exit immediately.
The calculation below, although mostly based on bits and pieces of information that was made public by Tesla, is not perfect as lack of data required quite o few of assumptions. The assumptions were always made to be conservative regarding the calculation of the current production rate. Due to many assumptions calculation below can not be off course used as a proof of the increased production, but rather shows that this hypothesis is at least plausible.
The data and assumptions made below indicate that Tesla is possibly producing 617 cars a week starting in April. If true this would indicate projected Q2 production/delivery of 8,021 cars, handily beating the 4,500 estimate given by EM. This would be an explosive piece of good news for the Q1 2013 CC.
Link for the calculation is included below. Will try to embed it tomorrow.
imgur: the simple image sharer
