Tesla Revenue Expected to Exceed Guidance by 20% in Fourth Quarter

[Andrew]

This press release just landed in my inbox. Guess that explains the ~10% rise in TSLA today!

Tesla Revenue Expected to Exceed Guidance by 20% in Fourth Quarter Sales Driven by Superlative Safety Record and Excellent Cold Weather Performance PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/14/14 -- Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 were the highest in company history by a significant margin. With almost 6,900 vehicles sold and delivered, Tesla exceeded prior guidance by approximately 20%. A higher than expected number of cars was manufactured as a result of an excellent effort by the Tesla production team and key suppliers, particularly Panasonic. The two key drivers of demand were the superlative safety record of the Model S and great performance under extremely cold conditions. Safety Record Tesla remains the only manufacturer with a perfect safety record of zero deaths or serious, permanent injuries ever. Including the Roadster, Tesla vehicles have now been on the road for almost six years in 31 countries with almost 200 million miles driven to date. Despite dozens of high speed collisions, the driver and passengers have always been protected. This is Tesla's proudest achievement. Independent testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded the Tesla Model S a 5 star safety rating overall and in every subcategory without exception. Of all vehicles tested, including every major make and model approved for sale inthe United States, the Model S set a new record for the lowest likelihood of injury to occupants. While the Model S is a sedan, it also exceeded the safety score of all SUVs and minivans. Excellent Cold Weather Performance Due to the precision of its electric powertrain, the Model S has outstanding traction control relative to the much higher latency and inertia of a gasoline powertrain. As a result, it is able to perform better on snow and ice than many all-wheel drive gasoline cars, as shown in this Tesla produced video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS9uDJGi52A And many independent reviews and customer produced videos: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla%20cold%20weather&sm=3 Tesla's highest sales per capita are in Norway and the individual customer who owns the most cars lives in Narvik, which is above the Arctic Circle.

 

[austinEV]

This press release just landed in my inbox. Guess that explains the ~10% rise in TSLA today!

I think they should calm down on declaring their cold weather accolades until they fix the Norwegian charging issues. Some humility is called for.

 

[uselesslogin]

Yes it does...

 

[DriverOne]

Norwegian charging issues.

What are those?

- - - Updated - - -

[Nearly] 6900 vehicles sold & delivered!! Wow. What a huge quarter. Not a year ago 5,000 would have been on target.

Profits went unmentioned Presumably churning everything back in the biz; stores, service centers, Supercharger rollout etc

 

[austinEV]

What are those?

Many Norwegian car owners report UMC problems specially during cold weather.

 

[AnOutsider]

Tesla remains the only manufacturer with a perfect safety record of zero deaths or serious, permanent injuries ever. Including the Roadster, Tesla vehicles have now been on the road for almost six years in 31 countries with almost 200 million miles driven to date. Despite dozens of high speed collisions, the driver and passengers have always been protected. This is Tesla's proudest achievement.

I always cringe when they tote this. I hope the writer knocked on several types of wood.

 

[austinEV]

I always cringe when they tote this. I hope the write knocked on several types of wood.

Right. Sadly, there will be a death someday. Let's not set this up to be a 20% one day price drop. (because it will still be a very safe car)

 

[smorgasbord]

Does anyone track the Miles Driven/Death for each automobile or manufacturer? 200Million miles isn't all that much in the scheme of things, and I wonder what BMWs or Mercedes or Volvo's numbers are, at least for cars made in the last 5 years. Anyone got a source?

 

[Doug_G]

I always cringe when they tote this. I hope the writer knocked on several types of wood.

Yeah, it's odd because Elon was much more precise at Teslive. He said, something like "Statistically we can't expect this to always remain true, but to the best of my knowledge right now we've never had a fatality or permanent injury in a Tesla."

Inevitably someone will eventually be killed or maimed. For all I know it might take something ridiculous like a tanker truck rolling over the car, but it will happen.

 

[772]

Haven't gotten this in my inbox yet... I'm still waiting :crying:

 

[Mario Kadastik]

I think I looked at some point and the going rate is 8 people dead per 1B km driven. So at 200M miles (i.e. 320M km) we should have ~3 dead. That's less than one full car. So right now it's the same statistics game as it was with the highway f***s. Too low number of expected events to make a statistically viable claim either way. But the fact that there have been no serious injuries is I think FAR more telling statistical item as I would expect those to be order(s) of magnitude more frequent than deaths.

 

[Robert.Boston]

This is dated, but a search pulled up the following data; something is messed up, so the column headers should be shifted rightward one slot.

Here are actual fatality states from www.airlines.org: YEAR U.S. PASSENGER FATALITIES PER 100 MILLION PASSENGER MILES Psgr. Autos[SUP]1[/SUP] Buses[SUP]2[/SUP] Railroad Psgr. Trains[SUP]3[/SUP] Airlines[SUP]4[/SUP] 1989 1.12 0.04 0.06 0.09 1990 0.99 0.04 0.02 0.003 1991 0.91 0.04 0.06 0.03 1992 0.83 0.04 0.02 0.01 1993 0.86 0.02 0.45 0.01 1994 0.91 0.03 0.04 0.06 1995 0.97 0.03 0.00 0.04 1996 0.96 0.02 0.09 0.08 1997 0.92 0.01 0.05 0.01 1998 0.86 0.05 0.03 0.00 1999 0.83 0.07 0.10 0.003 2000 0.80 0.01 0.03 0.02 2001 0.78 0.02 0.02 0.06 2002 0.77 0.06 0.05 0.00 2003 0.74 0.05 0.02 0.005 2004 0.71 0.05 0.02 0.002 1995-2004 0.83 0.04 0.04 0.02 commercial airlines have consistently been safer (far safer) than traveling by car. Source: National Safety Council Injury Facts®

Sources: http://www.airlines.org/economics/specialtopics/Airline+Safety.htm

A more recent analysis shows light-duty vehicle deaths per 100 million miles has fallen to 0.54. So, with 200 million miles under its collective belts, there should be 1 death. I'd say that's too small a sample to have much confidence in. The lack of permanent injury is probably more indicative.

 

[chickensevil]

Yeah, it's odd because Elon was much more precise at Teslive. He said, something like "Statistically we can't expect this to always remain true, but to the best of my knowledge right now we've never had a fatality or permanent injury in a Tesla."

Inevitably someone will eventually be killed or maimed. For all I know it might take something ridiculous like a tanker truck rolling over the car, but it will happen.

I dunno, I mean they were actually unable to "crush" the car in testing... who knows what this baby can stand up to! Quick! someone go (safely) roll a tanker truck over this car and see what happens!

Warning: Some of this may seem cynical or callous. I am merely coming at this from an educational exercise, and would not wish injury or death on anyone.
-Things that might change this number. Getting hit/hitting something at an insanely fast speed. We are talking someone going like 100MPH into oncoming traffic doing like 60MPH... Rare, but they do happen (although the last time this was "tested" it was Tesla vs a very old Honda Accord, and the Accord did not win that fight. I do not know the speeds off hand of that accident, though.)
-Getting hit by something VERY large. Like a train. This is also very rare, but I am sure happens still. as long as the car explodes, depending on the speed of the train the odds are still likely very favorable.
-Maybe if a building/giant rock falls on top of the car? They don't put of "falling rocks" signs for nothing.
-Deer/Animals going THROUGH the windshield? This is rare as far as I know too, but could happen. Anything going through the windshield would likely be bad.
-Getting caught in someone else's fire/explosion. You may be fine, but the ICE vehicle you hit might not be, their could catch fire, explode, and set off a chain reaction on your car, or at the very least their explosion would impact your car.

All these seem pretty extreme and far out there, so I think the numbers will stay looking pretty good for now. But I do agree it will likely take an extreme circumstance that noone would be expected to live through to happen before these numbers change.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Animal through the windshield is how moose kill people, It's a hundreds of pounds standing on thin legs.

 

[Cobos]

Animal through the windshield is how moose kill people, It's a hundreds of pounds standing on thin legs.

Yes a moose is dangerous especially here in Norway where they are everywhere. I'm curious though if the Model S is smooth enough that the moose body will impact the roof more than the windshield and sort of slide off the car. Obviously probably cracking the windshield and doing a number on the roof. If it ends up doing a more glancing blow rather than a direct impact on the windshield it might turn out okay for the occupants inside the car, probably not for the moose though. In that regard I would not like to drive a Model X, which looks to me to have all the wrong profile.

Has anyone heard of any moose Model S crashes yet? How about simulations?

Cobos

 

[SteveG3]

glad someone dug up the stats. I agree with the consensus here... sampling too small re fatalities, but lack of permanent injuries, crash test results encouraging.

chickensevil's warning applies to what follows:

eventually, someone has heart attack, massive stroke, seizure while driving car at highway speed... cause of death unclear, Elon uses discretion and does not tweet that his team says it was a heart attack before the accident. (disclaimer: any fun poked at hear towards the media more than Elon. If he responds to anything now it seems widely framed to be Elon being oversensitive, defensive...)

 

[Auzie]

"Yes a moose is dangerous especially here in Norway where they are everywhere. I'm curious though if the Model S is smooth enough that the moose body will impact the roof more than the windshield and sort of slide off the car. Obviously probably cracking the windshield and doing a number on the roof. If it ends up doing a more glancing blow rather than a direct impact on the windshield it might turn out okay for the occupants inside the car, probably not for the moose though. In that regard I would not like to drive a Model X, which looks to me to have all the wrong profile.
Cobos"

In Australia drivers fit bull bars to their cars to deflect kangaroo impact from the front of their vehicle. Some use high frequency "roo shoo" whistles to repel animals from their paths.

One Australian car manufacturer estimates that there are two hundred thousand collisions between motorcars and kangaroos every year.

Lets see how will Tesla engineers tackle this problem and how will they "kangaroo and moose proof" the car.:biggrin:

 

[Chickenlittle]

"Yes a moose is dangerous especially here in Norway where they are everywhere. I'm curious though if the Model S is smooth enough that the moose body will impact the roof more than the windshield and sort of slide off the car. Obviously probably cracking the windshield and doing a number on the roof. If it ends up doing a more glancing blow rather than a direct impact on the windshield it might turn out okay for the occupants inside the car, probably not for the moose though. In that regard I would not like to drive a Model X, which looks to me to have all the wrong profile.
Cobos"

In Australia drivers fit bull bars to their cars to deflect kangaroo impact from the front of their vehicle. Some use high frequency "roo shoo" whistles to repel animals from their paths.

One Australian car manufacturer estimates that there are two hundred thousand collisions between motorcars and kangaroos every year.

Lets see how will Tesla engineers tackle this problem and how will they "kangaroo and moose proof" the car.:biggrin:

Wow I thought we had a problem with deer in Virginia but I see it could be worse

 

[chickensevil]

So from everything I was reading about the safety of the car (even well before the NHTSA testing), they basically put it through the normal NHTSA tests themselves, found issues, fixed, and reinforced the car, then they went BACK over the car looking for any other weak spots, and reinforced the car. Because they were not just trying to beat the tests, but rather actually make a safer car.

I am sure when there is inevitably a death or a serious injury they will take this into account when they build their revised model S. I mean they have already set the new standard in safety, I just hope they keep trying to improve themselves and don't just settle.

 

[johnnydop]

Inevitably someone will eventually be killed or maimed. For all I know it might take something ridiculous like a tanker truck rolling over the car, but it will happen.

With Teslas luck, someone will get hurt only because they weren't wearing a seat belt and the beloved media will no doubt splash headlines about Tesla's first major injury without mentioning the fact that a seat belt was not worn. This will then force Tesla to go into defensive mode once again in order to present all the necessary facts.