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AZ Desert Driver
Rare combination
Oh Ohmman - I LIKE your new photo. Hat looks good on you!!
and you never said if you have jumped on the Maximum Plaid now available on the roadster. Got one on order?
Seeing the growing size of recent orders (and arguably pace of such announcements), it occurs to me that Tesla may be incentivizing early and large orders to effectively create a virtuous cycle of snowballing semi truck orders for Tesla. The more major players see other major players getting in line, the more real the potential of the Tesla semi seems, and the more real the risk of competitors gaining an advantage seems to those who haven't yet made a reservation. This would also be helpful to Tesla in allowing them to have initial production at a meaningful scale with a bulked up order backlog from incentivizing early and large orders (think initial production line scaled for 5K or 10K per year vs. say 500 or 1K).
If Tesla has been incentivizing early and large test fleet orders, here's my hypothetical of what may be going on...
Stage 1 ~now-2019,2020, various large companies will try out the semi with the 10-100 truck test fleets they've been ordering, and total initial orders and Tesla production on initial capex spending/production line capacity might total something like 5,000 units. In stage 2, ~2020-2021, Tesla would be planning to produce 20K-30K/year semis with additional capex commitment/production capacity, and will offer places in line and order sizes reflective of stage 1 ordering.
I'm not suggesting Tesla would cut anyone off from ordering, but, rather that there would be a line for stage 2 production reservations starting with these early stage 1 reservation holders, with Pepsi so far being offered the largest number to order (of the companies whose current order size is known). If and when the existing owner line was worked through, reservations would be lined up on a first come first serve basis. Stage 3 and beyond targeting expansion rate would be easier as the product and the market's interest would be more established.
fwiw, I just picked 5K and 25K from my gut... the point is really about building capacity in stages that match the trial process the customers want to use, without starting off with an inefficient low production volume.
If Tesla has been incentivizing early and large test fleet orders, here's my hypothetical of what may be going on...
Stage 1 ~now-2019,2020, various large companies will try out the semi with the 10-100 truck test fleets they've been ordering, and total initial orders and Tesla production on initial capex spending/production line capacity might total something like 5,000 units. In stage 2, ~2020-2021, Tesla would be planning to produce 20K-30K/year semis with additional capex commitment/production capacity, and will offer places in line and order sizes reflective of stage 1 ordering.
I'm not suggesting Tesla would cut anyone off from ordering, but, rather that there would be a line for stage 2 production reservations starting with these early stage 1 reservation holders, with Pepsi so far being offered the largest number to order (of the companies whose current order size is known). If and when the existing owner line was worked through, reservations would be lined up on a first come first serve basis. Stage 3 and beyond targeting expansion rate would be easier as the product and the market's interest would be more established.
fwiw, I just picked 5K and 25K from my gut... the point is really about building capacity in stages that match the trial process the customers want to use, without starting off with an inefficient low production volume.
Wondering why there are "Founders Semi" reservations? Because after the queue gets long enough, some of the trucking companies will start paying to jump the queue...
Hmmm.
If corporate tax rate goes down in 2018/19, would they be better off ordering a Founder's now? Do deposits depreciate? Or does it change from expense to asset at delivery?
Reciprocity
Active Member
It's a liability and and asset, cash. When the semi is delivered, the liability goes away and is booked in sales to offset.
I've been scratching my head as to what the Founders edition will include that is not in the standard semi. Fleets won't care about "founders" branded blinker lights. Maybe the thermonuclear explosion proof glass will be an option, and thus standard on the founders edition. Premium interior finishes is the only other thing left... other than just being in the front of the queue.
I agree, and also it's a simple spreadsheet calculation; what's the opportunity cost of putting down $200k for three years (at 10% that is $60k), versus getting the vehicle earlier and saving $30k (guessing) per year for a few years?
Has anyone been able to pin down a reliable number for worldwide Semi sales? Ashlee Vance this morning in an article on the new Thor truck referenced 940,000 units/year. This Electric Truck Will Probably Beat Tesla’s to Market.
This sounds about right based on the numbers in the US and total worldwide heavy truck sales figures, and has also been used by a Bernstein analyst, but my Google-fu failed to locate a source to verify it.
This sounds about right based on the numbers in the US and total worldwide heavy truck sales figures, and has also been used by a Bernstein analyst, but my Google-fu failed to locate a source to verify it.
VA has US numbers and extrapolates to Global pushing 2M/yr Class 8
Tesla Semi: Total Addressable Market And Incremental Value - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
Tesla Semi: Total Addressable Market And Incremental Value - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
Unfortunately, that analysis is flawed.
VA uses 500,000 US Class 8 sales as a baseline and multiplies by 4 to get to an estimate of 2M worldwide.
But since the U.S. Class 8 market is more in the 200-250K range, using VA's guesstimate factor of 4 gets closer to the 940K number used by Vance. I have seen estimates in the 2-3M range for all heavy trucks, but this includes at least Class 7 (@jhm and I have posted these in past but too lazy to dig up.
). In any case, when I saw Vance's number I was hoping there might be something a bit more definitive -- seems a bit weird that there is no authoritative (or even semi-authoritative) source for this number ....
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The purchaser is probably an accrual-basis taxpayer -- the timing of the deposit has no effect on the tax bill at all. It's a non-taxable, non-deductible event. It replaces "cash" as an asset with "deposit" as an asset.
They show a photo of a guy hand-soldering a contact to a cell, and think that this can beat Tesla to the market? Maybe get a couple of early deliveries in, but I don't think they can do volume for some years yet.
Yeah, I don't think Tesla will lose much sleep over the Thor truck, which apparently has an initial 100 miles of range at the same $150K price point as the 300 mile range Tesla Semi (future 300 mile range option supposedly available for a mere $100K more). Thor unveils electric semi prototype, tries to beat Tesla to market and convert other trucks to electric propulsion
The truck looks cool though.
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Thor being the god of thunder, the least they should do is arc-weld the cells. Pitiful.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Less aerodynamic I bet.
I am sure Thor is running it in multimillion dollar wind tunnels though.
In any event Fleets don't buy trucks on cost per mile but what looks cool.
ValueAnalyst
Closed
I'm wondering why the Founders Semi is limited to only 1,000?!?!
The difference between the production dates of the 1,000th semi and 10,000th semi will be less than six months, and many many many fleet owners would LOVE to pay full price now to get the Semi by end-19 instead of 2021/22.
Prestige is not a factor with Founders Semi as is with Founders Roadster: so keep the Founders Semi limit high.
Tesla should increase Founders Semi limit to 10,000 units.
Today, for the first time that I noticed, I noticed a semi with a liquid chemical trailer that had wide tires instead of duals. Until the reveal, I had no idea such things existed, so I guess I never looked for them.
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