Do you have a link to the post where you have got feedback. There is no need to segregate low post vs high post. Not everyone had to start their life on TMC in 2012 or before. Plenty of people who maybe new to TMC, but who are just as much capable as some of the TMC veterans. The key is to understand if we are discussing short term topics (quarterly earnings, demand, production, etc) OR if we are discussing long term topics. Almost everyone who truly understands Tesla understands that Tesla is once in a generation company with amazing prospects. That doesn’t mean we need to confuse that with short term topics.
What you are confusing is how pricing and demand works.
Listen up, I'll only explain this once.
You make it appear the only reason Tesla drops vehicle pricing is since at current pricing there is no (or not enough) demand. This is not accurate. Demand for vehicles comes and goes in waves (aka demand bubbles and pockets), geographically and chronologically. Q1 has the lowest demand, but Q4 generally has higher demand. (generally, this isn't set in stone)
Geographically / chronologically demand can also swing with incentives starting, running out or being announced. Think IRA, think incentives that are different per country.
Economic factors (per country/region) also play a big role. Lots of wildfires in California? -> less demand that time. Unstable government or energy crisis? -> possibly less demand.
The list goes on and on.
But you know: over time there is still plenty of demand for all vehicles Tesla produces.
However, if Tesla has to sit around keeping inventory until their production gets sold out at higher pricing, this has financial downsides:
- time between production and delivery should be as short as possible, this way Tesla can receive money from the customer before paying suppliers;
- higher inventory has a cost associated with it, to keep these cars in stock/neat/charged/not degrading/etc
- ...
I think we can agree holding on to built cars carries a cost and risk.
Imagine Tesla has a smart team looking at the numbers and comparing the costs associated with holding on to inventory longer on the one end to dropping prices and increasing immediate demand (I should say: increasing demand even more) so the cars get delivered quicker on the other hand. Nobody disagrees that lowering prices creates more demand, but they do disagree with you that Tesla MUST drop prices or else they cannot sell all their production.
The current inflation/recession fears have created less demand than usual, that may be true. But the second the FED starts cutting rates and the market turns around, their will be more demand. It swings in roundabouts.
By lowering prices and shortening the amount of time between production and delivery, Tesla is:
- decreasing costs of holding on to inventory;
- sticking it to the competition that cannot profitably make BEV's;
- increasing the demand for their vehicles to a much higher degree than their increased production, increasing brand awareness;
- passing on cost savings (due to lower COGS) to the customer;
- receiving a lot of market data regarding demand in different regions and regarding certain models. All this data is considered when making price adjustments (per model, per region, at certain times).
So please don't act like Tesla is worried and dropping prices in the hope to be able to sell their vehicles. They're doing so because the profits are similar but they get a lot smoother delivery process going on, without having to deal with the wave and a lot of "bumps in the road" (demand pockets/bubbles). Clever pricing smooths out a lot of these issues at nearly no cost.
Many are also not considering that since Berlin is ramping, the Berlin models for example can be sold at lower prices in Europe with the same profit, since the transport/import costs from Shanghai to EU are massive compared to production of the same model (Y currently) in the EU. Within 48 hours of rolling of the line the Berlin car can be anywhere in the EU. Shanghai takes weeks and at much higher cost.
TL;DR: stop with the doom and gloom. There is no demand issue. Tesla is just optimizing pricing vs delivery waves/demand per region in a clever way.
And IF somehow Tesla is forced to drop pricing due to not enough demand, this is temporary due to macro-economic issues and the same goes for all other automakers too. This cannot be held against Tesla compared to its competitors.
I said all I have to say on this. Now please don't repeat your arguments without backing it up with facts, not speculation.
Go peddle your wares some place else. We’re not buying your cheap dollar store junk.
