TSLA Investor Discussions

[ckessel]

Wouldn't it be better to not discuss unconfirmed delays on this thread?

What would you consider unconfirmed vs confirmed? Our own ggr confirmed his delay.

 

[CyberDutchie]

What would you consider unconfirmed vs confirmed? Our own ggr confirmed his delay.

I meant publicly confirmed by Tesla in a blog post or twitter post or something. Also, we don't know yet if this issue will impact the stated goal of 5,000 deliveries this year.

 

[Citizen-T]

I meant publicly confirmed by Tesla in a blog post or twitter post or something. Also, we don't know yet if this issue will impact the stated goal of 5,000 deliveries this year.

Well, when it is public it will be far too late to help anyone here. Seems like discussing this kind of info before it is public knowledge is exactly what is valuable about this thread. If we are only going to rehash blog posts that the whole world has seen then I'll spend my time elsewhere.

 

[Mycroft]

Not talking about the obvious doesn't make it go away or diminish it's impact. IMHO

Also obvious, at least to me, is that 5,000 cars in 2012 is now a pipe dream. We see why Elon was trying so hard to downplay that number.

I think all the cars that have been delivered already, basically the Founders and the few SSLs that have been delivered, will need serious retro-fitment with the replacement parts. Tesla simply cannot afford to have too many of those, hence the delivery stoppage.

 

[NigelM]

Wouldn't it be better to not discuss unconfirmed delays on this thread?

You're right if it was speculation, however the delays are confirmed by three different people. Speculation on what caused the delays, and how long they might be, is probably not helpful. Discussion in this thread about potential impact of any delays is entirely valid.

 

[Doug_G]

Seems to me if there is a supply problem with a door handle, they can continue building cars and finish the door handles when the parts arrive. Since their current build rate is below the target finishing and delivering these cars should not be terribly hard to manage.

 

[ckessel]

Also obvious, at least to me, is that 5,000 cars in 2012 is now a pipe dream. We see why Elon was trying so hard to downplay that number.

This is something I'm a bit concerned about. 5k looks very hard to hit with the delays, yet Tesla is contacting folks near P5000. I'm fearing a big squeeze between actual production rates and expectations set by all these folks being contacted is going to result in an explosion of grumpy reservation holders as we approach the end of the year.

I see this kind of thing all the time in software, managers saying we'll hit some date, more features creeping in, engineers sort of looking sad knowing it can't be done and it all implodes in a mess when the date doesn't get hit. The product eventually goes out (in projects that survive) and frequently is fine, but it's an unpleasant thing to go through.

I'm debating pulling almost all of my stock and reentering after that implosion.

 

[NigelM]

Seems to me if there is a supply problem with a door handle, they can continue building cars and finish the door handles when the parts arrive. Since their current build rate is below the target finishing and delivering these cars should not be terribly hard to manage.

That may be, but the risk is they then continue incurring costs and revenue won't be recognized until delivery.

 

[ggr]

Also obvious, at least to me, is that 5,000 cars in 2012 is now a pipe dream. We see why Elon was trying so hard to downplay that number.

I think all the cars that have been delivered already, basically the Founders and the few SSLs that have been delivered, will need serious retro-fitment with the replacement parts. Tesla simply cannot afford to have too many of those, hence the delivery stoppage.

My view on this is slightly different, and having lived through it once with the roadster, maybe it's better than you think. (Disclaimer: while I can absolutely confirm my own delay, I have no hard facts as to what is causing it in my case.) Anyway, there were glitches in Roadster production, lots of them. If you've seen the scene in WKTEC, you know what I mean. But once the glitches were sorted out, the Roadsters started flowing... to the extent that ours (VIN 537) was actually delivered a month or so earlier than expected.

So I have this mental picture of a bunch of almost-but-not-quite-perfect cars, piling up in a corner of the factory, waiting for certain parts of acceptable quality to arrive, and sometime soonish, there will be a trickle, then a flood, of deliveries. Maybe they won't make the 5000 number, but the market seems to think 3000 is an acceptable number.

Hypothetical about the door handles: when they change supplier, it takes time to get the new ones, but it's not like they have lots of the inferior ones lying around. That's not how modern manufacturing works. And you really can't deliver the car with no handles at all! Yes, they'll have to retrofit the ones already delivered, but I don't see them stopping shipping for that. At least not until they hit much higher volumes.

Someone should do one of those Hitler rants about Elon and door handles. . Actually, don't bother... just visualizing it is enough.

 

[ManuVince]

So I have this mental picture of a bunch of almost-but-not-quite-perfect cars, piling up in a corner of the factory, waiting for certain parts of acceptable quality to arrive, and sometime soonish, there will be a trickle, then a flood, of deliveries. Maybe they won't make the 5000 number, but the market seems to think 3000 is an acceptable number.

Yeah and I believe they have enough space in Freemont to store them...:smile:

 

[Citizen-T]

Maybe they won't make the 5000 number, but the market seems to think 3000 is an acceptable number.

Yes. The market clearly does not expect 5k deliveries in 2012. I don't think that an announcement that they aren't going to make that is going to do much more than create a day or two buying opportunity.

Switching topics: I'm surprised that they have contacted well past P5000 already. I wonder if that is a symptom of a lot of people deferring for 2013 options like the regular suspension and Sunset Red.

 

[Charged_Up]

This is something I'm a bit concerned about. 5k looks very hard to hit with the delays, yet Tesla is contacting folks near P5000. I'm fearing a big squeeze between actual production rates and expectations set by all these folks being contacted is going to result in an explosion of grumpy reservation holders as we approach the end of the year.

I'm already a tad grumpy (Sig 92 - originally told September, possibly very late August - just last week -"maybe six weeks") and its not the delay, but that I feel headquarters is jerking me off about timing and refusing to discuss the issue with any specificity. I couldn't even get someone to respond to a phone call and an email until I called back and made my annoyance known. While I understand some employee hyper focus on the stock price, I see this all the time in business. It is ALWAYS better to be up front with customers - even if you have bad news to relay - than to delay and obfuscate. People will graciously handle all sorts of unexpected or bad news if they feel informed and that the deliverer is making its best efforts to be up front and to correct the issue. IMO, they are making a mistake for reasons I've discussed previously - the early adopters spending $100k are their biggest evangelists and nobody wants to tout a company where they feel that company is ignoring them or worse, misleading them.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Switching topics: I'm surprised that they have contacted well past P5000 already. I wonder if that is a symptom of a lot of people deferring for 2013 options like the regular suspension and Sunset Red.

I don't think so. Yes, surely, there are some deferrals or cancellations even but, by making so many folks finalize, Tesla's getting better visibility into the supply chain requirements and is also locking in the $5k now-non-refundable deposit. It's surely not making some folks happy - that they have to finalize now for a car that they may not see till December/January - but, it is what it is.

 

[NuclearPowered]

I'm struggling with whether to dump my shares and wait for the delay to hit the news and rebuy at a better price. I am not a big fan of averaging down.

Should we consider the TM forum as having broke the news? Seeing as were down already about half a point, those who care to know, probably already do.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

I'm struggling with whether to dump my shares and wait for the delay to hit the news and rebuy at a better price. I am not a big fan of averaging down.

Should we consider the TM forum as having broke the news? Seeing as were down already about half a point, those who care to know, probably already do.

John Peterson's next article is already cooking as we speak The market's down overall today and TSLA is still probably absorbing the Volt factory idling news from a couple of days ago. And, A123 got a delisting notice recently.

I think the big dip could happen by Friday.

 

[NigelM]

....Tesla's getting better visibility into the supply chain requirements and is also locking in the $5k now-non-refundable deposit.

$5,000 x 5,000 customers = $25m in recognizable revenue. Doesn't change cash flow, but looks nicer on the balance sheet.

 

[Norbert]

Switching topics: I'm surprised that they have contacted well past P5000 already.

I just see it as a sign that they may have, or had, supply issues, and now they want to make sure they know the volumes of each option so they can plan ahead. Plus, they may be in the situation where ramp-up is depending on fewer and fewer things, and they want to make sure that once they are able to ramp up, they have nothing else standing in the way of quickly catching up with delivering larger volumes.

 

[FalconNinetyD]

Seems to me if there is a supply problem with a door handle, they can continue building cars and finish the door handles when the parts arrive. Since their current build rate is below the target finishing and delivering these cars should not be terribly hard to manage.

My gut tells me that Tesla isn't going to get anywhere close to 5,000 deliveries now. Sure they may be making a ton of cars without door handles and putting them in a corner of the factory for final assembly, which may be a relatively fast job once the parts arrive, but it's going to result in a giant logistics problem of squeezing all those deliveries into 3-4 less weeks of the year.

I don't think Tesla has ramped up the hiring and training of their delivery specialist folks in anticipation of needing to deliver 4,900 vehicles in the final three months of the year. With holidays, assuming folks worked 5 day work week, and each specialist can deliver 3 cars a day (we've heard it's a few hour process), that means Tesla would need to have ~30 people dedicated to just deliveries. And this doesn't take into account that some deliveries are going to be in remote locations, which means on that day, a specialist might only deliver 1 car in that day...

 

[Norbert]

So I have this mental picture of a bunch of almost-but-not-quite-perfect cars, piling up in a corner of the factory, waiting for certain parts of acceptable quality to arrive, and sometime soonish, there will be a trickle, then a flood, of deliveries. Maybe they won't make the 5000 number, but the market seems to think 3000 is an acceptable number.

Agreed. And we don't know whether we are getting closer to ramp-up and if things are getting delayed temporarily only, or not. As the 5k number isn't magic, there is no need to demonstrate math skills each day.

 

[tander]

I'm already a tad grumpy (Sig 92 - originally told September, possibly very late August - just last week -"maybe six weeks") and its not the delay, but that I feel headquarters is jerking me off about timing and refusing to discuss the issue with any specificity. I couldn't even get someone to respond to a phone call and an email until I called back and made my annoyance known. While I understand some employee hyper focus on the stock price, I see this all the time in business. It is ALWAYS better to be up front with customers - even if you have bad news to relay - than to delay and obfuscate. People will graciously handle all sorts of unexpected or bad news if they feel informed and that the deliverer is making its best efforts to be up front and to correct the issue. IMO, they are making a mistake for reasons I've discussed previously - the early adopters spending $100k are their biggest evangelists and nobody wants to tout a company where they feel that company is ignoring them or worse, misleading them.

Sounds like they are trying to walk the fine line between controlling the information flow through their own PR and through customers like yourself. I agree though, they could just tell you why it is delayed and ask that you keep it to yourself until they make it public, I'd probably be happy to keep it to myself as long as I felt like I was in the loop, which is not an unreasonable thing to expect when you are putting down 100k on something like this.