Which interview are you referring to?
CEO: Tsunami of Hurt Coming for Those Shorting Tesla
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An interesting "almost update" after calling Tesla this afternoon (trying to determine if my Model S will show up before/after the solar PV / EV plug installation.) The rep is expecting that all sig reservation holders will be notified within the next 10 days as to what their expected delivery window would be. Time to open the flood gates!
That tracks closely with my estimates based off of the Fox interview.
They are the same thing. By that time Tesla should be producing 500+ cars per week if they are going to hit the 30k/year pace that was quoted in the last conference call. At that rate they would chew through 1800 cars in just over 3 weeks so "Nov/Dec" is accurate for both of you.
For context, in Elon's most recent interview his expectation was that they would build 80 cars this week, after building 40 last week. If they keep doubling according to the ramp schedule they'll be producing 500+ cars per week by around the first week of October. By early to mid October all of the Sigs should be built and regular production will start.
P2009 should come out by mid to late November and P3853 should be complete by early December, with the possibility of being done very late in November if Tesla gets ahead of the curve. Everyone has gotten used to all of the delays we had in July and early August, but we are now deep into the ramp up, with only a couple of weeks of doubling left.
Looking backwards, we can see that if there were 80 cars this week, 40 last week and (probably) 20 the week before, that accounts for 140 cars so far this month. At the end of August Tesla had completed ~100 cars, so that gives us ~240 by the end of this week, which tracks very nicely with what we know about VIN's.
Continued doubling will give us ~160 next week and ~320 in the last week of September which would mean ~720 units produced through Q3, though deliveries to customers will likely only be ~250-400 by that point. Maybe they can even hit 500 deliveries if they have enough West Coast Sigs that they can deliver quick enough. It's hard to tell based on the notifications we've seen so far, but 500 seems at least possible if not likely.
Anyways, this is why so many Sigs are getting October notifications in the last week. The rest of the Sigs should be completed within 3-4 weeks, which means the rest of the notifications (with a 30 day notice) will be happening in the next couple of weeks once you account for 2 weeks for final shipment and prep (i.e. for a car coming off the assembly line on Oct 15 the owner will be notified by the end of September for a late October delivery). My guess is that the bulk of the notifications are apt to come in the next week or so for Sigs and we'll start to see notifications for regular P numbers in the week after that.
Based on VIN 242 scheduled for early October delivery in Pennsylvania its pretty clear they have a bottle neck in processing the cars through to delivery, but the actual production ramp up looks to be going well.
Finally got the email for SSL #147 !
VIN # 242 Way out of order! To bad it wasn't 227 to match the Roadster.
October 4 - 18 delivery
Signature Red Performance
White Performance Interior
Carbon Fiber Trim
Panoramic Roof
21" Silver
And looking at the original calculations showing ~240 by the end of this week, the fact that we have VIN 242 already shows that Elon probably is going to manage making his goal of 80 cars this week. We heard at the beginning of September that the production rate was ~10 cars per week, so I think its fair to conclude that Tesla has been doubling every week this month. I see no reason for that not to continue, so the trend towards a production rate of 500+ cars/week looks like it will be achieved in the first week of October.
As the batches get bigger, the weird out of order effects we've been seeing will largely disappear as we move into general production. So if we get into October and see the factory achieve its planned output level it will become fairly easy to predict the delivery schedule through the rest of the reservation list.
Looks amazing! You have great taste and congrats. I am very pleased with the choice to go with the performance wheels now too. Once of the few pictures I've seen in good light with the Sig Red.
I'll have my paperwork completed tomorrow and it'll get on a truck and be here around the 23rd-25th or so. Probably won't get it in time for National Plug In Day but I'll just take my Roadster then.
Something that wasn't made clear to me (or I missed it which is entirely possible) is that once you get your delivery window e-mail, you're not actually done with paperwork. They'll contact you 2 weeks before delivery with final paperwork and payment is due at that time (check or wire transfer). I called sales and left a message and received a call a few hours later from a regional delivery manager who was great and explained everything.
That clears up how Tesla will be able to report 500 "sales" in Q3. They should be able to record ~600+ this way since they will have ~700+ cars built. Again, off topic and I'm sorry
