but I've already been waiting 9 1/2 years! By the end of next year, it will be over 11 years. That's a long time to wait for something.
I've been waiting since I was six years old for a proper electric car to rival the Mach V... So... Around 42-1/2 years, thus far.
;-)
I agree. It was just shy of 4 years from when we saw the X to when a few orders rolled out. Now we're passing 4 years and they're delivering only a few hundred a week. Even factoring in that the X had delays because of falcon wing issues which we dont expect the 3 to have you have to expect a minimum of two years before the X style launch evening where 5 cars get delivered. So my money is on 5 cars being delivered end of 2017 and the first few hundred cars hitting customer hands in June 2018.
If GM is able to release the Chevrolet BOLT with nationwide sales during Q4 2016 as a 2017 model, then surely the Tesla Model ≡ will reach some Customers, in similar quantities, before the end of Q4 2017. No matter the rate of the rollout for Tesla Generation III vehicles, no one anywhere will be satisfied, least of all Elon Musk. I believe that if Tesla Motors does not hit the ground running at no less than 2,000 units per week, they will have a hard time getting the backlog of Reservations/Preorders below a 6 month lead time for at least 18 months. They must look to mastering their Production systems for Model ≡ by building the Demonstrators/Loaners that will populate Tesla Stores/Service Centers in the months ahead of the official launch.
Actually it could be for the same general reason of unrealistic expectations and/or poor planning. I'd say the Roadster, S, and X all suffered from the same problem of under estimating what it would take to get them into production.
The Roadster delays were because Tesla mistakenly thought it would be easier to start with an existing frame of a car, and considering the use of a two-speed gearbox. Oops. They ended up doing practically the whole thing over anyway and it would have taken the same amount of time to design it from scratch. Oops. They learned the hard way that having a single fixed gear ratio worked best at all legal speeds.
The Model S was on time. It had a slow roll out as a matter of prudence. Hard to argue against good sense. What Tesla Motors underestimated was that people were far more willing to pay for Range and Performance than expected. They thought the Model S 40 would be their biggest seller, with the Model S 60 behind, and the Model S 85 bringing up the rear. Oops. Ended up being the exact opposite distribution of sales.
The Model X was delayed primarily because of the resounding success of the Model S. Sure, Tesla Motors could have gone ahead and released a Model X 85 Rear Wheel Drive vehicle in Fall 2013... But that would have resulted in a delayed launch in Europe of both cars. No one would have received a Right Hand Drive car in Britain, Japan, or Australia until some time in 2015... And The WAIT would not have dropped below six months in any territory until Q3 2015 -- if you were lucky. Further, the Model X that began reaching Customers in 2015 is vastly better than anything Tesla could have Delivered in 2013.
I'm certainly expecting that they have learned from the past, but I also expected the same before the X launch, and they clearly had not, in fact they further compounded their earlier errors.
I hope what Tesla Motors has learned is that they must absolutely ignore all the Naysayers that told them they had no hope for success and that they would never be more than a niche manufacturer because there was a
'limited market for expensive electric cars'. Nope. There is instead an ever increasing market for electric cars and Tesla must absolutely NOT underestimate how incredibly popular the Model ≡ will be in coming years.
I think Tesla has learned their lesson from 3 products now: don't rely on third parties for critical parts. Make it yourself.
Model X delays we're the fault of Model S production ramp and demand catching them off guard and too many new features rolled in all at once.
They brought in seat manufacturing, they're doing aluminum castings, their own plastics... Model 3 being a new design from the ground up with ease of manufacturing in mind should be able to stay on time as long as they K.I.S.S.
Gigafactory is ready, new paint shop is ready, now all they have to do is expand to a third production line which should happen later this year. That's a pretty good indicator that things are lining up for them.
Exactly.
Aren't all the parts in a car "critical?"
Yes... And... YES. If you are putting together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, but only have 999 pieces, you can't actually finish it. If you are putting together a 300,000 component vehicle, any one part that is suddenly defective or unavailable, it becomes critical to final Delivery. Building cars to order means you cannot have the same reliance upon third party suppliers as traditional automobile manufacturers may enjoy.
Things that are integral to your own vehicle design are much more critical at every stage of Production than those which can be cobbled together by any one of dozens of Suppliers. It is best to be very careful which components are trusted to outsiders, and to always have a backup, and a backup to the backup. Goodyear, Michelin, Firestone, Pirelli, Continental, Yokohama, and others all can provide tires -- a similar array of options should be available for anything else that might be farmed out to external Suppliers.
