What number am I in line?

[vjason]

The factory used to produce up to 500K a year, Tesla currently quotes it at 100K (Tesla Factory | Tesla Motors). Also, I'm working under the assumption that they will not bring another factory online in 18 months (Can that even be done? I used to work in a machine shop and dialing in even the simplest (7 figure) CNC lathe is not a trivial matter, never mind the cost).

In 2015 they were quoted as producing 1000 vehicles a week (Tesla Factory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), 500K/year is ~9.5 times that.

Mind you I'm assuming best case scenario (not to mention ignoring that they still need to produce Model S and X), which is that the production ramp goes perfectly.

Obviously the Gigafactory is key to the ramp, since Elon said the 3 can't even launch until it is fully operational. I have to assume that once battery production shifts there it makes things a little easier for Fremont.

As I said, I'm not an expert merely quoting numbers that are out there. If the ramp goes perfectly, and the max number of vehicles that factory has produced in the past holds, that means 125K a quarter, minus S and X production. Could it be more? Yes. Could it end up being less? Yes.

Let's put it this way, if you meet a Freemont factory worker

Can you elaborate on the factory stats? How are you calculating the 3 months production time to fill 100k+ orders?

 

[Az_Rael]

As a comparison, the Bolt is going through those pre-production stages right now (where they run cars through the line to verify all the tooling etc prior to full rate production). It's expected to see released Bolts at the end of this year, so that might give an idea of how much lead time a major auto manufacturer needs to go full rate once pre-production starts.

Admittedly, GM is an expert at this, so Tesla might need more lead time than them.

 

[Xminus6]

Yeah. That factory quote was a little misleading. While that physical building has produced that many cars when it was a joint venture between Toyota and GM, Tesla had never even come close to that number and would need a significant capital investment (hello 200,000 reservations) to ever realize that number. It's useful though to understand that Fremont does have the physical capacity to handle that much production.

 

[ikjadoon]

Yes but that is what they really want to do. I think if Elon isn't able to make 10x as many cars as he does now then the Model 3 will be a failure. He needs to increase quantity to drive down price. At his current numbers there is little probability he can get the Model 3 cost down low enough to sell it at 35k.

I was surprised at the unveiling that he had cars already running on the street. But now that I look back at it it makes total sense. Think about it. If you want to mass produce a car it takes longer to bring up the factory because you need to dial in the robotics and make sure the production is as streamlined as possible. While the car isn't completely done I am guessing it is really close to production quality as it sits for this reason. After they get all of the production dialed in they'll have to run 100 cars or more through the entire process and probably need a few months of time to tweak the production. When that is all done then hopefully producing at much larger capacity is done.

Why would Tesla sell their mass-market "golden egg" car at a loss? Increase quantity to drive down price? He expected 30-50k of pre-orders and still priced it at $35,000. I trust them on the finances.

The factory quote was misleading. But,man, would you just imagine that...500,000 Teslas being deliver in a year.

 

[ummgood]

Why would Tesla sell their mass-market "golden egg" car at a loss? Increase quantity to drive down price? He expected 30-50k of pre-orders and still priced it at $35,000. I trust them on the finances.

The factory quote was misleading. But,man, would you just imagine that...500,000 Teslas being deliver in a year.

Just because he only expected 30-50k pre-orders on the first day doesn't mean that is what he needs to sell in a year. He was on twitter and expected more pre-orders after the 2nd unveil. He has something up his sleeves that he expected to produce a lot more numbers. That also doesn't account for planning for orders once people see them on the streets. I would bet that his profitability requires him selling at least 200k Model 3's a year. The fact that he has more reservations than that in 3 days means he probably has to plan for more employees and materials than he thought.

I can't imagine 500k Teslas a year. It is about what BMW makes in 3 series right? So imagine having the Model 3 be as abundant as a 3 series BMW. That will be awesome!

 

[ikjadoon]

Just because he only expected 30-50k pre-orders on the first day doesn't mean that is what he needs to sell in a year. He was on twitter and expected more pre-orders after the 2nd unveil. He has something up his sleeves that he expected to produce a lot more numbers. That also doesn't account for planning for orders once people see them on the streets. I would bet that his profitability requires him selling at least 200k Model 3's a year. The fact that he has more reservations than that in 3 days means he probably has to plan for more employees and materials than he thought.

I can't imagine 500k Teslas a year. It is about what BMW makes in 3 series right? So imagine having the Model 3 be as abundant as a 3 series BMW. That will be awesome!

Right, but, even with your estimate, he's hit profitability already. I think this news can only make the Model 3 cheaper (or have larger profits for Tesla).

Haha, it'll be a nice day. And, then, as gasoline (inevitably) gets expensive again, more people will want an electric car. It's a great time to be alive.

 

[ummgood]

Haha, it'll be a nice day. And, then, as gasoline (inevitably) gets expensive again, more people will want an electric car. It's a great time to be alive.

And our Model 3's will go UP in value. J/K

I actually had a Toyota Echo that almost did that because of gas prices. I bought it in 2003 with 50k miles for 6k when gas in California was just about $2.50 a gallon. Then in 2005 the gas prices skyrocketed in my area and were pushing $4 and I sold it when I moved to Texas for the same I paid for it. I drove it for 2 years and put 25k miles on it.

I bet if gas skyrockets the cost goes up on the Model 3

 

[Jason Bourne]

IF gas goes up? There is no doubt that the long-term trend is that it will. I think we've already passed the bottom of the prices.

 

[Ryan H]

Can someone take a look at the source code of their MyTesla page so we can see if the UID means anything?

<input class="VinName" type="hidden" name="common_vin_name" value="" />
<input class="CountryCode" type="hidden" name="common_country_code" value="GB" />
<input class="ModelCode" type="hidden" name="common_model_code" value="m3" />
<input class="ModelName" type="hidden" name="common_model_name" value="Model 3" />
<input class="ConfigId" type="hidden" name="common_config_id" value="" />
<input class="Region" type="hidden" name="common_region" value="EU" />
<input class="Uid" type="hidden" name="common_uid" value="9XXXXX10" />

Uid is most likely short for User identifier. Some database tables use sequential numbers to identify each record. I'm guessing you're the 9XXXXX10 record to be added to the table. It's probably used to identify you, not the order of your reservation.

 

[ummgood]

IF gas goes up? There is no doubt that the long-term trend is that it will. I think we've already passed the bottom of the prices.

I agree with you that most likely they will go up. You can never tell though. They might discover a huge pocket of crude somewhere that adds more competition. It is a supply/demand thing. Plus if Tesla succeeds the mass adoption of electric cars will reduce demand.

 

[chr15toffer]

Uid is most likely short for User identifier. Some database tables use sequential numbers to identify each record. I'm guessing you're the 9XXXXX10 record to be added to the table. It's probably used to identify you, not the order of your reservation.

UID is generally Unique Identifier, but as someone already pointed out, whilst it is quite possibly sequential, it is sequence that mytesla was created, rather than reservation made.