81–90 of 318 posts
If Tesla goes under what happens to long term support for their cars? Don't Tesla owners depend on a lot of Tesla services? Subsidized charging stations, sending it in for maintenance, etc.?
If Tesla goes under what happens to long term support for their cars? Don't Tesla owners depend on a lot of Tesla services? Subsidized charging stations, sending it in for maintenance, etc.?
I imagine the same fate would await Tesla owners. However, there enough Teslas rolling around that someone might find it profitable to pick up support. Multiple vendors still sell, and in some cases manufacture, parts for fifty year old Volkswagens, for instance.
As an engineer who has zero investment in Tesla, I truly hope they overcome this setback. Simultaneously, I know from experience that failure is a real possibility. At this point, it’s nice to have the additional transparancy into the current production bottleneck.
What would failure look like? Worst case outcome to me seems that they would just take longer to get to their goals rather than not achieve them at all. They have enough money in the bank and no unsolved technical issues - it's not black hole physics. I mean they've delivered cars already. They just are slower than expected at scaling up.
Advanced automation promises great benefits, including reduced headcount and more repeatable (and thus higher quality) processes.
Advanced automation has some pretty serious drawbacks as well. In addition to the HUGE cost to set it up in the first place:
* Every station has to run at the same rate.
* Every station has to have material delivered at the same rate.
* Every fastener has to go on correctly the first time.
If the advanced automation cannot run at a sufficient rate, it may not pay for itself. Additionally, the Model 3 has lower margins than the Model S and Model X, so if the run rate is not high enough, the margins may not cover overhead.
0. see videos: https://electrek.co/2017/11/01/tesla-model-3-production-dela...
Disclaimer: I work for a Tesla competitor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gross margin changing is fine and natural, I think. The Model 3 is a lower-priced good, so by being able to sell more of it, they can deal with somewhat lower margins. By that I mean, 100 cars * $12,000 gross margin each is definitely worse than 5000 cars * $4,000 gross margin (for Tesla at least, I suppose branding could come into play with other brands), even though the gross margins drastically collapse. It's…
But the ratio of Model 3 to S+X units sold in Q3 does not support a 10% drop in Gross Margin for Q3, unless the cost of manufacturing the 3s they did ship was way higher than the associated revenue (significantly negative gross margins on the 3s). Maybe there are costs associated with the gigafactory that are getting assigned as cost of goods for the model 3s and throwing the margins out of kilter until the volume ge…
So sure they might well be making a loss at the current rate of sales of the model 3, but will be quite profitable once the production rate increases.
What is the main practical selling point of a model 3 over, say, a leaf? Longer range and that's it? Good thing tesla has a lot of vertical investment in batteries. The market is very competitive.
> What is the main practical selling point of a model 3 over, say, a leaf? Much better value, larger size, better fuel economy, more conventional, more power, more range, and superchargers. Cost per mile of range: $200 for the 2018 leaf, 132 for the Model 3. 147 hp vs 258 hp, 10" of extra length and 6" of extra width, over twice the range at less than half the capacity. The Tesla is way superior to any other electric…
Tesla has to get them on the road before an accurate comparison can be made to Leafs and Bolts.
SeekingAlpha predicted this a few weeks ago: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4114125-will-tesla-zero-mon... "Leading up to the end of September, we saw new-high Model 3 VIN numbers in the wild almost every other day, culminating in number 521. But since the beginning of October, nothing. I can’t find a single one above 521 with VIN picture evidence on any forum. It’s unlikely to end up this way, but the sole evidenc…
Since this came out as part of the Tesla earnings, here's my recap from their earnings release and call.... - Tesla will be late getting up to 5,000 units a week of Model 3. It will happen at the end of Q1 instead of the end of this year. The bottleneck is batteries. - Some lines are at only 500 cars a week. Namely the battery pack assembly, body shop welding and final vehicle assembly. - The $2.92 a share loss was m…
”Some lines are at only 500 cars a week.” That sounds better than what Tesla claims. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/549293785... (emphasis added): ”Other lines, such as battery pack assembly, body shop welding and final vehicle assembly, have demonstrated burst builds of about 500 units per week and are ramping up quickly.” If you can do burst runs of 15 km/hour, that doesn’t mean you can run a th…
lol. "it might go up, might go down, or might stay the same!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would failure look like? Worst case outcome to me seems that they would just take longer to get to their goals rather than not achieve them at all. They have enough money in the bank and no unsolved technical issues - it's not black hole physics. I mean they've delivered cars already. They just are slower than expected at scaling up.
Failure looks like bankruptcy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_in_the_United_State... If you don’t think it’s possible, then I suggest putting all of your available assets into their equity.
The momentum Tesla's created toward electric cars may be sufficient that mass-market producers can take it from here.
Since this came out as part of the Tesla earnings, here's my recap from their earnings release and call.... - Tesla will be late getting up to 5,000 units a week of Model 3. It will happen at the end of Q1 instead of the end of this year. The bottleneck is batteries. - Some lines are at only 500 cars a week. Namely the battery pack assembly, body shop welding and final vehicle assembly. - The $2.92 a share loss was m…
The most worrying is the slowing production of models S and X, coupled with what I'd call a collapse in the gross margins of those products. Why is the margin declining so drastically?
- Non-GAAP automotive gross margin temporarily declined to 18.7%, which was in line with our expectations. The gross margin declined primarily because of a significant increase in Model 3 manufacturing costs to support the limited initial level of production.
- Model S and Model X gross margin declined from Q2 primarily due to one-time price adjustments for discontinued trims and unfavorable trim mix. Numerous actions to improve Model S and Model X gross margin are underway. Consequently, we expect Model S and Model X gross margin to improve in upcoming quarters.