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Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

finance.yahoo.com

161–170 of 318 posts

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#161

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…

seeking alpha is a user contributed site. they don't predict anything. their authors do. and most off them have terrible track record and are trying to push their newsletters , funds, and other crud on an dwindling supply of dumb mom & pop investors who read the site

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#162

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…

> - most importantly, Elon has moved his desk to the giga factory as that is where the largest bottleneck is.

apparently he sleeps there sometimes too:

https://www.gearbrain.com/elon-musk-sleep-tesla-factory-2502...

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#163
post #5

Out of curiosity, has anyone who paid the $1000 to get in line for a Model 3 actually heard back from Tesla? I've never received any communication about timelines at all.

I literally just got an email, stating that production would take longer than initially estimated. I’m supposed to be able to log in tomorrow to see the new timeline. I bought on the first day of preorders.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could substitute Apple with Wal-Mart in your comment and every bit would be just as true. Sometimes forcing your supply chain to pinch every penny works out the best for your shareholders.. sometimes focusing on quality products pays off more in the long run. Time will tell.

Hmm, I think I do agree with you that it would be true, but in my estimation it does shift the meaning. I was thinking of how Apple is known to specify extremely rigorous quality standards on cutting edge technology and really push its suppliers to advance their craft. Whereas Walmart I would associate more with outright penny-pinching. I'm thinking about the different ways to structure a business to achieve a qualit…

Intel.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#165

The great thing about corporate missions & goals is that they are written so broadly: "Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible. " ( https://www.tesla.com/blog/mission-tesla ). Thanks to Tesla - seriously(!! COULD not and WOULD not have happened without them)…

Well no, companies have been trying on EV every decade since the invention of the car. The Prius normalizing an electric drive train pushed full electric further into the mainstream then Tesla has. Granted Tesla's investment into batteries bumped Panasonics time line up a bit and bumped full BEV up a bit but a compelling mass market electric car on the market has been clearly inevitable since 2000. Edit: I changed it…

Fair enough - I did fail to give Toyota credit, where credit is definitely due.

But I would say it is more a case of "necessary, but not sufficient."

Toyota unarguably pushed electric into the unsexy, mass production, mass consumption mainstream. This was a necessary step.

But Tesla showed that electric COULD be luxury, performance, etc - not necessary for mass market - but the related headlines generated arguably were.

But also that _pure electric_ could be delivered with _more than enough_ range to eliminate range anxiety, even with "notably better than a Prius" levels of performance. And it could at least appear to be "mass manufactured" (even if, on Toyota/Chevy/Nissan scale, or if you will, BMW/Mercedes/Lexus/etc they really weren't). This WAS necessary, and did cause a tipping point that, IMHO led to the Chevy Bolt.

The Prius led to the Bolt evolutionarily.

The Model 3 led to the Bolt "by Marketing force."

And now we have a Bolt.. and basically no Model 3.

We'll see what happens in the next couple of years.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#166
post #124
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”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…

"If you can do burst runs of 15 km/hour, that doesn’t mean you can run a three hour marathon." Once you're in 3 hour marathon territory, what you can do for 1 mile is a lot more relevant to what you can do for 26.2 miles than you might think. One of the tent poles of effective marathon/half marathon training is to make your race pace into a drumbeat. You want to feel your race pace in your bones. Very effective worko…

"Tesla is talking about burst builds that last for a week".

Was that in the call? Their statement says "Several manufacturing lines [...] have demonstrated a manufacturing ability in excess of 1,000 units per week during burst builds of short duration. Other lines, [...] have demonstrated burst builds of about 500 units per week...". AFAIK, "short duration" != "a week".

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#167
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla will also need to raise cash. Look at accounts payable.

Their bond prices are plummeting on this earnings release. The rope may be running out.

then the stock should be at $3 instead of $300 if insolvency is such an issue. obviously there is more than meets the eye here. or this is the short of the decade, more than even 2008.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#168
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a LaTeX habit for a lot of people, chill out.

Using backticks seems like an anti-pattern to me, where you want to be correct, but are only going half-way. If you want to be correct, you can use the Unicode characters that specifically denote beginning and ending quotations, in both single and double tick versions. If you don't care about being correct, just using the default ASCII single or double quote suffices. I wasn't sure why someone would purposefully use…

They do kern oddly, but smart quotes are too hard to type.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#169

The great thing about corporate missions & goals is that they are written so broadly: "Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible. " ( https://www.tesla.com/blog/mission-tesla ). Thanks to Tesla - seriously(!! COULD not and WOULD not have happened without them)…

Ha! In any case I'm not sure I'd give credit to Tesla on that. The Bolt seems more like a response to the Leaf and friends than it is to anything like a Model S.

Maybe. Without a broad consensus from all the involved individuals at Chevy, we'll never know. Were they looking more at the (first edition at the time?) Leaf or the hypothetical and probably unnamed at the time "Tesla mass market model with X miles range and $Y price tag?"

If they were aiming for the Leaf, it appears they got to market faster and better (specs) than the 2018 Leaf. A little surprising from Chevy (when compared to Nissan), particularly since they didn't really have a first edition to build on themselves.

If they were aiming for the Model 3 - they got to market faster and "at least in the ballpark" spec-wise, AND at much much higher volumes than Tesla. To me this is less surprising. A mass-market car producer could get to market with a high-volume car faster than Tesla? And in higher volumes? That isn't so surprising. It would have surprised me _even less_ if Toyota had done it, though they clearly weren't trying. It does surprise me a little that Nissan hasn't, though it is fairly clear that they aren't trying _hard_.

Re: Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3

#170
post #52

I can't help but feel that price is an inevitable factor here. Tesla Model S and Model X are expensive! Now that the novelty is wearing off and more EVs are hitting the road from other manufacturers, it strikes me that they just won't remain competitive models. I expect the Model 3 to go some way towards helping this by being much more affordable, but with delayed production on those and an interior design that won't…

"reallocating resources" is not the same as "unable to sell cars". Tesla is still selling every car they make with zero problems.

Companies don't usually drop prices when they have zero problems selling.
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