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Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

cnbc.com

11–20 of 123 posts

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#11
post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

After seeing the recent Audi and Mercedes efforts, consensus seems to be that making EVs is not as easy as everyone thought and the big car companies still have a long way to go before they catch up

"UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla"

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/ubs-says-audis-disappointing...

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#12
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems fair to compare an automaker to another automaker. Declining sales among your competitors is a strong indicator of a difficult environment to sell into. Unless you're saying the cited sales are sedans only, in which case I get your point.

Not really fair, I can walk into a dealer and buy any car from one of those other brands. The Tesla numbers are 1-2 years of built up demand being built/delivered in one quarter. These numbers will definitely not continue.

Reservations stand at about 400,000 I believe.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really fair, I can walk into a dealer and buy any car from one of those other brands. The Tesla numbers are 1-2 years of built up demand being built/delivered in one quarter. These numbers will definitely not continue.

Reservations stand at about 400,000 I believe.

At 83,500 vehicles in a quarter, that does come out to 1-2 years.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#14
post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

Sure it benefits Tesla to produce more cars to compete with the big auto companies. But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity. Sure your existing car companies are better right now at physically building the conventional parts of a car, but the most expensive part of an electric car is the batteries. Tesla's partners…

Don't forget the Supercharger network; seems like that's another big part of Tesla's first-mover advantage that any serious competitor will need to address at some point if they want to "catch up".

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#15
post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

If doubling the production numbers of the M3 from Q2 to Q3 isn't a dramatic increase, I don't know what is :). They are probably not attempting to have further doublings each quarter, but even smaller quarter to quarter growth rates are going to put them to impressive numbers. In Q3 Tesla already overtook Porsche.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#16
From their press release:

"We also want to thank all of our customers who volunteered to help us with deliveries, and our new customers who are showing their faith in Tesla by purchasing our products in such large numbers."

Isn't it illegal for a for-profit company like Tesla to make use of "volunteers"/unpaid labor? There are only narrow exceptions e.g. interns for school credit.

https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp

https://www.nomoreunpaidlabor.com

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#17
post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

After seeing the recent Audi and Mercedes efforts, consensus seems to be that making EVs is not as easy as everyone thought and the big car companies still have a long way to go before they catch up "UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/ubs-says-audis-disappointing...

Audi was hyping up their E Tron SUV and then they released it and it wasn't all that impressive. It gets 248 miles of range on the WLTP with a 95 kWh battery which is average.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it benefits Tesla to produce more cars to compete with the big auto companies. But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity. Sure your existing car companies are better right now at physically building the conventional parts of a car, but the most expensive part of an electric car is the batteries. Tesla's partners…

Don't forget the Supercharger network; seems like that's another big part of Tesla's first-mover advantage that any serious competitor will need to address at some point if they want to "catch up".

Oh definitely, so there are plenty of other electric car charging stations. The issue though is that there is no uniform paying experience and also you don't know what kind of charging speed you will get. I have been looking at the new Hyundai Kona Electric and the Kia niro EV which are both competitively priced.... But you don't have the super charger network which might be a deal breaker.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#19
post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

Sure it benefits Tesla to produce more cars to compete with the big auto companies. But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity. Sure your existing car companies are better right now at physically building the conventional parts of a car, but the most expensive part of an electric car is the batteries. Tesla's partners…

I don't think so either, but the hoops the big auto companies need to jump through are a lot lower. Once they have the design, they have the supply chains, assembly lines, and logics networks in place to go from 0 to 100 in months not years like Tesla.

Batteries are going to be an issue

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#20

From their press release: "We also want to thank all of our customers who volunteered to help us with deliveries, and our new customers who are showing their faith in Tesla by purchasing our products in such large numbers." Isn't it illegal for a for-profit company like Tesla to make use of "volunteers"/unpaid labor? There are only narrow exceptions e.g. interns for school credit. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fl…

I suspect Tesla is referring to customers driving out to pick up their Tesla from the factory or distribution center rather than waiting for Tesla to ship it to them. Something likely encouraged by long wait times.
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