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Tesla Delays Launch of Model X Until Q3 2015
An anonymous reader writes "Tesla on Wednesday announced that it was pushing back the release of its highly anticipated Model X until the third quarter of 2015. Explaining the delay, Tesla relayed the following in its quarterly shareholder letter: "Work continues on the finalization of Model X with the testing of Alpha prototypes and initial builds of the first Beta prototypes. Model X powertrain development is almost complete with the early introduction of Dual Motor drive on Model S. We recently decided to build in significantly more validation testing time to achieve the best Model X possible. This will also allow for a more rapid production ramp compared to Model S in 2012." During Tesla's subsequent earnings conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shed a bit more light on all things Model X, including the fact that if you order one today, it won't arrive until early 2016.
Forbes goes into more on the business end of what's caused delays for the company, as well as how investors should see it (critically, they say).
It kind of is, they are almost as much of a tech company as a car company, what they do has a big impact.
Slashdot? This is not Slashdot.
You're on "&", also called "the site formerly known as Slashdot" or also "SlashWiggleWiggle".
In & we only have slashvertisement, dupes and slashvertisement.
Our motto is: "SlashWiggleWiggle, adds for nerds, stuff that mattered."
If there is anything that is "news for geeks", Tesla automobiles would be it. Exotic energy storage systems based upon laptop computers, mobile network platforms that have built-in web browsers and awesome sound systems, and pretty damn nice looking equipment as well that can get you from point A to point B in some awesome style that can also get you laid (not that most geek know a thing about such stuff).
What makes that irrelevant to Slashdot? That you might have to wait a few more months before you can get a girlfriend?
If this were news for jocks, every flash of flesh of the Kardashians would rate a story. This is news for nerds, so the only truly sexy, viable electric car get's the nod. NerdPorn, simple as that.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'd rather see a car model pushed back a year than wind up back in the shop often due to recalls and bugs that should have been fixed.
The notable thing about Tesla is that they provide updates for "last year's" models. Other car makes might do some update for safety, but not for adding features.
It's a gold cart with a cool stereo. Meh.
Before all the "Tesla is taking over the car industry!!" hype machine kicks in on this story (as with all stories Tesla), I just want to remind everyone in Silicon Valley that Tesla is still a niche car company that's barely on the big car companies' radars.
I live in a metropolitan area of a red state and I've never even seen a Tesla in person. Not one. I'm sure they're a common sight in San Francisco but in most of the country they're still just something you just read about in Wired.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
No, Geeks are Nerds that figured out how to bathe and dress themselves, and figured out that women generally don't care about what speed of microprocessor is in their computer or how much RAM they have.
Seriously. My wife has a bachelor's degree from MIT. Even she doesn't care about the processor or ram in the computer, she just cares that it works.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Not a Tesla, but Elon Musk did appear, as himself, in Iron Man 2.
"Tesla Q3 Earnings Live: Shares Rise, Strong Outlook for '15 Even While Model X Faces More Delays"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ma...
Tesla reported a tiny third-quarter profit of $3 million using its preferred numbers while delivering a record 7,785 Model S sedans. That resulted in a $932 million quarter, up 55% from a year ago. But results were challenged by a month-long shutdown of the company's lone production facility as it tools up for the Model X crossover SUV it is introducing next year, albeit later than planned. Gross margin also took a small hit due to changes in warranty accounting, coming in at 23%. The sum total is that Tesla lowered its outlook for 2014 production to 33,000 total deliveries, from 35,000 citing the production deficit. Investors so far have shrugged off the news, sending the stock higher after hours.
Wall Street was looking for lower revenues and a small loss. But the numbers were buoyed by very strong sales of Zero Emission Vehicle credits, which totaled a "much higher than expected" $76 million, Tesla said.
"Tesla Shows Signs It's Struggling With Manufacturing"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mi...
Tesla Motors TSLA +5.8% reported its third quarter results Wednesday. While analysts' attention was riveted to its financials, manufacturing experts saw two signs that the company is struggling.
First, Tesla lowered its 2014 production target to 33,000 vehicles, down from its goal of 35,000. Second, Tesla pushed back the delivery date for its upcoming Model X once more, to the third quarter of 2015. ...
The announcement validates the prediction made last month by Morgan Stanley MS +0.09% analyst Adam Jonas.
One has a "hey, no biggie" tone while the other uses weasel words and literal red herrings to push "gloom and doom" scenario.
Despite obvious disregard by investors, clearly seen in the opening paragraph with Tesla's stock market tag.
I.e. "Manufacturing experts" who say that the company is "struggling" are ONE "Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas".
Who, in the cited article said the following:
"Given the ever-higher level of technical and safety scrutiny facing all auto manufacturers, we find it very common for major launches to hit dealer lots later than the market anticipates," Jonas said.
Which was interpreted in TFA as:
One was that major launches are often delayed, although generally not for numerous times like Model X.
Note the slight bias?
The rest of it is in the same mode. Positive points and sentiment turned into negative.
Jonas refers to Tesla as "world's most important car company", calling the delay "an opportunity to buy" and a "silver lining".
Instead of talking about "generally numerous delays", furor, technological features not available - while dumping lines which present those things as positive.
Like " intense public interest in the product", "one of the most desirable âwhy buyâ(TM) characteristics" and the entire 4th point being a praise to Tesla.
Jonas, in his investor note, said there were four reasons he expected another delay for Model X. One was that major launches are often delayed, although generally not for numerous times like Model X. The second was that few prototypes have been spotted on the road.
Third, Tesla caused a little furor a few weeks ago, when it introduced an unexpected all-wheel drive version of the Model S, and Jonas thought the company might want to put more space between it and the Model X.Fourth, Model X is likely to be Teslaâ(TM)s most ad
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Because Elon Musk is a diety on /. He's slashdot's Jesus to Bill Gates' Satan.
For me, he won't be a god until he succumbs to the pressure of a million puns and releases his own eau de parfum.
So, why don't the manufacturers of said vehicles include or at least have the option for bigger batteries? The Tesla isn't impractical like a half-kilo smartphone would be.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
How about you go start your own website if you want to pick the articles. The slogan of slashdot is 'News for nerds, stuff that matters', not 'stuff that luthair likes' or 'software news'.
Processors matter less and less, especially since we simply add cores to make them "faster". Ram matters, but less and less as things move towards "cloud" computing.
And with my most used computer fitting in my pocket, along with a thing called "cell phone", which I use less and less, I see the world is completely different than it was just ten years ago. And in ten years time, we're going to be looking at the things we think are neat/groovy/radical/wicket awesome today as "quaint" (a keyboard .. how quaint)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Look how many supposed supporters of unbridled capitalism, opt to impose state rules making entry nearly impossible via compliant state legislative acts. Could, just by chance, your state allow sales only through dealerships? If so that might partially explain your not seeing them, I know it took a very long time before hybrids were common in this area.
Also could the implicit antipathy be due to its association with belief that climate change is both real and mostly due to human sources?
Because Slashdot has always been about what interests the editors.
There are no such state rules here, but also no Tesla showrooms. In fact, in the entire southeastern U.S. there are only two Tesla showrooms, one in Atlanta and one in Nashville. Hell, I live in a city that's hours away from even the nearest charging station. And that's not a town, mind you, it's a major CITY.
So I would have to drive over 3 hours in my regular car to even see a Tesla in person. Then I would have to spend at least $70,000 for the cheapest model. And I would only be able to charge it at home and could never travel beyond beyond 130 miles from my home in it (unless I wanted to have it towed back). Realistically, how many people are going to buy a car like that? A handful of people wanting a status symbol maybe.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I know my processor's model number and clock speeds and I don't even care about it any more, nor about my RAM. All I want is a lot of both, and that's cheap as heck now. I'm not even overclocking anything any more. It's all fast, and I paid rock-bottom dollar for all of it and most of it is old.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Objects can exist even if they aren't in your direct view, it's called object permanence.
Every company that has ever dramatically changed an industry was at one point a niche company--and I'm sure in each of those cases some jackass from a red state went out of his way to point that out.
This is fun.
At an average price of >$80K, that's >$4B dollars
At one point everything you are saying was true of gasoline automobiles. There are lots of places in the country which have a good supercharger & showroom infrastructure now, and more chargers & showrooms are showing up every month. You can drive cross-country in a Tesla right now. Obviously they are focusing on the parts of the country where people have a lot of money and don't have an irrational hatred of anything new or different--so it will be a bit of a wait for you.
If change is so unsettling for you then why do you cruise technology sites? maybe just go sit in your Ford F150 and listen to AM radio?
The Tesla comes with the option of a bigger battery - at first you could buy a 40kWh battery, a 65kWh battery and a 85kWh battery. (Though to simplify the BOM, the 40kWh model was really a 65kWh downrated in software). So you have the option to buy a bigger battery.
Or due to the strangeness in which things work, get the "D" variant and get more distance with the same battery (yes, running two motors is more efficient than one).
Heck, Tesla even has battery change stations for quick boosts - you pay a small fee for a pre-charged battery and the battery gets swapped. (You are basically renting a battery though, so you have to return back to pick up your battery).
spoken by someone who clearly has no expertise in the field, aka slashdot where fucktards extend one irrelevant technical competency to all fields of science and engineering.
also, it's not "like" your poor analogy either.
I meant that if the difference between a Leaf and a Tesla is that the size of the battery, why doesn't Nissan offer an 85kWh battery option or something similar?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Because that's the car I'm buying.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What was the 40k low end model?model E? That is the highly anticipated model. This one is a plaything for people with too much money.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Seriously, how many people honestly need the range of a Tesla and can afford Tesla prices?
At the moment, Tesla is selling more cars than it can produce. I don't think they are hurting for finding people who can afford their prices right now.
Perhaps when Tesla gets to 500k vehicles produced on an annual basis your complaints about cost and ordinary people not caring will actually resonate and mean something. In the meantime, they don't even have a marketing budget other than to run their company website and work with journalists who make an earnest inquiry about the company.
I'll also note that yesterday I made a trip that I couldn't have made with a Leaf, and sadly it is pretty regular as well. A few hundred mile range is pretty much something needed if you live in the western USA.
It also sounds like you don't get the business model that Tesla is using to sell their vehicles when you go about complaining that there isn't an "affordable" car they are producing.
why doesn't Nissan offer an 85kWh battery option or something similar?
It isn't nearly as trivial as you seem to make it here. Tesla did the hard part by designing their cars to accommodate the higher capacity storage battery systems as well as spent considerable engineering effort to get a battery pack that size which could also meet U.S. Department of Transportation requirements to be a standard part in an automobile. Nissan hasn't put in that kind of effort. It isn't like you are strapping extra batteries on the roof of your car with duct tape and bailing twine, but rather making it something safe that can be driven on a daily basis in a large variety of conditions.
The other problem is that Tesla presumed they could get the Li-ion cells needed for all of the automobiles that they were producing, and Nissan wasn't quite so sure. As it turned out, Nissan was mostly correct as the global battery cell market wasn't ready for that kind of major application. Tesla has instead needed to build their "Gigafactory" for producing the batteries instead, which has required a major pile of capital that an automaker typically doesn't want to bother with unless absolutely necessary. Tesla is going to be bringing these battery backs to their assembly plant in California by the trainload.
Give it time though. Eventually other automobile companies are going to catch up to Nissan and Tesla.
Autism saves the day, yet again. Or were you trying to illustrate exactly the difference he was attempting to point out?
It competes against $70K+ cars from Mercedes and BMW, and it's doing very well in that segment. Sure, that's a niche market.
Tesla has plans to work their way down into more volume markets. Lots of automotive technology started out initially in luxury segments (because those segments can tolerate high capital costs associated with new technology) and then trickled down to the volume markets as the technology matured (air conditioning, automatic transmissions, fuel-injection, etc.). Tesla is following that curve and all indications are pretty good--that's what people are excited about.
No, you describe Dorks. They're the me-tooers, the AOLers of the bunch. They have all of the negatives without the technical acumen.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This could reasonably apply to any major car manufacturer going back a decade.
Kinda sucks doesn't it? Not seeing that 18-24 month huge jump in performance we used to see?
What sucked was having to buy a new CPU and motherboard (and maybe RAM) every year to keep up with new games.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"