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Tesla Receives 115,000 Model 3 Preorders Worth $115 Million In 24 Hours (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the spare-some-change dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Over 115,000 reservations at $1,000 each were placed for the Model 3 in the first 24 hours. This gives Tesla a little extra operating cash. If each tech-savvy enthusiast who preordered the Model 3 in the first 24 hours follows through with their $35,000 purchase, Tesla would make $4 billion in sales. Right now, they're sitting pretty with $115 million from the down payment required for preordering. It looks like Tesla may have a big hit on their hands.

11 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. The hype train by Thanshin · · Score: 3

    Ultimately, the hype train ended up being an electric car. Who'd'a' thunk it.

    One more major electrical energy sink that will concentrate in a very small portion of the day.

    Time to invest in energy accumulating techs.

    1. Re:The hype train by tibit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Very small portion of the day? Charging is typically done at night, when the demand for electricity is the lowest. It's actually a win-win for electric utilities, since they get paid for what amounts to unused capacity sitting idle and costing them money.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    2. Re:The hype train by Robotbeat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have a Volt. It charges at night, and you can set the charge time to be whenever you want. If utilities simply charged for time of use (which makes the most sense as it'd be the closest to the true cost), then owners would simply choose to charge whenever the price was lowest. With a Volt, I have a relatively small battery, so while I can choose when to charge at night, I can't easily shift charging to other days. With a 215 mile battery, you can now choose when you want to charge, just like you can choose when you want to fill up, particularly if workplace chargers are installed. This has the effect of actually leveling out the peaks and troughs in supply and demand BETTER than no EVs at all, not concentrating it in a "very small portion of the day."

      Also, batteries are "energy accumulating tech." Tesla is building a Gigafactory (the initial portions of which are already operational) that will surpass the current global total Li-Ion production capacity. The Powerwall, and the utility-scale Powerpack (which is actually a big deal), beat basically all other grid-tied battery tech options available today. So if you want to "invest in energy accumulating techs," I suggest you buy Tesla stock.

  2. $115M in operating cash? by darthsilun · · Score: 3, Funny

    I dunno about you, but for building cars, $100M isn't a lot of money.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:$115M in operating cash? by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed - far more valuable than the money from the reservations is the amount of investment money they'll be able to attract given such a demonstrated customer interest level.

      --
      If I ever become wealthy and mad, I'll leave Companion Cubes on desert islands for shipwreck survivors.
  3. What this means by RubberDogBone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A typical modern sedan auto factory making your average Camry or Sonata or Accord turns out about 30,000 cars a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And usually there are 1-2 months of downtime and maintenance. Figure roughly 300,000 cars a year.

    Tesla is saying they've pre-sold roughly four months of production, before people see the announcement and decide to order one and add more numbers to the list. They sold something like 25,000 MORE pre-orders during the reveal event. This is pretty spectacular by any standard, and more so considering Tesla's annual production rate for the Model S was only 50,000 in 2015. The S is seasoned design which they no doubt assemble fairly efficiently.

    This really mean they have sold the equivalent of two plus years of new cars, probably more like three because they won't be at peak output anywhere near the beginning of production. It may take a year to fully ramp up.

    To summarise: Damn fine sales, Tesla. Congratulations!

    --
    Sig for hire.
  4. Score 101 by jez9999 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Good to see Slashdot finally take the leap to the digital age and do comment scores in binary!

    --
    == Jez ==
    Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  5. Re:With capacity of not 50,000 a year... by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

    150.000 / 50.000 = 30

    So... How's that job market for social studies graduates?

  6. Re:I have a suspicion... by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No. It looks normal to me?

  7. Re:I have a suspicion... by Sique · · Score: 4, Informative

    11111111 is just -1 for a "signed byte" or a signed integer of 8bit.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  8. $7500 federal income tax credit by zerofoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reserving one of these cars now increases the likelihood that your car will be eligible for the $7500 tax credit. As I understand it, this credit only applies to the first 200,000 qualifying vehicles sold by a manufacturer. At last estimates, Tesla sold about 100,000 or so vehicles which leaves about 100,000 credits left.

    I reserved mine last night. The deposit is fully refundable. At the very least, I think I've got a shot at getting the federal credit.

    It's not a bad deal.