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Tesla Says Model 3 Had 'Biggest One-Week Launch of Any Product Ever' (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Tesla announced Thursday that it has received 325,000 preorders for its recently unveiled Model 3. If it sells every car that's been reserved, the company says it will earn enough revenue to make this the "biggest one-week launch of any product ever." A few days ago, the electric car company was saying it had received twice the number of preorders it originally expected to get. Now it's quickly approaching three times that number, which raises questions about the company's ability to meet its increasingly complex production goals. If it can, it stands to make a boatload of money. Tesla says the number of preorders it has received so far corresponds to $14 billion in implied future sales.
Have any other manufacturers done a $1000 deposit, cancel at any time for a full refund pre-launch before? It is hard to know how many paid the fully refundable deposit just so they can have reserve a spot in the line if they decide to get one or even trying just in case they might profit from selling the spot.
IIRC the $1000 is refundable if they decide to pull out reasonably soon.
13m * $500 average cost = 6.5bn.
Tesla is claiming $14bn. Seems reality-based to me.
Seriously. I don't want to call people "morons", but buying a car sight-unseen is bad.
Tesla has a well earned reputation for quality. My wife has a Model-S, and it is a very nice car. Certainly the best that I have ever driven. I think most of the people placing these pre-orders can afford the $1000 deposit.
My one question is durability?
I mean, 8 years and your battery is almost a brick right?
A gas car you can keep going for 15 to 20 years.
OTH, maybe battery prices will drop by 90% over the next 8 years. In which case, no problem.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
People bought the first infinity car sight unseen when they did those stupid car commercials that didn't even show the car or talk about it. This is not even close. The Tesla 3 was demonstrated at the launch event, the internet is littered with photos and reviews by people that attended the event and got to drive one. It is still 18months before full production but the tooling is being built right now so there probably won't be significant changes before the retail model is available. The same method was used on the Model S and it changed very little.
there are only 15 million cars sold in the USA every year. figure the dozens of models out there and this was a great launch
Airbus sold 85 A380 for $400m a pop. Emirates purchase 140 of them in 2015 again for $418m a pop. Thats at least 54billion in committed revenue.
They may have trouble keeping up. They hope to be able to satisfy 500,000 orders a year by 2020. They will need to fast track that considerably, but even at that rate Bloomberg says that EVs will displace over 2,000,000 barrels of oil a day by 2023. That would be enough to cause a crash in the oil market: https://youtu.be/NOPHHgJgJ2s
That would be enough to cause a crash in the oil market
Why not divert that oil to produce electricity?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
There are a lot of reasons to put the deposit down:
1. Low risk - fully refundable until actually placing configured order. The only risk is Tesla going under.
2. Early Model 3 car still qualify for up to $7,500 US government tax credit. After Tesla has produced 200K cars for US market (including all Model S and X) the rebate drops off fast.
3. With this strong demand, those who put the deposit down will get their cars up to 2 years earlier. First releases of a new model car tend to hold higher residuals as there are no older alternatives.
4. Some may hope to speculate, buy an early car and sell it for profit to those who will pay an extra couple of thousand for not waiting 2 years for the new, trendy car. Once the $7.5K rebate drops off, that's an extra $7.5K value for the person who did get it and is reselling the car to those who can no longer get it.
So, rather that collect 0.25% in a savings account, place a $1000 deposit, with low risk, but lots of potential upside. Why do people think that's crazy?
Refundable until the car goes into production.
By the time the car goes into production it will not be sight unseen. There will have been opportunities for test drives just like with the last two Tesla vehicles. I put down my deposit because in the worst case scenario I have $1000 in a non-interest bearing account for a couple years, and in a best case scenario I will likely be part of the last Tesla buyers who get Federal tax credits.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So much for the $35,000 price tag. $14B / 325,000 = $43,000. Even if we assume that half the sales will be for the basic configuration at the bottom price, then the other half would have to sell for $51,000 to make the average price they are projecting. Sounds to me like the $35K version will be completely bare-bones, and you'll have to pay a *lot* for things that come standard in other cars (the Porsche way). Personally, I was excited to get a nicely equipped electric car for $35K. $51K? Not so much.
However, the 380 purchase was not made all at once: 21 ordered in June 2003, and another 21 in November 2003 and so on. So this doesn't meet the requirement of "biggest one week launch ever".
The cost of solar is on a similar trajectory.
Already in the works:
In an email sent out last night (see below), Tesla confirmed that following the overwhelming number of Model 3 reservations it received, the company is currently âoeincreasing its production plans to minimize the wait for Model 3â.
http://electrek.co/2016/04/07/...
"...If it sells every car that's been reserved..."
I'm going to call it here, that less than 100,000 - maybe even less than 50k - actually turn into real orders.
-Styopa
Price to earnings ratio on TSLA is unrealistic - current investors are either short or they are emotionally invested (and financially invested). Better to wait for TSLA to have a bad week and buy than to buy now while it's already on the upswing. Just my $0.02. Buy low, sell high. Buy high and hope to sell higher doesn't usually work out so well.
It's not $14b - only $1,000 per car so it's only $350m by the most generous interpretation. Those putting down their $1,000 have NO obligation to ever give Tesla another dime and Tesla has an obligation to return the money on demand for quite some time so, arguably, it's really $0b. Tesla can't book these deposits as revenue.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
In 10 years we'll laugh at these impatient people who couldn't wait a year to get the same car at a steep discount. Like Apple line people, Cabbage Patch line people, Tickle Me Elmo line people, etc.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You are comparing what is available right now, this instant with something that - if it comes to fruition - will not be available for several years. All talk of costs and availability are speculative and frankly don't matter at all. Tesla makes a nice luxury car - I'm a big fan even if I'm not in the market. I might even buy one of these new cheaper Teslas someday. But I'm sure as hell not buying from the first production run, and I'm certainly going to wait for demand to meet supply so that the price comes down. Look how cheaply you can buy a used Leaf compared to the MSRP (tax rebate included), especially now with gas prices in the basement.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The market returns around 7% on average. At best you will get 0% on this investment, and you'll overpay just for the honor of getting the first buggy models off of the assembly line. Good luck. I'll pick the 2nd year model up on the used market for 2/3 the price, because I'm not in a hurry to look cool.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Indeed. It's worse than that - I depend on some percentage of them not making the payments so that I can steal their almost-new cars at a steep discount. Fortunately, my post denigrating them on Facebook is unlikely to deter them - in fact, psychologically they are likely to double down and stand in an Apple line. The $1000 is a low-pass filter to separate out the people who can only afford to stand in line for sneakers.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"the piece of shit model" - so more affordable means piece of shit?
And you want to buy it 2ndhand? Or the hand-me-down of the Leaf which is truly shite, when new, compared to any Tesla.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
...that I've ever seen on Slashdot. And I clearly remember "No wifi, less space than a Nomad, lame".
I will meet you back here in 4 years and then stalk you through every thread reminding you of this prediction. This god awful, hilariously stupid fucking prediction.
Tesla sold more that 50K Model S's last year--and that's a car with an ASP north of $85K. This year they are selling more than 80K Model S's + Model X's (the ASP on Model X's is even higher). And you think they won't manage 50K of a car that starts at $35K? You sir, are an idiot.
Not like an everyday "noone is going to buy iPads" kind of idiot, but like a platinum-level "noone is going to buy these stupid Model T Fords" kind of idiot--the kind that only comes around once every 100 years or so.
The market returns around 7% on average. At best you will get 0% on this investment, and you'll overpay just for the honor of getting the first buggy models off of the assembly line. Good luck.
No, at best you get to buy a $35k car for $27,500 instead of $35k like everyone who did not put $1000 down. That is a pretty good deal. Even if your car isn't delivered until 6 quarters after the 200,001st Tesla is delivered, the tax incentive is still $1875. That is still quite the return on investment.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Don't forget that after the USA cars have been delivered, the rest of the world gets it. And they have different tax rules. And after that, if noone is in the queue anymore because all orders stop today, *then* you might get one. Might.
For tax reasons, I'm putting down $1000. That's a bit less in euro's and it provides me with a chance at a company car in my own company, that has no additional "car tax" of 60%, that has a very low "road use tax", that has (due to environmental taxes) just a third of the fuel cost of my current Prius, that will come with a tax rebate of 25% in addition to the other stuff. Oh, and maintenance cost are near zero. And if I drive it as a business car, it will only count towards personal income with 4% of the car's original value as opposed to 25% for regular cars.
So, I'm putting down $1000 dollar which in the worst case I will get just back (Tesla isn't going to go bankrupt when they can get a loan based on 14 billion dollar worth of pre-orders) without interest. In the best case I get what looks like the best car on the planet (*) for half the price of a regular car. That's not a bad opportunity cost at all.
(*) I used to drive a Mercedes when I worked for the company - the model S is a MUCH better car than the Mercedes S-class and Tesla is also much better for its customers.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
I understand your analogy, but in what way do you think this model will be shit? The specs already look much better than top of the line cars. Compared to the S, it's shorter. But most of the features of an S will still be on it.
Tesla doesn't have to do the regular "screw the customer" dance that I hated so much when working at Mercedes. They don't have to intentionally make a cheaper car less luxurious in order to justify the overpriced "luxury model". They don't have to avoid putting in a navigation so you have to put down $8000,- for the integrated navigation that's worse than the $100 garmin you buy in the store. They don't have to worry about cannibalizing sales of the model S and model X. Tesla can just sell the model 3 and make it as good as they possibly can, and become a huge car maker in the process because the competition is scared to match it.
The only company with a chance of catching up is Chevrolet and if you look at the Bolt you see the same attitude: it's intentionally made worse than it could be to avoid hitting the sales of their other cars. So if you base your attitude on the long standing practice of other carmakers I understand that. But Tesla is just not in the same position, and has a different strategy. So to assume the model 3 will be any less than the model S except in range and size is an assumption I don't share.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Good luck with that. Someone somewhere with oil will decide they need money, and they will go forth and make some with it.
Except that's not going to work if there's no market for it.
Earlier this year the cost of producing bitumen (tar sands oil) exceeded the market value. The plants remained in operation only because they were gambling that the price would rise again and the cost of shutting down/restarting everything would be greater than a potential short-term loss. Tar sands oil is currently a financial loser.
Now imagine what would happen if the market crashed again due to lack of demand. You really think they'd keep it up?
Also, historically, OPEC has colluded to DECREASE production for the sake of stabilizing the price. The only reason they haven't done so lately is (I'm speculating) to hurt non OPEC producers. If that's true, it's working.
=Smidge=
I might suggest that you are ignoring the used value of the car. Unless you plan on driving it into the ground, you will eventually have to sell it. The used price will reflect the lower "actual" price of the vehicle. The subsidy is real, but (a least part of) the savings to the end user is merely a deferred cost. A Leaf has an MSRP of $30k, but the highest price you'll fetch on the used market after driving it off the lot is around $20k. So yeah, you "saved" $7500 that the used market immediately accounted for.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
nope. It is refundable until they have you decide how to configure it. And that is about .5-2 months ahead of delivery.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.