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Tesla Plans To Produce 500,000 Electric Cars In 2018, 1 Million In 2020 (reuters.com)
"Tesla Motors Inc said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule, but warned that spending will ramp up in tandem," reports Reuters. Tesla said capital spending would rise about 50% more than originally planned this year, to around $2.25 billion. Producing 500,000 vehicles in 2018 will be no easy task, especially considering the company is only on track to deliver between 80,000 and 90,000 electric vehicles this year. In addition to producing 500,000 electric vehicles in 2018, Elon Musk also said the company expects to produce nearly 1 million vehicles in 2020. These are certainly ambitious goals, even for a company that had the 'biggest one-week launch of any product ever.'
Never gonna happen. One thing is for certain. SpaceX and Tesla both never make their ridiculous overly ambitious timeline goals.
Do some basic research. They've never made more than about 11,000 cars a month. They don't have enough capital to build the manufacturing capacity to make that many cars.
They seem to have tricked a few of you.
Tesla is a religion that makes electric cars.
Ramping up production - any plans to manufacture in Australia? You'd have your choice of factory and a monopoly on production once Ford, General Motors and Toyota all exit the market in a year or two, meaning lots of skilled, unemployed workers.
Add a possible change of government come July, keen to transition to a "low carbon" future where electric vehicles haven't made much of a dent yet.
Right hand drive vehicles for the UK market...
Because in California you show up at your smug friends house in a Tesla and your awesome friends house in a Ferrari. Don't let those two intermingle. That's just all bad. You'll be cleaning smugness off for weeks and you can't just drop your smug friend because he knows a guy who knows a guy who can get things done.
I'll drive a car running on the blood of freshly killed babies if I won't drive it.
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So shall it be written, so shall it be done.
I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
Great! If you're skeptical that means someone else is being ambitious. Something we could use much more of in fields other than new chat apps.
It will be easier to manufacture and excuse or two. And even more people will buy those.
Those issues are rapidly diminishing in many areas. Charging stations are popping up all over. I've been driving my Model S since 2013, and the number of places I can't take it is rapidly shrinking. I go on an annual camping trip in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and this will be the first year I won't need to borrow a gasoline car for the trip since the main highway is now covered (highway 395). As for service centers, those also are popping up in many places, though some states are actively trying to prevent them.
My experience with Tesla service is night and day compared to my experience with Toyota. Toyota always tried to push a bunch of crap on me. They'd try and push blinker fluid if they thought they could get away with it. I'd have to fight with them when my car had common well-known problems. With Tesla there's never any question and they address the problem. My car has had more issues than the newer ones since it is a low VIN number but most of those issues were squeaks and rattles, which is difficult for any manufacturer to get right, especially with a brand new model from a new company out of a new factory. Hell, with Tesla I don't need AAA for towing since Tesla's service is better since there is no limit on distance or the number of times you can use it. I have had to use it once, and it was due to a tire that I bought through Tirerack and had installed by a third party developing a bubble in the sidewall. There were no questions nor was I billed for a tow home where I could go to my local dealer for a replacement tire since they discount the tires.
For those who don't live near a service center, they will come to you for an extra $100 fee.
All one has to do is look at Tesla's upcoming 2016 map of chargers to see how quickly they're planning on expanding it. Tesla has already said that they plan to double the number of charging spots by the end of the year and I expect similar growth in 2017. The superchargers are the big game changer for Tesla. Nobody else can boast having an EV which can be driven across the country without spending huge amounts of time charging. Last September I had no problems or significant delays driving from the Bay Area to Seattle. It took me 2 days and charging only added 3-4 hours to the entire trip. The time often wasn't wasted either. I used it to stretch my legs and grab a bite to eat. If I were driving a gas car I'd also take 2 days for this drive since I'm not about to drive 14-16 hours straight.
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Now if only I was better at saving cash...
Don't they sell the Nissan Leaf?
One look at the posted map leaves no doubt that Tesla remains heavily rich-centered company. Even metropolitan centers have very few centers, located in the highest cost of living areas.
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They aren't expanding to western Nebraska. It's 402 miles from Scottsbluff to Lincoln. In my car, that's one stop for about 10 minutes max to fill up with gas. The model 3 doesn't have a range listed. The X and S say 237-294. At the low end that's two stops just to get to my destination, which adds at least 75 minutes to each trip. Oh yeah, there aren't any charging stations on that route and none planned so Tesla is still out for many people in this area.
There are many people in western Nebraska who travel to Lincoln, Omaha, Cheyenne, Denver, Ft. Collins, Loveland on a regular basis. They aren't going to want to fuck around and wait 75 minutes or more for shit to charge.
Also, I do drive 14-16 hours straight once a year visiting my mother. It's a 28 hour drive and I do it in two days. I'm not even going to do the math on how much time will be wasted charging these things.
My tank of gas gets me 375-425 miles, depending on traffic and how much stuff I have in the car. The Teslas simply can't compete with that. I also paid $18,000 new for it. Tesla can't touch that. While Teslas are great in major urban areas where people just tool around the city to and from work, running errands, etc, that's fine. But it hasn't even tried to reach rural areas yet. I don't see that changing for another 10 years.
Musk talks a big game in Tesla, but the problem with car production is people may get excited about the concept of an electric car but they won't buy if the door handles don't work, if the power train needs to be completely replaced and overhauled every 60,000 miles, if the roof doesn't fit, if the emergency brake kicks in every 6 seconds, and if the doors won't close, all of which have been common problems with the Model S and the Model X.
A car is a complex piece of machinery with many points of failure and the consumer of the cheaper vehicle expects those things to work. Model S owners may be willing to ignore busted power trains, and Model X owners may be willing to forgive a stupid door design you can't open in standard garage; they likely have other cars and can manage an expensive but poorly functional car. But the target market for a $35,000 car likely can't afford to have an expensive lemon in the garage; they're more likely 2 income families driving their kids to school before working a 9 to 5 to pay the rent or barely make mortgage. They won't accept having to hold the driver side door closed with one hand while driving their kids' carpool.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/tesla-model-x-owners-finding-car-doors-wont-shut-windows-wont-close/
If Tesla has this level of quality issues producing 50,000 cars per year, those problems will only grow exponentially when ramping production by 10X. Greg Reichow and Gilbert Passin must be freaking out with anxiety at that. Tesla doesn't have the financials to support recalls and warranties with those kinds of quality problems and they'll be doing recalls like crazy if they don't fix those before delivery or they'll be sunk just on warranty costs.
One look at the posted map leaves no doubt that Tesla remains heavily rich-centered company.
The fact that the "affordable" Model 3 still costs BMW-3-series-money shouldn't leave any doubt of that to start with.
That said, the point of EVs is that most of the time you charge them at home and only need a charging station when making long trips, so the need for charging stations in cities & residential areas is reduced - they're needed along long-distance routes and at hotels, 'destination' shopping malls etc. The "high cost of living areas" are also the places that people are likely to take road trips to visit for business/pleasure.
A solution is needed for 'home charging' if you don't have a driveway or garage, but driving to a 'local' public charging station isn't going to entice people to buy EVs. I don't see high-density residential areas that already have parking problems welcoming roadside charging points unless they are 'residents only'.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
There's only 1.8 million people in all of Nebraska. It doesn't really mattter that the Tesla concept doesn't work for every single person in the country. As long as they can get it to work for the large population centers like California, New York, etc, they can probably cover 60% of the US population.
Also, for People doing that one trip a year where to visit family, they would probably be better off renting a gasoline car and saving money year round by paying less to operate the electric car for the year.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Most owners install a 240V 50A outlet in their garages. The outlet is around $14 at Home Depot. Of course that doesn't count the wiring and breaker, but generally it isn't all that expensive.
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The cars are highly profitable with margins of over 25%. One needs to look at where all that money is going. Tesla could be profitable any time they want to, but if they did so they would remain a niche market and could never produce a car like the model 3. All of that money is being spent on capital needed to grow their business like the gigafactory. It also takes a lot of capital to put together a factory to build a high volume of cars. Tesla's problem is that they are supply constrained and it takes a lot of money to address this.
I have over 40,000 miles on my model S. To date I have not had a single major problem with it and I tend to have a lead foot. I don't think the issues of the model X will affect the model 3 since the model 3 doesn't have the falcon wing doors nor will it have the complex seats that the X has.
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Tesla is going to be building on I80 this year and into 2017. Because Nebraska us lightly populated and your gov will not allow them to sell there,ne is not a top priority. Besides, u have huskers there and nobody wants to see them :)
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Tesla could be profitable any time they want to, but if they did so they would remain a niche market and could never produce a car like the model 3"
The thing to bear in mind is that carmakers traditionally make far more money selling car parts (or in Ford's case, finance deals) than cars.
Tesla's focus isn't cars or car parts. It's batteries - and not just in Teslas, or even in cars.
The objective is to produce a large enough market for large batteries for economies of scale to kick in enough to lower prices and spur demand. Bear in mind that patents have been used for the last 20 years to keep automotive traction batteries uncompetitive and some of those patents recently expired.
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