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Tesla Produced Over 80,000 Cars In Third Quarter, Beating Estimates (electrek.co)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla has now confirmed the official record production numbers of 80,000 vehicles. The automaker has also confirmed Q3 deliveries of 83,500 vehicles. Yesterday, Electrek reported the production numbers, which Tesla has now confirmed to be exactly 53,239 Model 3 vehicles and 26,903 Model S and X vehicles. Tesla elaborated on the Model 3 production ramp-up: "During Q3, we transitioned Model 3 production from entirely rear wheel drive at the beginning of the quarter to almost entirely dual motor during the last few weeks of the quarter. This added significant complexity, but we successfully executed this transition and ultimately produced more dual motor than rear wheel drive cars in Q3. In the last week of the quarter, we produced over 5,300 Model 3 vehicles, almost all of which were dual motor, meaning that we achieved a production rate of more than 10,000 drive units per week." Tesla delivered a total of 83,500 vehicles during the third quarter: 55,840 Model 3, 14,470 Model S, and 13,190 Model X.
Here's what Tesla had to say about the Model 3 deliveries: "Our Q3 Model 3 deliveries were limited to higher-priced variants, cash/loan transactions, and North American customers only. There remain significant opportunities to grow the addressable market for Model 3 by introducing leasing, standard battery and other lower-priced variants of the car, and by starting international deliveries."
Here's what Tesla had to say about the Model 3 deliveries: "Our Q3 Model 3 deliveries were limited to higher-priced variants, cash/loan transactions, and North American customers only. There remain significant opportunities to grow the addressable market for Model 3 by introducing leasing, standard battery and other lower-priced variants of the car, and by starting international deliveries."
The ford Model A was a bargain basement model. Tesla are hardly aiming at that market segment.
Go here : here and click on August and see how they are doing relative to similarly priced models today.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
It may be like when Scientology purchased tons of "Dianetics" books to get on the best-seller lists. (Ok, allegedly, don't come after me, please.)
Table-ized A.I.
But they are profitable this quarter. As they get better and learn more, and have stronger economies of scale, they will increase margin, just like what happens to most businesses after the initial spending to build segment is over.
Shorting such an innovative company is lunacy. They are years ahead on battery tech, years ahead on drivetrain, years ahead on driving assistants, and years ahead on infrastructure (power wall, solar panels, superchargers) as any other competitor. News and articles and tweets and this crap is fine for shorting in the immediate term, but over the long ark of time, financial performance is what will govern the stock price, and I don't think there are any worries there. They have a product, people want to buy it, and they are learning how to build that product profitably. Everything else is noise.
I note that people only go into "but what about the mining!" rants when talking about EV batteries, and not.... literally everything else they consume which is also made out of mined products. E.g. why should we give a rat's arse whether we use nickel in the form of stainless steel or in the form of the nickel oxides that make up the lion's share of an EV cathode? Why shouldn't we care about other mined products like platinium for catalytic converters (you don't need much, but it's mined in hundreds of ppb/low ppm quantities after stripping vast quantities of overburden) and the like? Heck, if you want to look for low impact mining, it's pretty dang hard to beat salar lithium. Really... why are the steel, alumium, vanadium, manganese, molybdenum, silicon, chromium, magnesium, etc etc in the ICEs considered irrelevant?
And as for cobalt - the element that's been dwindling in EV batteries - even in Congo, 80% of it is mined in mines run by international conglomerates, to modern standards, and of the artisinal mining, most is just villagers mining their own land; the concern is over a minority of a minority of mining in a single country. And even that is irrelevant - not because western companies generally have procedures in place to prevent buying artisinal cobalt (it's generally purchased by less scrupulous buyers, such as in China), but because this article about Tesla, and Tesla has historically acquired most of its cobalt from Canada.
The mass of a Model 3 is is about the same as its performance equivalents from BMW. The mass of "stuff" that makes it up is about the same as the mass of "stuff" that makes up the BMW. Why are we supposed to freak out about one but not the other?
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
Not sure they are years ahead on anything but possibly charge station network. While their competitors are decades ahead in things like dealer support, parts delivery, build quality, and most importantly paying down their debts. Their are many companies with decades of more experience on mass producing electric drive trains over Tesla. Panasonic is the primary holder of the battery technology, and manufacturing even at the Giga factory.
Personally their is no way I would consider a car that is locked down in DRM, from a company that maintains a list of VIN's that they will not sell parts for. Also no service or repair manuals, and so far demonstrated an inability to deliver repair parts at any scale. Especially one that is so deep in debt and tied up in a couple car models, one big recall and they are bankrupt.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying short Tesla or anything close to predicting they will fail. Just that while I clearly have no idea how much of the population is like me, that would gladly pay $10k more for the support of BMW over the restrictions of Tesla. And they are just one mistake away from turning over their market lead to any one of nearly a dozen competitors.
So what we've learned is that the ONLY market for EVs is rich folks wanting to show "how much they care about the Earth" by buying $60K cars (well, $50K and then with tax and license putting you at $60K). While the average person spends about half that on their new vehicle. Congrats, Tesla, on building a car for the rich only, and letting all those around them see how good and noble and Earth-caring they are!
In the real world (you know, where the real volume of vehicles is sold), EVs are a non-starter because you simply cannot get the type of range or capabilities families want at the price families can afford.
Interesting you also jump in this thread, and were basically silent on the one where Musk was forced out as Chairman, given a couple more watchdogs, and fined 400 Model 3's worth of money. We'll see how much money they lose for Q3, too!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!