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Tesla Q1 2018 Vehicle Production and Deliveries

141 points by beltex 8y ago

ekrebs 8y ago
2,020 is under Elon's 2,500 prediction, but well above the 1,000-1,500 expectations of those shorting the stock (unless the shorts' articles were deliberately misleading, of course). Also, according to the release, those are customer-delivered numbers. Overall, a good trajectory and a sign of long-term health.
- dgritsko 8y ago
  Yeah, if they're able to consistently hit that weekly number (and continue to improve upon it) this is some much-needed good news for Tesla.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    They need to improve on it, badly. Operating a line at 40% capacity is terrible for your bankaccount.
- InTheArena 8y ago
  Shorts? Misleading? Never. The game around Tesla stock is pure and simple speculation - by all sides. There is no world that justifies the current value of Tesla's stock, and there is also clear evidence that there is significant illegal market manipulation by shorts.. This is becoming more of a problem. Remember the fairly benign AMD "security" issue where it was discovered that root users could update security code? The announcement of that exploit came with a "this should drive AMD stock to zero" comment. Just a little bit over oversight please, SEC?
- deleted 8y ago
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- misja111 8y ago
  Originally Tesla was predicting to produce 5,000 per week in March 2018. The prediction was later downsized to 2,500 and now they didn't even reach that. Investors have been funding Tesla so far based on all these predictions. I don't see any sign of long-term health here now that both targets have not been met.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  2,020 is about halfway between 1,500 and 2,500. It’s almost like both sides are selling hyperbole around a truth in the middle.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Except that wasn't the prediction, the prediction was 5K / week: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/tesla-predicts-production-rate-of-5k-model-3-cars-per-week-by-late-q1-2018/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/tesla-predicts-production-...
beltex 8y ago
"Tesla Goes Bankrupt Palo Alto, California, April 1, 2018 -- Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt. So bankrupt, you can't believe it." - Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980566101124722688 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980566101124722688
- jjevanoorschot 8y ago
  For those who didn't already get it, it's an April Fool's joke.
  - beltex 8y ago
    Indeed. Given the number of down votes, either folks didn't catch that, or it's all the short sellers :)
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Or maybe it was a lame joke by the CEO of a publicly traded company and as such totally out of order. That joke might have been funny if Tesla was making 7500 model 3 cars / week.
      - mikeg8 8y ago
        Agreed. Can't wait to live in a world where CEOs can control themselves and refrain from cracking a quick joke on April Fools Day.
        jacquesm 8y ago
        With being listed on the stock exchange comes a certain amount of responsibility. If you can't control yourself from making jokes about your company going bankrupt then maybe you should stay private? Keep in mind there are people's savings on the line here.
davedx 8y ago
CNN this morning: "Tesla will soon report whether it met its target to make 2,500 Model 3s a week. It is on pace to make about half that number, according to Bloomberg." [1] From the statement: "In the past seven days, Tesla produced 2,020 Model 3 vehicles." A pretty big improvement, still some hard work to do, but they really are ramping up. I'm relieved at the announcement they won't need another debt/equity raise this year. Let's see where we are in 3 months. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-april/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-a...
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Depends on what made these numbers. Late night burn or proper automation ?
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Indeed. They say last week and next week will be ballpark 2K Model 3s, and that's good, but is that their new sustainable number or just an artificially inflated figure for this report? Their carefully chosen wording leans me more towards the latter. But I hope they succeed in general and I guess we'll know one way or the other by next quarter.
    - InTheArena 8y ago
      After they did their big push end of last year, they immediately down-ramped, and caught a lot of flack (rightfully so) for it. I assume this is their way of saying, we have a sustainable rate here. That said, the VIN numbers are rolling off at a massive rate. It's pretty easy to see if Tesla does that again.
  - Robotbeat 8y ago
    They won't reach proper automation until they're getting 5,000 to 8,000 Model 3s per week. But, of course, nobody really does automation to the level that Tesla is trying to do, so their current mix between labor and automation (as they continue to build up their automation line) is approximately what other car makers do. Getting full automation to work is really hard, takes a lot of labor and time. I think they'll do it, but the task should not be under-estimated. In the meantime, they've already achieved a production rate per factory line similar to what a typical automaker like VW would do (on the order of 100,000 per year for a factory). Like SpaceX around 2015 or so. Respectable, but not yet Earth-shattering (i.e. 2017).
ckastner 8y ago
> The Model 3 output increased exponentially, representing a fourfold increase over last quarter. This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T. Way to spin all the production issues and delay of the previous quarter into a positive. They're way behind the goals they set for themselves, but instead of measuring by those goals, they measure themselves by their weakest performance, and suddenly their performance becomes historic.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Musk is a good salesman.
  - kbody 8y ago
    Musk is a genius, but still not everything that a company does is done by the CEO.
    - InitialLastName 8y ago
      > Musk is a genius, Apparently, Musk is a good salesman, especially of himself.
      - pm90 8y ago
        Come on, he can be a salesman and a genius. At least he is a very extreme determined and hard working person, if not an actual "genius" (whose brains are wired differently). People don't generally make a mid career change into rocket science and then have the most successful private rocket launch company.
        InitialLastName 8y ago
        > People don't generally make a mid career change into rocket science and then have the most successful private rocket launch company ... except for the other successful entrepreneurs who made mid-career changes to fund private rocket launch companies: - Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) - Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace) - Jim Benson (SpaceDev) - Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) I'll grant that Musk appears to be a successful businessman, and an effective leader, but his real strength appears to be selling his ideas so hard that even his most Boring (tm) projects get covered in giant piles of hype.
danso 8y ago
Worth posting Bloomberg's Tesla Model 3 Tracker, which contains a model attempting to independently estimate production, as well as background info about Tesla's past projections: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/
- pavs 8y ago
  I think most people shouldn't take this tracker seriously as it was wildly off most of the time and was often manually adjusted.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - danso 8y ago
    The tracker on Apr. 2 (Google Cache) has an estimate of 12,245 units, which is based off of a confirmed production total of 2,686 at the end of Q4. http://archive.is/WXoXw http://archive.is/WXoXw Today's announcement says 9,766 M3s were produced in Q1: 9766 + 2686, i.e. 12452. They don't seem that far off?
    - pavs 8y ago
      It was adjusted manually in the beginning of the month. In March it was all over the place. I think unofficial tracker like this, even with all the disclaimers, actually makes this worse.
_ph_ 8y ago
Despite the disappointment of missing the goal of 2500 cars, this is good news. Tesla came reasonably close to their goal and certainly won't stop at that number. To put the number into scale, they made as many Model 3 in the last week as Model S and X combined. That means, Tesla is on a good track to produce at least twice as many cars in 2018 as they did in 2017, which already was a record year.
InTheArena 8y ago
The "leaks" on email this last week have changed the narrative a lot. The leak last week (probably not planned) of "prove the haters wrong" resulted in a sell off, while the leak over the weekend cushioned the final numbers. That said, TSLA, just like SpaceX plays really close to the edge with equity and risk in pursuit of a vision. What most Tesla shorts fail to recognize is that Tesla has already gotten to the point that if something really really bad where to happen, any number of well capitalized tech firms would scoop them up in a instant (looking at Apple in particular). The cars are really a minimal amount of hardware, with software wrapped around them. They have loyalty like the iPhone had loyalty and Alexa has loyalty. The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic. Now they need to prove they can start scaling more linearly. The press reaction to all of this is a good example of the media not knowing what they are talking about. The press has issued breathless reports about there being too much skilled labor and parts by hand, then too much robotic automation. They point at the low uptake of reservation holders (30%) without noting that the reservations are holding constant, and that this is mostly a effect of only the most premium of the premium going on sale right now. Tesla's barb on the Model T is interesting as well. "This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T. " What Tesla is trying to do is hard. There is a reason no one has been successful in doing it in more then 50+ years. Watching the people who are opposed to what Tesla is doing is just as interesting.
- pavlov 8y ago
  > The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic. I like Tesla, but it doesn't give me a good vibe if they're blaming partners at this point.
  - InTheArena 8y ago
    This was a couple of quarters ago. To the best of my knowledge, Tesla never stated this explicitly, but it was in the press.
planetjones 8y ago
I used to be one of the people who poked fun at Musk and suggested people short Tesla stock (as the valuation is crazy compared to the production and penetration numbers). But I am no longer that person. I read his biography (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future) and this is a guy who genuinely wants to change things on a macro scale: opening up space, changing transportation. He is also a genuine risk taker, who will bet his own money and risk everything for something he believes in. I now root for Musk and his companies to succeed. I wouldn't take short positions on Tesla now. Plus the deletion of the SpaceX and Tesla facebook pages, when told over Twitter they existed was pretty funny.
- vermontdevil 8y ago
  That biography was mind blowing. Shows all sides of Elon good or bad. But showed how hard he really worked to build companies to scale.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Reading a book doesn't change fundamentals. Tesla is heading for a rough time, I sincerely hope they make it through and hope that Musk will not come to regret making that stupid joke.
  - pm90 8y ago
    Very astute comment. And lets remember that Musk himself is a big fan of "first principles". By the first principles (fundamentals) of business and finance, it doesn't look very good. But I too sincerely hope that Tesla does succeed.
  - xutopia 8y ago
    How are they headed for hard times? I'm genuinely uneducated on the matter and want to know more.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Tesla is attempting to change too much at once. New model, new (highly automated) production line and adding a degree of self driving over and beyond what is currently present in other cars, probably will run out of cash somewhere this year. Any one of those would be a major challenge and a major achievement to lick. While I totally admire Elon Musk for challenging all these things at once you have to wonder about the wisdom of it all, especially when taking into account that he has another major project (SpaceX) that would normally be enough to tax any CEO. Furthermore they decided to roll Solar City into Tesla which makes Tesla even more encumbered with debt. I get why he did it but I firmly believe that cross-tying losing businesses and winning businesses at that level is a failure prone strategy, it is gambling rather than managing.
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cdibona 8y ago
GM/Toyota/NUUMI would produce four times vehicles in the same amount of time in that plant. (about 120 to 130k/quarter, depending on the nuumi production numbers you believe)
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Maybe. Some of the production process is brilliant. At the same time, some of it is far less sophisticated than you might imagine from much publicized reports. And they have skeletons, alright.
- benjaminl 8y ago
  You could be comparing apples and grapefruits here. It has been reported that Tesla makes a lot of thier own parts. So more of the total supply chain for manufacturing the car exists in that plant. For example Tesla manufacturers thier own motor in the plant were the NUMMI plant would have had thier ICE motors pre-assembled.
joezydeco 8y ago
I was next to Model X at a stoplight last night. They look nice from a distance, but when you sit up close you can see where every panel and piece of trim just doesn't line up quite right. Sitting in my cheap little Mazda3, I've never noticed any problem with simple fit-and-finish details like that. I truly hope the Model 3s catch up, but I really think those owners will be in for a world of headaches after delivery.
- solaarphunk 8y ago
  As much as I want Tesla to win, I messed around with the back-seat center cup-holders in a friend's model 3, and they seem to be constructed with extremely cheap plastic that is quite embarrassing.
- nopriorarrests 8y ago
  It's not just owners. In fact, guarantee service can eat a lot of planned margin for TSLA. Simply put, carmakers sell each car for X and they assume that on average each car will require Y dollars in a free service, and automaker will end up with Z of profits. If Y is severely underestimated, it may hurt the bottom line.
- marrone12 8y ago
  Yes, honestly every time I've seen one they look kind of cheap.
- TeeWEE 8y ago
  I also saw a model X, and the doors didnt line up correctly with the chassis. Maybe it was not closed properly? Maybe it was bad construction. I'm not sure. Edit, added link: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-alignment-normal.66520/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-alignment-norma...
  - joezydeco 8y ago
    The rear doors are a 100% given, especially where the upper chrome trim meets the C pillar. It's like they just threw up their hands at that part of the manufacturing spinup. But, the longer you look, the more mistakes you see.
buvanshak 8y ago
Why is this posted on HN? I know there are a lot of people here who are so into Tesla. But this does not fit the HN content guidelines in anyway...
- danso 8y ago
  Which content guidelines are you talking about? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
  - buvanshak 8y ago
    > Anything that good hackers would find interesting. How is quarterly statement from a Car company interesting to "good hackers" or how is this gratifying intellectual curiosity in anyway? If you want to discuss the financial/production reports of the company you can go to the forums dedicated to it...
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      How come someone that's been here less than 2 months and who has two 'Ask HN's to his name one of which is flagged feels they get to dicate what should and should not be on the site? The Tesla story is interesting to 'good hackers' because it is a company that does exactly the kind of thing that 'good hackers' love to read about: disrupt a bunch of incumbents. The fact that Elon Musk started out as a nobody that came to the United States in order to chase his dreams and is actually doing just that coupled with the fact that I suspect that a large number of HN readers either has a position in Tesla and/or drives a Tesla (or covets one) means there is a pretty good chance that substantial articles about Tesla will get upvoted. If you can't deal with that rather than telling the people here to go elsewhere maybe you should go elsewhere or at least attempt to add to the discussion in some constructive way.
      - 8y ago
icegreentea2 8y ago
They built 9766 Model 3 in Q1 and were able to surge out 2000 in the last 7 days, and claim a doubling in their Model 3 production rate over Q1. Something doesn't really add up there. Regardless of their spin their Q1 must have been hellish on the guys and gals on the floor and in production support. I hope they can do a sustainable ramp soon so my friends can get their Model 3s. I would REALLY love to see what their internal messaging on this is.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  I can't find the actual memo. But Bloomberg wrote about a leaked memo. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urges-workers-to-prove-haters-wrong-ramp-up-production https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg... > Tesla will suspend Model S and Model X production Thursday and Friday because it’s ahead of target on building those this quarter, Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production, wrote to employees in a March 21 email obtained by Bloomberg News. An unspecified “limited number” of workers who build those vehicles will have the option to work on the Model 3 line on those two days and Saturday, he said. They moved workers from the Model S & X lines over to the Model 3. And an unspecified number of "volunteers" also got cracking to make the final spurt.
wiremine 8y ago
There's a number of questions on this thread about Telsa's production uptick being about "burning the late night oil" or automation. Does anyone have any reliable insight into this question? And, regarding their automation, a few honest questions: 1. How much automation are we talking about, compared to the status quo? 2. How much of the automation is reusable across other models? Are they building up a repeatable model to increase scale at a lower cost?
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  Both are important. They haven't ramped up automation yet, so right now they're burning the midnight oil on both regular production (i.e. likely with a similar labor/automation mix as typical manufacturers) AND tuning automation. Trying to do both simultaneously on a compressed timescale is what makes this hard.
dragontamer 8y ago
Tesla asked for volunteers to staff the assembly lines last week. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urges-workers-to-prove-haters-wrong-ramp-up-production https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg... I personally am bearish on this. If they worked so hard, but only made it to 2000 / week (their goal was 5000/week by December2017. They lowered it to 2500 this past week), then its all just marketing spin to make 2000/week look better, which is still missing their original targets. Volunteer staff while cutting Model S / Model X production (and moving that staff over to the Model 3 lines) is not sustainable. They could do it for one week to pad out the numbers, but they need real growth to remain solvent over the next year. Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks. That's roughly 650ish Model3 cars made per week, on the average (when looking at it across the quarter). This is actually less than the 793/week Model 3 they did at the end of Q4. Bloomberg estimates that Tesla's overall production has grown to 1000/week or maybe a little bit above that, which might be closer to the "sustainable" size (ie: not counting the volunteer staff + spurt last week). I'd be surprised if Tesla makes 30,000 Model 3s next quarter (which is still grossly below their target of 5000/week by Dec2017). Tesla NEEDS 5000/week. 2000/week is still very low and unsustainable for this company. https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2018-04-03/tesla-says-produced-2-020-model-3-sedans-last-week https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2018-04-03/... > "Tesla continues to target a production rate of approximately 5,000 units per week in about three months, laying the groundwork for Q3 to have the long-sought ideal combination of high volume, good gross margin and strong positive operating cash flow," it said. > "As a result, Tesla does not require an equity or debt raise this year, apart from standard credit lines."
- saas_co_de 8y ago
  > Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks Exactly. The 2000 number is complete B.S. They just held back nearly finished units and the "completed" them all in the last week so they could release a semi-decent number without technically lying, but they are nowhere close to target. "Q1 deliveries totaled 29,980 vehicles, of which 11,730 were Model S, 10,070 were Model X, and 8,180 were Model 3" "In Q4, Tesla delivered 29,870 vehicles, of which 15,200 were Model S, 13,120 were Model X, and 1,550 were Model 3." - http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1053245 http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1053245 Model S/X: -23% deliveries. That is a BIG problem. Falling demand for S/X and inability to sell at sticker price (where they still lose money) and replacing that with another model that they lose even more money on is not a great "growth" story.
badosu 8y ago
> The quality of Model 3 coming out of production is at the highest level we have seen across all our products. I am dumbfounded by this statement, weren't tons of images and videos of huge gaps between sections on Model 3s? He does not even acknowledge it happened, so I cannot assume that it is meant to say that the issues were fixed. Am I missing something? Otherwise that's incredibly misleading.
JepZ 8y ago
Well, I think many people don't want to understand that ambitious targets are most likely to be missed. So missing the target is actually what is going to happen and the real question is by how much. So some might ask, why setting a goal that is unlikely to be reached and not simply set a realistic target? Changing the automotive world isn't realistic. So if you would go with a realistic target you could have shutdown Tesla years ago. Nevertheless, there is an actual risk involved in setting the targets too high as burning people and investors can cause real problems. Yet, I think it is best to judge Tesla by their actual performance and not so much by the fact that they missed their ambitious targets.
maxander 8y ago
I clicked on this article expecting a graph of an exponential curve, and they utterly failed to deliver. Who cares how many cars they’re making, if they can’t make a decent exponential curve? That is the #1 priority product of any California hype house! How are we supposed to believe they’ll amount to anything if they can’t show us a trend line that would consume all matter on the planet by 2045?
robotkdick 8y ago
The joke is an indication their position is stronger than perceived. That's his warped sense of humor, and something he's probably been longing to do (once the time was right). I predict this press will be the first of many positive releases from Tesla. While they flew very close to the sun, the wings have held, and they will be soaring from here.
decacorn 8y ago
in a time when our government agencies (EPA) are defying scientific data and permitting OEMs to continue raping the planet, we all need to chill the hell out and continue supporting Tesla. Our children and grandchildren deserve a better world. Additionally, China will outright leapfrog America in the EV/energy race. Tesla must survive; America depends on it.

141 points by beltex 8y ago

2,020 is under Elon's 2,500 prediction, but well above the 1,000-1,500 expectations of those shorting the stock (unless the shorts' articles were deliberately misleading, of course). Also, according to the release, those are customer-delivered numbers. Overall, a good trajectory and a sign of long-term health.

dgritsko 8y ago
Yeah, if they're able to consistently hit that weekly number (and continue to improve upon it) this is some much-needed good news for Tesla.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  They need to improve on it, badly. Operating a line at 40% capacity is terrible for your bankaccount.
InTheArena 8y ago
Shorts? Misleading? Never. The game around Tesla stock is pure and simple speculation - by all sides. There is no world that justifies the current value of Tesla's stock, and there is also clear evidence that there is significant illegal market manipulation by shorts.. This is becoming more of a problem. Remember the fairly benign AMD "security" issue where it was discovered that root users could update security code? The announcement of that exploit came with a "this should drive AMD stock to zero" comment. Just a little bit over oversight please, SEC?
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misja111 8y ago
Originally Tesla was predicting to produce 5,000 per week in March 2018. The prediction was later downsized to 2,500 and now they didn't even reach that. Investors have been funding Tesla so far based on all these predictions. I don't see any sign of long-term health here now that both targets have not been met.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
2,020 is about halfway between 1,500 and 2,500. It’s almost like both sides are selling hyperbole around a truth in the middle.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Except that wasn't the prediction, the prediction was 5K / week: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/tesla-predicts-production-rate-of-5k-model-3-cars-per-week-by-late-q1-2018/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/tesla-predicts-production-...

beltex 8y ago

"Tesla Goes Bankrupt Palo Alto, California, April 1, 2018 -- Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt. So bankrupt, you can't believe it." - Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980566101124722688 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980566101124722688

jjevanoorschot 8y ago
For those who didn't already get it, it's an April Fool's joke.
- beltex 8y ago
  Indeed. Given the number of down votes, either folks didn't catch that, or it's all the short sellers :)
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Or maybe it was a lame joke by the CEO of a publicly traded company and as such totally out of order. That joke might have been funny if Tesla was making 7500 model 3 cars / week.
    - mikeg8 8y ago
      Agreed. Can't wait to live in a world where CEOs can control themselves and refrain from cracking a quick joke on April Fools Day.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        With being listed on the stock exchange comes a certain amount of responsibility. If you can't control yourself from making jokes about your company going bankrupt then maybe you should stay private? Keep in mind there are people's savings on the line here.

davedx 8y ago

CNN this morning: "Tesla will soon report whether it met its target to make 2,500 Model 3s a week. It is on pace to make about half that number, according to Bloomberg." [1] From the statement: "In the past seven days, Tesla produced 2,020 Model 3 vehicles." A pretty big improvement, still some hard work to do, but they really are ramping up. I'm relieved at the announcement they won't need another debt/equity raise this year. Let's see where we are in 3 months. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-april/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-a...

agumonkey 8y ago
Depends on what made these numbers. Late night burn or proper automation ?
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Indeed. They say last week and next week will be ballpark 2K Model 3s, and that's good, but is that their new sustainable number or just an artificially inflated figure for this report? Their carefully chosen wording leans me more towards the latter. But I hope they succeed in general and I guess we'll know one way or the other by next quarter.
  - InTheArena 8y ago
    After they did their big push end of last year, they immediately down-ramped, and caught a lot of flack (rightfully so) for it. I assume this is their way of saying, we have a sustainable rate here. That said, the VIN numbers are rolling off at a massive rate. It's pretty easy to see if Tesla does that again.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  They won't reach proper automation until they're getting 5,000 to 8,000 Model 3s per week. But, of course, nobody really does automation to the level that Tesla is trying to do, so their current mix between labor and automation (as they continue to build up their automation line) is approximately what other car makers do. Getting full automation to work is really hard, takes a lot of labor and time. I think they'll do it, but the task should not be under-estimated. In the meantime, they've already achieved a production rate per factory line similar to what a typical automaker like VW would do (on the order of 100,000 per year for a factory). Like SpaceX around 2015 or so. Respectable, but not yet Earth-shattering (i.e. 2017).

ckastner 8y ago

> The Model 3 output increased exponentially, representing a fourfold increase over last quarter. This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T. Way to spin all the production issues and delay of the previous quarter into a positive. They're way behind the goals they set for themselves, but instead of measuring by those goals, they measure themselves by their weakest performance, and suddenly their performance becomes historic.

lallysingh 8y ago
Musk is a good salesman.
- kbody 8y ago
  Musk is a genius, but still not everything that a company does is done by the CEO.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    > Musk is a genius, Apparently, Musk is a good salesman, especially of himself.
    - pm90 8y ago
      Come on, he can be a salesman and a genius. At least he is a very extreme determined and hard working person, if not an actual "genius" (whose brains are wired differently). People don't generally make a mid career change into rocket science and then have the most successful private rocket launch company.
      - InitialLastName 8y ago
        > People don't generally make a mid career change into rocket science and then have the most successful private rocket launch company ... except for the other successful entrepreneurs who made mid-career changes to fund private rocket launch companies: - Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) - Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace) - Jim Benson (SpaceDev) - Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) I'll grant that Musk appears to be a successful businessman, and an effective leader, but his real strength appears to be selling his ideas so hard that even his most Boring (tm) projects get covered in giant piles of hype.

danso 8y ago

Worth posting Bloomberg's Tesla Model 3 Tracker, which contains a model attempting to independently estimate production, as well as background info about Tesla's past projections: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

pavs 8y ago
I think most people shouldn't take this tracker seriously as it was wildly off most of the time and was often manually adjusted.
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- danso 8y ago
  The tracker on Apr. 2 (Google Cache) has an estimate of 12,245 units, which is based off of a confirmed production total of 2,686 at the end of Q4. http://archive.is/WXoXw http://archive.is/WXoXw Today's announcement says 9,766 M3s were produced in Q1: 9766 + 2686, i.e. 12452. They don't seem that far off?
  - pavs 8y ago
    It was adjusted manually in the beginning of the month. In March it was all over the place. I think unofficial tracker like this, even with all the disclaimers, actually makes this worse.

_ph_ 8y ago

Despite the disappointment of missing the goal of 2500 cars, this is good news. Tesla came reasonably close to their goal and certainly won't stop at that number. To put the number into scale, they made as many Model 3 in the last week as Model S and X combined. That means, Tesla is on a good track to produce at least twice as many cars in 2018 as they did in 2017, which already was a record year.

InTheArena 8y ago

The "leaks" on email this last week have changed the narrative a lot. The leak last week (probably not planned) of "prove the haters wrong" resulted in a sell off, while the leak over the weekend cushioned the final numbers. That said, TSLA, just like SpaceX plays really close to the edge with equity and risk in pursuit of a vision. What most Tesla shorts fail to recognize is that Tesla has already gotten to the point that if something really really bad where to happen, any number of well capitalized tech firms would scoop them up in a instant (looking at Apple in particular). The cars are really a minimal amount of hardware, with software wrapped around them. They have loyalty like the iPhone had loyalty and Alexa has loyalty. The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic. Now they need to prove they can start scaling more linearly. The press reaction to all of this is a good example of the media not knowing what they are talking about. The press has issued breathless reports about there being too much skilled labor and parts by hand, then too much robotic automation. They point at the low uptake of reservation holders (30%) without noting that the reservations are holding constant, and that this is mostly a effect of only the most premium of the premium going on sale right now. Tesla's barb on the Model T is interesting as well. "This is the fastest growth of any automotive company in the modern era. If this rate of growth continues, it will exceed even that of Ford and the Model T. " What Tesla is trying to do is hard. There is a reason no one has been successful in doing it in more then 50+ years. Watching the people who are opposed to what Tesla is doing is just as interesting.

pavlov 8y ago
> The big bottleneck to this point has been battery assembly lines at the Gigafactory. They just installed a new line for the battery packing line that they yanked back from Panasonic. I like Tesla, but it doesn't give me a good vibe if they're blaming partners at this point.
- InTheArena 8y ago
  This was a couple of quarters ago. To the best of my knowledge, Tesla never stated this explicitly, but it was in the press.

planetjones 8y ago

I used to be one of the people who poked fun at Musk and suggested people short Tesla stock (as the valuation is crazy compared to the production and penetration numbers). But I am no longer that person. I read his biography (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future) and this is a guy who genuinely wants to change things on a macro scale: opening up space, changing transportation. He is also a genuine risk taker, who will bet his own money and risk everything for something he believes in. I now root for Musk and his companies to succeed. I wouldn't take short positions on Tesla now. Plus the deletion of the SpaceX and Tesla facebook pages, when told over Twitter they existed was pretty funny.

vermontdevil 8y ago
That biography was mind blowing. Shows all sides of Elon good or bad. But showed how hard he really worked to build companies to scale.
jacquesm 8y ago
Reading a book doesn't change fundamentals. Tesla is heading for a rough time, I sincerely hope they make it through and hope that Musk will not come to regret making that stupid joke.
- pm90 8y ago
  Very astute comment. And lets remember that Musk himself is a big fan of "first principles". By the first principles (fundamentals) of business and finance, it doesn't look very good. But I too sincerely hope that Tesla does succeed.
- xutopia 8y ago
  How are they headed for hard times? I'm genuinely uneducated on the matter and want to know more.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Tesla is attempting to change too much at once. New model, new (highly automated) production line and adding a degree of self driving over and beyond what is currently present in other cars, probably will run out of cash somewhere this year. Any one of those would be a major challenge and a major achievement to lick. While I totally admire Elon Musk for challenging all these things at once you have to wonder about the wisdom of it all, especially when taking into account that he has another major project (SpaceX) that would normally be enough to tax any CEO. Furthermore they decided to roll Solar City into Tesla which makes Tesla even more encumbered with debt. I get why he did it but I firmly believe that cross-tying losing businesses and winning businesses at that level is a failure prone strategy, it is gambling rather than managing.

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cdibona 8y ago

GM/Toyota/NUUMI would produce four times vehicles in the same amount of time in that plant. (about 120 to 130k/quarter, depending on the nuumi production numbers you believe)

52-6F-62 8y ago
Maybe. Some of the production process is brilliant. At the same time, some of it is far less sophisticated than you might imagine from much publicized reports. And they have skeletons, alright.
benjaminl 8y ago
You could be comparing apples and grapefruits here. It has been reported that Tesla makes a lot of thier own parts. So more of the total supply chain for manufacturing the car exists in that plant. For example Tesla manufacturers thier own motor in the plant were the NUMMI plant would have had thier ICE motors pre-assembled.

joezydeco 8y ago

I was next to Model X at a stoplight last night. They look nice from a distance, but when you sit up close you can see where every panel and piece of trim just doesn't line up quite right. Sitting in my cheap little Mazda3, I've never noticed any problem with simple fit-and-finish details like that. I truly hope the Model 3s catch up, but I really think those owners will be in for a world of headaches after delivery.

solaarphunk 8y ago
As much as I want Tesla to win, I messed around with the back-seat center cup-holders in a friend's model 3, and they seem to be constructed with extremely cheap plastic that is quite embarrassing.
nopriorarrests 8y ago
It's not just owners. In fact, guarantee service can eat a lot of planned margin for TSLA. Simply put, carmakers sell each car for X and they assume that on average each car will require Y dollars in a free service, and automaker will end up with Z of profits. If Y is severely underestimated, it may hurt the bottom line.
marrone12 8y ago
Yes, honestly every time I've seen one they look kind of cheap.
TeeWEE 8y ago
I also saw a model X, and the doors didnt line up correctly with the chassis. Maybe it was not closed properly? Maybe it was bad construction. I'm not sure. Edit, added link: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-alignment-normal.66520/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-alignment-norma...
- joezydeco 8y ago
  The rear doors are a 100% given, especially where the upper chrome trim meets the C pillar. It's like they just threw up their hands at that part of the manufacturing spinup. But, the longer you look, the more mistakes you see.

buvanshak 8y ago

Why is this posted on HN? I know there are a lot of people here who are so into Tesla. But this does not fit the HN content guidelines in anyway...

danso 8y ago
Which content guidelines are you talking about? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- buvanshak 8y ago
  > Anything that good hackers would find interesting. How is quarterly statement from a Car company interesting to "good hackers" or how is this gratifying intellectual curiosity in anyway? If you want to discuss the financial/production reports of the company you can go to the forums dedicated to it...
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    How come someone that's been here less than 2 months and who has two 'Ask HN's to his name one of which is flagged feels they get to dicate what should and should not be on the site? The Tesla story is interesting to 'good hackers' because it is a company that does exactly the kind of thing that 'good hackers' love to read about: disrupt a bunch of incumbents. The fact that Elon Musk started out as a nobody that came to the United States in order to chase his dreams and is actually doing just that coupled with the fact that I suspect that a large number of HN readers either has a position in Tesla and/or drives a Tesla (or covets one) means there is a pretty good chance that substantial articles about Tesla will get upvoted. If you can't deal with that rather than telling the people here to go elsewhere maybe you should go elsewhere or at least attempt to add to the discussion in some constructive way.
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icegreentea2 8y ago

They built 9766 Model 3 in Q1 and were able to surge out 2000 in the last 7 days, and claim a doubling in their Model 3 production rate over Q1. Something doesn't really add up there. Regardless of their spin their Q1 must have been hellish on the guys and gals on the floor and in production support. I hope they can do a sustainable ramp soon so my friends can get their Model 3s. I would REALLY love to see what their internal messaging on this is.

dragontamer 8y ago
I can't find the actual memo. But Bloomberg wrote about a leaked memo. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urges-workers-to-prove-haters-wrong-ramp-up-production https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg... > Tesla will suspend Model S and Model X production Thursday and Friday because it’s ahead of target on building those this quarter, Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production, wrote to employees in a March 21 email obtained by Bloomberg News. An unspecified “limited number” of workers who build those vehicles will have the option to work on the Model 3 line on those two days and Saturday, he said. They moved workers from the Model S & X lines over to the Model 3. And an unspecified number of "volunteers" also got cracking to make the final spurt.

wiremine 8y ago

There's a number of questions on this thread about Telsa's production uptick being about "burning the late night oil" or automation. Does anyone have any reliable insight into this question? And, regarding their automation, a few honest questions: 1. How much automation are we talking about, compared to the status quo? 2. How much of the automation is reusable across other models? Are they building up a repeatable model to increase scale at a lower cost?

Robotbeat 8y ago
Both are important. They haven't ramped up automation yet, so right now they're burning the midnight oil on both regular production (i.e. likely with a similar labor/automation mix as typical manufacturers) AND tuning automation. Trying to do both simultaneously on a compressed timescale is what makes this hard.

dragontamer 8y ago

Tesla asked for volunteers to staff the assembly lines last week. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urges-workers-to-prove-haters-wrong-ramp-up-production https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/tesla-urg... I personally am bearish on this. If they worked so hard, but only made it to 2000 / week (their goal was 5000/week by December2017. They lowered it to 2500 this past week), then its all just marketing spin to make 2000/week look better, which is still missing their original targets. Volunteer staff while cutting Model S / Model X production (and moving that staff over to the Model 3 lines) is not sustainable. They could do it for one week to pad out the numbers, but they need real growth to remain solvent over the next year. Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks. That's roughly 650ish Model3 cars made per week, on the average (when looking at it across the quarter). This is actually less than the 793/week Model 3 they did at the end of Q4. Bloomberg estimates that Tesla's overall production has grown to 1000/week or maybe a little bit above that, which might be closer to the "sustainable" size (ie: not counting the volunteer staff + spurt last week). I'd be surprised if Tesla makes 30,000 Model 3s next quarter (which is still grossly below their target of 5000/week by Dec2017). Tesla NEEDS 5000/week. 2000/week is still very low and unsustainable for this company. https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2018-04-03/tesla-says-produced-2-020-model-3-sedans-last-week https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2018-04-03/... > "Tesla continues to target a production rate of approximately 5,000 units per week in about three months, laying the groundwork for Q3 to have the long-sought ideal combination of high volume, good gross margin and strong positive operating cash flow," it said. > "As a result, Tesla does not require an equity or debt raise this year, apart from standard credit lines."

saas_co_de 8y ago
> Ignoring the 2000/week spurt last week, the other 7000 Model 3 cars were made over the course of 11 weeks Exactly. The 2000 number is complete B.S. They just held back nearly finished units and the "completed" them all in the last week so they could release a semi-decent number without technically lying, but they are nowhere close to target. "Q1 deliveries totaled 29,980 vehicles, of which 11,730 were Model S, 10,070 were Model X, and 8,180 were Model 3" "In Q4, Tesla delivered 29,870 vehicles, of which 15,200 were Model S, 13,120 were Model X, and 1,550 were Model 3." - http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1053245 http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1053245 Model S/X: -23% deliveries. That is a BIG problem. Falling demand for S/X and inability to sell at sticker price (where they still lose money) and replacing that with another model that they lose even more money on is not a great "growth" story.

badosu 8y ago

> The quality of Model 3 coming out of production is at the highest level we have seen across all our products. I am dumbfounded by this statement, weren't tons of images and videos of huge gaps between sections on Model 3s? He does not even acknowledge it happened, so I cannot assume that it is meant to say that the issues were fixed. Am I missing something? Otherwise that's incredibly misleading.

JepZ 8y ago

Well, I think many people don't want to understand that ambitious targets are most likely to be missed. So missing the target is actually what is going to happen and the real question is by how much. So some might ask, why setting a goal that is unlikely to be reached and not simply set a realistic target? Changing the automotive world isn't realistic. So if you would go with a realistic target you could have shutdown Tesla years ago. Nevertheless, there is an actual risk involved in setting the targets too high as burning people and investors can cause real problems. Yet, I think it is best to judge Tesla by their actual performance and not so much by the fact that they missed their ambitious targets.

maxander 8y ago

I clicked on this article expecting a graph of an exponential curve, and they utterly failed to deliver. Who cares how many cars they’re making, if they can’t make a decent exponential curve? That is the #1 priority product of any California hype house! How are we supposed to believe they’ll amount to anything if they can’t show us a trend line that would consume all matter on the planet by 2045?

robotkdick 8y ago

The joke is an indication their position is stronger than perceived. That's his warped sense of humor, and something he's probably been longing to do (once the time was right). I predict this press will be the first of many positive releases from Tesla. While they flew very close to the sun, the wings have held, and they will be soaring from here.

decacorn 8y ago

in a time when our government agencies (EPA) are defying scientific data and permitting OEMs to continue raping the planet, we all need to chill the hell out and continue supporting Tesla. Our children and grandchildren deserve a better world. Additionally, China will outright leapfrog America in the EV/energy race. Tesla must survive; America depends on it.