Guest post by David Middleton
Tesla misses the mark on Model 3 production – by a lot
by Chris Isidore @CNNTech
October 2, 2017
Tesla announced it fell far short of its plan to build 1,500 of its first mass market car, the Model 3, in the third quarter.
The actual number it built? 260, or 83% less than promised.
The announcement made late Monday is another sign of the challenges the upstart electric car maker may face as it tries to build a more affordable electric car — a basic version of which priced at about $35,000.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell 1.5% in after-hours trading after the company released the news.
Tesla said most of the lines at the Gigafactory, its battery plant in Nevada, and its auto assembly plant in California were meeting their production targets, but that “a handful have taken longer to activate than expected.”
[…]
[T]he Model 3 is not the first time it has fallen well behind promised production targets. Tesla’s high-priced crossover, the Model X, went into production in late 2015, long after originally promised and had a slower-than-expected roll out. Production of the Model S sedan, its best selling vehicle to date, was also much slower than originally promised.
Krebs said Tesla missing deadlines is “part of their track record.”
[…]
Tesla’s Model 3 production guidance was…
Tony Stark’s Elon Musk’s Ponzi Scheme business model will, no doubt, continue to thrive so long as the OPM keeps flowing in. Stark’s Musk’s business model has been so “successful” that everyone is trying to get in on the act…
Automakers Plan Electric Car Blitz as Tesla Burns Billions
By David Welch
October 1, 2017
- Regulations, Musk’s marketing mastery seen as key reasons
- Field gets crowded in market most buyers have yet to embrace
Here are two facts that defy logic: By the end of the year, electric-car maker Tesla Inc.will have burned through more than $10 billion without ever having made 10 cents. Yet companies around the world are lining up to compete with it.
Almost 50 new pure electric-car models will come to market globally between now and 2022, including vehicles from Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG. General Motors Co. raised the stakes Monday by pledging to sell 20 all-electric vehicles by 2023, including launching two new EVs in the next 18 months. Even British inventor James Dyson is getting into the game, announcing last week that he’s investing two billion pounds ($2.7 billion) to develop an electric car and the batteries to power it.
The reasons for chasing Tesla are part city hall, part show business. Regulators in Beijing have laid out a plan to mandate electric vehicle production in China, while California requires carmakers to build more EVs or be forced to buy credits from rivals. At the same time, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and his sleek cars have captured the imagination of Americans to the point where consumers and investors are throwing money at his Silicon Valley company.
“Nobody doubts that the future will be electric,” said Erich Joachimsthaler, founder and CEO of brand-strategy firm Vivaldi, which works with German luxury carmakers. “The car companies dragged their feet with electric. Now they are being dragged into it by Tesla and by regulations.”
[…]
That will make for a very crowded field in a nascent zero-emission car market that most consumers have yet to embrace and where financial losses loom large. In the U.S., electric car sales were less than 1 percent of the market last year, according to the International Energy Agency. They were 1.4 percent in China and in the U.K.
“Companies are committed to electric cars, but there is little evidence that there is a lot of consumer demand for it,” said Kevin Tynan, senior analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
[…]
The list of companies piling in added an unusual name last week when Dyson, who made billions making high-end vacuum cleaners, announced his foray into the electric car market. Dyson said his car will be radically different from the vehicles being designed by Tesla and the established carmakers.
Read more: A vacuum billionaire’s quest to make a car that doesn’t suck
Since Dyson doesn’t compete with Tesla or need to meet rules faced by traditional automakers, the planned car may be more of a flight of fancy, said Joachimsthaler of Vivaldi.
“More likely, this is an Icarus complex,” he said. “He will realize he flew a little too close to the sun.”
So… The EV frenzy is being driven by two things:
- The desire to be the next
IcarusTony StarkElon Musk. - Government regulations designed to save the world from
LokiHydrathe MandarinCrimson DynamoUltronGorebal Warming.
And not by:
- Consumer demand for the product.
- Realistic profit motive.
What could go wrong with such a brilliant plan? It sounds just like…
How about those PEV sales? Aren’t they awesome?
September 2017 CAR SALES will be reported on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017 beginning with the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt sales at 6:30-7:30 PT (9:30-10:30 AM ET), and finishes with Ford’s plug-in data in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 4th, 2017.
Every month InsideEVs tracks all the plug-in sales for the United States by auto maker and brand. Below, readers can find all the historical sales charts for the “current generation” of electric vehicles, as well as a synopsis of the current month’s sales happenings by specific EV below the charts…
- Total US PEV (all makes & models combined) sales in August 2017: 16,624
- Ford F – Series PU sales in August 2017: 77,007
I’ll update this post if September PEV sales (all makes & models combined) top the Ford F-Series… Or even the GMC Sierra.
| % Chg from | % Chg from | ||||
| Top 20 vehicles | August 2017 | Aug ’16 | YTD 2017 | YTD 2016 | |
| Ford F – Series PU | 77,007 | 15 | 576,334 | 9.2 | |
| Chevrolet Silverado PU | 54,448 | 3.9 | 363,354 | -4.4 | |
| Toyota RAV4 | 43,265 | 30.4 | 269,835 | 16.8 | |
| Dodge Ram PU | 37,608 | -6.6 | 327,759 | 4.6 | |
| Toyota Camry | 37,051 | 12.7 | 247,775 | -7.1 | |
| Honda Civic | 36,482 | 11.2 | 248,928 | -2.6 | |
| Honda CR-V | 30,960 | -15.2 | 249,977 | 7.9 | |
| Honda Accord | 30,019 | -0.3 | 221,013 | -4.5 | |
| Nissan Rogue | 29,844 | -9.5 | 257,958 | 19.9 | |
| Chevrolet Equinox | 28,245 | 84.9 | 185,223 | 16.9 | |
| Toyota Corolla / Matrix | 25,995 | -15.4 | 218,191 | -10.8 | |
| Ford Escape | 23,631 | -15.8 | 208,303 | -0.7 | |
| Jeep Grand Cherokee | 23,572 | 28.1 | 158,975 | 17.4 | |
| Chevrolet Malibu | 22,725 | 35.9 | 117,173 | -21.3 | |
| Ford Explorer | 20,747 | -1.1 | 177,827 | 5.0 | |
| Subaru Outback | 20,327 | 17.1 | 124,161 | 13.4 | |
| Toyota Highlander | 18,845 | 25.9 | 137,837 | 23.0 | |
| Toyota Tacoma PU | 17,394 | 13.1 | 129,362 | 1.9 | |
| Ford Fusion | 17,378 | -8.8 | 138,489 | -27.1 | |
| GMC Sierra PU | 17,254 | -1.3 | 136,370 | -6.8 | |
| Total PEV Sales, | |||||
| All Makes/Models | 16,624 | 13.9 | 121,502 | 31.5 | |
At this rate, PEV’s will finish second to the onset the next Quaternary glacial stage in the race to save the planet from Gorebal Warming! Speaking of saving the planet…
I just can’t play that George Carlin video often enough!
As usual, any and all sarcasm and ridicule were 100% intentional… And I actually do think that Tesla cars are waaaaayyyy cool from a tech perspective.
Featured image borrowed from Agile Alliance.
Did anyone else notice that Elon Musk had a cameo in Iron Man 2?
It looks like his plan to build a city on Mars is just to distract us from the reality of his incompetence.
mesmerize….
Oh, now, stop giving away the real purpose of the Man Behind the Curtain!
Just because WE know it’s all smoke and mirrors, and Toto can pull the curtain aside, doesn’t mean you’re entitle to let the truth come into the light.
How much raw material must be dug
up to provide the raw materials to produce
a 1200lb electric car battery?
( That lasts about 7 years before needing to
be replaced)
I guess it’s time to con the people of NY into another boondoggle in Buffalo.
Speaking of the cars rather than the company, I think the Model 3 will be a hard sell to the general public just based on the fact that there are no adjustable AC outlet vents, and no instruments or controls in front of the driver (they’re all on the center-mounted tablet). …. If you thought texting on the phone in your lap was distracting, consider the distraction of tasks such as turning on the windshield wipers being on a touch screen not even in front of you.
It’s okay, the excuse generator for accidents at Tesla is as powerful as the bluster machine.
This is absolutely the poorest user interface decision that’s been made by car manufacturers, who seem to be in thrall to Apple and have completely ignored proper interface design for cars and aircraft in favor of the one they’d used for phones, which coincidentally has resulted in a marked increase in sidewalk collisions over the past decade.
It’s purely stupid to put a touch screen interface with no tactile feedback in a vehicle.
Dumb. Idiotic. Dangerous.
“Bartleby October 3, 2017 at 9:30 am
…which coincidentally has resulted in a marked increase in sidewalk collisions over the past decade.”
This annoys me no end. I walk fast, most people can’t keep up when I walk at full chat, and I constantly have to dodge these idiots gawping in to their phones walking in such a way as to prevent me from passing. There is in fact a Govn’t safety ad campaign screening on TV here in Australia where someone jaywalks across a road while gawping in to a phone and promptly gets smashed by a car. Of course the driver of the car would be held responsible.
According to Wall Street Journal, the 260 car figure is even more questionable: “Tesla delivered only 220 Model 3s during the quarter, well below the 1,300 that analysts surveyed by FactSet expected on average. Tesla sold these first Model 3 vehicles in the quarter to employees and investors and expects to begin delivering them to non-employees in the final three months of the year.”
Georgia Carlin was a great guy and clearly never swallowed the greenie pill. 👍🏻😜
Would that be George Carlin’s sister?
The automotive manufacturers are moving to EVs in a big way. http://www.afr.com/news/world/gm-and-ford-lay-out-plans-to-expand-electric-models-20171003-gytlk3
And this is when I want to find a 1970s Chevy Impala and restore it to working order, put a glass pack in the muffler and snort right past one of those EVersusers.
You can buy a brand new 350 c.i. V8 engine for your ’72 Impala for about 1/2 the cost of a 60 kWh battery!
By 2030, the cost of a 60 kWh battery could fall to only being 33% more expensive than a 350 V8.
One more good reason to buy up older cars from the 60’s forward to about 1996 and restore them. The way things are going, they’re a better investment than gold.
They are expanding from 0.1% all the way up to 1.0%. Assuming they can find enough people who actually want to buy them.
“Chris October 3, 2017 at 9:18 am
The automotive manufacturers are moving to EVs in a big way.”
I don’t think so. I worked for Honda in Swindon in the UK, it costs makers millions to re-tool for any change in the manufacturing process. So, if makers are re-tooling for an entirely new power plant and drivetrain makers would only do that if they can see a market and can make a profit. The market isn’t there for EV’s because most, practical, people know there are not enough charging points, the range of an EV is pitiful and simply cannot perform as well as a conventional vehicle. That’s why when I walked past a Tesla dealer here in Sydney, Australia one lunchtime, I saw the entire lot full of Teslas, two on charge. I didn’t see anyone driving out of or in to the dealership, nor did I see anyone just looking at the cars on offer. The dealership was empty, except for stationary Teslas. EV’s in Australia are only popular with, rich, latte sipping city dwellers. Anyone that needs to get from A to B, and long distance, uses an ICE powered vehicle.
A range of 310 miles/500 km is enough for most folks. Many families have 2 cars, one a commuter car and one for taking the family on long trips where more space is needed. So a Tesla can be the commuter car. As far as the automakers having to change their tooling – well, China is going to force their hand. Now, they can walk away from the Chinese market, but for many companies (like GM) China is now a bigger market than the US. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sets-new-deadline-for-electric-car-production-1506608295
I think I’m in a minority of one here. I think Tesla is great, Musk is following a long plan, and barring accidents will bury Ford, GM, Mercedes et. al. the way Nikon and Canon buried Kodak and Seiko buried the mass market Swiss watch industry.
The rest of the Western automakers haven’t a clue what they are doing. They may produce electric models, but unless they get their act together they won’t be able to scale production, and people won’t buy them for lack of decent fast charge.
Doesn’t he have to first start producing a profit before he can start burying anyone?
The big auto makers have the experience and established infrastructure, Telsa does not. EVs aren’t that complicated. If battery technology evolves to a practical level, the big automakers will bury Telsa.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Tesla’s ultimate goal.
I Came I Saw I Left: you mean like IBM buried Google, Remington built the best word processor and Adler dominate the calculator market. I repeat: the established automakers haven’t a clue what they are doing in this market. They should have been building battery factories and rolling out fast charge before they started announcing loads of new EVs. Even the Chevy Bolt has a wholly Korean drive train
What does IBM have to do with Google? They don’t even compete in the same market.
The reason the major auto makers aren’t investing in battery factories is because they know EVs will sit on the lots with few buyers. Hardly anyone wants the current technology. Fast charge stations won’t change that (who wants to sit at the “gas pump” for 30 or more minutes?). If, however, the technology developed to a point that people actually wanted EVs, then fast charge stations would spring up everywhere built by people who want to make money.
Only current should be bolded.
Cars are cars.
The only thing most people care about is price and performance.
“John Hardy October 3, 2017 at 12:22 pm
They should have been building battery factories and rolling out fast charge before they started announcing loads of new EVs.”
I am pretty sure Ford didn’t build petrol stations and roads before making and selling the model “T”.
“I am pretty sure Ford didn’t build petrol stations and roads before making and selling the model “T”.”
Irrelevant.
You can carry petrol in cans on a truck, on a horse and cart or even on your back – something you can’t do with electrons, and no special connectors or other gear is necessary to get the fuel into the tank.
And Ford Model “T”s didn’t require paved roads, they will go where a horse and cart goes.
“catweazle666 October 3, 2017 at 5:01 pm
Irrelevant.”
Not really. John’s post suggested car makers haven’t a clue and should build battery factories and fast charging points before announcing the actual cars that will use that infrastructure. Did Boeing build airports before announcing it was going to make 747’s?
Did the oil industry build cars, gas stations and refineries before… drilling for oil?
“Did Boeing build airports before announcing it was going to make 747’s?”
Even more irrelevant.
Airports had existed for over half a century before Boing introduced 747s.
Your comments assumes that there actually will be a market large enough for expensive, battery operated toys to make up for Tesla’s losses.
Duesenbergs they are not.
(Maybe Western automakers do have a clue?)
John, in the long term it is Tesla that is toast. The electric car has limited capability in the real world. The other automakers know exactly what they are doing. Without subsidies the auto industry can kill any company in just a few bad years.
There will be a time that California cannot continue funding Tesla. I believe that time is several years away, but that time will come. My prediction is 2023.
The automakers sell EV’s at a loss so that they can continue to make cars that people actually want to buy.
Get rid of the mandate and EV sales dry up.
http://poster.keepcalmandposters.com/3104239.jpg
Boom! Hope you dropped that mike as soon as you finished typing.
That’s exactly what people said about Jeff Bezos back in 1997. Looks like they were wrong, even though he was going up against incumbents with 100X Amazon’s sales.
Like most retailers, Amazon has never been particularly profitable; but it has almost always generated positive cash flow.
Including free cash flow…
Tesla just burns cash as it moves from one Ponzi scheme to the next…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/Tesla%20FXF%20Q1%202017.jpg
The more revenue Tesla generates, the more cash it burns…
http://www.capitalmarketlabs.com/blog_images/TSLArevfcf_915.PNG
Companies can survive or even thrive for long periods without net earnings (profits); but they can’t survive very long with negative cash flow… unless they are run by people like
Tony StarkElon Musk who can harvest OPM and corporate welfare faster than they can spend it.They were wrong about X, therefore they are wrong about Y.
Is that really the limit to your rhetorical skills?
Still waiting for someone to tell me who is paying for all the charging stations and when they will be installed. Then where and how exactly the electricity will be produced to power the charging stations. One of the great miracle technologies of 20th Century was the petroleum/ gasoline distribution system. Most people don’t even have a clue how safe and efficient the system is. About the only time they think about it is when they pull in the gas station. In Florida just before Irma, before we knew it would hit, people were complaining about price gouging. The majority didn’t have a clue that our gasoline game from refineries along the Texas coast that had just been shut down by Harvey. Now imagine a hurricane or some other even taking out the power grid or every body hooking up for enough juice to evacuate before a storm hits. Geez!
Amazon loaded up on debt – long term debt increased by $10B between 2011 and 2015. Once again, you trot out the corporate welfare criticism – tell me, which fossil fuel companies do not get substantial corporate welfare?
[???? .mod]
The ability to write off expenses in the year they occur, rather than writing them off over the life of an asset isn’t “corporate welfare”
Government forcing taxpayers to pay part of the purchase price of your product is corporate welfare. Government forcing your competitors to send you money is corporate welfare.
Government forcing people to buy your product when they would rather buy someone else’s is corporate welfare.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/balance-sheet?p=AMZN
There are no fossil fuel companies that get any corporate welfare.
But surely this is good news . . . If they lose money on every car sold, selling fewer means less money lost.
Only had to modify this slightly…scary.
ELON: I’m completely changing how you’re gonna drive. You’re not gonna believe it when you see it. A whole new lifestyle.
JERRY: What are you doing?
ELON: Electric cars.
JERRY: Electric cars?
ELON: Yeah, I’m getting rid of all the gas-powered cars. All of them. And I’m going to build these different electric cars, with racing stripes, and they’ll all be tricked with a lot of software. You know, like ancient Detroit.
JERRY: You drew up plans for this?
ELON: No, no. It’s all in my head.
JERRY: When do you intend to do this?
ELON: Ohh.. should be done by the end of the month.
JERRY: You’re doing this yourself?
ELON: It’s a simple job. Why, you don’t think I can?
JERRY: Oh, no. It’s not that I don’t think you can. I know that you can’t, and I’m positive that you won’t.
ELON: Well, I got the tools. I got the factory. All I need are the customers. And maybe some taxpayer money.
JERRY: I don’t see it happening.
ELON: Well, this time, this time you’re wrong. C’mon. I’ll even bet you.
JERRY: Seriously?
ELON: A big dinner with dessert. But I’ve got till the end of the year.
JERRY: I’ll give you a decade.
ELON: No, no, no. End of the year.
JERRY: It’s a bet. (They both “pinkie swear” to lock the deal)
(Scene ends)
JERRY: So, how are your electric cars coming along?
ELON: Oh, well.. I decided I’m not gonna do it.
JERRY: (Sarcastically) Really? What a shock. So, when do I get my dinner?
ELON: There’s no dinner. The bet’s off. I’m not gonna do it.
JERRY: Yes. I know you’re not gonna do it. That’s why I bet.
ELON: There’s not bet if I not doing it.
JERRY: That’s the bet! That you’re not doing it!
ELON: Yeah, well, I could do it. I don’t want to do it.
JERRY: We didn’t bet on if you wanted to. We bet on if it would be done.
ELON: And it could be done.
JERRY: Well, of course it could be done! Anything could be done! But it only is done if it’s done. Show me the electric cars! The bet is the electric cars.
ELON: But I don’t want the electric cars!
JERRY: That’s the bet!
very astute observation forrest.
Yes, there are far many warmists who could fit in there, aren’t there?
BTW, in case people didn’t get this, its a classic Seinfeld sketch (actually, a sub-plot of a classic episode “The Pony”) where Kramer decides he is going to totally renovate his apartment by putting in “levels”. Jerry knows he won’t do it, bets him he won’t, then we get Kramer’s typical obfuscation, etc.
The difference is, Kramer is a fictional character, and Musk, Stokes, etc. are supposed to be the smart ones telling us how to live our lives.
Then again, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Musk best product is himself , as long has he can sell that he will bring the money in.
Only good thing about tesla car is that the name of the great American-Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla may be brought to the attention of few inquisitive youngsters.
However, tesla (lower case ‘t’) is a ‘high’ technology product as shown in this image , and it is not an electric car.
hope is that two shell not met in hands of a frustrated owner.
He’s certainly no Henry Ford.
Ford was a nasty man, esp to his mostly non-English speaking migrant workers. Also gave profits to Hitler.
As did most of the prominent leftists of the day.
At least until Germany attacked Russia.
It is ok he is busy installing the worlds biggest battery in South Australia apparently 50% complete well within his 100 day claim. Must have started well early as a concrete block that size takes weeks to cure before you can build on it.
Based on the extra emissions to build these things….unless you get a virtually CO2 free electricity supply, the CO2 savings from electric cars appears minimal. Its actually amazing the amount of effort to save so little. Building fewer things is the best strategy for reducing CO2….but corporate cronies don’t want that. One thing these green profiteers have in common is way overselling the results because they know people want to believe them.
So all these car companies are building cars that the consumers don’t want?
Do I have that right?
Because that sounds like a perfect case for stockholders to sue the companies for financial malfeasance.
The automakers are building cars that government regulations are forcing them to build. Stockholders should sue the government for financial malfeasance.