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Transportation Technology

Tesla Meets Self-Imposed Deadline For Model 3, Rolls Out 7,000 Cars In a Week (cnbc.com) 356

Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the company produced 7,000 cars last week, including 5,000 Model 3 electric sedans. "Beating a self-imposed deadline, the final car rolling off the assembly line on Sunday morning, several hours after the midnight goal set by Musk, two workers at the factory told Reuters on Sunday." CNBC reports: The 5,000th Model 3 finished final quality checks at the Fremont, California factory and was ready to go around 5 a.m. PDT (1200 GMT), one person told Reuters. It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time. Tesla had a goal of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week before the close of the second quarter on Saturday to demonstrate it could mass produce the battery-powered sedan.
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Tesla Meets Self-Imposed Deadline For Model 3, Rolls Out 7,000 Cars In a Week

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  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @02:12AM (#56877816)

    What if they hadn't beat that self-imposed deadline?

    Oh. They would not have twittered.

    I ... see. Well, nothing to see here, carry on...

    • by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @02:22AM (#56877840)
      it'll stop all the whiners who said they'd never do it. i bet the shorters are a bit worried now.
      • i bet the shorters are a bit worried now.

        I am sure they are, however we probably need to see the financials first and see how many they actually produced for the quarter to be sure they didn't just pump up the numbers for the final week.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
          I doubt the Q2 report will show the information everyone wants, which is the production trend over time. If you only look at the quarter average, they won't be making anywhere near 5000 a week, especially given they've had several shutdowns to retool. But it's still possible they ramped up significantly in the final weeks and has a trend line towards 500k for the entire year.

          As for their financial situation, I predict they'll still be in the red after accounting for SG&A, though maybe not as bad as l
          • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @05:38AM (#56878314) Homepage

            The layoffs will be a benefit in Q3. They're a hit in Q2 due to severance.

            Correct that the Q2 delivery numbers will be low. Which is actually a very important thing, to keep the tax credit from expiring in Q2. That credit is potentially worth half a billion dollars to Tesla's customers, and some proportion will be used in buying more options. Options are high margin - sometimes almost pure profit. You want it to expire at the start of a quarter, not the end of one. Not like any manufacturer would ever admit to trying to "time" it.

            500k Model 3 per year will still require significant expansion; current production is 250k Model 3 per year (+100k S+X). However, they've clearly found a way to expand cheaply. Tesla's last announced plan was to hit 6k in Q3. Doesn't sound particularly difficult given how much they scaled up in Q2.

            Nobody, not Tesla or any serious analyst, expects them to be positive in Q2. But more and more analysts appear to be agreeing with Tesla's forecast (widely panned by analysts a couple months ago) of being sustainably profitable later this year. Tesla believes it'll be Q3.

            There's no need for more cash, so the topic of loans or stock offerings is right out.

            As a reminder to anyone reading this who disagrees with anything written above: you have a tool to financially profit off your disagreement with me - short selling. Unless you don't like earning money or something... or unless you don't actually believe what you preach. I mean, even if you had to put it on your credit card, how could you turn down such a rate of return?

            • There's no need for more cash.....

              So all future R&D and production will be funded entirely by exisiting cash and positive cash flow? I am asking as your meaning is unclear.

              • Yeah, that's kinda the point of positive cash flow / profitability...
                • Yeah, that's kinda the point of positive cash flow / profitability...

                  I just wanted to be clear. I had not seen anyone say that Tesla now has enough margin to fund future operations and development, and would not need any more cash at all.

            • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
              In the automotive business, profits are typically earned through services at dealerships.

              The more cars on the road, the better. The more non-warranty repairs/maintenance, the better. However it'll take a few more years for there to be a significant number of non-warranty Teslas on the road to bring the profit number up enough to cover R&D and production costs.

              Now they need to hope their cars stay on the road long enough to bring in those non-warranty sales while at the same time keeping customers
          • If you only look at the quarter average, they won't be making anywhere near 5000 a week, especially given they've had several shutdowns to retool.

            That doesn't really matter looking forward. The question is whether they can get to the necessary production rate fast enough to get the cash flowing and without blowing up quality in the process. Sure it would be nice if they did 5000 on average for the previous quarter but it's no secret that they weren't going to do that. The question is whether they can continue to meet production milestones next quarter and whether those will be sufficient to get the cash flow going fast enough to keep the company a

          • by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @08:43AM (#56878974)

            "If you only look at the quarter average, they won't be making anywhere near 5000 a week, especially given they've had several shutdowns to retool"

            They produced 28,578 Model 3s in Q2 vs 9766 in Q1 2018 so the avg weekly production went from 751 to 2198, an improvement of 342%

        • It doesn't matter what the financials are. You can't short against a hype and stupidity if it lasts long enough.
      • by sfcat ( 872532 )

        it'll stop all the whiners who said they'd never do it. i bet the shorters are a bit worried now.

        Ya think. Tesla closed at $344 on Friday. In pre-market trading its $366.

        • As of 8:57 AM PST on July 2nd, it's at $337.46 and falling... Looks like the market doesn't like the report of missing their goal...
      • I doubt the shorters are that worried. Tesla stock has a market cap close to GM's right now. GM produces more than 8,000 cars per day [quora.com]. So there's still a huge chasm between Tesla's valuation and reality.
        • by Rei ( 128717 )

          It did not make the lines for those 8000 cars in the past year. Don't confuse momentum with acceleration. GM's current infrastructure was accumulated over decades. And it can't just magic its way into suddenly becoming an EV-producing infrastructure. That takes extensive capital investment and many years. The thing that Tesla's been doing, and its "competition" has not been.

          Some of the competition has finally started to pony up the necessary cash to compete. So game on.... several years from now when

    • The tweet isn't really important here. Producing 7000 cars is.

      • If I had stock in Tesla (or any car company) I would rather want to know how many cars they sell, not how many they produce. Selling makes you rich, not producing. Producing only makes you poor.

        • by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @03:34AM (#56878010)

          All of them.

          • Generally, everything that's produced is sold. People have this fanciful misconception that unsold merchandise is disposed of in landfils [wikipedia.org], probably due to journalists trying to make their stories sound more dramatic. It doesn't work like that.

            When you over-produce something (supply exceeds demand), the cost to produce that inventory is a sunk cost [investopedia.com]. You've already paid for it, meaning there's no way to get it back (you can't go back in time and not spend the money to produce the items). So the cost to
        • If I had stock in Tesla (or any car company) I would rather want to know how many cars they sell, not how many they produce.

          Every car they produce at the moment is effectively already sold so at least for now it's the same number. Once they get through the initial bolus of orders then it will be more interesting. Of related interest Tesla doesn't maintain large stocks of inventory like the traditional automakers (they are basically building to order), nor do they account for when a sale occurs in precisely the same way either.

        • Tesla isn't at that maturity point yet. It's still a new business getting to full steam compared to traditional car makers. Even if many drop out of the preorder, there is still a pretty good demand gap that the primary concern is not being able to fulfill orders will result in lack of working capital. Secondary concern is that delayed deliveries will result in cancelled orders; no cash flow, no working capital.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          If I had stock in Tesla (or any car company) I would rather want to know how many cars they sell, not how many they produce. Selling makes you rich, not producing. Producing only makes you poor.

          Nope. You can sell all you want, but if you have no product people are going to ask for their money back.

          Seen plenty of companies try to sell their way out of a production problem, it's never worked. Selling is less important than producing as good products sell themselves.

          Finally, the saying your looking for regarding Tesla is "revenue is vanity, profit is sanity". It doesn't matter how much you sell if you're making a loss on each one.

        • Remember that to maximize the tax deduction they reduced us sales in q2 to say under 200k, lots more went to other countries like canada. Q3 will be much higher sles. So look at sales and production.
    • What if they hadn't beat that self-imposed deadline?

      Oh. They would not have twittered.

      I ... see. Well, nothing to see here, carry on...

      Corporate goals/deadlines are generally always 'self imposed'. Seems folks think Tesla deserves some type of credit for this?

      It is the mark of a well run company to be able to accurately predict performance and then to hit those goals on schedule. It is even more important when you are in a massive capital burn mode. Amazon was in that place, they almost always exceeded their growth and financial targets.

      Musk isn't very good at defining targets that can be hit on schedule and/or hitting them on schedu

      • Deadlines (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @07:42AM (#56878710)

        Corporate goals/deadlines are generally always 'self imposed'. Seems folks think Tesla deserves some type of credit for this?

        Not where there are big interest payments coming due in the near future.

        It is the mark of a well run company to be able to accurately predict performance and then to hit those goals on schedule.

        That's one way to measure it but the most important measure is their ability to consistently develop and maintain substantial free cash flow. Nobody really cares if a company meets artificial expectations if they consistently generate substantial profits. Companies generally can only "predict" performance accurately by fudging the numbers anyway. If you see a company that consistently "beats" wall street expectations by just a little every quarter, you can be dead certain there is some financial engineering going on. (I'm an accountant so I should know) In reality businesses are rarely so predictable so some amount of variation should be expected. You just don't want any huge negative surprises but a little up and down is generally fine unless you are some wall street asshat who only cares about the current quarter.

        Musk isn't very good at defining targets that can be hit on schedule and/or hitting them on schedule. That doesn't mean he will fail, but it is generally a bad sign.

        For most companies I would regard this as a negative but it's no secret that Musk sets very hard to achieve "deadlines" all the time so I think that is baked into the stock price. In a way it's kind of genius in that he acts a little irrational so it makes it harder for analysts to hold him to a standard of performance. He's also taking a page from the Amazon playbook in not really giving a shit about short term results and apologetically so.

        • Amazon did care about short term results, and generally hit or exceeded their short term targets.
          • Amazon did care about short term results, and generally hit or exceeded their short term targets.

            That is completely not true [businessinsider.com]. Here is every letter to shareholders [medium.com] from Jeff Bezos since 1997. Read the letter from 1997 and then you'll understand. Amazon hasn't given a shit about short term financial targets since their inception.

            • There is a difference between shareholders being concerned with what they percieve as inadequate profitability targets, versus not hitting targets. Amazon's early targets were not profitability, they werer growth and revenue based, and they generally hit those targets. Bezos was pretty clear on what to expect, those letters you linked to are evidence of such.
    • by tsa ( 15680 )

      I wonder how much quality control suffered from this. Tesla's build quality already was not worth writing home about.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02, 2018 @02:25AM (#56877846)

    At the thought of all those day traders with HUGE shorts against Tesla realizing that they're going to get absolutely frickin' REAMED.

    • yup, stock is already up 6%.
    • Why would you be happy about someone else's misfortune?

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02, 2018 @04:20AM (#56878136)

        The shorters are the ones who set themselves up to profit from the misfortune of others, and collectively have also been working to bring about that misfortune. If it fails then it fails expensively, which discourages people from that practice thereby reducing the amount of misfortune in the world.

        • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @09:10AM (#56879094)

          The shorters are the ones who set themselves up to profit from the misfortune of others, and collectively have also been working to bring about that misfortune.

          When a stock is as irrationally over priced as Tesla there is nothing wrong with betting that it will fall back toward sanity. Honestly we need people who are willing to bet with their own money when something seems wrong. Tesla is doing some really interesting things but there is no rational basis for them to have a market cap larger than Ford. I honestly am kind of a fan of Tesla but I'm also a fan of financial sanity.

          Furthermore when you are in a mature market like automobiles ANY investment is de-facto a bet on the misfortune of others. If you buy stock in Ford you are effectively hoping for misfortune for Toyota or GM. It's near as makes no difference a zero sum game. If you buy stock in Tesla you are hoping for misfortune for their competitors. That's fine but it's not really much different than shorting TSLA directly.

          If it fails then it fails expensively, which discourages people from that practice thereby reducing the amount of misfortune in the world.

          They are taking a risk and they are well aware of that fact but I think their thesis is correct. Tesla's current stock price cannot be justified with any rational analysis of likely future free cash flows. A $60 billion market cap on a company with $11 billion in revenue that has never made an operational profit? That's bananas. The only real question is when Tesla's stock price will come back to Earth. Might take a while but sooner or later it has to happen.

          • Ford, a company that killed all their car models, to focus on constructing trucks and SUVs exclusively, at a time when oil prices are going up? If anything I think they are over valued.

            • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @09:47AM (#56879296)

              Ford, a company that killed all their car models, to focus on constructing trucks and SUVs exclusively, at a time when oil prices are going up? If anything I think they are over valued.

              Several problems with your analysis.
              1) I think you hugely underestimate the demand for trucks, particularly in the US
              2) Ford has pretty much never made a profit on passenger cars in the last 30 years.
              3) There is nothing preventing them from electrifying their trucks to hybrids or EVs and in fact Ford is doing just that.
              4) Ford is comparably priced to comparable companies with comparable product portfolios. They also posted a profit of $8.4 billion last year. That sort of profit easily justifies a market cap of $40 billion.

          • When a stock is as irrationally over priced as Tesla...

            And you claim that with what authority?

            I'm not entirely disagreeing, but I'm not willing to make the claim that it's "irrationally over priced", because Tesla is in a position that few companies have ever been in. As they ramp up their volume, they're quite possibly going to drive one or more established auto makers out of business.

            Look at Ford. They're discontinuing all of their auto lines in the US except their trucks, the Focus hatchback, and the Mustang. All of the rest, gone. The rest of the Focus mode

            • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @10:04AM (#56879396)

              And you claim that with what authority?

              Simple logic. Ford made $8 billion in PROFIT last year on $156 billion in revenue and has a market cap of $40 billion or so. Tesla lost $2 billion on $11 billion in revenue and has a market cap of $60 billion? Further Tesla has shown no credible path whereby they will generate profits superior to Ford's in the future. If you think that makes any kind of sense you are out of your mind. There is no rational scenario you can propose whereby Tesla is going to generate enough profit to justify that market cap in less than 15 years (and that's being generous) even with ludicrously optimistic assumptions.

              I'm not entirely disagreeing, but I'm not willing to make the claim that it's "irrationally over priced", because Tesla is in a position that few companies have ever been in.

              Evidently you do not recall the dotcom era around 1998-2000. Irrationally overpriced companies are nothing even remotely new and Tesla is not covering any new ground there. Seriously, show me any credible story whereby Tesla generates enough profits to justify their current market cap in less than 15 years. At the end of the day stock prices and market caps are all about profits (including expected profits), otherwise investors eventually have to look elsewhere to make money. If I invest $1000 in Tesla but have to wait 15 years to recover my money while playing a game of who is the greater fool [wikipedia.org] then I'm an idiot.

              Tesla has already sold pretty much all of the vehicles it will produce this year, and maybe next year, without sales people, showrooms or a national advertising campaign.

              Impressive but let me know how you think they are going to manage that trick when they sell as many vehicles as Ford does. It's easy to sell out when you cannot produce all that much to begin with. 5000 vehicles a week? Ford makes and sells about 17,000 F-150s each week just on that model alone and they aren't scrambling to do it either. And more importantly they are making huge profits along the way.

              Yes, compared to the established car companies, Tesla's valuation looks insane.

              Compared to pretty much ANY company Tesla's valuation IS insane.

              • And you claim that with what authority?

                Simple logic. Ford made $8 billion in PROFIT last year on $156 billion in revenue and has a market cap of $40 billion or so. Tesla lost $2 billion on $11 billion in revenue and has a market cap of $60 billion?

                That's hilarious logic right there. You don't even understand that you're not comparing the same thing, do you?

                Further Tesla has shown no credible path whereby they will generate profits superior to Ford's in the future.

                So, what you're saying is that you don't know anything about Tesla. I get it.

                With this level of expertise, I can't imagine why you're not the next Warren Buffet.

              • The stock valuation is definitely high because of speculation, but it's long term not short. If they can actually maintain sales and production of 5000 Model 3's a week that will generate profits around a couple billion a year, working from the assumption that their gross profit margin is only 20%. If production and sales go higher and stay there the margins will be better, and could be better than we estimate anyways. Speculation in Tesla is driven by the fact that every day it seems to be coming closer to

                • The stock valuation is definitely high because of speculation, but it's long term not short.

                  How long do you think is "long term"? Even a long term play still needs to have a justifiable ROI. It doesn't matter if it returns a 10% gain if it takes 10 years to do it based on the companies operating fundamentals.

                  If they can actually maintain sales and production of 5000 Model 3's a week that will generate profits around a couple billion a year, working from the assumption that their gross profit margin is only 20%.

                  Gross margin is not relevant here except insofar as it affects net margin. If Tesla builds 5000 Model 3s per week and sells them for $50K each then that is ~$13 billion in revenue (slightly over double their current revenue). 20% gross margin is in line with other automakers so the questio

            • Look at Ford. They're discontinuing all of their auto lines in the US except their trucks

              And why shouldn't they. People love their trucks. They sold more F-150s last month than Tesla will sell vehicles all year (assuming they were making 5k model 3's a month since January 1). And that's across all Tesla models.

              ]Tesla's] margins are higher than any other car maker.

              Ford makes $13,000 per F-150. That's more than those engineers in Germany said Tesla may approach once they're making 10k/model 3's a week.

            • by lgw ( 121541 )

              Let's say TSLA takes over all of Ford's business. That's fairly optimistic. It also leaves them overpriced at their current market cap, which is larger than Fords. Ford is not GM - it has lots of automation and isn't saddled with enormous union obligations.

              That has nothing to do with TSLA stock price, of course. Stocks are priced 80% on fashion, 20% on value. If TSLA succeeds this year it will become even more fashionable, and thus even more overpriced. Reality rarely intrudes on stock prices.

          • Tesla is doing some really interesting things but there is no rational basis for them to have a market cap larger than Ford.

            Ford's valuation is based on future earnings potential. Investors don't believe that they will manage to make the turn necessary to stay on track. Whether that's accurate or not, Tesla can change direction vastly more rapidly than can FoMoCo.

            If you buy stock in Tesla you are hoping for misfortune for their competitors.

            Not necessarily. You could be hoping that one of their competitors buys them.

            • Ford's valuation is based on future earnings potential.

              Correct. Same is true for any company. Tesla included. However stock prices in the sort term routinely can deviate from this rational analysis. We saw quite a lot of this back during the dotcom bubble.

              Whether that's accurate or not, Tesla can change direction vastly more rapidly than can FoMoCo.

              Tesla's valuation cannot possibly be based on any rational analysis of future free cash flows. The fact that they are currently more nimble than Ford is pretty much irrelevant in the short to medium term. Short term valuations don't have to be based on anything rational. Long term though they pretty muc

              • Doesn't change the equation. If you buy Tesla stock and hypothetically GM buys Tesla, you still have an investment in Tesla and you still are hoping for misfortune for the competition because if someone buys a Tesla then they are not buying someone else's brand of vehicle.

                This assumes that GM (in your example) doesn't just shut Tesla down and absorb its technology into its other product lines. That would be bad for the workers at Tesla, but as a corporation, it's often a profitable end game.

            • You could be hoping that one of their competitors buys them.

              When you value a company higher than it's competitors, acquisition is no longer an exit strategy.

          • I think that while cars are a traditional market, energy storage is definitely not and it's hardly surprising that it'd be priced more like a startup.

            They've deployed over a GWh of energy storage, and it sounds like they've got a single deal in the works with california that will be bigger than everything they've done so far (and i find it hard to believe that's the only big deal they are lining up). That's a huge space, and if they continue to beat the industry for the amount of cobalt in their batteries t

        • The shorters are the ones who set themselves up to profit from the misfortune of others, and collectively have also been working to bring about that misfortune. If it fails then it fails expensively, which discourages people from that practice thereby reducing the amount of misfortune in the world.

          This is such a misunderstanding I don't even know where to begin. Taking a bet against a company is not "profiting from their misfortune", it's asserting that they scammed/tricked/fooled their way into having a mu

      • by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @04:48AM (#56878202)
        In this case, yes. Shorters (or anyone for that matter) who spread lies and misinformation to game the market deserve all the shit they get when it goes badly
        • that was produced in this all-hands-on-deck sprint of factory operation?

          • Can you provide any evidence for this?

            I ask, because a) they shut down twice this month to retool and reconfigure assembly lines, and b) the production rate has steadily risen. It's not like they doubled production for a week out of the blue.

            An "all-hands-on-deck sprint" sounds like the standard bullshit that the people in short positions have chronically been pushing over the last year or so. Are you one of those people, or do you have evidence to back up your claim?

          • by Corbets ( 169101 )

            that was produced in this all-hands-on-deck sprint of factory operation?

            I place my order 3 days ago, so while I can’t answer for the GP, yes, I would.

        • You do realize that if the shorters are correct and Tesla stock (eventually) comes back down to earth, then the stock price for Tesla was overvalued because of lies and misinformation spread by Tesla fans, right?
    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) *

      I've seen a plethora of articles outlining why Tesla has legitimate financial management issues. These shorters aren't all about "fuck Tesla" it might simply be "this seems like a profitable trade, this company should be crashing, let's see if I can predict when"

      Some of them, it's emotionless, no politics, it's just how it is.

      I dunno if they are managed bad, but boy have I seen quite a few articles, including charts.

      I'm skeptical they achieved 7000 or skeptical they can HOLD 7000, perhaps they did do it?

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Monday July 02, 2018 @02:42AM (#56877890)

    ... and his crew succeed a million times over and become filthy rich while doing it. The penance with which Musk pursues his visions is inspiring and he serves as a very neat role model.

    Two thumbs up for scaring the living sh*t out of the leading German car industry which, IMHO, has become way to complacent with its success.
    And thanks for paving the way into carbon neutral traffic and land-transport.

    My 2 eurocents.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02, 2018 @02:55AM (#56877910)

    "Beating a self-imposed deadline, the final car rolling off the assembly line on Sunday morning, several hours after the midnight goal set by Musk, two workers at the factory told Reuters on Sunday."

    Um, if the final car rolled off the line several hours AFTER the midnight deadline, then they didn't actually beat it.

  • With the pressure they’re under they must be slapping them together - probably better to wait a while

    • by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @03:47AM (#56878042) Homepage

      Makes me think of that 80's movie Gung Ho where they rushed production to keep from being closed and cars were rolling off the line missing tires...

      Plus with Tesla's penchant to make production changes on the fly, and the questionable build quality [youtube.com] of the Model 3's they've already produced.. yeah, pass.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        To be fair they seem to have improved build quality a lot. There are still quite a few Model X and S with issues but the M3 seems to have been better designed for manufacturing.

      • Plus with Tesla's penchant to make production changes on the fly, and the questionable build quality of the Model 3's they've already produced.. yeah, pass.

        On one hand, building cars more quickly can lead to quality issues. But on the other hand, building more cars can lead to solving quality issues, because you adjust the process as you go along.

        If I were to buy one of these cars, I'd want one of the later ones.

      • If they'd missed the deadline, I could see Musk making his engineers stand outside screaming in Japanese at the passing crowd "these are ribbons of SHAME!"
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Exactly. Wait for their production to stabilize rather than meet some arbitrary goal.
  • #factorygated (Score:5, Informative)

    by fozzy1015 ( 264592 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @07:49AM (#56878734)
    Read what Elon actually said. 5000 Model 3s were 'factory gated', not produced. That means, according to Elon himself, a chunk of that number were already built at the beginning of the last week of June. Knowing this week was coming up, that chunk could be a significant portion. They are counted in the final tally even though in the last week Tesla may have done as little as move them from one lot to another. So Tesla didn't even pull off a true 5K burst week. This is why sustained production numbers are the only accurate ones. Those numbers are what Moody's pays attention to.
    • Sure, but one key point that a lot of people are missing is that he's playing a numbers game to keep production numbers down as well as a numbers game to keep them up. Now that they're out of Q2 he doesn't have to keep the production numbers down to retain the tax incentive anymore.

      It had to expire at some point, because it's based on the total number of cars sold, but the pressure was to avoid doing hitting that mark at the end of a quarter which would trigger the incentive to laps starting the next quarte

      • Now that they're out of Q2 he doesn't have to keep the production numbers down to retain the tax incentive anymore.

        I believe you're referring to the 200K FIT credit expiration. That applies to total US deliveries per manufacturer and has nothing to do with production. On that topic, some predict it was already exceeded before Q3(though only Tesla knows for sure at this point) https://insideevs.com/why-we-b... [insideevs.com]

    • This is why sustained production numbers are the only accurate ones.

      So. Much. This.

      With their enormous debt load, low credit rating, shrinking capital reserves, and lack of cash flow - sprints are irrelevant. Sprints generate lots of publicity, lets the fanboys drool and crow, impresses the impressionable and the already convinced... They do very little to address the very real problems Tesla is facing in the short (>6 mos) term.

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