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Tesla Misses Model 3 Production Goals
- gcb0 9y agowithout paywall https://jalopnik.com/tesla-misses-model-3-production-goal-over-bottleneck-1819083019 https://jalopnik.com/tesla-misses-model-3-production-goal-ov...
- modeless 9y agoActual source: http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 OT: Sad how difficult it was to find this. The media avoids linking to primary sources. For example, Engadget's 3 paragraph article contains no less than 5 links back to engadget.com and not a single mention of this source.
- colechristensen 9y agoThis is a press release which was likely delivered to wsj et al through a wire service they pay to deliver them piles and piles of press releases. Nobody quotes those as sources because nobody but news organizations that pay for them has access to them. A press release is also a rather bad primary source unlike, say, a research paper or a blog post.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe text on the Tesla website mentions https://globenewswire.com/ https://globenewswire.com/ Anyone can setup a real time account for free. Also the WSJ article pretty clearly used the press release as a source, so mentioning that is a separate issue from whether it is a good or bad source. (unless you think the WSJ called Tesla and verified specific facts like "4,820 Model S and X vehicles were in transit" vs "The company said 4,820 vehicles were in transit at the end of the quarter")
- utopkara 9y agoThe newswire is the distributor of the press release. It is equivalent to Tesla emailing all major news outlets; just more convenient and reliable. In short, Tesla is the source.
- dilemma 9y agoThe press release was created to provide information to news organizations. It is extremely odd to say they are not good sources.
- parent5446 9y agoIt's a first-person source, coming from the company itself. Thus it's inherently biased toward the company and not the best source. This is as opposed to when the news article itself is a primary source, which is achieved by a reporter actually reporting what is happening in-person at the source of the event. Of course, in this case it's a bit hard, since the only insight into Tesla's production goals is what they report externally, barring leaks and whatnot. A press release from the company is pretty much the best we can get. But just because it's the best doesn't mean it's necessarily good.
- dilemma 9y agoLike your second paragraph expresses, a press release id from the company itself is the absolute best source on their production numbers.
- parent5446 9y agoAnd as the very last sentence of my second paragraph says, "just because it's the best doesn't mean it's necessarily good". Your original post says "it is extremely odd to say they are not good sources".
- unepipe 9y agoYou do realize that Tesla is a publicly traded company, and what you are saying (that they would misrepresent production numbers) would be securities fraud. They publicly stated their goals: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/08/02/tesla-stays-in-the-red-but-sticks-with-rapid-model-3-production-plan/#6671009c6e47 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/08/02/tesla-st...) They did not reach their goals. No need for paranoia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_fraud
- dx034 9y agoPress releases are usually free. Companies use third party providers to ensure that every investor/subscriber receives information at exactly the same time. Paying for company publications is extremely uncommon. For a public company I'm not even sure if that wouldn't be illegal. You can still pay for premium services (via Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, etc) but subscribing to company news releases can be easily done by just visiting a company's investor relations website.
- prostoalex 9y agoWSJ content management system might be print-first and Web-secondary.
- Stratoscope 9y ago> Engadget's 3 paragraph article contains no less than 5 links back to engadget.com and not a single mention of this source. That's Engadget's house style. They forbid external links the the body of an article, only allowing links within their own site. The best you can hope for is a single hard-to-find link at the end. They've done it this way for years. It sucks. It's one of the reasons I never read anything on Engadget except by mistake.
- toephu2 9y agoI found it quite easily in a few clicks actually. I too wanted to see the original so I just googled "tesla ir", clicked first link, then at the bottom of the page I saw 'Recent Releases' and clicked 'Tesla Q3 2017 Vehicle Deliveries and Production'
- unepipe 9y agoThe comment was clearly critiquing Engadget's journalism (lack of original source citation). The comment was not regarding the quality of Google's search engine results for given keywords.
- true_tuna 9y agoPlease stop posting paywalled crap. Do you want to live in a world of paywalls? I don't.
- castratikron 9y agoWhy don't you subscribe? I see a WSJ article on the front page of HN maybe once a week.
- craftyguy 9y agoBecause there's absolutely no reason to pay for viewing a press release from a totally different company.
- brink 9y agoIt's ~$20 a month. Do you really think I'm going to pay ~$220/yr so I can read articles on WSJ once in a while?
- pmarreck 9y agoSeems like there is an unaddressed business opportunity for a per-article micropayment option.
- abakker 9y agoNews organizations work because the interests of the many finance a broad array of articles. Micropayments for articles would disrupt and distort the motives of unbiased news. There would emerge a hierarchy of articles chasing clicks and editors that favored certain writers with privileged access to click-generating traffic. underperforming articles would cease, and eventually, we'd get CNN. Joking aside, the newspaper model finances diversity of content. Per article payments finance creating lowest common denominator drivel.
- saimiam 9y agoLiterally no entity with more than one line of business has each line of business growing at the same rate. This implies that the successful LoBs are "clickbait" to subsidize the less profitable LoBs. Familiar (counter) example - loss leaders in supermarkets.
- refurb 9y agoIt will be interesting to see if this is just a delay or something more serious with production.
- dogruck 9y agoAnybody have details on the Model 3 production bottlenecks and resolutions?
- brians 9y agoWhat were the targets? Apparently 1500 model 3s. That might just be a months delay in startup; we'll know for sure in 3 months.
- nicolashahn 9y agoBased on his track record, Musk often sets unrealistic timeline goals (and unrealistic engineering goals, but he usually meets those). This has happened multiple times with both Tesla and SpaceX, not surprised this happened.
- kchoudhu 9y agoYou understand that missing material estimates has legal implications if you do it too many times? Regulators can and do start thinking that you have something to hide. Tesla isn't a startup working out of someone's garage -- it is a large player in a heavily regulated capital market. Estimates and guidance are for investors, not for people on the street: they are supposed to mean something.
- sowbug 9y ago> Regulators can and do start thinking that you have something to hide. Are you sure about that? The only thing I start thinking is that the person making the estimates is being consistent.
- prostoalex 9y agoThis is not a material estimate, this is an estimate that Tesla, for whatever reason, volunteered. Other manufacturers don't really do that, which is why you rarely see the headlines of Dodge Durango being three weeks behind schedule.
- slededit 9y agoMaterial in this sense means that it has relevance to the share price of the stock. Tesla's Model 3 ramp up schedule is material information. You are right they could have not volunteered it, but since they did they have a duty to ensure it was the most accurate estimate they had at the time of release. If it turns out that they knew or should have known they wouldn't make the schedule then they are liable for misleading investors.
- dx034 9y ago
- colechristensen 9y agoThis isn't news, it's gossip. ~200 instead of ~1500 means the bootstrapping is a little off schedule. It's stories like this and the attitude that they're important which gets us very destructive behaviors like putting production quota ahead of quality. Production misses are news when they're for substantial cause. Like a 10% miss for an S or X might be news.
- abakker 9y agoYes, but it is news for investors. Missing productions goals as a startup is different than missing production numbers as a public company that is arguably quite overvalued. It matters because if it effects their share price, that can have important downstream effects on their eventual ability to execute (e.g. secure more loans). Edit: I am not trying to say that Tesla should be punished, but am specifically addressing that it is, in fact, news.
- colechristensen 9y agoIt is especially not news for investors. It encourages terrible behavior when people focus on this sort of dumb number. Projecting problems and solutions at the beginning of production is more or less impossible. Valuing a company based on the accuracy of what is litte more than random noise makes you a bad investor, making it a headline news story makes you a bad editor. It's only news if it shows an _actual_ problem instead of showing what it actually shows ... which is random chance pushing around production scaling schedules.
- jryle80 9y agoIt's news because Tesla projected to have delivered 1,500 Model 3 by end of 3rd quarter. They missed that milestone. Simple as that. I wouldn't read too much into this myself. Scaling production is hard. Regardless, it's an important metric that speaks to Tesla's ability to deliver, at least short term.
- bisRepetita 9y agoAre you saying one should not value a company based on what they're saying? Then in Q2 when they wrote "Based on our preparedness at this time, we are confident we can produce just over 1,500 vehicles in Q3", then we should not believe them. So why do they bother saying this? If they got an uplift then, they get punished a bit now, that's fair, life goes on.
- lwansbrough 9y agoInteresting that the author Tim Higgins writes almost exclusively stories of bad news regarding Tesla.
- whyenot 9y agoMaybe there hasn't been any recent good news from Tesla. It looks like Tim Higgins also writes stories on other things related to cars and tech[1]. 1. https://www.wsj.com/news/author/8483 https://www.wsj.com/news/author/8483
- Animats 9y agoOnly 220 Model 3 cars in an entire quarter? There's a big problem somewhere. That sounds like some key part of the production line doesn't work at all, and something is being hand-built to get some product out the door. Tesla isn't saying what's not working. Has anything leaked out? When something like this this happens, the manufacturer has most of the costs of full production with the revenue of tiny production. Profitability just got further away. As of August 2017, there have been about 63,000 cancellations of Model 3 preorders.[1] [1] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/2/16087432/tesla-model-3-electric-car-manufacture-preorder-cancellations-elon-musk https://www.recode.net/2017/8/2/16087432/tesla-model-3-elect...
- lafar6502 9y agoYep, that’s why Elon is suddenly talking some random bs about rockets.
- chambo622 9y agoVery clever of him to also have founded SpaceX for this very reason.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoHe's playing the long con, you see. He founded SpaceX even before getting involved with Tesla for this very reason /s
- theyregreat 9y agoIf it weren’t sarcasm, Poe’s law would be invoked. Sometimes even Godwin’s law on really interesting days.
- lafar6502 9y agoWell, if rockets fail for some reason then there’s hype loop or tunnel to China
- adventured 9y ago
- retSava 9y agoSo 260 instead of 1500 model 3's. Bootstrapping has a lot of uncertainties so that's not very unlikely even. What's stood out to me was this, > In total, we expect to deliver about 100,000 Model S and X vehicles in 2017, which would be a 31% increase over 2016. 31% increase from 2016, that's a huge bump in delivery and I wonder how/if this affected the model 3 production.
- dx034 9y agoAs a car company with some years of experience you should be able to factor in uncertainties. They could've made the estimate less optimistic, giving some upside in case everything goes right. Using the best case scenario as your base case is not necessarily the smartest thing (but can be good for marketing).
- retSava 9y agoMight very well be exactly what they did; it might be that 1500 was the tip of the bathtub curve so to speak and 260 was on the low end. We'll never know.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe 31% increase for the entire year is actually holding S+X production flat from the last 2 quarters of 2016. Which is apparently being done on purpose to put resources into the Model 3 launch, and, there are signs of softening S+X demand, like a lot of S+X cars being built for inventory. This softness hasn't made its way into reduced sales, but who knows...
- jcvhaarst 9y agoSo Tesla is selling 100K cars per year, which according to http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/tesla/ http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/tesla/ would translate to about 0.5% market share. Looks like they have a long way to go before they will be a threat to the big car companies..
- deevolution 9y agoI see this as buy opportunity for tesla stocks.
- jansan 9y agoI don't. The price already includes a picture perfect future for Tesla, and these news do not make me confident that the future will be that perfect.