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"It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time." I think this is the million dollar question—was this just a sp

"It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time." I think this is the million dollar question—was this just a sprint effort to hit a milestone for PR sake or will they produce 5000 next week too?

stingraycharles 8y ago
I think it’s a good question to ask, but it doesn’t mean the milestone was meaningless. Several months ago this would have been unthinkable, and the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway.
- meritt 8y ago
  > Several months ago this would have been unthinkable Unthinkable? Their Q4-16 Shareholder letter [1] (Feb 22nd, 2017) stated: "Our Model 3 program is on track to start limited vehicle production in July and to steadily ramp production to exceed 5,000 vehicles per week at some point in the fourth quarter and 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018." On July 2nd, 2017 Musk forecasted [2] 20,000 per month by December '17. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa4c477a5a7 http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa... [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832
  - annerajb 8y ago
    Right. And his whole timeline shifted right by 6 month when they didn't start production as they expected a few weeks afterwards. Giving this the new estimate is placed to summer 2018.
    - meritt 8y ago
      The first shift was 3-months, as of Nov 2017 [1]: "We currently expect to achieve a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late Q1 2018". When that was missed, it was pushed back again to Q2-18. It looks like those shifting goalposts have finally been met but for the above poster to call it "unthinkable" is absurd. It's the exact messaging we've been hearing for at least a year and a half. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94dd7a49cc0f http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94d...
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Their timeline shifted to almost a year later, but it looks like they did get there.
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      The company is losing $300 MILLION per quarter. Being late by a year on this figure means $1.2 Billion down the drain. That's the important thing. A lot of people are concerned about Tesla's ability to raise money and stay solvent. Tesla will not be profitable, or even cash-flow positive, until enough Model 3 cars are made. Every month Tesla fails to reach a high-degree of production, Telsa loses another $75 million. ----------- The worst part about this rampup effort is how bursty and unreliable it is. Its going to be a one-week hit of 5000. Next week, or even next month, Tesla's sustainted output will be well below 5000, and therefore Tesla will remain unprofitable for another few months at minimum. That's not even factoring in all the costs Musk threw down for these tents (Obviously a temporary arrangement, as a single storm will put those tents out of commission).
      - Latteland 8y ago
        They are bursty, and they probably won't keep up their last week of the quarter production, when I'm sure they killed themselves to get to 5k/wk. It doesn't really matter if they were 6k or 4k that last week. If we use the total over the quarter we can see if they were making progress overall, rather than one stupid week when they could do something trick to push up their numbers. But the thing is, they did triple their q1 production, going from 9.7 to 28.5k so they almost trippled, or went from an avg of 9/12 weeks to 28/12 weeks, a clear increase. The newly announced goal is 6k by the end of August. It doesn't matter if through super-human work they get one week that is good, we can just measure their performance by total production, so I'd guess at least 50k would be another significant increase. It won't be 6k*12 weeks in q3. Lost in this is the significant additional revenue they get. They aren't making their cheapest cars yet, so at 50k each, that last week alone was 250 million additional revenue. That 28.5 cars is about 1 billion more in revenue than q1. If they double that again, you are talking real money :-)
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway. Wasn't it in multiple letters to shareholders? It is literally an update to debtors on the company's position, far from arbitrary. Were Tesla required to give an estimate? Nope. But doing so may be used to attract further investment into the company, so it is far from innocent.
  - Robotbeat 8y ago
    Shareholders aren't debtors. It's still arbitrary, a goal they set for themselves.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      SEC likely wouldn't agree, and haven't agreed historically.
      - Kranar 8y ago
        What are you claiming the SEC would disagree with? The claim is that Tesla set a goal of 5000 vehicles per week. There are two things you could disagree with but you don't specify which. You can disagree that Tesla set this goal for itself, or you can disagree that the number 5000 is arbitrary. To disagree with the first part, you'd need to show that the 5000 figure came from an external party, do you have such a source for this? To disagree with the second part, you'd need to show that there is something significant about the number 5000. Is your claim that there is some significance to the number 5000? If you can't substantiate the claim that some external party gave Tesla the goal to make 5000 vehicles per week, and you can't substantiate the claim that the number 5000 has some fundamental significance when it comes to car manufacturing, then you have no grounds to refute the statement that Tesla set this arbitrary goal of 5000 for itself.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Wasn't it in multiple letters to shareholders? It is literally an update to debtors on the company's position, far from arbitrary. Debtors are people who owe you money. The word you are probably looking for is “creditors”, who are people you owe money (e.g., corporate bondholders.) But, while it's closer, stockholders aren't those, either.
- make3 8y ago
  I think that most people would agree that it was implied in the idea of the milestone that it would be sustainable for more than 7 days.
agumonkey 8y ago
Musk has been quite endurant so far. It's possible tesla will keep up, or not. As long as tesla doesn't die i'd bet Musk will find a way to crank up the next stage.
- calinet6 8y ago
  One cannot will anything one wants into existence. At some point, he'll need to understand how to design an effective large-scale manufacturing system, and not simply yell for one. Specifically, he should actually learn some things about managing people, and the place that has in producing quality at volume at speed. It's sad, because that's exactly the lesson Toyota was trying to teach at NUMMI, and their legacy has been totally forgotten by its new owner—at great cost. It's simply a shame. > "According to this, they're using 7 times as many employees and still making less than a 1/5 of the cars NUMMI did when they had the factory." https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ -- via https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617 https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617 (albeit they're earlier in their maturity, for sure, but still)
  - grecy 8y ago
    > One cannot will anything one wants into existence Let's just see now. Musk wanted to grow a plant on Mars, and when the Russians pulled out of a deal to sell him a couple of ICBMs he decided he would will his own rocket into existence. Then he decided he wanted it to be reusable, so he willed that into existence when everyone said it was impossible. Then he wanted to strap three of them together, so he willed that into existence. Then we wanted electric cars, so he willed into existence not only the best electric car ever, but one of the best cars ever, period (Model S) etc. etc. I think it unwise to underestimate Musk.
    - setquk 8y ago
      Yep. He delivers. People are too obsessed about when. Shits’s complicated.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
saas_co_de 8y ago
They definitely cannot. These numbers are completely gamed within an inch of outright fraud.
- dagenix 8y ago
  pretty strong words from someone who doesn't provide any evidence
  - saas_co_de 8y ago
    Only evidence is every other report of burst production rates ever, but yeah, I am sure this time is different.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Still isn’t proof; fraud is a strong term. Throwing around such allegations with any proof is irresponsible. Has Tesla been convicted of fraud in the past?
      - saas_co_de 8y ago
        Quote me. Within an inch. I can play with words too.
        Latteland 8y ago
        Companies make plans, if they are audacious goals and you only come close, that's okay. It's not horrible. Tesla is in that camp.
    - manicdee 8y ago
      Given the tendency to sprint at the end of a quarter, what do you think the average for this next quarter is going to be? Where will production rates fall in the next few weeks compared to this almost-5000-a-week sprint? At what point do you consider the report of weekly production numbers to be fraud? Whose definition are you using? Which court will back you up?
calinet6 8y ago
Those who know anything about manufacturing are seeing very clearly that this is unlikely, or if achieved will be done at great cost and waste. https://twitter.com/skabooshka/status/1012000014376230913 https://twitter.com/skabooshka/status/1012000014376230913
- Kranar 8y ago
  Those in the know said electric cars in general were an unpractical waste of money. I also remember three years ago hearing those in the know saying a self landing rocket would not be possible, and if it ever were made it would also be done at great cost and waste. Heck, those in the know said even a couple of months ago that Tesla would not be able to achieve 5000 Model 3s by today. The truth is, there aren't really any people we can claim are "in the know" when it comes to new, innovative approaches to manufacturing. Maybe Tesla will fail, maybe it will succeed. I don't think anyone actually knows one way or another. Elon Musk and his crew are trying something no one else has bothered to try before and we just have to see how it goes and what lessons can be learned from it.
  - slivym 8y ago
    Well as a first point, I think that there's a huge difference between 'This very difficult thing is probably so difficult that X' and 'I have physically seen this production line, and there's no way it's doing X'. The first is an estimation of difficulty - probably an educated guess that could be wrong. The second is a statement based on the evidence in front of you. Secondly, whilst it's true that people have been saying Tesla won't get to 5k/w, it's also true that Tesla were claiming they'd have a fully automated production line. If Tesla gets to 5k/w by hand-building them all then in most people's eyes they've failed. The value of Tesla is not the actual production of cars. It's the IP of their self-driving technology, and the IP for their fully automated production line. There's a reason Tesla's valuation is completely unlinked from their production capacity.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      >>The first is an estimation of difficulty - probably an educated guess that could be wrong. Difficult things have been done all time and being done even as we speak now. Its not very hard to be positive about difficult things happening even in the present. The real problem is the discomfort with anything new, and the fear of new order of things. There is also a certain amount of risk taking ability that goes away when you become intelligent(expertise). That's because expertise is an investment in time, and there fore a good part of one's life. Watching that get washed away, or giving it up to start a new life is very hard. Its a huge mountain of emotion which you have to scale up and then down. People would rather let existing order of things prevail as they are. The second part is people find it hard to put what is already done aside and start afresh. I have even forgotten the count of number of people who I have heard telling they can't learn something new, or begin on a new heading because they have travelled too long down the current path. Sometimes this is for things as simple as starting a new hobby. So Tesla will likely win, and people won't be happy seeing it win. People are not comfortable watching live anti-thesis to their excuses.
Animats 8y ago
Bloomberg's chart of Tesla Model 3 production[1] shows very low production rates in early June, around 1000. Maybe they saved some parts up for end of quarter. Let's see what happens over the next month. A well-run production line produces about the same number of units per week. Tesla's weekly numbers are all over the place. Their cost per unit has to be very high, because the cost of running the plant is roughly constant as the output varies. Eventually Tesla ought to get their plant debugged, but if they're doing assembly in a tent, that's in the future. They also seem to be having trouble at the battery plant in Nevada, which is strange. That's a relatively simple product, and it's one they've built before. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  They timed production to maximize federal tax credits for US consumers.
  - notlob 8y ago
    Can you clarify, did Tesla announce this, or are you announcing this?
    - andromeduck 8y ago
      Its discussed towards the bottom of that Bloomberg link.
      - notlob 8y ago
        Can you quote the text here? For the life of me I can’t find the section you’re referencing. I’ve heard the “timing production to match tax credit” thing before and it doesn’t make sense to me, hence why I’m trying to track down the primary source.
        _Microft 8y ago
        There's a tax credit of $7500 that will begin to be phased out as soon as they sold 200 000 cars to US customers. Phase out starts with the same tax credit still applying for the remainder of the current quarter and the next one (before being reduced in later ones) and that's exactly the reason why they would want to match reaching the threshold to the beginning of a new quarter. This way they have as much time as possible to ship as many cars as possible to their customers (that's OK then since numbers sold do not affect the phase out beside the threshold of 200 000 cars).
Robotbeat 8y ago
This was the first time they hit a peak of 5000 model 3s. Undoubtedly, this was at their limits right now, but they're STILL ramping up, so it won't be their last, either, and soon (months) will be at 7000-8000 M3s per week at a peak rate. I just want to point out one thing: hustle is valuable. Not all companies can sprint like this when they need to.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
  I've been at companies that could hustle, and hustled. I'm not sure it's valuable. In one case, our hustle was a waste, as a dependency was late. In another, our hustle was a success, and we launched to the world. In both cases, me and colleagues made the same amount of money, experienced a degree of burnout, and if anything taught the company they can do it again if they want. Hustling at a sustainable pace? Sure. Sprinting, like death marches, just burns employees. I would resist commenting, but I know those Tesla employees won't be getting a huge bonus or extra time off. I wonder how well it will go for them the next time.
Someone 8y ago
Looking at historical data: - 2,425 model 3’s in Q4 2917, about a third (793) of them in the last week of 2017 (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q4-2017-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...) - 9,766 model 3’s in Q1 2018, about a fifth (2,020) of them in the last week (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q1-2018-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...) So, the Q1 average was about equal to that last week of 2017, but only because of a massive sprint (20% of production was in the last week of the quarter) If that pattern has repeated itself, we should see about 26,000 model 3’s produced in Q2, 5,200 of which in the last week. Also, based on these data points, they won’t produce 5,000 next week, but next quarter’s sprint will bring the average there. I wonder what the cost of reaching that milestone is. That extra factory wasn’t free, and they either are driving their personnel into the ground or they had to hire and pay a lot more people (possibly even both, as new people being hired will need training)
freerobby 8y ago
> Tesla expects to increase production to 6,000 Model 3s per week by late next month. http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q2-2018-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...

stingraycharles 8y ago

I think it’s a good question to ask, but it doesn’t mean the milestone was meaningless. Several months ago this would have been unthinkable, and the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway.

meritt 8y ago
> Several months ago this would have been unthinkable Unthinkable? Their Q4-16 Shareholder letter [1] (Feb 22nd, 2017) stated: "Our Model 3 program is on track to start limited vehicle production in July and to steadily ramp production to exceed 5,000 vehicles per week at some point in the fourth quarter and 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018." On July 2nd, 2017 Musk forecasted [2] 20,000 per month by December '17. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa4c477a5a7 http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa... [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832
- annerajb 8y ago
  Right. And his whole timeline shifted right by 6 month when they didn't start production as they expected a few weeks afterwards. Giving this the new estimate is placed to summer 2018.
  - meritt 8y ago
    The first shift was 3-months, as of Nov 2017 [1]: "We currently expect to achieve a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late Q1 2018". When that was missed, it was pushed back again to Q2-18. It looks like those shifting goalposts have finally been met but for the above poster to call it "unthinkable" is absurd. It's the exact messaging we've been hearing for at least a year and a half. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94dd7a49cc0f http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94d...
- Latteland 8y ago
  Their timeline shifted to almost a year later, but it looks like they did get there.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    The company is losing $300 MILLION per quarter. Being late by a year on this figure means $1.2 Billion down the drain. That's the important thing. A lot of people are concerned about Tesla's ability to raise money and stay solvent. Tesla will not be profitable, or even cash-flow positive, until enough Model 3 cars are made. Every month Tesla fails to reach a high-degree of production, Telsa loses another $75 million. ----------- The worst part about this rampup effort is how bursty and unreliable it is. Its going to be a one-week hit of 5000. Next week, or even next month, Tesla's sustainted output will be well below 5000, and therefore Tesla will remain unprofitable for another few months at minimum. That's not even factoring in all the costs Musk threw down for these tents (Obviously a temporary arrangement, as a single storm will put those tents out of commission).
    - Latteland 8y ago
      They are bursty, and they probably won't keep up their last week of the quarter production, when I'm sure they killed themselves to get to 5k/wk. It doesn't really matter if they were 6k or 4k that last week. If we use the total over the quarter we can see if they were making progress overall, rather than one stupid week when they could do something trick to push up their numbers. But the thing is, they did triple their q1 production, going from 9.7 to 28.5k so they almost trippled, or went from an avg of 9/12 weeks to 28/12 weeks, a clear increase. The newly announced goal is 6k by the end of August. It doesn't matter if through super-human work they get one week that is good, we can just measure their performance by total production, so I'd guess at least 50k would be another significant increase. It won't be 6k*12 weeks in q3. Lost in this is the significant additional revenue they get. They aren't making their cheapest cars yet, so at 50k each, that last week alone was 250 million additional revenue. That 28.5 cars is about 1 billion more in revenue than q1. If they double that again, you are talking real money :-)
Someone1234 8y ago
> the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway. Wasn't it in multiple letters to shareholders? It is literally an update to debtors on the company's position, far from arbitrary. Were Tesla required to give an estimate? Nope. But doing so may be used to attract further investment into the company, so it is far from innocent.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  Shareholders aren't debtors. It's still arbitrary, a goal they set for themselves.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    SEC likely wouldn't agree, and haven't agreed historically.
    - Kranar 8y ago
      What are you claiming the SEC would disagree with? The claim is that Tesla set a goal of 5000 vehicles per week. There are two things you could disagree with but you don't specify which. You can disagree that Tesla set this goal for itself, or you can disagree that the number 5000 is arbitrary. To disagree with the first part, you'd need to show that the 5000 figure came from an external party, do you have such a source for this? To disagree with the second part, you'd need to show that there is something significant about the number 5000. Is your claim that there is some significance to the number 5000? If you can't substantiate the claim that some external party gave Tesla the goal to make 5000 vehicles per week, and you can't substantiate the claim that the number 5000 has some fundamental significance when it comes to car manufacturing, then you have no grounds to refute the statement that Tesla set this arbitrary goal of 5000 for itself.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Wasn't it in multiple letters to shareholders? It is literally an update to debtors on the company's position, far from arbitrary. Debtors are people who owe you money. The word you are probably looking for is “creditors”, who are people you owe money (e.g., corporate bondholders.) But, while it's closer, stockholders aren't those, either.
make3 8y ago
I think that most people would agree that it was implied in the idea of the milestone that it would be sustainable for more than 7 days.

agumonkey 8y ago

Musk has been quite endurant so far. It's possible tesla will keep up, or not. As long as tesla doesn't die i'd bet Musk will find a way to crank up the next stage.

calinet6 8y ago
One cannot will anything one wants into existence. At some point, he'll need to understand how to design an effective large-scale manufacturing system, and not simply yell for one. Specifically, he should actually learn some things about managing people, and the place that has in producing quality at volume at speed. It's sad, because that's exactly the lesson Toyota was trying to teach at NUMMI, and their legacy has been totally forgotten by its new owner—at great cost. It's simply a shame. > "According to this, they're using 7 times as many employees and still making less than a 1/5 of the cars NUMMI did when they had the factory." https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ -- via https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617 https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617 (albeit they're earlier in their maturity, for sure, but still)
- grecy 8y ago
  > One cannot will anything one wants into existence Let's just see now. Musk wanted to grow a plant on Mars, and when the Russians pulled out of a deal to sell him a couple of ICBMs he decided he would will his own rocket into existence. Then he decided he wanted it to be reusable, so he willed that into existence when everyone said it was impossible. Then he wanted to strap three of them together, so he willed that into existence. Then we wanted electric cars, so he willed into existence not only the best electric car ever, but one of the best cars ever, period (Model S) etc. etc. I think it unwise to underestimate Musk.
  - setquk 8y ago
    Yep. He delivers. People are too obsessed about when. Shits’s complicated.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

saas_co_de 8y ago

They definitely cannot. These numbers are completely gamed within an inch of outright fraud.

dagenix 8y ago
pretty strong words from someone who doesn't provide any evidence
- saas_co_de 8y ago
  Only evidence is every other report of burst production rates ever, but yeah, I am sure this time is different.
  - briandear 8y ago
    Still isn’t proof; fraud is a strong term. Throwing around such allegations with any proof is irresponsible. Has Tesla been convicted of fraud in the past?
    - saas_co_de 8y ago
      Quote me. Within an inch. I can play with words too.
      - Latteland 8y ago
        Companies make plans, if they are audacious goals and you only come close, that's okay. It's not horrible. Tesla is in that camp.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    Given the tendency to sprint at the end of a quarter, what do you think the average for this next quarter is going to be? Where will production rates fall in the next few weeks compared to this almost-5000-a-week sprint? At what point do you consider the report of weekly production numbers to be fraud? Whose definition are you using? Which court will back you up?

calinet6 8y ago

Those who know anything about manufacturing are seeing very clearly that this is unlikely, or if achieved will be done at great cost and waste. https://twitter.com/skabooshka/status/1012000014376230913 https://twitter.com/skabooshka/status/1012000014376230913

Kranar 8y ago
Those in the know said electric cars in general were an unpractical waste of money. I also remember three years ago hearing those in the know saying a self landing rocket would not be possible, and if it ever were made it would also be done at great cost and waste. Heck, those in the know said even a couple of months ago that Tesla would not be able to achieve 5000 Model 3s by today. The truth is, there aren't really any people we can claim are "in the know" when it comes to new, innovative approaches to manufacturing. Maybe Tesla will fail, maybe it will succeed. I don't think anyone actually knows one way or another. Elon Musk and his crew are trying something no one else has bothered to try before and we just have to see how it goes and what lessons can be learned from it.
- slivym 8y ago
  Well as a first point, I think that there's a huge difference between 'This very difficult thing is probably so difficult that X' and 'I have physically seen this production line, and there's no way it's doing X'. The first is an estimation of difficulty - probably an educated guess that could be wrong. The second is a statement based on the evidence in front of you. Secondly, whilst it's true that people have been saying Tesla won't get to 5k/w, it's also true that Tesla were claiming they'd have a fully automated production line. If Tesla gets to 5k/w by hand-building them all then in most people's eyes they've failed. The value of Tesla is not the actual production of cars. It's the IP of their self-driving technology, and the IP for their fully automated production line. There's a reason Tesla's valuation is completely unlinked from their production capacity.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    >>The first is an estimation of difficulty - probably an educated guess that could be wrong. Difficult things have been done all time and being done even as we speak now. Its not very hard to be positive about difficult things happening even in the present. The real problem is the discomfort with anything new, and the fear of new order of things. There is also a certain amount of risk taking ability that goes away when you become intelligent(expertise). That's because expertise is an investment in time, and there fore a good part of one's life. Watching that get washed away, or giving it up to start a new life is very hard. Its a huge mountain of emotion which you have to scale up and then down. People would rather let existing order of things prevail as they are. The second part is people find it hard to put what is already done aside and start afresh. I have even forgotten the count of number of people who I have heard telling they can't learn something new, or begin on a new heading because they have travelled too long down the current path. Sometimes this is for things as simple as starting a new hobby. So Tesla will likely win, and people won't be happy seeing it win. People are not comfortable watching live anti-thesis to their excuses.

Animats 8y ago

Bloomberg's chart of Tesla Model 3 production[1] shows very low production rates in early June, around 1000. Maybe they saved some parts up for end of quarter. Let's see what happens over the next month. A well-run production line produces about the same number of units per week. Tesla's weekly numbers are all over the place. Their cost per unit has to be very high, because the cost of running the plant is roughly constant as the output varies. Eventually Tesla ought to get their plant debugged, but if they're doing assembly in a tent, that's in the future. They also seem to be having trouble at the battery plant in Nevada, which is strange. That's a relatively simple product, and it's one they've built before. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

toomuchtodo 8y ago
They timed production to maximize federal tax credits for US consumers.
- notlob 8y ago
  Can you clarify, did Tesla announce this, or are you announcing this?
  - andromeduck 8y ago
    Its discussed towards the bottom of that Bloomberg link.
    - notlob 8y ago
      Can you quote the text here? For the life of me I can’t find the section you’re referencing. I’ve heard the “timing production to match tax credit” thing before and it doesn’t make sense to me, hence why I’m trying to track down the primary source.
      - _Microft 8y ago
        There's a tax credit of $7500 that will begin to be phased out as soon as they sold 200 000 cars to US customers. Phase out starts with the same tax credit still applying for the remainder of the current quarter and the next one (before being reduced in later ones) and that's exactly the reason why they would want to match reaching the threshold to the beginning of a new quarter. This way they have as much time as possible to ship as many cars as possible to their customers (that's OK then since numbers sold do not affect the phase out beside the threshold of 200 000 cars).

Robotbeat 8y ago

This was the first time they hit a peak of 5000 model 3s. Undoubtedly, this was at their limits right now, but they're STILL ramping up, so it won't be their last, either, and soon (months) will be at 7000-8000 M3s per week at a peak rate. I just want to point out one thing: hustle is valuable. Not all companies can sprint like this when they need to.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
I've been at companies that could hustle, and hustled. I'm not sure it's valuable. In one case, our hustle was a waste, as a dependency was late. In another, our hustle was a success, and we launched to the world. In both cases, me and colleagues made the same amount of money, experienced a degree of burnout, and if anything taught the company they can do it again if they want. Hustling at a sustainable pace? Sure. Sprinting, like death marches, just burns employees. I would resist commenting, but I know those Tesla employees won't be getting a huge bonus or extra time off. I wonder how well it will go for them the next time.

Someone 8y ago

Looking at historical data: - 2,425 model 3’s in Q4 2917, about a third (793) of them in the last week of 2017 (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q4-2017-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...) - 9,766 model 3’s in Q1 2018, about a fifth (2,020) of them in the last week (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q1-2018-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...) So, the Q1 average was about equal to that last week of 2017, but only because of a massive sprint (20% of production was in the last week of the quarter) If that pattern has repeated itself, we should see about 26,000 model 3’s produced in Q2, 5,200 of which in the last week. Also, based on these data points, they won’t produce 5,000 next week, but next quarter’s sprint will bring the average there. I wonder what the cost of reaching that milestone is. That extra factory wasn’t free, and they either are driving their personnel into the ground or they had to hire and pay a lot more people (possibly even both, as new people being hired will need training)

freerobby 8y ago

> Tesla expects to increase production to 6,000 Model 3s per week by late next month. http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q2-2018-vehicle-production-and-deliveries http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...