German Firm Tears Down Model 3 And Determines It Should Be Profitable For Tesla

Several Tesla Model 3 vehicles were bought by competing automaker engineering firms to try and to learn about the technology.

Earlier this year, a German automaker was reportedly impressed by the Model 3 after having reverse-engineered it.

Now, another German firm has reportedly completed a teardown of the vehicle and came up with an impressive potential cost for Tesla’s latest electric vehicle.

German magazine WirtschaftsWoche spoke with one of the engineering firms who bought Model 3 vehicles on the used market to benchmark and tear them down.

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MDarringer - 5/31/2018 7:57:14 PM

-1 Boost

The only problem is that 520K units a year isn't likely at the 10K a week magic sales spot being totally pie in the sky.

supermoto - 6/1/2018 11:01:27 AM

+1 Boost

10K units a week won't happen unless another factory is built, and that costs several billion $.

vdiv - 6/4/2018 2:10:00 AM

+1 Boost

Another factory is indeed already being built in Sparks, Nevada, it is called the Gigafactory 1, and it already produces batteries and power components. Tesla has an assembly center in Tilburg, Netherlands, and plans on building a factory in China. The billions of dollars of revenue go into growing the company, something folks here fail to understand.

SanJoseDriver - 6/4/2018 3:37:41 AM

+1 Boost

The Fremont factory should be able to get to 6-7k/week by next year and a factory in China would double that in ~2021. I think they'll use the Gigafactory to build cars like vdiv suggested, but I'm thinking it will only be used for the Y and not the 3. I think it will shake down like this:

Fremont Factory - S/X/3
Reno Gigafactory - Y/Semi/Roadster (2020)
Shanghai Gigafactory - Y/3 (2021)

TomM - 6/2/2018 8:25:12 AM

+1 Boost

Question - did this "assay" include the cost of development - and the cost of debt service into their assessment?

THese cars do not develop themselves out of thin air - and Tesla maintains a very high debt load as well.

OF course - it would be profitable IF they could produce 10K per week - they are luck to get that in a month right now. AND of course - what is the product MIX - Tesla has already said that while they make money on high content versions - they would not on base cars.

SanJoseDriver - 6/4/2018 3:43:02 AM

+1 Boost

No to both, and they should be around ~12k/mo right now. With scale even the $35k base car will be profitable. Also keep in mind software updates for Autopilot, even the base car's average selling price will likely be $40k with eventual upgrades.