It Looks Like Tesla Produced Over 150,000 Model 3 Sedans In 2018 - What Does That Tell The Industry?

With an average Model 3 price of over $45K (conservative) and an estimated 150,000 produced and sold, that means the industry left almost $7 Billion on the table for an upstart to pocket in one year.

Considering where most automotive companies are so far with EVs some CEOs heads should roll.

Agreed. And say all you want but at this point Mercedes, Lexus and BMW (and three or four more) should have been building good looking, reliable and fun-to-drive Teslas, respectively. I foresee all thoses glitches/shortcomings gone by the time Germany and Japan really respond.

That's probably how many VIN numbers they allocated.

Reports have said there are 3k cars in inventory waiting for shipment, which would be a smaller number than Q3. That means they produced more in Q4 while having less inventory (half a week's worth of cars)... that's not bad at all.

No we'll have to see what happens with the federal rebate cut in half. I'm expecting a price cut or some other perk being announced this month.

These stories are for the people who are not good with numbers.
So Tesla has stock worth 3 or 4 days of production.

And there will be thousands and thousands of cars going to Europe where they should arrive in February.
Big deal.

VW produces that many cars in less than 5 days of production and has 50 EV cars in development to be introduced in next six years Who should be worried?

It tells the industry that Tesla says it produced 150,000 Model 3s.

Get your popcorn and/or your martini ready for the Tesla earning release.

TSLA Earnings Date
Earnings announcement* for TSLA: Feb 06, 2019

This is when all the hype comes home to roost. Some highlight questions..

(a) What is the status of the Model 3 waitlist? Why is Model 3 inventory building? Has anyone who requested their deposit back received it promptly?

(b) How much is the reserve for warranty expense on existing Tesla's in service (literally everything Telsa sold the past 4 years or 8 years on the battery)? The Tesla warranty is 4 yrs 50,000 miles and the battery and drive unit has an 8 year unlimited mileage warranty - that is a sh*t pot, gigantic amount of liability if you are putting out a low quality product. Think about it - literally every crappy Tesla out there can have stuff fixed for free for several years. Yikes!

(c) How is Tesla accounting for leased vehicles? What lease residuals are used? Is there a real, third-party documented (i.e. KAR Auction services) resale value for used Tesla's? How much rework (in $$$$) is required on average to put a used Tesla into the "pre-owned" program?

(d) When will Tesla share owner experience data with third-party rating services like JD Power and Associates?

(e) When will Tesla allow the mainstream auto media to perform long-term tests of Tesla vehicles (to date, there have been NO long term Tesla tests allowed).

(f) Finally, production and R&D funding aside, how is Tesla going to ensure its long term financial viability in light of mounting "legacy" (warranty, labor, etc) costs that the investing public has been ignoring?

Get your lawn chair, snacks, and iced-tea ready for this one kids.

If you own Tesla stock, make up your own mind about how long you want to hang on. These very obvious questions have never been answered and on earnings date, they will come home to roost.

I'm really surprised that Elon hasn't sold Tesla.

Great questions but Elon will dance around to buy time. Regarding a sale, Elon is the company and the company is Elon. He would likely have to be removed to effect a sale which does not appear to be in the cards near term.

The ONLY value of Tesla is the brand name. Selling it to GM, Geely, Ford, or Toyota to put their electric cars under it is the true value of the franchise and time is running out. The Germans and the Japanese will obliterate Tesla technologically. Elon was PayPal and PayPal was Elon and we see how that played out.

Elon got fired from PayPal (if that is what you mean) and won't make that mistake again (ego got bruised) so he will either be forced out or decide to walk away on his own, not likely unless his health fails.

Tesla needs to force him out and then sell to someone who can actually engineer cars.

In my eyes there will be a crapload of warranty claims that will be coming for numerous quality issues.

it tells the industry that you are a clueless fanboy overlooking the fact that they had 2000 unsold model 3s at year end. you are hilariously clownish in your never ending tesla hype

ROFL.
2 days worth of production.
Accordingd to you every other carmaker on this planet must be dead within weeks.

Demand for the Model 3 vaporized. As of 12/29 you could order a Model 3 and get it delivered before year-end. So much for the waitlist scam.

Even more worrisome, Model S and X sales have declined. And European homologation for the M3 is nowhere in sight. The China factory is a sham, and the Chinese economy is in the tank right now (see their recent PMI print and Apple's press release today mentioning the pretty dire situation in China).

In short, the only way Tesla can maintain any kind of volumes is thru the $2k price cut, but that causes profitability to implode. Q1 is going to be a total disaster.

Of course Q1 will be weak IN THE US.
Due to transport January will be weak WW.
Q1 WW will look great.

You are so funny here.

Just for Darringerboy: VINs are over 190 000.

You do know that allocated VINs doesn't mean that many cars have been produced, but where are you getting the 190K figure. VINS are not created one by one after a car is made. They are preconfigured ahead of time in anticipation.

MD: YOU said that the 150 000 are most likely VINs and not produced cars.
Which is BS.
And you can lookup the VINS yourself.

what happened to nov and dec registrations....