Tesla managed to produce a grand total of 260 model 3 sedans in the third quarter. It produced zero big rig trucks. Elon Musk blamed Puerto Rico for Production Hell Delays.
Chief Executive Elon Musk on Friday pushed back the unveiling of the company’s big rig truck until mid-November, tweeting that the electric vehicle maker was diverting resources to fix production bottlenecks of its new Model 3 sedan and to help Puerto Rico.
Musk said Tesla’s Model 3 was “deep in production hell” echoing his own comments in July, when he showed off some of the first cars of that model.
The Palo Alto, California-based company delivered just 220 Model 3 sedans and produced 260 in the third quarter. It had planned to produce more than 1,500.
Musk also tweeted the company was diverting resources to increasing battery production to help hurricane-hit Puerto Rico, where most residents remain without electricity.
Earlier this week Tesla reported that “production bottlenecks” had left it behind the planned ramp-up for the Model 3.
Bottleneck?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Tessa frequently misses their production targets. Elons hype on electric trucks, tunnels, hyper loops, and power walls are all just smoke screens
I’m starting to be concerned about how so many established car companies seem to be embracing electrics full throttle. Where will all the charging infrastructure come from? How will he grid handle the new load?
My main concern is governments like California, China and parts of europe saying they plan to ban internal combustion cars. I know I’ll want internal combustion cars until batteries can be charged as fast as a gas fill up. I’m worried I won’t be able to buy that in a few years because of unworkable socialist politics.
Seems to me some alternatives that don’t require massive charging infrastructure:
1. Swappable batteries, like propane gas for your grill. Pull in and the battery is rapidly swapped out for a fully charged one. The empty batteries can then be returned to a central charging station.
2. Self driving cars, after dropping you off at work or at home they return to central charging stations.
3. Increasing battery range even more than a solid 200 miles or so. At a certain point you are fine charging from home even if you miss a might or two. If you happen to be doing an extended road trip old fashioned combustion cars might be rented or hotels might offer overnight charging.
It doesn’t seem obvious to me that you need as many charging stations as we currently have gas stations. More importantly, 100+ years ago car makers didn’t say “we can’t make more cars until we figure out where all the gas stations will go”. They made more cars as demand exploded. Car ownership then created the demand for refueling solutions and the answer we settled on was gas stations. Imagine, if we had gasoline piped into our homes we might have ended up with almost no gas stations.
–> “My main concern is governments like California, China and parts of europe saying they plan to ban internal combustion cars. ”
They also say they plan to run balanced budgets. And shelter the homeless. And pave the potholes. And an endless litany of “free stuff” which will be provided by highly paid employees.
California’s cowardly governor / legislature is promising that some unidentified future governor / legislature will force registered voters to stop using convenient cars. The people making this empty promise almost won’t be around to make good on it — many will be voted out, most will have retired on a lush public pension, and a few may have died of old age. They aren’t putting their own money or their own careers where their mouths are.
Getting rid of gasoline powered cars a worthless and empty promise. Truth is: their successors will be struggling to make good on even half the pension promises the current cowards already made
Battery swap – none starter.
Too much commoditisation to achieve it and battery too important.
Better Place had good ideas for it, too early but also many OEM obstacles.
Google “Better Place Battery Swap”.
@Fish — Assume you meant to reply to @Brian E Consadine???
you already have a charging station at home – the outlet in your garage
try charging a Tesla w/ the outlet in your garage… see you next week.
Macro Investor – you should be worried because history indicates that once “governments’ adapt an idea they never back off regardless of the damage they create. Now that more and more “governments” are on the no internal combustion vehicles bandwagon the 2nd round will be started. What do they do when they want to get rid of something – they tax it out of existence. Look for increased local taxes on internal combustion engines or the gas they use or both as the attack ramps up.
What?? This stock is going to the moon….literally. Or is it Mars..?
We don’t need no steenkin’ cars…we need colonies on other planets!!
There’s none so blind as those that refuse to see.
That’s the market for you.
He’s giving batteries to Puerto Rico, remember? You can’t expect him to do that, and produce cars and trucks, too.
O/T Another warm day in Spain, that looks something like a political football match without a pitch to play on. Yesterday was the “white tide” of mostly pro-independence demonstration calling for dialogue, with a few Spanish nationalist demonstrations as well. Today is Spanish nationalist protest day… a few incidents but lots of crowd.
Cat.
http://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/139756/minut/minut/setmana/despr/referendum/directe
Sp.
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/07/catalunya/1507394209_736178.html
Apple’s orginal production guy is a social buddy of mine. He’s long since retired, crusty and jaded. Zillionaire of course. He’s the guy that had to build a supply chain from nuth’n for the zillions of computers Jobs sold. He knows what it takes to go from hand crafting in a garage to shipping zillions . He We have spoken a lot about Tesla’s production capabilities over the years.
His take is Tesla simply does not have the skill set nor culture to execute volume.
+1000
I told my buddy once Telsa secures the NUMMI plant ; They can easily produce 10,000 a month from NUMMI.
My buddy just laughed
Let’s not be so harsh—The poor guy just needs a few billion more in working capital to make things right…
Lets keep in mind that the average golf cart at an average municipal golf course was able to transport two obese adults, their beer supply, and two full sets of golf clubs around 45 holes of golf (two full 18 hole games, plus some extra) — often involving steep hills.
And this “technology” was considered average 30-40 YEARS ago.
Take the external frame off the golf cart, put a fiber glass “sports car” looking frame on the same cart — and voila! you have a Tesla. Well, the golf cart costs under $10K retail, while the Tesla costs $70K before tax subsidies.
Have the federal subsidies that have been or may be cut part of the reason? What would the actual cost of the car cost without all of the federal help?
Never involve a wordsmith salesman in manufacturing. Henry Ford was terse.
How does sending batteries to Puerto Rico help people with no working power grid?
This guy is a real con man. Watch out for your wallet.
If the company is gone in 2 years, what happens to your expensive golf cart? Forget about getting service when you need it, and forget about the warranty. You’ve been musked.
“You’ve been Musked” – the most likely catchphrase to be remembered in the next decade.
Elom is the P.T. Barnum of our times.
Q. “Hey Elom, I hear production of the new cars is not going well”
Elom “By the way, were going to Mars in just a few years”
Q.”Hey Elom, NASA spent Trillions of doollars getting a handful of men to the moon. How are you going to get lots of people to Mars in a few years?”
Elom. “By the way, have you heard about the giant battery we are installing in Adelaide Australia to save them from blackouts”
Q. “Hey Elom, I hear your Adeleaide battery will only last 20 minutes”
Elom, “By the way have you heard about how we are saving Puerto Rico?”
Rinse and repeat.
Tesla lead will be gone within 2 years.
What lead?
The battery material comes from Tesla’s competitors in China. The “engines” are made by others. The frame is made by others. Everything in the car is made by someone else.
The financing comes from US taxpayers in the form of tax subsidies — both for assembly (its NOT production) and at the sales point.
Tesla doesn’t have a “lead”, they have marketing gimmickry. Every single bit of “Tesla” technology comes from someone else
First to “premium market” lead.
Premium market soon to become crowded.
Just one example coming along nicely. Preferable to a Tesla, all electric.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-TVP0dR8ahA/maxresdefault.jpg
Daimler have a truck, so do these people plus a # of others now.
https://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_700,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.banburyguardian.co.uk/webimage/1.8117242.1503504083!/image/image.png
Billions and billions of taxpayer subsidies have produced 260 cars, not Tesla. Elon Musk has been busy spinning yarns and suckering people out of their money to “build” (not really, more like fantasize about) tunnels, hyperloops (its not a maglev train like China already built, its whole NEW scam called a “hyperloop” which means it will need twice the subsidies), rockets (made from surplus NASA parts), solar panels (made from Chinese materials and US taxpayer subsidies), and now this con-man wants to build an “electricity infrastructure” from more Chinese materials and more taxpayer subsidies.
Oh, and lets not forget the guy con’ed investors out of another $1.5 billion with Tesla’s recent debt sale… to cover the production delay so far.
Without the subsidies, these toys for rich hollywood goons would cost 2.5 times what they are sold for. How does any politician justify cutting social security and medicare while subsidizing expensive toys for rich movie moguls?
When is the SEC going to require truth in advertising / pink sheets? Tesla’s business model is collecting taxpayer subsidies and that is all it does.
Here are a few Tesla competitors that can carry 8 people (far more than the two the Tesla can fit):
http://g04.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB12WXMJXXXXXXnaXXXq6xXFXXXZ/China-factory-8-Person-mantys-golf-cart.jpg
http://www.golfcartcityonline.com/golf-carts-classi/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/299389-500×374.jpg
https://is.alicdn.com/img/pb/263/930/854/854930263_506.jpg
HEY! How many Hot Chicks ya’ gonna’ pick up in THAT……vs the really cool Tesla….?
Well, thinking back on my question……SEVEN, I guess……
If you put a fiberglass “sports car” external body on it, you will get plenty of chicks.
And at $12K per golf cart — I mean EV — you can afford to take all those ladies out to dinner
Would you guys feel better about things if Musk began appearing in public only when attired in black turtleneck and blue jeans?
Only if he actually creates something new — no assembling stuff other people made. When you invent Macs, ipods, ipads, iphones and change the way people buy music… you get to dress like an escaped mental patient. For everyone else, dress normal.
Selling glorified golf carts to overpaid hollywood brats while collecting massive taxpayer subsidies doesn’t count
And didn’t Steve Jobs have a significant hand in the whole Pixar thing? Changing the way animated movies get made, in a way Disney Corporation was unable to duplicate (forcing them to pay up for Pixar)?
Again, creating new stuff entitles one to dress like an escaped mental patient.
Greedily grabbing taxpayer subsidies entitles one to be ridiculed as a con man
To be fair M.M.
Daimler Benz and many other Euro “manufacturers assemble their cars using a lot of OEM products made by other companies.
Daimler also designed the A class Mercedes to have a battery powered variant back in the nineties. The floor design had a compartment. designed to hold the batteries.
The electric car idea was abandoned as not practical. In this regard nothing has changed.
Many other auto manufacturing companies have played with electric cars at some point.
Now there are government subsidies on the wind and PR kudos goes a long way.
This article says Tesla is having trouble getting bodies from their outside supplier:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4112109-model-3-may-mess-short-tesla-yet
That’s a good article . i wanted to know the source of that rumor . Right know this MOD 3 is basically hand built with prototyping tools . BY the time Tesla ramps up production, competitors will have gained market share. Because of the limited numbers this model might become a collectible . remember the Delorean . Elon is traveling back to the future .
The list price for a Delorean in 1982 was $25,000. You can easily buy one today for $20,000. Not the best investment – nobody is making a time-travel movie about the Tesla.
Sometime hence we might look back and see Musk as a poster child for this era.
Whether that is good or bad, who knows, but re-usable vertically landing return rockets are really neat and can cut launch costs. That is noteworthy.
Settling Mars is BS in my book.
If only some government bureaucrats hadn’t thought of a space shuttle earlier…. it might be innovative.
Then again, maybe Musk could build some rockets himself instead of using surplus NASA parts. That would be oh so impressive (cough)
New Electric Car Battery Last For 200 Miles And Charges In 6 Minutes
By Bill Harris – Oct 6, 2017
https://gypsy.ninja/electric-car-battery-6-minutes/
New Electric Car Battery Last For 200 Miles And Charges In 6 Minutes
By Bill Harris – Oct 6, 2017
https://gypsy.ninja/electric-car-battery-6-minutes/
Other auto manufacturers had no problem like this scaling up production. Maybe Tesla needs to outsource its manufacturing to GM.
Actually that is not a crazy idea. In the early 1950’s GM developed the best automatic transmission and sold it to other independents for their cars, including Hudson and Kaiser for example. Studebaker used Chevy engines their last few years, and the famous original Cobras always had Ford engines. It is common practice in the automotive industry to outsource components, but the car company still needs to assemble them into a car if they want to be considered a car company.
Older than that. Try hydromatics back in 1939
Chrysler developed the fluid coupling in the early ’30’s and GM improved on it and made the first marketable units.
Studebaker brothers had an “auto” transmission back in the 1900’s – Unsuccessful due to failures.
Tesla’s first production plant **IS** an old GM plant (taken by the government when GM got one of its many bailouts). The space rocket nonsense is all surplus NASA parts.
Everything Tesla is actually government surplus or a taxpayer subsidy.
Maybe it is best not to produce cars too quickly if one’s stock price depends more on order backlog and exclusivity than it does on production volume and practicality.
Tesla is not a car company! It is much more an energy company. Read up on Musk installing their Powerpack batteries in Australia, then you will understand that powering PR is totally doable.
IMO it would be unwise to bet against this guy.
From what I have read, Tesla’s power wall is best suited for applications where storage space is constrained and one is willing to pay higher cost in exchange for compact battery storage and deeper discharge cycles, such as with a car or boat. Lithium batteries are also more capable at handling surge loads than lead acid batteries of equal capacity.
Even on an island such as Puerto Rico where grid power is expensive and standalone solar systems might be a reasonable option, (1) Tesla does not exclusively own the battery technology and; (2) Tesla does not exclusively own the solar technology and; (3) Some type of lead-acid battery system is probably still more practical unless there are many surplus government subsidized LiFePO4 battery packs lying about that are no longer acceptable for transportation use but are still okay for home use and those used batteries are practically being given away.
Betting against any stock is risky and I am not suggesting betting against Tesla, but exactly how does “energy company” Telsa make money for its shareholders in this situation? Please do tell. Unless government mandates that everyone shall buy a Tesla car and a Tesla power wall (either directly, or indirectly through the purchase of NIMBY carbon credits), I cannot see how they survive.
Puh-lease.
It’s just plain old battery tech – hasn’t improved much in 100 years – and Musk doesn’t have any magic tech to apply here… he’s got nothing but a subsidized sales pitch!
Batteries & solar are nice, but there’s literally nothing new under the sun… certainly no margin.
Did you even bother to read what Musk has / is doing in Australia? Screw your technology evaluation, this is nothing more than marketing 101. Buzz baby!
Musk is selling to government entities, meaning they don’t think about what they are buying just whether the press makes it sound good.
Again, IMO very unwise to bet against this guy.
Gov’ts are rapidly running out of money for such boondoogles… Musk is swimming upstream.
I will happily bet against this guy – his entire empire (of debt) is sitting on the losing side of culture & economics… Musk is the Hillary Clinton of business.
Grift is the American way. Grifters been working the rubes for a long time in this country. This opium laced snake oil will cure what ails you. Musk is just unusually good at the Con. You should admire his style and skills for making money.
Tesla owners will be looking for Junkers to get spare parts within a few years. This is the 21st century studebaker but they actually were a real auto company. Tesla is another Obama pipe dream like solantra.
Do not insult Studebaker. The company was in business well over 100 years (1852-1967) and had a reputation for quality and reliability. Studebaker never got help from the government, other than building military vehicles. Studebaker built wagons for the Westward Expansion and carriages for Presidents. For the first couple years of automobile production, Studebaker built electric vehicles!
Lol. Your right. That would be an insult. Ok. How about the Delorean instead.
Comparing yesterday’s “Elon Musk Says He Can Power Puerto With Batteries …”
And contrasting today’s article, do the words “Orren Boyle” or “James Taggert” come to mind?
Look around for gushering government spending, and Musk is already there pushing a ‘big idea’ and taking some skim off the top, no doubt.
Musk is exactly like that Blackwater ‘private’ military guy… same business model. Latch onto the fat veins of prevailing government policy & suck hard.
Elon Musk’s enormous success at PayPal moved Musk into the spotlight making him an icon never far from generating headlines. We can always count on Elon Musk to find some new way to get on the front page of the news and razzle-dazzle us on any given day with some bold project.
It should be noted that Musk appears Teflon coated and he has suffered little fallout from promises and deadlines unkept, failure simply does not stick but seems to run off his back. The article below delves into his many projects and the hype surrounding him as he keeps a great many balls in the air.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/10/elon-musk-continues-to-dish-out-old.html
funny how articles about Musk never seem to cover profit/margins/ROI of any of his ideas or projects. Can I get a job where results don’t matter, too?
the way Musk shows-up to every crisis & spends (wastes) other peoples’ money… he’s clearly training to be a federal politician.