About half a million Tesla Model 3 reservations.

Lastly reported, there are 455K reservations...While cancellations will always happen, if more and more Model 3's popup for sale with a $100K markup or the reports there people are selling their reservations for thousands, people may think twice with cancelling...The car is also getting great reviews, so I'd take a Vegas bet the number of reservations will continue to grow...

Production bottlenecks on the other hand, let's just say I'd take a Vegas bet by 1/1/19 there will be less than 100K delivered...

 

You do realize they're way under their projected production timeline with only 260 produced in two months? Everything is a total guess because we do not know how quickly it'll take for them to ramp up...At this point I'd take a Vegas bet there won't even be 5000 deliveries for 2017...If that's the case it's a very slow ramp up (which it has been)...

 

5000/week by July 2018? I'd totally take a Vegas bet that they would NOT get there yet...In fact, I'd take a Vegas bet that they won't reach 5000/week at all in 2018...But I could see them getting very close at the very end of the year...

 

100000+ 3s for 2018? I would take a Vegas bet of no...

 

Only to the individual reservation holders...They projected 1630 last quarter and made 260 with the fear being they're mostly handmade...Even among the Tesla cheerleaders, many thought the timeline was extremely optimistic...As long as they're increasing production numbers month after month, it'll be business as usual...The funny part is, the slower the production rate the more valuable the car and the reservation itself become...

 

Clearly I don't think so and listed my reasons why above (260 for the entire quarter, while it was on an assembly line with lots of robots, it's speculated that humans are doing a lot of work that the robots should be doing)...I'll add there's still NDAs in place, which means there could still be lots of bugs/defects Tesla is actively working on...Once they no longer require a NDA as a requirement to accept delivery, it's a sign they're on the right track...I also would take a Vegas bet once they produce a 1000 in a month, Musk will mention it...For the record, I am a reserved online as soon as orders opened and I think by this time next year I still won't have my car...

So the better question, grand total, how many Model 3s will be produced for 2017? I believe they won't break 5000 and wouldn't be surprised if it's around half that...

 

It seems reasonable to think so.

Tesla has chronically lagged behind in ramping up production from the company's start. Elon originally set a goal of 100,000-200,000 Model 3's for 2017. Many well informed industry watchers, perhaps most, thought that was overreaching, and several of us guessed it would be closer to 20,000. But if Tesla can't ramp up to at least 100,000 in 2018, a full year later than Elon predicted, then that will be quite a surprise for those of us who follow Tesla Inc. closely.

 

I believe this is your rational for wanting to believe they'll get production properly ramped up, just understand Tesla had made three vehicles, powerwalls, solar shingles, virtually every product they've pitched has been delayed and in the case of vehicles, by over a year...So it really isn't a "very bad scenario" nor even a new one for Tesla...The ZEV credits are more valuable for 2017 than 2018 giving credit to the speculation of "let's throw a hail mary, rush this into production and maybe we'll be able to deliver some this year"...

If we look at the videos showing the touch screen, we've already seen some bugs, already seen some missing features and it was reported on reddit there's a wonky 12v drain that Tesla recommends you always keep it charged...When the cars are really ready they'll remove the NDA requirement...If you take a look at Tesla and reddit forums you'll see that overwhelming majority share these views about long wait times...Again most of us either have a M3 reservation and/or own Tesla...

 

Tesla had three delays of getting the Roadster into production, over about 9 months. Tesla had a roughly two year delay (depending on just when you start counting) in getting both the Model S and the Model X into production.

So it was surprising to see Tesla not only accelerate its original timeline for getting the Model 3 into production, but actually hitting that advanced target date for production start!

If Tesla is slow to ramp up TM3 production, well that's no different than what it's done every time. Anti-Tesla stock shorters and haters are trying rather desperately to portray a slow ramp up as being somehow different than what Tesla has done in the past, but that's just FUD, and is worthy of being ignored, if not ridiculed.

Reddit isn't exactly a good source for info on EVs. As they say: "Don't believe everything you read." That goes double for what you read on the internet.

The need for keeping the 12-volt battery charged is no different than the same need in nearly other plug-in EVs. Nearly all of them use a 12-volt car starter battery to prevent the main battery pack from being completely drained and "bricked", or ruined. To suggest that the Model 3 is somehow different or inferior in this regard is nothing but FUD, whether it's intentional on your part or not, so please stop.

Go Tesla!