Another petrol bail out (phony war) possible with petrol obviously obsolete?

It may be 'ramping up' but the company still spent $20,000 per car more than it received in income. And this has been the case with Tesla since its inception. There is ALWAYS something that needs to be ramped up, so profits never materialise. And orders are not sales. We will see how many of these orders are actually fulfilled, although I doubt if it falls far short, then anybody will notice it due to the hoopla surrounding the next bright prospect.

Half a million orders - fulfilled at 5,000 a week will take two years to fulfil In fact, This rate of production looks as if it won't be achieved and is currently running at about 2,000 a week At this rate the least fortunate customer will have been waiting five years, plus the time he's been waiting already.

There are rumours of major problems at the 'gigafactory' too, and quality issues are surfacing too it seems, so I imagine a lot of these customers will decide not to fulfill their orders. In five years time, Musk will be pushing an 'even better' car in all probability.

I am just grateful I have no money invested in Tesla, or indeed any other enterprise subject to Musk's reality distorting field.

 

There's never been a huge demand for a gas car because there's plenty of viable alternatives. If there were 20 viable competitors to Tesla the model 3 would follow the same demand patterns as gas cars.

Also there's a sharp difference between actual demand and holding a reservation. Many industries including the car industry will tell you that certainly not all reservations result in purchase. Hotel, restaurant, Amazon... So many cancellations. I thought I saw 60k reservations of the 3 we cancelled but it was in passing and I don't know if I read it right.

 

I imagine a lot of folk are fed up waiting and have bought something else. The 60,000 figure was announced by Musk in August 2017. I imagine its a lot higher now. (See http://uk.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-3-cancellations-how-many-2017-8 )

Of course, there will be people who have ordered since that announcement so perhaps the net position is a lot better than this figure implies.