Ars Technica has a story titled: "
Panasonic stops investing in Tesla Gigafactories as sales slump" https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/0...esting-in-tesla-gigafactories-as-sales-slump/ "...the growth didn't happen as Tesla's sales slumped. Although the company sells more EVs than any other OEM, its deliveries for Q1 2019 were significantly lower than the previous three months. For Panasonic, that's a real problem;...."
This is additional evidence that all is not going smoothly for Tesla. Just a reminder, car and light truck sales in the USA dropped from 16.2 million in 2007 to just 10.4 million in 2009. GM declared bankruptcy on June 1, 2009. Tesla has weathered its toughest period which was last summer. However, it is still not quite out of the "woods".
Rarely have I ever seen the news media put such an extreme negative spin on great news!
The headline should be: "Panasonic Reaches 100% of Goal for 35 MWh of Production Capacity at Gigafactory 1, ahead of Schedule". Instead, the shockingly negative spin is "Panasonic stops investing in Tesla Gigafactories as sales slump".
I mean really, we have come to expect this absurdist, wildly distorted view of Tesla's ongoing growth and achievements from professional Tesla stock manipulators and Big Oil shills, but we don't expect it from Ars Technica!
Let's have some facts and a serious reality check here, hmmm?
1. The original plan was for Gigafactory 1 to reach a level of 35 MWh of battery cell production, and an additional 15 MWh of battery packs using cells from other sources, by 2020. Panasonic has reached its 2020 goal in 2019! That's well ahead of schedule, and I'd call that a solid success. Wouldn't you, gentle reader?
2. Tesla's so-called "sales slump" was partially due to an entirely predictable result of the annual winter slump in automotive sales -- which Tesla isn't immune to. In fact, Tesla's global 2019 Q1 sales (63,000) are up 110% (that is, more than twice as many) over 2018 Q1 sales (29,980), so where is the "slump"?
3. In Q1 2019, Tesla had a one-time change in distribution for the Model 3. With Tesla now shipping a large percentage of its Model 3's overseas, it's absolutely inevitable that many of them would be "caught in transit" to distant ports when the time for end-of-quarter accounting happened. But now those "pipelines" of overseas shipments are filled, so there shouldn't be a repeat of that hit to sales in future quarters.
Why would anyone claim that there is anything unexpected, or bad, about the entirely predictable drop in Tesla's sales? What's the purpose of trying to spin that as a bad sign? Is the media really attempting to support the absurd Tesla basher claims of "collapsing demand" for the Model 3?
Regarding Tesla having more cars now in overseas transit, and thus a lower percentage of cars sold, as compared to previous quarters: This is like observing that 3 - 1 = 2... and whining about the fact that the answer isn't 3! Well, duh.
I'm shocked and saddened to see InsideEVs News jump on this bandwagon of FUD with the headline "
Tesla Gigafactory Expansion Reportedly Frozen Temporarily."
Very sad. I expect better from InsideEVs journalists and contributors!
