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Last week Monday VW opened up its pre-orders list for the ID.3, its first all-electric car built on its MEB platform. A week later, and 37,000 customers have put €1000 [~1,176 USD] in advance already.
There are a couple of reasons for the apparent enthusiasm. First the range, going from an official 330 km [~200 mi] (45kWh battery) standard range over 420 km [~250 mi] (58kWh) medium to 550 km [~330 mi] (77kWh) for the long range battery. Practical range is estimated at 260, 330 and 430 km. [~156, ~200, and ~260 mi],
Second the price. The standard version comes in at €21,000 [~24,700 USD] in Germany (€30,000 [~35,300 USD] list price, €9,000 [~10,600 USD] subsidy). Medium range has a list price of €36,000 [~42,300 USD], for the maximum range the price is not yet known, but below €50,000 [~58,800 USD].
The car is rear-wheel driven by an 150kW motor, with top speed limited at 160 km/h [~100 mph]. Torque is 310Nm, delivering 0-60 kph [~37 mph] in 3.7 seconds (1st version; the standard version 9 seconds).
No talk about autonomous driving though: only lane assist and adaptive cruise control are provided.
Delivery of the car starts in September. There are no plans to bring the ID.3 to the US. Volkswagen said it is on track to deliver 70,000 ID.3's by year's end, and an additional 30,000 upcoming ID.4 SUVs along with that. Tesla, in contrast, sold more than 90,000 of its cars last quarter alone.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:43PM (8 children)
Tesla just reported 4 straight profitable quarters, which means they'll be included in the S&P 500. Mutual fund managers and pension funds will then need to buy Tesla stock to add them to their portfolios; some estimates say they'll need to buy up to $100 billion of Tesla shares to accomplish that. In other words, Tesla is about to get a large cash infusion they can use to dramatically ramp up their production.
Tesla erected its factory in Shanghai in record time. They announced a week ago they're moving production from California to outside Austin, Texas, and drone footage shows they've already cleared and leveled the site. It's plausible they will be able to use any new cash to ramp up production quickly.
That, and several other dimensions like the race for full self-driving, make them a real disruptive threat for the automotive industry. VW, Ford (which debuted its EV Mustang this week), and other ICE manufacturers seem to be taking that threat seriously now. Time will tell if they are responding in time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @04:16PM (3 children)
> In other words, Tesla is about to get a large cash infusion they can use to dramatically ramp up their production.
Do you know that Tesla is issuing new stock? Normally stock is bought from existing shareholders and traded around, that doesn't generate any new cash for the company.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:46PM (2 children)
That has not been announced yet. Sometimes the fund managers will buy stock that's already out there, which obviously means good things for current shareholders. Sometimes a company will do a secondary offering in the situation when the available pool of shares is not large enough; in that case, it dilutes the ownership that current shareholders have but funnels a large amount of cash directly to the company that they can then use to ramp up production, boost quality, and many other things that increase the overall value of the company (and, accordingly, the value of previously issued shares).
In the same earnings call a few days ago they also teased new battery tech, self-driving upgrades, car insurance whose premiums move with your driving habits in real time, and the profitability of their energy storage (Powerwall) unit. Those are parallel disruptions compared to the straight up transition from ICE-to-EV that VW and Ford (and others) are working on now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:10PM (1 child)
"car insurance whose premiums move with your driving habits in real time"
You really think that's a good idea? Cause i think it's really fucked up. I can imagine the sheep with a $ gauge in the dashboard fucking up actual traffic for everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:18PM
Good for some bad for others. For the latter, feel free to go with traditional insurers. There are already insurers out there that periodically adjust based on your macro driving habits, i.e. they look at your mileage to attest that yea you don't as much as normal and reduce your premiums. This just takes it to whole new level - not for the big-brother-allergic crowd.
Its interesting they're venturing into a new revenue sector. I'd think that would be a big piece of data point for investors more than the usual we got better battery, boot space, mileage incremental announcements
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:47PM (3 children)
Need to [buy Tesla stock] or can? I can imagine the large boys like Calpers and others would be kind of hesitating to dive, nose-forward, into TSLA stock.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday July 28 2020, @09:35PM (2 children)
If they are running an ETF or other fund that specifically tracks S&P500, they will need to buy it. If they're less explicitly following that, then they have some discretion.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @11:54AM (1 child)
That's my point: big investors will not simply use an index fund -- they're the ones paying for analysis, picking and choosing specific investments.
In January, Tesla (then at $641 per share) traded at about 43 times its estimated earnings next year, while GM traded at 5.3 times; at the same time, Tesla's global sales were only 3 percent of those of GM and Ford combined. (source: Financial Times, Tesla’s stock price streak leaves analysts struggling to keep up, Jan 31)
On July 17, Tesla shares traded at $1790 per share. Shares in General Motors, which has its own electric vehicles, traded at less than 10 times earnings. Based on first quarter earnings per share of $1.24, Tesla traded at more than 1,200 times earnings. (source: Financial Times, Lessons from Tesla’s remarkable market run, July 17)
That should give some pause for thought, if you're a common sense investor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @04:16PM
Remember that a.) the market is not rational and b.) stock value is, in theory, based on future profit growth potential. General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota are consistently profitable but their profits are largely stable. Tesla is set to work like Amazon, reinvesting profits into growth for a long stretch and then growing profits.
Now the silly bit is that even with impressive profit growth, I don't expect Tesla profitability to match Toyota or GM for ten years or longer. But maybe I'm wrong, and between their hot-selling electric cars and their home battery and home solar systems they are poised for meteoric growth.