Tesla Motors Inc. fell in extended trading after the electric-car maker backed off its full-year vehicle sales forecast.
Tesla said it now aims to deliver 50,000 to 55,000 vehicles this year, compared with a previous target of 55,000. The company sees third-quarter production and deliveries of just more than 12,000 vehicles including just a few Model X sport utility vehicles.
Reaching the initial target may be a stretch because some interior suppliers might not be able to increase the flow of high-quality parts fast enough to meet the Model X production plan, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on a conference call with analysts. Because the SUV and the existing Model S share the same assembly line, a shortfall by one Model X supplier could slow output of both vehicles.
All is not wine and roses at Tesla, despite the glowing press they receive.
Original Submission
Related Stories
A rally in Tesla shares [...] briefly vaulted the company's market capitalization past the German luxury carmaker in early Friday trading. The amount of ground Tesla covered was vast: BMW was valued at a $30 billion premium as of early December.
[...] Short interest represented about one fourth of the shares as of the latest quarterly filing.
According to The Drive the three most valuable auto makers are "Toyota, Daimler, and Volkswagen."
Tesla stock sat at $357.32 after market close after trading as high as $376.87 on Friday.
—Silicon Valley Business Journal
related stories:
Tear-Down/Reviews on new BMW i3 Electric Car
BMW X3 May be Emitting a Greater Amount of Poisonous Gases than VW
Electric, Autonomous Cars Will Drive BMW's Continued Growth
BMW Boosts i3 Battery Capacity by 50 Percent—and it's Retrofitable
VW Responds to Diesel Scandal, Says "the Future is Electric"
Bob Lutz Thinks Tesla is Doomed
One in Seven New BMWs Sold in the US is an Electric Vehicle
Elon Musk's "Top Secret Tesla Masterplan, Part 2"
Elon Musk's Tesla Offers to Buy Elon Musk's SolarCity, Shares Tumble
Wall Street Values Tesla Motors at $620,000 for Every Car Delivered Last Year
Tesla Soars on Financials and Ratings
Tesla Stock Price Falls as Sales Target Cut to as Few as 50,000 Vehicles
Tesla Reaches 325,000 Preorders for Model 3, But Can It Deliver?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @07:13PM
"All is not wine and roses at Tesla, despite the glowing press they receive."
This is how you KNOW you're not reading serious journalism.
(Score: 5, Informative) by tibman on Friday August 07 2015, @07:24PM
Especially when the "glowing press" is for technical achievements, not fat production pipelines.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @08:27PM
Agreed, problems with suppliers due to being unable to keep up with demand for "high quality parts" appears to be a problem of being victims of one's success.
Perhaps all would be roses if the florists could keep up with their orders.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 07 2015, @07:38PM
Wine and roses are for faggots, I prefer briar patches and turpentine. Hair on my balls, hair on my balls, I got hair on my chest and hair on my balls.
Oh fuck oh fuck nooooooooo I forgot to check "Post Anonymously!" No, please please don't post this! They can't know who I really am!!!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DECbot on Friday August 07 2015, @07:34PM
This is merely speculation on my part, but I think some of the issue is the new Model X production line will not be ready to fulfill 2015 sales orders by the end of the year. Buy your stock now, because this is about a low as it's going to be for a while. They're looking at building 1000 Model X and 1000 Model S per week when the line is finished. Lowing the target by 5,000 units to me equates to 5 weeks behind on the Model X line. Five weeks delay is a very realistic number as they made very aggressive timelines for the new line with minimal cushion for engineering, delivery, and procurement delays.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday August 07 2015, @10:18PM
Also, keep in mind that Tesla constantly has a $20+ dollar price fluctuations. It just so happened that this announcement occurred during the stock price downswing. The stock is acting as normal, but it just so happens that Tesla is announcing lower delivery rates for 2015.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 08 2015, @12:34AM
I tend to agree any price drop is temporary.
I can see model S getting sidelined by a deluge of model X orders in the near future.
Disclaimer: I did buy some stock a while ago when it was around $120. My only worry is that they get too committed to their particular battery chemistry, to the point they are left holding the bag when something else comes along. (fuel cells or whatever).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DECbot on Saturday August 08 2015, @01:29AM
I don't think that should be a big concern. Yes the giga-factory is dependent upon the chemistry but not the car. The battery is designed to be replaceable in 5 to 10 minutes at a 'gas' station, so as long as the new technology can fit in the current battery tray there shouldn't really be any issue at all.
*No, the batteries aren't replaced at service centers now but in the future Musk does envision that they would be exchanged when drivers are on long trips, paying only a service charge for labor and the cost of the energy stored into the cell. That's why his solar business and battery businesses are so important. Also why the battery tech is open source.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rich on Friday August 07 2015, @08:04PM
Elon Musk himself probably would not even care if angry investors throw him out of his company for lack of rising stock and dividends - as long as the company manages to make electric cars a commodity.
Look at the "lunar roving vehicle", a dune buggy that cost $38M in then-dollars. He doesn't want to spend that sum each four vehicles that lack all creature comforts. He'll have a nice car with all luxuries for 1/1000 the price in today-dollars. To get these, it was just easier for him to disrupt the entire car industry to the point where E-cars become a reliable commodity. After that, he wouldn't even need his Mars cars to be Teslas.
Of course, he'd need some other stuff to be a hip martian. Like, for example, space ships, or solar power plants. Man, if he'd actually open a spaceship factory, too, and a business for solar power plants, his plan might actually work. With that scope, who cares for stock prices. :)
(Score: 2, Informative) by jmorris on Friday August 07 2015, @08:15PM
Lets look at this thing rationally. Tesla Motors has half of the market cap of Ford and yet that original 55K sales figure is something Ford would cancel the production line over, any product selling such low numbers would be deemed a loser. So Tesla is 'priced to perfection' in that idiots have bought the marketing hype around Tesla and are convinced they 'are the future' and the slightest hint of trouble is going to cause huge gyrations in stock prices because they aren't grounded on anything tangible, instead almost purely faith based. Faith is fickle.
Assume electric cars are the future. Assume it even if reason throws up a multitude of reasons to doubt the end result and certainly the optimistic time frame people bought into Tesla based on. Why do you think Ford (And Toyota, GM, etc.) won't be the ones selling them? Building them isn't the hard part anymore, regulatory compliance is. Who has invested multiple generations buying Congressmen and their Sons who follow them into office? Hint: It ain't Tesla. Who has generations of experience building relationships in the DOT, EPA and the rest of the regulatory alphabet soup? Hint: It ain't Tesla. In a capitalist system an argument would be plausible that Tesla could 'disrupt' an existing market and overthrow the established order. That never happens under Fascism. The auto industry is crony capitalism, fascism, whatever you want to call it at it's worst. It can't be allowed to fail. They are all pension systems that finance themselves by building cars and getting government bailouts.
Best case scenario for Tesla is that it just gets bought up to get the patent portfolio at some point.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday August 07 2015, @09:37PM
Why would anyone buy them for the patent portfolio? They open sourced the whole shooting match . . .
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @10:42PM
> Building them isn't the hard part anymore
Gee, it is nice to be able to just make up bullshit that confirms your biases. Makes the world so much less complicated!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 08 2015, @12:29AM
Big companies have trouble adjusting to sharp market dislocations. If your reasoning were sound, Kodak would have owned the imaging market forever. They were huge, venerable, owned about a million patents, had bought off everyone who was worth buying off. But digital cameras and later smartphones w/ cameras came along and the rest is history, as are they.
My brother works at Ford. I hear stories about Ford inside baseball all the time. Mulally tried really hard to push Ford into hybrids and EVs. Ford ICE (that's Internal Combustion Engine) middle-management and its culture were so entrenched, that he's gone while they remain.
Tesla's challenge is to ramp up production. That's what the Giga Factory is about. But as for the EV, Tesla groks it down to the ground. No other car manufacturer does, not even Nissan.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @01:06AM
I'm convinced jmorris is not a real person, just a shill from the Heartland Institute that occasionally wanders over to this site and posts the company line...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @01:18AM
Just caught this news item-- http://www.ocregister.com/articles/volt-676257-car-model.html [ocregister.com]
While the lead is about Chevy Volt, two paragraphs down is an announcement of $1000 referrals for Teslas. Is Elon really selling all they can make? If so, why would he put cash on the hood?
Tesla introduces new customer referral incentives: Are you a current Tesla owner? Do you have at least 10 friends with deep pockets and an interest in owning a “super car”? You’re in luck. Tesla has launched a program which offers Tesla owners an incentive for referring friends who purchase the automaker’s electric luxury sedans. Anyone who orders a Tesla Model S before Oct. 31 using a referral from a current owner will receive a $1,000 discount off of the purchase price. In return, the current owner will get a $1,000 discount that can be applied to a new car, service center visit or accessory. Even better, the first person in each sales region to refer at least 10 people who buy a Model S will receive a fully loaded Model X for free. If you get beaten to the punch and still refer 10 buyers, you will receive a Founder Series Model X for the price of a base-level Model X, roughly a $25,000 savings. The Founder Series Model X will not be available to the public.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @02:03AM
It could be that they're trying to get more customers on the books if having a slightly higher future demand would justify turning an out-sourced component into an in-sourced/in-house thing, or simply to allow a greater investment into production lines.