Electric cars

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Thanks to 46% increase in S/X deliveries... all of which were built last quarter, but just not delivered.

By just half a percent - 493 cars - from Q4 2018.


5,579 cars per week average for the quarter. They've been doing that rate for nearly a year now - yet that was the original target for late 2017, with 10k/wk seemingly completely forgotten.

Hi

So the record sales have nothing to do with TM3 sales for the quarter being 22.8% higher than the previous record quarter in late 2018?? ... that's over 14k vehicles!

You can't really argue your previously held position that poor TM3 sales figures for Q1 resulted from production & demand issues (despite a number of forum members explaining that it was an expected result of loading the delivery chain!) and also maintain that the record TM3 sales for Q2 was due to initial release of stock from that delivery chain ... at least one of the points you maintain must be incorrect and it's pretty obvious which one that would likely be!

Once a new delivery chain (think of it as a conveyor belt) is loaded then it should remain loaded. As a batch of product enters the extended shipping system another exits, so unless there's an issue that has an adverse effect on the process, Q1 should be seen more as a one-off event for deliveries to a major targetted market (EU) whereas Q2 should be far more representative of future performance ...

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

So the record sales have nothing to do with TM3 sales for the quarter being 22.8% higher than the previous record quarter in late 2018?? ... that's over 14k vehicles!

And S/X sales compared to that quarter?

The sales have moved from, as you said, the high-margin S/X to the low-margin 3 - which simply aren't coming off the line anywhere near as fast as promised.

The Q4 2018 production letter boasted about how the S/X production of 25k was "consistent" with the "long-term" 100k/yr. They built 14.5k S/X in Q2 - annualised, that's just 58k. Add that to the 14.1k S/X in Q1, and we're slightly below that for H1.

As you say, record production. By just half a percent over Q4 2018 - but with a model mix that moved down-market markedly. Q4 was the second of two profitable quarters in a row! Oh, wait. Last quarter alone cancelled out the profit from both of them.

You can't really argue your previously held position that poor TM3 sales figures for Q1 resulted from production & demand issues (despite a number of forum members explaining that it was an expected result of loading the delivery chain!) and also maintain that the record TM3 sales for Q2 was due to initial release of stock from that delivery chain ... at least one of the points you maintain must be incorrect and it's pretty obvious which one that would likely be!

Once a new delivery chain (think of it as a conveyor belt) is loaded then it should remain loaded. As a batch of product enters the extended shipping system another exits, so unless there's an issue that has an adverse effect on the process, Q1 should be seen more as a one-off event for deliveries to a major targetted market (EU) whereas Q2 should be far more representative of future performance ...

I'm looking at production. The major mis-match between built and sold between Q1 and Q2 was S/X, not 3 - as you said, +46% deliveries in S/X, because production outstripped deliveries in Q1, vice-versa in Q2. Model 3 production outstripped deliveries by 12k units in Q1, while deliveries outstripped production by 5k in Q2 - where did the other 7k go, if the supply chain was all "loaded"?

gzoom

AnotherJoe wrote: »

They wont have, there's a model refresh coming which will likely impact Q3 S & X sales as in-the-know buyers wait for the new model.

S/X sales will NEVER hit then numbers seen in 2015/16. The simple reason is price, when Tesla only had S/Xs to sell they had to shift them inorder to drive volume, back in 2015 a base S was £49k, in 2016 base X was £62k, same base cars today are £68k for S and £74k for the X. Bare in mind battery costs have fallen in the last 3 years so in theory S/X prices should be going down not up.

Tesla no longer need S/X to drive volume as Model 3 is now the volume driver and soon the Y will smash the 3 for sales figures.

Tesla simply don't need to chase S/X sales, instead profit margains are more important, reports are Tesla even completely stopped S/X production this quarter to focus on the 3.

With the latest Q2 numbers Tesla seem to have put to bed all rumours on Model 3 demand drop off, quite the opposite. Once the Y hit production its it's going to be carnage for the likes of BMW.

Despite introducing a brand new 3 series in the US this year BMW series sales have fallen dramatically and its only the sales of SUVs keeping the numbers look good.

The Y will be absolutely massive interms of sales, as long as pricing is sensible.

As a family the Y makes much more sense, with the 7 seater option it might even be good enough to replace our X!!

gfplux

AnotherJoe wrote: »

They wont have, there's a model refresh coming which will likely impact Q3 S & X sales as in-the-know buyers wait for the new model.

Interesting. Thanks for the info.
That’s probably why I keep getting emails from Tesla Luxembourg to “buy now, cars in stock”

For info only.
Here in car mad Luxembourg (lots of disposable income) I see one or two Tesla cars almost every day.

gfplux

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Sales last four quarters ... (Delivered, in customer hands & paid for)

Model . Q3 . / . Q4 . / . Q1 . / . Q2
S ...... 14470 / 13500 / 6000 / 8800
X ...... 13190 / 14050 / 6100 / 8850

---

ST(S+X) 27660 / 27550 / 12100 / 17650
3 ......... 55840 / 63150 / 50900 / 77550
===============================
Total .... 83500 / 90700 / 63000 / 95200

So, Q1 X&S sales were about 44% down on last year and Q2 shows an improvement of 46% over Q1 as previously mentioned ...

It's typical for any automotive company to build forward to stock & constrain supply to manage customer expectations whilst still maintaining the effectiveness of their sales & distribution network as a change management strategy, but the correlation of Q1 & Q2 isn't the issue, it's that between H2/18 & H1/19 combined with the apparent release of build forward stock to the market, which suggests that whatever was planned to happen has happened & is pretty much close to completion ...

HTH
Z

Thank you Z,
Does that take account of the totally different distribution methods in the USA as Tesla does not have a huge dealer network with full pipelines.

When you have a huge dealer network you can ship cars from the factory which you claim are sold for them to sit on dealer lots for months. You have a full pipeline great sales figures but the cars are not in the hands of customers.

almillar

My argument is that Renault have been caught napping ... they have been content to be the leader in their home market sector, have likely expected the likes of Tesla to have more delaying issues than they could manage within a given window & have therefore fallen into the usual market sector leadership trap of becoming very complacent, which has allowed their market leading position to be conceded to competitors however anyone looks at it!

If your point is that Tesla, which makes only EVs, is more serious than Renault, and the rest of the 'legacy' manufacturers, about EVs, then I accept that. I've never said otherwise - these manufacturers still have lots of noisy motors to sell, Tesla don't.
If you're saying the Zoe has been unsuccessful, in the context of selling EVs in Europe, I reject that. You even said yourself 'the leader in their own market sector'. I would also point out that even with the Model 3, Tesla still doesn't have a vehicle that competes with the Zoe, so again, I feel the comparison is unfair.

Here's your original argument:

On "Zoe has sold very well for them" ... well that depends on their internal corporate definition of 'very well' ...

What has this got to do with the last 5 months, rather than since launch, in 2013?

They wont have, there's a model refresh coming which will likely impact Q3 S & X sales as in-the-know buyers wait for the new model.

Zoe too!

zeupater

gfplux wrote: »

Thank you Z,
Does that take account of the totally different distribution methods in the USA as Tesla does not have a huge dealer network with full pipelines.

When you have a huge dealer network you can ship cars from the factory which you claim are sold for them to sit on dealer lots for months. You have a full pipeline great sales figures but the cars are not in the hands of customers.

Hi

Agree - Tesla differs from many (/most?) other OEMs in that they only classify a sale as having taken place when the vehicle is in customer hands and paid for as opposed to issuing a notional invoice to parallel the D.Note, which is effectively an exercise to keep distribution chain bean-counters happy because it suits standard 3WM processing etc .... it's also noteworthy to mention that standard forecourt practice in many countries is to provide discounts with an offer to show the actual invoice from the manufacturer: prior to period end retrospective manufacturer account credits of course, and that's why there's so much effort to push sales towards month/period end cut-off dates ...

The current issue that some are having trouble with getting their heads around is that the X&S production lines are probably running at a TACT which is far below that of the newer TM3 and that with model Y on the horizon space will become even more of an issue if the plant isn't going to be substantially expanded .... my guess (and although it's based on huge experience in such things - it is only a guess!) is that Tesla should be looking to push their premium models down a shared line which is running a a TACT closer to the model 3 and therefore free up space for the new model, possibly moving towards fully synchronous supply as opposed to JiT on some of the remaining major outsourced components.

The real point that everyone seems to have missed is that the battery manufacturing process developed by Maxwell is hugely more space efficient, so much that the main cell process could reduce it's footprint by something like 16x ... obviously this raises short-term questions about expansion at the Nevada plant and the available options ... do they leave huge parts of the existing plant empty?, do they massively increase battery production?, or would they look to build cars earlier in the released space? ... maybe the decision to acquire Maxwell has had more of an influence than initially thought by many ... more & cheaper batteries as well as releasing existing asset space to accelerate growth!

Another interesting consideration is the size of the new plant in China ... considerably larger than existing facilities & the planned volumes (for China) are ~200-250k units, rising eventually to around double that? .... I wouldn't be surprised if a million units roll off the lines in that size plant in a few years time, on-site cell manufacture included! .... now that starts to look like a company intending to become a pretty serious market player ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

gfplux wrote: »

When you have a huge dealer network you can ship cars from the factory which you claim are sold for them to sit on dealer lots for months. You have a full pipeline great sales figures but the cars are not in the hands of customers.

I forget what it was, but a while back I watched a documentary on the US car industry and the creation of the dealer network, and its use for shifting factory stock, to factory sales / dealer stock.

zeupater

almillar wrote: »

If your point is that Tesla, which makes only EVs, is more serious than Renault, and the rest of the 'legacy' manufacturers, about EVs, then I accept that. I've never said otherwise - these manufacturers still have lots of noisy motors to sell, Tesla don't.
If you're saying the Zoe has been unsuccessful, in the context of selling EVs in Europe, I reject that. You even said yourself 'the leader in their own market sector'. I would also point out that even with the Model 3, Tesla still doesn't have a vehicle that competes with the Zoe, so again, I feel the comparison is unfair.

Here's your original argument:

What has this got to do with the last 5 months, rather than since launch, in 2013?

Zoe too!

Hi

The history of manufacturing is packed with examples companies that were at the cutting edge of the technology sectors that they operated in and considered that 'we're doing well' was enough to become complacent ...

Whatever your thoughts on Renault and the Zoe in particular, do you really believe that a corporate position of constraining supply by not focussing on expansion is a strategy to maintain a market leading position when there's massive movement in the sector amongst potential competitors elsewhere .... Marconi, Ferranti, ICL, British Steel etc are just some UK corporate examples, but above that there's entire economy sectors such as UK shipbuilding where failure to modernise and offer the customer a product conforming to the standards they wanted, at a price they're willing to pay and within an acceptable lead-time effectively wiped out what had been a hugely successful industry in a very short time ....

So how does this and the fact that an overseas competitor model has outsold it in it's home market over the first 5 months of a year become relevant? ... well it comes down to two numbers ... 18940 vs 22674 ... and the company's lack of ambition since launch is evidenced in the annual figures ...

2012 - 13
2013 - 8774
2014 - 11090
2015 - 18469
2016 - 21240
2017 - 30134
2018 - 37782
2019 - 18940 (5 months)

... a total of below 150k over 8 years! ... now that's 8 years of a potential to develop a global lead squandered ... in comparison, Tesla have sold more M3s in their home market in well under the last 10 months than the Zoe has in Renaults home market over ~8 years as well as outselling the Zoe in the whole of Europe this year ...

As for fair comparison ... if a smaller, cheaper (as in content & price), less technologically advanced vehicle which is suited to a huge market demand sector within Europe can't have sales compared to something that has huge market disadvantages, including EU import duties, is considered 'unfair' just because Renault haven't sufficiently invested in their own future, then I really don't know what would be considered fair ....

.... what is the price difference between the latest Zoe ZE50 with a decent spec & owned battery to that of the nearest equivalent TM3? ... effectively £30-35k(?) vs £42k (both before grants) ... may not exactly be in the same market segments, but the cost to the consumer doesn't reflect the normally expected differential, so I'd expect most looking at this level of expenditure to certainly consider both options for their short-list .... eminently fair for them to do so too ...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the Zoe ... it was a fine idea to look to manufacture it as a nominal 'look - we can do battery cars too' reaction to Tesla releasing the model S, but Renault don't seem to have been very proactive on the investment front since and have simply become complacent .... if they had then the Zoe may have been in a position to have been considered truly successful, but as it is it'll hardly be remembered as being anything approaching even a minor ripple in the pond when what's needed and what's on the way is a huge tsunami if carbon emission targets are to be met within the given timeline!

HTH
Z

AdrianC

The difference, of course, is that the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance aren't just knocking the Zoe out.
Nissan have the Leaf and e-NV200 van.
Renault have the Twizy, Zoe, Kangoo ZE and Master ZE vans, and had the Fluence ZE.
Mitsu have the i-MIEV and Outlander PHEV.

...and that's all on top of the bread-and-butter catalogue of non-EVs... They simply aren't betting the house on one or two models.

Oh, and if we're looking at the chronology and suggesting Renault knocked the Zoe out as some kind of "nominal response" to the Model S, let's not forget a concept was first shown in 2005, the Kangoo ZE was first shown in 2008, and both Kangoo and Fluence ZE were in production in 2011, with the Fluence having BetterPlace compatible battery-swap.

Even then, an electric version of a small car or van was not exactly a novel concept for the French manufacturers - PSA had been selling electric C15s and Berlingos since 1990, together with electric AXs, Saxos and 106s from the 80s. If the Zoe was anything, it was a very belated response to those, albeit one that hit the market when it (and battery technology) was finally starting to become ready for the idea. Gawd alone knows why PSA threw that lead away so badly...