
Electric Mercedes Opens German Assault on Tesla - T-A
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-germany-daimler/electric-mercedes-opens-german-assault-on-tesla-idUSKCN1LJ17Y
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rcMgD2BwE72F
How can reporters be so wrong?

>The market for upscale electric cars is Tesla’s to lose, with sales of its
entry-level Model 3 sedan expected to reach about 50,000 cars this year and
almost double that in 2019.

The company has already exceeded an annual production rate of 210,000 Model 3
(cf. [https://electrek.co/2018/09/02/tesla-misses-
model-3-producti...](https://electrek.co/2018/09/02/tesla-misses-
model-3-production-goal-overall-q3-goal/)). Tesla also expects to build over
7K Model 3s per week by the end of the year, which would be 350,000 units for
2019 (assuming a two week downtime). From the 2018Q2 earning call
([https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193497-tesla-
tsla-q2-2018-...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193497-tesla-
tsla-q2-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single)):

>We're going to try to raise that rate of the Model 3 production steadily in
the coming quarters and try to get to the 10,000 cars a week number as soon as
we can. As we spent a lot of time debugging a wide range of manufacturing
issues that the potential for our existing lines to be able to produce far
more cars is much greater than expected.

Considering their current deliveries, I wonder why Reuters only expect 100K
Model 3 sales in 2019. Are they dishonest or just terribly bad at journalism?

~~~
dagw
_I wonder why Reuters only expect 100K Model 3 sales in 2019._

They made two clear points in the article as to why Model 3 sales might not
meet the most optimistic predictions. The first is that the Model 3 through
most of 2019 will almost certainly be more expensive than first announced and
secondly that the ~$50k electric vehicle market is set to see a lot more
competition. Finally (not mentioned in the article) Tesla does have a history
of missing production targets so it makes sense to discount any number given
in an earning call.

All the being said it would have been nice I've they'd spent half a paragraph
unpacking that number.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Do you expect Tesla to produce less Model 3 in each 2019 quarter than they
have made in the past 3 months?

I understand that people can distrust Musk's goal but expecting Tesla
production to go down significantly from now on is quite a stretch.

Again, they made 28,578 Model 3s in Q2 and will certainly produce 50K in Q3
(the low end of Tesla's most recent predictions).

The 50K for 2018 is proven wrong already. This Reuters number is simply
bullshit or FUD.

The 100K for next years implies that Tesla can't even maintain the production
level they've reach at the end of Q2, even though they've already surpass it.

Something's very wrong in their report and yet, all the mainstream media post
it "as is".

