Progress toward a solution ?

Tesla provides the following information on production of Model 3:

– In the last seven working days of the [4th] quarter, we made 793 Model 3’s
– in the last few days, we hit a production rate on each of our manufacturing lines that extrapolates to over 1,000 Model 3’s per week
– we made as many Model 3’s since December 9th as we did in the more than four months of Model 3 production up to that point
– we expect to have a slightly more gradual ramp through Q1, likely ending the quarter at a weekly rate of about 2,500 Model 3 vehicles.
– we intend to achieve the 5,000 per week milestone by the end of Q2.

Production targets as revised on November 1st will not be held, far from it. Instead of 5000 weekly units at the end of march 2018, Tesla now expects to achieve only half of that throughput by the end of 1st quarter. The 5000 weekly units target, already postponed from December 2017 to March 2018 two months ago, is delayed again by another 3 months till the beginning of summer 2018. The most concerning pattern is that this elusive goal does not seem any closer as Tesla works through production issues.

Further insights on the nature of production bottlenecks, whether related to battery pack automated assembly at the Gigafactory in Nevada, to vehicle assembly in the Fremont bay area factory or to third party suppliers, will probably be provided at the time of 4th quarter and full year earnings release. Until then, the only certainty is that the half million holders of Model 3 reservations will have to be patient. The only good news in this release is the moderate increase of Model S and Model X deliveries by 9.2% over the previous quarter. Will these news continue to justify the stratospheric valuation of TSLA stock on the NASDAQ ?

Links

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