2014 Q4 Earnings Report and Conference Call

[Paul Carter]

Just want to throw this out there: "we entered 2015with over 10,000 orders for Model S andalmost 20,000 reservations for Model X."

So we can officially lop off about 4-5k from the Model X tally and that 10k number should also help us in sorting out the weird price disparity on the deposits number.

But, that 10k number does say that Q1 is officially sold out

Just posted this on the tally: Say lop off 4,143:

How about 19,500 out of 23,643? That's 17.52% cancellations. However, that still doesn't account of double reservations (some people have both a signature and production slot). I wonder if they adjusted for that already, but how would they know that they didn't purposely reserved two!

 

[SteveG3]

Really sounds like the 55k is a sandbagged number since they really don't know how quickly they will be able to ramp the Model X.

you say sandbagged, I say, they learned lesson of calling it as they see it with 35K this year, and silly flood of articles when taken to 33K and now delivering 31K and change.

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He didn't say options he said FEATURES

I was responding to the comments wondering how people would configure their car if they don't know their choices.

 

[AlMc]

you say sandbagged, I say, they learned lesson of calling it as they see it with 35K this year, and silly flood of articles when taken to 33K and now delivering 31K and change.

Exactly. Give guidance for production/delivery that you 'know' you can meet, and probably beat. Excellent CC by EM/JB, et. al.. Now, they need to deliver on the guidance. If they do all will be well with TM and TSLA. EM indicated previously, and hopefully they have all learned from the Q3 retooling and Q4 D issues, that ramping up will be their biggest challenge to realizing their mission statement.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

I was responding to the comments wondering how people would configure their car if they don't know their choices.

Because it could be a standard feature, say for instance the second row seats swivel, that they don't reveal until the first cars land in customer's hands.

Doesn't impact the options someone locks in months before.

Seeing as Tesla has four times as many reservations for the Model X than they can fulfill this year, it makes sense to hold off on revealing even more things that could spur additional demand until as long as possible.

 

[sundaymorning]

I really don't think this would be a good idea, nor would it necessarily add much demand. We already have owners selling cars, but they're doing it because they want to, not because they're being compensated. This would just turn owners into sleazy car dealers. Not beneficial to anything. And it would cost Tesla money. That doesn't help either.

Also note that Tesla doesn't give commissions to salespeople per se. And certainly not a thousand dollars.

Not only do I not think this is it, I truly hope this is not it.

How about paying the dealers' salesman for every customer he/she refers to Tesla that translate into a reservation. Double the sleeze!!

 

[jhm]

Have a secret weapon they will deploy later this year for demand. Wonder what that is????

"Turn two...the rest is food."

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this is probably a stupid question, but would Tesla be able to sell me a home battery storage system, that could store 50 or so kWh, charge it overnight during offpeak and then use it as a power source during onpeak?

I think this is the idea. Plus, for people with solar, they could charge during the day and use the power later. They basically have this with DemandLogic already.

What I think would be really cool is the ability to do high speed DC charging to your car. So it charges for hours, then you plug in your car and bam its done in minutes. It would be like a mini Supercharger station in your own home, apartment complex or other destination.

 

[Bobbyducati]

What I think would be really cool is the ability to do high speed DC charging to your car. So it charges for hours, then you plug in your car and bam its done in minutes. It would be like a mini Supercharger station in your own home, apartment complex or other destination.

holy #$@% that would be amazing!

 

[DJ Frustration]

Has anyone done a recap of the 4Q Conference Call for this who missed it?

 

[breser]

Has anyone done a recap of the 4Q Conference Call for this who missed it?

[Live Update and Discussion Thread] Tesla Motors Q4 2014 Earnings : teslamotors

 

[jkirkebo]

"next month or two" for unveiling of the home grid storage system.

Hopefully they will make it off-grid compatible too. There are many off-gridders wanting to get rid of lead acid batteries.

 

[InTheShadows]

"Turn two...the rest is food."

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I think this is the idea. Plus, for people with solar, they could charge during the day and use the power later. They basically have this with DemandLogic already.

What I think would be really cool is the ability to do high speed DC charging to your car. So it charges for hours, then you plug in your car and bam its done in minutes. It would be like a mini Supercharger station in your own home, apartment complex or other destination.

This type of technology already exists. It's called "peak shaving", no reason it couldn't be implemented with Tesla's storage units, probably even customized by the customer.

If net metering laws are ever overturned every solar owner in the state will be flocking for these devices.

I would like to see a straight solar to car charge controller, dc.

 

[maoing]

+1. Q4 ER is very close to many folks expected. Disappointing Q4 financial results (actually miss bigger than most people think especially EPS) with conservative 2015 guidance (especially Q1 guidance). It sets expectation low for the beginning and bodes well for a good growth trajectory especially for stock price.

Exactly. Give guidance for production/delivery that you 'know' you can meet, and probably beat. Excellent CC by EM/JB, et. al.. Now, they need to deliver on the guidance. If they do all will be well with TM and TSLA. EM indicated previously, and hopefully they have all learned from the Q3 retooling and Q4 D issues, that ramping up will be their biggest challenge to realizing their mission statement.

 

[chickensevil]

you say sandbagged, I say, they learned lesson of calling it as they see it with 35K this year, and silly flood of articles when taken to 33K and now delivering 31K and change.

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I was responding to the comments wondering how people would configure their car if they don't know their choices.

Sorry, didn't mean that to sound negative. Yes, it makes sense to guide for deliveries you know you can make instead of being too optimistic. Elon acknowledged this is one of his big weaknesses and he is working on it. I think that is why they are holding their guns on 55k for this year.

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Just posted this on the tally: Say lop off 4,143:

That's a fair number I think. He did say slightly under 20k. I wouldn't think it would be a huge number of people holding dual reservations. In an absolute worst case I would put that at 1k but that feel like way too high a number. So I think starting now at your 19k number and adding to that as new reservations get reported would be a solid way forward to keeping tabs on it. I am sure we will have another final wave of drop outs when the final product is revealed and the piper comes around wanting paid. But I think most who wanted to cancel will have already done so now that there shouldn't be anymore major delays and the option for an AWD MS is out there.

 

[ecarfan]

He didn't say options he said FEATURES

Exactly. I think Elon meant that the X will come STANDARD with some very cool features that no one outside of Tesla has seen.

Of course the Tesla Motors X order web page will soon be up so people can configure their car how they want it. But the unannounced cool new features won't be revealed on the order page until the first car is delivered.

 

[Causalien]

So far, haven't seen any negative publications. Anyone found any? Did the 10k ModelS and 20k modelX reservation scared reporters away? (I thought Tesla is fully sold out for 2015)

 

[yobigd20]

So far, haven't seen any negative publications. Anyone found any? Did the 10k ModelS and 20k modelX reservation scared reporters away? (I thought Tesla is fully sold out for 2015)

Yea...those numbers were way lower than I expected. If that statement is in fact true then that means they don't plan on building more than 20k model X's this year.

 

[MravecSK]

Hi Slovakia is missing there, there was about 10 Model S sold in 2014.

I had thrown together an initial spreadsheet of each country, their 2014 sales, and then their stores, service centers, and supercharger counts for Europe. I took the time to expand that based on the rough estimates made here and elsewhere on the sales breakdowns for the other parts of the world. For China, because of the way Tesla has it listed on their website "Find Us" page, Hong Kong got thrown in with China.

Finally the "effectiveness" column (which is what really spawned me to do this in the first place) was just a simple division of Tesla "exposure" to the country versus their number of sales. So 17 would mean that per 1 piece of Tesla presence they are generating 17 sales a year. Some countries are more favorable to EVs with incentives which skews their numbers higher, I have no good way of measuring that impact. I also mentioned it in the EU outlook thread that it might be better to weight say a store with a value of 3, a service center a value of 2, and a supercharger with a value of 1 or .5 to get a better feeling for how effective/non-effective Tesla is for a region/country/whatever. But I thought it was an interesting concept and worth sharing.

If we can come up with a good weighting system for sales vs exposure it might help with calculating the future effectiveness of other Models in the region, and at what point a region might turn a profit for Tesla. For example the Model 3 would probably come in at a 3:1 ratio easily compared to the Model S.

So without further ado, here is the sheet:

View attachment 71305

PS: I threw this here since it was no longer fitting for the EU thread, but don't know if maybe this discussion would be better suited in a different thread once this moves beyond the Q4 and or 2014 discussion.

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And looking over the chart... there must be an error on the number of Superchargers... so I appologise for that. It is probably an issue with how I got the country data from the Find Us page... that or there are about 10 more locations that have come online that isn't reported on the Supercharger page or the third party site Supercharge.info

 

[snellenr]

So far, haven't seen any negative publications. Anyone found any? Did the 10k ModelS and 20k modelX reservation scared reporters away? (I thought Tesla is fully sold out for 2015)

Wall Street Journal article (paywalled) last night: was running with this headline:

"Tesla’s Loss Widens as Deliveries Fall Short"

Tesla’s Loss Widens as Deliveries Fall Short - WSJ

 

[mibaro2]

So far, haven't seen any negative publications. Anyone found any? Did the 10k ModelS and 20k modelX reservation scared reporters away? (I thought Tesla is fully sold out for 2015)

WSJ reporting an-opening-for-bmw-as-tesla-fails

 

[pGo]

It is interesting to note that Elon went from Adventurous to not so for Model 3 in a few weeks time frame. I also felt that there will be a derivative (higher end with adventurous features) of Model 3 later. What do people make of this?