Will Tesla Sales Plummet In 2019 With Loss Of Tax Credit & Backlog Filled?
Tesla won’t see its sales plummet in 2019. Quite the opposite. It’s very easy to see that demand will only increase in the USA and globally through 2019.
Tesla won’t see its sales plummet in 2019. Quite the opposite. It’s very easy to see that demand will only increase in the USA and globally through 2019.
Tesla is in an interesting position. Hundreds of thousands of people put down reservations for a Model 3, perhaps 100,000 of them (or not quite) have now gotten their cars, and hundreds of thousands are still waiting. Many of those people are overseas, but plenty are surely still in the United States. Who are they? Are they going to order? If not, are they ever going to ask for a refund?
As you may have heard, one of my questions for Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the last Tesla conference call concerned Tesla Model Y. Elon had previously tweeted that they’d unveil the Model Y on March 15. Given how the Model 3 reservations turned out (I’ll get to that in a moment), I was curious if Tesla was planning a significant departure from that with the Model Y.
It’s easy to get hoodwinked by recent reports surrounding Tesla. Is Elon Musk really in dire straits based on such an abundance of negative Tesla press? Motley Fool’s Daniel Sparks argues that, while there “are items that might look like good reasons to be skeptical … one facet of Tesla’s business investors shouldn’t be concerned about is Model 3 demand.” To that end, Sparks lays out “seven reasons investors shouldn’t worry about demand for Model 3.”
In a wide ranging interview with Gayle King of CBS News, Elon Musk talked about Model 3 production, sleeping at the factory, and regulations on social media. See the video for a first-hand look at the Model 3 production line.
Those sounds you heard a few days ago were a collective sigh of relief from many automakers and electric vehicle advocates when the US Congress passed new tax legislation that also kept the federal electric vehicle tax credit intact — a tax credit of up to $7,500 for any US taxpayers who buy a new electric vehicle*.
In day’s world, one man’s experience is now another’s, and another’s. Here’s another glance into the EV that is a sign of the times. Remember those long lines to reserve a Model 3? Those weren’t employees in line — they got to reserve earlier in quiet. Those would become the first Model 3 owners who weren’t Tesla/SpaceX employees, huge investors, or close company friends. Now, those customers are starting to reserve their Tesla Model 3 orders.
Here it is — the Model 3.
There have now been multiple claims that Tesla staff members are telling Tesla customers that Tesla is sending out Model 3 configuration invites to batches of 5,000 at a time. If that’s true, it seems that 5,000 email invitations were sent in the past few days, 5,000 were sent approximately a week before that, and 5,000 were sent around November 21–22, going by crowdsourced information in this Google Sheet.
The first Tesla Model X that I got to drive was an early Model X from a regular CleanTechnica reader who drove it from Northern California to Southern California when I was there for the first Tesla Model 3 reveal. He put in an early reservation for a Model 3 too, and he just got his invite to configure a few hours ago.
More interesting is what a Tesla employee told him on the phone after he got the invite. The Tesla staff member told him that invites were going out in batches of 5,000.
There’s been some hype this week that Tesla Model 3 production may finally be ramping up. The reason? A bunch of Tesla Model 3 customer cars were spotted at the factory ready for delivery. But there’s still plenty of reason to stay in your seat and hold the cheers for a future month.