Train said:
People who reserved the car in December are being emailed that their car will be ready in Feb or Mar. Hmmm. They've delivered about 3000 or more cars by now I'd think. 18,000 or so reservationists...let's see... I'm thinking that at least 30% (or more) are not going past the deposit stage and requesting a refund.
The interesting number isn't the current fraction of "reservationists" that drop out, it is the number of new reservations. That is looking pretty good right now. As the car becomes more of a known item and as the delivery time gets shorter, I'd expect that that fewer of the reservations will be refunded. The first people that ordered do so fairly blindly. Was there even a price? The car was basically an idea. When the reality comes, you might not be as dreamy.
Now that you can go see one, test drive one, ride in the neighbor's one, it is more known. And think about it. Putting money down for a car that will not be delivered for 2 years is a lot different than if the backlog was 2 days. In first case, you have two years to change your mind, lose your job, marry or divorce, buy a house, have a kid, all those reasons why you might change your mind on an expensive car. Two days or even two months, on the other hand, isn't a lot of time.
To make a profit, Tesla Motors needs to make and sell some number of cars per year. This number isn't static, but will vary as things change, such as the cost of building cars, the prices Tesla can charge, the mix of lower end vs higher end cars. To be a viable long term company, this profit needs to be large enough to fund continuing development of new products. I've heard various estimates of the number of cars they need to sell per year, perhaps 20,000 per year is a reasonable guess. Six months ago there were about 10,000 reservations. Now there is about 18,500, and Tesla has delivered over three thousand cars. Looks to me like they are close to that 20k per year rate, even if some percentage drop out.
The drop out rate isn't easy to estimate. First, the deliveries to date have been the high end of the cars. I personally would expect the drop out rate for the lower end of the cars to be higher. No way to tell until Tesla starts to deliver on the lower end cars. Second, when your reservation hits the top of the stack, you get contacted. As I understand it, a reservation holder can defer (take a later delivery date) once, or can downgrade to a lower end car (not yet being delivered). Even if these numbers were exactly known, it wouldn't be clear how many of these delays and deferrals will be drop outs. Only time will tell. And as I discussed above, I'd expect that the reservation drop out rate will decline.
I do not intend to get a Model S, have not reserved any Tesla car, and do not own any Tesla Motors stock.
