Featured Despite price cuts, Tesla is making more cars than it can sell

wishful thinking?
Maybe someone will buy a Tesla voodoo doll for you & you can stick lots of pins in it

 

That's still bad news as a customer. In reality if my car got totalled (hopefully not with me or anyone in the family in it) I don't think I could even buy a replacement car at this point. I've never been able to afford a new car, much less a used one for over MSRP.

Obviously compared to a Tesla I deffinitely wouldn't be buying one of those.

 

IMO, you are over thinking this. Tesla Q1 sales are about 36% higher than last year. They now have 3 days more inventory. As they grow total sales they are expanding into more countries and locations within those countries. This probably means that they need more transport ships and/or more car carrier trucks. Certainly this is at least a little bit more difficult than when they had a huge percentage of sales very close to their only factory (in Fremont CA) and lots of customers picked up their cars within a couple of days of it being made.
Where to they get all those trucks and ships from? They certainly don't want to over estimate what they need, so it is logical that getting more cars to more places is going to take longer than before.
I would expect that we will see the inventory go to 20 and 25 days in future years as the total number of cars and countries goes up.
Inventory in transit is not a sign of low demand.
Cars sitting for many days/weeks in regional lots or near shipping ports is a demand issue.

Mike

 

All the car companies stocks were down today, not just Tesla. Financing costs making people more cautious about big purchases.

Inflation and a tight labor market is having some interesting effects. Just got my yearly house insurance quote today and was staggered at the replacement cost they are using. Of course replacement cost includes total demolition and rebuilding but up 20%+ in a year. Yet in my neighborhood, new houses are going up almost weekly. And new subdivisions get zoned, annexed, approved every 2 weeks.

 

Are the year-long waitlists because the Primes are selling well, or because Toyota isn’t making many?

Edit*******************
I did some digging. Last year was a miserable year of sales for the Prime in the USA.
Per https://topelectricsuv.com/news/toyota/2023-toyota-prius-prime-phev/

I agree a large part of the first quarter sales slide could simply be the Osborne affect.

End Edit**************

What percentage of car owners live in apartments? I believe people who don’t own cars are most likely apartment dwellers. Regardless, until the family home owner market is saturated, I don’t see anything to slow down the growth.

As for being overcome, if I were moving into an apartment, I would only move into one that had chargers available. Yes, there are some available today, without government rebates, and there will be more in the future.

 

Son had a Prime and loved it until a truck lost a ladder and he had to run over it in traffic at 65 MPH. Totaled. Struggling to find another or similar.

 

Ya, if I needed a car right away it probably would't be a Prime nor a Tesla. I rent, there's no one renting that has places to charge cars and I don't understand how to buy a house in my area. I mean, I qualify for affordably housing for purchase, but for some weird reason things are set up for about 50% of income to go towards a mortgage ($55,000 income cap to qualify for a nearly $300,000 home)!

A Nissan Versa is about $15,000 cheaper than a Prime and comes with a standard transmission. That might be my next car with the way things are going.

 

I'm in a predicament where my rent is quite a bit cheaper than a mortgage, at least until the old lady dies. Whoever takes over next will likely raise the rent. The cheapest mortgage I can get in a 70 mile radius that's liveable is $2,000 per month. And that's on a condo with a lot of strings attached, like not being able to resell it for a certain amount of years (8 I do believe) and limits on how much it can appreciate in value over the next several years. After that, the cheapest homes in the area are at least half a million dollars.

Back to where I'm renting, the old lady won't even let me install a satellite TV dish. I doubt she'd be interested in an EV charger of some sort.

The good news is I don't need a car right now as the Avalon works ok except the stupid infotainment/HVAC center that I need to get repaired again so I can at least have heat and A/C. But while I dream of my next car being an EV or at a PHEV, I have serious doubts I'd be able to pull it off financially even if I had a place to charge it. A Bolt is going to be like $620 per month vs. a Nissan Versa being about $390 per month. Althought that's not factoring in any money I could potentially get from suddenly losing the Avalon. If by chance I got some $10,000 for the Avalon then the Bolt would make sense as long as I could figure out where to charge it.

Another note, I kind of wonder if having a hybrid really is helping me. I'm averaging around 35 mpg yearly in the Avalon, mainly because of the long winters here and short distances I drive. From December through all of March it seems that the engine never shuts off in the Avalon, ever, and the battery stays constantly at the same level (two bars from the top). Obviously there are 8 other months that the hybrid system does turn off the engine and such.

 

Let me reiterate, satellite dishes, TV antennas, bird feeders, wind chimes, etc.

 

Every day on my way to work and back, I pass by what Tesla calls their staging area. For a few months now, the place would be jam packed for a couple of days and then suddenly they're all gone. That lasts for a day, then it's packed again. Now if they're not selling, where are they going?

About a mile and a half from the staging area, they have their store/repair facility. I pass by there once in a while and I don't see new ones piled up around the place and I know they don't have them at their stores, 'cause there can't be as much room to put them as I see them at the staging facility. I would imagine the cars are flying out the doors as fast as they prep them. A day doesn't go by that I don't see 6-8 of them on the road. I know someone at the repair facility, so I'll ask the next time I see him.

 

Which is another reason I hope nothing ever happens to the Avalon, it's my amateur radio station, HF and all.

We'll see about the living situation if the price ever goes up here. If it blows out of proportion I'd probably move us to a different state after telling my employer that if they don't provide a house they're losing an employee, although I do keep thinking about those condos for sale from the government. Still, that would put useable monthly income after housing down to $2,000 or less for our family of 4. Good thing we don't have any debt.

 

So I guess the portions of the U.S. with no cable service, little to no terrestrial broadcast, and little to no terrestrial internet, are just supposed to do without TV altogether? Well, except for VHS cassettes from Blockbuster Video and DVDs from Netflix.

For some of the places I'm thinking of, the dish cannot be an eyesore to you without trespassing.

 

Yes. Described here.

 

But not quoting black paint would not be skewing your cost perception of as adequately, so yea that makes sense.

several of the new home communities in South Orange County have plugin car chargers as well as PV solar installed while being built. The contractor told us it's 500 bucks extra for the charger install. Might be time to move? it'd be a double benefit .... cheaper way to get an EVSE & lower crime rate area means your catalytic converter is less likely to be stolen
..... a win-win.

Prius sales have diminisheded over the decades long manufacturing cycle - so isn't it more likely that Toyota is just cutting back on Prius production because it's no longer as popular as it was - years ago?
Rav4 plug-in is certainly popular - as sedans are going away in the USA. Isn't the plug-in RAV4 in short supply (also) because Toyota failed to secure enough of a battery supply chain?

Once somebody pulls statistics out of their sphincter - it makes everything they espouse dubious.

How Many Homeowners Are There In The U.S.? 51+ Statistics!

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