OEMs – Page 4630 – I wish I had more to offer

GM’s Mary Barra Bets Big on an Electric, Self-Driving Future – BloombergQuint

Sep 19 2019, 2:30 PMSep 20 2019, 10:52 AMSeptember 19 2019, 2:30 PMSeptember 20 2019, 10:52 AM (Bloomberg Businessweek) — The Monday after last Thanksgiving, Mary Barra, chief executive officer of General Motors Co., announced the automaker’s biggest layoff since its 2009 bankruptcy. Five … Go to Source

NIO Inc. Provides Third Quarter 2019 Delivery Update

Delivered 4,799 vehicles in the third quarter 2019, consisting of 4,196 ES6s and 603 ES8s Delivered 2,019 vehicles in September 2019, including 1,726 ES6s and 293 ES8s Cumulative deliveries of ES8 and ES6 reached 23,689 SHANGHAI, China, Oct. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NIO Inc. (“NIO” or the “Company”) (NYSE: NIO),… Continue reading NIO Inc. Provides Third Quarter 2019 Delivery Update

Change at Bugatti – Finance and Procurement under new management

Bugatti is positioning itself for the future. Rico Kreyenberg will head the Finance and IT departments from 1 October. He succeeds Dr. Jörg Mull. Dominique Künzel now heads the Procurement department. Both report directly to Bugatti President Stephan Winkelmann. Dr. Jörg Mull, former Chief Financial Officer at Bugatti, is relocating within the Volkswagen Group. After… Continue reading Change at Bugatti – Finance and Procurement under new management

Tesla Model 3 = 6th Best Selling Car In USA In 3rd Quarter*

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Published on October 6th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Model 3 = 6th Best Selling Car In USA In 3rd Quarter*

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October 6th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

The Tesla Model 3’s #6 position in 3rd quarter US car sales* seems both shockingly high and surprisingly low at the same time. No, this is not a trick — I’m serious.

On the surface, I consider the Model 3’s US sales shockingly high because the car has by far the highest base price of any car in the top 10. The Honda Civic’s base price is $21,650, the Toyota Camry’s base price is $24,295, the Toyota Corolla’s base price is $19,600, the Honda Accord’s base price is $23,870, the Nissan Altima’s base price is $24,100, and the Tesla Model 3’s base price (online) is $38,990. The smallest separation in price there is more than $15,000, and the Model 3 clearly sits in a very different class that’s out of the financial reach of many households.

On the other hand, as I’ve pointed out extensively, in many circumstances the Model 3’s total cost of ownership over just 5 years could be close to or even lower than the Camry’s, Accord’s, etc. What do you get for that similar 5 year cost of ownership? A tremendously better car. The Model 3 has better safety scores (the best in history), has much better tech (infotainment and semi-autonomous driving tech are far ahead of any competitors’ tech, let alone that of these mainstream models), offers a much better driving experience, is much quicker, is cleaner, and genuinely looks like a higher class car (yes, I think that’s an objective judgement). In that light, it’s surprising the Model 3 isn’t yet the top selling car in the country. However, the vast majority of the public doesn’t know about the Model 3, its benefits, or how competitive it can be on a total cost of ownership basis.

With those initial thoughts out of the way, let’s jump to the numbers.

As you can see, my estimate for Tesla Model 3 sales* put it confidently in the 6th position, 8,000 units below the #5 Nissan Altima and more than 30,000 units behind the #4 Honda Accord (about 10,000 units per month lower). It was just 2,500 units above the #7 Hyundai Elantra in the 3rd quarter.

For the full first 9 months of the year, the Model 3 drops to #9. In the 1st quarter of the year, Tesla shipped most of the cars it produced overseas and was suffering from a US sales wave that saw a peak in deliveries at the end of 2018 followed by a crash in the beginning of 2019. Finishing in 9th place in the first three quarters results in the same narrative, though. The result seems both shockingly high and surprisingly low at the same time.

*Tesla reports quarterly sales and does not break them out by country or region. Eventually, we get registration data from Europe, China (educated estimates at least), and Canada and can then make a more solid estimate of US sales for the quarter, as well as monthly sales estimates. However, it’s a bit early for all of that since we don’t have September numbers from most countries yet. Even our data-loving friend and contributor Jose Pontes of EV Volumes didn’t want to venture out too far on a limb and provide an early estimate that he might have to walk back. That said, looking at previous months’ data, September figures from the Netherlands and Norway, and deeper historical data, I feel comfortable estimating Model 3 sales between 40,000 and 50,000 in the US in the third quarter. For this report, I’ve settled on 43,000.

If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3 instead of a Camry, Accord, Civic, or Corolla, and you’d also like to get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging in the process, feel free to use my referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

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Tesla Reached 7,000 Cars Per Week In 3rd Quarter & Nobody Noticed

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Published on October 8th, 2019 |

by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

Tesla Reached 7,000 Cars Per Week In 3rd Quarter & Nobody Noticed

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October 8th, 2019 by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

From the start of Tesla Model 3 production until about a year ago, the most important, nearly daily, Tesla news was about the weekly production numbers. We visited the Bloomberg tracker regularly to stay abreast of the news, and the FUD. And then Tesla started producing over 4,000 vehicles per week regularly and the interest disappeared. Tesla finished the marathon many doubted it could endure for more than a mile, two at the most.

Those were fun times. Tesla reaching 100, 200, 500, and even 1,000/week was an exciting progression of events. Elon Musk teased production numbers on Twitter that were one-time events and some claimed that they could “never” be sustained at a steady production level. The monthly sales number guesstimates on InsideEVs and Tesla’s quarterly delivery disclosures were preceded and followed by heated speculation.

As a somewhat more detailed reminder of what happened, Tesla designed a futuristic 5,000 unit/week production line, only to discover that humans were greatly undervalued and that line had to be redesigned while slowly ramping the production numbers. There was the plan to build a second 5,000 unit/week line when more vehicles were needed.

However, when redesigning the line, optimizing and tuning all the steps, Tesla realized that it would be less costly to enhance the line to higher throughput numbers than to build a second line. To be precise, upgrading to 7,000 units/week would be possible with small enhancements and a little capex. Upgrading to 10,000 units/week would require serious investments. The 7,000 unit/week option was really a no-brainer. The 10,000 unit/week option was a possibility that probably never reached the status of plan, let alone stimulating any actual planning.

When building Gigafactory 3 (GF3) in Shanghai became reality, all talks of 10,000 units/week in Fremont were forgotten (except by some foolhardy trolls).

In those days, Musk and some other figures with a grasp of production tried to explain what 41.6 cars/hour or 1,000 cars/day or 7,000 cars/week represents. Many did simple arrhythmic and proclaimed production of 360,000 or even 365,000 per year.

While 24 x 41.67 indeed equals 1,000, there is never a day when there is no slowing down or stopping of the line. To get to 1,000 cars/day, you have to get to a steady 47/hour. There are always bathroom, coffee, breakage, accident, repair, and other interruptions. For the same reason, you need 1,100 to 1,150 cars/day to reach a 7,000 cars/week. Or, at least, something like that. Jerome Guillen, Tesla’s president of automotive, knows the exact number.

That coveted 7,000 cars/week will not result in 91,000 vehicles/quarter. That is 80,000 at the most. A rule of thumb of 11½ weeks per quarter is often used in planning.

In a production environment, there are always production disturbances, accidents, needed repairs, maintenance, upgrades, alterations, etc., besides the holidays and other valid reasons to close the factory for a day or so longer.

Such issues happened a lot in the disastrous first quarter of this year. They happened at a normal rate in the third quarter, and they will happen in each quarter in the future.

But with a total of 79,837 Tesla Model 3 vehicles produced in the last quarter, we now know that the steady 7,000 unit/week total for a whole quarter has been reached. The most remarkable thing about this achievement is that it was not noted by all those people who were so focused on this number a year ago. It was a non-event, as it should be with a normal carmaker.

About the Author

Maarten Vinkhuyzen Grumpy old man. The best thing I did with my life was raising two kids. Only finished primary education, but when you don’t go to school, you have lots of time to read. I switched from accounting to software development and ended my career as system integrator and architect. My 2007 boss got two electric Lotus Elise cars to show policymakers the future direction of energy and transportation. And I have been looking to replace my diesel cars with electric vehicles ever since.

And putting my money where my mouth is, I have bought Tesla shares. Intend to keep them until I can trade them for a Tesla car.

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Ford Starts Production of Puma Crossover – 1 of 8 Electrified Vehicles Coming to Market in Europe This Year

First new Ford Pumas roll off the production line at Ford’s Craiova manufacturing facility 48-volt mild-hybrid Ford Puma is the first hybrid vehicle ever produced in Romania; follows approximately €200 million manufacturing investment by Ford Innovative Puma with class-leading uncompromised load space and comfort features is one of eight new electrified models to be introduced… Continue reading Ford Starts Production of Puma Crossover – 1 of 8 Electrified Vehicles Coming to Market in Europe This Year

VDL Nedcar to scrap 700 flexible jobs as demand for cars shrinks

A production line at the Nedcar car plant in 2015
Car maker VDL Nedcar is to scrap 700 jobs currently done by people on staffing agency contracts, the Telegraaf has reported.
The market for new cars is shrinking and the company no longer expects to need hundreds of temporary workers, the paper said. The jobs will be phased out in the final two months of the year, although some workers may be transferred to different locations.
After the cuts, there will be just 400 people on agency contracts at the Born car plant in Limburg, out of a total workforce of 4,800.
VDL Nedcar is the only independent car manufacturer in the Netherlands and has been building models for BMW since mid 2014.
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The gathering of the chosen

10/08/2019 They came from all over Australia, driving or trucking their near-new 911s to the spectacular Australian circuit known simply as “The Bend”. These weren’t just any owners, nor just any 911s. These were the select few who have secured examples of the ultimate road-going 911, the latest GT2 RS. When Porsche Cars Australia decided… Continue reading The gathering of the chosen

Porsche Consulting: Transforming Barilla

1. All information offered on Porsche Newsroom, including but not limited to, texts, images, audio and video documents, are subject to copyright or other legislation for the protection of intellectual property. They are intended exclusively for use by journalists as a source for their own media reporting and are not intended for commercial use, in… Continue reading Porsche Consulting: Transforming Barilla

Toyota to Unveil New Model “Granace” in Japan

Oct. 08, 2019

Toyota to Unveil New Model “Granace” in JapanNew full-size wagon set for release in 2019 provides a high-quality, comfortable interior space