Mobility – Page 7140 – I wish I had more to offer

Uber and Lyft are betting on self-driving cars to become profitable. But that may not happen, new research from MIT suggests. (UBER, LYFT)

Uber and Lyft lose a lot of money. Combined, the ride-hailing firms lost some $3.8 billion in 2019 alone, according to the companies’ IPO filings. Most investors, and many Wall Street analysts, are pinning the premise of ever turning a profit on self-driving cars. After all, paying drivers is a massive expense that could be… Continue reading Uber and Lyft are betting on self-driving cars to become profitable. But that may not happen, new research from MIT suggests. (UBER, LYFT)

Waymo is bringing its self-driving trucks back to Arizona

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company under Alphabet, is bringing its self-driving trucks back to Arizona. The company’s autonomous Chrysler Pacifica hybrid vehicles, which are used in its Waymo One ride-hailing service, are a common sight on public streets in Chandler and other suburbs of Phoenix. But its self-driving Class 8 big rig trucks haven’t been… Continue reading Waymo is bringing its self-driving trucks back to Arizona

FCA, Renault face tall odds delivering on cost-cutting promises in merger

FRANKFURT/DETROIT (Reuters) – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Renault SA promise huge savings from a mega-merger, but such combinations face tall odds because of the industry’s long product cycles and problems translating deal blueprints into real world success, industry veterans told Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) sign is seen at the U.S.… Continue reading FCA, Renault face tall odds delivering on cost-cutting promises in merger

Audi Opens 1.9 MWh Second-Life Battery Energy Storage In Berlin

The new 1.9 MWh ESS will be used to compensate fluctuations in the grid, counteract local peak demand and help prevent blackouts. Audi is preparing for the utilization of old electric car batteries in energy storage (second-life use) through a series of pilot installations. The latest one launched in EUREF Campus in Berlin, Germany is… Continue reading Audi Opens 1.9 MWh Second-Life Battery Energy Storage In Berlin

A Year of Carbon Neutral Lyft Rides

A year ago, we became one of the world’s largest purchasers of carbon offsets, and made all Lyft rides carbon neutral. And last September, we took it a step further and committed to full carbon neutrality. Since April 2018, we’ve effectively eliminated the amount of carbon that it would take 2.4 million acres of trees… Continue reading A Year of Carbon Neutral Lyft Rides

Tesla Order Rate Surges 25% Worldwide, 116% In North America, According To New Data

Invest
Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Autonomous Vehicles

Published on May 29th, 2019 |

by Michael Grinshpun

Tesla Order Rate Surges 25% Worldwide, 116% In North America, According To New Data

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

May 29th, 2019 by Michael Grinshpun

While the financial media and analysts continue to question Tesla’s demand on the basis of one unusually “bad” quarter, quarterly data and internal Tesla emails show worldwide order rates are actually up 25% in Q2 versus Q1. Meanwhile, a crowdsourced Tesla order tracker shows US and Canada Model 3 orders are up 116% versus Q1, and website traffic and interest data show that interest in Tesla’s vehicles is higher than in the past.

These data points are especially significant as the stock hits 3-year lows mostly due to speculation about soft demand, resulting in the stock price divorcing from reality for a company whose demand is actually very healthy. Many powerful and influential actors stand to profit from the declining stock price, which directly affects Tesla’s employees’ compensation and Tesla’s ability to raise capital to fund its vision of a sustainable future.

The worldwide order data for the second quarter comes from Elon Musk’s recently leaked internal email, in which he told employees that Tesla has over 50,000 new orders net of cancellations from April 1–May 21. This represents an order rate of about 980 cars per day for all three models (S/3/X) worldwide. This number was underreported in the news about Tesla, partially because it doesn’t fit with analysts and media commentators claiming soft demand, and partially because the number isn’t directly comparable to any other number.

However, it is possible to estimate Tesla’s orders for previous quarters simply due to the way it reports its production and deliveries.

Tesla reports how many cars were delivered and how many were in transit to customers. Cars in transit are defined as ordered cars that have been built and are currently being shipped to a customer. In most recent quarters, Tesla builds the bulk of its cars at the same time or even before the car is ordered, and then assigns the car to a buyer after it leaves the factory. That means that one could calculate the orders in a particular quarter by starting with deliveries in that quarter (in order for a car to be delivered, it must be ordered), and subtracting in-transit cars from the previous quarter (in-transit means the car was already ordered last quarter), and then adding back the in-transit cars from the quarter of interest (which had to have been ordered in that quarter). Finally, we divide by the number of days in the quarter to see the daily order rate.

For example, in Q1, Tesla entered the quarter with 2,907 cars in transit from Q4, delivered 63,000 cars, and had 10,600 cars in transit to customers at the end of the quarter. This implies 70,693 orders in the first quarter over 90 days, or 785 orders per day.

With 980 orders per day in Q2 so far, according to the leaked internal email, that is a 25% increase over the 785 order per day rate in Q1. This methodology for calculating orders is adopted from twitter user @vgrinshpun.

I would note that this methodology will be flawed and actually overestimate orders for quarters in which Tesla started with a significant backlog of orders (a backlog implies some cars have been ordered but not yet built and therefore not captured in the in-transit numbers). However, Q1 2019 is not such a quarter since there was virtually no backlog from the fourth quarter when Tesla pulled out all the stops to deliver as many vehicles worldwide as possible, including in the largest market, the US, before the first step in the tax credit phaseout. It is also discernible from the short wait times for Tesla’s cars that there has not been significant backlog this year. Q4 2018 and Q3 2018 might have had significant backlogs at the beginning of the quarters, so it is likely that this methodology will overstate the number of orders in the quarter, which in fact makes the Q2 order number look even stronger when comparing to those quarters.

There is even more evidence for significantly increased orders in the second quarter versus the first for US and Canada, according to a crowdsourced spreadsheet that tracks orders and deliveries and samples around 1% of all orders per quarter. It is worth noting that participation rates in this spreadsheet decline over time, so the underlying order rate might be the same between two quarters even when the spreadsheet shows a decline in the orders. Despite this slight flaw that makes order rates in more recent quarters appear lower than previous quarters, average daily order rates in Q2 are up 116% versus Q1 in the US and Canada.

Finally, the last piece of data that corroborates Tesla’s increasing demand story is the increasing website traffic, website engagement, website time spent, and overall search interest data from Alexa.com and Google Trends. Discussions of this have been published on both CleanTechnica and Seeking Alpha.

Tesla.com ranking relative to other websites.

“Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.”

All the available data points to increasing demand for Tesla’s cars, not softening demand as financial media and some analysts often suggest. The takeaway from this is that financial media and analysts often speculate and do not necessarily update their speculations when hard data comes out, leaving everyone else to do their own homework or wait until official data is released to come to conclusions. Another side effect is that Tesla’s stock keeps falling due to speculation about soft demand when the reality is the opposite. Most people would call this an opportunity.

About the Author

Michael Grinshpun Michael Grinshpun is a dual undergraduate and graduate student in economics. He writes about the electric car industry and works on sustainable energy issues. He works on Carbon Free Boston, an initiative to lower Boston’s carbon emissions to zero by 2050, as well as on water utility projects. Previously, Michael has worked in solar consulting and energy facilities.

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.

CleanTechnica Clothing & Cups

Uber will start deactivating riders with low ratings

Uber is now requiring the same good behavior from riders that it has long expected from its drivers. Uber riders have always had ratings, but they were never really at risk of deactivation — until now. Starting today, riders in the U.S. and Canada are now at risk of deactivation if their rating falls significantly… Continue reading Uber will start deactivating riders with low ratings

Daimler Trucks establishes global organization for highly automated driving

Daimler Trucks brings together global expertise and activities for trucks with automated driving in the Autonomous Technology Group, effective June 1, 2019 Peter Vaughan Schmidt to head the Autonomous Technology Group New unit to implement Daimler Trucks’ effort to put highly automated trucks (SAE level 4) onto the roads within a decade, investing more than… Continue reading Daimler Trucks establishes global organization for highly automated driving

05/29/2019From tap to tank—MAHLE makes water injection suitable for everyday use

From tap to tank—MAHLE makes water injection suitable for everyday use

Stuttgart/Germany, May 29, 2019 – Water injection in a gasoline engine protects components at high engine speeds and loads by preventing mixture enrichment and reduces pollutant emissions in partial-load operation. Existing systems use a water tank that must be regularly refilled with de-ionized water. To facilitate this refilling process for the driver, MAHLE is developing a combination of activated carbon filter and ion exchanger. This treatment module allows the dedicated tank in the vehicle to be filled with tap water, which is then treated on board for injection in the engine.

Home

Press

Press releases

Press release [PDF; 38 KB]Press picture [JPG; 47 KB] Components from MAHLE make it possible to use tap water for engines with water injectionCombination of activated carbon filter and ion exchanger yields compact design and long life cyclesThe compact design means the treatment module can be installed at various locations in the vehicle. It can also be integrated in the infeed to the tank, but this has disadvantages in terms of the contact time between the tap water and the filter and ion exchange medium during the filling process. Inline installation as a bypass of the water pump or in the tank, or as an inline element upstream of the injectors, has proven to be promising. The latter variant, in particular, has palpable benefits in terms of costs and serviceability.
The concept of filling the tank with tap water presents tough requirements, especially considering local markets, as water quality and composition vary greatly around the world. MAHLE benefits from its global expertise in the areas of filtration and engine technology and incorporates the results of regional tests in the development. As part of the ongoing tests, MAHLE is also investigating the treatment of water that is obtained on board during vehicle operation. Water sources include the air conditioning system and the exhaust gas flow, which has a water content of about 13 percent for stoichiometric combustion.
About MAHLEMAHLE is a leading international development partner and supplier to the automotive industry as well as a pioneer for the mobility of the future. The MAHLE Group is committed to making transportation more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and more comfortable by continuously optimizing the combustion engine, driving forward the use of alternative fuels, and laying the foundation for the worldwide introduction of e-mobility. The group’s product portfolio addresses all the crucial issues relating to the powertrain and air conditioning technology—both for drives with combustion engines and for e-mobility. MAHLE products are fitted in at least every second vehicle worldwide. Components and systems from MAHLE are also used off the road—in stationary applications, for mobile machinery, rail transport, as well as marine applications.
In 2018, the group generated sales of approximately EUR 12.6 billion with more than 79,000 employees and is represented in more than 30 countries with 160 production locations. At 16 major research and development centers in Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Spain, Slovenia, the USA, Brazil, Japan, China, and India, more than 6,100 development engineers and technicians are working on innovative solutions for the mobility of the future.
For further information, contact:MAHLE GmbH
Christopher Rimmele
Corporate Communications/Public Relations
Pragstraße 26–46
70376 Stuttgart/Germany
Phone: +49 711 501-12374
Fax: +49 711 501-13700
christopher.rimmele@mahle.com

In brief: Toyota mulls $550m investment in China’s Didi

The report added that Toyota was also looking to launch a new mobility services company in China. Go to Source