Production rate theory

[sean-techventures]

Wait - are you really trying to compare Tesla with a company founded in 1916? lol

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[mark555055c]

Yes, now, without using an AI crutch let's break that down a bit further.

i3 was BMWs very first production electric car.

CT is Tesla's fifth production vehicle.

CT has some technologies like four wheel steering, a rolling tonneau cover, heavy bent steel panels and massive unicast pieces that they CHOSE to use.

Tesla is also a relatively small manufacturer domestically compared to the big three as well as all of the imports manufactured here.

When orders go into parts suppliers Tesla is pretty small potatoes compared to say Ford.

i guess i agree? . I guess the point is production is what it is, and all relative. It cant be simply said that it is slow, or they are slower than any other vehicle company.

 

[canyoncarver]

i guess i agree? . I guess the point is production is what it is, and all relative. It cant be simply said that it is slow, or they are slower than any other vehicle company.

The entire point I was making which seemed to have sailed over people's heads is that Musk has been taunting Rivian including about their "low" production numbers, while it appears that Tesla will struggle to make more than a tiny number of CTs this calendar year.

 

[mark555055c]

The entire point I was making which seemed to have sailed over people's heads is that Musk has been taunting Rivian including about their "low" production numbers, while it appears that Tesla will struggle to make more than a tiny number of CTs this calendar year.

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[Wraven]

Elon Musk mocked Rivian for only delivering 57K vehicles in 2023 while Tesla is struggling to produce 1K CTs a month even though production technically started 60 days ago.

At this point it will be remarkable if Tesla can deliver 15K trucks for all of 2024.

Despite 10 years of experience Tesla continues to struggle with production ramp more than other automakers.

Which other automakers are working with stainless steel body panels and an entirely new process for vehicle manufacturing you are comparing this data too? If you want to compare apples to apples look at how fast the Model Y ramped in comparison to other manufactures. The CT is a unique manufacturing process.

 

[evnow]

Elon Musk mocked Rivian for only delivering 57K vehicles in 2023 while Tesla is struggling to produce 1K CTs a month even though production technically started 60 days ago.

Not a useful comparison. Rivian has money till end of next year ... and is bleeding a lot.

Rivian started production in Oct-21. So, they are in their 28th month of ramping / production of R1 vehicles. Tesla is in the 3rd month of production. If in Mar-2026 Tesla is producing only 5k CTs a month, I think your comparison would be valid.

 

[ChristoN]

Every time VAG or BMW or Mercedes launch an entirely new platform for a Sedan or SUV they are producing 100s of thousands of units globally in the first year of production.

I mean, this isn't even something we should be arguing about.

Even if we are talking completely new never before seen vehicle types (which the CT really is not) they have ramped faster. BMW produced something like 8K i3 in the very first limited production year and that was out of Leipzig as a side project.

I own a decent amount of stock in Tesla but they have face planted on production ramp over and over and over again.

The CT is an entirely different vehicle. Tesla had to invent the machine that bends the stainless steel. Further, none of the other manufacturers are using the same batteries (4680), steer by wire, or a 48 volt architecture. The castings are also made in a matter different than the other manufacturers. Name one other company using a 6000/8000 ton giga press? Those techniques are entirely new to the industry.

Tesla made several other models before the cybertruck started production, can’t compare that to Rivian where they are losing 30k on each vehicle produced and heading towards bankruptcy.

legacy auto has taken pre existing vehicles and made them electric. None of them have been from the ground up with the exception of the i3, but that was using carbon fiber for the chassis, not aluminum, which BMW was getting from SGL group if my memory is correct. Again, totally new manufacture techniques that will ramp very very quickly.

Despite this looking slow, I bet they are still going to make a profit on each CT when compared to Rivian and all the other manufacturers which have stated that they are losing money on each car.

 

[greggertruck]

Elon Musk mocked Rivian for only delivering 57K vehicles in 2023 while Tesla is struggling to produce 1K CTs a month even though production technically started 60 days ago.

Rivian has had the R1 line in production for 2 years.

I would not be surprised if Tesla delivers about 30k Cybertrucks this year. Maybe more. Maybe less.

But, they are delivering about 2 million other vehicles too.

 

[agordon117]

I have to say, this is not the discussion that I thought was going to happen in this thread, lol.

Also, to compare month 3 production numbers of cybertruck with year 3 production numbers of rivian is kind of weird. My current guess is that tesla is at a rate of 21,000 cybertrucks per year if they maintain exactly the current rate. Now, we already lost Jan and Feb at lower production rates, but if they double what they are doing now, the yearly run rate will be 42,000. And if they do that within the next few months, that's 30,000 in the first year no sweat. And if they don't stop there, it's not a stretch to imagine they reach 60,000. I don't know or care what the actual number of trucks produced this year will be, I was just bored of looking at my absent vin number, and did some counting and basic math starting from a few assumptions.

 

[canyoncarver]

I have to say, this is not the discussion that I thought was going to happen in this thread, lol.

Also, to compare month 3 production numbers of cybertruck with year 3 production numbers of rivian is kind of weird. My current guess is that tesla is at a rate of 21,000 cybertrucks per year if they maintain exactly the current rate. Now, we already lost Jan and Feb at lower production rates, but if they double what they are doing now, the yearly run rate will be 42,000. And if they do that within the next few months, that's 30,000 in the first year no sweat. And if they don't stop there, it's not a stretch to imagine they reach 60,000. I don't know or care what the actual number of trucks produced this year will be, I was just bored of looking at my absent vin number, and did some counting and basic math starting from a few assumptions.

Except I'm not comparing production numbers from Rivian right now with what Tesla is getting out of CT production right now.

I'm comparing 2023 production numbers when Rivian had only been in production for a short time with where Tesla is with CT right now.

If it takes Tesla 12-18 months to ramp that would be normal for them and what I expect, I just don't think Musk should be mocking the Rivian team who have done an amazing job for a company that produced their first vehicles less than 3 years ago.

I do know that once Tesla gets all the bottlenecks worked out, hires more people, etc, they will be product 100K a year CTs but I think that's a couple of years out.

 

[agordon117]

I'm comparing 2023 production numbers when Rivian had only been in production for a short time...

Rivian began deliveries of R1T in october of 2021. So 2023 is the second full year of production

 

[canyoncarver]

No, 2023 is the first full year of production and 2024 is the first full year of CT production.

I'm done with arguing with you guys about this.

Two things can simultaneously be true.

Tesla can be an amazingly innovative company pushing the envelope with their products and also simultaneously face-plant on every single production ramp of every single product they have released to date.

 

[clarkbariowa]

I was just watching the Out of Spec delivery video and Kyle said that Cyberbeast start at VIN 000 and Dual motor start around 550.

 

[Cybertruck Dude]

So I posted this in another thread, and did a bit more work on it since. Someone had posted that their delivery center told them 875 trucks had been delivered when we only had record of between 100 and 150 trucks. So I settled on a ratio of 1:8 for all future assumptions in this post. It seems to be close to reality. It will obviously vary day by day, and my data is not complete. Feel free to disagree with any of my assumptions, tell me I'm wrong, etc. I just figured this was more productive than checking for my vin 20 more times today, and thought maybe people would find this interesting. Before I start the theory, here are important things to note:

1: @cgladue has been doing a fantastic job compiling the data that we have on this forum. However, through no fault of his, vins assigned per day are less accurate the closer you get to the present day. I have been keeping a running list of vins assigned per day, and had to update the last 7-10 days of it because the numbers had been updated. This is caused by owners not reporting here immediately when they get their vin. For example, only 3 owners have reported a VIN assigned on 3/7, I am guesing that will be closer to 6 or 7 by this time next week. So the more recent the data is, the less accurate it is.

2: Another reason that the more recent vin assignments do not match the 1:8 assumption as closely with the outbound lot numbers, is because they have been shipping the line skipper trucks, meaning that the vin assignments are skewed away from people on this forum artificially. This is most clear the first couple of days of this month, where the shipments far exceeded the estimate. This is combined with point #1 to cause the disparity on shipments vs known vin assignments.

3: We have a VIN assignment of 22xx on 2/22, and one of 24xx on 2/28. As of 3/8, the first known 34xx vin has been assigned. Vins are assigned out of order, but these numbers all line up as plausible. If we see a later 34xx assignment, or earlier 22xx assignment, that will make my numbers work out as well as 22xx on 2/22 and 24xx on 2/28 do.

4: I have gone through and manually counted the outbound lot in the flyover videos. There are no flyovers on sunday, so my data is incomplete. I did my best, but they have not made perfect passes over the lot for me to be able to count the trucks on both sides with the same level of certainty each day. I may be off a couple of trucks in either direction.

5: I'm mostly focused on the data starting the week of 2/19. Prior to that, the outbound lot was new/in a different location, and the logistics have clearly changed.

The theory:
The number of trucks seen in the outbound lot during the flyover each morning very closely represents the number of trucks that leave the factory each day. If you want to know the output of trucks on a given day, watch a flyover, count the trucks there, and you'll be very close to the actual number of outbound trucks on that day.

We had previously thought that the outbound lot was just showing a snapshot in time, and that trucks were constantly being sent to outbound throughout the day. But my chart below shows strong correlation between the extrapolated number of vins assigned per day, and the number of trucks shipped one or two days later.

This also seems to take the 1:8 ratio of orders vs people on this forum, and make it very plausible. Everyone has had their own assumptions about how many people are reporting here vs the total population of orders, and this is the closest thing we have to real data about that

Date:	Vins assigned and reported here:	Extrapolated Vins per day	Number in outbound during flyover
2/16/24	1	8
2/17/24	1	8
2/18/24	3	24
2/19/24	2	16	12
2/20/24	6	48	19
2/21/24	6	48	22
2/22/24	5	40	16
2/23/24	5	40	46
2/24/24	2	16	42
2/25/24	3	24
2/26/24	4	32	23
2/27/24	6	48	31
2/28/24	5	40	41
2/29/24	3	24	46
3/1/24	3	24	45
3/2/24	3	24	55
3/3/24	1	8
3/4/24	5	40	48
3/5/24	4	32	59
3/6/24	4	32	49
3/7/24	3	24	27
3/8/24	3	24	27
Total		624	608

As you can see, the total values for the snapshot here of extrapolated vins vs number in outbound during flyover match almost perfectly. I don't want to massage the data too much to make my point, but you also have to note that the vins assigned are likely 1-3 days before the trucks go to the outbound lot. So if I excluded the numbers on either end where the trucks haven't been shipped yet, the number of shipped trucks would properly exceed the 1:8 assumption, based on points 1 and 2 above.


Sorry for the long read, hopefully someone besides me found this interesting.

How many of them are beasts vs reg cybertrucks?

 

[agordon117]

How many of them are beasts vs reg cybertrucks?

Wouldn't have any way to know honestly, though it seems the last few days that we are seeing more beasts.

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