dspp wrote:BobbyD wrote:dspp wrote:1. The Taycan is I believe selling at about 50% of the rate that Porsche planned for, only 20k, not the 40k they were hoping for.
The Taycan's ultimate capacity was supposed to be 20,000pa, which was raised in response to demand to 40,000pa. In the same way if memory serves the e-tron was planned to peak at 30,000 vehicles a year, but posted 50,000 this year.
Extra staff have been sequestered from Audi to help with the ramp up which was never going to occur overnight and was a process which wasn't helped by having to shutter the factory for 6 weeks... I believe if this was a Tesla the phrase you would use would be supply constrained.
dspp wrote:2. The ID3 software load was only production-ready late-Nov, when (AFAIK) they went round them all doing a manual reload. Until then there is gossip that they were waiving lease payments.
It's not gossip, I told you this some while back. VW doesn't charge for features it hasn't delivered, unlike some FSD hawking electric car manufacturers I could mention...
dspp wrote:3. Personally what I am mostly paying attention to is manufacturing capacity, most importantly at cell level as evidenced in aggregate company global sales data.
I hadn't noticed! We look for different things. Personally I think your focus is too narrow, too short termist and too easily assuaged with available data. It's almost as if our different outlooks ought to lead us to back different companies!
dspp wrote:4. And of course, the biggest missing number - the VAG BEV %GM ...
I'm perpetually amused by your obsession with that figure given your unwavering belief in a company which posted 16 years of straight losses!
So on the one hand I am being criticised for looking at all the numbers I can gain access to re all manufacturers; on the other hand I am criticised for only looking at the numbers I can get; and on the left foot I am criticised for asking about the key missing number wrt VAG because it is not being disclosed to shareholders (even though TSLA report it) and so we have no idea how much money VAG has lost on BEVs. I expect the right foot is ticking me off simultaneously for taking both a short term view and a long term view. Funny old world isn't it.
regards, dspp
Long response lost due to being logged out whilst taking in a food delivery, and I've not got long to recreate it.
Gist: I'm not criticising you I'm expressing a difference of opinion, and an opinion on where those differences originate.
Your claim about the Taycan is technically correct, but you are comparing first year production numbers to an increased peak delivery target which isn't a valid comparison. Porsche are failing to hit a target they weren't aiming for. They've discovered twice as much demand for 'the car which would nev er sell a unit because it is slower than the model 3 and costs 3 times as much' as anticipated, and drafted in extra staff from Audi to help continue the ramp up beyond the original peak target which they hit in the first year despite Covid.
To see this as a failure requires quite some effort.
VW delayed acceptance of payment on some thousands of cars for 3 months. It's not financially significant in the greater scheme of things, but good for customer relations and increasing the sense of trust in the new ID.brand. Very non-Tesla I grant you, but as usual I see that as a positive.
All the data available to us is all the data any of us can look at, but a paucity of data reduces the precision and confidence of the analysis performed on it, it doesn't increase the power of the data we do have. You choose to focus on a very narrow easily quantifiable portion of recent history and the near future. In an immature market with so much still to be revealed and so much more to be achieved I don't see value in those numbers as predictors of long term success.
In an absence of most of the 'data' you choose to extrapolate from what little publicly available data there is, I choose to extrapolate from known core competencies. You favour today's battery king over a pack of followers. I favour a company which delivers what more consumers want to buy to market at a price they are willing to pay than anybody else based on an unrivalled ability to engineer scalable platforms which lend themselves to efficient mass production and model segmentation, coupled with intelligent investments in third parties and a research capacity which is on a level with anybody out there over a company which shares your obsession with manufacturing capacity with a blithe disregard to adding any flavours beyond Strawberry or Chocolate except possibly Strawberrier and double chocolate.
Whatever happens your figures will be out of date in a few years, company cultures are remarkably resilient. Battery supply and battery demand will both change significantly. Predictions based on them will be adjusted, redone, and brushed under the carpet. VW will likely still be banging out popular models across the market with boring regularity. It wouldn't surprise me if Tesla were still only selling 2 models in reasonable volume. The irony is that the company which announces new models is Tesla, the company which delivers them is VW. When people say that tesla isn't a car company, I think they have a point...
You aren't going to get VAG BEV %GM, no matter how often you bring it up. I'm happy without it. If you aren't then obviously VW isn't the company for you. Tesla do a lot of things VW don't, generally I think this reflects well on VW, as above and as here.
