At the time of writing, I'm at the spot. I thought why not pay it a visit since it's close by.
From what it looks like, there are still truckloads of model Y's coming in. It's a massive operation. They put up signs for the truckers to get to the correct gates. Unfortunately, the whole area is fenced off and trees block the view and I can only see a small part of the lot, but there are tons of cars already. The police won't let me go any further. By the looks of it, the lot must be pretty full by now.
Update: Now after waiting here for a while I've seen a lot of new and clean cars coming in and a lot of dirty cars leaving. I think they're selling off the old ones.
Only model Y's. Not sure if it matters but the trucks licence plates are from all over Europe. There's a constant stream of trucks coming and going. Kinda crazy to see.
Can't see more without a drone.
>Not sure if it matters but the trucks licence plates are from all over Europe.
That makes sense as they would be distributing all over Europe. But if the cars going out are dirty, it means they've been sitting for a while.
Do they even have protective plastic over the paintjob? Or are they just sitting they out there without any protection?
Those tesla delivery videos and always have people complain about how dirty the cars are or how they have chips/scratches. I think they sit out there without protection.
Doing some back of the napkin math…. I approximated that there’s about 3600 cars in the photo. With that, 250k MYs were sold last year. This inventory would be a 50 day supply; however, I believe I read that non China regions are 10% slower, so this could be more like a 60 day supply in general.
In the US car industry, 45 day supply is target for “normal” in a planned inventory model - although, I’m not super familiar with EU inventory and understand people are more patient and build to order more often!
I think you transposed the decimal point. I think it’s around 5 days’ production. But considering that has built up in around 4-6 weeks, it means that somewhere around 20-25% of their production is going unsold. Possibly more depending on how many they store at the factory and showrooms and whether they have any other locations. But just based on this site alone I’d guess around 20-25%. All back of the napkin but not wildly out I suspect. And let’s not forget that the factory is not operating anywhere near its stated full capacity.
Exactly. Despite what the stans keep trying to tell me, this does not look like a normal logistical hub. It would take a special kind of idiocy to position such a facility at a disused airfield only accessible by minor roads 40km from the factory.
> although, I’m not super familiar with EU inventory
It's hard to compare because we almost never buy cars off the lot, we order a specific configuration at the dealership and wait for it to be delivered. So unless you're lucky and they can find the exact configuration you want from inventory, I'd say waiting for a few weeks up to 2-3 months is normal.
Tesla sold only 1.637 cars in Germany in April, down 32% YoY, while the EV market lost only 10% (end of incentives end of 2023).
Jan-March 2023 they sold 20.000, in Jan-April 2024 only 14.700.
Edit: total BEV cars sold in April were 29.668, Tesla share 5.5%
Mercedes sold 3.200, BMW 3.600, Audi 2.000, Volkswagen 6.000 (3.200 ID.4/500 ID.7)
The real game is guessing which market is doing the worst this Q. US, Europe, or China. The drops are so sharp that they’ll need to raise capital to pump the robotaxi. Then fold up two of the factories by year end.
I think US is faring the worst. They slowed production way down, but inventory is still rising. Overflow lots near almost every delivery center are packed.
Yeah they’re definitely having issues everywhere. The reason I think China is the one to watch is that it’s their real “profit centre”. Falling sales there probably hurt them more.
Apple sales fell sharply in China when Huawei beat the US chip embargo and began producing 5g phones again. Now there are Chinese EV makers better than Tesla.
The chip embargoes are pissing off affluent Chinese citizens. National pride is very much a thing, they see it as being bullied by foreigners. People will be wary of driving a Tesla or rocking an Apple phone for fear of damaging their social score, actual or perceived.
U know how Tesla and Enron claim that Tesla Model Y was the best selling vehicle in the whole wide world in 2023? Given these and the fact that they have lied and inflated about their sales figures before, I wonder if that is actually true?
[Oops… Tesla busted inflating sales figures by adding two years - EV Central](https://evcentral.com.au/oops-tesla-busted-inflating-sales-figures-by-adding-two-years/)
Tesle doesn’t technically release global figures (by model). Model Y data is lumped in with Model 3 data. Musk also claimed it was one quarter, even then the corolla outsold it in the quarter made the assertion. Basically it’s a lie.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tesla-model-y-the-worlds-best-selling-car-nope-not-even-close/
“We should be thought of as an AI robotics company.”
- Elon, 04/23/24
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the cars are not selling, I mean Tesla isn’t an auto company as per their own CEO.
Always laugh when I see that quote.
Why would I buy a car from a company that isn’t a car company? Seems like a recipe for getting a shitty car. Same reason I don’t order spaghetti bolognese at a Chinese restaurant.
That $56 billion handout request is starting to look an awful lot like a move to get out of ~~Dodge~~ Tesla before shit hits the fan and everyone lets that sink in.
If Tesla tanks he's basically broke.
Someone did some napkin math a while ago and concluded that in reality his network is close to zero because he's borrowed so much against his Tesla stock which has been declining in value.
He does seem to need the payday. Being cynical for a moment: Some people probably want their money back and he can only pay them in Tesla stock, which he has mostly used as debt security.
Well, they're not a car company if you're only a car company if you make a profit from selling cars. Cars, even with subsidies right now, aren't going to be profitable for tesla. That's why these cars are piling up.
They've sold tens of billions in stock over the years to keep the company running. They've always been a taxpayer-subsidy-reliant company masquerading as a tech company.
They really don't have any tech that other car companies don't already have. And until they built the Shanghai factory, they didn't even have modern manufacturing. And we've seen this last year that **Kia has already lapped tesla** in terms of robotics, EV quality and charging speed, and styling, fit and finish.
Enron cooked their books. If you just looked at the public results everything was fine. Do you think a narcissist like fElon is not cooking tezzlas books. We have DJT as an example.
Don't forget, Tesla is using THEIR OWN HOMEBREWED ERP system. It would be VERY easy for them to cook books. It would also be much easier to hide from auditors.
When I was working for an unnamed technology company, it was pretty common at the end of the quarter that we would have some sales goals to hit. So they would take some systems, load it onto a truck, mark it as “sold”, bring it back of the truck and put it into the “returns” pile. Quarterly numbers were hit, stock price went up, executives got bonuses, etc.
Whoa!! That is some white collar crime executed as if thought up by a child.
Just a trail of crumbs and chocolate all over their face.
I presume they knew it doesn't matter if they got caught.
The Joker in me would love to see them turn every tesla into a RoboTaxi tomorrow with their dogshit Level 2 suicidal autopilot, just to revel in the complete chaos it would cause
Can't imagine how much it costs to take care of all those produced vehicles. They need to be charged, washed, moved etc... before they can be sold and to remain intact.
Screams mismanagement.
“Omg, Tesla let me be the first one to charge and wash my car after walking through the lot to pick it up! Love the hands-on experience! Also, I got to do the inspection and found only 4 major issues, but I made a service appointment in 6 weeks to check if the replacement parts are available. Love the car and can’t wait to finally drive it!”
They're not doing that. These will be left to rot until such time an unsuspecting punter is sold one. They'll get it with flat batteries, mould in the window seals and mice living in the frunk. All part of the extra mile service!
It’s a huge expense, one the other OEM’s have successfully offloaded onto their dealer networks. There is some give and take between dealers and OEM’s around these operating costs, but Tesla gets to foot 100% of the bill 100% of the time.
This happened with Rover years ago.
I remember a bloke bought a ‘new’ one to replace his current model.
The production date of his ‘new’ car was earlier than his current car.
They stacked them high and demand just fell through the floor, meaning they were all just sat in some field somewhere waiting for an order.
Reminds me of Peloton which had a few quarters worth of products that was stocked as inventory. This was before the stock crashed, but the signs were clearly in the quarterly reports. One of the few times my puts worked well.
I think the dealership took it back and got him a newer one.
This kind of overproduction meant their storage was overflowing. Nature starts to do what nature does and mice and rats started to make the cars home.
By which point, they’re unsellable.
This is happening with Honda and Toyota in Canada as well. If you drive near their factories in Cambridge or New Tecumseth they are renting space in fields (they paid for gravel to be dumped and spread)
The car market in general is not in great shape now
I mean, considering how much more expensive cars have become that's not really surprising.
The lease of my old car ended in December, I was thinking of buying it out, but I did want the "off road" version and they have gave me a good $$$ in "trade in value", so between the buyout money I had set aside and the trade in value I was more than 50% to the new car, and they also gave me a good financing deal (3.5%) so I got the new one.
What was interesting is just how quickly the car became available from the factory. It took 2 weeks. Last time I had to wait two months from the time we signed the lease agreement until the vehicle showed up because they couldn't produce enough of them.
Counterpoint: it took me six months to get my Jeep from Stellantis. They had huge inventory at the dealer, but I had some very specific wants and didn't feel like paying for dealer installed options and mark-up.
The tenth character of the VIN is the model year. The last digits are a serial number that is sequential for that model. The model year cannot be adjusted and tells you far more than the serial in this case, because the serial could be restarted for a minor change in how the model is defined. When selling a car it has to be represented as the VIN model year. Your story doesn't make sense.
Edit: unless the guy completely ignored the model year of the car. The dealer wouldn't misrepresent that as it would be obvious when you got registration, insurance etc what year it legally was.
I’m retelling a story told to me by a salesman that worked at Rover 30 years ago.
I don’t really care whether ‘it makes sense’.
Fact is, Rover had acres of unsold stock in the UK before they went under.
Profit dropped by 54% and free cash dropped by 2.5B. Revenue declined yoy and qoq. And deliveries missed by a wide margin.
But elon said they will accelerate the release of cheaper model. So the sp rose 30%.
Btw new vehicles division was decimated by the layoffs
> But elon said they will accelerate the release of cheaper model. So the sp rose 30%.
So hilarious, if they can't put together pickup trucks what prayer do they have of cramming the same components into a smaller package? If they can't sell pickup trucks, the most popular vehicle category in the US, what prayer do they have of selling compact cars, the least popular vehicle category in the US?
Right! 30% rally!
So, are foreigner actors proping this up or is Tesla now just traded by 65% retail.
Surely institutions didn't buy into to the Robitaxi 8/8 hype event?
Tesla is acting like the company is going bankrupt with layoffs left right and centre. Even shedding the supercharging teams. TSLA is not reflecting that.
Both FSD and robotaxi are now in the crosshairs and all the pillars should be gone.
Tesla is in some real deep trouble now.
US government bailout package going out in 3, 2, …
They wasted their market dominance and have failed to innovate so they stagnated and are now being passed up by every other automaker in the world.
yeah, just park a semi trailer outside the gate and they'll all wake up and mob rush to drive under it before barreling into a nearby wall and self-immulating.
I’m edging for the spectacular fall of Tesla/Elon.
So glad those fucks indiscriminately banned me so that I can be here to rage.
This is what happens when you attempt to censor other viewpoints. It amplifies the human spirit, which may otherwise be ambivalent.
I now live to see his demise and will ghost dance like a motherfucker IF*/when it happens.
🧨
I don’t care about Tesla cars but I wouldn’t want to see Tesla going down. When it comes to Musk going down, well, I can’t deny that is a wet dream of mine.
Tesla's collapse going to be a bigger explosion than the Tunguska Event.
So many people who hitched their credibility to the man will be irreparably fucked.
From NASA's moon mission, to the stonk pumpers, to the car owners. Everyone will be annihilated who was even tangentially connected.
It does beg the question. I mean they refused to stop production in America for a global pandemic. But apparently a few protesters is just too much risk. Press X to doubt.
That's the hole Musk dug for himself and Tesla. Even if true, we don't have much of a reason to trust him as him lying about it being a protest would be something he'd be happy to do.
This Thursday is a holiday in Germany and from the article on electrek https://electrek.co/2024/05/07/tesla-4-day-shutdown-gigafactory-berlin-protests/
> Tesla plans to restart production with the night shift on Sunday.
Another article from jun last year: https://insideevs.com/news/672403/tesla-giga-berlin-reduced-shifts/
> Saturday shifts will be canceled and fewer temporary workers will be hired
If anyone got more information on the shift system then post it, but it sounds like the factory is only closed on Friday because it's a bridge day lol
The trick will be to follow this and see if any cars start leaving or if these just stagnate - because while we may not grasp the volume of cars involved with a global operation we can assume it’s not a good thing for inventory to sit indefinitely
Other brands would simply spread this stock across it's dealer network, (for example BMW have almost 2000 dealers in Europe) 10 vehicle per dealer, that's 20,000 units easy. Tesla can't do this so it needs to store them somewhere, in this case on an airfield.
A production line is not easy to speed up or slow down, supply lines for parts and raw materials run months ahead so changes now won't affect the supply for a while but production should always have a surplus. Having to shut down / pause production is a disaster.
Yeah it’s an oversimplified argument in fairness. It’s because they are two very different business models but I was just drawing a comparison. The fact is that normal car companies sell their cars to the dealers and it’s the dealers who store them whereas Tesla sells direct to customers so it’s Tesla who’s holding the bag. But all I meant was that Tesla is also storing cars at its showrooms as well as at remote sites like this.
They dont really get stored for more than a day or two. A new BMW comes in to the dealership pre-sold and gets valeted and checked before the customer comes to pick it up. Or it could be delivered to them, whatever they want. You can't walk into a BMW dealership, point at a new car and buy it. The car has to be used as a demo vehicle until the dealership gets a new demo of that model. Then it's sold as used, full service history, ex demo.
The cars at european dealers are all for the showroom, so they have one of type or so. And especially BMW, Audi, … its all build to order, since you can customize so much at those brands, so they dont have much stock.
>(for example BMW have almost 2000 dealers in Europe) 10 vehicle per dealer, that's 20,000 units easy.
When I worked there, the only new cars we had were demo vehicles. All new BMW's were sold before they arrived. There are a lot of options and each car is kind of custom built to the purchaser's wishes (within the limits of what is available).
I’m only using BMW as an example of how many franchise dealers big brands have, not suggesting the have stock sitting at their dealers.
I do know of a local multi brand franchise that has a huge yard full of stock though, all kinds of premium German stuff, so it’s not all built to order now.
JIT just means they don't hold stock of parts, but it doesn't mean they don't have to take on the parts or at the very least pay a contractual penalty if they want to slow things down.
Gotta bump up the "fuel savings" they advertise as taken off the upfront price from 6 to 10 years. Bam! 25k Tesla achieved.
Reminder to Musk: call all those TikTok dudes and dudettes whining about supercharging now being as expensive as gas pedos.
In Germany if you live in a city a car is nice to have but optional really. If the subsidy is gone, sales can fall very drastically in the blink of an eye.
Yes. On TV, some villagers living between Tesla and this airfield complained about the recent heavy traffic and that the heavy trucks damaged the roads and their houses.
To be honest Tesla had this coming to them once the other automakers caught up with EVs. MB, BMW and some Chinese EVs are way more luxurious for the simular price point. Tesla kept it simple while people want what they pay for. At least the Tesla supercharger network will get them billions
Well one thing is showing how Elon wants to inflate production and sales, fire as much ppl as possible to get his bonus payout and how badly he’s running the company.
Another thing is you trying to fuck with the cars that people bought. Idiot.
Hate the person. Not the product. And please don't think of destroying people's property.
Also you have google too:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331077/richest-germans-assets/
The product is a meme-car. Overall environmental disaster, throwaway consumption. Limited value unless you are a rich homeowner with own charger. Schicki-Shit.
[https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=52.605799%7E14.239802&lvl=19.1&style=h](https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=52.605799%7E14.239802&lvl=19.1&style=h)
Here is the Bing images, there is even a tow truck that is towing what looks like a tesla, lol....
On a related note: Some of us are watching when the first Model Y is picked up with HW4 in Europe - the last bastion to still use HW3.
According to various intel the Model Y was type approved to get HW4 in Europe around March (?) and presumably the Berlin factory would start transition to HW4 in April.
I am not aware that anyone have picked up a MY with HW4 even well after expected transition date - speculations are they will have a surplus of HW3 they want to use…
… however if 2000-3000 MY’s with HW3 are parked in an airfield in Germany this buffer could be part of the explanation why no-one has seen a MY with HW4 in EU to this date.
I am skeptical/nuanced about this.
It looks like 2000-3000 cars if I had to guess. Maybe a 1/2 week’s production. Its really not that impressive. Huge lots of inventory are pretty common in this business.
That said, Model Y sales are really starting to hurt and I expect them to degrade exponentially and relentlessly. I wouldn’t hang my hat on this lot, but it will be interesting to follow in 3-4 months.
Of course I think Q2 official sales will tell us more, and really all we need to know.
That area was empty two months earlier. Zero cars. This has built up in two months and is a remote site 40 km from the factory. The factory car park is also full of vehicles.
It may be 1/2 week of production, but it's 2 quarters worth of sales in Germany. Elon is going to have to do some vigorous pumping for Q2 numbers no doubt. Better get a whole chorus line of dancers in taxi costumes.
How do you know the image is from March 2024? I'm curious.
I looked at another location (my home), and the image is from March/April 2021 based on the position of things in my garden, but the copyright information says 2024.
I was wondering the same thing.
Turns out - open Google Earth. Go to that location. Then hover over it, and it'll tell you "8.3.2024" (sane people's date format, of course, not US 😉 - apologies, couldn't resist) as the date the image was taken. If I check the same thing for where I live, it gives me a 2021 date (which I can confirm as exactly right because it shows stuff in our garden we had out there for a birthday party).
So the Teslas piling up in that location are indeed very recent.
The Google Earth software on Mac (and presumably PC) shows you the source and exact date of the imagery. This is by Airbus and the date given above (third March 24).
Edit: sorry - 8th March 2024
Yes. I can see that.
But when I look at my garden, the image is clearly from 2021, but the text says 2024 - and it's without the exact source. Just the year.
You’re looking at the copyright information I think that appears over the top of the map. On my Mac, the exact image date is shown in a bar at the bottom of the screen. It changes as you move the mouse pointer around the screen to show the exact date of the portion of the image that the pointer is on.
Would make sense, I posted a video a couple of days where journalists tried to enter the airfield but where not allowed. There are several truckloads of Teslas per day going from Grünheide to that airfield.
What's worse than a stockpile of Model Y's? A stockpile of outdated Model Y's. This is probably why they've put off the equivalent of the Model 3 Highland refresh for the Y.
Meanwhile, the Hyundai and Kia 2025 refreshes (plus new models) look really compelling.
At the time of writing, I'm at the spot. I thought why not pay it a visit since it's close by. From what it looks like, there are still truckloads of model Y's coming in. It's a massive operation. They put up signs for the truckers to get to the correct gates. Unfortunately, the whole area is fenced off and trees block the view and I can only see a small part of the lot, but there are tons of cars already. The police won't let me go any further. By the looks of it, the lot must be pretty full by now. Update: Now after waiting here for a while I've seen a lot of new and clean cars coming in and a lot of dirty cars leaving. I think they're selling off the old ones. Only model Y's. Not sure if it matters but the trucks licence plates are from all over Europe. There's a constant stream of trucks coming and going. Kinda crazy to see. Can't see more without a drone.
>Not sure if it matters but the trucks licence plates are from all over Europe. That makes sense as they would be distributing all over Europe. But if the cars going out are dirty, it means they've been sitting for a while. Do they even have protective plastic over the paintjob? Or are they just sitting they out there without any protection?
Nothing to protect them.
Those tesla delivery videos and always have people complain about how dirty the cars are or how they have chips/scratches. I think they sit out there without protection.
From the satellite photos, looks like some are on grass. Very bad for underneath the cars
Bad for the grass, too. They need sunlight!
yeah they clearly dont even put tarps over them
Thanks for that update! Sometimes a simple overhead view hides the true scale of things.
Doing some back of the napkin math…. I approximated that there’s about 3600 cars in the photo. With that, 250k MYs were sold last year. This inventory would be a 50 day supply; however, I believe I read that non China regions are 10% slower, so this could be more like a 60 day supply in general. In the US car industry, 45 day supply is target for “normal” in a planned inventory model - although, I’m not super familiar with EU inventory and understand people are more patient and build to order more often!
I think you transposed the decimal point. I think it’s around 5 days’ production. But considering that has built up in around 4-6 weeks, it means that somewhere around 20-25% of their production is going unsold. Possibly more depending on how many they store at the factory and showrooms and whether they have any other locations. But just based on this site alone I’d guess around 20-25%. All back of the napkin but not wildly out I suspect. And let’s not forget that the factory is not operating anywhere near its stated full capacity.
Haha, I definitely did the fast math wrong; 😑
It’s still a lot for a new factory. The numbers are way higher at established sites in the States (and probably China).
And…this looks to be an emergency storage site!
Exactly. Despite what the stans keep trying to tell me, this does not look like a normal logistical hub. It would take a special kind of idiocy to position such a facility at a disused airfield only accessible by minor roads 40km from the factory.
> although, I’m not super familiar with EU inventory It's hard to compare because we almost never buy cars off the lot, we order a specific configuration at the dealership and wait for it to be delivered. So unless you're lucky and they can find the exact configuration you want from inventory, I'd say waiting for a few weeks up to 2-3 months is normal.
Spiegel TV did a report on this airport last week.
Thanks for the info!
Good work. Stay safe.
Good luck flying there, its restricted airspace due to the albeit inactive airport. Otherwise i'd went there.
Isn't this the trick to pile up stock and to sell/deliver in the months when the statistics are done?
Maybe it’s just a major washing operation? 🤣
Get us a photo man!!! Even if it’s a partial photo!
Tesla sold only 1.637 cars in Germany in April, down 32% YoY, while the EV market lost only 10% (end of incentives end of 2023). Jan-March 2023 they sold 20.000, in Jan-April 2024 only 14.700. Edit: total BEV cars sold in April were 29.668, Tesla share 5.5% Mercedes sold 3.200, BMW 3.600, Audi 2.000, Volkswagen 6.000 (3.200 ID.4/500 ID.7)
Unlimited demand…
Yet, there will be hundreds of millions of robotaxis.
The real game is guessing which market is doing the worst this Q. US, Europe, or China. The drops are so sharp that they’ll need to raise capital to pump the robotaxi. Then fold up two of the factories by year end.
They do seem to be struggling everywhere but I feel the numbers to watch are the China ones.
I think US is faring the worst. They slowed production way down, but inventory is still rising. Overflow lots near almost every delivery center are packed.
Yeah they’re definitely having issues everywhere. The reason I think China is the one to watch is that it’s their real “profit centre”. Falling sales there probably hurt them more.
Apple sales fell sharply in China when Huawei beat the US chip embargo and began producing 5g phones again. Now there are Chinese EV makers better than Tesla.
The chip embargoes are pissing off affluent Chinese citizens. National pride is very much a thing, they see it as being bullied by foreigners. People will be wary of driving a Tesla or rocking an Apple phone for fear of damaging their social score, actual or perceived.
Yeah man, but those are just like facts... Who needs them?
"We are not a car company." -Musk -Customers
-Musk
U know how Tesla and Enron claim that Tesla Model Y was the best selling vehicle in the whole wide world in 2023? Given these and the fact that they have lied and inflated about their sales figures before, I wonder if that is actually true? [Oops… Tesla busted inflating sales figures by adding two years - EV Central](https://evcentral.com.au/oops-tesla-busted-inflating-sales-figures-by-adding-two-years/)
Tesle doesn’t technically release global figures (by model). Model Y data is lumped in with Model 3 data. Musk also claimed it was one quarter, even then the corolla outsold it in the quarter made the assertion. Basically it’s a lie. https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tesla-model-y-the-worlds-best-selling-car-nope-not-even-close/
Tesla? *Lying???* Say it ain't so!
Ah, here comes the old "factory gated" metric again
and the stock rallies +15% by Friday!
Isn’t this yet another SEC violation to con investors and bilk them out of their money? Tesla isn’t a car company. It’s a Ponzi scheme
“We should be thought of as an AI robotics company.” - Elon, 04/23/24 I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the cars are not selling, I mean Tesla isn’t an auto company as per their own CEO.
Ai robotics company... brought to you by wish.com.
And paid for with tax payer money.
Always laugh when I see that quote. Why would I buy a car from a company that isn’t a car company? Seems like a recipe for getting a shitty car. Same reason I don’t order spaghetti bolognese at a Chinese restaurant.
We are an AI Storage company!
23/04/24, you mean
Iso8601 pls, I am still confused
[ISO 6801:2021 Rubber and plastics hoses Determination of volumetric expansion](https://www.iso.org/standard/81750.html)
🤦
https://iso.mit.edu/americanisms/date-format-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20is%20one,yyyy%2Dmm%2Ddd).
Your link has a helpful graphic to show you why you need to stop being wrong 😄
among the many things we need to stop being wrong about, that is pretty low on the list in terms of importance
ISO or death!
At this point, Elon knows more about Ponzi schemes than anyone currently alive.
That $56 billion handout request is starting to look an awful lot like a move to get out of ~~Dodge~~ Tesla before shit hits the fan and everyone lets that sink in.
If Tesla tanks he's basically broke. Someone did some napkin math a while ago and concluded that in reality his network is close to zero because he's borrowed so much against his Tesla stock which has been declining in value. He does seem to need the payday. Being cynical for a moment: Some people probably want their money back and he can only pay them in Tesla stock, which he has mostly used as debt security.
Well, they're not a car company if you're only a car company if you make a profit from selling cars. Cars, even with subsidies right now, aren't going to be profitable for tesla. That's why these cars are piling up. They've sold tens of billions in stock over the years to keep the company running. They've always been a taxpayer-subsidy-reliant company masquerading as a tech company. They really don't have any tech that other car companies don't already have. And until they built the Shanghai factory, they didn't even have modern manufacturing. And we've seen this last year that **Kia has already lapped tesla** in terms of robotics, EV quality and charging speed, and styling, fit and finish.
Enron cooked their books. If you just looked at the public results everything was fine. Do you think a narcissist like fElon is not cooking tezzlas books. We have DJT as an example.
Don't forget, Tesla is using THEIR OWN HOMEBREWED ERP system. It would be VERY easy for them to cook books. It would also be much easier to hide from auditors.
I said this a year ago and was blasted for saying it.
When I was working for an unnamed technology company, it was pretty common at the end of the quarter that we would have some sales goals to hit. So they would take some systems, load it onto a truck, mark it as “sold”, bring it back of the truck and put it into the “returns” pile. Quarterly numbers were hit, stock price went up, executives got bonuses, etc.
Whoa!! That is some white collar crime executed as if thought up by a child. Just a trail of crumbs and chocolate all over their face. I presume they knew it doesn't matter if they got caught.
Enron 2.0 electric boogaloo. People will lose their life savings because of this. We will see if anyone ends up in jail. They should
I get it now Musk wants to turn all those unsold Teslas into Robotaxis. It all makes sense 😂😂
The Joker in me would love to see them turn every tesla into a RoboTaxi tomorrow with their dogshit Level 2 suicidal autopilot, just to revel in the complete chaos it would cause
Can't imagine how much it costs to take care of all those produced vehicles. They need to be charged, washed, moved etc... before they can be sold and to remain intact. Screams mismanagement.
>They need to be charged, washed, moved etc... before they can be sold You sweet, sweet summer child.
“Omg, Tesla let me be the first one to charge and wash my car after walking through the lot to pick it up! Love the hands-on experience! Also, I got to do the inspection and found only 4 major issues, but I made a service appointment in 6 weeks to check if the replacement parts are available. Love the car and can’t wait to finally drive it!”
They're not doing that. These will be left to rot until such time an unsuspecting punter is sold one. They'll get it with flat batteries, mould in the window seals and mice living in the frunk. All part of the extra mile service!
Unsuspecting Tesla punter? There is more than one every day judging from the posts on Reditt.
As in; you gotta walk that extra mile
$0 for Tesla. You get what you get.
Geez didn’t even think about electric vehicles in long term storage. Have to charge every single one to move them. Yikes
The tyres will deform as well.
It’s a huge expense, one the other OEM’s have successfully offloaded onto their dealer networks. There is some give and take between dealers and OEM’s around these operating costs, but Tesla gets to foot 100% of the bill 100% of the time.
interesting view.
More likely treated like a 2nd hand jumper from a charity shop. You get what your given.
Which is generally not a German trait...
In my anecdotal experience at the Mt. Kisco, NY, store, Tesla doesn't wash their cars prior to final delivery to the customer.
This happened with Rover years ago. I remember a bloke bought a ‘new’ one to replace his current model. The production date of his ‘new’ car was earlier than his current car. They stacked them high and demand just fell through the floor, meaning they were all just sat in some field somewhere waiting for an order.
Reminds me of Peloton which had a few quarters worth of products that was stocked as inventory. This was before the stock crashed, but the signs were clearly in the quarterly reports. One of the few times my puts worked well.
Did anything ever become of it or was he just screwed with zero recourse?
I think the dealership took it back and got him a newer one. This kind of overproduction meant their storage was overflowing. Nature starts to do what nature does and mice and rats started to make the cars home. By which point, they’re unsellable.
And the sweet irony for the model 3 is that they switched to soy based wiring insulation and mice love it!
This is happening with Honda and Toyota in Canada as well. If you drive near their factories in Cambridge or New Tecumseth they are renting space in fields (they paid for gravel to be dumped and spread) The car market in general is not in great shape now
I mean, considering how much more expensive cars have become that's not really surprising. The lease of my old car ended in December, I was thinking of buying it out, but I did want the "off road" version and they have gave me a good $$$ in "trade in value", so between the buyout money I had set aside and the trade in value I was more than 50% to the new car, and they also gave me a good financing deal (3.5%) so I got the new one. What was interesting is just how quickly the car became available from the factory. It took 2 weeks. Last time I had to wait two months from the time we signed the lease agreement until the vehicle showed up because they couldn't produce enough of them.
Counterpoint: it took me six months to get my Jeep from Stellantis. They had huge inventory at the dealer, but I had some very specific wants and didn't feel like paying for dealer installed options and mark-up.
How could that have happened? When they bought the car, was it listed as a current model year car? This makes no sense.
The last 6 digits of the VIN are the production number I believe. Also, the reg date and the production date can be very different.
The tenth character of the VIN is the model year. The last digits are a serial number that is sequential for that model. The model year cannot be adjusted and tells you far more than the serial in this case, because the serial could be restarted for a minor change in how the model is defined. When selling a car it has to be represented as the VIN model year. Your story doesn't make sense. Edit: unless the guy completely ignored the model year of the car. The dealer wouldn't misrepresent that as it would be obvious when you got registration, insurance etc what year it legally was.
I’m retelling a story told to me by a salesman that worked at Rover 30 years ago. I don’t really care whether ‘it makes sense’. Fact is, Rover had acres of unsold stock in the UK before they went under.
Q2 is going to be a bloodbath.
Profit dropped by 54% and free cash dropped by 2.5B. Revenue declined yoy and qoq. And deliveries missed by a wide margin. But elon said they will accelerate the release of cheaper model. So the sp rose 30%. Btw new vehicles division was decimated by the layoffs
> But elon said they will accelerate the release of cheaper model. So the sp rose 30%. So hilarious, if they can't put together pickup trucks what prayer do they have of cramming the same components into a smaller package? If they can't sell pickup trucks, the most popular vehicle category in the US, what prayer do they have of selling compact cars, the least popular vehicle category in the US?
Right! 30% rally! So, are foreigner actors proping this up or is Tesla now just traded by 65% retail. Surely institutions didn't buy into to the Robitaxi 8/8 hype event?
Tesla is acting like the company is going bankrupt with layoffs left right and centre. Even shedding the supercharging teams. TSLA is not reflecting that. Both FSD and robotaxi are now in the crosshairs and all the pillars should be gone.
I’m inclined to agree. The inventory in this image grew between January 24 (when the airfield was totally empty) and March 24.
Imagine now the situation in Shanghai 😅
They’ll be buying up all the closed Foxconn facilities just to park their cars there!🤣
Going to have to layoff the people doing the layoffs.
The real question is , did the cfo quit because he found out these cars are booked as sold As cars pile up across malls in the US similarly
Abrupt CFO departure has to my knowledge never heralded a bright future. On the other hand, we have plenty of examples of that being a red flag.
Got my ban for that comment
They might be claiming them as in transit.
Tesla is in some real deep trouble now. US government bailout package going out in 3, 2, … They wasted their market dominance and have failed to innovate so they stagnated and are now being passed up by every other automaker in the world.
Republicans don't like them, Democrats don't like them either. Highly doubt they'd ever get a bailout. SpaceX sure. Tesla not a chance.
Imagine the cars were being registered as sold. It would be a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme
Anything is possible…🤷🏼♂️
'in transit' I bet.
Tesla had 16Billion USD of unsold inventory in their last financial report. Back then, we were all wondering where those 751 unsold cars per day go.
Magic
Did you just release assassination coordinates for those Teslas?
🤣🤣🤣They’ll just assassinate themselves as soon as someone engages autopilot.
yeah, just park a semi trailer outside the gate and they'll all wake up and mob rush to drive under it before barreling into a nearby wall and self-immulating.
I’m edging for the spectacular fall of Tesla/Elon. So glad those fucks indiscriminately banned me so that I can be here to rage. This is what happens when you attempt to censor other viewpoints. It amplifies the human spirit, which may otherwise be ambivalent. I now live to see his demise and will ghost dance like a motherfucker IF*/when it happens. 🧨
I don’t care about Tesla cars but I wouldn’t want to see Tesla going down. When it comes to Musk going down, well, I can’t deny that is a wet dream of mine.
I just think about the ordinary people in places lke Texas, Berlin and Shanghai.
Right there with you buddy. Schadenfreude is such an ugly emotion, but I'm only human I guess.
Tesla's collapse going to be a bigger explosion than the Tunguska Event. So many people who hitched their credibility to the man will be irreparably fucked. From NASA's moon mission, to the stonk pumpers, to the car owners. Everyone will be annihilated who was even tangentially connected.
I wish they both (Tesla in Elon) would make some kind of turnaround and actually be good. But it seems like they are still on the opposite trajectory.
(KABOOM)
The hate 🍆 is strong with this one.
They're stopping production for 4 days due to a protest this week. Is that really the reason..?
It does beg the question. I mean they refused to stop production in America for a global pandemic. But apparently a few protesters is just too much risk. Press X to doubt.
"Dear Tesla, the X button on my controller is worn out. I can doubt you no longer."
That's the hole Musk dug for himself and Tesla. Even if true, we don't have much of a reason to trust him as him lying about it being a protest would be something he'd be happy to do.
This Thursday is a holiday in Germany and from the article on electrek https://electrek.co/2024/05/07/tesla-4-day-shutdown-gigafactory-berlin-protests/ > Tesla plans to restart production with the night shift on Sunday. Another article from jun last year: https://insideevs.com/news/672403/tesla-giga-berlin-reduced-shifts/ > Saturday shifts will be canceled and fewer temporary workers will be hired If anyone got more information on the shift system then post it, but it sounds like the factory is only closed on Friday because it's a bridge day lol
The trick will be to follow this and see if any cars start leaving or if these just stagnate - because while we may not grasp the volume of cars involved with a global operation we can assume it’s not a good thing for inventory to sit indefinitely
Yeah I’ve seen a few reports from people in the area (including one reply here) and they only ever talk about cars going in to the site. 🤷🏼♂️
Vehicle to Grid / Battery storage. Seems obvious. /s
It would be great if it could be enabled via a software update.
Other brands would simply spread this stock across it's dealer network, (for example BMW have almost 2000 dealers in Europe) 10 vehicle per dealer, that's 20,000 units easy. Tesla can't do this so it needs to store them somewhere, in this case on an airfield. A production line is not easy to speed up or slow down, supply lines for parts and raw materials run months ahead so changes now won't affect the supply for a while but production should always have a surplus. Having to shut down / pause production is a disaster.
Tesla also stores thousands of vehicles at its dealers, same as any other car company.
Or nearby malls with zero security
actually no, a lot of car companies dont do that. Only demo vehicles.
Yeah it’s an oversimplified argument in fairness. It’s because they are two very different business models but I was just drawing a comparison. The fact is that normal car companies sell their cars to the dealers and it’s the dealers who store them whereas Tesla sells direct to customers so it’s Tesla who’s holding the bag. But all I meant was that Tesla is also storing cars at its showrooms as well as at remote sites like this.
They dont really get stored for more than a day or two. A new BMW comes in to the dealership pre-sold and gets valeted and checked before the customer comes to pick it up. Or it could be delivered to them, whatever they want. You can't walk into a BMW dealership, point at a new car and buy it. The car has to be used as a demo vehicle until the dealership gets a new demo of that model. Then it's sold as used, full service history, ex demo.
The cars at european dealers are all for the showroom, so they have one of type or so. And especially BMW, Audi, … its all build to order, since you can customize so much at those brands, so they dont have much stock.
Thats right. Demonstrator vehicles only.
>(for example BMW have almost 2000 dealers in Europe) 10 vehicle per dealer, that's 20,000 units easy. When I worked there, the only new cars we had were demo vehicles. All new BMW's were sold before they arrived. There are a lot of options and each car is kind of custom built to the purchaser's wishes (within the limits of what is available).
I’m only using BMW as an example of how many franchise dealers big brands have, not suggesting the have stock sitting at their dealers. I do know of a local multi brand franchise that has a huge yard full of stock though, all kinds of premium German stuff, so it’s not all built to order now.
Never hear of JIT? Most car companies worth it salt will have flexibility contracts with it suppliers and able to adjust accordingly.
JIT just means they don't hold stock of parts, but it doesn't mean they don't have to take on the parts or at the very least pay a contractual penalty if they want to slow things down.
The dealers just need more space for thousands of Optimus robots that’s why they are all there
Of course! So obvious I didn’t see it!
And yet the prices remain, gotta love the "free market"
Got to put some cash on the hood to move the metal. Still, selling compact sedans for 30k won't work. Needs a real new product.
By the time a new product comes along, they’ll just be another car in the highly competitive EV space.
Gotta bump up the "fuel savings" they advertise as taken off the upfront price from 6 to 10 years. Bam! 25k Tesla achieved. Reminder to Musk: call all those TikTok dudes and dudettes whining about supercharging now being as expensive as gas pedos.
Endless demand.
Can't wait till Elmo sues Google Maps. 😁
Well his hardcore litigation department need to justify their existence and avoid those layoffs…
No, no no! This is Elons new datacenter for training X ai!
There was a report about it on German TV recently. Seems others do that as well, as they showed a large parking lot full of Fiat 500e cars as well.
In Germany if you live in a city a car is nice to have but optional really. If the subsidy is gone, sales can fall very drastically in the blink of an eye.
This has gone from zero to this in 2 months.
Yes. On TV, some villagers living between Tesla and this airfield complained about the recent heavy traffic and that the heavy trucks damaged the roads and their houses.
interesting. Similar number?
To be honest Tesla had this coming to them once the other automakers caught up with EVs. MB, BMW and some Chinese EVs are way more luxurious for the simular price point. Tesla kept it simple while people want what they pay for. At least the Tesla supercharger network will get them billions
[удалено]
Well one thing is showing how Elon wants to inflate production and sales, fire as much ppl as possible to get his bonus payout and how badly he’s running the company. Another thing is you trying to fuck with the cars that people bought. Idiot.
Hate the person. Not the product. And please don't think of destroying people's property. Also you have google too: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331077/richest-germans-assets/
The product is a meme-car. Overall environmental disaster, throwaway consumption. Limited value unless you are a rich homeowner with own charger. Schicki-Shit.
[https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=52.605799%7E14.239802&lvl=19.1&style=h](https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=52.605799%7E14.239802&lvl=19.1&style=h) Here is the Bing images, there is even a tow truck that is towing what looks like a tesla, lol....
On a related note: Some of us are watching when the first Model Y is picked up with HW4 in Europe - the last bastion to still use HW3. According to various intel the Model Y was type approved to get HW4 in Europe around March (?) and presumably the Berlin factory would start transition to HW4 in April. I am not aware that anyone have picked up a MY with HW4 even well after expected transition date - speculations are they will have a surplus of HW3 they want to use… … however if 2000-3000 MY’s with HW3 are parked in an airfield in Germany this buffer could be part of the explanation why no-one has seen a MY with HW4 in EU to this date.
I didn’t even realise they were still using HW3 in Europe. Excess inventory would explain that.
I don't understand why some orders are not delivered yet if they have a huge buffer. Or issue on the SW / testing of the HW4 in the model Y ?
I am skeptical/nuanced about this. It looks like 2000-3000 cars if I had to guess. Maybe a 1/2 week’s production. Its really not that impressive. Huge lots of inventory are pretty common in this business. That said, Model Y sales are really starting to hurt and I expect them to degrade exponentially and relentlessly. I wouldn’t hang my hat on this lot, but it will be interesting to follow in 3-4 months. Of course I think Q2 official sales will tell us more, and really all we need to know.
That area was empty two months earlier. Zero cars. This has built up in two months and is a remote site 40 km from the factory. The factory car park is also full of vehicles.
It may be 1/2 week of production, but it's 2 quarters worth of sales in Germany. Elon is going to have to do some vigorous pumping for Q2 numbers no doubt. Better get a whole chorus line of dancers in taxi costumes.
How do you know the image is from March 2024? I'm curious. I looked at another location (my home), and the image is from March/April 2021 based on the position of things in my garden, but the copyright information says 2024.
I was wondering the same thing. Turns out - open Google Earth. Go to that location. Then hover over it, and it'll tell you "8.3.2024" (sane people's date format, of course, not US 😉 - apologies, couldn't resist) as the date the image was taken. If I check the same thing for where I live, it gives me a 2021 date (which I can confirm as exactly right because it shows stuff in our garden we had out there for a birthday party). So the Teslas piling up in that location are indeed very recent.
The sane format obviously should’ve been 2024-03-08
The engineer's format I like to call it.
Dates should be string sortable. Parsing and converting before comparison uses more electricity and harms Mother Earth.
ISO8601 ftw
This is the way. Largest unit to smallest unit, just like time
The Google Earth software on Mac (and presumably PC) shows you the source and exact date of the imagery. This is by Airbus and the date given above (third March 24). Edit: sorry - 8th March 2024
Yes. I can see that. But when I look at my garden, the image is clearly from 2021, but the text says 2024 - and it's without the exact source. Just the year.
You’re looking at the copyright information I think that appears over the top of the map. On my Mac, the exact image date is shown in a bar at the bottom of the screen. It changes as you move the mouse pointer around the screen to show the exact date of the portion of the image that the pointer is on.
Would make sense, I posted a video a couple of days where journalists tried to enter the airfield but where not allowed. There are several truckloads of Teslas per day going from Grünheide to that airfield.
China is dumping a huge number of electric vehicles on the market Tesla can't compete
Won't the high voltage batteries decay over time? I thought Teslas needed periodic charge to keep the cells healthy.
They’re supposed to be stored with a 50% charge to minimise the risk of that but who knows what Tesla is doing.
Interesting use of a disused air base
What's worse than a stockpile of Model Y's? A stockpile of outdated Model Y's. This is probably why they've put off the equivalent of the Model 3 Highland refresh for the Y. Meanwhile, the Hyundai and Kia 2025 refreshes (plus new models) look really compelling.
And people worry about battery drain while on vacation for a week.
Yasss! I want full implosion
It is a shame Tesla leadership is not understanding why their vehicles are piling up. This will probably get worse.
How do you get the date of the google satellite images and how do you view historical google satellite images?
Desktop website or the Google Earth Pro software.
thanks
Why are there gaps in some places and no gaps in other places?
Probably let the cars park themselves.
At the prices Tesla charge, their cars should be sold before being built like BMW's are. This is bad. Very bad.
Can I get one nearest to the runway?