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If the topic is a new Tesla model, then the first item on the agenda is how long it will be delayed. The polyhedral wonder that is the Cybertruck continues this grand tradition. While traditions hold true, however, the world around them changes.
The Cybertruck was first unveiled at that impromptu window-smashing event in late 2019, scheduled to be available later this year, and is now reportedly delayed until late 2022, with high-volume production not happening until a year after that. This follows hot on the heels of a tweet from CEO Elon Musk saying Tesla Inc’s revamped Roadster sportscar should ship in 2023 provided 2022 goes easy on him. That model was first unveiled almost four years ago, with an original launch date of last year.
Incidentally, that unveiling was a mere digestif to the main event, the reveal of the Tesla Semi truck, due to begin production two years ago and still due.
This is all pretty familiar stuff. Tesla wouldn’t be Tesla without missed deadlines and elusive products. And with the company valued at more than $730 billion, it hardly seems to matter. This makes sense from a certain perspective: If your whole bull case rests on terminal value anyway, then shifting the cash flows a few cells to the right hardly makes much difference. It also makes sense from another perspective, which is that Tesla’s valuation never has much to do with numbers other than those on the trading screen.
Yet such delays are going to matter more. Because drivers move on, even if Tesla’s hodlers don’t.
The most consequential delay for Tesla concerned the Model 3. This was
the company’s leap to mass(ish) market cars, and the delays and snafus around manufacturing it actually did take a toll on cashflow, the stock and, given the coincidental timing of pedo-gate and “funding secured,†probably Musk himself. But Tesla did enjoy one advantage back in 2017: It had virtually no competition.
Tesla accounted for one in four electric vehicles sold in the US that year and almost one in two if you discount plug-in hybrids. This actually understates things. The non-Tesla models were mostly quasi-research projects for incumbent automakers dipping a toe in electrics, or just didn’t really compete with what Tesla was offering. The Chevy Bolt and BMW i3 are fine cars, but hardly anyone thinking of buying a Model 3 would seriously consider them as alternatives.
—Bloomberg