At least Lexus got close to their goals of 12,000 a year before cutting production. Hopefully they didn't lose $36k on each car while doing it.

 

This is not an LS500 thread. You both have made your perspectives known about your thoughts on that model dozens, probably hundreds of times.

Please drop it and move on.

 

Everybody who makes EVs are going to lose a ton per car right now because the technology is so new, that’s just the way it is when you have invested so much into developing an entirely new method of propulsion for your brand. Over time those investments will be better capitalized across model ranges and units sold and the profitability per unit will be there.

 

They are eliminating 2 of their 3 production crews for the Lightning. No other way to see that as anything other than a complete disaster.

 

So, they said they were going to produce 3200 per week. With 3 shifts, that 1066 per week per shift. In 2023, they sold 24,165 Lightnings. That's 465 per week. They are literally selling at less than half the capacity of one shift. And yes, sales are up, but up from nothing to next to nothing is meaningless when you are promising a number 7 times that amount.

I bet they really want to kill it completely, but can't due to reasons we aren't allowed to discuss here.

 

Rivians are being sold for a loss because they're still ramping up and are on track to be profitable by Q4 2024. They reduced their loss per vehicle from $124K to about $33K in Q4. Add in the design changes they're making to the production line later this year and they'll be okay this year. I wouldn't expect much in profits until Georgia is up and running and they introduce an R2 line

Tesla wasn't reliably profitable until the 3 left production hell and has been doing great since the Y

 

So this is the same thing that was discussed in December, the difference being this time there was a public release, the December news was from non-public announcements made to dealers about this specific change. It's as it was then. A smaller increase, not a cut. The Lightning had another over 4000 sales month in December and ended the year and quarter up 60% and over 70%, and remember there were production and sales stops for a few months last year. Regardless, I understand the Lightning was the best selling EV truck last year despite the production delays. So old news really. The same thing we discussed last month.

 

This is your bias talking. They way over estimated the demand but that does not mean it’s a “total disaster”. They are still planning on building more Lightnings in 2024 than the built in 2023, demand and sales are growing just not at the pace they thought they would be.

You hate EVs and you want them to fail, but they’re not failing they are growing, market share is up YoY for EVs nationwide by nearly 50%.

 

A "smaller increase" than promised to the business world is a cut. Production isn't just about right now. It's planned months or years in advance. Once you come out and tell the world that you are going to produce X amount of something, anything less than that is a cut. And to deliver only about 15% of what is promised this many months in isn't just a cut, it's a butchering.

 

maybe best to just admit you hadn't realized that this is the same thing that we all discussed last month?

 

Sometimes companies overshoot what their projected demand is going to be, in a burgeoning market it’s easy to do that.

If sales weren’t still growing then your point of this as a failure would make sense, but they are still growing…and it doesn’t make sense.

Growth does not equal failure.

 

Never gonna happen lol

 

Has nothing to do with hate or love. Just math. Any vehicles that delivers less than 15% of the expected sales is a disaster. I call them like I see them.

 

You can believe what you like

 

If sales are down this year, production has been clearly cut.

If sales don't meet expectations, might have to trim the trained staff to keep costs inline.

We see this all the time with big companies closing locations or cutting staff.

I don't know, just ideas. 🤖