1/ A few thought about India.
Although Tesla’s customer deposits declined 10% this quarter, the reservation book still carries an attractive balance. Some of it is pent-up demand for Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster.
2/ But a chunk of it is for Model 3 reservations in India, where deposits have been accumulating since Apr 2016. Opening up reservations in India was a bold move my Musk, who had no idea when or even if he could deliver.
3/ The usual promises of “next year, definitely” were enough to keep reservations flowing. In Sep of 2019, there was still optimism as recounted in this CleanTechinca article.
cleantechnica.com/2019/09/18/tes…
4/ Fast forward to mid-2020. Are we getting closer? There was some genuine excitement a few weeks ago when Tesla followers noted that there were two RoRo carriers loaded with Teslas headed for Hong Kong.
5/ Sensing that the HK market could not absorb 8000 Teslas this quarter, there was speculation of a second destination for these ships. Could that second destination be India? Alas, the Glovis Sonic continued north to the Chinese port of Yantai.
6/ But there’s still hope for the Grand Dolphin after its arrival in HK next week. My guess is that if it does not continue to India, there will be no Indian deliveries this year. I look forward to Elon tweeting, “I’ll be surprised if Indian deliveries don’t begin by next year.”
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.