,
9 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
1/ The NHSTA document story outlined by @PlainSite made me think about $TSLAQ customer deposits.
2/ All kidding aside, a friend and an experienced, savvy investor actually did have a one-on-one with Tesla yesterday and noted some interesting comments Viecha made regarding customer deposits. The deposit number has been bugging us for a while.
3/ In 1Q16, customer deposits were $391mm. In the three prior quarters, customer deposits were 272mm, 269mm, 283mm. Remember, when the X was rolled out, the company stopped requiring deposits on the S.
4/ When the 3 was unveiled in 2Q16, deposits jumped, presumably on the “455,000” reservation number. (I still giggle when I type that three years later. . .). Here is the deposits chart (sorry TC. . .). 
5/ According to my guy, Viecha claimed in his meeting that none of the 2Q19 buyers (77k) were reservation holders and only a handful of the 1Q19 buyers (51k) were. Seems odd to me since many 1H19 sales went overseas. Regardless. . .
6/ Let’s assume Viecha is not mistaken. 147k 3’s were delivered in toto through 4Q18. If that was the extent of the reservation list, why are cash deposits still higher than the level before the 3 was rolled out?
7/ We know solar is down substantially in terms of installs, as are S and X sales, so it can’t be solar or other car customers propping up the balance. Which leaves trade-ins, prepayments on vaporware, supercharger access or something else that I can’t explain.
8/ I don’t suppose we’ll ever get a number for the carrying value of trade-ins (that will partly expose the extent of a possible RVG issue), and one has to dig and contort to try and cuff the prepaid vaporware issue.
But if it is prepaid vaporware, and that vaporware gets pulled, what's that, potentially $150mm in deposits that need to get kicked back, let alone the deferred revenue and COGS impact? One can easily see cash getting tight in Q3 again. Especially if sales slide further.
