So...a question about configuration.
Would it not be wise to open up configuration to everyone at once with the understanding that delivery would progress from West to East by reservation date? This way Tesla could have a much better idea of what people were wanting...and willing to pay for. (I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of folks that are willing to wait for dual motor performance options.)
Dan
I'd always figured that they'd go with this approach, since, like you said, it makes sense from a manufacturing-planning perspective to know what parts you need to order and in what quantities so that you don't over/under order.
However, after thinking about what Trev's little birdie told him
in this thread, I'm starting to wonder whether, due to the sheer volume of reservations, anticipated production rate, and simplified option configurations, Tesla will use a slightly different approach with ordering and building the Model 3 than they did with the lower-volume S and X. I would summarize this approach as "build-first-match-later", and it would work something like this:
1.) Tesla starts building RWD Model 3s in every color and and options package (of which there will be far fewer than the S/X, as we know).
2.) Reservation-holders begin configuring their Model 3s using Tesla's online configurator, based on geography and reservation date.
3.) Due to the production volume, many orders will exactly (or very closely) match a car that has already been produced, or a car that will be produced in the very-near future. These exact matches will be allocated to the customer immediately.
4.) In the case of an inexact match, the customer will asked whether they want to "order this similar car instead and get it quicker", much like you see with the current S/X configurator. If the customer decides that the readily-available car is acceptable, it becomes theirs.
5.) If the customer declines the similar car, or their selected options are currently unavailable (either due to too much / too little demand, or because some components are not yet available -- e.g., AWD/performance drivetrain, performance upgrades), their order goes into the production backlog, and will be fulfilled as soon as Tesla calculates that manufacturing their particular configuration makes sense from a production standpoint.
6.) As AWD, performance, and more complex configurations start to go to production, Tesla will have a pretty good idea of which configurations / option packages need to be produced in what quantities from the backlog, resulting in an even higher match rate for the most common advanced configurations, and optimizing the manufacturing schedule for rarer configurations.
Again, the only reason this approach is even feasible is because they have 400,000+ reservations, production rates of 5-10k a week, and a limited set of possible configurations. Their approach will almost certainly change once they've worked through that initial order queue. But for the first several months (year?) of production, they may as well be shooting fish in a barrel -- someone, somewhere in the queue will want to buy every car they build.