Production runs & line output guesstimates

[macchiaz-o]

That doesn't align with a family member's 2016 Fiesta and I could swear the paperwork for it said it shipped by rail. But it's possible the volumes have dropped at Cuautitlan so low that trucks are cheaper than maintaining the railhead. Or maybe they're trucking them to a railhead somewhere else?

My Fiesta was built there in 2013 and shipped by rail, also.

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[MerryBrown]

My Fiesta was built there in 2013 and shipped by rail, also.

Who the heck cares about What happened in 2013 or 2016? What are you trying to prove?
What matters is it is not happening during the current production run!
Mark is doing a whole lot of work on production estimates for NO compensation.
Ease up.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Who the heck cares about What happened in 2013 or 2016? What are you trying to prove?
What matters is it is not happening during the current production run!
Mark is doing a whole lot of work on production estimates for NO compensation.
Ease up.

Hey, no worries. I'm working off the information I get. My source may had been exaggerating with the 15 years but was certain they aren't using trains now. If that is wrong then it adds to the delivery time but doesn't change the production rates.

I'm just amazed so many people admit to having bought Fiestas! ?

 

[macchiaz-o]

Hey, no worries. I'm working off the information I get. My source may had been exaggerating with the 15 years but was certain they aren't using trains now. If that is wrong then it adds to the delivery time but doesn't change the production rates.

I'm just amazed so many people admit to having bought Fiestas! ?

Right! No criticism intended at all. Simply pointing out rail might not be exactly what we think it means. Not sure why they'd do it, but maybe they leave Mexico on trucks and reload to rail after or just before customs? Anyway, small detail in the grande/grand esquema/scheme.

Regarding Fiesta... It's really not a bad car at all. At least now, anyway. The major issue (transmission) was eventually correctly addressed, including in ways I probably can't publicly disclose. And now that temps are beginning to cool down, I can begin to ride with the AC off, which turns it into a really fun and powerful feeling car.

 

[JellyBelly]

OK, based on v8 Guesstimates (https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/production-runs-line-output-guesstimates.1033/post-46715) here are my guesstimates on delivery and reservation/order numbers reached.

I'm going with the NEW and IMPROVED optimistic 1-2 weeks for delivery that has come from watching the Mach E Tour shipments and news that Cuautitlan doesn't use trains any more.

We'll stick with the 23 November OKTB date.

What will be stacked up in the lot on 23 November?
2,300 FCTP cars, mostly the 1800 Premiums (I'm assuming those FEs will get special delivery!).
1,100 First Editions and probably nothing else. This does improve the odds for my 3 December guess on FE deliveries though!

This drops us to a total of about 2,500 Premiums with maybe a few CA Route 1s and Selects thrown in for line spacing by the end of the year. A total of 5,500 customer orders plus 2,300 FCTP (give or take a few 100).

We'll also assume the trucks will get them all to dealers by the first of the year. Of course, some may be a little late.

Since these are rough assumptions, I'll start with rough numbers:
Of course, reservations began with 4,000.
5,500 Mach Es becomes 11,000 reservation numbers accounting for half reserved in the EU/UK. The 5,500 also include 35% GTs that won't be made yet, so that's only 3,575 cars to be made.
So, 4,000 + 5,500 + 11,000 ~ 20,000

I estimate that in 2020, the total number of customer Mach Es to reach dealers may exceed reservation number 20,000 or most November reservations.

Thanks very much for all the analysis you do. Very much appreciated.

 

[SnBGC]

Well, fellow anxious US Mach E buyers, we have good news and bad news for v.8.
Good news: They haven't used trains at the Cuautitlan plant in 15 years, and word has it they won't for Mach Es either. That means lots of trucks. If they are as nimble with their trucks as the ones that came out of Cuatitlan headed to the Mach E Tour and related stops, they can be at US* dealers within a week. They are also using trucks to send early units to ships bound for Europe right now**.

Bad news: Production is currently slower than I was guessing (these aren't called guesstimates for nothing!). @trutolife27 had warned early production rates starting at 100+ per week. What I hadn't realized is they have only ramped up to about 200-300/week now (per my contact).

Fortunately, things aren't as slow as I feared when I saw a parking lot with 287 cars. That wasn't the total so far, just the shipping backlog at that point -- whew! In fact theog.ho's Instagram post from last week with 287 cars in the lot? They're almost all gone now with one lone car in the lot at the end of today. All out on trucks. Employees are no longer allowed to park in the employee parking lot so the space can be used for Mach Es (someone will have to do a spatial analysis of the parking lots to see how many you think they hold).

That means those FCTP dates in November some of you heard from dealers make sense. However, they are talking about increasing that to double-triple the current rate in a couple of weeks once MP2 is underway. So, we'll estimate 600 cars per week by then. The good news is my contact expects them to reach 1000/week soon if there are no hiccups.

So I'm downgrading my model's throughput to an average of 200/week during MP1 (28 Sept-23 Oct), up to an average of 600 per week in the FCTP completion phase of MP2 (26 Oct-13 Nov.) and reaching 1000 per week once they start on customer orders on 16 Nov. Yes, I realize that it may make sense to interleave FEs in with FCTP cars to mix up the time per unit. However, I have no information on how to model that, so I'm sticking with a simpler model.

v.8 now produces 2,400 cars by 13 November. That should cover all FCTP and some FEs. 5,500 customer cars then are produced during 16 November-23 December. I've heard there's only a 1-week break at Christmas/New Years, so Run 2 has 13 weeks instead of 12.

With the reduced rates in mind, I'll bet they hold off on EU/UK cars until January, although they may run some tests through the line in December to prepare. This drops us to perhaps 5,500 customer units before the end of December. Fortunately, if shipping is reduced to a week, those will all get to dealers before the end of the year.

So, here are the new tables:

(unchanged)

(I'm not adjusting anything in late 2021 for now)

Potential reservation numbers reached in the next post.
The remaining good news is just when I go out on a limb with a new version, we learn new critical information. Fingers crossed it's good news!

*Canadian footnote: I'm assuming you'll get your cars by truck, too and it shouldn't take much longer to get there than US locations.

** European Mach Es may be trucked to the ports


I don't know that will affect timing much for you.

Great work. Thanks for taking the effort to keep preparing updates. Maybe tomorrow you will get some new info that will necessitate another revision.

I saw my FE order in the system along with the other cars from my dealership and a date was listed. Actually, there was several dates with strange descriptions like Scheduled, Sent to Plant (I think...), and a couple of others. It isnt listed in a simple summary.....he had to click through different screens to drill down to get more info. He couldn't access the screen with the VIN though....said he needed access credentials from his manager. Which he thought was weird because he is the inventory manager so he should have top access for that location? At any rate, he thinks he will get to that info tomorrow.

Or maybe he just didnt want me to see everyone else's info, which I can understand.

Long story short....he said there is a scheduling milestone tomorrow and if released then my FE is scheduled to be assembled on Oct 22nd.

Sounds too soon to me but we will see soon enough I guess. I will rely on your guestimates for now.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Great work. Thanks for taking the effort to keep preparing updates. Maybe tomorrow you will get some new info that will necessitate another revision.

I saw my FE order in the system along with the other cars from my dealership and a date was listed. Actually, there was several dates with strange descriptions like Scheduled, Sent to Plant (I think...), and a couple of others. It isnt listed in a simple summary.....he had to click through different screens to drill down to get more info. He couldn't access the screen with the VIN though....said he needed access credentials from his manager. Which he thought was weird because he is the inventory manager so he should have top access for that location? At any rate, he thinks he will get to that info tomorrow.

Or maybe he just didnt want me to see everyone else's info, which I can understand.

Long story short....he said there is a scheduling milestone tomorrow and if released then my FE is scheduled to be assembled on Oct 22nd.

Sounds too soon to me but we will see soon enough I guess. I will rely on your guestimates for now.

I have no idea how to figure FEs starting this week into that estimate except if they plan to interleave the FEs right away in MP2. Even so, that doesn't change the production rate, just the production order.

Shipping order is another matter.

 

[ChasingCoral]

p.s.: I just checked the chat and my contact did say they may truck them to a train but didn't know. The point is we should be thinking about lots of trucks driving out of Cuautitlan. Let's hope they've scheduled enough trucks.

 

[Jolteon]

Who the heck cares about What happened in 2013 or 2016? What are you trying to prove?
What matters is it is not happening during the current production run!
Mark is doing a whole lot of work on production estimates for NO compensation.
Ease up.

Who is criticizing anyone on this?

The statement was made that a source said CSAP hasn't used rail in 15 years, which disagreed with the reality of Fiesta owners to the extent that their window stickers said "RAIL" as the transportation methods.

Facts don't have malice. Nothing ill intended to anyone here, ever.

 

[MailGuy]

Proud 2012 Fiesta alum as well. My daughters first car. Both transmission clutches replaced by Ford. She now has one of the last ST’s with a manual. I havent driven it, but I always thought that car deserved a manual. As a parent though I loved the acceleration limits the dual clutch transmission config imposed on young drivers.

 

[SnBGC]

I have no idea how to figure FEs starting this week into that estimate except if they plan to interleave the FEs right away in MP2. Even so, that doesn't change the production rate, just the production order.

Shipping order is another matter.

Can you clarify for again please?
MP1 is FCTP vehicles? Anything else in that group? We do not believe MP1 is over yet....correct?
Is MP2 customer cars....job #1?
Am I close?

 

[MailGuy]

The question I want to ask is, if FCTP’s are being held to OKTB, where did those 287 cars go?

 

[SnBGC]

Proud 2012 Fiesta alum as well. My daughters first car. Both transmission clutches replaced by Ford. She now has one of the last ST’s with a manual. I havent driven it, but I always thought that car deserved a manual. As a parent though I loved the acceleration limits the dual clutch transmission config imposed on young drivers.

My daughter has a 2013 Fiesta too. Manual trans is what she prefers. Both my kids learned on manual transmission vehicles because I felt they would take driving more seriously if they had actually operate some machinery.

Also much harder to text and drive when learning manual trans....

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Good idea. Will post a new thread..
Apparently they come with some bonus cash....

But what's the expiration date listed for that incentive? ?

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I'm just amazed so many people admit to having bought Fiestas! ?

Some people like to Party!

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