Explored and hashed out is several other threads under various topics.
WE, at SCOA know a few things to make good educated guesses from. As time goes by we get clearer and clearer info (data)
16,000 units was the target initial contract PAG had with MB
Dr Z and R Penske have both publicly stated that number will raise..
Based on factory production possibilities we think 24,000 to 26,000 is about highest possible. Dr Z has publicly stated he wants to fulfill as many reservations as possible. German business news has the estimate at 20,000 units for North America. Some of think that figure too low. Penske has said 22 or 24 thousand I think, but he is vague on this.
Here at SCOA, we effectively tracked the $99 reservation program from public speeches by R Penske, D Shembri and some Detroit news sources. The last official word was "Over 30,000 reservations" last October. We were able to guess what the daily or weekly numbers "should be" from the 5 to 7 data points in March, May, Jun, Aug public press conferences. Based on this fairly consistent data, the Early Dec 07 $99 paid reservations should have been near 45,000.
Starting last Aug we started to see invites to configure (step #2 in a 4 step process)
From that point until now, we have been fairly accurate on how things will go and there are only two areas where we are sort of wrong... Licensing of the dealers in several states skewed the info, and timing. Zip code distribution skewed our ideas on the logistics
We have since learned that in the real large markets (high % or reservations) The timing or wait times will be in order of when reserved /configured. So we now see that a Mid March reservation 1173~1184 might not get their car are soon as a 1200 or higher in another market with lower density percentages.
This dynamic is due to load balancing across all 70 dealers this first year. The factory can only deliver a finite quantity of cars each shipping week. We figure the max production to USA at around 2000 units. But most likely will be 1500 or less first few months. That is only 21 cars per month per dealer. And this is close to what we are seeing reported. Some getting 13 some getting 35 across the entire 70 dealers. Some dealers with hundreds of 1173s through 1184s are not getting large enough flow to satisfy all the early reservation holders before some dealer who's first reservation holder was already in the 1190s.
Bottom line is, how long you wait really depends a LOT now on what market you are in and NOT what date you reserved... relative to others across the states.
Their stated goal is 60~90 days from configuration to delivery. After this initial logistical nightmare is sorted out, I think by late May to Mid June, we will see a more deliberative process.
2008 vs 2009 car? This is totally dependent on three things
1- drop out rate
2- total 08 production to USA #
3- Model year cut over
There is just not enough data Right now to predict when, in 07, a reservation holder will be more likely to get a 09 model vs an 08 one.
I highly doubt any reservation after late Nov 07 is going to see an 08 car.
Attrition has to be over 30% using 45,000 as the base number of reservations; And Production has to be greater then 28,000 units for USA... 30% drop out against 45,000 reservations is still a 31,000 customer demand....
I am thinking the lack of communication and the meager warranty are designed to slow demand... But that is just the conspiracy theorist in me thinking out loud... grin
Any thoughts would help.
, but I just don't see how this is possible. Even with all the drop outs I'm sure the reservations at that point were way up there and Smart is planning to release only 16k-20k cars the 1st year? Where is this thought coming from??????
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