&gt;<i>That date was never meant to actually be the production start date</i><p>I listen to or read the transcripts of nearly all of them.  They&#x27;re full of ambiguous information and half-truths, and I take them with a grain of salt.  This is a classic example; we have a deadline that&#x27;s not really a deadline.  Tesla <i>wants</i> this stuff to be news.<p>&gt;<i>an inevitable few of the thousands of needed parts have delays.</i><p>Is this inevitable?  Does it happen to other manufacturers, who, according to critics, are building far more complex vehicles?<p>&gt;<i>this article makes me facepalm.</i><p>You don&#x27;t facepalm at gems like this:<p>UBS Analyst: &quot;And any color when you think about the $190 per kilowatt hour, how much like a CAGR of decline until the Gigafactory is open, another 30% once that&#x27;s on line?&quot;<p>Elon Musk: &quot;Yeah, next question.&quot;<p>So the guy wanted to know how Tesla plans on benefitting from the scale and battery efficiency of the Gigafactory production (originally planned for 2020) if they&#x27;re moving up the production timetable.  In other words, how much is that going to affect the cost of Model 3 production? You don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s a valid question?