Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[SpeedGoat]

I read a lot of "Go Elon - you show them" rah rah on this board but Tesla needs to be where the talent is, and as of today that is still California. This may be the first decision that Elon has made that I do not feel is in the long term interest of the company. Dearly hope I am wrong - he needs to be right. Covid will be a blip in the great Tesla story moving the headquarters in a fit of pique might not.

The most polite thing I can say in response to these types of posts is that they are ignorant. Of course there is engineering talent in California, it the single most populous state in the country, but the idea that California has some type of generalized "engineering" advantage over Texas is just silly.

Texas is a massive high tech manufacturing hub, including many of aerospace and automotive industries that left California years ago and haven't looked back.

 

[MaChiMiB]

True that. This is becoming enormous. Soon the largest tesla factory. Wonder how big giga Berlin and Texas factories will be.

Here's a map comparing the factories to scale. Little bit outdated. In Giga Shanghai, the whole south eastern part is now filled the the Model Y complex. And in Giga Berlin the ground leveling for the first (south west) building is finished.

You can check the current satellite images here: Compare daily satellite images of Tesla production locations

 

[Reductionist]

Any estimates how long this lawsuit will likely take to resolve? Obviously won't be that useful if it takes weeks to months to reach a verdict.

 

[UCF3]

I’m curious why he wrote “moving HQ to Texas/Nevada”. Everyone here assumes Texas is the front runner with upcoming gigaTexas announcement, EM time spent in Austin recently, rumors of land purchase, and proximity to Boca Chica. Is he including Nevada in the tweet because he wants to negotiate more with Texas legislators and Nevada provides leverage for those negotiations? I assume Reno isn’t really in consideration because of the struggles GF1 has experienced finding labor and housing.

 

[ZeApelido]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

 

[Reductionist]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

Making additional lockdowns in the future much harder to implement (ie. insurance for Fremont), and possibly suing Alameda for damages at a later date.

 

[MaChiMiB]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

2 weeks shutdown is about the yearly shutdown time of car production. It's not small peanuts.

And this is not about just two weeks extension of the shutdown. This is how Alameda handles this crisis, how they value manufacturers and how reliable and sane they are in the future (of covid and with other concerns to Tesla).
Elon has enough of "let's just wait on another batch of data and then talk", because Tesla knows how to handle this from Shanghai. He totally lost confidence in Alameda county and Newsom (for not stepping in).

Another thing is, have you looked at Teslas HQ? It's time to move on to a bigger one.

 

[Tslynk67]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

For our species, every day lost is one more day reprise for the fossil-fuel industry, one more day of everyone dying a little bit more from NO2 poisoning.

For employees, it's another day more with no or lower salary in their pocket.

From a shareholder perspective, every day lost is decreasing the possibility of Q2 profits and possible S&P500 inclusion.

 

[Mike Smith]

This is the top news story on Foxnews.com. The right wing is falling more and more in love with Tesla and Musk ever since his fight with CNN and now with California and his calls to re-open the economy and even move to Texas. Tesla's addressable market in the US is growing much, much larger.

California Democrat reacts to Tesla lawsuit, pullout plan over coronavirus rules: ‘F--- Elon Musk’

 

[feigen66]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

If Alameda County is sincere, they would release the dates a lot of earlier than saving us from the suit.

Nope.

Now they put a date on the record in less than 24 hrs.

Also letting county to have their own interpretation on federal critical infrastructure is dangerous. This is not just for Tesla. A lot of business would not consider Alameda County for this kind of risk.

 

[Captkerosene]

All this shitake over an extra 2 weeks of shutdown?

Seems like small peanuts...

What is the Machiavellian motivation here? Marketing? Excuse to move to Tejas? There must be one.

Think of it as 50 million in wealth destruction per day the factory is closed - wages that aren't paid for work that isn't done. That's the same as 100 houses burning down. That's a home burning down every 15 minutes. Thus the urgency.

 

[willow_hiller]

New This is the top news story on Foxnews.com. The right wing is falling more and more in love with Tesla and Musk ever since his fight with CNN and now with California and his calls to re-open the economy. Tesla's addressable market in the US is growing much, much larger.

It's also a top story on other sources, and I'm disappointed with how little nuance a story can contain when it fits within an ideology's cognative resonance.

This morning on NPR they said Elon was threatening to sue over "social distancing." Which is a gross oversimplification of the issue. But for many people "Republican is bad. Republican says reopen. Elon says reopen his factory, therefore Elon bad."

It makes so much sense to allow businesses that can operate safely to operate, and keep the rest closed. Why does everything need to be so black and white?

 

[Beltsbear]

[SPECULATION] I don't think they would be able to sue for lost revenue, but if they were to sue for lost gross profits, it could become very expensive for Alameda.

A judge could very likely allow them to open. But financial damages being awarded is slim to none. Especially on a grey area thing like this.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

True that. This is becoming enormous. Soon the largest tesla factory. Wonder how big giga Berlin and Texas factories will be.

Answer...Terafactories!

Dan

 

[SpeedGoat]

Standing up to "overbearing" government policies that are causing economic hardship for thousands of blue-collar workers has excellent optics in the eyes of millions of Americans. People are getting sick and tired of having everything dictated to them by inept government agencies. By standing up to a government agency like the Alameda County Health Department Musk is becoming a hero to an entirely new class of fan.

Yes, and this is just one example. The county officials would tell you that they are "protecting" the people by ordering their employer to stay closed and preventing them from doing their jobs, contributing to society, or collecting a paycheck for months. Then the same officials act as if they are above being questioned and that they alone get to determine when and how people are allowed to resume exercising their most basic freedoms.

Even in this thread we have people suggesting that Elon needs to be nicer to county level officials of no special insight or competence so that they might "let" him open his factory again.

Elon has it right. It is up to the county to prove why opening the factory is such an immense threat that it must stay closed. It is up to the country to clearly articulate when/how Tesla can expect to resume operations, and those conditions need to be testable, not just vague statements about "when it is time."

 

[Artful Dodger]

The following statement from Tesla's blog pretty much sums up Alameda County's approach:

Getting Back to Work | Tesla.com blog (May 9, 2020)

"This is not for lack of trying or transparency since we have met with and collaborated on our restart plans with the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency. Unfortunately, the County Public Health Officer who is making these decisions has not returned our calls or emails."​

I can't think of words to describe the situation at Alameda County, so here's a picture instead:

Of course, stinking your head in the sand does protect your cheeks, trouble is somebody else may use your other cheeks as a bicycle stand...

Cheers!

 

[StealthP3D]

I love these updates. It's incredibly interesting to see how quickly phase 2 is coming along and how it differs from phase 1.

The whole western side is made up of the heavier steel beams and there are extra levels at the far end compared to phase 1.

!Holy mother of pearl!

The scale of that place is astounding!

 

[Mo City]

Is it my imagination or does GF3 look like it is tripling in size!?

~3x. This is why I asked what the final output would be when all construction is finished.

 

[StealthP3D]

It makes so much sense to allow businesses that can operate safely to operate, and keep the rest closed. Why does everything need to be so black and white?

You have probably noticed (how could anyone not?) that a large group of operatives, some of them already successfully having been reprogrammed themselves, have been diligently working to reprogram the grey pixels right out of public consciousness. Obviously, that leaves only black and white pixels.

I'm not joking so please don't rate this as funny!

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Great post!

Another anecdote; WSJ article re: Musk’s tweet had tremendous backing in the comments section versus the usual attacks.

Judging by the reactions to his tweets it looks like Elon’s recent actions cost him some support among the vocal left (I’ve been looking at a lot of feeds of the ones who react negatively), but he probably more than made up for that among the middle and right.