2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[wayner]

Assuming about 100% growth per year, this means yearly production of >10 million per year in 2023. That would make Tesla the biggest car manufacturer in the world.

Which would be a huge market share given that there are currently about 80 million cars sold globally and that number is growing around 1% per year. IMHO that is very unlikely and it isn't clear if Tesla, or any company, could keep up with that pace of growth. Beyond manufacturing, think of all the Service Centres and SuperChargers that would need to be built to support that many cars.

 

[Waiting4M3]

However, I was dismayed by the dog ate my homework excuse by Elon that a critical contractor dropped the ball. Thus requiring his best SW developers to parachute in and rewrite all the contractors software and others to rework hardware. This outcome could never have happened this way if the contractors work was being supervised effectively by Tesla. The contractor must have been working on their portion of the battery pack production line for 9 - 15 months and it was only learned they had failed a few weeks ago? IMO Musk, JB and other top level Tesla execs shouldn't consider Production Hell to be over, until they understand and fix their managing/supervising practices on this particular contractor project.

you can bet whoever/whatever is responsible for making Elon camping out on the factory roof will get dealt with, we probably just haven't heard about it yet

 

[EinSV]

Pipe dream? Oh My God!. Look - every media outlet, analyst on wall street and Tesla fan read this as "this is what they are going to do". The tease in 2016 was "100k-200k Model 3 in 2017 H2" by Elon himself. That itself is a cold-start 200k-400k run-rate. Inconceivable!

This is market manipulation at its finest - by "everyone". Come on - just writing it off as a pipe dream when in fact it was most likely a specific "anchor" to build a media hypestorm over (look up hundreds of press articles regarding moving 500k from 2020 to 2018). This is material. And it speaks to both culpable board members, stock analysts, everyone. This is not proper corporate governance.

You are a funny guy. If Tesla did not have this problem crop up, it is entirely possible they could have met the 500K in 2018 production. We will never know.

But you and you your merry band of Twitter naysayers accusing Tesla of fraud and market manipulation at every turn gets a little old.

Incidentally, I am really stunned by the number of Keef W. tweets that you retweet. I think that (and the rest of your @bonairevolt Twitter feed) reveals quite a bit about your so-called "standards" regarding using the media to manipulate sentiment about a company.

 

[Waiting4M3]

Electric vehicle $7,500 tax credit expected to go away with new House tax bill, says congressman

This could get really interesting. If they take away the incentives and all of a sudden people stop buying compliance EVs, while the CARB requirement is still in effect, what will all the ICE carmakers do? They may bite the bullet and lower prices to make up the difference to the consumers, and take a loss. Or they may bite the bullet and buy more credits from Tesla.

What will it do to Tesla demand? No one knows. Elon and co think that their offering is competitive anyway without the incentive, maybe it's good we remove that uncertainty now vs ~3 quarters from now.

 

[DFibRL8R]

Here's the most frightening leading market indicator yet...
The McRib is back at McDonald's

 

[ggr]

I don't think we have to worry yet. I can't imagine the current tax proposal passing the senate. The incentive will probably go away if/when the new tax bill passes, one day, but by then it may already be gone for Tesla anyway.

 

[JRP3]

Incidentally, I am really stunned by the number of Keef W. tweets that you retweet. I think that (and the rest of your @bonairevolt Twitter feed) reveals quite a bit about your so-called "standards" regarding using the media to manipulate sentiment about a company.

Indeed. People should check out the "quality" of bonaire's twitter feed and judge all his comments accordingly.

 

[augkuo]

You should say more things in here.

Context. 5k a week on model 3 is a 250k/year run rate. If they can do that in next six months, it means more than tripling the current production capacity of the company. If they can achieve that in such a short period of time, in a company building complicated hardware, it would be a truly amazing achievement. The call really explained how this ramp up is fundamentally different from prior ones. They are creating an integrated, automated process that has not existed in the world before. It's made up of thousands of different processes. If they can achieve it, they will be the only car company in the world with a system for creating PROFITABLE electric cars for the masses. And they will be on track for growth rates unprecedented in the auto industry in a century. Still big ifs. But amidst the relentless negativity of those whose world view can't encompass the type of change Tesla is ushering in, it's easy to lose context. That's why there was the emphasis on the 100x growth of the last five years.

Even if you only had the evidence of Tesla's track record, you could believe. Throw in the fact that SpaceX has outperformed every national government program in history, and you really should be able to conclude that there is remarkable engineering vision at work here. We're witnessing a historically unique transformation in all its painful, intimate amazingness. Speaking personally, I don't want to invest on the wrong side of history.

I "Scoop"ed some Tesla engineers this morning, they're ramping up now that the bottleneck has been solved so it's basically a 1 - 1 and 1/2 month delay in the Model 3 production. Employees/friends will get their cars in the month or two so non-employees should see their cars starting in January.

*Scoop is a carpool ap

 

[GregRF]

I'm confident that the bottleneck(s) will be resolved over the next few months and Tesla will go on in 2018 to produce a great many M3s, if not the 350K which earlier predictions of 500K total cars in 2018 would require.
However, I was dismayed by the dog ate my homework excuse by Elon that a critical contractor dropped the ball. Thus requiring his best SW developers to parachute in and rewrite all the contractors software and others to rework hardware. This outcome could never have happened this way if the contractors work was being supervised effectively by Tesla. The contractor must have been working on their portion of the battery pack production line for 9 - 15 months and it was only learned they had failed a few weeks ago? IMO Musk, JB and other top level Tesla execs shouldn't consider Production Hell to be over, until they understand and fix their managing/supervising practices on this particular contractor project.

Hard to be sure of this time frame when we heard reports that they only authorized the money for this part of the factory at the end of May.
Tesla Invest $216 Million Into Model 3 Battery Line At Gigafactory

 

[SBenson]

On a side note, @SBenson you were absolutely right that 500K in 2018 was a pipe dream. Whether I was insane or not for believing that was achievable is a judgment I will leave to mental health professionals.

Thanks but more specifically I was more worried about mental health of people who believed in 10K/wk 2018 exit run rate. Apparently there are still quite a lot of folks who need check ups

 

[jbcarioca]

Source?

Tesla Drops After Republican Says Tax Bill Will Repeal Electric Car Credits

 

[Waiting4M3]

Hard to be sure of this time frame when we heard reports that they only authorized the money for this part of the factory at the end of May.
Tesla Invest $216 Million Into Model 3 Battery Line At Gigafactory

1 quarter lead time on industrial equipment seems common. If Tesla placed order to the automation supplier at the end of May, then the supplier delivered at the end of Aug, and Tesla found the problem in Sep. In the mean while Tesla hand-built some packs that were used in ~100 M3 built in Jul/Aug. All these seem to be consistent.

 

[Waiting4M3]

Thanks but more specifically I was more worried about mental health of people who believed in 10K/wk 2018 exit run rate. Apparently there are still quite a lot of folks who need check ups

C'mon guys, patting yourself on the back all you want, but calling other people crazy, can we be a little more civil than that?

 

[Waiting4M3]

Tesla Drops After Republican Says Tax Bill Will Repeal Electric Car Credits

I rate it funny because of those articles with headlines like that, I can make up another one: "Manafort arrested after Trump visits golf course"

 

[jbcarioca]

This could get really interesting. If they take away the incentives and all of a sudden people stop buying compliance EVs, while the CARB requirement is still in effect, what will all the ICE carmakers do? They may bite the bullet and lower prices to make up the difference to the consumers, and take a loss. Or they may bite the bullet and buy more credits from Tesla.

What will it do to Tesla demand? No one knows. Elon and co think that their offering is competitive anyway without the incentive, maybe it's good we remove that uncertainty now vs ~3 quarters from now.

Here is my two cents.
Zero impact on Tesla sales but:
- quite a few first time buyers who've reserved Model 3 will cancel reservations, to be replaced by other people,
-share price for next couple of days will be under bear pressure (I just cancelled todays buy order),
-once Model 3 production is rising all all be well for Tesla,
-sales for Leaf and Bolt will skyrocket for the next few days until the stock is gone as people jump for the credit,
-later Tesla sales will continue rising.
Reference: see Tesla sales in Georgia vs all the BEV's when GA quit their tax credit.

 

[MartinAustin]

(look up hundreds of press articles regarding moving 500k from 2020 to 2018). This is material

No. Including the text strings "Tesla" or "Elon Musk" in a headline is a guaranteed bringer of webclicks, we all know that, and we have all seen hundreds of me-too press articles regurgitating the same small number of facts and figures about Tesla, simply in order to get webclicks.

The fact that there are hundreds of press articles... I do not dispute.

Saying that the publication of those articles turns Tesla's projections into "duping" is flat wrong.

 

[jbcarioca]

I rate it funny because of those articles with headlines like that, I can make up another one: "Manafort arrested after Trump visits golf course"

 

[dirtyofries]

Tesla Drops After Republican Says Tax Bill Will Repeal Electric Car Credits

Terrible headline. The stock stabilized and even went up slightly AFTER the tax news dropped.

 

[MartinAustin]

Terrible headline. The stock stabilized and even went up slightly AFTER the tax news dropped.

Yes, it may as well say Tesla Drops After... 1492

 

[jbcarioca]

Terrible headline. The stock stabilized and even went up slightly AFTER the tax news dropped.

Ah, be fair the guy is from Michigan, and the auto people were among his leading contributors (not among the top five). In Michigan dissing Tesla is a good fundraising tactic.