2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[SteveG3]

Wouldn't/won't there be a paper trail of their losses somewhere in someone's quarterly reports?

Short and hold. Probably only a loss when you sell, and/or these are not necessarily entities who are required to publically report anything.

Even with the squeeze in 2013, I think the short position never went below about 15% of float, to my understanding, far far more than the average publicly traded company.

So perhaps a baseline of about 15% short as part of this PR campaign, and then typically another 10% or so of 1) traders jumping in on the volatility, 2) innocent bystanders getting doused with that "Tesla scam" koolaide.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I find it to be all but certainly intellectually disingenuous. they simply don't want to legitimize the transition from their ICE businesses to EVs. They want this to occur as slowly as possible. Collectively their sales will grow about 20% between now and 2020 whether Tesla sells 1 million or 0 vehicles.

Meh. I think that they just got sick of it all and want to DIE.

 

[Sudre]

With hydrogen vehicles you also, in addition to what is listed, have to build the battery factories and everything for batteries only at 1/2 the scale. If you want the power of a P100D you still need the battery peak output so in that case full battery scale. Fuel-cells can not possibly put out 320kW+ and fit in a car.

Think about that. It just adds a huge amount of extra sticker price.

Hybrids are not what people want for the most part. Why would more complicated hybrids do the trick?

 

[dmckinstry]

Out of 1000 senior automotive executives surveyed, 78% believe fuel cells are the future of clean vehicles, 62% think BEVs will fail.

Majority of automotive execs still believe battery-powered cars will fail and fuel cells are the future

I find this to be absolutely mind boggling.

That means IMHO that they're still in the control of big oil. Fuel cells require natural gas to make electricity economically.

 

[schonelucht]

Fuel cells, talking about beating a dead horse, especially with the excellent GF related news. That's two points on my list to watch for in 2017 that Tesla fulfilled on time! Evening the score at 2-2 right now.

 

[sundaymorning]

Elon once stated that "fools cells" are like an "amphibian frog," they're neither good in water or on land. Just a slow moving creature.

 

[Yuri_G]

A little peek into cell production.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154876472132801

 

[doctoxics]

Yuri_G. What are we looking at.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I am wondering whether Tesla is planning to release deliveries tomorrow to provide some positive background to the GF event. I know that many expect Tesla showcase production of new cells at GF, but there are some indications that they really have not much (in terms of operating production lines) to show.

First hint come from the Baird note in which Ben Kallo indicated that “We believe Tesla battery sales are accelerating, and we should see additional benefits from the battery production ramp coinciding with the launch of the Model 3."

This timing is consistent with the following quote from the IEEE's Spectrum article, which has a lot of opinions that are not fact based, but included the following seemingly factual snippet: "At press time, the Gigafactory was still a work in progress. Already, stationary storage units were being assembled there, but using imported battery cells. According to Tesla, the facility was on track to begin mass production by the end of 2016. However, a source at Panasonic, Tesla’s partner in the Gigafactory, told IEEE Spectrum that “by April” was the best they could guarantee."

So according to the two sources above, contrary to the prior guidance by the company GF production did not start by the end of 2016. I am far from sure that this could be a negative for SP (TE currently is not factored in it at all), but may be Tesla feels that they need to fill the void with some positive information and decided to report deliveries tomorrow.

I do not have high confidence in the above but coincidental information about GF production in two above sources caught my eye.

Going back to the quote from Panasonic regarding the start of mass production at the GF, I think that the key which was overlooked by everybody including myself, but which clearly stands out now is that source at Panasonic did not indicate that mass production will start by April, they said that all they can say is that they guarantee that mass production starts by April. This essentially does not contradict to today's event in any way - their guarantee still stands, as they, to be intentionally abstruse IMO, put limit on the latest start date, without saying anything about the earliest projection.

Overall, it is very interesting how Tesla and Panasonic managed to pull this off in 100% stealth mode, without a peep coming from any sources. This strict discipline is very impressive.

To the question about what constitutes start of mass production, it is in my mind is not so much linked to the quantity of the output, but to the fact that it is coming from the production line designed for mass production, after proper validation and testing is completed. Clearly production will start with the lowest output possible and then will be gradually brought up to the maximum. So keeping this definition in mind, Tesla and Panasonic indeed started mass production of the cells at the GF.

 

[dennis]

Why not, if that's what it takes? Most progress is not painless. Total car deliveries is not the be-all-end-all.

It would have been fine if they had forecast the 6 weeks of slowdown in production. Instead they had to tell us about it after the fact when they missed the number. Credibility is important not just for Wall Street but also when dealing with suppliers. As Tesla keeps missing forecasts their credibility with suppliers suffers.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Yuri_G. What are we looking at.

This is snippet from the Tesla Facebook page, posted by Tesla.

 

[RobStark]

A little peek into cell production.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154876472132801

 

[erthquake]

A little peek into cell production.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154876472132801

Damn, that's beautiful.

 

[AudubonB]

Yuri_G. What are we looking at.

Those are individual 21-70 cells close to the end of their production line. The spiral layers of cathode, anode and isolater have been emplaced; the electrolyte fluid has been inserted and the top cap has been welded on.
Effectively all that remains is for it to go through a water wash in order to remove any spilled electrolyte, which otherwise can cause surface rust, then every single cell undergoes a physical QC (scratches, bad welding, etc), and an electrochemical one (voltage, etc). Then it undergoes a curing or tempering; this enables the LiOH-filled electrolyte to nestle into the latticework of the cell-it's not an instantaneous process.
But I thought I said I'd provide a full report... Except I needed to fill some time at the Beatty NV SpC site, which is now complete. G'night.

 

[myusername]

Great. sounds like you're all in (TSLA). Congratulations! You must have made a fortune today;

while one might have been swayed to buy the dips on these dramatic swings over the last few days... no one could have timed it in advance without relying on luck... 213 to 220 to 211 to 226 in 3 days?... wtf is going on with this stock?

i did not play this week... i was too busy... and I'm glad... i'll try to review the charts soon and see how our recent trends correlate with this madness.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Those are individual 21-70 cells close to the end of their production line. The spiral layers of cathode, anode and isolater have been emplaced; the electrolyte fluid has been inserted and the top cap has been welded on.
Effectively all that remains is for it to go through a water wash in order to remove any spilled electrolyte, which otherwise can cause surface rust, then every single cell undergoes a physical QC (scratches, bad welding, etc), and an electrochemical one (voltage, etc). Then it undergoes a curing or tempering; this enables the LiOH-filled electrolyte to nestle into the latticework of the cell-it's not an instantaneous process.
But I thought I said I'd provide a full report... Except I needed to fill some time at the Beatty NV SpC site, which is now complete. G'night.

Do you know what is the purpose for the groove around the circumference near the top of the cylinder?

 

[erthquake]

Do you know what is the purpose for the groove around the circumference near the top of the cylinder?

Perhaps it's the seam between the cap and the outer casing?

 

[jhm]

Out of 1000 senior automotive executives surveyed, 78% believe fuel cells are the future of clean vehicles, 62% think BEVs will fail.

Majority of automotive execs still believe battery-powered cars will fail and fuel cells are the future

I find this to be absolutely mind boggling.

Apparently, they have not lost enough market share to Tesla yet.

They think infrastructure is the problem for EVs, but at what scale do EVs face a critical infrastructure problem. I don't see a hard edge here. At current scale, EV owners do fine and charge mostly at home. Clearly this is not a problem for utilities either. Suppose the fleet of EVs gets 10 time larger. People still charge mostly at home and utilities have not shorted out. Meanwhile, technology for faster charging has emerged and charging station are more widely available and more heavily utilized. So I don't see how advancing the scale brings EVs any closer to failure, just the opposite. Increasing scale improves the infrastructural challenges. This would be true of hydrogen vehicle. The problem however is that hydrogen infrastructure requires substantial geographical density before it is adequate. So it will be much harder at small scale than large scale. And may never get past that critical scale.

Like I said, they just have not lost enough market share yet. As EVs scale up, the infrastructure will become even more supportive.

 

[jhm]

Do you know what is the purpose for the groove around the circumference near the top of the cylinder?

Uh, this book may have the answer. Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human: 9780374532925: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

 

[eloder]

It would have been fine if they had forecast the 6 weeks of slowdown in production. Instead they had to tell us about it after the fact when they missed the number. Credibility is important not just for Wall Street but also when dealing with suppliers. As Tesla keeps missing forecasts their credibility with suppliers suffers.

Honestly, it's refreshing to have a high growth company that doesn't blow past every forecast it puts out.

Look how much Apple is punished now for on-target results. It's great short-term money, but in the longer term it definitely can start causing harm. As long as Tesla's forecasts and results aren't decelerating over time, it's perfectly fine for anyone who is long (and it also helps ratchet up the short pressure, which unless you don't believe in the Tesla mission is also a great thing longer term).