1- Yes I still generally agree that any savings you are going to get are going to be in that area. The only real negative right now is that although they might have projected for 500k/yr volumes, they aren't there yet, and won't be getting 500k/yr volume pricing until they are at 500k/yr volume.
If the currently posited Senate plan goes through my US taxes will rise by more than 200%. Long story, but, US citizens with dual residency in US and foreign country get royally screwed in the draft Senate plan. I'll wait until when/if something actually is enacted before panicking. FATCA is bad enough, but dual citizens have no problem.
I hear you. AMT is an evil thing too, in my opinion. Politics is an area where my apathy is pretty much overwhelming. I can't broadly defend any party, and won't try.
To add to this, the AD issue is also about removing the slowest step in the entire process, ie removing the human from the entire line- so flesh this part out: remove humans carting supplies to the line, humans moving sub assemblies from creation of sub assembly to main line, moving the finished car from the line and parking it/storing it, and more-- please if any one is familiar with automation chime in here.
True. The last two times I was through such analyses they were for vehicles about to be launched as new brands. Both are well established today, so the analysis was a couple decades old. Other things remaining equal, the marginal cost of a Model 3-style display will be far cheaper than the 'steam gauges' of more typical vehicles, but teh capital cost for Tesla will be higher. That same relationship probably will hold for a wide variety of control systems. I'll speculate that the ECU and control hardware will be more costly than will the Tesla inverters and associated controls. In another arena the Tesla BMS is basically another automotive air conditioner so only the sensors will really differ much.
Unless, of course, the real world includes the vast majority of college educated people who live in major SMSA's almost anywhere on any US coast or major cities anywhere else in the USA...or Jackson Hole, Park City and so on.
Let us be fair.
First of all, I only chose seats because I was tired of referring to widgets. However, your example is perfect. First, that 10% not held by the big 5 is an array of small companies trying to innovate like crazy to be a big boy. Second, the fact that there are 5 large companies focused like lasers on making seats means they are going to be pretty darned good at it, more than likely. So my upstart in Slovenia can't be competitive, even though one innovation that gives it an advantage opens up a market for 10s of millions of parts per year, while Esla can bring it completely in house, has only one customer, but yet they are going to lead the pack in innovation and efficiency?
