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MitchJi
Trying to learn kindness, patience & forgiveness
Yes there is and it has.
GF has 3x the output as compared to the original plan. Cars are more complex to make so the potential improvements are greater, but take longer to manifest.
If you don't believe that watch the MS-MX production over the next few quarters. In the Peter Hochholdinger he talked positively about the concepts that Elon said are the main reasons for the Alien Dreadnought , but he said that the reason he was brought in was for logistics. He's an expert at logistics for large scale manufacturing.
I think it's fair to summarize what he said as Elon and the Tesla team have the production process nailed.
Clearly they don't have any experience in the logistics required for producing 500k cars per year. It's really encouraging that they brought in an expert in that!
Edit Addition:
I was referring to this interview:
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In case any haven't seen, Adam Jonas just released a note today dropping their TSLA price target by 1% to $242.
Of note (my emphasis):
"We continue to forecast a Model 3 launch at the very end of 2018 (more than 1 year later than company target) with 60k units in 2019 and 130k units in 2020."
Thus ...
$242 price target ASSUMING --
- Model 3 will be up to a year and a half LATE
- Model 3 will have a glacial ramp after launch
- ZERO value from SCTY
- ZERO value from Tesla Energy
They reiterated their Equal-Weight rating.
Of note (my emphasis):
"We continue to forecast a Model 3 launch at the very end of 2018 (more than 1 year later than company target) with 60k units in 2019 and 130k units in 2020."
Thus ...
$242 price target ASSUMING --
- Model 3 will be up to a year and a half LATE
- Model 3 will have a glacial ramp after launch
- ZERO value from SCTY
- ZERO value from Tesla Energy
They reiterated their Equal-Weight rating.
dc_h
Active Member
@warpedobe. Dave has provided plenty of data to back up his opinion of future outcomes. The future is uncertain, pointing that out is not fud. Make your own conclusions and accept others and let time sort it out.
I accept some have appeared on the forum without positive intent. DaveT is not one of those people. I appreciate honest discussion, but once it becomes personal debate quality goes down the drain.
dc_h
Active Member
The discussion of TSLA vs the rest of industry is interesting as you look out to 2020. Much depends on industry response. I think TSLA has a first mover advantage that will be tough to match without long term investments: negative impact to profit and cash flow.
TSLA status positions them in autos as Apple is in smartphones. TSLA has high margin products allowing them to invest a high percentage of revenue back into growth (research, mfg, sales, charging...). The Bolt, for instance, is a no profit compliance car that takes no significant market share from TSLA and gives the EV market free advertising and legitimacy. Audi/VW, they have plans. To be determined if they can build a good product at profit, if they deliver by 2020. If the TSLA network delivers by 2019, now TSLA can double margins and perhaps sell cars with no profit and make their money on TAAS. In this instance they could be apple and google android at the same time, making the high margin product and profiting from the products existence (mobile search makes android profitable for google but not handset mfrs).
The future for TE is less clear. Will others rush in, will an aggregator market energy as a service like TE is, like American Samoa) or will their integrated approach win the battle. In an industry seeing 20-30% annual productivity gains, I think the integrated approach has first mover advantages. Conglomerates often have lower productivity gains, but are steady gainers with solid financial and operational models allowing them to plan steady growth years out. TSLA is combining a conglomerate model with an entrepreneurial leader model, combining the advantages of vertical production and first mover status. Example is TE, using the storage market to fund/justify the GF for autos. Without TE are island micro grid solutions feasible? This is an example of TSLA having pricing advantage of integrated production, and selling into the early high margin market to fund more productivity down the road.
These virtuous circles tend to bring in competition, but I think it will be tough for short term American companies financially, not easy for German to compete against the Silicon Valley advantage and tough for china to compete on image. Value for the next year depends on thread primary drivers: free cash flow from combined model S/X production, ramp of TE (anything over 1bn), and model 3 timing (on time reveal, followed by 25,000-50,0000 3s in 2017.
If they do all of this they meet the Morgan requirements for 400 valuation by end of '17.
Writing on my phone, so apologies for not editing for clarity and grammar.
TSLA status positions them in autos as Apple is in smartphones. TSLA has high margin products allowing them to invest a high percentage of revenue back into growth (research, mfg, sales, charging...). The Bolt, for instance, is a no profit compliance car that takes no significant market share from TSLA and gives the EV market free advertising and legitimacy. Audi/VW, they have plans. To be determined if they can build a good product at profit, if they deliver by 2020. If the TSLA network delivers by 2019, now TSLA can double margins and perhaps sell cars with no profit and make their money on TAAS. In this instance they could be apple and google android at the same time, making the high margin product and profiting from the products existence (mobile search makes android profitable for google but not handset mfrs).
The future for TE is less clear. Will others rush in, will an aggregator market energy as a service like TE is, like American Samoa) or will their integrated approach win the battle. In an industry seeing 20-30% annual productivity gains, I think the integrated approach has first mover advantages. Conglomerates often have lower productivity gains, but are steady gainers with solid financial and operational models allowing them to plan steady growth years out. TSLA is combining a conglomerate model with an entrepreneurial leader model, combining the advantages of vertical production and first mover status. Example is TE, using the storage market to fund/justify the GF for autos. Without TE are island micro grid solutions feasible? This is an example of TSLA having pricing advantage of integrated production, and selling into the early high margin market to fund more productivity down the road.
These virtuous circles tend to bring in competition, but I think it will be tough for short term American companies financially, not easy for German to compete against the Silicon Valley advantage and tough for china to compete on image. Value for the next year depends on thread primary drivers: free cash flow from combined model S/X production, ramp of TE (anything over 1bn), and model 3 timing (on time reveal, followed by 25,000-50,0000 3s in 2017.
If they do all of this they meet the Morgan requirements for 400 valuation by end of '17.
Writing on my phone, so apologies for not editing for clarity and grammar.
please look at slide deck for Ta'u (Samoa) and Kauai (Hawaii) note pgs 31-34
Ta'u is 99.4% PV plus battery, Kauai has a 50/50 mix of hydro and PV and 60Mw battery Tesla/SCTY facility. (and ~1/3 of PV is resdential) BUT total (presently and grown is ~129+ megawatts of renewable energy
they are doers
http://www.ppa.org.fj/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1530-Solar-City.pdf
Interesting interview w/Marc Andreesen.
Flying cars are closer than you think | Verge 2021
"The big constraint on all of this stuff is batteries. Assuming no battery breakthrough, what [flying car] companies are trying to solve, fundamentally, is the power problem — which is, "How do we get the thing airborne and 50 miles without literally running out of charge?"
The single biggest X factor in the next five or 10 years for all of this stuff will be if there is some fundamental breakthrough in battery technology, then basically all of these questions of what’s possible get reopened. Because if I had 10 or 100 times the amount of power that lasts 10 or 100 times longer, then we’re building Iron Man suits. Then all kinds of things start to happen.
That breakthrough could happen at any point. I don’t think that’s necessarily a Silicon Valley startup that does that. I think that’s either a research university or probably a big industrial research lab — Honeywell, GE, Toshiba, or one of these companies. There is tons of R&D going into that right now, because it’s such an obvious problem. Any time that breakthrough happens, that’s the big one — and then all of the sudden, we really do have flying cars."
I agree that a true breakthrough in energy storage can lead to an amazing new set of new products, like flying cars. But I disagree with Andreesen that the breakthrough will come from a big industrial lab like GE or Honeywell. With the billions of dollars of cash flow that the Model 3/Y will provide, Tesla can and likely will spend enormous amounts on R&D with a focus on not just improving batteries but also finding a true breakthrough in energy storage. My bet is that Tesla finds the true breakthrough.
Flying cars are closer than you think | Verge 2021
"The big constraint on all of this stuff is batteries. Assuming no battery breakthrough, what [flying car] companies are trying to solve, fundamentally, is the power problem — which is, "How do we get the thing airborne and 50 miles without literally running out of charge?"
The single biggest X factor in the next five or 10 years for all of this stuff will be if there is some fundamental breakthrough in battery technology, then basically all of these questions of what’s possible get reopened. Because if I had 10 or 100 times the amount of power that lasts 10 or 100 times longer, then we’re building Iron Man suits. Then all kinds of things start to happen.
That breakthrough could happen at any point. I don’t think that’s necessarily a Silicon Valley startup that does that. I think that’s either a research university or probably a big industrial research lab — Honeywell, GE, Toshiba, or one of these companies. There is tons of R&D going into that right now, because it’s such an obvious problem. Any time that breakthrough happens, that’s the big one — and then all of the sudden, we really do have flying cars."
I agree that a true breakthrough in energy storage can lead to an amazing new set of new products, like flying cars. But I disagree with Andreesen that the breakthrough will come from a big industrial lab like GE or Honeywell. With the billions of dollars of cash flow that the Model 3/Y will provide, Tesla can and likely will spend enormous amounts on R&D with a focus on not just improving batteries but also finding a true breakthrough in energy storage. My bet is that Tesla finds the true breakthrough.
I already know a very solid theoretical energy storage design which has that power density and energy density (>10x the current stuff), based on storing energy as magnetic potential rather than electric potential. :sigh: We haven't figured out how to commercialize it, because financing is hard, most financiers are trying to cheat you, and because we have lives which prevent us from working on it 24 hours a day like a true entrepeneur would. :-(
History of technology is weird. Good stuff gets invented and doesn't go into general usage *a lot*.
History of technology is weird. Good stuff gets invented and doesn't go into general usage *a lot*.
MitchJi
Trying to learn kindness, patience & forgiveness
Obviously.
We don't know if that will happen, if it does when it will happen and who will figure it out.
As an investor I wouldn't bet on Tesla finding that first. Possibly but IMO unlikely. I don't believe that is crucial anyway. I think Tesla will handle any breakthroughs the same way they have handled Lithium Ion, Solar panels and autonomous driving. They will jump in first, and produce the best and least expensive versions of the technology, which is more important than making the initial discovery. That's their main moat, which is one of the things you're hoping for?
An interesting conundrum they'd face is what to do with it if they made the initial discovery. Because if they live up to their mission statement clearly they'd open source the technology, like their patents.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I think their mission statement would be best served by them staying a successful company, so holding a discovery close for a while to give them an advantage would not be contrary to that. Tesla doesn't give away all of their knowledge after all.
If energy storage was the main problem, we would have gasoline powered flying cars now.
LargeHamCollider
Battery cells != scalable
Autonomy is integral to the flying car problem, it largely solves the pilot training problem and the ATC problem.
Batteries are already good enough to power a "flying car" 50 miles, but 50 miles may not be good enough. Then there are other problems like crafting the right regulatory framework, addressing consumer psychology issues, the potential aesthetic problem ...and the whole system needs to be extremely reliable.
Flying cars are silly. Even if we had automated helicopters they would not be used by very many people. First, they're inefficient. Second, they don't work in bad weather (you know how often planes are grounded by bad weather?) Third, they take up a lot of space when landing, and fourth, they're really loud.
5th, they can fall on your head. Which is exactly what Elon pointed out when someone asked him about the future of flying cars (I can't remember which interview).
Below is reportedly Larry Page's flying car. I'm as much a futurist as anyone, but this is one technology that I wouldn't bet on seeing in the near future.
Electric jets on the other hand ARE something that is constrained by current battery technologies..
MitchJi
Trying to learn kindness, patience & forgiveness
One of my main medium-term concerns is the inauguration. I am posting two brief excerpts from talks and a link to a 7:45 minute video, because I'm hoping to have a chance to get some opinions on how this might impact either the overall market or Tesla.
Bernie Sanders on the Life and Legacy of Late Cuban Revolutionary Fidel Castro | Democracy Now!
Protest & "Boycott Everything": Robert Reich on the First 100 Day Resistance Agenda Against Trump | Democracy Now!
1. Will the unemployed and underemployed voters who voted for Trump ever figure out that they were lied to?
2. If so, how long will it take?
3. What will happen to the market and Tesla if and when they do?
Bernie Sanders on the Life and Legacy of Late Cuban Revolutionary Fidel Castro | Democracy Now!
Protest & "Boycott Everything": Robert Reich on the First 100 Day Resistance Agenda Against Trump | Democracy Now!
My three question are:
1. Will the unemployed and underemployed voters who voted for Trump ever figure out that they were lied to?
2. If so, how long will it take?
3. What will happen to the market and Tesla if and when they do?
MitchJi
Trying to learn kindness, patience & forgiveness
cgiGuy
Active Member
That's the worst flying car ever if it has to be pulled by a golf cart.5th, they can fall on your head. Which is exactly what Elon pointed out when someone asked him about the future of flying cars (I can't remember which interview).
Below is reportedly Larry Page's flying car. I'm as much a futurist as anyone, but this is one technology that I wouldn't bet on seeing in the near future.
Electric jets on the other hand ARE something that is constrained by current battery technologies..
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