General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[avoigt]

Bumped into a friend I see every month or so on the train going downtown to work last week. He knows I'm a fan of Tesla. He made a point to tell me what he "knew" about Tesla over the last month and warned me to be careful.
- "Tesla loses $20,000 on every car they make." I advised him that Tesla could be profitable today, however they choose to spend aggressively on capital expenditures for accelerated growth (i.e. Gigafactory and M3 ramp). Regardless they are forecasting to be profitable later this year. No further rebuttal.
- "There is a lot of competition coming." Although he could only mention the Volt and Leaf when asked. I mentioned the Leaf recently stopped production due to their battery supply shortage and the Volt, although coming to market seven months earlier than the M3, is producing only 1400/month while M3 is now North of 3000/week. No further rebuttal.

My friend meant well, although he was not well informed. Most people can't get past the headlines. I advised him to check his sources, get supporting points of view, and not worry about me. I've put my money where my mouth and am not worried.

Its amazing to me that the same conversation seem to happen in different continents since years. As well as fighting FUD in social media its kind of a never ending exercise we all have with so called "informed" people who try to warn us about the company we are invested in.

I had the same experience like you many times and still have. They usually quickly stop arguing after having given them the first informed reply. I have to admit though that you really need to invest time to get to the truth about Tesla as the Headlines are that dominant and misleading and people don't question what is written in media that they used to trust. Life gets more complicated.

 

[bdy0627]

I was very impressed by how very impressed Jack was. And the video showed me how very serious TM was about making M3 an easier-to-manufacture car.
Everyone should watch this video. Erm, every long should.

I watched about 15 minutes of it. He's an interesting guy, but I would have a hard time sitting through the whole thing. Is there a specific section that is most helpful to watch?

 

[JRP3]

Use the 2X speed feature, and just jump the slider ahead until you see something interesting to you.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Is there a specific section that is most helpful to watch?

14:10 simple disconnections
17:17 same capacity as an S85
20:20 LMAO:

In a miracle of geometric legerdemain having to do with the volume of Cylinders, that only whiskey makers can truly appreciate,

2170 Cells are individually way better amp-houred than the 18650s. Directly after that:

• The “Penthouse” holds not more cells, but the BMS/Charger/dc-dc items that were scattered about the MS. That much less stuff to mount and wire into the M3. Cool, man.
• Connections for Front Motor and even 3-Phase AC Input are already placed

And, it’s important for me to say: Get Well ShopKitty!

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Looks like the battery is split into two halves which are connected by the penthouse. So it would not be much of a stretch from there to design a battery that can be switched between 400V (both halves in parallel) and 800V (both halves in serial) for faster charging at higher DC voltages, if they were so inclined. I doubt that is designed into the current 3 design, but the building blocks are there (in the sense that they just have to add some more contactors and bus bars and such which are known things)

 

[ValueAnalyst]

Key point missed in all the drama: Despite bottlenecks, Model 3 dominated its segment 4x quicker than Model S and 2x quicker than Model X. Project this forward: Semi, Model Y, Pickup, Roadster = Tesla's competition falls further behind with each new product.

ValueAnalyst on Twitter

 

[Waiting4M3]

Question: I heard that Sergio Marchionne, in the famous autoexec-Trump meeting, mentioned that FCA will build cars in Michigan, investing something like 1 billion dollars.
Is that the famous TIM?

A whole $1b! Sergio the big spender This is mouse nuts compared with Tesla's M3 CapEx.

It may be enough if it's used to revamp an existing factory. But building something from ground up like TIM, I would think you need something on the order of $5-10b.

 

[Starno]

Google's Waymo is crushing the competition and could be worth $135 billion, UBS says

The value of the Tesla Self driving department ?

 

[Waiting4M3]

Google's Waymo is crushing the competition and could be worth $135 billion, UBS says

The value of the Tesla Self driving department ?

Wow I had no idea Matt Schwall moving to Waymo is the game changer He better be making a sugar ton of money there

P.S. Obviously without Matt Schwall, Tesla is worth zero, down from zero before he left.

 

[defc0n]

Google's Waymo is crushing the competition and could be worth $135 billion, UBS says

The value of the Tesla Self driving department ?

$135b is absurd today as a valuation for Waymo. We have seen MobileEye go to Intel for $15b. How much better is Waymo tech than Mobileye? I don’t know, but I have a hard time getting from $15 to $135.

I still price Tesla’s autonomy tech today at $15bil until we see additional progress.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

As energy prices accelerate and EV adoption expands, payback period for solar energy generation shortens: at $5/gallon gas by 2019 and with two EV's, payback period shrinks to four years, with benefits accumulating quickly thereafter: ValueAnalyst on Twitter This is why I expect residential storage system and solar panel/roof sales to accelerate one to two years after Model 3 production ramps to full stride by early-to-mid 2019.

2020 will be a high growth year for energy generation sales and Gigafactory 2.

 

[K_Dizzle]

As energy prices accelerate and EV adoption expands, payback period for solar energy generation shortens: at $5/gallon gas by 2019 and with two EV's, payback period shrinks to four years, with benefits accumulating quickly thereafter: ValueAnalyst on Twitter This is why I expect residential storage system and solar panel/roof sales to accelerate one to two years after Model 3 production ramps to full stride by early-to-mid 2019.

2020 will be a high growth year for energy generation sales and Gigafactory 2.

Am I crazy to think that the China factory will be announced soon, like within 3 months?

 

[TradingInvest]

Google's Waymo is crushing the competition and could be worth $135 billion, UBS says

The value of the Tesla Self driving department ?

If it's from UBS, just remove the "U".

 

[AudubonB]

As the former president of the Italian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, I couldn't agree more with you.

Aha!
And that’s why you had that cameo appearance on Grey’s Anatomy as Fatto McFato

 

[Dennisj00]

Does someone know if there is a M3 in one of the stores in Miami?

Traveling to FL in a week and am keen to see my future car....

Come through Charlotte and you can drive ours!

 

[sundaymorning]

Google's Waymo is crushing the competition and could be worth $135 billion, UBS says

The value of the Tesla Self driving department ?

Tesla is undervalued.

 

[scaesare]

If battery energy densities continue to go up, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see a 150 kWh battery in a few years in a model S, perhaps even 200 kWh. At 1C that would require a 150-200 kW charger.

Of course larger packs allow for greater charge rates.

But that's not the assertion @Reciprocity made that I'm responding to. He specifically referred to a 100kWh pack when he said:

The S100D starts charging at 250KW or 2.5c...

What 100kWh pack is charging at 2.5C, and where is it doing it?

 

[scaesare]

The EPA filing for Model 3 indicated a very high current capability. Several smart people postulated this indicates Model 3 LR could charge at 180 kW. This would enable 240 kW charging on a 100 kWh pack, which coincidentally coincides with Tesla’s figure on the call.

Yeah, I've seen that EPA doc with the reference to being able to accept up to 525A from a Supercharger. There's some discussion as to if that's a typo as the S docs happen to say 225A(some of the docs have had some suspect info elsewhere).

Perhaps @Reciprocity was conflating what has been surmised versus what has been observed.

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

Report from Freemont on Model 3 Production line 5/13/2018 (midday):

* 4290- Last 7 days production of M3
* 638- Last 24hrs production of M3

The last line shutdown/retooling had a significant improvement on the speed of the M3 line. Everything is working in conjunction like intended and no bottlenecks anywhere. The upcoming May line shutdown for retooling is going to be much shorter than past, and currently scheduled for May 26-27th weekend. Shutdown could get moved up if production continues to increase at its current rate. The sentiment from the line is 5k sustained is pretty much guaranteed and 6k before end of June is very likely. Bottom line is I was told this is as good as Tesla employees have felt about the M3 production since production began.

 

[sundaymorning]

Report from Freemont on Model 3 Production line 5/13/2018 (midday):

* 4290- Last 7 days production of M3
* 638- Last 24hrs production of M3

The last line shutdown/retooling had a significant improvement on the speed of the M3 line. Everything is working in conjunction like intended and no bottlenecks anywhere. The upcoming May line shutdown for retooling is going to be much shorter than past, and currently scheduled for May 26-27th weekend. Shutdown could get moved up if production continues to increase at its current rate. The sentiment from the line is 5k sustained is pretty much guaranteed and 6k before end of June is very likely. Bottom line is I was told this is as good as Tesla employees have felt about the M3 production since production began.

If the 24 hour rate is accurate than we’re at about 4,500/ week. It’s no wonder Elon is conducting a stress test on suppliers and Doug is taking a sabbatical. VIN count should verify this within a few days, place your bets. Only question now is how big will this squeeze be?