General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[DragonWatch]

Here in the basement looking out over the lake, I am jealous of my wife. As you may recall, she often leaves me here alone, and probably for good cause. She left me for work up in Bellevue, WA yesterday She works for a engineering firm part-time and had to go into the office.

Bottom line she saw a total of nine Tesla's of which two were Model Xs, and two were Model 3s. When she parked, there was an X and 3. No her X does not count ~ at least I am not an X yet that I know of That is the most either of us have seen in any one day. Routinely here in Olympia we see two to four Model Xs or Ss when out and about

Probably gonna fish again this evening. Not biting as good as I would like

 

[EnzoXYZ]

Right, but there are a lot of people who will be fooled. I'd bet everyone on this forum has run into people completely misinformed about Tesla, i.e. "fooled". As negative headlines keep increasing a larger number of people will be misled. Tesla is in a race to engineer a fix for human stupidity before maximum negativity takes hold.

It goes both side and lucky for us that Tesla is supply constrainted leaving time to get this tidy up.

 

[Jtanga66]

There are report about human right conflict mineral from Congo, and Tesla has promised to do better. I'm a proud Tesla owner and am originally from Congo in the region and area where most of the minerals are coming from. I would to know if Tesla has has steering committee that I can join and contribute to the well-being. I know the region, people and I'm a USA citizen. What can I do and how can I help

 

[thx1139]

Looking at the article about tear down. How does building 1 car cost $10K. If it takes 100 man hours to build car that is $100 per hour. 1 Does it really take 100 man hours to build a car? 2. Is loaded labor cost avg $100 per hour? Now lower volume does bring up average cost per hour. But if they build 10,000 in a week and it is 100 man hours do they really have 100,000 man hours a week going to building the Model 3.

 

[ggies07]

Damnit guys, look at this *sugar*. We need Tesla to hurry up and build the damn Gigafactory and get battery storage to the masses.....along with cars and solar panels. Bah! Who on here is or knows of a philanthropist that hasn't given to Tesla yet!?!

What happened to capitalism and letting the market do it's job? What happened to not picking "winners and loser"? What happened to the Republican party? Such a shame. Coal is gone big boy, suck it up.

BREAKING: Trump orders Perry to stop coal, nuclear retirements

 

[RobStark]

Looking at the article about tear down. How does building 1 car cost $10K. If it takes 100 man hours to build car that is $100 per hour. 1 Does it really take 100 man hours to build a car? 2. Is loaded labor cost avg $100 per hour? Now lower volume does bring up average cost per hour. But if they build 10,000 in a week and it is 100 man hours do they really have 100,000 man hours a week going to building the Model 3.

It takes legacy automakers about 33 man hours to build a conventional vehicle.

But that includes a lot of outsourcing that doesn't include man hours from suppliers.

Tesla is much more vertically integrated.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-chrysler-have-north-americas-most-efficient-plants-1859/

 

[Waiting4M3]

Looking at the article about tear down. How does building 1 car cost $10K. If it takes 100 man hours to build car that is $100 per hour. 1 Does it really take 100 man hours to build a car? 2. Is loaded labor cost avg $100 per hour? Now lower volume does bring up average cost per hour. But if they build 10,000 in a week and it is 100 man hours do they really have 100,000 man hours a week going to building the Model 3.

I don't understand this either. My estimate is that Tesla have ~4k people producing 2k-3k/wk M3, and may staff up to 5k-6k people producing 5k/wk M3, these put each car at ~40-50 man-hr. At ~$50/hr labor, that should be ~$2k-2.5k/car. Even if they pay a lot of overtime, I don't see how it could be as high as $10k.

This $10k # is an estimate by German engineers based on typical German luxury car manufacturing. It's possible that they're using the man-hr/car from German luxury sedan production which could be higher, and also using German pay scale which could be higher than the US, but still, it's difficult to explain such a large discrepancy.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

There are report about human right conflict mineral from Congo, and Tesla has promised to do better. I'm a proud Tesla owner and am originally from Congo in the region and area where most of the minerals are coming from. I would to know if Tesla has has steering committee that I can join and contribute to the well-being. I know the region, people and I'm a USA citizen. What can I do and how can I help

Do better? They apparently stated they are unaware of any issues already, I'm not sure how you do better unless it is to be even more thorough in checking supply chains.

Tesla releases ‘Conflict Minerals Report’, increases minerals tracking and reduces cobalt use

"have not uncovered human rights abuses in their supply chains"

 

[avoigt]

I don't understand this either. My estimate is that Tesla have ~4k people producing 2k-3k/wk M3, and may staff up to 5k-6k people producing 5k/wk M3, these put each car at ~40-50 man-hr. At ~$50/hr labor, that should be ~$2k-2.5k/car. Even if they pay a lot of overtime, I don't see how it could be as high as $10k.

This $10k # is an estimate by German engineers based on typical German luxury car manufacturing. It's possible that they're using the man-hr/car from German luxury sedan production which could be higher, and also using German pay scale which could be higher than the US, but still, it's difficult to explain such a large discrepancy.

Gentlemen, Wirtschaftswoche talks about $18k Supplier- and Materialcosts and $10k Production Costs. The latter does not mean necessarily labor costs alone. The first includes labour for the supplier.

Also lets assume this engineers know what they are doing. They certainly did not use the metrics for a typical German luxury car to calculate the German man/h costs for the M3. That would be pretty silly.

Without knowing all details I believe that the ballpark is about right and BTW its confirmed by Elon.

 

[Rarity]

and BTW its confirmed by Elon.

Not quite. Elon confirmed that they could hit the $28,000. But he did not confirm that $28,000 was the real number. Could be lower.

 

[trailhound]

Not quite. Elon confirmed that they could hit the $28,000. But he did not confirm that $28,000 was the real number. Could be lower.

that is the way I read the tweet also...….they could DEFINITELY hit that number (and I think beat but that shows my bias)

 

[TradingInvest]

When I search "Tesla" on Google, top three news with large pictures are all negative: paint fire (CNBC); still may not be profitable (Quartz); growing concern over Tesla's finances (BusinessInsider)......

Search "Tesla" on Yahoo, again, top three news with pictures are all negative.

We have tried to predict how they will twist the $28k cost as a negative. They did a good job twisting it. Seems to me they not only pay to create these negative "news", they also pay Google and Yahoo to display them as "top news".

Tesla is the only public company that I know which has been working so hard to help humanity. Look what they get in return, it's sad.

 

[Waiting4M3]

Gentlemen, Wirtschaftswoche talks about $18k Supplier- and Materialcosts and $10k Production Costs. The latter does not mean necessarily labor costs alone. The first includes labour for the supplier.

Also lets assume this engineers know what they are doing. They certainly did not use the metrics for a typical German luxury car to calculate the German man/h costs for the M3. That would be pretty silly.

Without knowing all details I believe that the ballpark is about right and BTW its confirmed by Elon.

Not trying to be snippy, not asking for a complete thesis here, but could you provide any details on why you think the ballpark is right? As Deepak has confirmed in the conf call, CapEx depreciation should be <$2k at 10k/wk volume. My calculations confirms what I've heard others say, labor is ~$2k. Adding those 2 still only accounts for <40% of the $10k.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Not trying to be snippy, not asking for a complete thesis here, but could you provide any details on why you think the ballpark is right? As Deepak has confirmed in the conf call, CapEx depreciation should be <$2k at 10k/wk volume. My calculations confirms what I've heard others say, labor is ~$2k. Adding those 2 still only accounts for <40% of the $10k.

Have you added labour for battery pack production and drive unit production? Tesla is more vertically integrated than other car makers, so labour will be higher while supplier costs will be lower.

 

[neroden]

If Tesla were able to produce cars for 28,000 $ why do they only have 25% margin on their 100,000 $ cars (equates 80,000$ cost)...?

The Model S and X lines are a hell of a lot less efficient than the Model 3 line. The Model S and X designs are a lot harder to manufacture.

Tesla had to *learn*. It's like asking "Why did Ford have lower margins on the Model S than on the Model T?"

 

[Waiting4M3]

Have you added labour for battery pack production and drive unit production? Tesla is more vertically integrated than other car makers, so labour will be higher while supplier costs will be lower.

I'm estimating labor pool as total of GF and Fremont. My basis is Elon's letter from mid April that they want to hire 400/wk for several weeks at both Fremont and GF. My interpretation is that this will be a 3rd shift, somewhere around 2000-2500 people. I doubled that and estimated that the existing labor pool at the time is ~4000-5000 people including both sites working on M3 related production.

 

[Reality]

What is everyone's opinion of the insideevs number? Also am I not using the TMC website thing right? Why cant i see weekly deliveries anymore with the % estimation like before?


I feel like the May deliveries for model 3 are MILDLY bullish because regardless of the fact that 5k per week is never going to happen before late Q3 or early Q4, it is still a nice ramp.

However, the Model S and X are MILDLY bearish so it offsets imo.



They have to seriously stop delivering in US to avoid the 200k mark, they are at around 191k right?

 

[neroden]

Oh, here is a thought for you about management. How come Civilian Joe, with no military background, cannot cross pollinate into the army/military as a colonel or general; but a colonel or general can become a Vice President of a major corporation and prevent a highly qualified civilian, even with prior military experience from becoming a Vice President? Just a though.

It's a good question. Prior to and including the Civil War, civilians with no military background (but with some civilian training in military science) COULD and DID enter the military in the US as very high level officers. Good ideas could get you commissioned, essentially. This ended at some point.

 

[neroden]

How do you get a shark into a gold fish bowl.. ?

Some of my favorite creatures:

https://www.sharksider.com/10-smallest-species-sharks/

 

[EVMeister]

regardless of the fact that 5k per week is never going to happen before late Q3 or early Q4, it is still a nice ramp.

You need to look up the word "fact" in the dictionary. That is not a fact, it is your poorly informed opinion. Take your head out of the sand and tiptoe away.