General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[mongo]

Did they ever state why they saw that as a mistake?

Over ambition automation. GA2 (first 3 line) was the cyber line with the cool seat installer/ bolter, IP install robot, and,from some reports, automatic brake bolted...
They worked around that though, so I'm, personally, not sure of the GA2 down line of thought...

 

[lklundin]

No Christmas until January at Tesla.

Well, Elon Musk has recently displayed some knowledge of life in Russia/USSR, so maybe Tesla will celebrate the next Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar.

 

[neroden]

Did they ever state why they saw that as a mistake?

They have not confirmed that it was a mistake yet. (They did confirm that they were packing everything supertight in CAD before they built the first Model 3 line, and then... they got very quiet and haven't talked about it since then)

I'll tell you why it was a mistake, though. If you have to reconfigure/redesign one station on the line to fix a bottleneck, and the new configuration takes up two inches more space, you have to MOVE EVERYTHING. It's fine to pack it tight when you're absolutely sure your line can run at full designed speed, but if it might need tweaking, the space gives you the room to do it without moving everything else.

If I'm correct about which line is which, GA2 was the line which was supposed to be 100% automated and they packed everything super close together. GA3 is probably spaced out a bit more. By all accounts most of the innovations on GA2 actually worked (and are used on GA3), but a couple of them failed and had to be replaced with more *space-intensive* solutions... and if you've packed everything real tight together, you see the problem?

I suspect GA2 will come back up after the bugs have been worked out of GA3. Then they'll know how much they have to move everything in order to make GA2 a duplicate of GA3. But that's just my guess.

 

[EinSV]

Props to @SteveG3 for recognizing early on that Tesla’s plan to begin delivering cars to Canada sooner than expected meant that the tax credit trigger could be delayed to Q3. (Post below is from Feb. 12.)

There was a huge amount of skepticism at the time about this theory.

On a related note, insideEVs blew it. Hopefully this will lead to some healthy skepticism about their numbers in the future.

- The recent announcements about Model 3 delivery dates moving up substantially for Canada, along with some other circumstantial evidence, are suggestive to me that there's a reasonably good chance that Tesla will try to push off crossing the 200,000 delivery threshold to Q3. The net result of that scenario would be as many people qualifying for the EV rebate on a Tesla purchase as would have if Tesla had executed perfectly.

 

[Zaxxon]

200,000th US delivery has been confirmed as being hit this month. Full tax credit available through 12/31/18.

Tesla confirms hitting federal tax credit threshold, $7,500 credit cut in half at end of 2018

 

[Dan Detweiler]

200,000th US delivery has been confirmed as being hit this month. Full tax credit available through 12/31/18.

Tesla confirms hitting federal tax credit threshold, $7,500 credit cut in half at end of 2018

Thank God!

At least we can put all that speculation behind us. People can now place their orders knowing full well what their status is.

Dan

 

[Drax7]

Tipranks chart for Chanos hedge fund Kynikos Associates LP

Chanos Underperforms the s&p index and also with greater volatility ,
thus a lower sharp ratio. For all that he extracts huge fees. This guy
Can burn your capital and hurt your retirement.

 

[HG Wells]

HEADLINE: Shortsville Times

Tesla admits cheating IRS. Delivered 200,000th car on July 1st

 

[hacer]

... Real test tracks testing is expensive, it works only at low volume and this is the real reason why it is not used by most auto-companies...

Another factor is that most auto manufacturing plants are located where weather factors will make track testing impossible for a significant part of the time. Freemont mostly has excellent weather so track testing there is more practical than where there are plants in Michigan, Kentucky, South Carolina, etc.

 

[shootformoon]

The total silence on GA2 is interesting. We got confirmation at some point, IIRC, that it was a Model 3 line (not S/X). And they're being very quiet about it. I have to think it's being ripped apart and reconfigured to match GA3, but that's probably expensive and slow -- they made the mistake of packing the equipment together tightly on their first attempt at a model 3 GA line (and only later realized why that was a mistake)

This always buffles me. Why they can set up and run a new GA4 in several weeks but it takes longer to tune up the old GA2?

And even if GA2 is not perfect, I suppose it can produce 1000+ cars per week. Why they idle it when they are deciding how to fine tune it?

 

[Curt Renz]

Electrek - 28 minutes ago: Elon Musk says Tesla will be out of ‘production hell’ in a month as they start ramping up to 10,000 Model 3s per week

 

[Stretch2727]

Critical but balanced. Usually mentions both sides to challenges in the factory. Some interesting bits of info I had not heard before.

Tesla’s Model 3 Is Elon Musk’s Hell

 

[lklundin]

Another factor is that most auto manufacturing plants are located where weather factors will make track testing impossible for a significant part of the time. Freemont mostly has excellent weather so track testing there is more practical than where there are plants in Michigan, Kentucky, South Carolina, etc.

Yet another factor is that BEVs can track test indoors:

Travel down Tesla’s Tilburg assembly line with the Model S [Video]

 

[SlicedBr3ad]

lol. I felt like she was trying to insinuate that Elon was hiding something by not it rectangular. What a joke of a segment! Hope most could tell the deceit filling the CNBC halftime show!!!

stop kidding yourself. everyone now thinks tesla is worse off not better.

 

[Krugerrand]

This always buffles me. Why they can set up and run a new GA4 in several weeks but it takes longer to tune up the old GA2?

And even if GA2 is not perfect, I suppose it can produce 1000+ cars per week. Why they idle it when they are deciding how to fine tune it?

???? He just told you why.

 

[avoigt]

#Tesla registered 2,226 new #Model3 VINs. ~60% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 71827.

Model 3 VINs on Twitter

 

[Drax7]

The price action today does not match the new data, could be an analyst
Downgrading the stock and leaking it to hedge funds .

 

[gluu]

Critical but balanced. Usually mentions both sides to challenges in the factory. Some interesting bits of info I had not heard before.

Tesla’s Model 3 Is Elon Musk’s Hell

I agree, finally we see some excellent reporting with actual information content.

 

[bdy0627]

Critical but balanced. Usually mentions both sides to challenges in the factory. Some interesting bits of info I had not heard before.

Tesla’s Model 3 Is Elon Musk’s Hell

Agreed. Here's the critical, honest, polarizing conclusion about the mad dash at the end of June for 5,000/week: "it’s unclear whether Musk has put Tesla on a path to lasting greatness or just staved off collapse." This is precisely why the stock refuses to climb right now when we see Tesla on the verge of clearing the last hurdle to profitability. The media, pretty much across the board, is fueling the latter idea rather than the former.

 

[theschnell]

You guys need to stop

Here ya go:

Tesla Model 3: Elon Musk has ‘zero doubt’ about 10,000 units per week in 2018, corrects reservation tally



Stop being blind to the timelines everyone. Just don't be a fanboy over it. I'm a super long, but come on.....

I totally cringed how he said that. I've never felt like the bears had much to hang their hat on generally speaking when they say he makes promises he doesn't keep, because most of the time there is a caveat of just things may change when predicting the future, but in this case he specifically guaranteed 10K per week by the end of 2018. That was really dumb on his part. Not sure why he did that. Oh well. Not the end of the world. Just something he needs to avoid in the future.