General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Reciprocity]

Since the market is closed, and the VIN registration has caught up to my earlier faux pax, I'm going to go out on a limb and reveal my current over-optimistic theory.

The leaked letter was a trap, they were already over 300/day and due to the 3 day weekend the 'haters' are going to be in for a nasty shock next week. The timing of the steering recall was aligned to pull more into the abyss that is the current dip, as was the shift in assigned VINs.

Part of my reason for thinking this is that I don't see how people working faster/harder can be that impactful on line speed. The stations are not set up for multiple people, so unless the bottleneck is pure part movement to the line, where does the harder/ faster/ more people fit in to speed? I'm thinking (again, the sky is a strange color on my world) the invite to S/X workers is akin to putting the bench in during a blowout championship win.

Makes a great movie scene if nothing else (also rewatched FH launch this morning, so I'm feeling good)

Yes, a conveniently timed leak. And your theory makes sense, because it made me angry as an investor because it seemed so desperate. But given all the other info we have, and looking at the timeline, both things could very well be true. The email could be very legit and I am not even ascribing any bear traps to the situation. I am just trying to find out how all the info we have could fit together. Its a puzzle where you have pieces from different puzzles mixed in. But if you line them up based on timing, then you can see how it could all work together. If I am right, we could be looking at 2800 exit rate (2500 previous 7 days) where they state that the Ghromann machine ramp will lift them on their way to 5k/w and profitability with no know bottlenecks to stop them. One can dream.

 

[Electrifying]

The stations are not set up for multiple people, so unless the bottleneck is pure part movement to the line, where does the harder/ faster/ more people fit in to speed? I'm thinking (again, the sky is a strange color on my world) the invite to S/X workers is akin to putting the bench in during a blowout championship win.

The final quality control (checking panel alignment, checking all functions work etc) are still mostly conducted by humans.
Plus driving the cars outside to the lot?

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

If you think I am wrong, then please correct me where each parts come from or how Tesla obtains it. How about start with the computer chip?

Tesla has outsourced so many parts from Taiwan alone.

- motor (the plates are from taiwan, but the motor is assembled in fremont)
- chassis
- inverter
- battery pack
- pyro fuse

... should I go on? Now go do your own research.

 

[30seconds]

If you think I am wrong, then please correct me where each parts come from or how Tesla obtains it. How about start with the computer chip?

Tesla has outsourced so many parts from Taiwan alone.

A. I know you are wrong
B. So does everyone else around here
C. See previous post above

 

[Starno]

While sustained production at the end of March is likely around 2,000/week I suspect the end of the month push will be to show 2,500/week burst rate. Tesla will trumpet that as well, with them saying they expect to stay on track for 5,000/week by the end of Q2. That’s just my gut talking.

That's ok though. I expect constant 2500/w by mid-may. And constant 5000/w by end of August.

The market might not like it, but who I don't care.

 

[30seconds]

I’m not in the camp that the exact weekly production number matters in so long it is climbing and more or less around 2k/ week.

2k/ week would mean that Tesla has basically doubled their production from last quarter. Plus they are in the position of doubling it again in the next 3 to 6 months.

That’s pretty remarkable, going from around 2k/ week (S+X) in 2017 to something around 6k/ week in 2018. Plus a doubling in revenue.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Guys I wasn’t around in feb 2016, but was the FUD this strong back then. Everyone on twitter and Reddit thinks the stock is going to implode in weeks.

 

[Reciprocity]

I’m not in the camp that the exact weekly production number matters in so long it is climbing and more or less around 2k/ week.

2k/ week would mean that Tesla has basically doubled their production from last quarter. Plus they are in the position of doubling it again in the next 3 to 6 months.

That’s pretty remarkable, going from around 2k/ week (S+X) in 2017 to something around 6k/ week in 2018. Plus a doubling in revenue.

I find it hard to believe that anyone woudl think 1500/w is anything but a huge disaster. Especially given the 700 in some number of days that equated to 1k/W at the end of Q4. This rate of improvement would be worse then terrible. But the good thing is that there are serious signs that things are much better then that. But lets be clear. 1500 would be a disaster regardless of peoples personal feelings. Time will tell.

 

[goinfraftw]

I’m not in the camp that the exact weekly production number matters in so long it is climbing and more or less around 2k/ week.

2k/ week would mean that Tesla has basically doubled their production from last quarter. Plus they are in the position of doubling it again in the next 3 to 6 months.

That’s pretty remarkable, going from around 2k/ week (S+X) in 2017 to something around 6k/ week in 2018. Plus a doubling in revenue.

Automation takes time and effort, but the results are always astounding. If you want to see an analogy, just look at what QA (e.g. Selenium), Engineering (Django, Ruby on Rails, Node.JS, PhoneGap, etc.) and Design (e.g. Twitter Bootstrap) Automation has done for the web in the past 5 years. It's never been cheaper to build up a company from scratch and make beautiful, relevant apps across any vertical. I'm a long-term shareholder and have found myself caring very little about the price drop over the past few weeks. If they hit their y-o-y markers, then this investment is going to be a life-changing event for me.

I invested at $30 and re-invested at $45 back in 2012. Looking forward to the next 10 years and the significant upward (and, at times, downward) price changes!

 

[mongo]

I find it hard to believe that anyone woudl think 1500/w is anything but a huge disaster. Especially given the 700 in some number of days that equated to 1k/W at the end of Q4. This rate of improvement would be worse then terrible. But the good thing is that there are serious signs that things are much better then that. But lets be clear. 1500 would be a disaster regardless of peoples personal feelings. Time will tell.

I can think of 1500 being less than full disaster. 1-2 weeks (heck 1-2 days) can be the difference between additional equipment being on-line or not.
If my pizza is not delivered in 30 minutes, but arrives in 31, I'm ok.
(but I'm living on my own little world )

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Guys I wasn’t around in feb 2016, but was the FUD this strong back then. Everyone on twitter and Reddit thinks the stock is going to implode in weeks.

This is nothing. If I had a dime for every time Tesla was “going bankrupt in a matter of weeks”, I wouldn’t just be a shareholder, I’d have enough to buy the company from Elon.

 

[anon]

Part of my reason for thinking this is that I don't see how people working faster/harder can be that impactful on line speed. The stations are not set up for multiple people, so unless the bottleneck is pure part movement to the line, where does the harder/ faster/ more people fit in to speed?

I've been struggling to understand this too. I agree that part movement to the line is likely a big reason why more people are needed until the conveyance system is working, but I can think of another reason:
More people may be needed not just to run at the existing speed, but to increase speed. I imagine that the ramp is gradual, perhaps increasing production by a small percentage, then running for a while to find any problems, then fixing the problems (e.g. robot timing a bit off at the increased speed, etc), then running for a while again at that speed to test the fixes, before trying to increase speed again.
More people will be helpful for more rapidly identifying and fixing problems, and also because I imagine that some degree of manual re-positioning is required after a shutdown occurs, before it can be started again. Perhaps also some manual assembly is required on cars that were part-way through during the shutdown, and sometimes they may bypass an automated station on the line altogether for a while to test other parts of the line, and so they may have to take the cars to one side to a manual assembly area during that time.

If I'm right about this, then this end of quarter burst is a good thing, as throwing more people at the line for a few days could actually be helping to get it to a higher sustainable rate, rather than just a higher burst rate.

 

[anon]

I find it hard to believe that anyone woudl think 1500/w is anything but a huge disaster. Especially given the 700 in some number of days that equated to 1k/W at the end of Q4. This rate of improvement would be worse then terrible. But the good thing is that there are serious signs that things are much better then that. But lets be clear. 1500 would be a disaster regardless of peoples personal feelings. Time will tell.

If they are at 1500/week and ramping sharply, e.g. they say that they are on track for 2000-2500 within the next couple of weeks, then I think that's fine. It might not be too bad anyway at the current share price, as I think the 1100/week rate predicted by Bloomberg is at least partly priced in - a lot of people are probably paying attention to that number.

 

[mongo]

I've been struggling to understand this too. I agree that part movement to the line is likely a big reason why more people are needed until the conveyance system is working, but I can think of another reason:
More people may be needed not just to run at the existing speed, but to increase speed. I imagine that the ramp is gradual, perhaps increasing production by a small percentage, then running for a while to find any problems, then fixing the problems (e.g. robot timing a bit off at the increased speed, etc), then running for a while again at that speed to test the fixes, before trying to increase speed again. More people will be helpful for more rapidly identifying and fixing problems, and also because I imagine that some degree of manual re-positioning is required after a shutdown occurs, before it can be started again. Perhaps also some manual assembly is required on cars that were part-way through during the shutdown, and sometimes they may take bypass an automated station on the line altogether for a while to test other parts of the line, and then they may have to take the cars to one side to a manual assembly area during that time.

If I'm right about this, then this end of quarter burst is a good thing, as throwing more manpower at the line for a few days could actually be helping to get it to a higher sustainable rate, rather than just a higher burst rate.

Ahhh, good point. The robotics might not be fully tuned in so things like part to station alignment don't always go well. Having people stationed to handle the paper jams (fix part pre-positioning or unjam the bolt/ nut feeders) reduces delays.

 

[JRP3]

In other words, they are recalling every Model S they ever built.

That is a flat out lie. Don't try to peddle your BS around here, we're much smarter than you are and much better informed.

Tesla issues a voluntary recall for power-steering bolts in all 123,000 pre-April 2016 Model S vehicles

 

[Waiting4M3]

The final quality control (checking panel alignment, checking all functions work etc) are still mostly conducted by humans.
Plus driving the cars outside to the lot?

I think this was meant to be a reply to mongo's post?

 

[Waiting4M3]

I find it hard to believe that anyone woudl think 1500/w is anything but a huge disaster. Especially given the 700 in some number of days that equated to 1k/W at the end of Q4. This rate of improvement would be worse then terrible. But the good thing is that there are serious signs that things are much better then that. But lets be clear. 1500 would be a disaster regardless of peoples personal feelings. Time will tell.

IMO 1000 would be a huge disaster, 1500 a moderate miss, 2000 a small miss, and 2500 with "gymnastics" a barely meet. I don't think 1500/wk justifies us going below $280. It's still a >2x growth in 1Q, at this rate we'll be cash flow positive some time in Q3.

 

[Reciprocity]

If they are at 1500/week and ramping sharply, e.g. they say that they are on track for 2000-2500 within the next couple of weeks, then I think that's fine. It might not be too bad anyway at the current share price, as I think the 1100/week rate predicted by Bloomberg is at least partly priced in - a lot of people are probably paying attention to that number.

You mean like building 1000 cars on the last 2.5 days.. nah that didn't work last time either. But again, I think signs point to a real ramp in time to exit with a full weeks production at a solid pace.

 

[AudubonB]

Moderator Note:

ALL are directed to a Moderator Warning in this recent post:

General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

 

[Paracelsus]

Perhaps a more accurate headline would read:

"Bosch provides faulty power-steering bolts to zero-emission Tesla while providing emission defeating software to VW"

Give credit where credit is due. And then you can follow your nose.........VW & BMW bet against the short-term success of EV's & batteries while spreading massive FUD. VW diesel-gate becomes perhaps the largest intentional environmental impact in history. The Model 3 ramp-up delays include entire systems being worked on in Germany while the diesel-gate aftermath continues to settle. And now Bosch is identified as the supplier of simple-but-faulty parts to critical Tesla components at a time that they are supplying their home-town team (VW) with the defeat-devices necessary to portray their vehicles as 'clean'. Something is really starting to stink about all this. But as long as the FUD headlines are intentionally misleading regarding any effort by Tesla to advance a more sustainable future for mankind, the old paradigm is given an unnecessarily-long lifeline to change its business practices.