General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[sundaymorning]

I thought the curb weight and size was similar to a BMW 3 series? It is also interesting that the Germans had taken apart a model 3 and we're impressed with the engineering.

You also must assume the car is built to support a P75D variant with sub 3 second 0-60 times and dual motors. Not that that is a huge stress but that the qualify should be comparable to a BMW M3.

The Model 3 weighs approximately 3,500-3,800 pounds, while the 3 series weighs roughly 3,200-4,000 pounds.

From the Monroe interview: I don’t buy that the extra panels do nothing extra for the M3. My assumption is that the extra panels will yield better crash testing results. It may also provide the extra stability needed in the car as the weight of battery sits right underneath it. The positive I took from this one piece of information is that I now know Tesla isn’t cutting corners and they are striving to build the car to be one of the safest on the road. The other positive is that if Sandy is right in his assessment of weight, then we know Tesla can improve margins for Model Y.

And yes, the Germans were quite impressed by the car’s simplicity. Sandy made it seem like the car was more complicated to build. In reality what counts is that Tesla continues to ramp, albeit not as fast as we investors were hoping for.

 

[sundaymorning]

That's part of my frustration, they supposedly learned from their mistakes with the X, yet here they are again saying they put too much new technology into the 3 at once and apparently too much automation into the factory too soon.

I think they did learn from MX, that’s how we’re able to match S/X production in just 9 months vs 5 years. The simplicity and automation is indeed happening, it’s just not as quick as Elon envisioned.

 

[Yggdrasill]

How many Model 3 do you guys think will be produced next week ?

I'm thinking like 2000. It will probably take a bit of tweaking to get the kinks worked out of the updated line. The week after maybe 3000.

 

[dc_h]

How many Model 3 do you guys think will be produced next week ?

2500

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Up and to the right...

Via Scientific American:

Even more.

Honestly, anyone against this company can go screw themselves.

Not saying that we don't need to fix the global warming that we're responsible for, but I just find it fascinating that the world was in the midst of a global cooling (and probably on its way to another ice age) before the industrial revolution took hold and changed things forever.

This was probably what the scientists were looking at (in the 1970's), when they were concerned about the coming ice-age and made their predictions accordingly. Unfortunately, climate-change-denialists have been using that failed prediction as one of their biggest arguments against climate scientists. Too bad they focused on the TL;DR summaries and not the actual data.

 

[sundaymorning]

Considering Elon's recent statements about robotics I think he would agree with Sandy. Elon has backed away from the fully automated factory concept in a very big way. The super factory machine was supposed to revolutionize car building, now they are throwing more people at the problem. I see this as a major setback for Tesla.

The M3 was never meant to be fully automated. The Model Y was suppose to be the fully automated. Now given that Elon is aiming for the stars here, I’ll bet that he’ll at least acheive 80% of that goal. During the 4th Q 2017 CC, he admitted that there are many things he has learned to do differently for Model Y.

I think Elon would partially agree with Sandy, there are likely new robotics putting the M3 together that Sandy hasn’t seen yet.

 

[sundaymorning]

How many Model 3 do you guys think will be produced next week ?

2,000-2,300 next week. Maybe 2,400-2,500 by earnings.

 

[Starno]

2,000-2,300 next week. Maybe 2,400-2,500 by earnings.

I think around 2000/w next week, but rapidly increasing : 2500-2600/ the next week, and close to 3000/w, the week after...

 

[sundaymorning]

I think around 2000/w next week, but rapidly increasing : 2500-2600/ the next week, and close to 3000/w, the week after...

The two most important number to me is sustainably produce over 2,000 for Q2, and close the quarter on 4,000-5,000.

 

[Starno]

The two most important number to me is sustainably produce over 2,000 for Q2, and close the quarter on 4,000-5,000.

Sustainably I hope over 3000/w by end of Q2 though.
2000/w seems to low in 10 weeks. Or you mean average ?

 

[sdtslafan]

If any of you have any thoughts on Tesla's valuation compared to Netflix, please feel free to respond to my post in the long term thread. Doesn't have to be positive, bear arguments welcome.Trying to better understand how bulls and bears look at 2 companies with similar revenue but massively different valuations.

 

[MP3Mike]

and now they are pulling robots off the line and replacing them with more people.

Where has Tesla said that they are taking robots off the Model 3 line? (Besides the crazy conveyance system and the man-u-matic battery pack line that was temporary while they bring in a new robotic line from Tesla Grohman?

 

[skitown]

Elon was the one who said they put too much new tech in the Model 3 at once.
I don't think the battery production was the only bottle neck. They are talking about using more people in Fremont instead of robots.

This is true, but stepping back - and from a POM (production operations management) standpoint, it's really hard to find bottlenecks downstream until you break them upstream. Meaning - with the battery pack assembly in Sparks being the bottleneck unexpectedly for so long, Tesla was still pretty blind to the bottlenecks that would occur downstream at Fremont. The battery pack assembly bottleneck really put them behind the 8-ball downstream. So, who knows - without that issue they might have felt like they had more time to get all the automation working in Fremont. Instead, they are feeling significant time pressure, so adding humans may have been the path of least resistance, *right now*.

 

[JRP3]

Where has Tesla said that they are taking robots off the Model 3 line? (Besides the crazy conveyance system and the man-u-matic battery pack line that was temporary while they bring in a new robotic line from Tesla Grohman?

He used the conveyor system as an example of robotics slowing production, but if that were the only place they were slowing things down I think he would have specifically said that, instead of saying robots in general. The push for hiring more workers and a third shift suggests to me that people are now needed to do jobs that robots were supposed to.

 

[Waiting4M3]

He used the conveyor system as an example of robotics slowing production, but if that were the only place they were slowing things down I think he would have specifically said that, instead of saying robots in general. The push for hiring more workers and a third shift suggests to me that people are now needed to do jobs that robots were supposed to.

I think the 3rd shift hire is mainly for the ramp from 4k-6k, adding 50% labor and build 50% more cars. It's too late to hire them for this shutdown that will take us to 3k-4k/wk. The hire will last several weeks, which should end some time in June, and coincide nice with the ramp up to 6k/wk.

 

[22522]

This is true, but stepping back - and from a POM (production operations management) standpoint, it's really hard to find bottlenecks downstream until you break them upstream. Meaning - with the battery pack assembly in Sparks being the bottleneck unexpectedly for so long, Tesla was still pretty blind to the bottlenecks that would occur downstream at Fremont. The battery pack assembly bottleneck really put them behind the 8-ball downstream. So, who knows - without that issue they might have felt like they had more time to get all the automation working in Fremont. Instead, they are feeling significant time pressure, so adding humans may have been the path of least resistance, *right now*.

Surge testing will find them.

 

[Time]

Saw this note come out of a joint car maker conference...

“We have decided to admit that our approximately 500 billion in capital investments over the past decades is obsolete and we will happily continue to make interest payments on those bonds we issued while spending hundreds of billions making new production facilities”.

Oh wait...never mind...that’s the crack pipe talking.

War.

Batten down the hatches...the shorts have come for your shares.

 

[Rarity]

It is complex, with multiple different types of steel. I suspect it's not "heavier than needed"; I suspect the extra weight is to maintain that 5 star safety rating in every category. I doubt the guy claiming it's heavier than needed has thought about the details of all the crash tests.

I agree with this. Not that Tesla can't make mistakes, but I doubt Musk and team's aerospace background would result in something that is much heavier than needed. So the safety requirements set forth by Musk must have been pretty insane.

That said, I thought it was an interesting video. He is presenting a typical auto industry view on a somewhat exotic bird, the Model 3. There are limitations to the types of analyses that Munro does. As one example, the cars that he tore down were built at a certain time. We are now probably four or five months later. So I discount what he says a bit, both positive and negative, but perhaps the discount is greater on the negative side.

It's tough to know for sure what is going on right now with the automation efforts at Fremont. Hiring hundreds of people a week doesn't make me feel great with regard to the automation. But perhaps we will learn more in a couple of weeks.

 

[mongo]

This is true, but stepping back - and from a POM (production operations management) standpoint, it's really hard to find bottlenecks downstream until you break them upstream. Meaning - with the battery pack assembly in Sparks being the bottleneck unexpectedly for so long, Tesla was still pretty blind to the bottlenecks that would occur downstream at Fremont. The battery pack assembly bottleneck really put them behind the 8-ball downstream. So, who knows - without that issue they might have felt like they had more time to get all the automation working in Fremont. Instead, they are feeling significant time pressure, so adding humans may have been the path of least resistance, *right now*.

From a resource conflict point of view, sure. However, even at a production trickle, they can verify the cycle time of each process/ cell/ bulk goods transfer so they would know which sections prevent 5k/wk. If any step takes more than 2 minutes from beginning of operation to beginning of operation, they can't hit 5k.

I'm guessing the last Fremont bottleneck is getting the parts to the line, since that likely does require continuous high volume operation to validate.

 

[skitown]

I'm guessing the last Fremont bottleneck is getting the parts to the line, since that likely does require continuous high volume operation to validate.

I believe we are in violent agreement here...