General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[hacer]

Sure, if someone is selling their used M3 for 35k I would gladly take that offer. Not sure people will sell it for that price though.....

I know someone that already has 55k miles on their model 3! I don't think they're planning to sell, but if they did it might be less than 35k, so it's at least conceivable.

 

[UrsS]

One reason for Elon Musk lamenting that Tesla had to go public is that they have less freedom. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Tesla is legally bound to act in the best interest of their shareholders. Which means to sell the most profitable M3 version for at least long enough to bring them out of the woods.

As one shareholder I would like to see Tesla continuing with the mission of eliminating fossil fuels. That is much more important than any shareholder profit. Since Elon has stated that goal for the company many times, I think that it would trump any profit motivation.
As far as I'm concerned Tesla should keep on investing all profits and rise much more capital to accelerate this goal.
I can live without profits, but I can't live with much more CO2.

 

[Zaxxon]

Folks reporting configurator opening up for them. It's getting crazy all around. Tesla might likely announce they're sold out for the year in their July delivery report and will prioritize the dual motor. ASP is going to surprise to the upside in q3 and q4.

I can confirm this. Last night they opened up AWD/P for all day one folks. Today they opened up *everything* for what seems like *everyone*. My in-laws have a 4/1/16 res that can order all options tonight, and I have a 2nd res, placed 5/14/18, that can do the same. I've seen several Reddit reports of folks across the time spectrum that are in now, too.

I think this, combined with the incentive to order by 7/1 to keep premium internet for the life of the car, combined with the fact that everyone is seeing 3-5 month delivery estimates (which takes them close to the end of the full tax credit), combined with the fact that the P has been unbundled and will therefore see more uptake, is huge.

They very well may be able to announce many tens of thousands of *confirmed orders* when Q2 deliveries are announced. May very well be close to all of 2018 sold out, at 5k/week.

 

[neroden]

Zaxxon: Yes, lots of people will confirm before July 1 just to keep the "premium internet". (I think it isn't for the indefinitely-long life of the car, only some number of years, though?)

Also, in addition to payments coming in for cars being delivered, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new flood of reservations (more capital).

 

[haid]

As one shareholder I would like to see Tesla continuing with the mission of eliminating fossil fuels. That is much more important than any shareholder profit.

It is not either/or. By making shareholder profit, the entire auto industry has to take notice. If Tesla was not a financial success, nothing would change and Tesla would eventually run out of money. The only way to make a real dent is to show the world that sustainable is the only way of the future.

 

[SPadival]

All your power packs and power walls are belong to us

Elon Musk turns Sydney transport depot into green energy hub

 

[tinm]

Elon Musk Reveals Details About Tesla's Pickup Truck, And Here's What We Know

According to Maxim magazine Elon commissioned a rendering of the Tesla pickup and shared it via Tesla twitter.

Is this for real?

That image was floating around the web last Nov-Dec. Here’s a Daily Mail article that features that same picture:

Tesla pledges to build electric pick-up truck | Daily Mail Online

 

[Zaxxon]

Zaxxon: Yes, lots of people will confirm before July 1 just to keep the "premium internet". (I think it isn't for the indefinitely-long life of the car, only some number of years, though?)

There is no mention of an end date. From the configurator just now:


Also, confirmation from Electrek.

Sure, it's only $100/year after the first, but that's $500-$600 for the average buyer. Toss in the potential loss of half the tax credit for those who don't order soon and I really think 7/1 will show a huge order influx.

That's not to say that Tesla will definitely publicize the number, but that would sure be one way to induce stormy weather in shortsville. It's one thing to say that 400k reservations don't mean much since they're all refundable and some portion will balk rather than order. But if they could say that they have, say, 100k confirmed non-refundable orders of $3500 ea, that's a whole other ballgame.

And that's only 20 weeks of production, aka slightly less than five months' worth.

 

[neroden]

Hmm. My premium connectivity on my Model S just died. I suppose I should call service.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Zaxxon: Yes, lots of people will confirm before July 1 just to keep the "premium internet". (I think it isn't for the indefinitely-long life of the car, only some number of years, though?)

Also, in addition to payments coming in for cars being delivered, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new flood of reservations (more capital).

Don't people need to submit a non-refundable $2500 deposit to finalize their order? Best case scenario - Multiply by 120k orders, and Tesla will likely have just secured $300million in cash for Q2.

Was this what Elon planned?

 

[30seconds]

I think the pickup news is a bit more important than currently appreciated.

Between the 3, Y and the pickup Tesla is looking at products with demand of of 2 to 4m / year.

With the 5k+/ week production plus cash flow & profitability Tesla is charting an path to these production levels without the need for continuous capital raises.

Plus it shows how far Tesla is in front of the rest of the competition.

 

[Sparky]

So I don't think any of us really know what's going on at the production line (we don't even know how many they have, as witnessed from the "Is GA1 the first Model 3 line or the Model S/X line" debate). I'm also not sure it matters. Clearly some of the innovations they tried in general assembly worked, others didn't, and they're trying new ones. Model 3 was designed for simplicity of general assembly and was deliberately designed to *allow* robots to do the general assembly; maybe that wasn't entirely successful, but it's still a shorter general assembly process than most cars, apparently. They'll be able to make good production rates with decent margins, and they'll be able to set up general assembly in Europe and Asia from kits.

Paint is probably the controlling bottleneck now. I doubt we'll get any color on that... (pun intended)... unless someone asks what the current production bottlenecks are at the next quarterly conference call.

Some color from GA4:
"Lines 3 & 4 are crammed and line 3 still puts out far more"
"Both lines have made a miraculous ramp"
"The cars come in so fast there is zero down-time. It's impressive how quick all the workers are getting"
"We get real time info; there's a big-ass monitor in the middle of the line" (showing GA3 vs GA4 throughput)
"Elon was here for the night shift last night"
"I've been up and down and pretty much know where every component in the car goes"
"As long as there's no parts shortages we'll be fine"
"It’s pretty wild how easy going the engineers are about this move from Deer Park. First time most of them have had to work the factory and they all take it in stride / understand how important it is"
"Nobody wants to be seen at Deer Park right now. This would not have happened at [previous company]"
" I think that tamberrino fellow made a foolish bet"

Say whatever about the ad hoc character of GA4, one does get a sense of mission and spirit about this whole venture for those actually creating these vehicles.
It's not Henry V (cuz St. Crispin's Day is in October), but for a moment, with the description of the whole endeavor from the line workers' perspective I got a little jab of:
"And gentlemen in [Deer Park] now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here" apologies to Will S.

Sooo, I've seen the short- tweeters...what kind of a-holes gleefully plot and bet against this crew?

 

[MXWing]

This worked for Model S. For some reason there's always someone who buys the car and flips it within a few months for (initial cost minus tax credit minus a bit more). I have no idea who these people are. It seems financially extremely unsound.

Before the Roadster 2020 you could have as nice a Tesla as Jay Leno or any other billionaire for 120K.

They have a P90D and you have a P90D.

P100D comes out, there’s still 100 million in the playfund to get the latest and greatest.

50K depreciation loss might make me homeless. 50K is one dinner event for them.

10K loss off of a first production Model 3 is not a lot for people with plenty of disposal income and used the car for a year.

 

[sundaymorning]

Some color from GA4:
"Lines 3 & 4 are crammed and line 3 still puts out far more"
"Both lines have made a miraculous ramp"
"The cars come in so fast there is zero down-time. It's impressive how quick all the workers are getting"
"We get real time info; there's a big-ass monitor in the middle of the line" (showing GA3 vs GA4 throughput)
"Elon was here for the night shift last night"
"I've been up and down and pretty much know where every component in the car goes"
"As long as there's no parts shortages we'll be fine"
"It’s pretty wild how easy going the engineers are about this move from Deer Park. First time most of them have had to work the factory and they all take it in stride / understand how important it is"
"Nobody wants to be seen at Deer Park right now. This would not have happened at [previous company]"
" I think that tamberrino fellow made a foolish bet"

Say whatever about the ad hoc character of GA4, one does get a sense of mission and spirit about this whole venture for those actually creating these vehicles.
It's not Henry V (cuz St. Crispin's Day is in October), but for a moment, with the description of the whole endeavor from the line workers' perspective I got a little jab of:
"And gentlemen in [Deer Park] now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here" apologies to Will S.

Sooo, I've seen the short- tweeters...what kind of a-holes gleefully plot and bet against this crew?

Fascinating. Can you bring me up to date what “Deer Park” is? Guaging from your conversation with him, do you think we’ll hit 5k end of June?

 

[PANN]

Reuters：Panasonic flags battery shortages as Tesla Model 3 output picks up

Panasonic flags battery shortages as Tesla Model 3 output picks up

 

[MXWing]

Reuters：Panasonic flags battery shortages as Tesla Model 3 output picks up

View attachment 312992

Panasonic flags battery shortages as Tesla Model 3 output picks up

Nice link. Article seems to discuss in the past tense.

Pretty sure Tesla knows that having 1 battery for each car is just as important as one giant rear windshield, and 4 tires in terms of being able to push a delivered product to a customer.

 

[Yggdrasill]

If there was a significant cell shortage, this would be the time to introduce the SR. I don't think it's worth worrying about.

 

[EinSV]

Fascinating. Can you bring me up to date what “Deer Park” is? Guaging from your conversation with him, do you think we’ll hit 5k end of June?

Maybe Deer [Creek] Rd — Tesla HQ in Palo Alto?

 

[mershaw2001]

Maybe Deer [Creek] Rd — Tesla HQ in Palo Alto?

This is correct, tesla headquarters is located at
Tesla Motors
3500 Deer Creek Rd,

Palo Alto, CA 94304
It's like a half hour from the factory, so my interpretation is that people who usually work in the headquarters are instead reporting to the factory.

 

[Foghat]

I can confirm this. Last night they opened up AWD/P for all day one folks. Today they opened up *everything* for what seems like *everyone*. My in-laws have a 4/1/16 res that can order all options tonight, and I have a 2nd res, placed 5/14/18, that can do the same. I've seen several Reddit reports of folks across the time spectrum that are in now, too.

I think this, combined with the incentive to order by 7/1 to keep premium internet for the life of the car, combined with the fact that everyone is seeing 3-5 month delivery estimates (which takes them close to the end of the full tax credit), combined with the fact that the P has been unbundled and will therefore see more uptake, is huge.

They very well may be able to announce many tens of thousands of *confirmed orders* when Q2 deliveries are announced. May very well be close to all of 2018 sold out, at 5k/week.

$1500 more (on top of initial $1000 reservation) down once they configured their extra options.

What if potentially 100k or more configure between now and July 1st?

That is over $150 million in cash added to q2 just this week alone. I’ve not paid attention to this type of reservation accounting, but this may be a secret weapon for profitability (non refundable?)

Could be why they made the announcement that the 4 years of free data disappears for reservations starting July 1st to incentivize locking in options and that extra $1500 before the end of q2.

So if they recognize the $2500 now in non refundable? reservation cash before the end of the quarter, we’re looking potentially $100s million revenue injection in addition to delivered vehicle streams... that only became available in this past week...