General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[AWDtsla]

No kidding, I am really at a loss to understand what you are saying. I assume when you put in a destination you will be able to alter or personalize the route as you desire before enabling the trip. What am I missing?

Dan

I guess I need to redesign all of Tesla's GUI right here??? It seems like there is even confusion about what self driving will do. @9837264723849 seems to think that self-driving means it plans out where you want to go when you want to go, as if it understands I'm stopping at my uncle's house for 6 hours where I can charge at 8mph, or I'm making a round trip after letting the car cold-soak with no charging... or perhaps it should understand a lot of new snow came in and I decided to extend my airbnb another night at the ski resort, and adjusting its charging behaviors likewise, assuming it can even make it back to a supercharger.

This should not be hard. You make the plan, tell the car where to go, it executes the drive. In the middle of the drive, you're rather be playing space invaders than looking at a map. This is already true to a certain extent, the map becomes unimportant while you're driving 60 miles down the same highway. Current and future energy consumption however is totally important. At least with the graph you can compensate for the estimate constantly diverging from the actualized consumption.

 

[hobbes]

[Discussion] Interesting Comment on GF1 bottlenecks : teslamotors

 

[avoigt]

[Discussion] Interesting Comment on GF1 bottlenecks : teslamotors

Thanks sounds credible.

A question I do have though is that the battery production is highly automated. Thats true for the Battery and Battery pack as well as the motors AFAIK. A part of the pack production was scaled back a while ago with a semi automated line due to issues they had. I did not hear back ever since what they did there but the bottleneck that they had there once was gone then. We had also the new automated line from Groman been flying in. Since then they have been able to improve output constantly.

However the overall labor requirement for Battery and Pack production ought to be pretty low.

Then we heard about 3 new lines for Battery production to be installed. Thats a while ago. Sounds like literally duplicating existing lines which should bear low risks for interruption. We all know the video where Batteries just fly around with no humans.

Labour therefore could have been planned for since a while as all of those is visible months and months ahead of time. This does not come with a surprise. All of a sudden having a situation where production is a bottleneck in a highly automated environment where you had plenty of time to plan for automation and humans sounds therefore odd to me.

Lets not forget a labor markt is never dried up. You may have a shortage but you always have fluctuation in a region and at the end of the day its for a lot of people all about incentives and benefits and work environment that makes the difference. People will make a change if the job at Tesla is more attractive.

 

[shootformoon]

Not sure if this has been posted.
Tesla, software and disruption

 

[neroden]

Ugh, why is everything a second-class citizen compared to nav when we already have binnacle displays? Stuff like this makes me thing Tesla doesn't know what it's doing.

Tesla's software team absolutely does not know what it is doing, and is refusing to listen to customers. Consider the USB music bugs, which have been reported to them repeatedly and in detail. Several are warranty issues because the bugs were *introduced* in later updates.

The current team responsible for the center screen software should all be fired, frankly. I don't know what happened to the people who designed the original very good software, but they're clearly not there any more.

I don't think this matters from an investment point of view right now. (I learned a major lesson when Microsoft was spectacularly successful by producing the absolute, unqualifiedly worst software on the market back in the 1990s. I would not have expected that; now I do expect it.)

 

[Driver Dave]

 

[neroden]

Not sure if this has been posted.
Tesla, software and disruption

Decent piece. He's missed the fact that by vertically integrating the charging network with the car sales, Tesla eliminates the complex and expensive provision of payment systems at the point of charging, simultaneously cutting their costs and increasing convenience to customers. This is a sustainable moat, at least until someone else decides to do the same thing.

 

[haid]

Any car manufacturer can make a lot of cars. To be competing with others on car manufacturing speed is to be playing the game on their turf. Production numbers are good to have and all, but kind of miss the point. The point was about proving profitability for the quarter. After that goal is accomplished, it makes sense to move on to the next objective. So we stop and start the lines a bunch to enlarge the product offering. Dual drive III, Performance III, (maybe right hand drive next?) are all good objectives once we are making things profitably.

And once the model 3 option packages are all up and running, the next best objectives are to return to those battlegrounds where the competition is left scratching their heads. New vehicles. New factories. New tech... In other words, once profitability is eked out, we can return to the innovation speed and accompanying disruption that justifies the high valuation to which we are accustomed.

Tesla Semi. The new Roadster. The new factories. The Model Y. The Truck.

In my opinion, the next year or two will be fun

 

[mongo]

Decent piece. He's missed the fact that by vertically integrating the charging network with the car sales, Tesla eliminates the complex and expensive provision of payment systems at the point of charging, simultaneously cutting their costs and increasing convenience to customers. This is a sustainable moat, at least until someone else decides to do the same thing.

Along with vertically integrating the source of electrons...

 

[Wooloomooloo]

Not sure if this has been posted.
Tesla, software and disruption

The Apple/Tesla comparisons are starting to annoy me greatly, and the folks that are doing is clearly don't know their tech history.

Apple wasn't some small scrappy upstart with a great idea, by 2007 they were a ruthlessly efficient company (Tim Cook was probably rhe best CFO in the entire business) with a huge amount of internal discipline to focus on one thing at a time, with 30 years of pedigree. Tesla are none of those things and doesn't have the management talent or depth Apple had in 2007.

Now I accept that Tesla are being under estimated, and their predicted downfall is grounded in a myopic view of what they're doing. But they're not Apple.

 

[gluu]

Decent piece. He's missed the fact that by vertically integrating the charging network with the car sales, Tesla eliminates the complex and expensive provision of payment systems at the point of charging, simultaneously cutting their costs and increasing convenience to customers. This is a sustainable moat, at least until someone else decides to do the same thing.

Also, in an autonomous world, car chargers need to be co-designed with vehicles to work autonomously as well. Unlikely that there will be a single standard for autonomous charging before a single participant reaches autonomy. The charger is simply part of an overall mobility system. If we think that robotaxi networks are going to be a oligopoly or monopoly scenario, charging will be as well. This means the charging system will likely also have high margins, and the market for providing energy to these vehicles in an all-electric world will be equivalent, if not greater than the current market for gasoline, ex/ costs passed on to consumers due to lower costs of renewables over time.

 

[Driver Dave]

But they're not Apple

True there are differences, but I think it is fair comparison to say that Tesla is the Apple of the auto world.

* Insanely great design
* Locking in customers to eco-system
* Software as service - service as software
* Ahead of all competitors
* Leader is tech industry visionary with past successes
* Not just customers, fans
* Underestimated

Or you could just leave it as: Tesla is way more Apple-esque than any other car company, who are not even at all close to Apple-esque, I mean, regular car companies are just about as far as you could be from Apple.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Decent piece. He's missed the fact that by vertically integrating the charging network with the car sales, Tesla eliminates the complex and expensive provision of payment systems at the point of charging, simultaneously cutting their costs and increasing convenience to customers. This is a sustainable moat, at least until someone else decides to do the same thing.

why do tesla haters not GET this? The inconvenience and hassle, and crapness of using a non-supercharger network in the UK is so bad it is laughable. Teslas charging experience is light years beyond the competition, even if they had a network of free superchargers, which they don't, and cannot possibly have for years.

 

[WarpedOne]

No, Tesla ain't no Apple.
Apple has no clue where to go in the future.
Tesla has a clear cut way towards world domination.
Lough as you may, the last lough will be on Elon.

 

[Driver Dave]

why do tesla haters not GET this? The inconvenience and hassle, and crapness of using a non-supercharger network in the UK is so bad it is laughable. Teslas charging experience is light years beyond the competition, even if they had a network of free superchargers, which they don't, and cannot possibly have for years.

Every stop at a supercharger is easy to find, fun, fast and free. I enjoy it.

Can't say that about gas.

Can't say that about 3rd party chargers.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

True there are differences, but I think it is fair comparison to say that Tesla is the Apple of the auto world.

* Insanely great design - Not really
* Locking in customers to eco-system - There is no 'auto' eco system
* Software as service - service as software - What service? There is no Tesla software service
* Ahead of all competitors - Agreed, but every sector has a leader, it doesn't make an Apple comparison valid
* Leader is tech industry visionary with past successes - Tesla have not been commercially successful ever in their history
* Not just customers, fans - Agreed, this is probably the biggest one
* Underestimated - Fair enough

Or you could just leave it as: Tesla is way more Apple-esque than any other car company, who are not even at all close to Apple-esque, I mean, regular car companies are just about as far as you could be from Apple.

2 out of 7, yes.

 

[scaesare]

Tesla's software team absolutely does not know what it is doing, and is refusing to listen to customers. Consider the USB music bugs, which have been reported to them repeatedly and in detail. Several are warranty issues because the bugs were *introduced* in later updates.

The current team responsible for the center screen software should all be fired, frankly. I don't know what happened to the people who designed the original very good software, but they're clearly not there any more.

I don't think this matters from an investment point of view right now. (I learned a major lesson when Microsoft was spectacularly successful by producing the absolute, unqualifiedly worst software on the market back in the 1990s. I would not have expected that; now I do expect it.)

I wouldn't equate differing priorities with incompetence.

What's more, I suspect there is more than one software team. The folks doing the code for the embedded microcontroller in the drive unit and car gateway may very likely not be the same group doing general infotainment and/or IC. The automated driving team is likely also completely different.

 

[Driver Dave]

2 out of 7, yes.

Not sure you can discount the others.

> Insanely great design - Not really

I've never seen a car drive so much delight in customers. Tesla Grin. I never had a Lexus grin. The product is just crazy awesome..

>Locking in customers to eco-system - There is no 'auto' eco system

Supercharger network is totally an auto eco system. And just start the start. Tesla owns the place you stop your car. Can't you see how they then can own the store, coffee shop, that is part of it. I'm sure VW would wish they could own rest stops.

>Software as service - service as software - What service? There is no Tesla software service

Fixed M3 brakes via software update.
In general, first car that 2 years later... it's better.
This never happened with my Audi.

>Leader is tech industry visionary with past successes - Tesla have not been commercially successful ever in their history

Leader is Elon. Payday, SpaceX... past successes.

Anyway, not sure your angle, but thought I'd respond. Cheers.

 

[Driver Dave]

Consider the USB music bugs

Sorry... but who still uses USB sticks for music in today's cloud based world?

There probably are still music bugs because in terms of priorities for customers, that is way way way way down there.

I do appreciate the old school USB music stick though. And I still read my morning paper as a paper.

But definitely can see when it all goes away... so am surprised it still is supported at all.

 

[avoigt]

My thought about Mercedes EQC:

Design: good, its a question of taste anyway but it looks nice IMO outside as well as inside
Range: Disappointing, around +200miles in 2020, we can imagine where Tesla will be in 2020
Efficiency: Its a 2,5 t vehicle but still with 80kwh and 200 miles range in 2020 you are just not competitive
ChargingNet: Well we all know it does not really exist yet nor its fast, lets hope that changes until delivery
Production: It will be produced on the same line as ICEs. BMW does the same. I believe its another large strategic mistake because you loose design benefits you only get if you build an EV from ground up different than an ICE. They do that to reduce investments and will loose to materialize on a lot of benefits an EV can bring
Availability: Too late, outpaced in 2020 and with obviously low numbers planned moving forward
Silence: I heard good comments and believe them to deliver a Mercedes drive experience

Many open question like centralized computer system and OTU as well as AP or similar beyond what they offer today.

So, you don't hear me cheer to welcome a challenger. Comparing what they talked about before the release I am despite a nice design more disappointed versus for instance the I-Pace.

Will Mercedes sell the car? Of course they will but nowhere near what Tesla does experience and what is required to be in the future a mass producer with healthy margins in the EV world.

If Mercedes does not correct this soon they will shrink significantly and loose profitability.

Jeans and sneaker will not make the Mercedes cars sexy but the products could if they did listen to consumers. Today has been a lost opportunity.

Mercedes-Benz unveils EQC electric SUV, says it’s going ‘all-in’ on electric