Long-Term Fundamentals of Tesla Motors (TSLA)

[Doggydogworld]

Today Tesla produces battery packs of ca 35-40 GWh/y

35 GWh from GF1 (claimed) plus 6 GWh 18650s from Japan (60k S/X * 100 kWh each) + ~10 GWh Shanghai (160k annual production rate * 64kWh avg pack size) is a bit over 50 GWh/year.

 

[wdolson]

The EV rush from 20% to 80% market share for evs will be very quick. The first 20% is hard and the last 20% is the hardest. Tesla is well positioned to grab a crazy large share of the middle 60% of the market. If they can do that, then there are only crumbs left over in regards to profits.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, jack jump over the candle stick

Tesla is moving fast to expand, but the rest of the industry is about 5 years behind. They are starting to make EVs, but at this point, the only company outside of China mass producing EVs is Tesla. Adoption will accelerate and demand will likely skyrocket over the next few years, but supply is going to take a while to ramp up.

 

[renim]

Tesla is moving fast to expand, but the rest of the industry is about 5 years behind. They are starting to make EVs, but at this point, the only company outside of China mass producing EVs is Tesla. ......

Thats a bit harsh, YTD, Renault Zoe is slightly outselling tesla Model 3 in Europe, so similar to Tesla Model 3 being mass production, so is Renault Zoe.

EV Sales: Europe August 2020
(on a monthly basis, there is chop and change, this month Tesla 3 is above Zoe, but thats not YTD)

having said that, Zoe is not in same class league as Model 3, and Renault Fluence ZE was an honest flop.

 

[mongo]

Thats a bit harsh, YTD, Renault Zoe is slightly outselling tesla Model 3 in Europe, so similar to Tesla Model 3 being mass production, so is Renault Zoe.

View attachment 594062
EV Sales: Europe August 2020
(on a monthly basis, there is chop and change, this month Tesla 3 is above Zoe, but thats not YTD)

having said that, Zoe is not in same class league as Model 3, and Renault Fluence ZE was an honest flop.

As Maurer argued with Johnson, sales in one region is not the same as total production. Zoe is #2 globally, but also about one quarter of Model 3.
EV Sales: Global Top 20 August 2020

 

[renim]

Renalt sales in China are meaningless, they are meaningless in Japan, they are essentially not homogulated (legal) in USA......

Just pointing out that non-Chinese companies also make EVs that match Tesla's best in continental sales number, but just as Chinese brands are mostly limited to China, so too are some European brands mostly limited to Europe.

 

[Doggydogworld]

... the only company outside of China mass producing EVs is Tesla.

When would you say Tesla started mass producing EVs? VW Group should comfortably exceed Tesla's 2018 total (~250k) this year. Some believe they'll do 750k+ next year and beat Tesla. I doubt that, but they could make it interesting.

Why do you say "outside China"? What Chinese OEM mass produces EVs by your definition? Leaders BYD and SAIC might do 130-150k this year. Hyundai/Kia should do 175k+. Some people (not me) combine Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi and see ~180k this year. BMW should do 125k+. Daimler could exceed 100k.

 

[wdolson]

Thats a bit harsh, YTD, Renault Zoe is slightly outselling tesla Model 3 in Europe, so similar to Tesla Model 3 being mass production, so is Renault Zoe.

View attachment 594062
EV Sales: Europe August 2020
(on a monthly basis, there is chop and change, this month Tesla 3 is above Zoe, but thats not YTD)

having said that, Zoe is not in same class league as Model 3, and Renault Fluence ZE was an honest flop.

Last November Renault celebrated making the 200,000th Zoe since 2012. In the same year, Tesla made a little over 300K Model 3s. Renault is doing a little better than Tesla in one market, but the Model 3 is sold in many more markets than the Zoe.

When would you say Tesla started mass producing EVs? VW Group should comfortably exceed Tesla's 2018 total (~250k) this year. Some believe they'll do 750k+ next year and beat Tesla. I doubt that, but they could make it interesting.

Why do you say "outside China"? What Chinese OEM mass produces EVs by your definition? Leaders BYD and SAIC might do 130-150k this year. Hyundai/Kia should do 175k+. Some people (not me) combine Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi and see ~180k this year. BMW should do 125k+. Daimler could exceed 100k.

I thought some of the Chinese makers were making more EVs than they are. I thought BYD was about on par with Tesla in production numbers. I did say that right now Tesla is the only mass producing EVs. I thought Hyundai/Kia was battery limited for now. Their EVs are popular, but they can't make enough of them.

It looks like VW will be building EVs close to Tesla numbers soon. But as fast as the competition comes online, Tesla keeps charging ahead. By the time VW is producing enough EVs to compete with Tesla in numbers, a lot of the improvements Tesla was talking about on battery day will be online and Tesla's with equivalent or better capabilities and features to VWs will be 20%+ cheaper.

And by the time VW reaches 500K production, Tesla will be well over 1 million between the Model 3 and Y.

 

[JRP3]

BYD and others often include hybrids in their production numbers.

 

[aubreymcfato]

The Zoe is a great car for the European market. That's it.
I bought one few weeks ago and I'm in love.
I couldn't buy a Model 3 because it doesn't fit in the garage, and it's a bit too nice for me
Also, not ready to spend >35k € on a kar after incentives.
My Zoe's price was 28k €, but only 12900 after incentives (+ renting the battery).

I see more and more Model 3 around tho, and probably things will snowball with Made in Berlin Teslas.

 

[ZachF]

When would you say Tesla started mass producing EVs? VW Group should comfortably exceed Tesla's 2018 total (~250k) this year. Some believe they'll do 750k+ next year and beat Tesla. I doubt that, but they could make it interesting.

Why do you say "outside China"? What Chinese OEM mass produces EVs by your definition? Leaders BYD and SAIC might do 130-150k this year. Hyundai/Kia should do 175k+. Some people (not me) combine Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi and see ~180k this year. BMW should do 125k+. Daimler could exceed 100k.

Be aware, the numbers for many of those other manufacturers include plug in hybrids. I think almost all of BMWs total are PHEVs with ~12 KWh batteries, really not comparable to full range EVs.

 

[yesoptus]

Hey all! i'm relatively new here to please excuse if I'm in the wrong spot.

I'm wondering if anyone has any info on present and historical take-rates on Tesla's FSD software options?

Thanks in advance

 

[petit_bateau]

Hey all! i'm relatively new here to please excuse if I'm in the wrong spot.

I'm wondering if anyone has any info on present and historical take-rates on Tesla's FSD software options?

Thanks in advance

You are in one of the correct places I think. I've seen various numbers but no firm data from TSLA. My personal guess is about 10-20%. Until such time as they allow owners to port their FSD purchase from one Tesla to their next Tesla purchase I personally think only road warriors and/or extremely wealthy will be purchasing it. Funnily enough there was just such a question in yesterday's conf call.

 

[mspohr]

You are in one of the correct places I think. I've seen various numbers but no firm data from TSLA. My personal guess is about 10-20%. Until such time as they allow owners to port their FSD purchase from one Tesla to their next Tesla purchase I personally think only road warriors and/or extremely wealthy will be purchasing it. Funnily enough there was just such a question in yesterday's conf call.

FSD stays with the car just like any other accessory you purchase. This will increase the value of the used car.
They could go to a subscription service with FSD which I believe has been floated in the past.

 

[EV forever]

You are in one of the correct places I think. I've seen various numbers but no firm data from TSLA. My personal guess is about 10-20%. Until such time as they allow owners to port their FSD purchase from one Tesla to their next Tesla purchase I personally think only road warriors and/or extremely wealthy will be purchasing it. Funnily enough there was just such a question in yesterday's conf call.

I have to disagree with you. Many folks who have already purchased FSD are like me, hardly road warriors or wealthy (well some of us are in the second category now thanks to Tesla). If the posted videos yesterday was any indication, FSD take rate is about to go through the roof. Especially with the price increase by $2000 on Monday this weekend lots of people will buy.

 

[petit_bateau]

FSD stays with the car just like any other accessory you purchase. This will increase the value of the used car.
They could go to a subscription service with FSD which I believe has been floated in the past.

Personally I think that is the wrong analogy, or not sufficiently applied. If I buy (say) metallic paint at purchase then clearly that has to transfer with the car as it is, literally, baked-in. However if I buy (say) alloy wheels at purchase then I can choose to remove them, fit standard steel wheels, and transfer the alloys. So I could (say) buy alloys on a 2018 model 3, then steels on a (say) 2021 model 3, and by swapping the wheels each time end up using those alloys for several years.

With alloy wheels this is not so relevant as it really is not worth the effort. But if I am (say) a road warrior then I may value FSD and be an early adopter. However when I sell the car second-hand the acessible purchaser pool in my area may all be retired dodderers (apart from me, the road warrior) who do not value FSD as they simply do not do long trips or even much driving. Knowing that I would take the likely massive depreciation of FSD-on-resale into account when making my original purchase decision and I might go so far as to not buy it.

This is not a hypothetical consideration for me personally. I could easily envisage buying a 3/Y in a while and I would seriously consider stretching to FSD if I knew I could transfer it. However I definitely will not be buying FSD at that time if I thought I could not transfer it.

For Tesla the transferability option can both motivate accelerated sales of FSD, and motivate Tesla-lock-in as Tesla-FSD would not be transferable to other brands. Clearly in this I am making the simplifying assumption that there would be no backwards transferrability, only forwards transferability. I could also consider a fee for the Tesla transfer cost (such as it is) as the transfer from (say) a 2020 model 3 to (say) a 2023 model 3 might enable additional functionality due to the (by 2023) improved HW (as there will be code-forking and version control issues to manage).

I am not alone in this thought process. That is why it was raised as an issue at the Q&A, and is in fact the subject of its own thread: Why is FSD not transferable to your next Tesla?

I too would be really interested to see any stats for FSD adoption.

regards, dspp/pp

 

[mspohr]

Personally I think that is the wrong analogy, or not sufficiently applied. If I buy (say) metallic paint at purchase then clearly that has to transfer with the car as it is, literally, baked-in. However if I buy (say) alloy wheels at purchase then I can choose to remove them, fit standard steel wheels, and transfer the alloys. So I could (say) buy alloys on a 2018 model 3, then steels on a (say) 2021 model 3, and by swapping the wheels each time end up using those alloys for several years.

With alloy wheels this is not so relevant as it really is not worth the effort. But if I am (say) a road warrior then I may value FSD and be an early adopter. However when I sell the car second-hand the acessible purchaser pool in my area may all be retired dodderers (apart from me, the road warrior) who do not value FSD as they simply do not do long trips or even much driving. Knowing that I would take the likely massive depreciation of FSD-on-resale into account when making my original purchase decision and I might go so far as to not buy it.

This is not a hypothetical consideration for me personally. I could easily envisage buying a 3/Y in a while and I would seriously consider stretching to FSD if I knew I could transfer it. However I definitely will not be buying FSD at that time if I thought I could not transfer it.

For Tesla the transferability option can both motivate accelerated sales of FSD, and motivate Tesla-lock-in as Tesla-FSD would not be transferable to other brands. Clearly in this I am making the simplifying assumption that there would be no backwards transferrability, only forwards transferability. I could also consider a fee for the Tesla transfer cost (such as it is) as the transfer from (say) a 2020 model 3 to (say) a 2023 model 3 might enable additional functionality due to the (by 2023) improved HW (as there will be code-forking and version control issues to manage).

I am not alone in this thought process. That is why it was raised as an issue at the Q&A, and is in fact the subject of its own thread: Why is FSD not transferable to your next Tesla?

I too would be really interested to see any stats for FSD adoption.

regards, dspp/pp

Perhaps a subscription model would meet your needs?

 

[ammulder]

Perhaps a subscription model would meet your needs?

That’s all down to the pricing. When they said it would be more economical to buy FSD up front, over what time frame is that? Is it $100/mo or $500/mo?

 

[petit_bateau]

Using the Oct-2020 YTD numbers from EV sales : EV Sales: Global Top 20 October 2020 and adding in a few fairly crude kWh and $$ metrics I get these stats for Tesla's overall position vs the competition in the BEV+PHEV arena. The big unknown is what is hidden in the 56% of 'other' but I reckon it is mostly various micro-EV stuff. If you have better data let me know.

regards, pb/dspp
==================================

First by model:

Then by manufacturer:

 

[Doggydogworld]

Using the Oct-2020 YTD numbers from EV sales : EV Sales: Global Top 20 October 2020 and adding in a few fairly crude kWh and $$ metrics I get these stats for Tesla's overall position vs the competition in the BEV+PHEV arena. The big unknown is what is hidden in the 56% of 'other' but I reckon it is mostly various micro-EV stuff. If you have better data let me know.

regards, pb/dspp
==================================

First by model:

Then by manufacturer:

Good work. 10 kWh average for "other" seems too low, though. Those 1.22 million are roughly 500k BEV and 720k PHEV. Has to be 30+ GWh. SNE estimates a bit over 80 GWh total through September, so ~90 by end of October. I think that includes buses and trucks, but I doubt they're more than 5 GWh.

For manufacturers you could add S/X to Tesla. Use 38.1k deliveries through September plus another ~1k for October for 3.9 GWh.

In the same vein, Renault/Nissan has a few other low volume BEVs for ~125k total. Also ~33k PHEVs.

HongGuang Mini has both 9.2 and 13.8 kWh versions. I have no idea of the sales mix, would guess 50/50.

Hyundai/Kia also sell Ioniq (now 38.3 kWh) and Soul (64 kWh) BEVs. Kia Niro PHEV, not included in your counts above, is only 8.9 kWh.

VW Group sold 121k BEVs and 110k PHEVs through September, figure another 25k BEVs and 22k PHEVs in October. Their BEVs probably average close to 60 kWh. Most/all ID3s were 58 kWh and eTron/Taycan offset the eGolf and eUP/Mii/Citigo triplets.

BYD is 8.591 GWh through October. 93k BEVs, 33k PHEVs plus 8k buses and such.

 

[petit_bateau]

VW Group sold 121k BEVs and 110k PHEVs through September, figure another 25k BEVs and 22k PHEVs in October. Their BEVs probably average close to 60 kWh. Most/all ID3s were 58 kWh and eTron/Taycan offset the eGolf and eUP/Mii/Citigo triplets.

.

Thanks, this is exactly the sort of comment/response that is helpful.

Do you think the VW numbers in the table I fleshed out include any of those other VAG models (Upi/Seat/Skoda/etc) ?

regards, dspp/pb