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How do you break out CAPEX from SG&A and R&D? In Tesla's shareholder letter as well as on yahoo finance you have 3 major cost items: cost of revenue, SG&A and R&D. I have to admit that I don't read the SEC Q filing.
It's exactly in their 10-Q. An excerpt from the most recent one:
"We continue to increase our sales and service footprint worldwide and expand our Supercharging network. With the continued global expansion of ourcustomer support and Supercharger infrastructure, selling, general and administrative expenses were $236.4 million for the three months ended September 30,
2015, compared to $155.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2014."
"We continue to increase our sales and service footprint worldwide and expand our Supercharging network. With the continued global expansion of ourcustomer support and Supercharger infrastructure, selling, general and administrative expenses were $236.4 million for the three months ended September 30,
2015, compared to $155.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2014."
jhm
Well-Known Member
This is really good density. 1200 Wh/l, 400 Wh/kg. That's got to get some attention.
Yeah, that number is in the shareholder letter and on Yahoo Finance, too. But your claim is (and I am not saying you are wrong) that nothing in SG&A count as Capex? But then since the total cost is the sum of cost of revenue, R&D and SG&A how do you know how big Capex is and what is and what isn't Capex?
chickensevil
Active Member
Sooo is that someone agreeing with my speculation that the unnamed car manufacturer *could* be Tesla? We know they have stated they have evaluated and ranked every research shop known to them on a 1-5 scale. And they actually had their consumer battery prototype (for what looks like a phone or other small electronic) talked about around 1 year ago, and surprisingly it was one of the companies and news stories I don't remember anyone talking about as the new flavor of the month "battery breakthrough" otherwise we might have discounted them long ago.
The other positive would be that they specifically state that their tech doesn't require major retooling of a factory to make it work. So if Tesla were to be the one going for this, then they could proceed with their next gen Panasonic cell in 2017 for the M3 and hopefully by 2020 they will have this cell fleshed out and able to handle more than just 300 cycles (which is the only major weak spot I see on them currently).
Anyway, if this is Tesla, and it made the news, that could do well for the stock to put all the naysayers to rest for a little while that some new tech is going to come out of nowhere and ruin the company.
Your speculation got me searching. Their Chief Science Advisor is Prof. Donald Sadoway @ MIT, whom interestingly enough is ALSO the Chief Science Advisor to Ambri, and their liquid metal battery. Don't recall where I saw it, but I thought Tesla was partnering with a Stanford battery Professor to develop the next gen battery tech?
Good point. They also basically put everything except for the direct cost of labor and raw materials in describing their CapEx in their filings. But on the other hand, their cash flow statement seems to have CapEx excluding OpEx as their "cash flow from operating" is approximately the same as their operating loss. I hope I'm wrong on my assumption and these items are included in CapEx.
chickensevil
Active Member
One they don't have access to that guy immediately, he had to finish off his current contract. Two, nothing says Tesla is committed to fund just one source. As with the Lithium mines where they committed to buying from like 2 or 3 suppliers if they pull through, Tesla would be foolish to stick all their eggs in one R&D battery basket if they can afford to fund two, then why not?
Not saying that proves it one way or another, just that if you had two 5s on your list of 120 or so companies, wouldn't you be best served to fund both?
jhm
Well-Known Member
I don't mean to be coy. If this really works, I would expect Tesla to be right there.
Cycle life is interesting. Suppose that can be improved to 400 cycles. You could get to a 100 kWh battery with cell weight 250kg. This could deliver a 400 mile range and deliver 160,000 miles over the life of the battery. If the cost is favorable, that is a pretty good profile. When you have a car with sufficient range that you only charge once per week, you really do not need huge cycle life.
Boosting density would also help even if you can't boost cycle life. 250kg, 125 kWh, 500 mile range. So 300 cycle life implies 150,000 mile life range.
So this looks workable to me.
stealthology
Member
Will Musk have to be so specific regarding X/S production mix? If the S can hold its own before X really ramps up by the end of Q2, I don't see a problem.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Four reasons electric vehicle sales will surge - Goldman Sachs : Renew Economy
Looks like GS has been reading TMC. All electrics at 3% current market share grow 26% to reach 22% market share by 2025.
Looks like GS has been reading TMC. All electrics at 3% current market share grow 26% to reach 22% market share by 2025.
The problem is how accurate Tesla's predictions are. If they overestimated and came short on Model X, then there is an increased probability the same thing happens on Model 3. Or that is what the market will think. Personally I don't think that is the case.
One thing that is interesting is that S is performing a lot better than most people predicted. I think the same will happen for X in the coming years.
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I think it can be Tesla. But it can also be GM or Ford or maybe some of the Asians that has subsidiaries in US. In any case, I think the chance of it being Tesla is less than 50%.
There are also trade secrets. Like how to manufacture something, even though the design is public.
Causalien
Prime 8 ball Oracle
Thanks for trying to attack my English first. I type on an iphone and I have big thumbs and I am perfectly fluent in 3 languages.
It's obvious that I caused tsla to rise from $20 to $280. Just look at all the articles I've written here.
Sounds good to me. What Solid Energy CEO said...
...(especially what I put in bold) fits Tesla pretty much I think. On the other hand, the part I put in italic would not really make sense if they were to part of the GigaFactory, but maybe that is too soon as of now.
ev-enthusiast
Active Member
Looking more closely at the design, features and now first step towards roll out of Model X in China I am starting to think that the X was developed to increase the sales footprint in China (more spaceous and luxury back seat, 2 back seat config, air filter and so on).
jhm
Well-Known Member
Thanks for parsing out the italics. Clearly they envision working with multiple battery makers and having some consumer visability to. So it sounds to the that they want to license their technology to battery makers, but have that labeled such that consumers know it. This may be asking too much. Financially it should suffice to license the technology.
In any case, this seems quite compatible with the Gigafactory. As long as the technology adds substantially more value than the cost of licennsing, it's worth doing at the Gigafactory. Tesla is obviously no trying to make EV tech scarce to other automakers. They may want to have enough influence over this company, that they themselves are not excluded from a beneficial tech stream, but beyond that they have no need to control. If SolidEnergy does pursue the licensing model, they will very much want to see a big producer like Tesla maximize their volume.
The licensing model may actually be best for Tesla. It attracts lots of research talent to attack battery tech to earn future licensing fees, but it marries Tesla to no one tech stream. Tesla wants a broad ecosystem too.
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