i am in disbelief that Cathie Wood could have made such a fundamental error. The best I can come up with is that she was trying to say that OTHERS in Wall St were conflating a new $25K car with a big reduction in the Model 3s price, but there’s nothing in the tweet’s wording to bolster that “others” theory.
We hope she did not make such an egregious error, but she clearly did. Elon did correct her.
It seems quite a few people, generally knowledgable ones, have missed four major known facts regarding Tesla plans:
1) Both in Germany and China there will be/are design centers that will develop new smaller vehicles;
2) We have zero statement about where those new vehicles will be produced, other than the assumption that they probably will be produced first in the country where they will be designed;
3) Continuing factory and product refinement will take place with new factories better than existing ones, every time.
Point three was not ever said in those words but has been regularly reiterated.
I hoped and expected that investors I admired, including Ms. Wood, would understand those points.
This might be a trifle less obvious, but clearly has been disclosed.
4) Cells will be acquired from existing suppliers (CATL, LG, Panasonic maybe SK coming) for the foreseeable future, but we have no direct information about cell format, specifically 'tables' or not, but, CATL does have 'cell to pack' right now. In addition CATL is known to be an established leader in low-cost cells, including cobalt-free. Nobody has even hinted whether the form factors, tabless or chemistry, much less production process, will be adopted by suppliers.
It really should not be surprising that anyone, including ourselves, could leave Battery Day without more questions than answers.
Those who suggest that there is more advance than is being disclosed probably are correct.
If the above is true then Elon/Tesla are underpromising and will be overdelivering.
The first giant-sized hint will be October 2 or soon after when we see the effects of Tesla actually delivering more than 140,000 vehicles in Q3, with TE at record levels. We might also hear hints about record TE backlogs and Q4 growth expectations. If those things happen we'll be confident that exactly nobody understands the gigantic impact of finally making a substantial innovation in cell production and battery design. This 'ain't no trivial 7% per year'.
Really, the only comparison that makes sense to me is rocket reuse. I think this may well be just as consequential. Thus, just as SpaceX is production constrained so too will be Tesla, for years to come.
I detest Kool-Aid!
