Sorry if this has been posted. Sandy Munro interview. It's pretty good after the first few minutes. It seems his mind works right. He predicts $35k Model 3 built in China can have 25% margin. I remember Elon said the same thing during Q4 conference call.
So I finished watching the video and I found it interesting. It was posted just before the SR announcement and when asked if Tesla could actually make a $35k M3SR, Munro said definitely and at a profit. When asked for when, he said whenever they wanted to. That is a good look for him as an outsider, unlike the analyst pundits who keep insisting on bankwuptcy and the necessity of raising funds.
When the topic of US vs China production came up he said he thought the SR could be made in China at ~25% profit, but he was naturally fuzzy on details. He was also clear that he thought profit came first and that the SR
should be made in China for sale in the USA due to the better profit margin.
This reinforces his position as providing true insight via his tear downs as Tesla did turn around and start making the SR in the US at a profit ($1500 without accounting for depreciation, IIRC, was the figure given).
That said, I do take issue with his characterization of EV adoption (as per my previous comment) [though he did end up making a comment about the legacy makers being half-hearted in their efforts] and he asserted that 80% of EV buyers were "young." Hard to dispute that uncited figure without defining what "young" means, but he said something along the lines of "young save-the-planet" types. He then mentioned the acceleration as making a Tesla desirable. I don't recall hearing him saying a single word about affordability, safety, improvement after purchase/OTA updates, auto-pilot or self driving capabilities.
I don't have demographic data to back this up, but -- to date -- I'd hazard that Tesla owners (as a group) are not "young." Teslas are expensive enough that most people who can afford them are well into their careers which makes them unlikely to be young. And I seriously doubt that Chinese EV buyers are doing it to "save the planet."
When it comes to his tear down analysis and related commentary I think he is very good and worth listening to*, but I don't think he actually gets Tesla as a company or understands the buying motivations or demographics of EVs.
* one last caveat that occurred to me is his insistence that the M3 body was poorly engineered. I don't think he gets the safety of Tesla at all -- he considers over-designing for safety to be a production defect because it creates avoidable manufacturing costs.
