Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Tes La Ferrari]

Tesla Effect: Japan's AC giant innovates to prepare for Elon Musk’s HVAC project

There’s something remarkable about the “Tesla Effect” in the way that it fosters innovation not only on segments that the company is already competing in but in markets that the electric car and energy company is still yet to enter. This seems to be the case in the home HVAC segment, with a...

www.teslarati.com

TL;DR: the fear of Tesla catalyzes innovation before Tesla even enters a given market. Humanity is the largest beneficiary of the resultant positive effects.

“the “Tesla Effect” in the way that it fosters innovation not only on segments that the company is already competing in but in markets that the electric car and energy company is still yet to enter. This seems to be the case in the home HVAC segment, with a recent report from Japan stating that air conditioner maker Daikin is now innovating its business model to prepare for the likely entrance of Tesla into the home HVAC space. “

 

[ZachF]

Size comparison of Tesla factories, to the best of the data I was able to find.

Let me know if you spot inaccuracies.

 

[nativewolf]

Well shanghai has basically started pretty small and just continued building out- a strategy that seems to be working for production. Originally it had less space than Berlin I believe. Also Tesla is doing the battery somewhere else I think.

That was pretty much a given from the outset. It was no surprise that German Bureaucracy slowed construction. I suspect that's why it's smaller, because the market in Europe could use a much larger factory.

I would not assume that Berlin won't continue to build out. The big difference is there is space at the Berlin facility to build out. The space exists at Berlin, indeed is planned for based on prior docs, to build out to a great extent. However, no batteries...no need to build out. I still don't know where batteries are coming from and that's the biggest question to me.

 

[nativewolf]

Ford invested in Rivian.

Rivian is worth more than Ford.

It shouldn have been Rivian investing in Ford, but I'd bet they think it's a bad idea.

That's funny.

Shows you Ford has some brains, GM partnered with a known fraudster and a shell company Nikola.

 

[Khamul]

Something scary has happened: the Guardian has a positive - actually, really, really positive - article about Elon. What is the world coming to?! There's nothing new in it, but I liked it.

‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland

 

[petit_bateau]

Shanghai is currently several buildings at ~3.8m square feet total.
Berlin is a ~2.3m square foot building with a ~250k second building.
Austin is ~4.9m square feet with another ~800k building beginning construction

Berlin is the smallest and has taken the longest.

To add Fremont and 2020 production and latest ests of 2021 capacity to this, and rounding wildly (!!):

Fremont is ~5.3m square feet, for (2020 production of 354k) or (2021 maybe 550k/yr is 1,900/d @ 80%) ==>> ~360 cars per day per day per mln sq ft = ~550k/yr @ 80% utilisation
Shanghai is currently several buildings at ~3.8m square feet total, for (2020 production of 145k) or (8/21 at 1,800/d) =>> 470 cars per day per mln sq ft = 520k/yr @ 80% utilisation

Then using a 400 cars/day factor we get:
Berlin is a ~2.3m square foot building with a ~250k second building, so 2.55m sq ft total ==>> 300k/yr @ 80% utilisation
Austin is ~4.9m square feet with another ~800k building beginning construction, so 5.8m sq ft total ==>> 680k/yr @ 80% utilisation

Clearly both Berlin and Austin (and for that matter, so too are Fremont and Shanghai) are intended to continue building out, and this is not an apples/apples comparison because the amount of vertical integration and model-mix is not the same at each site, but nontheless this gives a feel for the scale of things.

 

[CHGolferJim]

According to Car and Driver, the top-trim Camry TRD starts at $33,285.
Tesla Model 3 Performance starts at $56,990.

So, no.

What I meant was you have to look at the options bundles and total prices that consumers choose (that are selling) to see the true price difference, and then factor in the fuel and maintenance projected costs to get the 5-7 year total cost of ownership comparison.

 

[Mengy]

I think the reaction to TeslaBot has been surprisingly muted, even amongst most Tesla Bulls. Humanoid robotics I think is potentially a massive new market in a wide variety of areas with a multitude of use cases across every sector of society: industrial, commercial, retail, consumer & military - and virtually no other company is dedicating resources to it as they don’t have the AI software team to make a humanoid robot useful. It’s a massive blue ocean opportunity.

I agree with you. I think a lot of people simply don't believe Elon is serious about the Teslabot or don't feel he can really create such a thing.

Personally I've learned to always take what Elon says very seriously, to never expect him to be on schedule, but to ALWAYS believe he will achieve what he sets out to do. Teslabot will happen.

 

[dm28997]

Something scary has happened: the Guardian has a positive - actually, really, really positive - article about Elon. What is the world coming to?! There's nothing new in it, but I liked it.

‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland

I don't pay attention to news and have most media completely off my radar since it has been so erroneous about Tesla and Musk; but having read this Guardian article I have hope that some journalists may still be able to publish something readable and possibly logical(just maybe)
I might even read the Guardian now although the others are still on my sugar list.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

Excellent. Yes, that's a doosey....I suspect Tesla would be fine with selling non-FSD cars to people who would be willing to pay extra to add it after purchase to qualify for tax incentives. The bigger middle finger would be to exclude self driving capable cars. Ouch.

I think they will write it for companies producing ICE cars as incentive to rotate to electric. Tesla producing only electric vehicles will be naturally excluded.

 

[Thumper]

I believe they are making superchargers at Buffalo as well as Solar.

 

[winfield100]

OT CRS-23
ok, it was spectacular, even 190 miles away, watching in real time (outside) on the lanai, and ”time delay surreal time” on the iPad for up close and personal
the ignition of stage 2 gave a “most excellent” very short light show on iPad but it tracked up the east coast of the US, so iPad was better.

(it’s difficult going to watch launches at the cape because my trade in for my LRY has to be under 1,000 miles and Jan is EDD so surreal time it is)

 

[Chenkers]

Size comparison of Tesla factories, to the best of the data I was able to find.

Let me know if you spot inaccuracies.

View attachment 702823

Some minor items:

- At Shanghai the casting is in the upper part of the large building in the bottom right with the ?. Not sure what's is the bottom part but likely powertrain related.
- Where casting is shown at Shanghai is just stamping afaik and has recently been extended.
- Where stamping is shown in the central building for Shanghai is a logistics area for GA.
- Shanghai also has a new building in the top right, which I assume is the design studio.
- The new battery cell building under construction at Berlin should be added.
- The upper part of the ? at Austin is rumoured to be for drive unit.

Footprint alone can be misleading as there are some (limited) second storey areas in Fremont, large areas of second storey in Phase 2 of Shanghai and large areas of 2, 3 or 4 stories at Austin.

 

[Unpilot]

OT CRS-23
ok, it was spectacular, even 190 miles away, watching in real time (outside) on the lanai, and ”time delay surreal time” on the iPad for up close and personal
the ignition of stage 2 gave a “most excellent” very short light show on iPad but it tracked up the east coast of the US, so iPad was better.

(it’s difficult going to watch launches at the cape because my trade in for my LRY has to be under 1,000 miles and Jan is EDD so surreal time it is)

Love watching this....it NEVER get's old!

 

[FS_FRA]

Berlin wasn't scaled back because of permits or environmental concerns, it was the German govt waiting for Tesla to break ground and then immediately trying to cut Tesla out of their domestic EV subsidies.

As was noted, not too hard for suppliers or Tesla themselves to mow setup in Poland or elsewhere to manufacture packs so there's less footprint in DE but the cars still get the subsidy.

This will all pass in a couple years when legacy German carmakers start really struggling or even failing. Then hopefully they circle back to Tesla in support of expansion at GigaBerlin. Germany really really really knows how to look out for itself. Nothing wrong with that I guess, they're only shooting themselves in the foot.

Where is the source that Berlin was scaled back?

Just because Poland is close to Berlin, doesn't mean it's easy to simply setup shop there. It wasn't easy for Polish commuters to travel to Germany during the height of the Pandemic, so relying on daily commuters from Poland as @Buckminster (I think, up-thread) suggested is a no-go too. Too risky for business continuity (unless you're considering alien dreadnought automation within the next 3 years).

Poland has massive labor-force issues (large global appliance manufacturer - customer of mine - has several factories in Poland where most of the labour is imported from e.g. Ukraine because the Polish workforce is not in Poland), a government that is not interested in the EU (other than to grab subsidies), a very difficult language, and you're not going to get "western" talent to willfully move there. I don't see it at all.

At most, I see the GigaBerlin supply-chain to also be located in Poland, along the "automotive alley" from Wroclaw - Katowice - Krakow.

I tend to agree with @jbcarioca that there is a non-zero chance that we will see smaller assembly factories for Tesla in other locations around Europe (or in fact in other countries that can't support a full GigaFactory) once Model 2 is out and demand requires it. I also agree that Tesla Energy will one require far more production capacity that Tesla Automotive. But that is a topic for another thread...

 

[Chenkers]

Quite a bit of negativity in the comments from Wu Wa on his latest Shanghai video. Suggesting there may be a production shutdown going on and complaints about lead times. Not sure how much to make of this? While the lot is full of cars there's no delivery trucks present and maybe less general activity across the site. This was shot on the 29th and Jason Yangs video of the 26th still showed a lot of activity and deliveries going on. Hopefully it's just a changeover from export to local production or something else short lived.

 

[Maarten]

On topic since any rocket launch might have an impact on Elons mood.

Seriously, go watch the weirdest rocket launch ever. Just happened.

Quickly fast forward to 1:33:20.
Watch the gate at the right being open.
Then the launch. They were sooo lucky it was open.

 

[ZachF]

To add Fremont and 2020 production and latest ests of 2021 capacity to this, and rounding wildly (!!):

Fremont is ~5.3m square feet, for (2020 production of 354k) or (2021 maybe 550k/yr is 1,900/d @ 80%) ==>> ~360 cars per day per day per mln sq ft = ~550k/yr @ 80% utilisation
Shanghai is currently several buildings at ~3.8m square feet total, for (2020 production of 145k) or (8/21 at 1,800/d) =>> 470 cars per day per mln sq ft = 520k/yr @ 80% utilisation

Then using a 400 cars/day factor we get:
Berlin is a ~2.3m square foot building with a ~250k second building, so 2.55m sq ft total ==>> 300k/yr @ 80% utilisation
Austin is ~4.9m square feet with another ~800k building beginning construction, so 5.8m sq ft total ==>> 680k/yr @ 80% utilisation

Clearly both Berlin and Austin (and for that matter, so too are Fremont and Shanghai) are intended to continue building out, and this is not an apples/apples comparison because the amount of vertical integration and model-mix is not the same at each site, but nontheless this gives a feel for the scale of things.

Cybertruck will require far less factory floor space and CAPEX per unit than any other car... Sandy Munro has said as much multiple times.

Also, that number (5.3m sqft) includes more than just the floor space for Fremont, actual total floor space is closer to 3.3m sqft. The drive units and packs for the 3/Ys in Fremont are also made in Reno, while the drive units and packs for the Shanghai factory are made on site.

If you add together the floor space for the drive units in Reno to Fremont, it's about 3.8m sqft vs 4.1m sqft.

 

[Singuy]

Quite a bit of negativity in the comments from Wu Wa on his latest Shanghai video. Suggesting there may be a production shutdown going on and complaints about lead times. Not sure how much to make of this? While the lot is full of cars there's no delivery trucks present and maybe less general activity across the site. This was shot on the 29th and Jason Yangs video of the 26th still showed a lot of activity and deliveries going on. Hopefully it's just a changeover from export to local production or something else short lived.

Happened a few times in Fremont in May where there were no carriers (however the logistic lot was pretty empty unlike this video). Turns out to be a nothing burger as they smashed production numbers.

 

[ZachF]

OT:

Those of you in/near the gulf, stay safe... Ida looks like it could be bad.