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

[Dan Detweiler]

There is always a reason for a 3,5% drop early premarket.

...and I gave you one.

Dan

 

[Cobbler]

Guys, timing wise this sucks...

But if the Maxwell deal goes through, that large investment from Panasonic isn't needed anyway:
- the chemistry change shows an energy density increase from 250wh/kg to 350wh/kg.
Meaning without further improvements, the GF output will increase to 49GWh
- the cells don't need to 'cure' in a storage facility anymore and the footprint area to produce the cells decreases a lot. No need for expansion, just machinery that will be replaced.

Enough improvements alone to feed Fremont m3 production and TE

Am I that wrong?

 

[Navin]

Nikkei is usually wrong.

Another January, another misleading iPhone supply cuts story from Nikkei

 

[Artful Dodger]

"“Panasonic will study additional investments over 35 GWh in collaboration with Tesla,”

That's not confirmation of anything.

Perhaps Tesla and Panasonic have revamped their ramp-up plans. Which were probably pretty nebulous to start with and have changed a dozen times already. I don't think we can trust the way Nikkei reported its unsourced article, however.

If anything, that's a reiteration of guidance from Panasonic who last Fall announced plans to expand production at GF1 to 35GWh/yr.

So where's the freeze? There isn't one. We're in a steady state. And with this important confirmation about GF1 shipping btys to Shanghai/GF3:

"Panasonic also intends to suspend planned investment in Tesla’s battery and EV plant in Shanghai, and instead provide technical support and a small number of batteries from the existing Gigafactory, the newspaper reported."​

That means:

1. Sparks/GF1 is building btys to support Shanghai production
2. Tesla already has local suppliers for bty cells for GF3.

Cheers!

 

[W84M3]

Nikkei is usually wrong.

Another January, another misleading iPhone supply cuts story from Nikkei

Or Nikkei is used as a ploy in negotiations.

 

[ReflexFunds]

“Panasonic established a battery production capacity of 35GWh in Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 by the end of March 2019 in line with growing demand,” Panasonic said.

“Watching the demand situation, Panasonic will study additional investments over 35GWh in collaboration with Tesla.”

Panasonic's response...
So the only real news is GF1 capacity is already at 35gWh rather than previously expected 24-26gWh. So main question is, what are they doing with all the batteries?

 

[TheMrX]

UPDATE 1-Panasonic says reviewing further investment in Tesla Gigafactory

The nikkei article was just plain false, but managed to hit the share price (damn it!)

basically we just got confirmation that while Giga nevada is not construction complete, the original target of 35 GWh has been reached last month.

Pretty good news when read properly.

 

[neroden]

Guys, timing wise this sucks...

But if the Maxwell deal goes through, that large investment from Panasonic isn't needed anyway:
- the chemistry change shows an energy density increase from 250wh/kg to 350wh/kg.
Meaning without further improvements, the GF output will increase to 49GWh
- the cells don't need to 'cure' in a storage facility anymore and the footprint area to produce the cells decreases a lot. No need for expansion, just machinery that will be replaced.

Enough improvements alone to feed Fremont m3 production and TE

Am I that wrong?

I am definitely worried about the Maxwell deal. I believe it won't go through unless the deal terms are changed *or* Tesla & Maxwell run a more aggressive campaign to Maxwell stockholders to get them to tender.

 

[neroden]

“Panasonic established a battery production capacity of 35GWh in Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 by the end of March 2019 in line with growing demand,” Panasonic said.

“Watching the demand situation, Panasonic will study additional investments over 35GWh in collaboration with Tesla.”

Panasonic's response...
So the only real news is GF1 capacity is already at 35gWh rather than previously expected 24-26gWh. So main question is, what are they doing with all the batteries?

"This is the year of Tesla Energy" -- Musk

 

[Anstandswauwau]

"This is the year of Tesla Energy" -- Musk

Do we have any evidence that this is actually happening (contrary to M3SR availability)?

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Tweet from ARK:

Cathie Wood on Twitter

"Our conviction in $TSLA has increased in the last three months. Tune in to its #autonomy day on April 22. It will put $LYFT to shame."

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Do we have any evidence that this is actually happening (contrary to M3SR availability)?

Do we have any evidence that it is not? We are only 3 months into 2019.

Dan

 

[WarpedOne]

I am definitely worried about the Maxwell deal. I believe it won't go through unless the deal terms are changed *or* Tesla & Maxwell run a more aggressive campaign to Maxwell stockholders to get them to tender.

1. Musk will get what he wants (the tech)
2. Maxwell shareholders might not.

 

[Navin]

I’m buying on this nikkei hit piece. Even Fred from electrek is calling bs on it. That’s about as a great of an indicator as you can get given what he has become

 

[Anstandswauwau]

Do we have any evidence that it is not? We are only 3 months into 2019.

Dan

idk, usually there's a quite noticeable spike in Powerwall postings here and over at reddit when a new wave goes out.

How long does it take to produce and deliver Powerwalls?

 

[neroden]

Do we have any evidence that this is actually happening (contrary to M3SR availability)?

Yes

(P.S. I'm starting to get as curt as Musk on Twitter, aren't I? Anyway, we have the news that the Gigafactory is up to 35 GWh, and we have anecdotes that installers are finding it much easier to get significant numbers of Powerwalls, and we've heard about several large Powerpack installations.)

 

[Pras]

I’m buying on this nikkei hit piece. Even Fred from electrek is calling bs on it. That’s about as a great of an indicator as you can get given what he has become

Navin from Groupon?

 

[TheMrX]

did not saw this reported here this AM

https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/...date-first-quarter-2019-financial-results-and

I think April 24th is early.... and 2 days after Autonomy day.

 

[bhtooefr]

How would the others pay for it? Tesla doesn't use a card, it uses the car to authorize. Now I suppose you could create an adapter with a card reader and an internet connection, but that would add cost to the adaptor and I don't suppose it would be that hard to hack since access to the hardware is usually the easiest way.

Tesla could add support for ISO/IEC 15118-2:2014 (aka "Plug and Charge") to the Supercharger network, which some cars in Europe do already support. This is the preferred authentication method for CCS.

Alternately, I believe some European charging providers now support authentication based purely off of the vehicle's VIN, which should work in more cases than PnC, but is far less secure (VIN spoofing is a practical attack against it, whereas PnC uses public key cryptography to authenticate the car).

"...states with stricter standards might have to create new rules against buying cars from other states. "

Well, this could get ugly.

Note that those rules already exist, at least in California. California requires that all new cars imported into their state meet California emissions standards, with an exception for a vehicle breaking down while on a trip and purchasing a replacement. Used vehicles that don't comply must have at least 7500 miles.

(Before Volkswagen started cheating on TDI emissions, and they couldn't get them through California emissions, there were a couple dealers that I know of that catered to selling TDIs to California buyers. One of them was a used car dealer that got caught committing odometer fraud - buying new cars, adjusting the odometers up to 7500 miles, and then selling them as used for a markup. Another was a dealer outside of California that I'm pretty sure was abusing the breakdown loophole due to oddities in how it was written, to sell new non-compliant cars to California buyers.)

Considering that there's already precedent in California of requiring that vehicles be compliant with current emissions standards to even operate in the state (trucking), they could easily expand that ban to simply ban import of any used vehicle, or at least ones not registered to someone moving into the state.

 

[Sean Wagner]

From the briefest of searches on articles written by Daishi Chiba:

...
Tesla battery supplier Panasonic sounds a note of caution over the automaker's aggressive Chinese push. The Chinese economy's loss of momentum raises questions about the timing of this pivot.

"The growth curve envisioned by Tesla in China is too steep," a senior Panasonic executive said. "We have to assess risks [in China] as we decide on further investments."
...
Source:
TAKESHI SHIRAISHI and DAISHI CHIBA, Nikkei staff writers | MARCH 16, 2019
Tesla fights Chinese electric-car startups with SUV under $40,000


I don't want to speculate too much, but if anyone's been wondering about the lack of GigaFactory Europe news...

By the way, prepare for a report [the 237th] on Tesla's most total and absolute doom over at the Financial Times' [Nikkei-owned] alphaville section. It would be nice to get some pertinent facts together [as has been in the works up-thread].