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

[KarenRei]

I wonder if the S body line might be retooled for Semi rather than 3 or Y. Semi is the vehicle next scheduled to enter production.

Absolutely possible. I had previously been an advocate of Model Y at GF1, and still think that's a very strong - if not the most likely - contender. But just pointing out that at long last they could have more Fremont space if they wanted it. The Model S line was their first line there, and it's not very space efficient. If they want more Fremont space, eliminating a shift from both the X and S lines is the first required step.

Yawn away, Sir.... Suit yourself...

But spend a minute going through this thread... It's really done quite well... And humorous to boot!!
But just one example of lot(s) full of Model 3's.... There are plenty more... This thread is certainly the most amusing though.. ;-)

No, what's amusing has been watching shorts pointing to lots full of Model 3s for the entire past year while the entire time insisting that they're a sign of a lack of demand, rather than what they very obviously are, which is staging lots.

And yet they never acknowledge how utterly they wrong they were about demand for the entire past year, and keep using the exact same argument again and again for it. Because guess what? The further production grows, the more staging lots there will be.

I had the biggest drop of 8% rather suddenly after 2.5 years - was charging to 244 miles, and then remaining 3% drop has been over the last 3.5 years.

And that's actually significantly worse than average Tesla has done a bang-up job at minimizing battery degradation.

I was not aware of the fact that the newer batteries degrade faster; I would have thought the opposite..

Yep.

You might want to dial back likelihood of S&P inclusion in May/June after Elon’s recent letter about slim profits in Q1.

If Tesla hits FactSet’s consensus GAAP EPS of $1.26...

Is that the latest Q4 EPS figure from today? Awesome That ~$2,26 from before would have been harder to beat; a dollar off the target makes a beat much more likely.

 

[Fact Checking]

Elon Musk on Twitter
tbh smh​

tbh idk wtfits

Guesses:

• Bullish: Did Elon just check out the current low $TSLA stock price?
• Bullish: Or did he react to $AAPL rising like crazy on lower iPhone sales?
• Bearish: Or did he review today's quarterly report once again, realizing that they made a GAAP loss in Q4 after all?

 

[lklundin]

Fred must be after some cheap shares before the ER...

View attachment 372917

In response to the Swedish media report that the Swedish DOT may temporarily suspend Tesla's sales in Sweden, the DOT issued a statement last night (in Swedish and English), that they consider the matter regarding the safety related software updates closed.

Transportstyrelsen stänger ärende om Tesla

Given their time to respond, I am guessing the Swedish DOT didn't like that they were being used for Tesla FUD.

 

[Fact Checking]

Absolutely possible. I had previously been an advocate of Model Y at GF1, and still think that's a very strong - if not the most likely - contender. But just pointing out that at long last they could have more Fremont space if they wanted it. The Model S line was their first line there, and it's not very space efficient. If they want more Fremont space, eliminating a shift from both the X and S lines is the first required step.

Note that I can see four low capex methods to make space at Fremont for Model Y production:

• Retool the Model S body line - this just got easier to do.
• Use the space of the 75D pack assembly lines - this too just got easier to do as well with the new Model S/X.
• Free up and shrink warehouse space at Fremont and re-purpose it as factory floor space. Guess what: Tesla is applying the finishing touches on their new giant warehouse just 55 miles away from Fremont: "Tesla’s massive distribution center in Northern California is coming to life".
• Reduce the complexity of the Model S/X interior, this would free up plastic molding lines at the molding shop. (See 'plastics' on the map below.) The rumored/leaked Model S/X interior refresh might enable this.

A fourth, high capex method is to build new buildings at Fremont:

The blue areas are still available expansion areas I believe - but those would have longer lead time than the re-purposing of existing factory floor space, and would cost significantly more.

Anyway, I think the chances have now increased that Tesla might be able to build the Model Y at Fremont. The other option would be to do it at the Nevada Gigafactory.

 

[Buckminster]

 

[Buckminster]

Guesses:

• Bullish: Did Elon just check out the current low $TSLA stock price?
• Bullish: Or did he react to $AAPL rising like crazy on lower iPhone sales?
• Bearish: Or did he review today's quarterly report once again, realizing that they made a GAAP loss in Q4 after all?

How about response to:
Donald J. Trump on Twitter

 

[KarenRei]

Crook?

 

[avoigt]

I did some number crunching and statistical home work to investigate how many 3s have been filed for the German incentive.

Results show that with a statistical error of lets say 10% that I would apply, 11,650 Model 3 has been filed in the first week in Germany.

Below all details

German bafa EV/PHEV/FC inventive Applications
All Numbers in Units
Total Applications at Dec 31st 2018: 91.498 Applications added

Date Total Number of Applications Added per period Added per week*** M3 Additions Jan 23rd - 29th

Nov 18 3,917 3,917 979 11.650
Dec 18 3,614 3,614 904
Year 2018 * 91,498 91,498 1,759
22.01.19** 105,186 13,688 4,355
29.01.19 121,191 16,005 16,005

* Company car tax reduction by 50% started Jan 1st. Data Source: bafa.de
** Model 3 approved by bafa for incentive at Jan 22rd
*** Averages or for full 12 months in 2018 beside date 01.01.2019, for 3 first weeks in 2019 and in the last row between 23.01. and 29.01.19

Data Source: BAFA Umweltprämie für Model 3 • TFF Forum - Tesla Fahrer & Freunde
BAFA - Elektromobilität
Zwischenstand des Umweltbonus zum 30. November 2018 | Elektroauto-News.net

Assumptions: The official from the bafa announced 91.498 applications correspond with a similar serial # end of 2018
The 2 at beginning of the serial number is a key charackter of the number but not a counter
Application Numbers from Bafa are serial numbers

Conclusions: At January 1st with the introduction of the 50% company tax cut the applications for all BEVs, PHEVs & FC increased strongly from average 1,759/week to 4,355/week. The company car tax reduction initiated a 5 fold increase of application in January versus average weekly applications end of 2018. The introduction of the Model 3 to the program at January 22nd initiated an addition of 11,650 Model 3s in the first week the program was opened.

P.S. apologize for the table that I feel unable to include correctly. See attachment

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Crook?

It’s some video game meme

 

[Tslynk67]

Bjørn has been allowed to post his review of the e-Tron. Worth watching, there's good and bad:

 

[KarenRei]

Bjørn has been allowed to post his review of the e-Tron. Worth watching, there's good and bad:

He's still banned from doing "comparison videos". Though he did sneak in a couple quick comments that were effectively "comparisons" in there

 

[Fact Checking]

P.S. apologize for the table that I feel unable to include correctly

You can use fixed fonts to format the table, using these tags:

[CODE]
... your table ...
[/CODE ]

​

(Remove the extra space from that closing tag.)

 

[Fact Checking]

Bjørn has been allowed to post his review of the e-Tron. Worth watching, there's good and bad:

Could someone provide a TL;DW text summary perhaps?

 

[KarenRei]

Could someone provide a TL;DW text summary perhaps?

Guzzles power like there's no tomorrow. Very low road noise. Charge port too far back. Interior had an annoying rattle, which he didn't expect from Audi. 50kW charging from 50kW station, 80kW from a 175kW CCSv1 station. Autosteer tries to wake you by braking hard and tightening your seatbelt, but if you don't respond, it just gives up and shuts itself off. Voice commands good but not exemplary. Winter range and consumption at low speed (90 kph / 56 mph) driving: 330 km/205 mi // 253 Wh/km, 407 Wh/mi. No higher speed test, but one can obviously slash the range and boost the consumption significantly over that baseline.

 

[SebastianR]

OT

Man I take a day off and all ....heck....breaks loose. I see lots of people arguing with ghost's.
Tesla is shaking up their model nomenclature. Stock price went up a little.

What else did I miss?

A jolly good party with (the usual) great company ;-) - I feel we got to the appetizers. I'm hoping for Steak tonight

Since we are chatting: What do you think of the following analogy: managing demand for Tesla is just like flying a plane: at times all you need to do is to adjust the trim (manage short-term demand pull orders forward a few weeks) other times you may need to pull a rudder to get to a new altitude (e.g. get a whole new class of customers). To me the "clean-up" around the Model S/X 75 is like adjusting the trim to slight changes in weather (e.g. expiring tax credit, January slump in car sales etc.) while the introduction of the Model 3 SR would be engaging the rudder.

I feel we on this board are not always clear what Tesla is doing. They do both types of demand management quite frequently and I have the impression they have so much data that this is down to a science for Tesla now - not to stretch my analogy too much but if your weather radars works well your plane will have a less bumpy ride since you can adjust trim more effectively. As a comparison many legacy car makers don't have that level of visibility.

Getting rid of the KW capacity in a marketing capacity is a no brainer decision - it just adds a layer of unneeded complexity.

Exactly. Audi is also trying to do so, too: Two numbers to signify the future – new power output designations at Audi (fair warning, don't try to understand the mess that Audi has created, I'm still confused about reading their elaborate explanation - the only thing I understand that is that displacement is not a great way to measure engine power any longer).

In response to the Swedish media report that the Swedish DOT may temporarily suspend Tesla's sales in Sweden, the DOT issued a statement last night (in Swedish and English), that they consider the matter regarding the safety related software updates closed.

Transportstyrelsen stänger ärende om Tesla

Given their time to respond, I am guessing the Swedish DOT didn't like that they were being used for Tesla FUD.

They actually stated a very important little statement in their note:

"This is a case we have been following for three years and we are now finishing because we see the risk of accidents with the autopilot system being reduced," says Anders Gunneriusson, senior advisor at the Swedish Transport Agency."

I.e. the Swedes are officially stating the Autopilot is safer than human drivers. So DOT is saying the opposite of what the bad reporting implied...

 

[RobStark]

Remember when Adidas sued Tesla to stop Model 3 from using the 3 bar logo?

On da 'bay

 

[Fact Checking]

Guzzles power like there's no tomorrow. Very low road noise. Charge port too far back. Interior had an annoying rattle, which he didn't expect from Audi. 50kW charging from 50kW station, 80kW from a 175kW CCSv1 station. Autosteer tries to wake you by braking hard and tightening your seatbelt, but if you don't respond, it just gives up and shuts itself off. Voice commands good but not exemplary. Winter range and consumption at low speed (90 kph / 56 mph) driving: 330 km/205 mi // 253 Wh/km, 407 Wh/mi. No higher speed test, but one can obviously slash the range and boost the consumption significantly over that baseline.

Thanks for the summary!

Regarding the interior rattle: this is ironic in a way, the attack of the incumbents on Tesla quality for "panel gaps" and interior quality created a counter-reaction they might themselves not be able to match immediately.

I believe road noise reduction generally requires sound-proofing mainly in the sense of padding existing air filled cavities that can bridge exterior noise to the exterior. The 'flufferbot' Tesla removed might have been about adding padding that reduced road noise.

I.e. they might be able to improve soundproofing with very little extra cost or mass, once they have production up to desired levels.

 

[Matias]

There are dozens of threads on this topic. And dozens of times the issue has come up here. Even a thread spun off specifically of this thread specifically to that topic. Over and over, people keep talking about the "imminent" switch to 2170s, and have been ever since Tesla introduced 2170s. And each time I try to calmly explain why such a thing isn't going to happen every time soon, and every time the reaction is (paraphrasing) "NO OMG 2170s ARE SO AWESOME THEY HAVE TO SWITCH!" The most recent time being just a week ago when the 75D was killed. Surely, THIS TIME it was a prelude to the imminent introduction of a 2170 pack! Over and over that was asserted.... surely, no other explanation!

Once people get the notion that something is "the future" stuck in their head, the concept of anything else continuing to be used seems incomprehensible to them and it drowns out all counterarguments.

This may happen at somepoint significantly further in the future. But it won't be happening any time soon.

So you're saying they will soon switch to 2170?

 

[lklundin]

"This is a case we have been following for three years and we are now finishing because we see the risk of accidents with the autopilot system being reduced," says Anders Gunneriusson, senior advisor at the Swedish Transport Agency."

I.e. the Swedes are officially stating the Autopilot is safer than human drivers. So DOT is saying the opposite of what the bad reporting implied...

That was my first thought too.

But taken at face value, they simply state that the risk of the Autopilot is reduced, which is a much weaker statement, possibly motivated by Autopilot improvements.

Edit: They literally state:
"vi ser att risken för olyckor med autopilotsystemet minskat", i.e.
"we see that the risk of accidents with the Autopilot system has reduced". So it is not stated explicitly in comparison to what that the risk has reduced (or why it has reduced), possibly because the statement was written in haste. My Swedish writing is not that good, but I think your interpretation is equivalent to:
"vi ser att autopilotsystemet minskar risken för olyckor", which they did not write.

 

[shlokavica22]

China fast tracks new foreign investment law as U.S. talks loom | Reuters

China’s parliament will vote in March on a new foreign investment law that will ban forced technology transfer and illegal government “interference” in foreign business practices, the official Xinhua News agency reported in Wednesday.