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

[KarenRei]

When you're in "Try to prevent a short squeeze by pressuring your compatriots to not bail" mode, you're fighting a Prisoner's Dilemma, and that's not a good place to be.

 

[Krugerrand]

I didn't even use the words "die sets", but said "imprecise panel stamping" originally, which is pretty close to what @Artful Dodger described as well...



Except that the problem @Artful Dodger confirmed was with the new stamp lines, not with original design calculations, assembly process or painting: "the problem was diagnosed as steel sheets not being accurately positioned and held in place during the stamping operation".

I maintain that I don't expect these imprecise panel stamping problems to happen with the Model Y.

Except a) it’s not a big deal to fix and would be caught long before bad parts went to BIW and b) someone else linked to a patent clamping system that was the real reference to panel gap issues.

 

[StealthP3D]

Hyundai, Kia earmark $760 million to settle U.S. lawsuits over engine fires

'The NHTSA this year opened a fresh investigation into 3 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles after reviewing reports of more than 3,000 fires that injured more than 100 people.'

I didn't know Hyundai and Kia had even produced 3 million EV's! That's a lot of EV's.

Wait, those must be gasoline cars? I thought gasoline, being inherently not very flammable, was a major selling point vs. EV's which are always catching on fire?

 

[Fact Checking]

If that happened, that’s on the vendor to fix BEFORE customer buys it.

Another speculation: we know that Tesla has "overclocked" their new Schuler press by about +16%:

A Look Inside Tesla's Fremont Automotive Factory — #CleanTechnica Field Trip | CleanTechnica

"Matched sets of dies are used in the Schuler to stamp out uniform aluminum body parts even faster than the rate claimed by the manufacturer, thanks to numerous improvements made by Tesla after commissioning the press."

"Changes like this and more allowed Tesla to increase the rate of the press from 12 strokes per minute to 14 strokes per minute, a 16% improvement."​

(If this press was sized for 5k/week then I presume the original plan was to buy a second one to get to 10k/week at Fremont. Instead of that they improved the press rate by 16%: which is about 6k/week. Again: pure speculation.)

Running the press out of spec might have invalidated the assumptions behind the original tooling and might have caused that particular (sporadic?) stamping quality problem.

No vendor would accept out of spec use as a warranty case.

 

[Zaxxon]

Knocking on 260 again.

Call me when we knock on 360 again. This 200s action is all noise.

 

[Unpilot]

Call me when we knock on 3600 again. This 200s action is all noise.

Innocent mistake to forget a decimal point...I fixed it for you.

 

[SpaceCash]

Kablooey

 

[EVMeister]

That's an odd use of the phrase "disgustingly rich". I generally reserve that term for people who made their wealth in a passive way like inheritance or (far worse) royalties from oil or coal, etc. In short, having wealth handed to you, often at other's expense. But innovation and moving society forward is far from disgusting.

I agree entirely. My comment was said in jest, with the level of absurdity set by the thought of Elon having money troubles right now.

 

[anthonyj]

Sold 20 (trading) shares this morning to fuel the rally. I still have WAY too many shares. I really loaded the boat under $220

 

[Fact Checking]

New Carsonight info/leak from GF1:

Disqus - Tesla is rapidly moving to build ‘battery factory’ in China, report says

"I have it on good authority that GF1 is ramping up to 10k batteries per week. In China, initial production of 3k per week will be batteries from GF1."​

 

[StealthP3D]

Ooh, she FAST AF...

"Red and Blue Plaid prototypes return to hot laps at the Nürburgring"

Cheers!

EDIT: Read more about the 2nd round of Plaid test drives at the video maker's website:

Tesla Model S Plaid prototypes sporting new modifications return to 'Ring

Do they have a different driver this time? The driving style looks polar opposite (quicker, more abrupt turn-in and corner exit now vs. smoother style last time).

Let's hope the weather holds out for a record lap! It looked cold out there.

 

[StealthP3D]

Does Elon's tweet confirm that they have broken the Nurburgring record? I know the focus is on the date of plaid production, but isn't he speaking in past tense regarding the record.

I think Musk has been informed by people on the Plaid team that breaking the Taycan record is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Of course, they will still need suitable weather, a driver in good health and ability and to avoid logistical errors that could result in not having the right tires or whatever on hand.

 

[Fact Checking]

Do they have a different driver this time? The driving style looks polar opposite (quicker, more abrupt turn-in and corner exit now vs. smoother style last time).

The driver last time was really careful, and it's unclear whether they had a full safety racing harness and roll cage installed.

This time they reportedly are fully set, and the cornering is as aggressive as the Taycan's record lap was.

If you listen to the audio, the tire squeaking and curb hugging suggests they were doing a hot lap at the slip boundary.

Definitely looks like a pro driver, you don't drive like that in the "Green Hell" without a lot of experience - or a death wish.

Note that this was the "Industry Day" with other cars on the track and commonsense restrictions on overtaking, so I doubt they have recorded a full fast lap.

Weather is pretty cold (11°C max at 14:00) with 50% chance of rain, so tire stiffness, increased drag of cold air and road surface conditions might be an issue too. These weather conditions are expected to continue for the next few days. As a plus overheating should be less of a concern.

 

[mongo]

***Pure opinion ahead

Don't know about Model 3 production in GF3, but it seems logical to work in there if the challenge is simply the production line, not the car design. Based on that quote, I assume you are right and GF3 Model 3 will use the new wiring system.

I think that quote is referring to the optimized method of assembling the current 3 architecture (sprung ++) , not to an overhauled 3 electrical system.

I can't imagine that they'll make two entirely separate wiring systems for them. What's the point of sharing the same platform if you're going to do the wiring different? The whole point is economies of scale, and that all vehicles benefit from their tech advancements.

Maybe the Model Y line might be the first to get the robots to bend rigid wiring elements or something, but it'd obviously go to the Model 3 lines as soon as they were able to if it worked out well.

Switching to the new wiring means replacing the majority of the electrical system, not just replacing human placed harnesses with robotic.The new wiring system isn't just the harness. It is also the modules at the end (which may be preattched to the harness per the patent). To pull off the distributed switching and reduce copper cross section by 16 for same power loss they need to run it at 48V or so. Use of a common power bus requires the end modules to do the load switching, as opposed to the central controller. It is not a simple A B swap.

The 3 architecture was planned for 10k a week, so all the suppliers are geared up for that volume. Dropping the classic style 3 purchases for new Y parts is not necessarily an overall cost save. Especially if the GF3 3 line is set up based on available human resource availability.

Also, I believe the wiring is preformed for the specific car, the robots do not bend it on line.

There is also the issue that higher end trims are still imported from the US. That would create a service complexity that two different Model 3s have widely different guts.

***HOWEVER***
This could be a further cost optimized version of the 3 with a reduced cost wiring system. If so, it will be that that way from the first unit, and not a running change. Could start out with human placement and later go automatic for risk reduction.

 

[StealthP3D]

Knocking on 260 again.

They must have been impatient visitors because they didn't knock long before they smashed the door down!

 

[StealthP3D]

The driver last time was really careful, and it's unclear whether they had a full safety racing harness and roll cage installed.

This time they reportedly are fully set, and the cornering is as aggressive as the Taycan's record lap was.

If you listen to the audio, the tire squeaking and curb hugging suggests they were doing a hot lap at the slip boundary.

Definitely looks like a pro driver, you don't drive like that in the "Green Hell" without a lot of experience - or a death wish.

I'm not convinced that explains it. It still looks like they might have a different driver.

 

[snellenr]

Do they have a different driver this time? The driving style looks polar opposite (quicker, more abrupt turn-in and corner exit now vs. smoother style last time).

Let's hope the weather holds out for a record lap! It looked cold out there.

Watching Blue weave down the long straight @ 1:01, my first thought was “Autopilot???”

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Funds I've been waiting on for two weeks just hit my brokerage account......expect no pullbacks thru $380.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Can we talk about German track racing in another thread/forum?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Do they have a different driver this time? The driving style looks polar opposite (quicker, more abrupt turn-in and corner exit now vs. smoother style last time).

Let's hope the weather holds out for a record lap! It looked cold out there.

No word on the drivers, but I can't see any reason to make a change. This October track session was planned back in early September, so they must have known the schedule before the public announcement.

They're definately driving more aggressively with higher speeds, except on Döttinger Höhe (the back straight), where the driver zig-zagged in the manner that F1 drivers do to warm their tires. So no top speed revealed there, which is a huge unknown which I think will surprise or shock many casual observers. I have to wonder if the cameraman was waiting with a radar gun. As a reminder, I'm predicting 312 kmh top speed to achieve a lap time of 7:05 as was suggested as possible on Tesla's twitter acct back in September.

The most notable characteristic is the way torque vectoring affects turn-in when initiating cornering. The car snaps into its cornering set without any large initiating movement due to steering. Its way better than other sports cars I've seen, and is leading to some remarkable fast entry speeds in those corners, followed by a wide swing, high-g fast exit.

I don't think weather will be an issue. There are usually a few warm afternoon hrs in Autumn, and as long as the air temp is over about 15C and the sun hits the track I think the road surface will be sufficiently grippy for the record.

Cheers!