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

[Fact Checking]

Mystery automotive reverse engineering and market intelligence firm owner's (BrownSoylent) take on the Model S Plaid:

"One thing I can say with 100% certainty - the Plaid setup will likely beat the Taycan in 9 out of every 10 categories and it will take Porsche 5 or 6 years to develop the next iteration Taycan. That's not fanboy speak, it's just engineering fact. Screenshot me..."​

I agree.

 

[ZachShahan]

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

Haha. Exactly!

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

We just ran a software update on TMC, as a result all posts on updating iPhones and Androids phones were lost.

 

[KarenRei]

If today ends green, we'll match the all-time record for consecutive green days on the stock (8), set on 24 January 2013. So far this is only the 6th >= 7-day green run ever.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

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.

View attachment 466729

Wow, this is actually pretty sad. People convincing other people to go broke. smh

Dan

 

[KarenRei]

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.

And, though? If they're going to do it for one, they're going to do it for both. There's no reason to artificially create diseconomies of scale.

I fully agree that there may be a transitional period as suppliers switch over (although there might not be, if they're being properly proactive). But I see no way that Tesla is going to leave there being two different electrical platforms for longer than absolutely necessary.

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

Maybe we have a different reading of the patent.

Either way, fun times ahead

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Fender by @Fact Checking
BC by Johnny Hart

 

[KarenRei]

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

I've been there

 

[Fact Checking]

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

While that could be the case, we never had a video of the previous driver driving on the ideal line.

Also note that Tesla had three drivers during the previous attempt:

• Thomas Mutsch,
• Andreas Simonsen,
• Carl Rydquist.

All three are Nürburgring specialists with thousands of kilometers of experience on the Nordschleife.

Thomas Mutsch was driving the red prototype last time, note the helmet inscription:

(The red prototype is the one that broke down last time.)

And the driver of the new red prototype today looked very similar: same green-golden racing helmet, white racing jacket and gloves and a 1'oclock hand position while cruising:

So I'm 95% sure that Thomas Mutsch was driving today too, as the senior driver in the team he had first choice and of course he picked the red car again.

And yes, very aggressive cornering from both the red and the blue prototype today - with the much improved racing aero they might be feeling more confident to drive the ideal line aggressively.

 

[Causalien]

So assuming battery can keep up. A new ModelY line with new stamping press say 7k/week and China line at the old 5k/week rate. Are we looking at almost m 3x the current production rate by the end of next year?

 

[SpaceCash]

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

absolutely not

 

[JRP3]

Tesla also pre announces their changes, just on a more flimsy schedule.

Elon has stated that Tesla constantly updates components during production, most changes are never announced, only major ones.

 

[Fact Checking]

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

Come on, the Model S was a problem child just a short time ago in Q1 and Q2 - and now it has a chance to become the undisputed Nürburgring street legal EV champion of all times, beating Porsche in their own backyard, on a cold October day??

Just go check the Reddit threads: hundreds of comments, lots of excitement about the Plaid and not a single peep about service problems or whether the Model S will be discontinued...

It also matters to valuation: if Tesla manages to replace Porsche as the ultimate racing car, the "halo effect" will be huge and the profit margins of the top trim will be ... beyond healthy.

The Nürburgring race matters. Bigly.

 

[JRP3]

Meanwhile, in Elon's underground lair... Robert Capewell on Twitter

 

[Todd Burch]

And the driver today looked very similar: same racing helmet, white gloves and 13'oclock hand position while cruising.

Is that like how my volume setting goes to 11?

 

[T@oo]

Meanwhile, in Elon's underground lair... Robert Capewell on Twitter

You have bought 10 shares. I loled.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Interesting tweets regarding manufacturing from Elon and tip of the hat to the legacy automakers.




Elon Musk
@elonmusk

So much respect for those doing high volume manufacturing. It’s insanely hard, but you make a real thing that people value. My hat is off to you …

 

[T@oo]

„And the driver today looked very similar: same racing helmet, white gloves and 13'oclock hand position while cruising.“

Is that like how my volume setting goes to 11?

Thats 360 degrees after 1 oclock.

 

[FreqFlyer]

The machine that makes the machine concept is not dead-

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

Anyone who’s interested in working on cutting edge manufacturing — designing & building the machine that makes the machine — please consider working at Tesla or SpaceX. We’re gonna take this to a whole new level!

Interesting times ahead, especially if you own Tesla stock.

 

[Krugerrand]

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.

The vendor would be given press dimensions, type, capabilities etc... That Schuler press line could always go faster than 12 spm.

There’s an industry ‘standard’ in terms of spm for the different body panels and there will in fact be a range of spm that each die can be run at and still produce a good part. There will be a ‘sweet spot’ so to speak based largely on material and forming requirements. Of course a good die design allows for more wiggle room than a bad one. I think we can go out on a limb a bit here and assume Tesla doesn’t have crappily designed dies.

While the original stroke rate may have been targeted for 12, it’s not inconceivable to tweak the press line, the dies, the end of arm tooling etc... and get to 14.

It’s a significant improvement for sure and a testament to the quality of press line, die sets and various individuals involved like toolmakers, programmers and engineers to push the limits.