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

[jerry33]

I paid for FSD and have HW3 hardware. I understand that they can solve multiple problems at once, but I have a hard time believing that they are 2 months away from self driving when the car can't figure out if there is really something in the lane or not when just driving in what is essentially adaptive cruise control. I want to be wrong for both the SP, and because I want the FSD features I paid for as soon as possible, but I'm in the crowd that thinks it is going to be a while....

You are still on V2 software. My understanding is that V3 is more-or-less completely rewritten.

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting vid based on the same leak source as the "Model Y in Q1" article earlier:

Use a proper quantity of grains of salt.

Ok, it's a pretty specific leak (with small edits by me):

"Here's some of our exclusive new information and it's about Gigafactory 3: what most people don't know is that right now Gigafactory 1 is supplying battery packs to Gigafactory 3, and they will continue supplying battery packs to them for for sure for for Q1 and maybe even for Q2, depending on when their own battery pack production starts there."

"So Tesla has been shipping packs to Gigafactory 3 since the beginning of August, basically the last shipment is leaving this week and then Gigafactory 3 has all the packs it needs for 2019."

"So they've been sending somewhere between 400 and 750 packs per week depending on what was needed at Fremont. When you add that all together, it was for about 12 weeks so something you get somewhere between 4,800 and 9,000 packs average that together you get about 7,000 packs give or take."

"So that's approximately what they have on stock there right now now. Our source however does not believe they'll be able to build more than 3,000 this year, but we'll get back to that in a moment."

"The second building is indeed full battery and module production Gigafactory 3."​

Note that this is consistent with the @Carsonight leak from GF1:

"The initial China factory production will be using GF1 batteries, Lars. As China comes up to speed that production will be used elsewhere. I'm told the current goal at GF1 is 10k batteries/week by the end of the year."​

So this all looks pretty plausible, including the ~3,000 China produced in Q4. That early production would increase Q4 production figures, even if they are not delivered in Q4 yet.

Note that there's a lot more info in that video, will post that in separate comments.

 

[mongo]

I paid for FSD and have HW3 hardware. I understand that they can solve multiple problems at once, but I have a hard time believing that they are 2 months away from self driving when the car can't figure out if there is really something in the lane or not when just driving in what is essentially adaptive cruise control. I want to be wrong for both the SP, and because I want the FSD features I paid for as soon as possible, but I'm in the crowd that thinks it is going to be a while....

It is true that phantom braking is happening less often, but I still can't trust the car. With NOTHING in front of me, it will brake for no reason and I have to over-ride by pushing the accelerator.

You're talking about a software replacement. Those can be a step change.
My phone had Nougat until it had Oreo. Nougat couldn't handle apps on two screens.

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting vid based on the same leak source as the "Model Y in Q1" article earlier:

Use a proper quantity of grains of salt.

Leak part #2 - this is about their earlier Model Y production in Q1 leak:

"As we mentioned in our article that we published on October 15th, Model Y will be launched around q1 so I know Elon said before by summer so what gives = is our info not completely accurate?"

"I don't think so because in Q1 they're probably gonna start mass production. Now this may sound counter-intuitive at first, but think about it, Model 3 had ramping up issues, but when it launched it launched with 30 Model 3s that it handed over to its employees, so in the first month they made 30, second month they made 75, third month they made a hundred 117, in September and you know obviously had ramping issues but when they this time rather than start at 30 and immediately launch what they could do is you know Fremont produces like 7,000 plus cars per week they could easily hop but the first thousand on a parking lot while in the first couple of months they ramped up production and then launch not with 30 cars but with more than a thousand either still in Q1 or beginning Q2 or by summer as you now said now because of this information about Q1 came from our source is likely indicative of the fact that launching in Q1 is likely an internal goal for Tesla and obviously we've known him to miss the internal goals"​

So the CleanTechnica reporter is standing by his earlier reporting of potential Model Y ramp starting in Q1 - but is now calling it an "internal goal". Still not quite probable IMHO - but first deliveries in Q2 definitely look possible if the Model Y production lines are successfully ramped up.

There's a third leak in the video as well - will put that into the next comment, as it's entirely separate from the other leaks.

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting vid based on the same leak source as the "Model Y in Q1" article earlier:

Use a proper quantity of grains of salt.

Part #3 transcript, and this is very interesting, about GF3 cell production plans, Maxwell, Panasonic and LG Chem:

(sorry about the messy transcript - tried to clean it up a bit but this is closer to the raw YouTube transcript with no real punctuation):

"They're building a second building ... there and as Elon confirmed during the call it's gonna be used for creating battery packs now what most people don't know is that those battery packs are going to be using LG Chem cells now these cells are of the same 2170 size variety as is currently made by Panasonic in Gigafactory one now the mystery of these cells is going to attempt to mimic important word here mimic the chemistry of the Panasonic batteries now why do we say mimic because the thing is so the cell chemical formula for the battery was developed by Panasonic and Tesla in tandem so Tesla has the chemical formula and they gave it to LG for them to create those batteries but LG they have different production process and different manufacturing equipment and due to that even though they receive the chemical formula from Tesla the batteries will still be a little bit different they'll have slightly less capacity but the difference will not be huge so basically when it comes to creating standard range as Elon said it can just cram in a couple extra batteries to make up the difference no problem but when it comes to the long range they obviously can't do that because the long-range battery pack is already packed to the brim with cells so Eli Tesla has said that they're not going to be producing long range at Gigafactory but actually turns out according to our source that they are but not right now the difference will be that it'll still be a long range Tesla but the long range will be slightly less range than the one produced by Fremont and Gigafactory one in Nevada in the US now it's still long range I mean the difference can be like I don't know 10 or 20 kilometers we're just still hell of a lot than the standard range hell of a lot more than even the middle range Lemur but obviously less than us-made long range and that's not a huge deal really the biggest issue I'd are not doing immediately is because they are cell constrained and that comes as no surprise I mean it even comes the Gigafactory 3 was built so quickly less than a year even Tesla wasn't expecting that so obviously LG Chem is not ready to accommodate a large production of Tesla cells and once they do get their production ramped up then the attesa mites actually start making the long range in Gigafactory 3 as well so let's get back to one thing I said earlier why is Gigafactory 3 not going to build more than 3 thousand model 3s and 2019 well our source as said this is his belief of course but here's what it's based on turns out the Gigafactory 3 has a very important priority and that priority is quality from the moment they start manufacturing every model 3 needs to be at a quality level equal to Fremont or exceeding it so Fremont is the low bar here which is quite surprising and it definitely it's a very commendable gold desolate is definitely has its priorities straight I mean no panel gaps no water leaking in nothing like that and from the moment Gigafactory 3 starts production everything needs to be at a high quality level and it really is the right thing to do Tesla battery investor day it's come we're summing February March I know that you-tuber Galilei Russell believes that test will be unveiling that they're gonna produce their own batteries but he and I disagree on how soon that will happen and in what way here's what I believe is going to happen based on some of the inside information we've had and that is that you know Maxwell they create the dry electrode and the electrode is only part of the battery and so what is most likely going to happen is that Maxwell we'd be taking over a part of the battery production but not the entire thing and so what does that make Tesla it makes Tesla a supplier a supplier to Panasonic maybe a supplier to LG for its batteries for Gigafactory 3 who knows but it's not there's still a lot of - battery production that Tesla cannot simply do on its own the battery industry is full of patents industrial secrets and due to that Tesla can't just reinvent the wheel reinvent the battery in this case out of nothing and they are buying some companies to come to you know to put the piece of the puzzle together but they're not there yet and there's still a huge chunk missing so here's the interesting option to speculate on Panasonic right now financially is not doing all that well and it's market cap is only like 20 billion compared to Tesla's more than 50 billion and if Tesla continues is earning money the way it is right now in a couple of years it's possible Tesla could try to simply buy the cylindrical cell division from Panasonic that would make a lot of sense financially for everyone actually and I'm not saying this is going to happen but it's definitely an interesting option to keep in mind it's within the realms of possibility."​

The takeaways:

• Tesla co-owns the 2,170 chemistry and LG will make it for them - but not perfectly initially, with slightly lower range. This confirms the reports from Korea from a few weeks ago that the LG Chem pack will be different from the Panasonic pack.
• The fact that the initial GF3 production in Q1 and possibly Q2 too will be using U.S. made battery packs explains why pricing for the SR+ is still around $50k.
• GF3 was built faster than even Tesla believed it to be possible, so LG Chem's cell production is a bit out of phase, and they are using GF1 packs for that reason. LOL.
• Maxwell: according to his source Maxwell might start supplying dry electrodes to both Panasonic and to LG. I.e. Tesla will be both supplier to Panasonic and customer as well. Makes sense from what we know about Maxwell's process. Unclear whether Panasonic would play ball.
• Tesla potentially buying Panasonic's cylindrical business is something we speculated about here too. I believe @ReflexFunds was speculating along those lines in the past.
• Very high initial production quality goals for GF3: it must meet or exceed current Fremont quality. (!) I.e. no panel gaps or other ramp-up imperfections accepted.

 

[Beltsbear]

Bob Lutz -> GM -> Pontiac -> Aztek

Well, he is an expert in ugly.
World's 15 Ugliest Cars
(and low volume)

Bob has presided over hundreds of cars including some of the best looking and successful ICE models. He also made a ton of money. You can’t erase his successful past.

The problem with lutz is he is the past. He does not get electric cars. Without a from the ground up dedicated platform like the 3 , an electric car will be sub optimal. And sub optimal does not work with electric cars. People taking advice from him now will fail.

 

[DocZ]

Leak part #2 - this is about their earlier Model Y production in Q1 leak:

"As we mentioned in our article that we published on October 15th, Model Y will be launched around q1 so I know Elon said before by summer so what gives = is our info not completely accurate?"

"I don't think so because in Q1 they're probably gonna start mass production. Now this may sound counter-intuitive at first, but think about it, Model 3 had ramping up issues, but when it launched it launched with 30 Model 3s that it handed over to its employees, so in the first month they made 30, second month they made 75, third month they made a hundred 117, in September and you know obviously had ramping issues but when they this time rather than start at 30 and immediately launch what they could do is you know Fremont produces like 7,000 plus cars per week they could easily hop but the first thousand on a parking lot while in the first couple of months they ramped up production and then launch not with 30 cars but with more than a thousand either still in Q1 or beginning Q2 or by summer as you now said now because of this information about Q1 came from our source is likely indicative of the fact that launching in Q1 is likely an internal goal for Tesla and obviously we've known him to miss the internal goals"​

So the CleanTechnica reporter is standing by his earlier reporting of potential Model Y ramp starting in Q1.

There's a third leak in the video as well - will put that into the next comment, as it's entirely separate from the other leaks.

thank you for posting these. I personally can’t stand the 20 minute videos with info like this spread out. Just drop a quick article and give people the most pertinent info.

 

[Intl Professor]

No, the 'new' way used more area for the energy collection.
(If I recall the article correctly when I read it on Slashdot back in 2011).

You can't cheat physics, effective solar area is the cosine of the angle between the direction to the sun and the vector normal to the panel. The rule of thumb to set the elevation of the panel equal to your latitude falls out from that.

But the direction of the Sun changes in the sky. Aside from rotating the pole with a fixed angle to the vector, might there be an advantage to the tree to have its leaves arranged in the fibonacci sequence? Why does nature do it that way, because you can capture more energy in a given total area? Does it just save space? Nature must do things that way to do more than inspire Joyce Kilmer. I am open to alternative explanations, say, that sunflowers turn their faces to the Sun so bees can land with the sun at their backs. Or some such perversion like reproduction as revealed by all the Rorshach tests I've taken.

Sorry if I'm just being a blockhead due to old age or other impairment.

 

[traxila]

Personally I think they need another solid quarter before we break $350. I hope I am wrong but for most analysts I would think they want to see another solid profit.

The momentum right now is severe. I would be very surprised if this latest push falls short of 350. There are still shorts being margined and the momentum and day traders are playing it only one way right now. Can you see TSLA turning on a dime right on Monday, going down, and then staying down?

 

[Fact Checking]

thank you for posting these. I personally can’t stand the 20 minute videos with info like this spread out. Just drop a quick article and give people the most pertinent info.

The problem is that a lot more people like the video format, so it's a better platform for journalists - TV won over newspapers and magazines for a reason.

At CleanTechnica they do try to put it both into videos and writing, but it's extra overhead. It might still happen - the video came out first. I put it into writing from the YouTube transcript because I didn't even watch the video (too slow and too noisy medium for me too) and because I'm curious and impatient.

 

[mongo]

Bob has presided over hundreds of cars including some of the best looking and successful ICE models. He also made a ton of money. You can’t erase his successful past.

Elon has been hands on in creating over four cars including some of best looking and successful BEV models. He also made a *sugar* ton of money. You can't erase his successful present.

And if someone is gonna through shade, I'm gonna give a little back.

 

[woodisgood]

I found this Nextdoor post to be a thinly veiled shot at Tesla. Couldn't decide if it was deliberate trolling/FUD, someone with a short position, or just someone who's been suckered by the false information out there. Contrary to what people may think about the Bay Area being a haven for Tesla, there's a lot of ire like this in San Francisco.

 

[Jwbj]

Unfortunately, that would be the definition of illegal insider trading and this is a crime you can bet the SEC would prosecute instead of looking the other way like they have been doing with the TSLA manipulators.

If the SEC ever decides it's in their best interest to go after the TSLA manipulators (perhaps because a Sanders, Warren or Yang gets elected), TSLA share shares will do some mind-boggling acrobatics that you couldn't even fathom as possible before you saw it with your own eyes.

-The TSLA situation is pretty unique in the history of all public companies (and not for the reasons TSLAQ thinks).
-The future is hard to see. Not TSLA's business plan but how all these events will unfold.
-Expect the unexpected. No one will predict in advance the timing or the substance of many of the possible triggers to the unwinding of the short positions.
-It might happen in an orderly fashion but there is something about the TSLA situation that makes me think it won't be all that orderly.

Place your bets and let them ride!

I'm suspicious based on the no. of shares shorted Thurs.&Fri. Shorty isn't planning on going anywhere. This also supports Jack Rickard's thinking.

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting vid based on the same leak source as the "Model Y in Q1" article earlier:

Use a proper quantity of grains of salt.

There's also a fourth leak, about the Model Y 'flex wire circuitry' approach and a different battery pack, edited transcript:

"Now comes along [the] Model Y, 75% of the components are the same, and the only thing things that are different than [slightly] different dimensions is the fact that it will be simpler with flex wire circuitry. Now basically what you do you take you to Model 3 line you copy paste it and ramp it up so obviously there will be some ramp-up, I mean that's unavoidable, that's normal, but it you know [the Model Y ramp-up] might be the shortest ramp-up in history, definitely the shortest ramp up in Tesla's history, that [we] can guarantee."

"Thanks to our source we have some pretty compelling reasons to believe that Model Y will have the new flex wire circuitry now while it's possible that you know the Model S has 3 kilometers of wire Model 3 has 1.5 kilometers of wire that the Model Y will have [...] 1.2 kilometers of wire. It's possible that's the case that they have slightly improved upon the Model 3 but it's infinitely more likely that they're going to be using the new flex wire circuitry."

"Now our source has some evidence for this and that is the fact that the Model Y battery is gonna be slightly different than a Model 3 battery now they're very similar there are a couple of small differences and one of those main differences is that the Model Y battery pack has new connectors and the only reason to need those new connectors would be a [...] big change in the wiring harness which is most likely the flex wire circuitry."​

BTW., this leak is consistent with the Model 3 'test mule' crash test that we noticed in Tesla's recent crash test lab video: if they are changing the Model Y battery pack for the 'flex wire circuitry', then I'd say it's pretty probable that they'd be working to do the same on the Model 3 as well - and that requires new crash tests.

 

[mongo]

But the direction of the Sun changes in the sky. Aside from rotating the pole with a fixed angle to the vector, might there be an advantage to the tree to have its leaves arranged in the fibonacci sequence? Why does nature do it that way, because you can capture more energy in a given total area? Does it just save space? Nature must do things that way to do more than inspire Joyce Kilmer.

Sorry if I'm just being a blockhead due to old age or other impairment.

Each leaf only collects energy in proportion to it's area and angle. If you add more leaves, you collect more energy. Once you have maxed out the single surface area, going 3-D lets you pack more in. Similar to using both sides of a gable roof versus a flat roof. More total area.

Trees are 3D objects and have leaves in a column and dome type setup for maximum collection. You could do the same with a silo, but it is not efficient resource wise.

A flat roof can't collect more energy that is shining on it unless you add a wall to one side in which case you are shading existing cells part of the time. The wave shaped (up/ down) setups spead out the peak power for better collection at dusk.

At the extreme, imagine a sphere of solar cells, no matter what angle the sun is at, the grouping collects the same amount of energy. However, half the cells are always doing nothing and the edge ones are doing almost nothing.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Vincent on Twitter

"First batch of the Made in China Tesla Model 3 from Shanghai Gigafactory GF3"
"Oct 27th 2019"

View attachment 470603​

That's 10 cars by October 27, 2019.

The lucky owners have themselves true collectors items. Great to see.

Dan

 

[brian45011]

I think last time TSLAQ made a ruckus about 10Q that got traction in the press was a quarter where Tesla didn't reveal ZEV income in the conference call shareholder letter then it was revealed it made up a large portion of the GAAP profit.

This time Tesla revealed ZEV income.

Regulatory credits. Apparently, Tesla has not been selling (California) ZEV credits recently:

In California:
Between September 1, 2017 and August 31, 2018, Tesla sold 88,214 credits and ended with a balance of 74,712 credits.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06/2017zevcredits.pdf
Between September 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019, Tesla sold no credits and ended with a balance of 210,851 credits.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/2018 ZEV Credit Annual Disclosure_0.pdf

 

[Fact Checking]

I'm suspicious based on the no. of shares shorted Thurs.&Fri. Shorty isn't planning on going anywhere. This also supports Jack Rickard's thinking.

We won't really know from the FINRA 'short selling' stats how much short interest reduced last week: it's very imprecise due to the way entire block sales of thousands of shares can be flagged by brokers as 'short' if even just a single sale there is from a known short seller.

As Ihor pointed it out numerous times the FINRA stats seriously over-estimate the amount of short selling - the true proportion of short sellers is closer to 10%-20.

I can confirm this based on analysis of actual transaction level logs of NASDAQ short selling activities: for example on 2018/09/18 there were 3,359,275 TSLA shares sold short, while the daily volume was 16,550,000. That's a true short selling percentage of only 20.3%, on a day that featured a major bear raid and a lot of short selling. (This data might be interesting to @Papafox too.)

FINRA stats also have trouble catching "unknown" short sellers (i.e. big short sellers with multiple accounts over brokerages and creatively moving around positions) and with 'dark pools' (interim trading platforms that effectively anonymize the source of the trades).

With all that in mind, this is the FINRA short selling stats for last week:

So yes, it was a lower percentage - but this is not necessarily indicative of true short covering. Friday price action definitely gave me the feeling of significant short covering.

 

[Fact Checking]

Regulatory credits. Apparently, Tesla has not been selling (California) ZEV credits recently:

In California:
Between September 1, 2017 and August 31, 2018, Tesla sold 88,214 credits and ended with a balance of 74,712 credits.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06/2017zevcredits.pdf
Between September 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019, Tesla sold no credits and ended with a balance of 210,851 credits.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/2018 ZEV Credit Annual Disclosure_0.pdf

I believe Tesla is stockpiling ZEV credits and is waiting for ZEV regulations to become stronger - which will create much fairer pricing for these ZEV credits. They were only selling ZEV credits when they got a good offer, or when they absolutely had to.

A good strategy IMHO.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

(I'm on winter break now, though. And that's a great initiative that they've launched! )

Just so you know,
On mobile it looks like an emphatic Downvote. And I figured out what you were probably doing there but only because I already know what you are doing there.

(Signature reference? Not everyone sees signatures.)