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

[vikings123]

A healthy 2% up in pre-market, but what gives with $NIO at 21%??

Nio in talks with Hefei govt on 10 bln yuan funding, car plants

 

[JustAaronnoraA]

A healthy 2% up in pre-market, but what gives with $NIO at 21%??

Perhaps EC6 production location and HQ relocation rumors.

 

[Fact Checking]

I read this as 300 test drivers not 300 bugs. Not that it would matter much, considering the whole mess.

Indeed - the editing period is over, I've asked moderator help to fix my mistranslation. I should have realized that a bug rate of 300/day is way too high ...

 

[Fact Checking]

So Elon's giving support to the Giga Austin rumors:

Elon Musk on Twitter

"On a wall in Austin"

While Austin is big, does anyone recognize this green wall by any chance? Or has hours to waste looking through Street View footage?

To go down the CSI zomming-in path, in particular this reflection in a window might be helpful:

That has an "industrial zone" feeling.

Docks next to the Colorado River perhaps?

Edit: my unparalleled CSI skills finally brought me to Google for "Austin I love you so much wall", which gave me plenty of hits of this well-known wall on "Jo's Coffee" in downtown Austin:

The reflection in the photo is probably that of a traffic light pole:

So I presume downtown Austin this is not the location of Giga Austin.

 

[T@oo]

Indeed - the editing period is over, I've asked moderator help to fix my mistranslation. I should have realized that a bug rate of 300/day is way too high ...

Electrive already took and ran with it. Seems they closely follow TMC and don't bother to get behind the paywall to read the original before (re-)posting. So much for journalism.

 

[NakedLong]

Manager Magazin, a leading German business publication with excellent sources at the Volkswagen board, at VW, Porsche and Audi high level leadership, and at the two biggest shareholder families, the Porsches and Piëchs - has just published a bombshell article.

They are reporting about the cluster-sugar that the Volkswagen ID.3 has become, with a rich supply of anonymous insider sources from within the ID.3 project.

Here's an English translation posted to /r/teslainvestorsclub, it's long but worth reading the whole thing:

More Problems at Volkswagen [translation from Manager Magazine "Volkswagen – Showdown in Hall 74"] : teslainvestorsclub

The start into the electrical age is getting very bumpy for CEO Herbert Diess. More than 10,000 technicians are currently trying to solve the problems of the showcase project ID.3. There are already signs of the first personnel casualties.

Location: Volkswagen plant Wolfsburg, Hall 74, 8.30 a.m.

Every working day, software experts, engineers and top managers meet here for a half-hour morning round. Head of Development Frank Welsch (55) is a regular participant, as are Christian Senger (45), Member of the Board of Management for Digital Affairs, and Thomas Ulbrich (53), who is responsible for electromobility. Suppliers send top people. Almost all the board members were there; sometimes Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess (61) comes himself and shows the importance of the morning round.

Because even if the ID.3 marketing slogan ("Now you can") has been suggesting for months that it's about to start - the e-mobile is not ready for the masses. Many at the top of the company doubt that it will be ready by summer as planned.

If it goes wrong, the ID.3 could destroy careers, theoretically even that of Herbert Diess. New drivetrain, new software and electronics architecture: ID.3 stands for the transformation to an electrical and technology group. It is Diess' very personal project. The VW group CEO also manages the VW brand.

All the more important is the rescue round. This is where the technical problems are discussed, this is where orders are placed which are then processed by ID.3 teams throughout the group. More than 10,000 technicians and engineers are currently working on ID.3, including external developers, our sources in Wolfsburg say. They have just brought in hundreds of additional experts, top people from Audi and Porsche, for example; they are flown in on Mondays and out again on Fridays.

When Chancellor Angela Merkel (65) personally came to Zwickau at the beginning of November 2019 for the start of production, it looked as if everything was going according to plan. Only the cars are rolling, at the moment, according to the production schedule, there are a good 50 of them a day, stupidly parked. The software does not work as it should.

The basic architecture was developed too hastily, say VW experts, system parts often don't work with each other and have bugs. At some point in the next few months, when the quality is high enough, the green light will be given for the [new] software to be installed on the cars that were already built.

Did Diess want too much too fast? In addition to the electric drive, a completely new software organization was necessary? The Porsches and Piëchs, major owners and actually Diess' most important allies, have never really been convinced of their protégé's electric focus. Now they are getting restless. In small group discussions they expressed their displeasure, they say.

Employee boss Bernd Osterloh (63) and the IG-Metall parliamentary group remind internally that the VW group missed out on billions in 2018 because of the delayed changeover to new emission regulations - and now fear similar things in terms of CO2 penalties. The group must save 30 grams of CO2 per car in order to achieve the EU targets, as Herbert Diess himself recently said. 30 grams, that would be a fine of around ten billion euros in 2020. Indisputable.

Without the ID.3 CO₂ fines cannot be avoided. Purely electric vehicles will still be counted twice this year [under the 'SuperCredit' rules]. VW would have to sell 100,000 ID.3s in 2020 to meet the targets; this is how they originally calculated. They have now reduced this number; 80,000 must also be enough. The E-Golf and E-up, both of which have a compromising electric performance and are both in deficit, are supposed to make up for the shortfall a bit. Both are currently being squandered with high discounts. This speaks more for panic than for trust in ID.3.

Audis e-tron and Porsche's Taycan could also help, because the CO2 emissions are calculated for the group in Brussels. But there is a catch there too. Audi has already lowered the forecasts for the e-tron. They wanted to sell their electric SUV and a spin-off in 2020 up to 70,000 times. In the meantime, the scenarios have reached a good 40,000; battery experts consider this figure to be wishful thinking, which is how big the battery crisis is.

LG Chem supplies too few battery cells and is constantly reporting new production problems. Batteries from Samsung, which are to be added in the summer, do not yet have the necessary quality. Audi and Porsche, whose Taycan uses cells similar to those of the e-tron, are battling to make up for the low capacity. The matter went to the group board of directors. Porsche boss Oliver Blume (51) won.

Herbert Diess had an idea of how difficult the start into e-mobility would be. He said at a top management conference in January that compliance with the limit values for supplying, building and selling cars with batteries was "perhaps the most difficult task Volkswagen has ever had to face.

The problems are everywhere. They just postponed the Taycan delivery in Germany again for several weeks. The Ionity charging station joint venture, also supported by Volkswagen, is nowhere near as far as promised. And the teams responsible for the next electric VW ID.4 - scheduled to start at the end of 2020 - are urgently waiting for the people who now have to save the ID.3; a cascade of postponements is in the offing.

But the real battle will be fought in Hall 74. In the afternoon at 4 pm, the ID.3 rescuers will meet for the second time every day. What problems have they solved, what has remained open, where do they need to step up their efforts again? They are working in a disciplined manner on the electrical front, almost militarily, as contributors tell.

The hundreds of test drivers who are on the road in the evenings and at night report new bugs every morning in Hall 74; up to 300 would do it every day, says one of our sources who is participating in the meetings frequently. Negative scenarios of a delay of three to a maximum of twelve months are already circulating, which Diess' people dismiss as "complete nonsense".

But what to do if it doesn't work? Then it will have personnel consequences below the CEO level.

With foresight, Diess has expanded the VW brand board of directors to a council of eleven. In the event of a major ID.3 delay, he could fire various board members. Welsch, Head of Development, has been joined by Chief Technology Officer Matthias Rabe (57), who could take over. Another digital board member is also being sought, according to our sources at Wolfsburg. Herbert Diess has installed a firewall - at least as far as his CEO position is concerned.
​

(I have slightly improved upon the what I assume was a machine translation of Reddit user jandetlefsen. I have access to the original article in German which is behind a paywall, and the translation is accurate as far as I can tell.)

(Cc: @avoigt)

Note the countless number of red flags:

• Sources indicate of an additional delay of 3-12 months, on top of the summer deadline.
• hundreds of test drivers (VW employees driving the ID.3) on the road, 300 new bugs being reported on a daily basis
• VW is cannibalizing their other development teams, such as the ID.4, E-Tron and Taycan teams. Software developers are flown in from their regular workplaces (where their homes are) on Mondays and they fly back on Friday. Those must be some super happy software developers browsing Tesla's GF4 list of jobs right now ...
• Note the low production rate of the ID.3 of only 50 per day, almost 4 months after the pompous "start of production" last year. That's 350/week, 1,400/month, 4,550/year ...which falls far short of the 80,000 ZEV units VW needs to make in 2020 to avoid 10 billion Euros of fines. BTW., maybe @Prunesquallor can explain that figure: how can 80,000 units save VW 10 billion euros? That's €120,000 per ZEV unit made - that sounds ridiculously high.
• Note the tidbit explaining the E-Tron production reduction: internally Audi and Porsche was fighting about battery supply, and the Porsche CEO won the infighting and the E-Tron got scaled down and the Taycan is getting the battery supply ...
  
• Sources at the shareholder families Porsche and Piëch expressed (anonymous) unhappiness with Diess as well. Those shareholders could depose Diess, if they wanted to.
• Diess has restructured the board to have "scapegoats" he could fire - but the responsibility for a ID.3 failure would squarely rest on his shoulders.

Anyone who knows how good software projects looks like recognizes in what a mess Volkswagen is: their software team is at Wolfsburg, being flown in weekly from other projects such as the ID.4, but their factory is in Zwickau, spewing out 50 new ID.3's every day, only to be parked in open air parking lots ...

Every "ID.3 crisis group" working day begins with a 30 minutes meeting. Remember what Elon said about the pointlessness of meetings and the necessity of high-rate innovation to happen in flat meritocracies? It's all true ...

I suspect VW will make the transition to EVs. They are putting in the most capital and effort compared to all the other ICE companies. This period is their equivalent of Tesla's production hell. A lot of the criticisms above could have been applied to Tesla during the M3 ramp. Diess has the right idea about the direction of the auto market, and the advantage of a good relationship with Elon, which could come into play further down the road. Even if they are delayed by a year or 2, so long as they are ahead of the rest of the industry in terms of switching to EVs, then they are in a strong position. In terms of their software problems, I think should be able to put out something adequate for a first attempt.. eventually. The weakness of VW software is not going to stop them selling EV's, given the rising demand for EVs, and lack of competition.

Their ID3 is actually a good looking car - kind of like an EV Golf. It's designed as an EV from the ground up, rather than retrofitted. It's somewhat smaller/lighter so it should get a decent range compared to EV SUVs. Overall, I think it will sell pretty well, and save VW a huge amount in fines, and I quite like VW's chances of surviving the transition to EVs, at least compared to the other ICE companies.

 

[davepsilon]

Thread on reddit with email for model y deliveries. Commenters saying earliest available date is march 15!

Model Y delivery emails have begun! : teslamotors

Seems to be all performance models which is not surprising. What is surprising is that reservations placed as late as last month (Feb 10) are reporting receiving this email. So the rumors about low reservation numbers may be true - the lack of a federal incentive cliff is often cited as the rational, but certainly the immediate availability of good & inexpensive EV sedan must also weigh on reservation numbers.

 

[samppa]

I suspect VW will make the transition to EVs. They are putting in the most capital and effort compared to all the other ICE companies. This period is their equivalent of Tesla's production hell. A lot of the criticisms above could have been applied to Tesla during the M3 ramp. Diess has the right idea about the direction of the auto market, and the advantage of a good relationship with Elon, which could come into play further down the road. Even if they are delayed by a year or 2, so long as they are ahead of the rest of the industry in terms of switching to EVs, then they are in a strong position. In terms of their software problems, I think should be able to put out something adequate for a first attempt.. eventually. The weakness of VW software is not going to stop them selling EV's, given the rising demand for EVs, and lack of competition.

Their ID3 is actually a good looking car - kind of like an EV Golf. It's designed as an EV from the ground up, rather than retrofitted. It's somewhat smaller/lighter so it should get a decent range compared to EV SUVs. Overall, I think it will sell pretty well, and save VW a huge amount in fines, and I quite like VW's chances of surviving the transition to EVs, at least compared to the other ICE companies.

At some parts, this is going to be even more difficult for VW - they are using mostly outside suppliers, and trying to integrate all of that into their main software. Whereas Tesla built a lot of stuff in-house, and could focus on integration already in planning phase.

This whole thing sounds that VW failed in vertical integration while planning id.3, or they imagined it wouldn't be difficult. And now they are trying to fix it. Lets see how that goes.. sometimes it's better to delete everything and start over..

 

[Fact Checking]

What is surprising is that reservations placed as late as last month (Feb 10) are reporting receiving this email.

Note that at this point they are probably soliciting delivery availability feedback in the U.S., for the final two weeks of March - presumably with a heavy focus on the west coast, due to shipping delays. To do so they'd probably send the email to pretty much everyone who have ordered a Performance Model Y in the U.S., and deliver only to those that indicate availability in the time frame and location that allows delivery by the end of the quarter.

All of these are strong filters:

• "Performance" units are usually ~5% of Model 3 sales,
• U.S. is 50% of Tesla sales,
• west coast delivery is less than 50% of Tesla sales,
• willing to pay and sort out all paperwork in short order is a filter as well.

If we apply these we get maybe 1-2% of all reservations - which I suspect explains why they sent the email to all U.S. Model Y Performance reservation holders.

 

[vikings123]

Note that at this point they are probably soliciting delivery availability feedback in the U.S., for the final two weeks of March - presumably with a heavy focus on the west coast, due to shipping delays. To do so they'd probably send the email to pretty much everyone who have ordered a Performance Model Y in the U.S., and deliver only to those that indicate availability in the time frame and location that allows delivery by the end of the quarter.

All of these are strong filters:

• "Performance" units are usually ~5% of Model 3 sales,
• U.S. is 50% of Tesla sales,
• west coast delivery is less than 50% of Tesla sales,
• willing to pay and sort out all paperwork in short order is a filter as well.

If we apply these we get maybe 1-2% of all reservations - which I suspect explains why they sent the email to all U.S. Model Y Performance reservation holders.

Great points it’s possible they might also use the responses to prioritize production based on exterior color choice.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

are they definitely all colors too? I'd expect them to only do a single color run first, to make it even simpler.

 

[Earlian]

I’m a professional quant trader and I support this message. If Rentech is buying that much Tesla stock that means their forecasts are saying that the stonk price was ridiculously undervalued in Q4. These guys are the best in the business at finding alpha.

Thank you for the information, that is bullish.

But since RenTech (Renaissance Technologies) published this information, are they still in as of today?

Sure they are good at what they do, but publishing the information now, does not have to mean,
they are in for the long run. As I learned, they also do really short term trades.

Or do you mean, that they only invest this big amount of money for their long term Investments?

 

[Fact Checking]

are they definitely all colors too? I'd expect them to only do a single color run first, to make it even simpler.

The Model Y shares the "North Paint Shop" with the Model 3/S/X, so I don't think they will impose any particular constraints on color selection.

 

[avoigt]

Some VW information that is relevant for this board. This is from leaked sources posted in the press, partly on board level and consistent with my sources:

All BEVs from VW the e.tron, Taycan or ID.3 will not be able to make their annual targets. LG Chem does have problems to ramp the battery production and deliver batteries as promises. As a result there was a fight about battery supply within VW and Porsche did win. I expect this happened because Wolfgang Porsche is a big supporter of Blume and Diess did not want to argue against him.

Thats the main reason why production for the e-tron is low. Still the battery supply for the Taycan I not sufficient too. All production targets are impacted by that

2020 targets adjustments
ID.3 down by 20k to 80k units
e-tron 40k instead of 70k
Taycan: don't want to elaborate for confidentiality reasons but with delayed LG Chem you get the picture
Alex on Twitter

On top of the battery issues, the IT issues are not getting better. Up to 300 software issues are found in the ID.3 every day (!) at test drives- 50 units are today produced p.d. and put on shelf for the sw to improve and be upgrades later. This cars are standing around as some pictures have shown them. If the launch is delayed they will stand for months.

The IT architecture does not work as it supposed to. Its been developed too fast with not enough time and the systems do not work together. Its fundamental operating system problems and not easy to fix.

IT team that supposed to be 10k people (they are not) is frustrated and under high pressure. I expect good once may leave soon if not already.

Diess has promoted a few more people in the board lately and insiders report that he did that to be able to fire them anticipating that the ID.3 ramp will not go well. Delayed of up to 3 to 12 months for the ID.3 are discussed internally. The summer target seems unrealistic although Diess still claims it to happen. We may see in summer a few ID.3s delivered but I don't expectnot many. By doing that they can claim victory knowing its been a defeat.

My initial posted rumors that Diess gets under pressure from Porsche & Piech family has been confirmed by this revelations that mainly came through Manager Mangazin a media that has provenly good sources.

The families do not like a variety of aspects of Diess including results and the "rush" into BEVs. Since Piech left many years ago their understanding of true automotive engineering did in my opinion go down and they don't understand BEVs at all.

Lots of negatives but this will not be the last time that we discuss this. Its unrealistic to believe those fundamental issues will be solved quickly.

With the new German BEV incentive of €6k for vehicles with a base price below €60k I expect a delay of the ID.3 to be a positive for the Model 3. In Germany particularly but in Europe as such the ID.3 is awaited from many and that demand could be at least partly absorbed by Tesla..

 

[Earlian]

@avoigt

It is sad, because we have a lot of good people working in the industry here and i was hoping that they could perform the shift to clean transportation. But as it feels now, i agree with you. The old families within VW are doing 2 steps back and will destroy everything Diess did.
The problem is: They can't or do not want to adapt to the new era and they also don't have the patience the shift needs. They are old and want their money now. Even if that means, future generation will have nothing.

This is also bad for the worldwide shift to clean transportation, because Tesla is already building factories on alle steams. But with VW on board it would have happend faster.

From a long TSLA Shareholder perspective, this is gold: We are about to witness the point: Then you win.

 

[ReflexFunds]

I'm a little bit worried about CATL. What if CATL has done some magic (and owns the patents) and is leading the next gen battery chemistry and/or pack technology?

I'm sure you all disagree. But can you calm me down?

CATL cells are just a short term means to boost production, they are not the exciting new in-house cell tech Tesla will reveal on battery day.

At this stage I think probabilities are:

• >95% Tesla will use CATL cells
• >90% chance Tesla will use CATL LFP cells
• >80% chance Tesla will use CATL LFP Prismatic cells. (Prismatic cells are the optimum format for lower energy density chemistry, while cylindrical are optimum for higher energy density, but only if the pack hardware & software can assemble/handle them affordably)
• If the above is true, ~50% if these will be whole CATL modules or whole CATL cell to pack design.

What is unclear is:

• If this will be for the SR+ Model 3 or for a new SR lower range China specific version?
• If these packs will be cheaper (in $ per KWh) than Tesla's SR+ packs made at GF1? (I'm very skeptical about this, I think on the whole CATL packs are likely to be more expensive, however I expect Tesla got a great deal, and possibly -ve margin for CATL)
• Will charge rate be as high? (I think unlikely)
• Will battery life be as high in miles (Maybe similar, possibly higher cycle life cancelled by smaller battery meaning more cycles per mile)

I think the key rational of this deal for Tesla is:

• Accelerate ramp up of GF3 production without using cells produced in GF1. This will allow them to ramp faster than LG can ramp its new 2170 cell lines. It will also likely allow them to ramp faster than the NMC811 supply chain can ramp cathode powder production.
• Establish a relationship with CATL, who will likely be the leading third party battery supplier. This relationship can be leveraged to accelerate short term production again in the future and to complement Tesla's in-house cell production.
• To reduce raw material risk and establish that Tesla can make cells without Nickel and Cobalt if needed (even if the cars are likely inferior).

I think the rational for CATL is:

• Find a use for overcapacity which resulted from Chinese EV companies falling far short of production targets and delaying EV programs over the past year
• Establish a relationship with the leading EV company and leading battery purchaser. This is beneficial both for future business opportunities and for short term share price.

I do not think CATL, Panasonic or LG cells will be a focus on battery day.
I expect Elon to run through the deals and say how Tesla has established relationships with all the key battery cos and how it can accelerate supply whenever they hit cell bottlenecks, but I think the real focus will be on Tesla's in-house cell design which I expect to account for the vast majority of new capacity going forward.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

10,000 people working on fixing bugs. That must be absolute horror. How do you even coordinate between so many people? A team of a few hundred engineers and developers would probably make more progress.

 

[jerry33]

Been a long time lurker, but posting on a second account to save my bookmark because I'm like 4000 posts behind.

I just received my Model Y delivery notice! Earliest delivery date is March 15. I ordered a Model Y Performance with FSD. I ordered months after the reveal, so I'm not anything close to first in line.

This is normal. Historically it's happened on every new Tesla model. Tesla builds in batches, and if you happen to match an early batch, you get your car first.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Manager Magazin, a leading German business publication with excellent sources at the Volkswagen board, at VW, Porsche and Audi high level leadership, and at the two biggest shareholder families, the Porsches and Piëchs - has just published a bombshell article.

They are reporting about the cluster-sugar that the Volkswagen ID.3 has become, with a rich supply of anonymous insider sources from within the ID.3 project.

Here's an English translation posted to /r/teslainvestorsclub, it's long but worth reading the whole thing:

...

Employee boss Bernd Osterloh (63) and the IG-Metall parliamentary group remind internally that the VW group missed out on billions in 2018 because of the delayed changeover to new emission regulations - and now fear similar things in terms of CO2 penalties. The group must save 30 grams of CO2 per car in order to achieve the EU targets, as Herbert Diess himself recently said. 30 grams, that would be a fine of around ten billion euros in 2020. Indisputable.

Without the ID.3 CO₂ fines cannot be avoided. Purely electric vehicles will still be counted twice this year [under the 'SuperCredit' rules]. VW would have to sell 100,000 ID.3s in 2020 to meet the targets; this is how they originally calculated. They have now reduced this number; 80,000 must also be enough. The E-Golf and E-up, both of which have a compromising electric performance and are both in deficit, are supposed to make up for the shortfall a bit. Both are currently being squandered with high discounts. This speaks more for panic than for trust in ID.3.

Audis e-tron and Porsche's Taycan could also help, because the CO2 emissions are calculated for the group in Brussels. But there is a catch there too. Audi has already lowered the forecasts for the e-tron. They wanted to sell their electric SUV and a spin-off in 2020 up to 70,000 times. In the meantime, the scenarios have reached a good 40,000; battery experts consider this figure to be wishful thinking, which is how big the battery crisis is.

...​

• Note the low production rate of the ID.3 of only 50 per day, almost 4 months after the pompous "start of production" last year. That's 350/week, 1,400/month, 4,550/year ...which falls far short of the 80,000 ZEV units VW needs to make in 2020 to avoid 10 billion Euros of fines. BTW., maybe @Prunesquallor can explain that figure: how can 80,000 units save VW 10 billion euros? That's €120,000 per ZEV unit made - that sounds ridiculously high.

...

Short answer - I have no idea how "VW would have to sell 100,000 ID.3s in 2020 to meet the targets" could possibly be correct. By my calculations 100,000 ID.3s plus 70,000 e-Trons still leave them €4 billion to €6 billion the hole.

Longer answer -
Using the 2018 EU emission numbers (published August 2019)
CO2 emissions from new passenger cars in the European Union: Car manufacturers’ performance in 2018 | International Council on Clean Transportation
show VWG at 122 g/km with a 2020/2021 target of 96, so a required reduction 26 (not 30).
VWG sells about 3.5 million cars in the EU, so with the simple calculation of the current penalty:
3.5 million x 26 g/km x €95/g/km = €8.6 billion. If VWA emission have gotten worse, that could push it to 30 g/km and €10 billion. OK so far.

It could be a bit less dire in 2020 because of the "phase-in" rule that lets manufactures exclude 5% of their fleet - presumably the worst stinkers. My rough estimate says that might bring the 2020VWG penalty from €8.6 billion to €7 billion.

Now things seem to go off the rails. Maybe this is a translation difficulty. The Super-Credits (counting each low-emission car twice) only apply towards an emission reduction of 7.5 g/km versus the 26 (or 30) required. Below that, it's one-for-one. My model says VWA would use up their Super-Credits after about 100,000 ZEVs. That does NOT eliminate their penalty - far from it. It would reduce it by about €2 billion, or about €20,000 per ZEV - a number similar to that we've seen in the past (and close to the one mentioned in the recent Dan Galves interview). Total penalty elimination would require more than 600,000 ZEV's, by my calculation.

I have no idea how "VW would have to sell 100,000 ID.3s in 2020 to meet the targets" could possibly be correct. By my calculations 100,000 ID.3s plus 70,000 e-Trons still leave them €4 billion to €6 billion the hole.

 

[avoigt]

10,000 people working on fixing bugs. That must be absolute horror. How do you even coordinate between so many people? A team of a few hundred engineers and developers would probably make more progress.

I wrote in one of my articles that having sufficient capital can hinder you to be successful and this is a good example. Despite that I doubt they have 10k IT people (the market is empty in Europe) 'too many chiefs in the kitchen do spoil the meal' as a German saying states.

At a certain point having too many developers increases the coordination effort exponentially while not making the software batter but worse.