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

[ggr]

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.

Mod: (a) this is against the terms of service. (b) You don't need a second account to do this, you could just open another tab or three. (c) You don't identify your other account, which smells nefarious to me. --ggr

 

[Sudre]

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.

A small hint as to how.... VW cheats and lies on government documents and hopes they don't get caught. My source? They got caught in the past.

 

[madodel]

I want VW to succeed. The transition to an EV dominant auto market will only help the world in reducing pollution and also help Tesla in reaching a broader audience. But I Hope the consensus on VW’s ability to succeed with the ID.3 represents the facts on the ground whether those be good or bad.

The media reports from the recent months have shown ID.3 is in an engineering crisis. The development did not proceed according to the timeline anticipated. A decision was made to start limited production anyway and it appears that the fixes have also not come on the timeline that puts the limited production decision in a good light. This is a costly misstep, but not a company ending one. I expect VW will fix it to a satisfactory level this year. But I do not expect it to be a great product. ID.4 would do best to start with a clean slate. Engineering crisis are great teachers (just look at the smoothness of Giga Shanghai), with the learnings from ID.3, ID.4 could be great.

I think we should all want to see them succeed as well, since many life forms depend on it. The world is depending on all of them to switch to EV or to die. The problem is based on their long track record, do we believe them?

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Oh well. As you get richer from TSLA profits, you might as go all out on your prepping since the cost gets less and less compared to your total wealth.

I started basic prepping since last year. But right now it sure'd be nice if I have a place in the country side to escape to. I can use this excuse to just go and enjoy nature for a while go hunting and live a simple life. But the bigger stuff takes years to set up. So looks like I am stuck in the city with others for this pandemic.

I just realized Elon is the ultimate doomsday prepper. Biohazard defense mode, off-grid power, bulletproof truck, underground tunnels, earth escape vehicle.

 

[bpjod]

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.

Until the buy-back, our two vehicles were a 2010 VW Golf Sportwagen TDI and 2012 VW Touareg TDI because I thought they were the vehicles that best fit our family’s needs while being a more environmentally friendly option. We were lied to...

 

[Lessmog]

Can second this.

Most meetings are to provide justification for managerial bloat.

I would agree to that, except that would increase the bloat ... Oh.

 

[Lessmog]

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.

So much food analogies and I haven't had lunch yet!

So, you're saying the software team is about to get deep-fried? Well, VW knows all about smoking too.

Here we have a similar saying, something like "too many cooks in the soup" ...

 

[Chickenlittle]

I recognize that moderators control speech here on this site but we also control our whether we post or read here. I have made multiple attempts to close my account but moderators claim not to have ability to do so. Will not come back here but want to let others know that I have interacted with that I am not here anymore. Guess they can’t close account but can ban me (at least they threaten to). So perhaps they will ban me for this post which would be fine too

 

[nativewolf]

After the emission scandal, they don’t deserve any support. They lied, and killed people. They knew what they were doing, holding off on going full BEV until it was too late just for taking as much profit as possible. And now they are scrambling to put some half assed product together, because they thought with their years of automotive experience, that it would be a walk in the park to develop. Well, it’s not. They don’t get any sympathy from me, and I hope the people responsible for polluting our air go rot in hell.

This is the right response, why does anyone want VW to succeed? About the worst auto group out there. VW and GM can fail as fast as possible and it will be good for Tesla mission. I wish them every failure and that would have been the case if Tesla did. It exist.

 

[WarpedOne]

I think we should all want to see them succeed as well, since many life forms depend on it. The world is depending on all of them to switch to EV or to die. The problem is based on their long track record, do we believe them?

I have a feeling the wold will get cleaner faster with them going bankrupt.
So ... sooner the better.

 

[FrankSG]

They might make it, but it will be a near death experience at best.

This is a great way to sum up the position Volkswagen, and the rest of the automotive industry are currently in.

 

[nativewolf]

A small hint as to how.... VW cheats and lies on government documents and hopes they don't get caught. My source? They got caught in the past.

Oh you only know the tip of it. They have one mission, employ Germans...

 

[madodel]

So much food analogies and I haven't had lunch yet!

So, you're saying the software team is about to get deep-fried? Well, VW knows all about smoking too.

Here we have a similar saying, something like "too many cooks in the soup" ...

I'm vegetarian so I wouldn't eat soup full of cooks.

 

[Singer3000]

We all knew Model Y was coming though still good to hear these 15 March dates (which is the 1-year anniversary of the launch event by the way).

But more interesting are you folks that are now getting HW3 retrofitted at Tesla’s initiative. Because that means the software capability should imminently be diverging between HW2 and HW3. And I don’t mean just with prettier pictures on the screen, I mean functionality.

And we all by now know that means the following:

a) taking big bucks of deferred revenue from the balance sheet through the Revenue line
b) higher gross margin on future sales (with lower proportion of new FSD revenue being deferred),
c) likely higher take-rate and ASP for FSD option, boosting cashflows
d) potentially more credibility given by the market to the Autonomous vision

 

[FrankSG]

I wonder what will happen in Europe if Volkswagen (and other automakers) miss the emissions targets by such wide margins that making them pay the full fines would essentially spell the end for them.

Maybe the penalties aren't severe enough yet this year, but perhaps they could be in 2021 or 2022? Would the EU choose to make them pay the fines and make them go under, or would they relax the emissions targets in some way?

 

[ZeApelido]

In my 25+ years of software development experience, I’ve had 1 project where in the biggest crisis situation top management was present in daily morning and evening meetings, insisting on progress in every meeting. Also throwing all resources they had at the problem, no matter the cost. These are sure signs that the project is in deep trouble. In the end our efforts were successful, I’m not so sure that will be the case for the ID3 project.

"Congratulations Nico! You have been hired as Software Lead for the ID3 and you get a free board member seat. Wilkommen" - Herbert Deiss

 

[ZeApelido]

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.

How on earth do they decide on spaces vs tabs?

 

[Lessmog]

I recognize that moderators control speech here on this site but we also control our whether we post or read here. I have made multiple attempts to close my account but moderators claim not to have ability to do so. Will not come back here but want to let others know that I have interacted with that I am not here anymore. Guess they can’t close account but can ban me (at least they threaten to). So perhaps they will ban me for this post which would be fine too

Don't know your issue but I feel your pain.
I took the Autoban way out a few times, hence my avatar.
It's always possible to lurk by not logging on, or as you mention by not simply not posting.

Anyway, thanks for your contributions so far!

 

[Krugerrand]

If that happens, I think we can pretty much draw the curtain on the entire traditional auto industries of Germany, Japan, and US (ex-Tesla). Maybe if the respective governments realise in time what's happening and step in before it's too late, they'll be able to salvage some things. If they don't, Germany and Japan are sure to face significant economic difficulties in the next decade as their auto industries collapse.

How exactly are the governments to help? Seriously? Throw more good money after bad? More bureaucracy? More people who are quite literally 20+ years too old, who haven’t a clue how to program an alarm clock, to create more committees, more meetings - essentially more cooks in an already overcrowded kitchen?

Go for it governments! I triple dog dare you.

There was only ever one way to do this for the OEMs; start from scratch with a brand new branch of the company, hire all new people, vertically integrate etc...

The general tendency of humans is to resist change, resist possibly losing their current creature comforts, resist throwing everything away and starting from scratch. It can be scary as hell and the older you get, the more adverse you get to change.

300 people driving ID.3’s around every day to bring back data bugs etc... I can’t possibly laugh any harder. Even if it’s only 30 people it’s two dozen too many.

I don’t know if the information is to be believed any more than the information about Tesla that is disseminated by analysts and media, but holy crap if it’s even half right; their government has no chance of pulling them out of the fire. And what a shame all those resources wasted. Thankfully, Tesla to the rescue.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

PT update at Jefferies?