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

[mutle]

Yesterday, on a ~2 hour drive (200km, split evenly among Autobahn and local roads) I spotted at least 3 other Model 3 driving. I think one was from Switzerland and all in different colors. Aside from visiting the Tesla service center, I have never seen so many Teslas in such a short time here in Germany.

 

[T@oo]

Yeah it'll be 2 chips (later 5). Why do I say this? Because that's how NASA does it, allowing them to use inexpensive civilian-grade computer hardware in the high radiation environment of space.

Most of Elon's strategic choices are easy understand using this simple heuristic: "What new technology will be needed on Mars? How do we commercialize it right now?"

That's why Tesla doesn't make wind turbines. Not that they couldn't (they make motors and power electronics already). Those turbines just wouldn't work in the thin Martian atmosphere, so Tesla builds solar panels instead, which will work on Mars. Simple.

That's also why Kimbal Musk is working on hydroponic farming in a shipping container. Want to bet they will fit inside a SpaceX Starship? It's a long way to Mars for take-out food, and we're gonna need a snack...

So how will Tesla NN chips be used on Mars? Colonist will need shelter when they arrive. A fleet of AI-driven robots will assemble the first habs in preparation for our arrival: (simple)

Cheers!

And the Boring Company works on fast, efficient TBMs. About the diameter of a FH payload stage...

 

[KarenRei]

Fred Alert:

Tesla fired most employees in a service center for being ‘inappropriate’

A spokesperson for the automaker told Electrek that they fired “several members of the Calgary service team” after an investigation into their behaviors on the job:

“Several members of the Calgary service team were terminated following an investigation into an employee complaint which confirmed repeated inappropriate exchanges between colleagues. This is in violation of our workplace policies and behavior we will not tolerate at Tesla.”

Tesla didn’t confirm the nature of the “inappropriate exchanges”, but a source familiar with the matter said there were inappropriate texts and pictures shared by employees.

The automaker confirmed to Electrek that they plan to keep the Calgary service center open and they will fill the several positions that were occupied by terminated employees.

Womp womp.

Good on Tesla.

 

[seldon]

Yeah, and it's not trivial to switch production from NMC (used in TE products) to NCA (for autos). Not to mention a major switch in supply logistics. I think its unrealistic to do this with a month's notice. The supplier's can't react that fast.

I'm more interested in seeing if any Model 3 packs were stockpiled in Q1. All reports from GF1 is they they were working flat out throughtout Q1. Not everything adds up...

I wonder how things are at Lathrop? Could be a big burst of Production coming in Q2. Course, now we're all scared of 'VINology', but that's a good thing.

Cheers!

What if they are not 'switching' chemistry but rather some of the new lines installed in Q4 are dedicated for NMC TE production? If TE produces a few hundred million in expected profit, that might not be huge but there would also be substantial cashflow and perception that TE is growing fast.

 

[jerry33]

Mass transit development could eliminate more emissions than Tesla, just saying...

Assuming you can get people to ride it so there are not just empty trains going back and forth. And keep politicians from inserting poison pills or outright bans to keep the "undesirables" out of their neighbourhoods. And have electric buses feed the trains on a convenient schedule. (It shouldn't take 90 minutes to go less than ten miles by transit, but where I live it does, not counting the time it takes to get to the first bus stop.) I realize that there are places where transit works great, I lived in one of them, but there are more places where it fails.

 

[Vitold]

Yeah it'll be 2 chips (later 5). Why do I say this? Because that's how NASA does it, allowing them to use inexpensive civilian-grade computer hardware in the high radiation environment of space.

Most of Elon's strategic choices are easy to understand using this simple heuristic:

• What new technology will be needed on Mars?
• How do we commercialize it right now?"

That's why Tesla doesn't make wind turbines. Not that they couldn't (they make motors and power electronics already). Those turbines just wouldn't work in the thin Martian atmosphere, so Tesla builds solar panels instead, which will work on Mars. Simple.

That's also why Kimbal Musk is working on hydroponic farming in a shipping container. Want to bet they will fit inside a SpaceX Starship? It's a long way to Mars for take-out food, and we're gonna need a snack...

So how will Tesla NN chips be used on Mars? Colonist will need shelter when they arrive. A fleet of AI-driven robots will assemble the first habs in preparation for our arrival: (simple)

Cheers!

I like how they locate nuclear reactor in a safe distance from the colony.

 

[bhtooefr]

Assuming you can get people to ride it so there are not just empty trains going back and forth. And keep politicians from inserting poison pills or outright bans to keep the "undesirables" out of their neighbourhoods. And have electric buses feed the trains on a convenient schedule. (It shouldn't take 90 minutes to go less than ten miles by transit, but where I live it does, not counting the time it takes to get to the first bus stop.) I realize that there are places where transit works great, I lived in one of them, but there are more places where it fails.

To not derail the thread too much, I'll just say this: That's in the context of European CO2 fines for FCA. Most EU member nations have their sugar together when it comes to developing usable transit.

 

[Pras]

Assuming you can get people to ride it so there are not just empty trains going back and forth. And keep politicians from inserting poison pills or outright bans to keep the "undesirables" out of their neighbourhoods. And have electric buses feed the trains on a convenient schedule. (It shouldn't take 90 minutes to go less than ten miles by transit, but where I live it does, not counting the time it takes to get to the first bus stop.) I realize that there are places where transit works great, I lived in one of them, but there are more places where it fails.

Agree. The mass transit argument is good but even the best mass transit cities have cars. Also giant cities like LA, Beijing or Delhi are so big in area that cars are essential. For example, the highways in Delhi are always clogged with cars, even on the routes where there is metro/subway system.

And then there is suburban traffic in the US.

 

[mongo]

Indeed. Given how amateurish Cheryl is, I won’t be surprised if the thought didn’t cross Elon’s mind of getting the settlement invalidated and daring the SEC to file suit. I especially like the part where Cheryl tried to ignore the earnings call transcript by hiding it in a footnote and calling it cryptic

Also in the ARK podcast (released Feb 19th, the same day as the Tweet, recorded Feb 13) Elon specifically calls out that when he talks numbers, it is peak build rate.

Firstly, do we know it for a fact that they are using two chips for redundancy? Another approach would be to build redundancy and fail-over into the chip itself, which would increase the gate count and power consumption by far less than the +100% of a dual chip solution.

Secondly, Elon said 20x speed lately, which I'm interpreting as the actual effective performance increase.

@verygreen CS sw investigation showed two seperate TRIP cores (indicating two chips).
I have not seen Elon mention 20x...

Assuming the min of 200m for 2019, this number would arguably have to be be spread over 4 quarters as that appears to be the length of the initial contract and performance of the agreement would happen throughout the year rather than at a point in time. So we could see as little as 50m a quarter show up in the financial statements. It will probably be higher than this but 50m isn't enough to move the SP today.

The agreement can have any payment terms that agree to, along with minimum performance requirements.

Another detail is that the February 28 "we do not expect to be profitable" statement was already made with knowledge of the February 25 deal with FCA.

At that point over half the cars had not been delivered also. The March push may have gone better than feared...

 

[Tslynk67]

My wife has the idea to save money in a bank account - means it devalues with inflation. I'm trying to get her into one of ARK's managed funds - is it the ARKK that we should be looking at?

ARK Innovation ETF | ARKK - Aiming for Growth

 

[Artful Dodger]

What if they are not 'switching' chemistry but rather some of the new lines installed in Q4 are dedicated for NMC TE production? If TE produces a few hundred million in expected profit, that might not be huge but there would also be substantial cashflow and perception that TE is growing fast.

There are 2 dedicated TE lines (per carsonight - Jan 14, 2019) with an annual output around 4 GWh:

Question: "What surprises me is that Tesla seems to be planning to use GF1 automotive cells for the storage products."

Answer: "No, they are not. The chemistries of the automobile and storage cells are different, and Panasonic can switch a line from one type to the other on a week's notice. My current information is that there are 11 lines. including all three of the new ones, for the Model 3 and two for storage."​

That's plenty of capacity for TE use in 2019. Multiple gigawat-hour grid storage projects and lots of powerwalls all fit nicely into 4 GWh.

Cheers!

 

[AlMc]

My wife has the idea to save money in a bank account - means it devalues with inflation. I'm trying to get her into one of ARK's managed funds - is it the ARKK that we should be looking at?

ARK Innovation ETF | ARKK - Aiming for Growth

yes

 

[Unpilot]

Remember, it's not about raw volume - it's about how much you earn.

Kinda agree...but the Mission is accelerate sustainable transportation. SO more cars are better. But yeah ya gotta stay in bidniss to do that.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Hi Karen, how many Model S did Tesla sell in Q1 as a proportion of their production capacity?

Did Tesla’s production of Model 3 flatline qoq due to production constraints or some other reason?

Why did Tesla reduce pricing of their products across the board? Was this because they had a long line of buyers that exceeded production capacity at the prevailing higher prices?

It shouldn’t be a dirty topic of conversation to think about how Tesla might stimulate sales without having to squeeze gross margins.

Tesla is not selling the SR in Europe or China yet. It has also not started selling the 3 in RHD countries (the UK in particular is waiting for it, with waiting times over a year on the KoNiro EVs and 4/2020+ 2% BIK on long-range BEVs). It has only very recently started selling the SR in the USA. It has not yet started leasing.

Elon Musk said in 2016 that the expected ASP would be $42k. Tesla is not expecting to be able to maintain a high proportion of sales in the higher spec models. It's aiming to be profitable with the SR, because that's where the volume will be.

When Tesla can fulfill the natural demand, and when word of mouth/Internet effects are used up, _then_ it can think about advertising.

If you think that ignorance will get in the way, note that in 2011 in Norway, 1.6% of new car sales were PEVs. By 2018 the share was almost 50%. Ignorance will not get in the way.

 

[Starno]

I've got say though, the numbers are a nice reality check for many people here.
I remember when a while ago I was talking about how Tesla needs to be prepared in case there's a recession to have enough cash and have a healthy P&L.
And people here completely brushed me off saying that Tesla are SO in demand that even if there's a full blown recession, Tesla will still sell more and more and so they should only focus on growth and forget about income etc.
And here we are in a slowing but still growing economy with Tesla selling under expectations...
______

 

[KarenRei]

I've got say though, the numbers are a nice reality check for many people here.
I remember when a while ago I was talking about how Tesla needs to be prepared in case there's a recession to have enough cash and have a healthy P&L.
And people here completely brushed me off saying that Tesla are SO in demand that even if there's a full blown recession, Tesla will still sell more and more and so they should only focus on growth and forget about income etc.
And here we are in a slowing but still growing economy with Tesla selling under expectations...
______

Well... sold poorly in the US in January and February, a seasonal low after a tax credit cliff. We don't know about the US in March, whether it was demand or deliveries. Europe and China were delivery hell, and are only starting to be tapped for the most expensive variants. The rest of the world: untapped for the 3 specifically, and in most places, Tesla in general.

As a random point of comparison, Norway is already up to 2/3rds of its best April in history. Today is only the 8th of April. They can only get the two most expensive, high-margin 3s.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Yesterday, on a ~2 hour drive (200km, split evenly among Autobahn and local roads) I spotted at least 3 other Model 3 driving. I think one was from Switzerland and all in different colors. Aside from visiting the Tesla service center, I have never seen so many Teslas in such a short time here in Germany.

Three M3 in two hours. Just shows you how much more room there is to grow for Tesla.
That was me in Toronto late last year. Now it is three M3 every five to ten minutes of driving. Pretty soon I expect to see one Tesla every minute of driving.
Fast foward to the future...."On a two hour drive (split evenly among highway and local roads), I spotted at least three ICE. I heard them coming before I saw them. One day all cars will be BEV, but sadly, not today."

 

[EVMeister]

I don't think I've seen this before. Cleantechnica gets top billing right now when news results are sorted by relevance. I assume the ranking is based on traffic visible to google - users who select this article following a google search, and users logged in to their google account who browse this article.

I'll take this as a positive sign that the public is learning which news sources can be trusted for Tesla news.

View attachment 394831

Unfortunately you're only seeing CleanTechnica at the top there because of personalised search. You've clicked that website before, so it is more relevant to you. Others wouldn't see that organically (I don't).

 

[bro1999]

The crowd-sourced, social media swarm that is betting Tesla will crash and burn

 

[ZeApelido]

Fred Alert:

Tesla fired most employees in a service center for being ‘inappropriate’



Womp womp.

Good on Tesla.

This was the inappropriate image: