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

[Artful Dodger]

Ferrari are doing this with a SpaceX style pre chamber:
Ferrari patents more efficient V12 engine
I for one, am very worried.....

Yeah that's not a SpaceX style prechamber, that's a Honda CVCC style prechamber. From 1971.

So maybe it could be an 'Apollo' style prechamber. But old fossil tech, nonetheless.

 

[electracity]

Me too. The service and lossless audio topics aside, he had truly insightful commentary around the industry and the business. One particular area where I am thankful he highlighted was how exceptional Elon was at cost engineering, this was years ago before the 3 was released. This quarter's results show just how prescient he was.

The recent rapid cost reduction was most likely due to reduction of costs associated with inbound shipping. Air freighting parts to keep the lines running is expensive. Cost reduction of manufacturing processes and vendor prices is a more gradual process.

Margins in China should be very impressive once that supply chain is in place. Especially if the announced price can hold in that market at volume.

 

[Fact Checking]

New So we are now T minus 5 months from battery investor day.

As far as I know there has been no comment on where the new battery cell lines will be produced.

Elon mentioned it during the Q3 ER call that the "Phase II." building will make "batteries and modules".

He is pretty precise with such statements, so I'm quite sure he meant cell production.

There was also a recent leak from a Korean cell production specialist firm that they are close to closing a deal with Tesla, and that the cell manufacturing equipment will go to GF1 by the end of 2019.

 

[Darkfox021]

I didn't find any mention of this repayment method in my searches It may be they would keep your status active, but I thought payments have to come from your paycheck. So I guess it you wrote the (ex)employer a check every month, they could remit it to the fund manager.

OT

I didn't know about the 2017 changes, so some of this may not be still relevant, but:

A few years back, my wife was a pre-school teacher and her school closed for the summer. Her school took weekly payroll deductions to make her 401k loan payments during the school year. Over the summer, they transferred her loan to monthly payments made by us. When school opened again in the fall, we continued to make the monthly payments rather than going through the hassle of switching back and forth every year.

So there is clearly some flexibility within 401k plans.

 

[Fact Checking]

I think that last line is the most interesting. Needing more buildings for model Y was not obvious to me. I assumed they would build both in the existing factory.

I suspect they'll combine it with a capacity expansion - taking capacity from the Model 3 doesn't make sense in a growth scenario.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I strongly suspect that module production will come first - using contracted LG cells - followed by battery production when Tesla is ready for it.

Yeah, they don't need the new building to make bty packs with locally sourced LG cells. Tesla already sent the v.1 Grohmann bty line retired montha ago at GF1 to Shanghai. It's likely setup already inside the main bldg.

Local sources in Shanghai are saying the new bty workshop will be complete by end of Q1 2020. That sync's well with Tesla bty pack needs at Fremont just in time for start of Model Y production.

GF1/Sparks is on notice to be capable of 10K bty packs / wk by the end of 2019, according to Carsonight.

 

[mongo]

OT

OT

I didn't know about the 2017 changes, so some of this may not be still relevant, but:

A few years back, my wife was a pre-school teacher and her school closed for the summer. Her school took weekly payroll deductions to make her 401k loan payments during the school year. Over the summer, they transferred her loan to monthly payments made by us. When school opened again in the fall, we continued to make the monthly payments rather than going through the hassle of switching back and forth every year.

So there is clearly some flexibility within 401k plans.

Gotcha, in that case your wife was always an active employee. Does shows that the payments don't need to come via employer/ paycheck. Plan specifics have a lot of variability, but need to stay within IRS guidelines.

 

[CorneliusXX]

The recent rapid cost reduction was most likely due to reduction of costs associated with inbound shipping. Air freighting parts to keep the lines running is expensive. Cost reduction of manufacturing processes and vendor prices is a more gradual process.

Margins in China should be very impressive once that supply chain is in place. Especially if the announced price can hold in that market at volume.

Where is that information from?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Elon mentioned it during the Q3 ER call that the "Phase II." building will make "batteries and packs modules".

FTFY. I suspect that the retired v.1 Grohmann line sent from GF1 to Shanghai is already set up in the main building and assembling packs, at least temporarily. Telsa always retrofits more automation and newer tech as production advances. GF3 will be no different.

 

[JRP3]

When in this current 10+ year journey was their opinion helpful to ‘investors’?

In recent times not at all but in the early days I found some of the somewhat more rational contrarian views prodded me to dig deeper and do more research to backup my position. Everything I found supported my/Tesla's premise and made me more confident.

 

[Hock1]

GF1 is cheap to buildout, but there's a shortage of housing, labour, and just general utilities in the Reno area. Tesla may well have to implement their plan of building out housing and general community infrastructure on their own.

I do see it as increasingly likely, however.

I believe water supply is the ultimate constraining factor in Reno. Not sure how that can be solved.

 

[JRP3]

The second building is indeed for battery and module production

Does "battery" mean battery packs or cells? I assumed battery packs.

 

[3Victoria]

Does "battery" mean battery packs or cells? I assumed battery packs.

I think EM would have said cells if he meant that. I expect GF3 is assembling modules and battery packs using purchased cells.

 

[3Victoria]

I believe water supply is the ultimate constraining factor in Reno. Not sure how that can be solved.

I think they have become very efficient with their water use.

 

[Darkfox021]

OT


Gotcha, in that case your wife was always an active employee. Does shows that the payments don't need to come via employer/ paycheck. Plan specifics have a lot of variability, but need to stay within IRS guidelines.

OT

Yes, always an active employee. And we paid off the loan early ahead of when we knew she would be changing jobs. I have been under the assumption that loans had to be paid off at the time employment ends. But, could this be a plan specific rule which most companies adopt, but is actually optional?

 

[Hock1]

I think they have become very efficient with their water use.

I'm talking about water supply for residences for all the additional Tesla employees.

 

[KarenRei]

I believe water supply is the ultimate constraining factor in Reno. Not sure how that can be solved.

Lots of ways. Financially, water for agriculture can never compete against water for municipal use, as it takes a lot of water to produce a proportionally small amount of money via farming. Agriculture in the US measures water by the "acre foot" - literally enough water to flood one acre to a depth of one foot. Tesla could offer a farmer as much money for their water rights as they'd earn in decades of farming; even buying up a proportionally small amount of water rights on the Truckee would be sufficient. There's also a wide range of other options, including funding water efficiency/recycling measures in Reno, desalination of Pyramid Lake (only 1/6th the salinity of seawater), water catchment and storage from GF1's roof, etc etc.

Water will in no way, shape or form stop expansion at GF1. But it is one entry on a long list of things that Tesla needs to take care of if it wants to build up its own "neighborhoods" there.

 

[mongo]

3 topics:

I believe water supply is the ultimate constraining factor in Reno. Not sure how that can be solved.

Tesla Semi tankers.

Does "battery" mean battery packs or cells? I assumed battery packs.

Technically, batteries are collections of cells, which the exception being a single cell battery. Who can say if he was speaking colloquially or technically.

I think EM would have said cells if he meant that. I expect GF3 is assembling modules and battery packs using purchased cells.

Steps:

1. Packs from GF1
2. Modules/ packs from locally sourced cells
   
3. Modules/ packs from GF3 cells

OT

Yes, always an active employee. And we paid off the loan early ahead of when we knew she would be changing jobs. I have been under the assumption that loans had to be paid off at the time employment ends. But, could this be a plan specific rule which most companies adopt, but is actually optional?

IRS rules require payback upon termination. Used to be within 60 days, the 2017 law cganged it to the same tax year (including filing extension).

 

[Buckminster]

TT007 is back in business!

So I suffered major drawdowns in my portfolio between December 2018 -until two days ago because of short-sellers mischief/ misconduct
Happy to report that just 2 days made all the difference and my portfolio which is 100% $tsla calls is back in black and at an ATH

 

[Artful Dodger]

Does "battery" mean battery packs or cells? I assumed battery packs.

Lol, we don't know definatively. But if they're making packs now, its with the v1 Grohmann machine imported from GF1/Sparks. They wouldn't need a separate building for that.

Note that the S/X battery pack is assembled at the main Fremont factory, build from 18650 cells imported from Japan. So following that progression of needs, Tesla's next priority will be to replace the external cell suppiler, LG, with Tesla cells. The battery workshop will be complete by end of Q1'20 according to local sources (incl'd various tweets, ie: Vincent)