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

[gerebgraus]

It's obvious the twitter is mostly if not fully authored by Omar Qazi. He's a superbull and at times goes over the top stating some future possible sci-fi scenarios as a done deal. You need to realize this and scale back expectations some. He's doing a superior job breaking down some misconceptions and challenging the public's perception of what's possible, but the reality will be somewhat of a middle ground or more of Elon's time schedule compared to what Omar claims.

These claims were made in the podcast. (Just not by Elon.)

 

[Causalien]

Have to admit. Spiegel is a better oracle than me. He has a 100% wrong prediction so if you'd just inverse him, you'd be richer than if you coattailed me.

I can go ahead and guarantee an ATH today.

Mark B. Spiegel on Twitter

Mark B. Spiegel sez:

My theory re $TSLA is that today is "a trading sardine echo bubble," which all bubbles have. If it takes out last week's high I'll be wrong and it will be "a resumption of the bubble." I upsized at $539 with a stop at the ATH. This is not a legitimate business/company/CEO.

So if I predicts that someone is going to be 100% wrong, does that mean
my predction has a 200% chance of being correct?

 

[larmor]

500+ mile range on Cybertruck explained!

And ring performance for plaid model S and roadster impossible statistics—not a double battery pack which just weighs more...

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Note that the 16x capacity and 20% lower costs only apply to the electrode portion of production not the entire cell manufacturing capacity/costs. What portion of the capacity/cost does the electrode make up? I don't know.

Drying and then air-scrubbing for the wet electrode recipe, is the ickiest part, and maybe second largest (after aging/conditioning?). Dry recipe shrinks the production footprint in all four dimensions.

 

[generalenthu]

Those numbers are all from a Maxwell PowerPoint presentation when they were trying to find a partner for their DBE technology. Note that the 16x capacity and 20% lower costs only apply to the electrode portion of production not the entire cell manufacturing capacity/costs. What portion of the capacity/cost does the electrode make up? I don't know.

 

[Maitri982]

The Cruise Origin Story

Cruise making very big claims on FSD and associated vehicle. Claiming could do cross country drive now. Claiming super human driving capability. Claiming can drive in cities already as complex as san fran. Claiming million mile electric vehicle. etc etc. Notably there is no timeline though on these claims.

 

[Buckminster]

Shortsville Times

Musk working as an illegal alien. SEC orders Tesla to relocate back to South Africa. Trump tweets "I hope that this decision will mean Kim Jong-un can reunite North and South Africa using the power of Tesla's great American V8 power".

 

[M3Rider]

500+ mile range on Cybertruck explained!

These claims were made in the podcast. (Just not by Elon.)

The claims could be valid minus the timing.
We don't really know how long it takes to commercialize Maxwell.

We heard Panasonic is expanding 35ghw to 54gwh. Is this new tech or old tech?

500mi is also 50/50 old vs new.
Remember about the double pack? @KarenRei is sure this is 100% the answer given that Elon said in the distant past that the double pack would work "today" for the Roadster-2.

What makes me less confident about the new tech in CT is how easily they shaved off a year from the schedule of 3-motor CT. It was supposed to be the last to roll out, which could potentially allow to use old tech for 250mi & 300mi trucks and do the Maxwell in 3 years for 3-motors(more time). But then when more orders were received for 2 & 3 motors vs 1, they just switched them out without much thinking, so the 500mi battery now has 1 year less for any potential tech advances.

 

[Buckminster]

Shortsville Times

Musk was recruited as a KGB spy whilst trying to buy nuclear bomb in 2001. Putin wants US citizens to buy Russian cars following Detroit bankruptcies.

 

[Fact Checking]

I'm sure we saw permits lodged for both a North and South Paintshop, that is not totally conclusive, but for now I am assuming they are adding a new Paintshop.

There's strong evidence for "South Paint" being constructed from the various Fremont permits cited by @kengchang. Time frame of completion is unclear, but the baseline would be that Tesla timed all expansion projects to complete in a specific order to support smooth Model Y ramp-up. I presume first Model Y's are using North Paint.

This is their third paint shop, so ramp up should be swift.

I think the 35GWh production of cells in GF1 limits them to a combined 10K per week Model 3+Y, until they do something to add pack capacity.

There's two unconfirmed leaks/reports that Tesla aims for 15k packs/week at GF1 and Panasonic can now do 50 GWh/year (!), which with (80+53)/2 = 66 kWh average pack size and 95% pass rate of Panasonic cells defines a ceiling of around 13,800 packs/week in 2020.

Limit is probably pack assembly speed at GF1, which is currently at around 10k/week SR packs, fewer LR packs. I presume it's being ramped, plus GF3 pack assembly is ramping to free up GF1 capacity.

I'm inclined to believe battery investor day will reveal that something...

I'm 90% confident that the Maxwell technologies need scaling, I.e. a new factory. Probably not used in GF1 yet.

I have no clue on stamping or the capacity of the body lines themselves...

There's a new Model Y body line at Fremont, with stated capacity of 2k/week by the summer. Design ceiling unclear, but I'd assume at least 5k/week.

Keep in mind Tesla thinks Model Y can do 2X Model 3 worldwide, and that Model 3 volumes will not drop..

So Fremont being limited to 10K Model 3+Y per week is possible if China ramps rapidly....
But I also think 14-15K per week Model 3+Y may be possible if stamping supports it...

Fremont stamp was stated to support "8k/week, up to 10k/week with low capex" Model 3 capacity back in September 2018, by an independent audit.

Stamping capacity ought to be freely allocated between 3 and Y, as die sets can be changed and stamping can be batched. New Model Y cast parts (I presume made at Lathrop) might reduce stamping load.

Paint shop capacity is elastic between the 3 and Y as well, and so is seat factory and most subassemblies. I think some cannibalization of Model 3 by Model Y is possible - otherwise Tesla would not have hidden their Model Y plans so well. It doesn't really matter as long as most Fremont capacity and battery supply is maxed out.

Fremont assembly line worker crews can be load-balanced between the Model 3 and Model Y lines, so they can max out the workforce as well.

10k/week out of Fremont ought to be possible with the Model 3+Y, 15k/week total with Shanghai Model 3, 20k/week with Shanghai Model Y, but 2020 China cell supply is rumored to be 10 GWh/year, which supports GF3 3k/week, maybe 5k/week with GF1 help.

I'd be happy with Fremont+GF1 scaling to 10k/week and Shanghai to 5k/week by the end of this year, which gives a global EoY 3+Y run rate of ~780k/year plus S/X - 850k/year.

2020 deliveries and production, assuming a linear scaling from 430k to 850k would be around 640k - but official guidance could be more conservative at 520k-560k, at least +40% growth over 2019 deliveries. I'm not sure what 2020 and beyond growth guidance big investors are expecting Tesla mgmt to make.

Excess GF1 capacity might be used for China, the Semi and Powewalls/Powerpacks/Megapacks.

As usual, I'll likely be wrong on some of this, and there's always headwinds and complications - so this is not advice.

 

[elasalle]

BTW. What kind of revenue is the SC n/w making currently? Any estimates?

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Y in February

 

[StealthP3D]

Elon is not really talking share price most of time.
His focus is on the bigger picture.

If you're implying that everyone would misunderstand Elon's tweet as having to do with SP, there is a chance you're right.

Elon can't legally imply what the share price will do (because he has inside information regarding upcoming earnings announcement). But that's not to say that investors don't read things into his comments. The intent of his comment is impossible to know with certainty. Elon owns that.

I've been investing my entire adult life and I've rarely heard a CEO utter something that could be taken so bullishly. I'm sure plenty of other people think similarly. Which is why I shared my thoughts on Saturday, that today would be awesome.

 

[Buckminster]

Y in February
View attachment 503017

Anner J. Bonilla of HW 2.5 ️ on Twitter

 

[MC3OZ]

Y in February
View attachment 503017

This is still from the same source:-
Model Y deliveries confirmed for next month! : TeslaLounge

But 2 other Model Y reservation holders confirmed being contacted by Tesla Oakville...

I'm still 50/50 on it, I agree Tesla is contacting these reservation holders... but in some cases they appear to be up selling to a Performance Model Y, or trying to sell them a Model S/X Or a Model 3...

This could simply be an overzealous sales team jumping the gun.... but some Model Y deliveries seem to have been assigned to this team...

 

[MP3Mike]

Y in February
View attachment 503017

All the rumors seem to be coming from a single source. Are we really supposed to believe that Tesla only called one Model Y reservation holder to spill the beans?

 

[Buckminster]

Anner J. Bonilla of HW 2.5 ️ on Twitter

So this was posted by Quaf4 on Reddit. Been on Reddit since 2016. Pilot. Seems legit:
Quaf4 (u/Quaf4) - Reddit

 

[Cherry Wine]

I'm getting 8-10 weeks delivery estimate for a custom Model X in California. Is that a slippage? The longer end of that is already into Q2! In fact it's almost definitely a slippage -- I just checked Model 3 and Model S and saw the page refresh from 6-9 weeks to 8-10 weeks as it loaded.

 

[30seconds]

For what its worth two things stood out to me today

1. Saw the blue model Y performance on the freeway again today. Confirmed that it is awesome. Funny thing was that it pulled in front of an I-pace for a while. The cars are very similar in size, but the Y looks better for sure.

2. Elon talking about how big of a deal the Maxwell technology is. He said something to the effect of "people don't realize how big an impact this will have." Also good discussion on how all the other manufactures are outsourcing battery tech and are not driving advances.

To me there is still lots of room to go up and a lot of near and long term catalysts. But I think to reach Toyota's market cap (~$200B on 9-10m cars/ year) we will need to see a path for Tesla to get to 3-4m / year based on higher margin vehicles, tech lead and growth trajectory.

I don't think Fremont + China + Germany gets me there. However that plus a new factory for the Cybertruck sure will.

 

[Cherry Wine]

So this was posted by Quaf4 on Reddit. Been on Reddit since 2016. Pilot. Seems legit:
Quaf4 (u/Quaf4) - Reddit

Yes, I dug through their post history as well. No obvious red flags, but you never know if an account has been compromised and turned for nefarious purposes. The oldest reference I saw to Tesla was four months old, and their posting style / subjects seemed consistent over time. Impossible to say with certainty that it's authentic, but it's another interesting data point in what is now a long line of data points hinting at a Q1 release.

I really want to see more evidence / confirmations before I put some serious money on mid-February deliveries, though.