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

[MP3Mike]

I don't get it.

Why does it require more than the current approach in panasonic or LG or Samsung?

It doesn't, but Tesla isn't building their pilot cell line in an existing Panasonic, LG, or Samsung factory. Their Kato road facility isn't big enough to do 10GWh/year with the wet electrode process.

And really why bother, the DBE process already works, just with low yield. They aren't going to stop working on it and replace it with the outdated wet electrode process.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Because GM is losing ~$15k on each one sold and is not incentivized to produce 1 more than required to meet CARB/CAFE requirements.

Tesla making ~2,500 on each Model 2 and more margin as they increase the economies of scale are incentivized to produce Model 2 in the millions.

If those numbers are correct, it says in reality the Bolt production cost is significantly more than a Model 3 SR. That’s bad on so many levels.

 

[traxila]

Good aftermorning all! Beautiful day in SE Washington today. Hadn't seen this article from Forbes posted yet so here goes... pretty positive!

Forbes: Tesla’s $25,000 Electric Car Means Game Over For Gas And Oil.
Tesla’s $25,000 Electric Car Means Game Over For Gas And Oil

Wow, reading this from Forbes reminds me of that quotation that starts with them ignoring you and ends with and then you win.

 

[Mokuzai]

Plaid S secured.

 

[Remus]

It doesn't, but Tesla isn't building their pilot cell line in an existing Panasonic, LG, or Samsung factory. Their Kato road facility isn't big enough to do 10GWh/year with the wet electrode process.

And really why bother, the DBE process already works, just with low yield. They aren't going to stop working on it and replace it with the outdated wet electrode process.

We have drastically different definition of "improvement".

For me as long as they are better than their current mass production it's counted as improvements. And their current production is using cells from panasonic etc.

For that I am sticking to my original claim as these are independent. They can produce 2170 with Panasonic in giga nevada, they can definitely produce 4580 there too, with more cap ex than ideal, but still not worse than status quo

 

[AperiodicCoder]

Weekly Roundup: 26 September
Go here to see this week's Roundtable Roundup with the top voted posts from the past week!

 

[bkp_duke]

It doesn't, but Tesla isn't building their pilot cell line in an existing Panasonic, LG, or Samsung factory. Their Kato road facility isn't big enough to do 10GWh/year with the wet electrode process.

And really why bother, the DBE process already works, just with low yield. They aren't going to stop working on it and replace it with the outdated wet electrode process.

Exactly.

And bear in mind that the DBE process is designed to have a total of 6X the throughput they were having on the 2170 line with panasonic.

The Roadrunner line can literally sputter along and still likely push out more gWh per year than a production line Panasonic is running at GF1 at full tilt.

 

[dc_h]

I subscribe myself. A great value.

Could the move of right hand drive model 3 open an added assembly line for Model Y in Fremont? That would get 3 and Y lines running 3 assembly lines. With the third giga press nearly complete in Fremont, production should be ramping up nicely in Q4.

 

[RobStark]

Could the move of right hand drive model 3 open an added assembly line for Model Y in Fremont? That would get 3 and Y lines running 3 assembly lines. With the third giga press nearly complete in Fremont, production should be ramping up nicely in Q4.

I don't think they have a dedicated RHD production line.

They stop, reconfigure, then produce RHD models for a few weeks.Then stop reconfigure and start again for LHD.

 

[Words of HABIT]

People are excited about California and other places in the world banning ICE vehicles by 2035. It's a good message for those with their heads in the sand. But most of us know that by 2035 the government will not need to ban ICE cars because no one will buy them by then anyway.

Banning ICE car sales in 2035 is not strong enough. ICE cars average 15 to 20 years to the junkyard so this means we will still have ICE on our roads in 2050 to 2055. ICE cars should be banned from our streets in 2035.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Elon....you sly guy!!!

 

[Prunesquallor]

View attachment 592631

Elon....you sly guy!!!

Just saw that. Big deal, I recon.

“Prototypes are trivial.”

 

[Paul_SF]

How crazy it would be that one of those buildings in Shanghai is actually a few lines for 4680s?

 

[Singuy]

View attachment 592631

Elon....you sly guy!!!

Wait. Seriously lost here. So they are going to use suppliers for all HIGH volume cars and battery storage in the future? Then what the heck is 3twh for? How many Semis and cybertrucks is he making?

Or was this just anti osbourning talk and "for now" is code word for "Semi/Plaid/Cybertrucks/roadsters" in the immediate future?

With the slides where they predicted material shortage leads to separating different battery materials, I assumed raw materials couldn't keep up with their 7x increase in speed so they had to diversity raw materials of the 4680 for super high volume cars like the 25k version. How can he be confident that their highest volume car Panasonic can keep up? Also I thought the only reason why the 25k version even exist is because how their own batteries will be half the price with more range?

 

[Remus]

Just saw that. Big deal, I recon.

“Prototypes are trivial.”

We still don't know whether those cells in those packs are counted as prototype or production

 

[mickle]

I've been thinking a bit about how easily it will be to modify 2170 designs to use 4680, with respect to pack size and vehicle design.

I do not think my drawing below was a coincidence and probably influenced the choice of 46mm.

Edit: just to be clear, I don't think they are trying to do this:

 

[wipster]

I would go out and buy one if I didn't know that they are losing ton of money on the car and likely won't support the product long term.

Like another electric car they made, there's probably a clause in the purchase agreement that says they have the right to buy it back safely so they can crush it.

 

[wipster]

I've been thinking a bit about how easily it will be to modify 2170 designs to use 4680, with respect to pack size and vehicle design.

I do not think my drawing below was a coincidence and probably influenced the choice of 46mm.

View attachment 592647

While it's a nice drawing and not square boxes in a round hole, I sincerely doubt your drawing influenced it. Dunno, maybe I'm wrong. Cool that it works though!

 

[Paul_SF]

https://twitter.com/hiromichimizuno/status/1310009366372777984?s=21

https://twitter.com/hiromichimizuno/status/1310009173862563840?s=21

Mod edit - for the 420th time: Be polite to forum members and STATE WHAT IS OF INTEREST in any link you provide.

Don’t be rude.

 

[vikings123]

Look at it this way: over the last quarters @Troy has been off in his estimates on production and deliveries by only a few percent. If the possble record Elon was referring to would be a record not for California, North America or Fremont but for worldwide deliveries, this would imply a miss by Troy of about 20%. How likely is that? Remember, Troy uses not only official registration stats but also VIN numbers reported by new Tesla owners.

Anyone remember if he was off or not for Q1 2019?

Edi: Got it right here. He was pretty spot on even though I remember we gave him *sugar* for the low ball estimates.
Yeah we should trust his numbers.

https://twitter.com/TroyTeslike/status/1113631613609500672/photo/1

Agreed. It is tough to imagine a quarter with only 115K deliveries when we know there were what 8 ships to Europe and 3-4 RoW. China already delivered 23K so far for the first 2 months of the quarter. We have seen Model Y vins in the 56K range already and they are probably pumping a lot in the last few days. Estimated delivery times for most models are 6-10 weeks out for NA.

That said I will add that Elon has consistently said that they have had supply chain issues. I believe he mentioned that first in the Q2 earnings call and has stayed with that theme on twitter. Maybe he is extra proud of the team because of what they achieved in spite of the challenges? Although Troy’s estimates get better as the quarter nears an end I think we still have to consider a scenario where we had a not so good production quarter due to supply chain issues and the retooling they had to do for Fremont assembly lines.

I’m however pleasantly surprised that some Wall Street analysts are getting better with their estimates. Either that or they are basing their estimates on the valuation and run up of TSLA. Seems like the Wall Street estimate is at 141K deliveries. It does seem pretty high to me. They say Christmas comes 8 times in a year for TSLA but this year we had 9 when you consider battery day.