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

[Congo Line]

Nothing that I can find. This market is like a wounded animal, every time it tries to get up it seems to hurt itself further.

(I'm feeling overly dramatic today for some reason...)

Same fears as before, but the impact of Friday's unexpectedly high CPI number will probably play out for a few days at least. Some talking heads suggesting Fed may need to consider 75-point hike instead of 50-point hikes.

 

[traxila]

Today has the making of a capitulation day.

No mention anywhere of core CPI trending down. No mention of CPI readings being a lagging indicator.

This 0.75 percent rate hike stuff is fear mongering. It is very effective so far.

 

[Olle]

I have a hypothesis that Tesla will grow even faster and more profitably than its current breakneck growth rate when/if we go through a recession. Reason? The bottlenecks for growth are: supplies, raw material and labor. All three of which are freed up during recessions.

Demand is not one of the bottlenecks. To confirm, take a look at the US order page from this morning:

3: Nov 22 - Feb 23, S and Y: Mar -Jun 23, X: Jun - Sep 23. I sampled the Long Range Versions since that's the most comparable trim for all four models.

Should this unbelievable backlog dry up, there are many demand levers, none of which are pulled at the moment.

 

[nativewolf]

This was Kato Rd production output in Jan and later had a 92% yield in Feb. Surprised that 4680 production ramp was flat since.
Then this comment was read directly: "Tesla is indeed ramping this quickly, so this figure could be outdated within a few weeks."

My take is that there was a capacity timing mismatch causing a battery gap (which could also occur should the vehicles ramp faster than expected). This stuff's common in factory ramps, and it's more like stair steps in reality. Watch, in 2 weeks, run rate 2X in Tx, wouldn't be surprised. Also 2 weeks is about when new FSD comes out followed by Q2 delivery numbers. I expect shorting to increase on this news, but watch for the burn.

The one million cells in January was the total production to that point in time.

 

[nativewolf]

Today has the making of a capitulation day.

No mention anywhere of core CPI trending down. No mention of CPI readings being a lagging indicator.

This 0.75 percent rate hike stuff is fear mongering. It is very effective so far.

BTC news is pretty big today.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Today has the making of a capitulation day.

No mention anywhere of core CPI trending down. No mention of CPI readings being a lagging indicator.

This 0.75 percent rate hike stuff is fear mongering. It is very effective so far.

I would really like capitulation to occur before the stock price gets below 500 :X

 

[JusRelax]

Beta is almost 2x now. It's almost as if everyone forgot that Tesla announced plans for a 3:1 stock split, sheesh.

 

[ZachF]

Today has the making of a capitulation day.

No mention anywhere of core CPI trending down. No mention of CPI readings being a lagging indicator.

This 0.75 percent rate hike stuff is fear mongering. It is very effective so far.

I think people here have been a bit insulated towards the inflation problem because of being invested in Tesla, and owning an EV shields from high gas prices, but for everyone else real wages are currently declining at the fastest pace in a very long time.

Real wages are declining so fast that another ~9 months at the current pace will have completely erased all of the gains since late 2015.

A coming recession was the easiest thing in the world to predict, as either collapsing real incomes or raising rates to combat it made it inevitable.

 

[phantasms]

Beta is almost 2x now. It's almost as if everyone forgot that Tesla announced plans for a 3:1 stock split, sheesh.

Not this guy. I've got a 900 put expiring this week and am just excited for more shares. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[hobbes]

Tesla hiring 500-600 staff a month at German plant, regional economy minister says

Tesla is recruiting workers no longer needed at German automakers and about 10 percent of new recruits are foreigners, primarily from Poland, the economy minister of Brandenburg, Joerg Steinbach, said.

europe.autonews.com

 

[NicoV]

I have a hypothesis that Tesla will grow even faster and more profitably than its current breakneck growth rate when/if we go through a recession. Reason? The bottlenecks for growth are: supplies, raw material and labor. All three of which are freed up during recessions.

Demand is not one of the bottlenecks. To confirm, take a look at the US order page from this morning:

3: Nov 22 - Feb 23, S and Y: Mar -Jun 23, X: Jun - Sep 23. I sampled the Long Range Versions since that's the most comparable trim for all four models. View attachment 816080

Should this unbelievable backlog dry up, there are many demand levers, none of which are pulled at the moment.

OMG. When are they going to offer Model S and X again in Europe with such long wait times in the USA?

 

[ZeApelido]

More demand problems.

Too much of it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1536235984341327873

 

[oldTAVguy]

Last Mile "Bites the Dust"...

EV start-up Electric Last Mile Solutions plans to declare bankruptcy a year after going public

The Michigan-based start-up will move to liquidate less than a year after it went public.

www.cnbc.com

CNBS article.

 

[jbcarioca]

So, add the Netherlands to the list of countries where a large part of the populace prefers a smaller (and cheaper) car. Probably goes for most of europe and the rest of the world really. I'm sure Tesla will deliver, might take a while though!

FIFY. Really the dominant large car markets are really the US, and to a lesser extent, Canada and, still less, Australia and New Zealand. Almost the whole world trends to smaller vehicles. Mostly cheaper too, but always a highly profitable and numerous ‘hot hatch’ style. These days that category includes small SUV too. Even smaller ones too, for some huge markets, such as the entire Indian subcontinent.

Only the Chinese market has a large number of very small BEV, while Japan has had the Mitsubishi I-MIEV and other kei-style BEV will thrive there too.

 

[Knightshade]

Worst case, If they have X lines that make 1 million cells a month, then all they need to make 10 million cells a month is 10 times as many lines. That's a problem money and lead time solves, as opposed to a physical impossibility.

Except they'd need 10x the amount of floor space as they use for 4680 today-- and still 2x more than the same # of 2170 cells (since they originally said 4680 would use 5x less space).
All for a process that one of the major goals of was to use less floor space.

That's without getting into the cost savings vanishing if you need 10x the hardware and space.

Just like S/X

Which we're 18 months into the refresh of, and they're still bizarrely behind in output compared to pre-refresh. Ideal world we find out in Q2 PD it's fixed to help make up some net revenue on the china drop-off for Q2, but I haven't seen this idea reflected in delivery dates so not holding my breath.





FWIW I think they'll fix the 4680 scaling-- but not by (more than) throwing away many of the major benefits of going to 4680 in the first place. As others have noted the issue seems to be more some folks here being overly optimistic in how quickly it'd scale than what Tesla actually announced.

The S/X thing though there's obviously been (one or more) issues with the refresh and I've never seen a good explanation for it.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

We're down in the premarket from 696.69 to 669.69. Awesome.

 

[BornToFly]

If my math is correct, with the drop in pre-market Tesla's forward PE for next year is now under 20. Crazy times.

 

[henchman24]

Today has the making of a capitulation day.

No mention anywhere of core CPI trending down. No mention of CPI readings being a lagging indicator.

This 0.75 percent rate hike stuff is fear mongering. It is very effective so far.

Could be, but Wednesday probably has a higher chance. We get tomorrows PPI data that could still be spun as bad and if the Fed opens up the chance of a 75 bps increase, then all bets are off Wednesday.

 

[hobbes]

They are tooling, not re-tooling for 2170 vehicle production in Austin. I believe this was the plan all along. Not disappointing in the least. Encouraging in fact, because it should mean a much faster ramp with the much more abundant 2170 cells.

Tesla plans to produce Model Ys with both 4680 and 2170 cells at Gigafactory Texas this year

Tesla plans to use its 4680 and 2170 cells in the Gigafactory Texas Model Y this year, with its structural battery pack appearing in the 4680-equipped cars.

www-teslarati-com.cdn.ampproject.org

I remembered that they had some info on this in a quarterly update letter, found it in Q1 2022:

US: California and Texas
In April 2022, we began Model Y deliveries from our new factory in Austin, Texas. At our Cyber Rodeo opening party, we delivered the first vehicles with 4680 in-house made cells, single-piece front body castings and structural battery packs. This is an important milestone for our capacity growth efforts. Later this year, we expect Gigafactory Texas will be able to produce Model Ys using both structural packs with 4680 cells as well as non-structural packs with 2170 cells.

Europe: Berlin-Brandenburg
Production at Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg started in March 2022, using non-structural packs with 2170 cells for the start of production. Ultimately, Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg will be able to produce Model Ys using both structural packs with 4680 cells as well as non-structural packs with 2170 cells.

So this plan is not new, but then again the Q4 letter is not even 2 months old either so from this we cannot say it has been a long term plan.

 

[mongo]

Except they'd need 10x the amount of floor space as they use for 4680 today-- and still 2x more than the same # of 2170 cells (since they originally said 4680 would use 5x less space).
All for a process that one of the major goals of was to use less floor space.

That's without getting into the cost savings vanishing if you need 10x the hardware and space.

Like I lead with: "worst case" it only takes more CapEx (which includes buildings). However, only the bottle neck steps would need duplicated which would likely not be the entire line...

Your senario is also predicated on the premise that they have fully built out all the originally expected lines and are only able to achieve 1 million cells a month. Which is highly doubtful based on their statements.