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Mach-E received the highest ratings for “Predicted Reliability” of the bunch, while Y, S & X and the E-Tron received the lowest possible reliability score. Also apparently Teslas have extremely poor “Usability”. Mach-E’s had top marks for predicted reliability for all drivetrain-related features.

And in a hilarious bit of Karma, every single Mach-e is recalled and new sales are stopped because of a critical and apparently yet-to-be-fully-solved power issue. Oops.
 
And in a hilarious bit of Karma, every single Mach-e is recalled and new sales are stopped because of a critical and apparently yet-to-be-fully-solved power issue. Oops.
Yeah the Mach-e is so reliable that it's been recalled before it's even been delivered! Not to mention the other 2.9 million vehicles recalled today because Ford can't guarantee they'll stay in Park. Good stuff!
 
Yeah the Mach-e is so reliable that it's been recalled before it's even been delivered! Not to mention the other 2.9 million vehicles recalled today because Ford can't guarantee they'll stay in Park. Good stuff!

Indeed they appear to be having quite a rough go, yet I am hardly sympathetic as it seems to have zero negative effect on their stock nor do the media outlets appear to be ravenously jumping on it like hyenas to a fresh carcass as they would if Tesla were to have this magnitude of recall(s).
 
Or... they insist Tesla geo-fence their features to lock them out in areas that Tesla themselves states in the manual you're not intended to be using them.

And point at the fact every other ADAS maker does that and has much lower accident rates.

Why would they lie? "Accident rate" does not equal accidents - it's the rate of accidents and Tesla has not been shown to have a higher accident rate than any other make employing advanced driver assistance systems.
 

If I’m understanding this recall notice correctly, this was a serious mistake on Ford’s part. Disappointing because the Mach-E looked like it might be one of the best non-Tesla EVs a few years ago.

I’ll await more info but it’s really not good to get this wrong. When you’re designing a machine powered by a battery, one of the most basic engineering decisions is picking wiring and contacts appropriate for connecting the battery to the motor. This would be less egregious if it were a manufacturing defect caused by improper electrical bonding, but NHTSA is saying it’s a design error. If they actually just misjudged the peak current load and picked the wrong wire size, that’s simply pathetic.

Number of potentially involved : 48,924 Estimated percentage with defect : 100 %
Direct Current (“DC”) fast charging and repeated wide open pedal events can cause the high voltage battery main contactors to overheat. Overheating may lead to arcing and deformation of the electrical contact surfaces, which can result in a contactor that remains open or a contactor that welds closed.
The design and part-to-part variation of the high voltage battery main contactor is not robust to the heat generated during DC fast charging and multiple wide open pedal events.
 
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Seems like model Y has another price increase.

If someone's Allstate insurance paid for full replacement cost on a new Model Y including all options, then all the sudden that someone had a choice between waiting out early deposits on a Dual or Tri motor CyberTruck, or order another Model Y LR with FSD, which one would come first? There would be preference for the Truck, cuz it's a truck, presumably it can tow an electric boat someday. The Model Y ???

If they close tomorrow, it's the higher price?
 

If I’m understanding this recall notice correctly, this was a serious mistake on Ford’s part. Disappointing because the Mach-E looked like it might be one of the best non-Tesla EVs a few years ago.

I’ll await more info but it’s really not good to get this wrong. When your designing a machine powered by a battery, one of the most basic design decisions is picking wiring and contacts appropriate for connecting the battery to the motor. It would be less egregious if this were a manufacturing defect caused by improper electrical bonding, but NHTSA is saying it’s a design error. If they actually just misjudged the peak current load and picked the wrong wire size, that’s simply pathetic.

Number of potentially involved : 48,924 Estimated percentage with defect : 100 %
Direct Current (“DC”) fast charging and repeated wide open pedal events can cause the high voltage battery main contactors to overheat. Overheating may lead to arcing and deformation of the electrical contact surfaces, which can result in a contactor that remains open or a contactor that welds closed.
The design and part-to-part variation of the high voltage battery main contactor is not robust to the heat generated during DC fast charging and multiple wide open pedal events.
Agreed and to put it more bluntly, they've either pushed to far with the limits of the drivetrain and were complicit, naive or ignorant. None of those are going to end well.

And I'd bet money there are several engineers who tried to stop it but we're overridden by managers.

For instance, we hired a few engineers who left ICE due to issues that fell on deaf ears before "dieselgate" broke.
 
OK folks, the Fed is done. Elon is done selling shares. There's a meeting tomorrow with Twitter employees where hopefully a revised deal gets announced at a slightly lower price. Or maybe even the original offer.

Either way, we very likely get to put a bow on this entire chaotic downswing in less than 24hrs. With any luck, far less uncertainty on the other side of these Twitter comments.

I want everyone dressed, focused, and in rally mode 8:30am Eastern tomorrow!

Summer rally knocking at our doors?
 
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Seems like model Y has another price increase.

S/3/X prices are up too.


Average gross profit per car was $18k in Q1 and the average selling price was still at $52k—basically mid-2021 pricing.

$10-25k per car price increases have yet to materialize in the financials, and I strongly doubt this will be the last price hike. I can’t for the life of me figure out why nobody seems to be accounting for this in their models.

$52k + ~$15k = ~$67k

Not even accounting for mix shift away from 3, more FSD revenue, Cybertruck, Roadster, Semi, and more price increases. We haven’t even seen the actual price of Cybertrucks yet, notably the plaid quad motor. If S&X plaids are any guide…

I posted as far back as November that 3/Y gross margin would be approaching 40-50% by the end of this year and prices would keep rising.

On March 31st I showed projections for $100B profit in ‘23 based in part on forecasted ASP of $72k and some thought it was an early April Fool’s joke. It was not. I now think cost will probably be closer to $39k but at the rate we’re going, ASP might be more like $75k. It was not advice then, nor is it now, but I do genuinely predict this as the most likely outcome.

$100 billion 2023 net income is now what my model is projecting. WTF. Please help me if I've lost my mind.

I'll put out a detailed post soon, but here's the overview:

Auto
I derived the following numbers by looking at:
  • Expected product mix
  • Current Tesla.com prices
  • Estimates of take rate for FSD and paint/wheels/interior/tow hitch extras
  • Price increase trends
  • COGS trends and expected savings minus increased material costs and inflation
  • Manufacturing volume trends and upcoming factory capacity
Avg Price$ 72k
Avg COGS$ 35k
Avg Gross Profit per Vehicle$ 37k
Gross Margin51%
Deliveries3.6 M
Total Gross Profit$ 133B

Energy
This is necessarily more uncertain than auto because we have less information to go off of, but the Lathrop Megapack facility will be online and hopefully at scale by 2023.

Storage Deployment (GWh)40
Gross Profit
($$ billions per GWh)
$0.12
Energy Profit
($$ billions)
$5

Whole Business
Gross Profit$ 138B
Operating Expenses$ 12B
Net Income before income tax$ 126B
After 21% tax$ 100B
Earnings per share$ 88

Sensitivity analysis shows by far the most important uncertainty is for delivery volume and FSD take rate. Both of these have wide possible ranges and both majorly impact profits.

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL.

A whole lot of excellent things are all coming together in the next year or so, that's how. I couldn't believe it at first.
  • Price increase lag time is around 6-9 months because of the backlog. Q4 21's 30.6% gross margin came from prices set by Tesla around Q2 21. Over that time period, prices across the vehicle lineup went up about 10% and then even more in Q1 2022. We have about 15% total price increases that have not yet hit the financials!! Today in the US for example, $63k is the bare minimum price for a Model Y LR, vs $50k in Jan 2021. I expect prices will likely continue to increase because demand keeps blowing up, and thus I modelled for a $3k bump, which would represent a drastic slowdown of the demand trend.

  • Mix is improving. Model Y, S and X with higher trims are increasing their share of production. Initial Cybertruck sales will probably be expensive trims only.

  • Tesla is now forcing FSD take rates higher by prioritizing those orders, and FSD will increase in price, and FSD may have 100% revenue recognition by 2023 if navigate on city streets is let out of beta

  • Across 2021, avg vehicle COGS fell by $1k

  • Berlin, Austin, and Shanghai expansion will bring both improved efficiency and also reduced costs for logistics and 10% EU import tariffs

  • Many Model Ys will have Battery Day tech saving even more cost while making the product better

  • Model Y already today sells for crazy high $70-80k prices in Europe (except Germany). Europe has massive unsatisfied demand. Berlin will feed this monstrous appetite.

First, for a top-down estimate let's consider Elon's recent guidance of 70-80+% annual growth. Even 80% growth from 0.95M gets us to 3.1M, but he sandbags this stuff now and said it might be higher than that in the future. 3.6M would be 95% annual growth, continuing the actual recent trend of almost doubling production annually.

View attachment 788411

I'll add more detail later but for now, I'm looking at 1 million from Berlin & Austin combined, 0.65 million from Fremont, and 2 million from Shanghai.

I'd put a 95% confidence interval for 2023 as 3-4 million (S-curve hard to predict, supply chain questions, new manufacturing tech, etc...)
 
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Anybody seen anything about this key card hack being addressed by Tesla? I've looked around TMC and seen no posts at all. There seem to be indications that the problem appeared in August, 2021. Sure sounds like a software update should fix it.


Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys—with no authentication required and zero indication given by the in-car display.
 
Fed rate hikes are currently the ultimate lagging indicator. And are causing instability not stability. There is no good reason for 0.75 with the current data. Hindsight is 20/20 but it seems obvious they have little to no idea what is happening with the economy. If they continue with 0.75 hikes this year we'll start to see rapid deflation.

On the flip side, staying with 0.75 will help Tesla as it is going to hurt legacy ICE.

Legacy ICE pain going up.
 
Anybody seen anything about this key card hack being addressed by Tesla? I've looked around TMC and seen no posts at all. There seem to be indications that the problem appeared in August, 2021. Sure sounds like a software update should fix it.


Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys—with no authentication required and zero indication given by the in-car display.
Evidence isn't provided. Possibly FUD. Happy to review when available...
 
Consumer Reports had the Mustang Mach-E as the only electric vehicle in their 10 Top Picks for the 2022 Auto Issue published in April. 260 vehicle models were evaluated in total.

In the $45k+ BEV category, Mach-E had their top score, beating all Tesla models, ID.4, Polestar 2, Taycan, Étron, and I-Pace.

Mach-E received the highest ratings for “Predicted Reliability” of the bunch, while Y, S & X and the E-Tron received the lowest possible reliability score. Also apparently Teslas have extremely poor “Usability”— a category for which I could find no definition in the entire magazine, so I’ll just trust the expert opinion of Consumer Reports. Mach-E had top marks for predicted reliability for all drivetrain-related features.

Melting high-voltage battery contactors, inadequate windshield and roof glass adhesive bonding, loose subframe bolts, powertrain control module software bugs causing unintended acceleration/deceleration/loss of drivetrain power, and improper rear seatbelt attachments are minor problems, so it makes sense that Consumer Reports gave the Mach-E top marks in all reliability subcategories except climate control and in-car electronics.

Relying solely on the voluntary responses to CR’s Annual Auto Survey is an excellent method for objectively and accurately measuring vehicle reliability. Surveys are the gold standard in science so I commend their choice as well as their decision to leave out any caveats regarding potential sampling bias or response bias influencing the results, because everyone already knows that so saying it would be redundant. The colors in the results tables are very pretty, which is the best indication that the data was compiled by professionals.

CR also rightfully praised the driver monitoring system for Mach-E GT’s Blue Cruise while criticizing Tesla Autopilot for enabling drivers to deliberately break the law by covering the camera, cheating the wheel touch sensor and not paying attention to the road. Consumer Reports provided no evaluation of the capabilities and performance of the various automated driving assistance systems, because that’s obviously not important; forcing adults to make basic responsible decisions is really all that matters. It’s too bad cars today still allow drivers to run red lights, exceed the speed limit, and neglect to use turn signals.

I wonder if their 2023 rankings will differ. Maybe it will be the Taycan’s time to shine.

Not relying on voluntary responses (opinions, and obviously not an unbiased survey) but from from owner's ratings

Via Sawyer Merritt on Twitter and Eva on Tesmanian (skipping Fred's Trek just because )

Tesla has a higher satisfaction rating than any other auto brand, according to new Global Happy Motorist Index via Zutobi.

Top 3:
1: Tesla: Average Rating of 4.53
2: Land Rover: Average Rating of 4.3
3: Mazda: Average Rating of 4.3



Tesla.highest.ownership.ratings.800.jpg



 
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If someone's Allstate insurance paid for full replacement cost on a new Model Y including all options, then all the sudden that someone had a choice between waiting out early deposits on a Dual or Tri motor CyberTruck, or order another Model Y LR with FSD, which one would come first? There would be preference for the Truck, cuz it's a truck, presumably it can tow an electric boat someday.

They could also pick up a used Y then sell it when Cyber comes along... seems like a better plan maybe.
Any plan which involves getting an unreleased vehicle at a specific date and time seems.. sketchy to me.

Get the car you can get then deal with Cybertruck purchase when you can get it. Unless you have other transport and this is a spare vehicle.
 
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Anybody seen anything about this key card hack being addressed by Tesla? I've looked around TMC and seen no posts at all. There seem to be indications that the problem appeared in August, 2021. Sure sounds like a software update should fix it.


Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys—with no authentication required and zero indication given by the in-car display.
It does not seem worrisome at all, given:
  1. Use of the NFC key card vs. phone key in real world use is relatively uncommon.
  2. The researcher lays out some relatively easy software fixes for this, and
  3. It takes a bold thief to try this with a car that has additional detective security controls including gps tracking and live video feeds.