IDRA parent has production facilities in China which was source for Giga Shanghai and possibly some others too. They are expanding and have delivered to at least one nonTesla Producer according to reports I think to be reliable.
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Technically RACE has the industry highest margins year after year. Admittedly Ferrari in a limited case. Porsche typically matches or exceeds Tesla gross margins. Even BMW has done it sometimes. We need not use superlatives for Tesla in this respect when there are so many others,
Otherwise I agree with your post.
I am sympathetic to your focus on the mission but Giga is correct and yes the bigger the better.
Really the path (the mission) requires “gigantic” to move the world to a new place.
It is not all about efficiency and capacity but about enormous scale and the ability to roll over every one of the many obstacles and skulduggery still before us IMO.
Bazinga!
www.marketwatch.com
New registration data shows how Tesla is doing among luxury cars and EVs; here’s what’s catching up
Tesla faces new competition every day, but its lead in the U.S. luxury field just keeps growing.
www.marketwatch.com
Ah, that sounds much more reasonable.
2daMoon
Mostly Harmless
I disagree.
Building more of what they are already building until they can exceed demand for current models is the most effective use of current resources and is what will do the most good. Adding Cybertruck (look at existing pickup sales compared to compacts) and Semi will support the mission better than will a compact car at a low price.
The other OEMs have demonstrated well just how they are hog-tied by offering too many models, tying up too many low volume production lines, and reducing their ability to easily expand volume and refine what they offer. There is no good reason for Tesla to follow their lead in this. It would be detrimental to the mission.
The current plan is to address the low-cost car market with Robotaxi, making not owning a car at all the most economically efficient choice for those customers who would otherwise buy a compact car. (with the caveat @ByeByeJohnny mentions below)
The demand is for transportation. Putting the vehicles on the road that will transport more people does not necessarily equal getting more cars to individual persons when having fewer cars carrying more people accomplishes the same thing and furthers the mission better.
Another advantage to getting more of the larger 3/Y/CT vehicles into higher usage (70% instead of 10% daily) is how more batteries will then be available to apply to energy, Optimus, etc. and address more of the known issues like fossil fuel power plants, labor shortage, etc.
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Worth reading.Bazinga!
New registration data shows how Tesla is doing among luxury cars and EVs; here’s what’s catching up
Tesla faces new competition every day, but its lead in the U.S. luxury field just keeps growing.
“According to Experian, Americans registered 179,574 new Tesla vehicles in the first five months of 2022. That’s a 66% increase over 2021 numbers from the same period. BMW took second, with 133,209 new registrations — an 11% drop. Lexus came in third, at 112,296 — a decline of 19%.
Those aren’t numbers for electric cars. They’re numbers for cars. Tesla became America’s best-selling luxury automaker in the fourth quarter of 2021. Its lead over the field appears to be growing.”
The Accountant
Active Member
Thanks for the heads-up.
TE actually arrives at $2.00. He does an "experiment" at the end of his video reducing margins by 1% and arrives at $1.90 to note it is still above WS consensus. So I will go with $2.00 as his official forecast for the quarter.
Also - There are conflicting reports on consensus. We have seen $1.73 reported but Gary Black has it at $1.84. I will go with Gary's number for now until there is more clarity here.
ByeByeJohnny
Active Member
I think I agree with everyone to some degree in this discussion.
Bigger is better.
More profit is better.
In the end maximum ICE miles replaced by EV miles is better.
However if I thought Tesla really was putting everything on the line for robotaxis with no backup plan I would probably be selling in a year or two.
IF robotaxis doesn't become viable in the next 2-3 years Tesla will run out of customers that can or want to pay 60k+ for even an EV car. I believe price will be a limiting factor somewhere around 4-5 million cars. This is only about 3 years out and with Elons track record for estimating when robotaxis will be ready it is far from certain they will be ready before then.
By the way if Elon really is convinced it will be Tesla better have started some work on robotaxi cars by now. Just like they better have started some work on whatever the next volume vehicle that is not a robotaxi will be.
Elon said 'Well, we're not currently working on the -- on a $25,000 car. We -- you know, at some point, we will'
That leaves enough loopholes for Tesla to be anywhere in their plans for a (not) model 2.
1. They had done some work but had it paused because they were ahead of schedule.
2. They hadn't started when Elon said this but 'at some point' has now happened.
3. There was no work on a $25k car but there was on a $26k car.
The Accountant
Active Member
Excellent point !!
I think energy storage is greatly overlooked and underappreciated by analysts. The demand is there. If Tesla can obtain the chips and batteries to utilize this new capacity we will see huge operating profits from the energy business. The same explosive operating leverage we saw with auto in 2021/2022 will occur with energy very soon.
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I've heard some make the argument that the market for a 60K Tesla is a whole lot bigger than the previous market for 60K luxury cars.
That is, because a Tesla provides more utility than other cars, more consumers are willing to forego something else, like a bigger house, in order to afford a Tesla.
The prime example is the iPhone. A lot of people who would have never dreamed of paying $1000 for a cell phone find a way to pay for an iPhone.
Or I can use myself as an example. I could have afforded it long ago, but I never bought an expensive car until I got my Model Y. I never cared about luxury interior and I really didn't want to be seen driving something ostentatious.
But a Tesla is a different kind of car. And as we all know it's not just different because it's an EV. It's a completely different product that happens to also provide transportation. Just like an iPhone happens to also make phone calls. Who really knows what the market size will be?
cliff harris
Member
Agreed, but its not just that. The current demand for tesla model Y/3 is the demand for a model y/3... GIVEN...
- Up to a year long waiting list in some countries/configurations
- Current size of the supercharger network
- Current availability of workplace/city center charging for people who cant charge at home
- Current wishful thinking that legacy cars companies will provide decent alternatives
All without advertising of course. If Tesla can keep up with the demand explosion created by all the above, then maybe then some judicious advertising could push the sales higher still.
I think we are a long way off Tesla having to panic about market saturation for 3/Y. Even if robotaxi never happens, I still think that with the current lineup + CT + Semi, Tesla will be a growth phenomena for another3 or more years.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
And circling back to the mission....it's not about Tesla itself replacing as many ICE vehicles as possible, it's about forcing the entire marketplace to transition.
Best way to force an entire market to move is to eat profit share until their boards all cave.
Look at the pressure Tesla is putting on Honda and Toyota. They must move now for they're dead. I would argue the whole market is better off if we leave the $25k segment to these players who can scale as rapidly as Tesla when they want to.
The Accountant
Active Member
FSD Beta v10.13 Release Notes
- Improved decision making for unprotected left turns using better
estimation of ego's interaction with other objects through the
maneuver.
- Improved stopping pose while yielding for crossing objects at
"Chuck Cook style" unprotected left turns by utilizing the median
safety regions.
- Made speed profile more comfortable when creeping for visibility,
to allow for smoother stops when protecting for potentially
occluded objects.
- Enabled creeping for visibility at any intersection where objects
might cross ego's path, regardless of presence of traffic controls.
- Improved lane position error bv 5% and lane recall bv 12% with a [cut]
- Improved lane position error of crossing and merging lanes by
22% by adding long-range skip connections and a more powerful
trunk to the network architecture.
- Improved pedestrian and bicyclist velocity error by 17%, especially
when ego is making a turn, by improving the onboard trajectory
estimation used as input to the neural network.
- Improved animal detection recall by 34% and decreased false
positives by 8% by doubling the size of the auto-labeled training
set.
- Improved detection recall of far away crossing vehicles by 4% by
tuning the loss function used during training and improving label
quality.
- Improved the "is parked" attribute for vehicles by 5% by adding
20% more examples to the training set.
- Upgraded the occupancy network to detect dynamic objects and
improved performance by adding a video module, tuning the loss
function, and adding 37k new clips to the training set.
- Reduced false slowdowns around crosswalks by better
classification of pedestrians and bicyclists as not intending to
interact with ego.
- Reduced false lane changes for cones or blockages by preferring
gentle offsetting in-lane where appropriate.
- Improved in-lane positioning on wide residential roads.
- Improved object future path prediction in scenarios with high yaw
rate.
- Improved speed limit sign accuracy on digital speed limits by 29%,
on signs with difficult relevance by 23%, on 3-digit speeds by 39%,
and on speed limit end signs by 62%. Neural network was trained
with 84% more examples in the training set and with architectural
changes [cut]
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ByeByeJohnny
Active Member
The market is bigger. Fuel saving alone would make that certain. How much bigger? I went with 20% being luxury cars and Tesla having 20% market share. Granted, Tesla will very likely remain well above 20% of that market for awhile. But there IS a limit to how many expensive cars can be sold. No matter how good or luxury they are.
The iPhone example comes up often. Obviously there are changes in what most people are willing to spend money on. A lot of people can adjust to paying a $1000 for something they really want (or as it happened have it payed over 24 months). Obviously a lot less will be able to do that for something 50-100 times as expensive.
Maybe the market is not 4-5 million cars. Maybe it's 6-7 million. We don't know, and neither does Tesla or anyone else. Does anyone really think it's anywhere close to 20 million though?
So it would be very prudent to be prepared for a smaller vehicle being needed. Even if they spend a billion on plans, designs and preparations and in the end throws it all out the window that is better than having no backup in 2025 or so.
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
My problem with modeling Tesla Energy is that I’ve got no idea what the gross profit will be per GWh of battery deployed.
However, considering that nearly the entire market assumes that Tesla Energy will continue to make no profit for years despite the Lathrop production ramp happening means Wall Street earnings estimates are even more ridiculous.
ByeByeJohnny
Active Member
I've said numerous times here, years ago, before Elon said something similar, that I believe energy will be a bigger business than vehicles.
Unfortunately I keep getting disappointed every quarter. I know there are reasons outside Teslas control but I still think it will happen.
My pet peeve is that just like Boring Company will show the world what tunnels can do by building a large scale system in Las Vegas, Tesla should show the world what they can do in energy by taking over an energy company. PG&E might have worked but maybe a smaller one would be easier and still get the point across.
You think culture shock was an issue with the Twitter buyout, that would be nothing compared to a Utility. Even the larger publicly held utilities feel like a government agency on the inside. I think it's a legacy of being municipality based, union impact. No competition allows that to continue.
"This process sucks. Here is how we can do it better."
"Sorry, that will piss off Debbie/Keith in position XYZ so we can't."
I've had this conversation countless times in my years as a Utility consultant. A company like Tesla coming in and cleaning house would be very enjoyable for me to watch.
The Accountant
Active Member
I once read (but can no longer find) a tweet by a Tesla employee who claimed that Powerwall margins were as high as 50% with the new pricing.
I have seen other claims of 30% for the Powerwall.
Elon's comment in Apr 2021:
"Tesla is already at good margins with the Powerwall, but some additional work is needed for the Megapack to achieve good margins,”
That was 15 months ago. Perhaps the Lathrop facility (along with ample chips and batteries) will generate the needed scale to achieve 30% margins on the Megapacks. At some point this will come; when is difficult to say.
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