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

[LodiEVFan]

So hysterical. By the middle means by 2025. So GM has a little less then 2.5 years to catch up.

No way, Jose!!!

 

[Nocturnal]

It’s true. Atmospheric CO2 market share essentially peaked at 4,000 parts per million in the Cambrian Period and we believe it’s unlikely to reach those levels ever again due to strong competition from plants.

I always show people this picture when they claim that CO2 doesn't matter, or "it's actually good because more plants grow!". (in the Cretaceous period CO2 levels were about 4-5x what they are today)

You know, I take it back. I'd be just a couple hours from the beach.

 

[Troy]

Final update - now with Rob Maurer's numbers:
View attachment 830399

I wish there was a table like this for estimates for Automotive Gross Margin Excluding Regulatory Credits. I expect it to increase from 30.0% in Q1 to 31.1% in Q2 despite Giga Shanghai shutdowns and two new factories. It seems everybody else disagrees but I have to go with what my calculation shows.

 

[Gigapress]

Tesla has expanded Shanghai footprint to accommodate all the extra unit growth (Shanghai factory is far larger today than it was when the first model 3 rolled out). Is there any sign that Berlin is preparing to imminently build another similar size structure to accommodate a doubling of capacity by mid-2024?

Giga Berlin has a lot more land than Giga Shanghai, and it appears that much of it is already cleared and leveled for construction.

I measured Giga Berlin's current factory building on Google Maps at 310m x 670m = ~21 hectares. This is just for the main building, not for the paved areas and ancillary buildings. Tesla already owns ~300 hectares of land and as @Knightshade linked, Tesla is trying to buy ~100 hectares more for even more expansion. Even if that deal fails, Tesla has lots of room for expansion on the land they already own.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1522166219800985602

Also bear in mind that Berlin (and Austin) should be able to squeeze out more cars per hectare of factory area because they will be making:

• Model Ys only
  • Easier to build than 3
• with front castings, not just rear
  • Smaller body shop
• and with structural packs
  • More people can access car at each production cell in General Assembly
• using presumably the newer multi-story factory design shown partially to the public in Austin at Cyber Rodeo

The public goal for Giga Berlin's annual capacity is 1 million vehicles. Shanghai's nominal capacity even today is ">450,000" as indicated in the last quarterly report. They're approaching double that already. What are the odds that Tesla is totally lying about how much Berlin can do with a bigger site and better factory?

 

[The Accountant]

I wish there was a table like this for estimates for Automotive Gross Margin Excluding Regulatory Credits. I expect it to increase from 30.0% in Q1 to 31.1% in Q2 despite Giga Shanghai shutdowns and two new factories. It seems everybody else disagrees but I have to go with what my calculation shows.

I'll try to put something together tomorrow before earnings are released.

 

[PKEllefsen]

The first 12-month period in which Shanghai produced ~500k cars was from Jan ‘21 thru Dec ‘21. This was roughly their second year of production, roughly corresponding to Jul ‘23 thru Jun ‘24 for B&A’s timeline.

Over 2021, Shanghai’s production rate grew a staggering 2.69x from 25k in Jan to 67k in Dec, leaving them with a 0.8M annualized run rate at the end. If B&A followed the same timeline, they’d hit that 0.8M rate by Apr ‘24 while still growing at a healthy pace, which puts overall ‘24 production at around 1M for each factory.

That’s still assuming B&A don’t ramp substantially faster than Shanghai did, so it’s conservative if anything.

Troy's comment about Giga Berlin from his patreon:
"In the past, I used to hear about plans to add mirror buildings to the Giga Berlin site that would double or triple the current 500K/year capacity. However, those plans seem to be scrapped now." (updated in june)

Giga Berlin's current factory has been built to support a production rate of 500K vehicles annually. Lets say they will over-deliver on this target and they manage to push 600-750K out of this factory, then we still have som problem when 2024 comes if we're reaching for a million. They haven't started production of their next building/factory in berlin yet, and even if they started now it would take a couple of years before we could expect high volume from it.

Tesla started building their current factory in berlin july 1st 2020, and now 2-years later we're at 1000-vehicles weekly run rate and we're probably 8-10 months away from having produced 200K vehicles. So in this case it will take them around 3 years from starting the production of the factory to producing 200K vehicles. If we lower this to half the time (1,5 years), we still wouldn't get 200K production from this building in 2024 unless they would have started a month ago. This should in theory mean that giga berlin should be capped at 500 - 750K vehicles for 2024, maybe a bit more if they start production of the next factory within the next couple of months.

I'd say adding 750K deliveries from Berlin we're already making a lot of assumptions in Tesla's favor (which i guess is okay as they usually over-deliver).

 

[Gigapress]

@The Accountant Do you keep any of this on a public view-only file like Google Sheets? I think a lot of people in the community would like that.

 

[The Accountant]

@The Accountant Do you keep any of this on a public view-only file like Google Sheets? I think a lot of people in the community would like that.

I don't but I will consider it.

 

[Mengy]

@The Accountant Do you keep any of this on a public view-only file like Google Sheets? I think a lot of people in the community would like that.

Gotta admit that would be very handy.

 

[Gigapress]

Troy's comment about Giga Berlin from his patreon:
"In the past, I used to hear about plans to add mirror buildings to the Giga Berlin site that would double or triple the current 500K/year capacity. However, those plans seem to be scrapped now." (updated in june)

I didn't know that and that's somewhat disappointing. I'd still expect the expansion phases of construction to move more quickly than the initial plant.

• COVID is less of a factor now
• The bats/snakes/ants are already taken care of on the cleared areas
• Many of the permits have already cleared the government processes
• Tesla already has experience building in Germany since this won't be their first time

If nothing else, expansion at Austin can pick up the slack if Berlin's expansion is falling behind and they'll be battery constrained anyway so it doesn't really matter much how the finite supply of batteries (and battery raw materials) is allocated between the two factories. In any case I'd expect around 2M combined between them in 2024.

Giga Berlin's current factory has been built to support a production rate of 500K vehicles annually. Lets say they will over-deliver on this target and they manage to push 600-750K out of this factory, then we still have some problems when 2024 comes if we're reaching for a million. They haven't started production of their next building/factory in berlin yet, and even if they started now it would take a couple of years before we could expect high volume from it.

Tesla started building their current factory in berlin july 1st 2020, and now 2-years later we're at 1000-vehicles weekly run rate and we're probably 8-10 months away from having produced 200K vehicles. So in this case it will take them around 3 years from starting the production of the factory to producing 200K vehicles. If we lower this to half the time (1,5 years), we still wouldn't get 200K production from this building in 2024 unless they would have started a month ago.

The additional portions of Giga Shanghai ramped production drastically faster than the initial factory. That's why the overall Tesla China production rate almost tripled in 2021.

The holdup at Berlin right now seems to be a mix of supply shortages, training local personnel, working on the new paint shop, and other stuff with the new production techniques. Simply installing new lines at the same site is a lot easier. Local German (and Polish) workers from the first plant can directly help train the new workers for the expansions.

Also, recall that Berlin was ready to start low-rate initial production and had to wait idle for 6 months for the government to finish all the approvals. Actual construction of the first factory building began in May '20 and was completed in Oct '21, for 18 months of flow time. If Tesla started expansion construction in perhaps Sep '22 and did the job in 15 months this time, the factory would be completed by the end of 2023.

 

[FlatSix911]

Tune in for the earnings call tomorrow afternoon.

Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2022 financial results preview: Here's what to expect

Tesla (TSLA) is set to announce its second-quarter 2022 financial results on Wednesday, July 20, after the markets close. As...

electrek.co

Tesla Q2 2022 revenue
"For revenue, analysts generally have a pretty good idea of what to expect, thanks to the delivery numbers, but it is harder this quarter to adjust down instead of up this time. The Wall Street consensus for this quarter is $16.521 billion, and Estimize, the financial estimate crowdsourcing website, predicts a significantly higher revenue of $17.186 billion.

It’s rare that the range is this significant, but it is to be expected with this quarter’s conditions. It is also interesting that revenue estimates are not that far off from the previous quarter, despite already knowing that Tesla delivered about 50,000 fewer vehicles this time around. Here are the predictions for Tesla’s revenue over the past two years: Estimize predictions are in blue, Wall Street consensus are in gray, and actual results are in green:"

 

[PKEllefsen]

The additional portions of Giga Shanghai ramped production drastically faster than the initial factory. That's why the overall Tesla China production rate almost tripled in 2021.

The holdup at Berlin right now seems to be a mix of supply shortages, training local personnel, working on the new paint shop, and other stuff with the new production techniques. Simply installing new lines at the same site is a lot easier. Local German (and Polish) workers from the first plant can directly help train the new workers for the expansions.

Also, recall that Berlin was ready to start low-rate initial production and had to wait idle for 6 months for the government to finish all the approvals. Actual construction of the first factory building began in May '20 and was completed in Oct '21, for 18 months of flow time. If Tesla started expansion construction in perhaps Sep '22 and did the job in 15 months this time, the factory would be completed by the end of 2023.

Well, if tesla can add more than 500K production in a year in texas i'll surely take my hats off to Elon once again. I've adjusted my deliveries from both berlin and texas slightly higher, but i'm still crossing my fingers that we'll start seeing some new factory announcements soon so 50% compound growth will look somewhat easier to achieve form 2025 and outwards.

 

[Gigapress]

Well, if tesla can add more than 500K production in a year in texas i'll surely take my hats off to Elon once again. I've adjusted my deliveries from both berlin and texas slightly higher, but i'm still crossing my fingers that we'll start seeing some new factory announcements soon so 50% compound growth will look somewhat easier to achieve form 2025 and outwards.

Yeah, it would be a serious accomplishment. Likewise, if I don't hear in the coming months about imminent pouring of concrete in Brandenburg I'll revise my Berlin estimates for 2024 downward.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

Your extended analitical level of thinking from all angles is truly amazing. Apprently you assumed that lawsuits just don't happen anywhrere else omiting all positive aspects of getting factory near Berlin.

This forum is just priceless.

You're assuming I'm only basing my opinion on lawsuits. I'm basing my opinion on the urgency which Elon embraces the mission and how the German bureaucracy makes urgency impossible. The The German Bureaucracy and the pace which Elon wants to move are incompatible.

 

[GOVA]

You're assuming I'm only basing my opinion on lawsuits. I'm basing my opinion on the urgency which Elon embraces the mission and how the German bureaucracy makes urgency impossible. The The German Bureaucracy and the pace which Elon wants to move are incompatible.

Look, I am surprised you are trying to make a case out of it.

The benefits to have a Tesla Giga Factory in (near) Berlin are hard to comprehend and are vastly outnumbering any negatives.

Lawsuits can happen in many places.
Bureaucracy has been handled 'Tesla way' that even Germans are surprised at so called now "Tesla Speed"

The GigaBerlin has already been producing cars and is expanding. The engineering talent available in Germany, Poland and frankly most of the EU is hard to come by.

Some weirdos suing are a very big nothingburger and I don't like it either.

 

[The Accountant]

I wish there was a table like this for estimates for Automotive Gross Margin Excluding Regulatory Credits. I expect it to increase from 30.0% in Q1 to 31.1% in Q2 despite Giga Shanghai shutdowns and two new factories. It seems everybody else disagrees but I have to go with what my calculation shows.

Here is the update with Auto GM excluding Regulatory Credits.
For Matt Smith's GM, I also excluded his one time gain of Deferred FSD recognition.

Troy has the highest GM at 31.1%. I am next with 29.4% followed by Rob Maurer at 29.1%.
I will be happy to get the consolation prize and see a 31% margin print.

 

[dhanson865]

You can just upload a statement to confirm your share count.

I have shares in 5 different accounts, it had an option to upload 1 file. I suppose I could have spent time with screenshots of multiple accounts and combined them into one file but it said it was optional. I'm not sure how they will attempt to verify since I didn't upload anything.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Macros co-operating currently based on futures.....gonna be a wild one tomorrow for $TSLA....glad i have my degenerate TMC fam to cheer $TSLA on tomorrow!

 

[MC3OZ]

You're assuming I'm only basing my opinion on lawsuits. I'm basing my opinion on the urgency which Elon embraces the mission and how the German bureaucracy makes urgency impossible. The The German Bureaucracy and the pace which Elon wants to move are incompatible.

Tesla and German Bureaucracy are no longer complete strangers.

If Tesla wants to expand GF Berlin, they probably know what paperwork needs to be lodged, and how long the approvals process can take etc.

I would expect that any formal DA and a starting of an approvals process would leak.

The alterative might be a factory elsewhere in Europe, the approvals process might be streamlined, but getting experienced staff to set up the factory might be more difficult.

The other issue is Berlin based 4680 cell production, and/or alternative cell supplies. If they don't have the battery cells lined up, there is no point is starting on the car factory.

Expanding Berlin makes sense, so I think it will eventually happen, but it is almost certain that we will know about it before construction starts.

 

[Troy]

@The Accountant, thank you very much for updating the table. I love auto gross margin excluding reg credits.