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

[M|S|M MYP]

C'mon yall....one day of $TSLA down and the bickering resumes.....There are good time ahead....I promise!!!

 

[thesmokingman]

There are good time ahead....I promise!!!

Long term yea, totally. But from now till the split, expect more shenanigans.

 

[StealthP3D]

C'mon yall....one day of $TSLA down and the bickering resumes.....There are good time ahead....I promise!!!

I know, it's pathetic. There is something seriously wrong with almost half the people here.

TSLA is down 3% for the week but we are up 23.6% for the last month. Some people seem to think this is a one-week race. I feel like I'm hanging with a bunch of 5 year olds who have never played this game before.

 

[Skryll]

Long term yea, totally. But from now till the split, expect more shenanigans.

which is when?

 

[thesmokingman]

which is when?

End of August. Oh and 17th is the day of record, and 25th iirc is the split.

 

[insaneoctane]

FWIW, chip constraints have abated where we are. From common microcontrollers to LDOs and much else. Tesla may be limited by a shortage of a single type of chip, though. *shrugs*

Try to buy ANY raspberry pi....

 

[Artful Dodger]

I know, it's pathetic. There is something seriously wrong with almost half the people here.

TSLA is down 3% for the week but we are up 23.6% for the last month. Some people seem to think this is a one-week race. I feel like I'm hanging with a bunch of 5 year olds who have never played this game before.

Yup. Pobody's Nerfect.

Cheers!

 

[samppa]

At ~9.5 yrs and 165K miles old, my 85 (once replaced with a refurb one of similar capacity) is at about 235... about 11% degradation.

Aand we just repaired a broken 85 pack. Tesla was gonna charge 15k to replace the battery, problem was in one module's electronics so was quite easy to fix.

Time to start setting up shop for battery repairs.

 

[Buckminster]

Split coming in 2.5 weeks. 100,000,000 (RT capable) vehicles in the fleet in 10 years.

 

[hobbes]

Aand we just repaired a broken 85 pack. Tesla was gonna charge 15k to replace the battery, problem was in one module's electronics so was quite easy to fix.

Time to start setting up shop for battery repairs.

Don´t forget to equip your shop with a dry-ice blaster...

 

[CorneliusXX]

and also that the 4680 ramp is going pretty well

I don't know if I'd classify the ramp as going pretty well. It's ok, fine, etc. but it's certainly behind the original schedule now and there's 6-12 months to get volume production up to speed before it starts to have an impact on growth expectations - which again is fine but nothing to write home about.

If the cell ramp does get delayed further and we end up with lower than expected growth in 2023 then that will have an impact on the stock price until the problem is resolved. Exiting 2022 at a 2m production rate means we'll already have a minimum of around 40% growth baked in for 2023 - a strong result but below guidance (although I don't know where Austin/Berlin will get enough NMC cells to reach 500k/yr MY capacity each without Tesla cells - possibly they will need to start producing LFP MY).

We would also end up with lower than expected margins if we have a couple of factories that remain below production capacity or need to tilt the product mix towards SR MYs with LFP packs.

It isn't a long term concern but 2023/4 could see a few bumps in the road when comparing to 50% annual growth. Even at battery day I was expecting the stated timelines to slip due to the huge amount of new technology going into the process - Elon even says that he specialised in turning impossible into late.

 

[CorneliusXX]

It is obvious that at some point there will need to be a Tesla Finance division. Let's call it Tesla Bank perhaps. After all Tesla will in time be providing significant touchpoints with a lot of the world's economically active population :
- 20m of ~80m vehicles per year to the world, 25% market share;
- maybe 15% market share of the world's energy storage;
- maybe 10% market share of the world's charger network;
- whatever % of the world's personal robot share; and
- partnering ~80%+ of the world's satellite communications icw Starlink, likely using vehicles in some sort of nodal sense in time; and
- loads of other relevant stuff in the compute / mobility / communicate / energy spaces.

Given all this there is not obviously a great deal of benefit in terms of accelerating the mission by buying Twitter, that only (max) serves maybe 400m users (of 8bn people in world), perhaps 5% of the global population. It certainly seems possible to do pretty much everything organically from within Tesla if one chooses to do so. Certainly no reason to overpay.

Agree on the loads of other stuff:

If Tesla gets into home heat pumps/HVAC, Solar roof takes off, and assuming some level of ancillary upgrades (insulation, under floor radiation needed to improve the performance of heat pumps) the total price could be substantial enough that Tesla can get into the mortgage market to re-finance peoples mortgages to fund the upgrades.

If you've already got these various loans with Tesla then it just makes sense for them to spin up a fully fledged bank/financial services company. There's plenty of people that would have more faith in Tesla than many of the existing commercial banks.

I'm surprised Apple/Google never got into this area in a bigger way given all the payments they handle - perhaps tech co's want to avoid additional regulatory scrutiny.

 

[MC3OZ]

I don't know if I'd classify the ramp as going pretty well. It's ok, fine, etc. but it's certainly behind the original schedule now and there's 6-12 months to get volume production up to speed before it starts to have an impact on growth expectations - which again is fine but nothing to write home about.

If the cell ramp does get delayed further and we end up with lower than expected growth in 2023 then that will have an impact on the stock price until the problem is resolved. Exiting 2022 at a 2m production rate means we'll already have a minimum of around 40% growth baked in for 2023 - a strong result but below guidance (although I don't know where Austin/Berlin will get enough NMC cells to reach 500k/yr MY capacity each without Tesla cells - possibly they will need to start producing LFP MY).

We would also end up with lower than expected margins if we have a couple of factories that remain below production capacity or need to tilt the product mix towards SR MYs with LFP packs.

It isn't a long term concern but 2023/4 could see a few bumps in the road when comparing to 50% annual growth. Even at battery day I was expecting the stated timelines to slip due to the huge amount of new technology going into the process - Elon even says that he specialised in turning impossible into late.

The CATL factory just down the road from GF Shanghai is being built with a capacity of 70 GWh of a LFP/Managese battery.

As well, the cathode plant at Austin should be complete by the end of the year.

The 4680 lines at Austin have up to 100 GWh capacity.

There are 4680 production issues, but a few possible moves that might partially compensate.

IMO they have 4-5 months to try to sort things out. Worst case CATL can build factories fast.

 

[jw934]

it just makes sense for them to spin up a fully fledged bank/financial services company.

I would not want to see any large portion of Tesla profit coming from financial service instead of industrial production. The PE ratio of banking sector is only a small fraction that of the industrial sector.

Tesla insurance will be the opportunity for Tesla to develop that its financial service and financial customer service operations and reputation. It is showing improvement in dealing with government hurdles to set up more shops in different States and countries.

 

[petit_bateau]

Sadly, I disagree on Brazil. The skilled workforce is aging, and many qualified engineers have been emigrating. There is a large auto industry, and some, notably CAOA have managed excellent quality for the vehicles they build. However, there is not a good way to absorb 1.5 million or more in all of Mercosur. However, a plant in Mexico could supply Mercosur and all of North America. A Mexican plant seems likely to be quite high on the consideration list.

I think Elon has made it very clear that they won't build a GigaFactory in a country that doesn't already have a proven market for Tesla. So that means that they have to already have a presence there with stores, service centers, Superchargers, etc.

So if you want to figure out where they would put the next one look for a country that is importing a lot of Teslas and isn't really close to an existing GigaFactory... (I don't know maybe somewhere like Canada, UK/Australia, etc.)

@unk45 : Re Brazil workforce that is interesting, especially as it differs from my personal observation. I am used to visiting clients in Brazil, at their factories that range from mid-tech to high-tech. My observation has been that whilst there is a lot of competition for skilled workforce, so too is there sufficiency of supply coming through the system. I'm also used to Brazilian made vehicles all over Mercosur. In Mercosur at present I cannot envisage anyone putting an automotive factory in Argentina until they have proved they can run a stable political and economic system for at least a decade (which is to say, never). Which really only leaves Brazil as a viable choice. In my opinion there is a sufficient market to absorb two lines of product (a 3 and a Y line) which gives time for the 2/Z, and the van products to become available, both of which would be sufficient to take a Brazil-based factory to 2m/yr or so.

@MP3Mike : However you make a very valid point re the unproven nature of the Brazil market wrt Tesla. There is no Tesla Supercharger network or sales & service network in Brazil.

Given this, if Tesla are seeking focus then the obvious choices are either USA, EU, or China. However if Tesla are seeking some form of further diversification at this stage then there are only three other countries that meet the tests of being a proven & sufficient market* with existing Tesla networks: Mexico, South Korea, Japan. So really that gives Tesla six candidate areas to choose from depending on how Tesla prioritises the various factors in their selection mix. I am unsure of the extent to which Mexico has any better access into Mercosur though, as a way of testing/developing the Brazil market - didn't the 2002 FTA process run into quicksand ? Can anyone comment knowledgeably on that ?

Which is to say that a lot of people will be taking a keen interest in the movements of Tesla senior management team over the next six months.

* I exclude Australia due to it probably being an insufficient market, and Turkey is a basket case right now under the madness of Erdogan (besides which, if you zoom in on the red dots in Turkey, they turn a disappointing grey).

Find Us | Tesla

Use the interactive Find Us map to locate Tesla charging stations, service centers, galleries and stores on the go.

www.tesla.com

 

[unk45]

The question used to be "what came 1st, the chicken or the egg?" Going forward, I think the question will be "what came first, the Gigafactory or the Teslabot?"

Unlimited, scalable, and dependable labour could make factories practical even where no infrastructure exists. Like on Mars, which I think is the whole idea.

Cheers!

There is no doubt that Elon said such things could happen. He explicitly said human labor would cease to be a constraint in GNP. That puts us squarely in Isaac Asimov territory, without the complete replication of human form. This is inconceivable to nearly all humans. what will humans do then?

It seems probable that there will be reduced demand for unskilled labor and increased demand for the highest skills. Medicine, Law, Retailing, Hotels, Restaurants…what happens socially and economically when human work is accomplished by robots at a generalized level?

Somehow I think a factory located in skilled labor short areas might be only the proverbial ‘canary in a coal mine’.

 

[jw934]

The CATL factory just down the road from GF Shanghai is being built

As for a US factory, we will need to wait and see,



Quote: Aug 4, 2022 -

” Following Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL) has decided to postpone a decision on a factory in North America until autumn.

The word is CATL decided to postpone announcing the location for its planned factory in North America until September or October this year.
”
if they do decide to build, it will certainly help many automaker make some of their cars incentive compliant.

Link:

CATL delays decision on US plant after Pelosi visit to Taiwan​

Edit: Sorry, just clarified that I am referring to the North American planned factory, not CATL’s Shanghai factory.

 

[MC3OZ]

We’ll see.

Aug 4, 2022 - 04:02 pm

CATL delays decision on US plant after Pelosi visit to Taiwan​

The factory I was talking about is in Shanghai.

A delay on the CATL factory in the US isn't ideal, but Ford or Rivian might also be the intended customer.

If Tesla runs short of cells, the Semi and energy storage are the most likely products to be impacted. Perhaps also Cybertruck production volumes.

I am not worried, because there is nothing we can do about it, and I expect Tesla has some sort of plan B.

 

[Creekstalker]

OT: In catching up with the last 10 pages or so, I've had the sudden revelation that I was wrong about the need for a border wall.

We need one. Now.

Build that sucker.

Right in between the options thread and the investors thread.

Make The Investor's Roundtable Great Again

 

[heltok]

I don't know if I'd classify the ramp as going pretty well. It's ok, fine, etc. but it's certainly behind the original schedule now and there's 6-12 months to get volume production up to speed before it starts to have an impact on growth expectations - which again is fine but nothing to write home about.

If the cell ramp does get delayed further and we end up with lower than expected growth in 2023 then that will have an impact on the stock price until the problem is resolved. Exiting 2022 at a 2m production rate means we'll already have a minimum of around 40% growth baked in for 2023 - a strong result but below guidance (although I don't know where Austin/Berlin will get enough NMC cells to reach 500k/yr MY capacity each without Tesla cells - possibly they will need to start producing LFP MY).

We would also end up with lower than expected margins if we have a couple of factories that remain below production capacity or need to tilt the product mix towards SR MYs with LFP packs.

It isn't a long term concern but 2023/4 could see a few bumps in the road when comparing to 50% annual growth. Even at battery day I was expecting the stated timelines to slip due to the huge amount of new technology going into the process - Elon even says that he specialised in turning impossible into late.

I think we have another case of Elon timelines. He says 100GWh/y by the end of the year. They fail at and it takes until mid 2023 before they get there. Meanwhile VW and Northvolt sets their target of 150GWh for 2030. Which one do you prefer?