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

[Todd Burch]

Damn it this looks real
We are doomed. $167 premarket now.
See you at $160 today. I trimmed 20% positions at $171

According to sources, Tesla cut electric vehicle production at its Chinese factory amid weak NEV sales growth and fierce market competition. Earlier this month, Tesla instructed employees at the Shanghai plant to reduce Model Y and Model 3 production and work 5 days a week instead of the usual 6 and a half days. As to when normal production will resume, employees have yet to receive clear updates. Tesla is facing increasing competition in China, and the automaker's shipments declined year over year in the first two months of 2024. Meanwhile, demand for electric vehicles is slowing in other major regions such as the US and Europe. Some production lines at Tesla's Shanghai plant (including the battery workshop) will face a longer shutdown, according to a source. Tesla has told employees and some suppliers to prepare to extend production limits until April.

Make sure you panic and sell everything so I don’t have to wade through your panic-posts on a daily basis.

 

[Mengy]

Damn it this looks real
We are doomed. $167 premarket now.
See you at $160 today. I trimmed 20% positions at $171

According to sources, Tesla cut electric vehicle production at its Chinese factory amid weak NEV sales growth and fierce market competition. Earlier this month, Tesla instructed employees at the Shanghai plant to reduce Model Y and Model 3 production and work 5 days a week instead of the usual 6 and a half days. As to when normal production will resume, employees have yet to receive clear updates. Tesla is facing increasing competition in China, and the automaker's shipments declined year over year in the first two months of 2024. Meanwhile, demand for electric vehicles is slowing in other major regions such as the US and Europe. Some production lines at Tesla's Shanghai plant (including the battery workshop) will face a longer shutdown, according to a source. Tesla has told employees and some suppliers to prepare to extend production limits until April.

I feel like this pic is an appropriate response:

 

[DarkandStormy]

 

[Usain]

Tesla cuts car production in China as EV sales growth slows, Bloomberg said in a report today.

Premarket TSLA dives to $168.8
Damn

"According to people familiar with the matter"

 

[DarkandStormy]

The increased energy per cell is due to increased volume of the cylinder.
As of Q2, the Cybercell 4680s are on par with 2170 on a same-chemistry basis.


That said, 4680s would make an 3Lud eligible for Clean Vehicle Credit if they keep the MSRP below $55k, plus cut costs $45/kWh...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1682335391574106112

 

[SO16]

So they are going from 6.5 days a week to 5 days per week. Maybe no more OT?

"According to people familiar with the matter"

 

[Drax7]

Tesla cuts car production in China as EV sales growth slows, Bloomberg said in a report today.

Premarket TSLA dives to $168.8

Tesla just announced price increases in China on April 1.
This seems odd.
Plus they export world wide what is not consumed
Locally.
That would imply a world wide slow down, which
Would seem unlikely.

 

[phantasms]

"According to people familiar with the matter"

Yet when some nobody on Twitter says some pie in the sky bullish bull about Tesla it’ll be discussed here for pages as if it’s already solved, iterated on, and vastly profitable.

 

[Tiger]

Meet Kevin put out a very bearish vid on TSLA this morning, he says he is shorting TSLA:

In his analysis though he completely ignores Megapack sales ramping along an S curve right now, not sure why? I honestly agree with his bearish outlook on Tesla car production, they just aren't building out capacity fast enough right now to ramp it much faster IMHO, but Tesla is much more than just a car company! Particularly with FSD improving as fast as it is right now, man if I was short TSLA I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Sure the next two years might be rocky for the stock but the future outlook for Tesla has never been brighter than it is right now IMHO.

Anyone else watch this video?

This guy is going to get a lesson why it's a bad idea betting against Elon.

 

[Tiger]

With the size of Giga TX, I'd not be surprised if they actually make new M3s.

Yess. Fremont has s*it quality and with the same retooling efforts they can make new Model 3's in Berlin and Texas.

 

[GhostSkater]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1682335391574106112

Troy is wrong there (shocking right?), mostly because he is using in vehicle usable capacity instead of the actual cell capacity if I'm not mistaken, you don't measure energy density like that

Gen 1 4680s were 86.5 Wh and 355 Wh/kg, resulting in 243.6 Wh/kg

Now for Gen 2 it gets trickier because we have none of the numbers, just that it's energy density is 10% better, so 268 Wh/kg, but we don't know how they weight changed, everything indicates that the jelly roll is longer, so the cell might actually be heavier

We can try to figure out from Cybertruck. 1320 cells according to my own estimates, maximum drained we saw is 124 kWh, add a 4 kWh buffer and the pack is 128 kWh, or 96,7 Wh per cell, which seem fair, for 268 Wh/kg, means the cell got fatter by a few grams at 362g

Were are splitting hairs at this level of trying to figure out

 

[Hock1]

Tesla just announced price increases in China on April 1.
This seems odd.
Plus they export world wide what is not consumed
Locally.
That would imply a world wide slow down, which
Would seem unlikely.

Keep in mind its Bloomberg "reporting"

 

[Ellec]

Damn it this looks real
We are doomed. $167 premarket now.
See you at $160 today. I trimmed 20% positions at $171

According to sources, Tesla cut electric vehicle production at its Chinese factory amid weak NEV sales growth and fierce market competition. Earlier this month, Tesla instructed employees at the Shanghai plant to reduce Model Y and Model 3 production and work 5 days a week instead of the usual 6 and a half days. As to when normal production will resume, employees have yet to receive clear updates. Tesla is facing increasing competition in China, and the automaker's shipments declined year over year in the first two months of 2024. Meanwhile, demand for electric vehicles is slowing in other major regions such as the US and Europe. Some production lines at Tesla's Shanghai plant (including the battery workshop) will face a longer shutdown, according to a source. Tesla has told employees and some suppliers to prepare to extend production limits until April.

Good stuff sell low, sell when others are fearful. Best now wait till it's back above $250 to buy back in.

 

[aronth5]

Good to know within two hours is the acceptable distance.

Who are the ‘a lot’ of people? How many is ‘a lot’? And where can I find the research that these ‘a lot’ of people were involved in, questioned, and answered within 2 hrs is acceptable?

Any reason why you didn't provide information to back up your position? Of course you know it's my opinion.

 

[Singuy]

Tesla cuts car production in China as EV sales growth slows, Bloomberg said in a report today.

Premarket TSLA dives to $168.8
Damn

Employees working hours has nothing to do with production. The article said production line remains open for full duration as usual so i dont see how production goes down. Maybe they finally hired enough staff for the job when ther was a shortage around chinese new year?

The employees you want to cut are expensive Berlin ones, not cheaper chinese ones, and in Berlin electrical workers worked day and night trying to get power online. Why would they do that if Tesla wants to cut production?

 

[Mengy]

Tesla just announced price increases in China on April 1.
This seems odd.
Plus they export world wide what is not consumed
Locally.
That would imply a world wide slow down, which
Would seem unlikely.

It does seem very odd to me too. Shanghai, as an export hub, should have plenty of places to sell all of the production it can muster. If the slowdown is true then it implies one of three things:

1) There is a demand problem, worldwide no less
2) Tesla just wants to give it's Shanghai employees a break for a bit
3) Tesla may want to divert some battery supply for other uses?

Either way, if Bloomberg is correct, that's disappointing and surprising news.

 

[UncaNed]

It does seem very odd to me too. Shanghai, as an export hub, should have plenty of places to sell all of the production it can muster. If the slowdown is true then it implies one of three things:

1) There is a demand problem, worldwide no less
2) Tesla just wants to give it's Shanghai employees a break for a bit
3) Tesla may want to divert some battery supply for other uses?

Either way, if Bloomberg is correct, that's disappointing and surprising news.

Or just clearing out inventory before some little production and spec change that requires a bit of retooling. Could be anything. If I'm right, it will proably improve the production rate, lower cost, make the car better or whatever as Tesla is known to do from time to time. If I had my say, I'd vote for all three of those things in the battery/efficiency area, but for some reason Elon hasn't consulted me on this one...

 

[Knightshade]

Would selling the highest priced version of the 3 to a lot of people really be a problem though?
It's $47.5k to the public, but $58,600 to Tesla (with an 80kWh pack).

Those same cells are worth the same to Tesla in any car- so putting them in LR AWD gets you the same money cell-wise--- and also can potentially increase total sales since you're knocking the cost of the vehicle to customers to about 40k flat.

For that matter putting them in Ys- for which there's more demand anyway and a higher price generally- also gets you the same IRA battery money.

And we know they don't have enough cells to move LOTS of 3s with US cells (if they did they wouldn't have lost the credit Jan 1 on all current shipping US models).... so those cells have to come from Y or CT, and if you're setting up P pricing to be the majority of 3 sales you're now reducing Y/CT production a LOT to have US cells to do that.

Plus again the LR-AWD is now a useless product. Nobody would ever buy one since it costs the same for a lower spec car (or you have to slash thousands off the price- and do the same for RWD).

All of the above is solved by just pricing the P above 55k (or using non-US cells)-- even at say 57.5k, assuming legit performance enhancements compared to previous, it'd sell terrifically.

Delivery timing will regulate demand, and they can export Fremont production.

Export from Fremont? I have to be misunderstanding you here? Exporting performance models from there makes no sense if you're building with US cells.... exporting LR or RWD doesn't seem to make much sense either compared to supplying from China where costs are lower?

 

[mongo]

Export from Fremont? I have to be misunderstanding you here? Exporting performance models from there makes no sense if you're building with US cells.... exporting LR or RWD doesn't seem to make much sense either compared to supplying from China where costs are lower?

Exporting lower trim 3s from Fremont to places like Canada, Taiwan, Australia. Basically utilizing capacity of non-IRA qualified variants.

Per your other points, yeah. If they only have a small 4680 surplus then 3PL might make sense and higher sales price would help with low volume.

 

[Usain]

Or just clearing out inventory before some little production and spec change that requires a bit of retooling.

It's possible that Tesla is already switching to CATL's LMFP batteries. That would explain both a price rise (expecting more demand) and a retooling effort.

But that is just speculation.

According to article below:

Although this has not yet happened, a recent article from China reports that CATL and Tesla are currently undertaking validation processes for the new cells.

Tesla validates LMFP cells from CATL already used by Chery | electrive.com

New battery cells from CATL with lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) chemistry are already being used in a Chinese electric model. The new batteries will also be used by Tesla in the future, where the new cells are already being validated.

www.electrive.com