TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[elasalle]

IIRC, in the cc before this, Elon was himself programming robots in the battery line because contractor had dropped the ball, but everything was just about ready.
Now we learn, that the whole battery assembly line actually has to be built again from scratch in Germany, but everything is again just about ready?

There was progress made. From likely totally manual to the Semi-automatic setup mentioned on cc.
TSLA should just invite Investors to GF and have them look at operations, so community knows EM is not BSing. They should really get this done - after all they mentioned it in CC.

 

[Todd Burch]

I don't believe the contractor for the dud assembly line has been outed, but I doubt that it is Panasonic.

True, I'm just being a little snarky.

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

This has been like trying to catch a falling chain saw yesterday and today. Not much fun and I don't have many fingers left to catch with.

You still have fingers left? I thought I was doing pretty well with a leg still.

 

[Reciprocity]

There was progress made. From likely totally manual to the Semi-automatic setup mentioned on cc.
TSLA should just invite Investors to GF and have them look at operations, so community knows EM is not BSing. They should really get this done - after all they mentioned it in CC.

Is there some reason they cant post a video? Its totally public news now since the call. Should be no problem posting a view of this semi automatic setup. I could see them wanting to hide some features of the setup by the could do that with camera angles and such so that they do not actually show what the machine is doing, only that a machine is doing work with the actual cells/packs and banding.

 

[elasalle]

Is there some reason they cant post a video? Its totally public news now since the call. Should be no problem posting a view of this semi automatic setup. I could see them wanting to hide some features of the setup by the could do that with camera angles and such so that they do not actually show what the machine is doing, only that a machine is doing work with the actual cells/packs and banding.

Who here in TMC has the contacts to ask for such a request.
If EM is reading TMC he can post it via twitter or Insta )

 

[BioSehnsucht]

What we're discovering now is that conveyance system is not designed yet and that is on the way to 5000. So I think we may not have 5000 this year at all. We'll probably have 2500-4000 though. And there will be some version of hubris mentioned again...

From what I heard on the CC, it sounded like the conveyance system was there, just not programmed optimally, so inefficient (but not yet more inefficient than battery module production, so it is not currently the bottleneck *yet*). So getting that programmed optimally to keep up with the targeted run rates will eventually be the bottleneck ("immediately" after module production ramps up with the new line hopefully next month, but the ramp to that point may be more not be overnight so it may be a couple of weeks after before it truly is the bottleneck).

I really wish that someone in the CC had asked about the two (at least I think they're building/built a second one?) robotic parts storage builds and the progress on them, as I suspect that is part of the holdup on the conveyance system - if one of the buildings isn't operational yet, they may simply not have enough space to store 5000/wk worth of parts coming in from suppliers for the conveyance system to convey, and those buildings are in a sense part of the conveyance system. Having only a single building operational (versus two, if indeed the second tall building is another one) may also impact the efficiency of the system, much like single versus dual channel RAM in computers - the more parallel facilities you have for storage and retrieval, the more storing and retrieving you can do in parallel, reducing bottlenecks.

 

[johnnybgood888]

It closed at $345 on Weds when the earning report came out. It then dropped less than 15% (but nearly) to $294.76. Happily, this ferocious little rebound has pushed us to less than a 10% drop from $345.

Yeah, I was including the after hours bounce to $259 right after the report was released but before the CC.

I personally thought the earnings report was a relief and if anything re-iterated most of our positive sentiments that the ramp is going more or less as planned since the last delay, and there are no Osbourne effects on X and S.

How do we square the fact that people who read the report were buying around $359 then, while others who read the same report are selling at under $300 today? I know macros played a part, but this felt more than just that. Would be interesting to see a post-mortem of the trading patterns the last two days from those way more experienced in this than I.

 

[Tslynk67]

Bigger dips and peaks, but tracking NASDAQ (and DOW) pretty much all the way. Should finish green, if life were fair...

 

[Bobbyducati]

ive been thru some rough spots, but this by far takes the cake this week in regards to selling puts. definitely taking a week or two off. only 8 more minutes to survive!

 

[johnnybgood888]

Feb 2016 TSLA dropped 40.5% from the local top (like if we were $214 now!). It took much longer though, it felt like a slow motion train wreck.
Welcome BTW. Few really sharp comments, I love them!

Thank you for the kind words! I have been pretty much reading this forum since early last year, and finally decided I should contribute a bit the last day or two.

By the way, I believe you were one of those that were burned in the past by over leveraging either on options or just in general, right? I believe you have written about that in the forum, I should've heeded your advice, but human nature being what they are, you throw caution to the wind when times were good, and then double down when they go bad, right... I have probably lost about 10% of my net worth in real money, and about 20% on paper in the last year chasing the stock. Was an incredibly humbling experience, but I have no one to blame but myself. Hopefully those who read this and my earlier lessons learnt post would not make the same mistake.

 

[Esme Es Mejor]

Wow! What a ride! A little disappointing at the end, when green was just $2 away, but what a comeback!

 

[Krugerrand]

Tesla's execution has been pretty poor over the last months.
First they didn't notice the battery manufacturing equipment they ordered was simply not doing its job, then they wrongly concluded that they can fix it by writing new software for it, to then finally conclude, that they actually need new hardware.
That IS disappointing.

Your assumption is flawed. Maybe they had to rewrite the code as a stop gap, so that they could make 1000 cars/week while waiting for Grohmann to build from scratch?

Let's not even start with slow development on the autopilot side. For the consumer, autopilot is essentially the same product it was 2015, just more expensive.

We’re aware why it’s been slow; supplier issue, dead end with the coding, new supplier and newer, better approach to programming, which will result in a superior product in the end.

The fact that it looks like we aren't even getting a small upward move, after the disaster which yesterday was, it think u can conclude a lot about the current mood of TSLA investors.

Meh. The mood of people is as volatile as the market especially if you’re of the what have you done for me lately, instant gratification crowd. Me? I’m as chill now as I was Feb 2016 when the stock plunged all the way down to a buck forty.

 

[Krugerrand]

Agree. The problem isn't that it's hard to manufacture at all. The problem is that the machine that Panasonic built to assemble packs doesn't work. Tesla messed up big time by not verifying ahead of time, but it has nothing to do with the manufacturability of the car.

Source that it was Panasonic that dropped the ball? I read ONE post that hint-speculated it might have been them but now you’ve written as though fact. Where’s the proof?

 

[Menifeer]

ive been thru some rough spots, but this by far takes the cake this week in regards to selling puts. definitely taking a week or two off. only 8 more minutes to survive!

When Puts I've sold go against me, I don't panic or worry about losing money.

Assuming you don't want to be forced to buy the shares, the simple solution is to close the position (i.e., repurchase the Put) and sell another that expires at a later date ("roll it over"). You will benefit from the time premium associated with the ones you sell and, in the process, add funds to your account.

Case in point:

On Feb 2 I sold $350 Puts for $14 that expired today (in hindsight, not a good move... )

Today, I repurchased them for $47.73 and sold ones that expire March 16. I got $51.33 for those (an infusion of $3.60/sh).

Since I expect TESLA price to rise, I'm not concerned about the position. If necessary, I'll roll again in March. If TESLA is above $350 in March, I'll make the original $14/sh and the additional $3.60/sh.

 

[Thumper]

My post as to who dropped the ball was pure speculation, hence no name and no explicit blame. But I did give reasons why it makes sense to me.

 

[X Yes?]

My post as to who dropped the ball was pure speculation, hence no name and no explicit blame. But I did give reasons why it makes sense to me.

In the end, it was Elon that dropped the ball. Over promising and under delivering was bound to bite in the Ass eventually. There is a reason all other manufacturers do not start a production line without Beta testing. Chickens are coming home to roost. Feel bad for the folks that love the car and leveraged up to the hilt. Many had nasty margin calls today that will have to be resolved Monday.

 

[X Yes?]

Think there are a few shorts covering now?

Doubt it. Recent market action will only embolden shorts on Monday.

 

[X Yes?]

Is there some reason they cant post a video? Its totally public news now since the call. Should be no problem posting a view of this semi automatic setup. I could see them wanting to hide some features of the setup by the could do that with camera angles and such so that they do not actually show what the machine is doing, only that a machine is doing work with the actual cells/packs and banding.

Elon's truth shading and outright deception, rivals Trump's. Not a bad idea to show the video... if what he is saying is true.

 

[derhelddestages]

Your assumption is flawed. Maybe they had to rewrite the code as a stop gap, so that they could make 1000 cars/week while waiting for Grohmann to build from scratch?

Sorry, I was under the impression that they never talked about a redesign of the problematic production zones.
I just checked the transcripts from the Q3 call, and Elon did actually announce that they are redesigning them, and that the redesigned fourth line will be as productive as the existing three combined.

Now the interesting question is if the new line will be three times as productive based on the weak performance of the existing three lines back in November, or the planned performance goal of the old lines (5000/week in Q118).

 

[tander]

In the conf call yesterday, the term "product" was used at least once to describe building factories. Before I just took this to mean they are trying to look at the factory as a product, in order to make it work really well. But for some reason yesterday I got to wondering if they are thinking of licensing the factories themselves. It sounds kind of crazy, but if you think back to Tesla's mission "to accelerate sustainable transport" and you think about how Tesla wants competition, not a monopoly, it kind of seems like it might make sense. Like maybe Tesla doesn't want a battery plant in South Africa, but they want to go electric, so Tesla just licenses out a factory to them for batteries and maybe help them design some cars for their market, and bingo you're accelerating sustainable transport, keeping the global auto market from going too much towards a monopoly, and Tesla is preserving the brand and making money+ saving money at the same time by doing it. Or a better example might be with Fiat/Chrysler that just plain needs help getting with the times. Maybe this idea is nonsense or common sense to people already but it just kind of dawned on me that may be what they are talking about, or maybe not.