TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[cheshire cat]

Teslandia

Alex on Twitter

Tesla is looking to build on-site housing for Gigafactory 1 employees, says Elon Musk

Some of you may have heard about Fordlandia a city build in the 1920s. A vision from Henry Ford to build a Caoutchouc supplying city in the rain forest of Amazonia to supply enough for the production in the US. Its been the true vertical integration approach Tesla does implement today with lithium production efforts in Nevada and a city for workers to live in to work in GF1.

I believe he even bought a farm with the intention of growing flax as an alternative material in production, a man before his time, but his HR methods left a little to be desired

 

[KarenRei]

If anyone has some dry powder left I think today is maybe the last chance to get a nice entry below 265$ for a LONG time.
Can we trigger a nice little short squeeze today? That would make this terrible week of investing a little bit better.

Anyone who left dry powder (including me) is not going to be buying at anywhere near $265, since we've been having lower than that recently. Unless they just got their dry powder today or were too scared to buy on a lower day or something.

I'll be putting in some buys for the mid to low $240s, but if the pre-market is any indication of how the stock will behave today, that's wishful thinking. Stock still seems to be moving on macros, and macros are good today.

 

[KarenRei]

I believe he even bought a farm with the intention of growing flax as an alternative material in production, a man before his time, but his HR methods left a little to be desired

Yes, as a general rule, if Adolf Hitler kept a life-sized portrait of you next to his desk, it's a pretty good indication that your "HR methods left a little to be desired"

 

[gora321]

UK's pressure on half solutions.

UK will cut plug-in hybrid subsidies in push to EVs

 

[avoigt]

Time to appreciate that CNBC let an Analysts explain the "Tesla Effect" to the audience.

Since positive CNBC videos w/o bashing Tesla are an endangered species I decided to give it a like.

CNBC Chats "The Tesla Effect" & Oil Stocks (Video) | CleanTechnica

 

[cheshire cat]

UK's pressure on half solutions.

UK will cut plug-in hybrid subsidies in push to EVs

But as usual there' s "claws in the contract". Looking to save a few bob whilst virtue signaling, at least there will be fewer exhaust fumes whilst we all sit in the growing traffic jams caused my inferior infrastructure , ( see previous re: Roman roads

 

[bhtooefr]

I already feel like I comment more than my share.

But I really like the single center screen. It does everything anyone might need, in most cases. I have caught myself running my hands up and down my shirt to feel the buttons... but I don't rub my fingers on the dash in wistful memory. Why would anyone want buttons and switches? This is the wishful dreaming of people who have lived their whole lives pushing or pulling or flipping or twisting things, and they miss them.

For some reason, at age 74, it makes sense to me to leave some things in the past.

I mean, I personally greatly prefer having physical controls for a lot of things (to the point that I actually bought a new Android-powered BlackBerry), although having driven one, I could definitely live with a Model 3's touch screen, the touch targets are large enough.

...and I'm 30.

 

[SpaceCash]

All tech is up significantly in Premarket, Tesla at 259.01 here 3 hours before proper open

 

[KarenRei]

I mean, I personally greatly prefer having physical controls for a lot of things (to the point that I actually bought a new Android-powered BlackBerry), although having driven one, I could definitely live with a Model 3's touch screen, the touch targets are large enough.

...and I'm 30.

I really do think that going from buttons-to-touchscreens is really an "Old Fuddyduddy" thing, one of those sorts of things that some people resist for a long time, grumblingly accept and complain about for a period, then forget all about and eventually look back at their previous attitude with embarrassment. I remember being that way with smartphones. I kept sticking with models with slide-out keyboards as long as I could, but eventually the selection got sparse and I felt I had to switch over. But I sure wasn't happy about it!

Fast forward a few years.... heck, fast forward just a few weeks.... and I came to accept how unimportant that keyboard actually was. Even when dealing with a smartphone where screen buttons are a fraction of a centimetre wide, let alone a car screen where they're 2-3 centimetres wide!

 

[bhtooefr]

I should clarify - I used smartphones with only touchscreens for five years, and just went back to having a keyboard.

Ultimately my going on about physical buttons and switches isn't going to change anything, it definitely doesn't affect my Tesla investment thesis - touchscreens have been Tesla's schtick since the Model S - and it probably doesn't even change my willingness to own a Tesla (because none of the other manufacturers truly get it), but it's just my preference to have more of them.

 

[mrdoubleb]

I mean, I personally greatly prefer having physical controls for a lot of things (to the point that I actually bought a new Android-powered BlackBerry), although having driven one, I could definitely live with a Model 3's touch screen, the touch targets are large enough.

...and I'm 30.

Don`t get me wrong, I like "different", I used to have a Windows Phone, but: BlackBerry Now Controls 0.0 Percent of the Smartphone Market. At the boards of Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola many thought no one would ever go for a touchscreen only phone. 10 years later...

 

[Buckminster]

All-electric Audi RS3 with 4 Formula E electric motors takes world record for speed in reverse at 210 km/h
Beating Tesla was considered too easy so they did it backwards instead. Their autonomous solution involves hands tied behind their back.

 

[mongo]

All-electric Audi RS3 with 4 Formula E electric motors takes world record for speed in reverse at 210 km/h
Beating Tesla was considered too easy so they did it backwards instead. Their autonomous solution involves hands tied behind their back.

Up next: Tesla Super Saiyan Summon Level 9,000

With Rockford J turn at the end?

 

[elasalle]

Sheeps in rollacoaster, all heading down .. now all heading up

 

[ev-enthusiast]

All-electric Audi RS3 with 4 Formula E electric motors takes world record for speed in reverse at 210 km/h
Beating Tesla was considered too easy so they did it backwards instead. Their autonomous solution involves hands tied behind their back.

Sorry to say this, but Audi-idiots, Audi A6 catching fire, former CEO currently in jail, even more criminal actions discovered in South Korea on fuel consumption and pollution levels, they should better look ahead than driving backwards

 

[dhrivnak]

May have unheated rear seats.

You may be right there.

 

[Fact Checking]

Exciting news.

What effect do these Grohmann machines have on Tesla's CapEx?

Are they paid for in part (or in total) by Panasonic?
Will any part paid for by Tesla appear as CapEx for Q3?

How much can such a substantial addition to the production capacity cost?

I'd like to urge some caution: this is somewhat speculative, based on the disclosures from Panasonic and the Tesla IR disclosure to Worm capital, and the dependable seeming but anonymous person on Electrek who claims to live near the Gigafactory and who over a large span of time made comments about how the lines are laid out in the GF1 and what their approximate capabilities are - which turned out to be accurate, but which are not guaranteed to be correct going forward.

In no particular order:

• Tesla Grohmann with its headcount of ~700 engineers and technicians appears to have a quarterly spending of ~$100m of capex, which are expensed in full with no direct income assigned to the business unit. Hiring appears to be stable there, so I'd expect a continued ~$100m quarterly cost there. The turmoil last year appears to have abated: it was about compensation structure (Tesla wanted to increase compensation via TSLA stock options, Grohmann employees wanted cash - employees won the argument), and another controversy was the accelerated wind-down of all non-Tesla customers - which process should now be largely over.
• Currently Grohmann seems to be a happy place building ever improving versions of the Tesla Alien Dreadnought. Basically in two years Grohmann has morphed into the industrial automation R&D and manufacturing arm of Tesla working 95%+ on Tesla-only projects, largely freed from the former contract engineering firm's struggles to get new customers and keep old customers. Working there must be a dream job in automation and an excellent reference on any CV.
• I believe the Panasonic part of the Gigafactory is paid for by Panasonic and the machines are outright owned by Panasonic and the employees there are working for Panasonic - they are 'shipping' the cells over to the Tesla pack-assembly side and account it as sales/purchases. So the capex spending to expand cell output would be entirely Panasonic's - which I suspect they expect to recover from a margin they add to cell costs - 20% margin earned would be normal I think.
• In August the Panasonic arm of the GF1 had 10 lines producing about 20 GWh/year cells. Three new lines are being installed and will be ready by the end of year according to both Panasonic and Tesla (i.e. this appears to be a real-time, not an Elon-time deadline), and the lines have significantly higher throughput that increases annual capacity to around 35 GWh. There's already constructed space available for 20 lines in total, so 7 more lines could be installed on the Panasonic side, which with 5 GWh/year per line gives an option to further extend capacity up to around 70 GWh/year. (Assuming the anonymous person on Electrek is correct.)
  
• I believe Tesla has the right (and maybe even contractual obligation) to procure raw materials such as lithium, aluminum or cobalt, which then Panasonic refines to very high grades and uses to make cells - this means that Tesla can improve the price of the 2170 cells via raw materials economies of scale.

But I found very little information about this, so most of this is just guesses. It's understandable that Tesla and Panasonic are tight-lipped about these details.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Tesla stand at the Paris Auto Show today. Model 3 not visible in the back behind many, many people.

 

[avoigt]

Time to vote.

Hint: you don't need to translate into English really....

Elisez la voiture du Mondial de Paris 2018

 

[dhrivnak]

View attachment 343085

Tesla stand at the Paris Auto Show today. Model 3 not visible in the back behind many, many people.

The Model 3 is truly groundbreaking. I bought more stock after I drove it home I was that impressed with it.