People keep saying this, but it makes no sense. The future of Tesla's factories is Grohmann, not anything now in Ford's factories, apart from the odd stamping press. Tesla will stay well away from the ICE Makers.
It takes (much) more than a couple of days to file an effective reply brief, which I believe would have argued not just based on the Securities Act and its legislative history (which the SEC is abusing), but would also have mounted a First Amendment challenge (the SEC is a federal agency trying to restrain Elon's speech). These take weeks/months to prepare. Plus to really rattle the SEC Elon would probably also have counter-sued: reckless action by the SEC caused billions of dollars of damages, and the SEC is also trying to harm Tesla unlawfully by meddling with its corporate governance. This would also have opened up the SEC to wider discovery, for Elon/Tesla to find eventual inappropriate links between SEC staff and short sellers... If proven or strongly suspected Elon could also have added RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) causes of action too, with triple damages. But that would probably have been best done in the Reply Brief - which needs to be done carefully too. Many months of delays. Years of litigation. The SEC dishonestly and inappropriately forced Elon and Tesla to act quickly by asking for Elon to be removed as CEO for life: effectively hanging a corporate death sentence above Tesla as we know it. The TSLA stock price reacted exactly like the SEC knew it would react and forced Elon and Tesla to settle. I.e. the only quick option left for Tesla and Elon was to settle under extreme duress. This is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the SEC: unprecedented recklessness and lawlessness and complete, utter regulatory capture to harm a single company as much as possible. (Not a lawyer.)
I tend to agree but I am not sitting in Tesla's or EM's shoes. In an area I am much more familiar with, Civil Rights actions against government facilities are filed along with the government order imposing compliance standards, in effect the settlement. I suspect that rejection of the first offer here was totally unexpected by the SEC. There may be very good reasons that the second settlement was better for EM Tesla and us as longs.
Totally agree. Just filing a Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum would likely not work on the substantive issues. Motion for Summary Judgment an Memorandum probably would require discovery and take many months.
Panasonic has partnered with us on Gigafactory 1 with investments in the production equipment that it uses to manufacture and supply us with battery cells. Under our arrangement with Panasonic, we plan to purchase the full output from their production equipment at negotiated prices. As these terms convey to us the right to use, as defined in ASC 840, Leases, their production equipment, we consider them to be leased assets when production commences. This results in us recording the cost of their production equipment within property, plant and equipment, net, on the consolidated balance sheets with a corresponding liability recorded to financing obligations. For all suppliers and partners for which we plan to purchase the full output from their production equipment located at Gigafactory 1, we have applied similar accounting. As of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, we had cumulatively capitalized costs of $955.4 million and $473.3 million, respectively, on the consolidated balance sheets in relation to the production equipment under our Panasonic arrangement. We had cumulatively capitalized total costs for the Gigafactory 1 of $4.14 billion and $3.15 billion as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively. EX-10.1 EX-10.2
Interesting, does this mean that these are financing leases, where Tesla is going to own all the Panasonic lines once the leases are fully paid? What would the lease term be - a couple of years? I believe this increases the odds that the Shanghai Gigafactory is going to use Panasonic lines as well.
Don't know whether anyone had mentioned this before: Remember the report that says Tesla is bidding a land plot for China GF3? I found this land auction looks very much like it: 上海土地市场-网上公告 上海市规划和国土资源管理局 Some interesting detail of this auction: 1. Auction ends Oct.26, in time for Q3 call. 2. Only ONE bidder 3. 86 hectares land 4. 172 hectares space in building (18M sqr ft, in comparison, GF1 is 4.9M now, Shanghai VM has 9M) 5. Purpose of the land is "New energy source vehicle manufacturing", pretty much means EV. 6. Construction start within 6 months 7. Production start within 36 months Do you guys think this could be the GF3? The size of the building is scary big to me, if it's not Tesla, then Tesla is in trouble... If it's Tesla, will it be officially announced in Q3?
He didn't reply to my DM yet. I suggest everyone question his journalistic impartiality and make sure to tag him on Twitter. It's a shame NYT removed the public editor / ombudsman position.
Unable to read what was said in that document......found this as the only reference to potential site cost. Shanghai for Its First Factory Outside of the US Announced Date Oct-12-2018 (Time not available) Company Name Tesla, Inc. (NasdaqGS:TSLA) Source The Business Times Singapore Event Type Business Expansion Advisors Situation TESLA INC is in the process of procuring land in Shanghai for its first factory outside of the US, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, pushing ahead with plans to set up production in China after months of tumult involving CEO Elon Musk. The carmaker is the sole bidder for a plot of land with an auction price of about CNY 1 billion. A decision by the Shanghai government to allocate the land to Tesla could be made as soon as this month. Setting up manufacturing in China will enable the Palo Alto, California-based company to avoid paying import duties as high as 40% and offer cheaper cars in the world's biggest market for electric vehicles. Adding Note: 1,000,000,000 Chinese Yuan equals 144,462,700.00 United States Dollar
Agree, stamping press, some robots, maybe paint shop, that's about it. That's why I said 'some' equipments.
Ben Sullins just shared another vid with this guy on AP9. They have 1.5m followers and this got 180k reviews. Thats 180k people that probably knew very little about Tesla as their channel appears to be mostly about breastfeeding... And other important things too!