TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[LoveTSLA]

TSLA is now 4% higher than $281, which was the closing price prior to the Joe Rogan Experience interview.

Actually only took 2 days of trading to close higher than $281. I felt like it was a bigger trauma than that!

I think investors can safely put that episode behind them. (and consign it to the Legend Bin) Hopefully Elon enters a quiet period between now and the Q3 deliveries announcement

Is that a typo? From 280.95 to 295.20 is 5% not 4%.

 

[capster]

Probably end today


TMI

Alas

 

[donauker]

“This will be effective on Thursday, September 13, 2018, after which Metallic Silver and Obsidian Black Metallic will be offered only as limited edition colors via special request at a cost of $2,000 only until Friday, September 21, 2018”

Seems even with the $2k, only available until next Friday.

From where was that quote? The email I received from Tesla was what I quoted and it had no end date.

 

[Artful Dodger]

But they didn't actually drop the colors they just called them "limited edition" and raised the price of them. Following quote is from their notification email.

And here's the rest of that email:

“In order to increase our production, delivery and service efficiency, we will be removing Metallic Silver and Obsidian Black Metallic as paint options from our online vehicle configurators for Model S, Model X and Model 3. This will be effective on Thursday, September 13, 2018, after which Metallic Silver and Obsidian Black Metallic will be offered only as limited edition colors via special request at a cost of $2,000 only until Friday, September 21, 2018.”​

So yeah, 2 colors are dropping away next week.

Tesla to eliminate some paint options to increase production efficiency, gives last chance to order - via Electrek Sep 10, 2018

 

[BenPrice]

But they didn't actually drop the colors they just called them "limited edition" and raised the price of them. Following quote is from their notification email.

I have poor language skills. Sugar=profanity.

I work in manufacturing. A lot of experience, way harder than cars.

I’ve worked at north americas largest powder coat oven as an engineer, before I went into waaaay harder:

We had a highly automated conveyance system fed by robotics - finished parts hung onto automated carriers feeding many spray boothes (more than Tesla) and many ovens (more than Tesla). This isn’t tit for tat but I know their pain, I promise. (and my manufacturing post record here stands for itself, review it if desired)

It was a god damn apocalypse when we introduced a new color because the dumb sugar production management decided “let’s discount the change over time in our forecast because the staff will become more proficient over time.

Nope.

That sugar takes just as long as it takes.

But more importantly, as you may be about to imagine, it sugars everything.

So when the production came online everything missed estimate (once ramped up) despite no one area being any slower than designed, except change over from color group to color group.

More complexity in manufacturing is cancer, and it should be fought by all staff like they’re an antibody.

More colors isn’t just paint booth details: it adds pallets of material that have to be received, QA-d, organized, delivered, old removed, contaimment disposed of once empty, lines to clear, quality metrics that must be monitored and managed from the supplier, etc. it’s more tremendous and leeching than you can imagine but once a product is offered it’s hard to pull it.

It means you have to pay a fork truck driver that much more to drag *sugar* around, and have to build your building bigger, buy more shelves to hold it, and reduce your run time on all other options to give it time.

Permutations like this cause WAY more ripple headache to manufacturing. Reducing that will be a tremendous benefit far beyond “paint shop capacity”.

This decision is why I invest in Elon musk. Either he’s this intelligent or trusts those who are.

Edit; final sentence, *is an example of why*

 

[HG Wells]

F=MA still applies. Mass is the same, Force (traction) is reduced to 38% vs Earth due to lower gravity. So a Martian P100D may be able to achieve 6.6 sec

Worse engineering issue will be battery cooling. No atmosphere to use with conventional radiators. And battery heating too, with nightime temps below -80C the electrolyte will freeze unless the batteries are heated. So there's some work for those Martian engineers of tomorrow, for sure.

That's why we offered to melt the polar dry ice (CO2) caps. Would raise atmospheric pressure to 4 PSI. Would raise average temperatures by 12 C (21 F).
Would allow some plants to grow and allow the use of just oxygen face masks without pressure suits. Darn good deal for an extra 100 model X's

Martian High Comand

 

[donauker]

And here's the rest of that email:

“In order to increase our production, delivery and service efficiency, we will be removing Metallic Silver and Obsidian Black Metallic as paint options from our online vehicle configurators for Model S, Model X and Model 3. This will be effective on Thursday, September 13, 2018, after which Metallic Silver and Obsidian Black Metallic will be offered only as limited edition colors via special request at a cost of $2,000 only until Friday, September 21, 2018.”​

So yeah, 2 colors are droping away.

Interesting. That wording is definitely not in the email I received so once again it looks like communications change by the day. When did you receive that email?

 

[neroden]

Do you have sources to back that up? Its okay to believe but better to know...

Well, we know from Nevada leaks that they're currently building 3 additional battery *cell* lines (going from 10 to 13), and it looks like 10 lines maxes out near or below 5000/week (+2100 Model S/X does NOT get you to 8000/week). And the evidence of front motor shortages was ongoing until very recently (though it's possible it's been relieved now).

 

[Boomer19]

Interesting. That wording is definitely not in the email I received so once again it looks like communications change by the day. When did you receive that email?

got this 9/12 at 3am
i cut out the last paragraph of the email that wasn’t pertinent

 

[neroden]

I have poor language skills. Sugar=profanity.

I work in manufacturing. A lot of experience, way harder than cars.

I’ve worked at north americas largest powder coat oven as an engineer, before I went into waaaay harder:

We had a highly automated conveyance system fed by robotics - finished parts hung onto automated carriers feeding many spray boothes (more than Tesla) and many ovens (more than Tesla). This isn’t tit for tat but I know their pain, I promise. (and my manufacturing post record here stands for itself, review it if desired)

It was a god damn apocalypse when we introduced a new color because the dumb sugar production management decided “let’s discount the change over time in our forecast because the staff will become more proficient over time.

Nope.

That sugar takes just as long as it takes.

But more importantly, as you may be about to imagine, it sugars everything.

So when the production came online everything missed estimate (once ramped up) despite no one area being any slower than designed, except change over from color group to color group.

More complexity in manufacturing is cancer, and it should be fought by all staff like they’re an antibody.

More colors isn’t just paint booth details: it adds pallets of material that have to be received, QA-d, organized, delivered, old removed, contaimment disposed of once empty, lines to clear, quality metrics that must be monitored and managed from the supplier, etc. it’s more tremendous and leeching than you can imagine but once a product is offered it’s hard to pull it.

It means you have to pay a fork truck driver that much more to drag *sugar* around, and have to build your building bigger, buy more shelves to hold it, and reduce your run time on all other options to give it time.

Permutations like this cause WAY more ripple headache to manufacturing. Reducing that will be a tremendous benefit far beyond “paint shop capacity”.

This decision is why I invest in Elon musk. Either he’s this intelligent or trusts those who are.

Edit; final sentence, *is an example of why*

I kind of wish Tesla would reduce its color selections further. The multi-coat colors are pretty, I guess, but they must seriously slow down production. If I were running Tesla, I'd offer:
ordinary black
ordinary white
ordinary silver (greyish silver)
ordinary blue
ordinary red, at extra cost and delay
"Get your car in white and this is our partner who does vinyl wraps before delivery"

Silver, white, and black are by far the most popular colors, followed by blue and red. Grey is also popular, but frankly I consider grey and silver redundant.

 

[Boomer19]

Well, we know from Nevada leaks that they're currently building 3 additional battery *cell* lines (going from 10 to 13), and it looks like 10 lines maxes out near or below 5000/week (+2100 Model S/X does NOT get you to 8000/week). And the evidence of front motor shortages was ongoing until very recently (though it's possible it's been relieved now).

the part about the gf battery lines - someone had a detailed explanation of how many lines can produce how many car packs but i couldn’t find where i read it. it was someone’s opinion maybe, or maybe they had intimate knowledge..either way i thought very interesting.
the way this forums threads have exploded makes it hard to trace back where one has found certain tidbits. i mainly access tmc from my iphone (i know you aren’t the biggest fan of apple hah) by maybe i’ll have to start using my notes app and pasting links in there for ease of finding those posts for future reference.

btw there are still threads that are relatively spam free and rich in content but i’m not revealing them here. it’s like leaving food out when you’re camping and then complaining there’s a bear in your tent

 

[Artful Dodger]

Tesla could import that machinery to Shanghai with no duties paid.

Be advised that Grohmann Engineering already has a Support Office in Shanghai. I will not be surprised if they start some manufacturing there for robots too. I expect China will become a 5M Tesla / yr market within 10 yrs.

Grohmann Engineering Shanghai
358 Fu Te (North) Road
Wai Gao Qiao Free Trade Zone
Shanghai 200131, China​

Tesla Grohmann Automation Worldwide Offices

 

[donauker]

got this 9/12 at 3am
i cut out the last paragraph of the email that wasn’t pertinent

View attachment 334999

Yes, that is the one I got. Order before today to get the $1,500 price and an expedited delivery and then as of today those colors are only available of-menu limited edition at $2,000. No end date stated for the limited edition. As I see it this limited edition color status allows them to only build these cars when they get enough orders to make it worth while to do the color change.

 

[Artful Dodger]

someone had a detailed explanation of how many lines can produce how many car packs but i couldn’t find where i read it.

It's from Elecktrek.co commenter "carsonight" who lives in NW Nevada and knows people that work at GF1. He says Panasonic's battery cell capacity is enough for 5,500 LR packs/wk on 10 lines each running flat out. Panasonic is labor constrained in Sparks, NV and has occassionally had to shut down some production on the graveyard shift due to insufficient staffing.

Here's his latest from today:

"GF1 can produce at most enough cells for 5500 Model 3s per week"

Cheers!

 

[Boomer19]

It's from Elecktrek.co commenter "carsonight" who lives in NW Nevada and knows people that work at GF1. He says Panasonic's battery cell capacity is enough for 5,500 LR packs/wk on 10 lines each running flat out. Panasonic is labor constrained in Sparks, NV and has occassionally had to shut down some production on the graveyard shift due to insufficient staffing.

Here's his latest from today:

"GF1 can produce at most enough cells for 5500 Model 3s per week"

Cheers!

thanks for this!

latest relevance;

“Pansonic's cell making machines can produce 25,000 cells per day. There are 14 such machines in a line, 10 lines currently in production at GF1, and 4416 cells in a long range Model 3. The rest is arithmetic.

Panasonic is currently installing 3 additional lines of machines. Word has it those will be up and running by December.”

so, i guess they can’t sustain 7k a week until at least dec. but from his other comments, there are different possibilities of intended/unintended stockpiling that can set them up for burst rates past the current choke of 5500.
obviously cell production isn’t the only cog in the wheel, but its quality info for someone like me that doesn’t understand mfg big picture as well as others here.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Interesting. That wording is definitely not in the email I received so once again it looks like communications change by the day. When did you receive that email?

At the bottom of my comment, I provided a link to the relevant Electrek.co article posted on 10 Sep 2018. That's the source of this quote.

 

[AMN]

Now that the trading is over for this week, I would appreciate if someone could to try to explain an honest novice question regarding this selling.

If I understand the above post correctly, it implies that some unknown trader is deliberately selling significant amounts of stock within a short time, with the reasonable expectation that this sudden extra supply will cause the SP to drop. It seems to also be an accepted understanding here, that the bulk selling happens while the SP is trending upwards, disrupting that trend.

This trading pattern is thus described to me in a way that implies that it is a deliberate money losing activity (since it should be preferable to not sell the stock while it is trending upwards).

The trader can hardly expect to be able to resupply (i.e. buy back the same stock) within the same time frame because that extra demand would cause the price to go back up, thus negating the whole (implied) premise of the bulk selling.

So there must be a trader out there, who in advance and in small portions (to not cause the SP to increase) buys up a significant amount of stock, just to be ready to dump it, right when it seems like a good idea to hold on to it.

Or is it a trader with some serious collateral that short sells the large amounts of stock, causing the SP to fall, after which they can hope to buy it back at the new lower price (but running the risk of not managing that and instead having to cover at a loss)?

Since stock trading is all about making money, who would engage in such a seemingly suboptimal trading scheme?

I will speculate myself, that it could be someone who is willing to risk sacrificing money while trading TSLA, in order to win (or avoid losing more) in a different arena, maybe a different stock that stands to incur greater losses should the TSLA SP increase too much.

Any actually informed guesses (unlike my own) to this conspicuous selling would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Shorts make money in the short term and there is a lot of it made from market volatility. They are generally highly intelligent traders and are very aware of the fundamentals of whatever they are shorting. You don't have to sell actual stock to short, you can also do that with options which signals a certain intent to other market participants and affects the price of the stock.

 

[RobStark]

I kind of wish Tesla would reduce its color selections further.


"Get your car in white and this is our partner who does vinyl wraps before delivery"

Maybe as customers wright checks for $50k-$150k you could also slap them across the face and give them complementary hairy shirt seat covers.

You can't have leather, alcantara, Car Play.......

 

[KarenRei]

I kind of wish Tesla would reduce its color selections further.

Any colour you want so long as it's black?

For the record, here's the colour selection on some other EVs:

Model 3: 1 base, 3 premium (was 5), 2 super-premium
Bolt: 5 base, 3 premium
Leaf: 3 base, 2 premium, 2 super-premium
i3: 1 base, 8 premium
Ioniq: 6 base
Kona: 2 base, 5 premium, optional 2-tone
Zoe: 1 base, 1 semi-premium, 4 premium, 1 super-premium
e-Golf: 12 base

 

[RobStark]

Any colour you want so long as it's black?

That is one of the reasons GM overtook Ford.