TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[BioSehnsucht]

For EU, my vague recollection is that there are a number of small requirements such as tail lights, turn signals, emergency lights, etc. $TSLAQ seems to think EU homologation is a potential show-stopper requiring lots of re-engineering, etc. (even though Tesla's quite familiar w/ whatever the requirements are). I'd love to see a parts list diff for S/X if anyone has ...

Charging aside, some people on twitter seem to think U.S. cars are good to go in China, with no special changes needed. No idea if this is true.

Ah, you're right, I forgot about the lights and such. Amber turn signals are required instead of optional, and there will be different headlight beam pattern requirements (though it is possible to build a headlight that just meets the requirements of both US and EU standards, I'm not sure if Tesla has done this). Most of the rest of the lights should be more or less the same though, I think - the big ones are headlight patterns and amber turn signals. Also mirrors. US DOT spec mirrors are garbage. Still, these are smaller parts and easier to juggle installing the right parts for the right car versus say, putting the steering column on the other side.

I am hoping I can get Tesla to sell me some EU spec mirrors for my US Model 3 ... but seeing as how getting parts is hard to begin with, I am doubting it will happen. I have EU mirrors on my Mazda 3 and JDM mirrors on my Nissan 240SX. The result in both cases being a better field of view. I wouldn't turn down some amber turn signals either... red turn signals are dumb.

 

[avoigt]

Vicki is a reliable source and I assume her comment has been authorized. Elon is following her on Twitter.

She is an intentional leak I believe. Nothing spectacular just information Elon wants to get in the market...

Ed McCabe‏ @eddiemac3356
Replying to @VickiSalvador
How many cars this week Vicki?


1h1 hour ago
Replying to @eddiemac3356
A lot ! We’re consistently hitting 1300+ a day. Getting close to that 1400 mark.

Ed McCabe on Twitter

7h7 hours ago
Badger24 Retweeted VICKI SALVADOR

Anyone else find it surprising that @VickiSalvador posts $TSLA production volumes without repercussions? This despite signing an NDA and having a CEO known to monitor Twitter and harshly punish transgressors....

Badger24 added,

Replying to @eddiemac3356

4h4 hours ago
Pbbbt. I’m not posting production volumes at all I’m just talking about bodies out of the paint shop these cars aren’t even built yet shows what you know
Login on Twitter

3h3 hours ago
Replying to @breizh_72 @davidtayar5 @Badger24
Every day that we go to work we want to do better than the day before. The more bodies that get through our line the more bodies get to GA. As long as we’ve got cars on that line and it’s moving without gaps we are happy. Some of us would even like to see that line sped up a bit

Her comment shows that the paint shop is indeed not a bottle neck any more as they seem to be able to speed up or feel like they could. Thats a good confirmation to have.

No surprise that Vicki is attacked by shorts and trolls. Lets all support her.

 

[ggr]

Let's run with worst-case* numbers from InsideEVs: Oct 17,750 Nov 18,650. That's 36,400 est'd Model 3s delivered in first 2 mths of Q4 (61 days @ ~600/day).

That leaves 28,400 to go in Dec to reach the 'Moody Goal' of 65,000 total in Q4 (5K/wk*13wks). Let's assume production shutdowns of half a day Christmas Eve, full day on Christmas and half a day on New Year's Eve.

That gives 29 production days to build 28.4K Model 3s in Dec.

So Dec production requires an average daily rate of less than 1,000 Model 3s per work day during the month. 65K Model 3s in 2018Q4 sounds very do-able and is in fact conservative.

Moody's, we hardly knew ye!

CHE3RS!

*worst-case: since InsideEVs does not count Model 3 deliveries in Canada. Likely about 3-4K total in Oct-Nov 2018, but likely less than Q3 due to expiring US Tax incentives.

P.S. Let's also assume that deliveries==production (I know, weak assumption, but using deliveries to estimate production should be conservative while production is rising).

You forgot flushing the currently inventory of store demos etc. It looks like the goal will be reachable.

 

[Causalien]

Interfere? That’s an interesting word choice.

You couldn’t have had a discussion about price buying and selling ranges for general time periods. Or about sentiment shifts and what to do? Or macro influences? Or about barrages of FUD? Or about what would make you uncomfortable enough to want to get out?

Doesn’t your life partner text you in the wee hours of the night from the other side of the planet to tell you they just started an update on the Tesla, like mine literally just did?

Okay, maybe I’m luckier than I thought that the spouse and I are on the same page, of the exact same book in life. We don’t call it interference, we call it interaction.

Ya I definitely agree our choice of SO are very different. Just my luck that most of the girls I date would blow up knowing that I gave tsla that amount of money. At the same time we kept our finances separate and she doesn't know so it's all good. By the way, I find that this is the current trend amongst peers my age. 100% of my circle of friends don't combine their finances.

 

[hobbes]

I find it hard to believe that this would apply to paint shop only. What's the use of painting thousands of extra bodies? They don't have space at the factory to store a lot of painted but otherwise unfinished bodies.

They have done challenges where they tried how much throughput the different stations in production could handle individually. But here, Vicki has talked said "A lot ! We’re consistently hitting 1300+ a day. Getting close to that 1400 mark." Consistently would make it likely it is not just the paint shop...

However, while searching for that quote I found a discussion following the above, in which she said: "Pbbbt. I’m not posting production volumes at all I’m just talking about bodies out of the paint shop these cars aren’t even built yet shows what you know" So just paint after all. But still, it wouldn´t make sense to do a lot more paint than general assembly consistently.

VICKI SALVADOR on Twitter

 

[Cobbler]

Model 3 SR is almost in reach when production hits 10k/week?

 

[Artful Dodger]

You forgot flushing the currently inventory of store demos etc. It looks like the goal will be reachable.

I'm not trying to estimate deliveries, I'm trying to estimate production (although obviously the two are related). Production is the benchmark mentioned for a Moody's upgrade.

 

[geturchiru]

Question to you and @EVNow: do in practice those 100%+ taxes on fuel get gamed/avoided frequently in India, by turning heating oil into petrol privately or by using vegetable oil, and by importing crude oil without paying taxes?

I'd expect that to be quite common in rural communities - which would delay EV adoption due to the grey/black economy of illegally distilled fuel creating much lower effective fuel prices than the 'official' taxed fuel prices.

It's what happened in Eastern Europe in the 1990s when their currencies were floated freely and crashed, fuel was taxed heavily and became very expensive from these two forces: crude oil was smuggled from Russia and distilled illegally (on an industrial scale), heating oil with lower tax content was 'converted' to fuel, vegetable oil was repurposed, etc.

Very low number of people use kerosene as alternate fuel to petrol(less than .1%) which is distributed at subsidy for poor and is colored in blue to avoid black market sale. I did not find them in recent times at all at least in southern parts. This usage can be identified easily with high noise engine generates. Some motor bikes are fitted with LPG(subsidized in the sense that not taxed as heavily) converters again very very low to make a note. CNG cars/taxis are decent in number in some cities like Mumbai, Delhi where the supply is available and is controlled by govt. So very less chance of it making a difference in other major cities. We are used to these high taxes i.e not a recent thing, so I don't think people will go out of the way to adapt to illegal means and the import has to happen through sea links only as no country connected by land has the resource and can be closely monitored.

Majority of oil suppliers/refineries are govt agencies and sell through their own dealer network and the private refineries usually sell to these agencies. >90% oil is imported by these refineries and I never heard of illegal means in news. Adulteration of fuel at dealer level(mostly by quantity rather than quality) is quite common in all parts of the country though.

 

[Tslynk67]

Yes, depends on the person, for sure.

But I should ask this of other investors here. Do you guys take spousal permission on every option/stock trade you do ? Or do you have some kind of standing agreement ?

ps : The former would make it tough to execute - after all several times I can't even agree with myself !

In general no, although the purchase of 400 shares in Feb 2016, during the big dip, was done with consultation, given that it was money that was released from a house sale. All purchases since then I've done with my own money, so no need to discuss.

I don't trade, really, so not much to talk about, although I did ask request wife's permission to loan my shares to my company for a month. She actually said "you can do what you want".

Then I tell her from time to time the interesting Tesla news and when the stock is on a rally. She doesn't care too much - we've doubled our investment at this moment, she just asks if we have enough money to buy a house yet...

 

[heltok]

Assuming that they are actually painting 1400 bodies per day, if they do I assume they will store some of those in Lathrop. Store them for when they have a higher assembly capacity at Freemont or to ship some to China for assembly there later this year when they open shop in their tent there. Then over time as they paint more and make more parts in China, they will shift some Model 3 painting and parts production in Freemont into Model Y painting.

 

[BrianZ]

OT


OK.

I don't know. I have a similar problem to Mr. Musk. I actually want to help people. In my case, I want to help people be well-informed and make sensible decisions. But people don't *like* that. I should just let people stew in their own bubble of self-reinforcing self-delusion. I really should.

And Musk should let humanity die off; they don't deserve saving.

(PS I don't usually feel that way, only when I'm in a bad mood)

I just want to say that for one I really, really appreciate your enormous efforts on helping people better understand Tesla here. You have been invaluable to this forum, and I think it really goes underappreciated. I for one will not let this generosity go unnoticed.

 

[1208]

Jaguar Land Rover to announce thousands of job cuts in January

 

[Mobius484]

Could they be stockpiling extra painted parts as part of their service/repair plan? Maybe stockpiling these in the new whatehouse?

 

[neroden]

OT

"Dissenting voices" are welcome. People insisting that they're so much smarter than everyone else aren't.

Feel free to think it. But learn some basic social interaction skills. Believe it or not, "I'm so much smarter than you" isn't exactly a powerful persuasive stance. Indeed, claiming that immediately makes people think that you're not, given that you clearly lack the common sense not to write such a thing.

Oh, I was just fed up by the recurrent idiocy around here. Social interaction skills are something I *know*, but they're *work*, and after a while I get tired of wasting my time on it when the people I'm interacting with are not worth it because their minds are closed. And boy are some of you, lately, trying to prove that you're not worth the effort.

I guess some of the people who are worth the effort have been very quiet. I appreciate them speaking up. *Zhelko* ">100% TSLA" was getting uncomfortable posting his honest opinion due to the bull echo chamber lately -- think about what that means.

 

[avoigt]

Assuming that they are actually painting 1400 bodies per day, if they do I assume they will store some of those in Lathrop. Store them for when they have a higher assembly capacity at Freemont or to ship some to China for assembly there later this year when they open shop in their tent there. Then over time as they paint more and make more parts in China, they will shift some Model 3 painting and parts production in Freemont into Model Y painting.

The incremental cost as well as logistic and Supply Chain related issues as Quallity related issues that are created by doing that are almost endless. If they do and it is possible than I don’t want to be the Manager responsible for it. Gonna be a nightmare......

Additional cost will not outweight the benefit and as of now I do not know where else they want to do GA.

 

[neroden]

OT

Also, question: How did this topic start back up in this thread again?

You, Karen. Consider that you're actually wrong. I'm not going through it again, but stuff you wrote in your latest comment was noted incorrect before you wrote it.

 

[neroden]

Anyone else looking to deleverage a bit over the upcoming holiday?

If I can manage it I'm probably actually going to increase my leverage before Jan 1 comes and deliveries are reported. But I'm very conservative on leverage.

 

[RobStark]

For those trying to estimate Model 3 deliveries/production.

EV Sales: Canada November 2018

 

[neroden]

OT

My only worry is the general mkt, The breakdown is too persistent, not a good sign.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Well, world politics looks roughly like the leadup to World War I, which has been noted in major news outlets now, so there may be some serious flight-to-safety going on.

 

[neroden]

OT

The above reasoning seems to be that because counter examples are abundant, then the hypothesis is useless.

No. Read it again. "Contrapositive" in German is "kontrapositiv" if that helps.

The theorem is correct. However, it's much more useful in the contrapositive form. That's my point. In the "forward" form it's essentially useless -- there are precisely zero markets with equal information and identical market power. But in the contrapositive form it's very useful.