2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[vgrinshpun]

According to this article Tesla is in negotiations with Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to provide BES. There is mentioning of "investment" by Tesla - it is not clear whether the negotiations are about PPA, or the journalist does not have clear understanding of the subject...

"Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is rebooting its plans to enter the battery energy storage business this year as it continues discussions with US- based automotive and energy storage firm Tesla, a ranking company official said.

Meralco senior vice president and head of customer retail services and corporate communications Alfredo Panlilio said the company has identified some projects but has put them in the back burner since it announced its plan to go into battery energy storage."

"Last September, Tesla officials were in town to explore the possibility of investing in the country’s battery storage space and Meralco was among the local companies the US firm is eyeing to partner with.

So far, Panlilio said talks are still ongoing between Meralco and Tesla.

“There are identified projects that they will come to take a look at with our strategy group,” he said."

 

[Yggdrasill]

as to 1), Tesla likely needs data from various governmental entities, and today is likely the first day some of these are open for business post the last day vehicles were registered.

I really doubt Tesla needs any data from any goverment entities. They probably had a 95+% accurate figure on December 31st. They just need to go through the data and sort out the specifics.

 

[tinm]

Predicting that Tesla will release Q4 delivery numbers today between approximately 4:03:18 pm and 4:06:59pm ET.

 

[SteveG3]

I was hoping the positive numbers would come out today followed by the GF event tomorrow for a one/two punch to send the stock up over two days. There is only so much the stock can really jump in a single day and I think having both bits of news at the same time will water down the effect.

if the GF event has a big impact, I think that's considerably more likely to be on Thursday (or later) than tomorrow, as that would allow time for time for analysts to write up notes. ie, you may still get your "one/two punch."

 

[SteveG3]

I really doubt Tesla needs any data from any goverment entities. They probably had a 95+% accurate figure on December 31st. They just need to go through the data and sort out the specifics.

fwiw, I think they want 99+% accuracy. I don't think the finalized numbers have changed by more than 10 or 20 from the initially released numbers.

 

[dennis]

Suddenly the "museum curator" job is switched to an actual sales job this quarter. Were the sales people adequately trained to do the sale?

From the effort they put on in the last 10 days of the quarter to sell me an inventory P100D I would say yes.

 

[austinEV]

Not gonna lie. Feeling let down right now with the lack of delivery numbers.

Sigh. Why? It is literally the third. They report within "3 days" of the end of the quarter. They would be well within their rights to report 3 business days in which would be the 6th. So, they will report somewhere between Jan3 and Jan6. But given that Jan 3 is half over, it is tiresome to be "disappointed". In the past they have released after market hours 2 or 3 calendar days after Q end.

4:05 eastern time today. That is literally the earliest anyone should have expected.

 

[Navin]

They could also be trying to time this right before farraday has their reveal. Apple used to do this stuff all the time to kill the buzz for other players.

 

[Green Pete]

Sigh. Why? It is literally the third. They report within "3 days" of the end of the quarter. They would be well within their rights to report 3 business days in which would be the 6th. So, they will report somewhere between Jan3 and Jan6. But given that Jan 3 is half over, it is tiresome to be "disappointed". In the past they have released after market hours 2 or 3 calendar days after Q end.

4:05 eastern time today. That is literally the earliest anyone should have expected.

I'm moaning for the sake of moaning. I know they are within their rights and love Tesla. Just feels like it's been a long weekend full of anticipation.

That being said I don't expect them to release numbers until AH market closes if they do release today.

 

[MrRandyB]

I'm moaning for the sake of moaning. I know they are within their rights and love Tesla. Just feels like it's been a long weekend full of anticipation.

That being said I don't expect them to release numbers until AH market closes if they do release today.

Same here - I expect 4:05 eastern today

 

[dennis]

Update on European situtation:

Current status with countries representing half of the Europe delivery totals having officially reported : Q4 is 87% of Q3. Last quarters deliveries were just below 25,000 worldwide, guided for just above 25,000 this Q, so we should have seen the same deliveries as last quarter to meet guidance.
Tesla Europe Registration Stats

Also did some VIN analysis a couple of days ago over here. That looks much better than deliveries in Europe.

So looks like VIN assignment beat and delivery miss from what we have, which seems contradictory. Don´t quite know what to make of that. Have to hope for North America and Asia...

I noticed that about 400 AP1 inventory cars went unsold in Europe, more than 300 of which had only delivery miles. In contrast, there are only 10 AP1 cars currently listed on ev-cpo for the U.S. It is quite possible that the two markets reacted differently to the switch to having more cars available for immediate sale and as a result Europe missed its sales goal.

 

[NannerAirCraft]

Does anyone know if the 80MWh battery system in Mira Loma or if the 52MWh system in Hawaii were installed before the end of the year? Or will they be recognized in Q1 instead? For the Mira Loma one I thought I read that it was supposed to be installed and operational by December 31.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I am wondering whether Tesla is planning to release deliveries tomorrow to provide some positive background to the GF event. I know that many expect Tesla showcase production of new cells at GF, but there are some indications that they really have not much (in terms of operating production lines) to show.

First hint come from the Baird note in which Ben Kallo indicated that “We believe Tesla battery sales are accelerating, and we should see additional benefits from the battery production ramp coinciding with the launch of the Model 3."

This timing is consistent with the following quote from the IEEE's Spectrum article, which has a lot of opinions that are not fact based, but included the following seemingly factual snippet: "At press time, the Gigafactory was still a work in progress. Already, stationary storage units were being assembled there, but using imported battery cells. According to Tesla, the facility was on track to begin mass production by the end of 2016. However, a source at Panasonic, Tesla’s partner in the Gigafactory, told IEEE Spectrum that “by April” was the best they could guarantee."

So according to the two sources above, contrary to the prior guidance by the company GF production did not start by the end of 2016. I am far from sure that this could be a negative for SP (TE currently is not factored in it at all), but may be Tesla feels that they need to fill the void with some positive information and decided to report deliveries tomorrow.

I do not have high confidence in the above but coincidental information about GF production in two above sources caught my eye.

 

[SBenson]

IF delivery numbers are bad, I doubt tomorrow's event will save the day. I think the event is just as much of a wildcard as the Q4 delivery numbers are.

Look at the AP 2.0 software rollout timeline. What was the timeline that was announced? What was actually released and on what timeline? It's remarkably pathetic. The excuse given was that this is brand new hardware and they need to rollout carefully (per electrek)... Did Musk not know that this is new hardware and needs to be rolled out gradually? Why wasn't this considered when announcing a timeline in the first place?

It will almost be a miracle if tomorrow we discover that GF is producing cells at any meaningful rate (run rate > 1GWh/year).

Also, looks like this is a limited audience event. Are they allowed to give material info to a few selected people? Is there an accompanying CC or a live feed when Musk and JB are speaking?

 

[AudubonB]

i have one foot in reality and one foot in the stock.

OK, but what about the second foot?

 

[dennis]

How do we know what happened to those inventory cars?

Sure, they built lots of them, especially in the late 16xxxx VINs, and many of them never landed on the public listings.

Of the 168XXX VIN's seemingly all of which were built for inventory, 121 are currently shown in U.S. inventory on ev-cpo, 7 in Europe and 4 in Hong Kong. All were built with AP2.0 hardware.

 

[generalenthu]

My WAG is, Tesla is going to report 2 numbers in addition to the usual deliveries - MW installed by the erstwhile SCTY and MWH storage installed by TE. This will tell the analysts, to include these economics in their models, especially from TE, in no uncertain terms.

This new release with more data points is what is causing the delay, looking through my purple glasses.

 

[doctoxics]

This timing is consistent with the following quote from the IEEE's Spectrum article, which has a lot of opinions that are not fact based, but included the following seemingly factual snippet: "At press time, the Gigafactory was still a work in progress. Already, stationary storage units were being assembled there, but using imported battery cells. According to Tesla, the facility was on track to begin mass production by the end of 2016. However, a source at Panasonic, Tesla’s partner in the Gigafactory, told IEEE Spectrum that “by April” was the best they could guarantee."

So according to the two sources above, contrary to the prior guidance by the company GF production did not start by the end of 2016

Somewhat confused as to mass production of cells or packs. We know that packs have been assembled at Gigafactory1 for over a year using imported cells. We have been told that cell production would begin at Gigafactory1 by the end of 2016. That may be true; we will find out very soon. However, I never understood that massive cell production would occur by the end of 2016. Perhaps we would have and may have had massive pack production by the end of 2016. So the Panasonic comment may be in reference to massive cell production and/or massive pack production with Gigafactory1 cells by April. Obviously, the timing becomes important as we approach Model 3 production.

 

[dennis]

Is it your contention, in your long, intimate discussions with Mark S., that these are hidden somewhere in the unfinished dungeons beneath the gigafactory so Tesla can borrow Maddoff-like sums on their ABL?

Yeah this conspiracy theory makes no sense since the ABL loans 80% and the GM is at most 40%. Thus the cash made available would be at most 20% of the list price. And Tesla has to report inflated inventory numbers to boot.

 

[madodel]

Ford to develop several Tesla killers over the next 5 years. At least I'm sure that's what the bears are thinking...

Ford Adding Electrified F-150, Mustang, Transit by 2020 in Major EV Push; Expanded U.S. Plant to Add 700 Jobs to Make EVs, Autonomous Cars | Ford Media Center

maybe someone at Ford finally sees the handwriting on the wall. The F-150 would be huge if it is made in volume and sold outside of California.