2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[Reciprocity]

Tesla has already proven that there is a lot of demand. Remember when Elon's main focus was producing more 100kwh packs (hint, he was because there was a lot of demand at very high prices.

No doubt there is a lot of demand, for a 335 mile car, my point is that they wont got to 150kwh anytime soon. Well because it flat out wont fit and will drive costs much higher then people, en mass, will want to pay. Certainly there will be those who want a 450 mile range. Just not many willing to pay $30k more to go from 215 miles to 450 miles. Maybe 2%.

 

[Bobfitz1]

Regardless of potential sales volumes, SolarRoof will have fairly long order/build/deploy/collect cycles by virtue of the roofing process. Many premium roofing products today are not routinely stocked but have fairly lengthy order times. Thus, I doubt there is any plausible path to significant roofing product revenue before ~2019. PowerWall OTOH, can scale quite rapidly if not so rapidly as PowerPack. I hope SolarRoof can scale more quickly, but I certainly would not assume that it will in financial planning.

In guessing how long SolarRoof will take to contribute significantly to earnings, don't forget some of the points made by Elon when the new SolarRoof tiles were revealed. He pointed out a number of ways the the roofing industry was inefficient and how Tesla's roofing approach would improve on them greatly - reducing its costs and passing some of the savings on to customers to ensure sharply increasing demand.
Some of those I'm sure won't begin kicking in until later in the ramp. We just should not forget about them when projecting SolarRoof.

 

[racer26]

1GW or 1GWh per year? Whats the average size of a system is the US. 5kWh or about 25kW? $2.4b il revs is about as much as they had in auto last quarter. Get Grohmann in there to make it 4x with automation and now your talking revs and more importantly profits on par with S/X. Am I missing something?

GWh doesn't make sense as a measure of solar cell production. Why do people have such a hard time with units of power and energy?

GW nameplate capacity. Most residential solar installs are 5-10kW nameplate, so 1GW is enough for about 100,000-200,000 roofs.

Typical roofs might cost 5-10k on the high end. 100,000 roofs * $5,000 = $500M revenue/yr. Not nothing, but dwarfed by nearly 3B/qtr of auto revenue before model 3, and more like 15B after.

 

[MitchJi]

No doubt there is a lot of demand, for a 335 mile car, my point is that they wont got to 150kwh anytime soon. Well because it flat out wont fit and will drive costs much higher then people, en mass, will want to pay. Certainly there will be those who want a 450 mile range. Just not many willing to pay $30k more to go from 215 miles to 450 miles. Maybe 2%.

Your point is a moving target!

And why not 110 kWh or 120 kWh packs? Answer no reason. Coming before the end of 2017.

 

[JRP3]

If it is due to airbag recalls, then that's going to increase a lot as cars from 2013,2014 etc. are recalled.

Wouldn't that cost be covered by Takata eventually?

 

[Reciprocity]

GWh doesn't make sense as a measure of solar cell production. Why do people have such a hard time with units of power and energy?

GW nameplate capacity. Most residential solar installs are 5-10kW nameplate, so 1GW is enough for about 100,000-200,000 roofs.

Typical roofs might cost 5-10k on the high end. 100,000 roofs * $5,000 = $500M revenue/yr. Not nothing, but dwarfed by nearly 3B/qtr of auto revenue before model 3, and more like 15B after.

I wasnt have any problems with the conversion. Just wondering if the quoted measure was GW or GWh, I mean the batteries are always quoted as GWh.

I dont know where you come from, but high-end roofs do not cost $5-$10k. 3 tab shingles on a small roof might be 5k. That same roof with tiles would be $10-$15k depending on the tiles. The market for these solar roofs is not those houses. It is the house with a 20-30k roof with Spanish tile or slate or wood shingles today, that needs a new roof and wants solar. Again, if you are selling a billion dollars in solar, it becomes 2 billion dollars in solar roofs for the same solar capacity, by selling the exact same number of jobs and solar cells. whether you are able to manufacture 1GW or 2 or 50. Its only limited by demand, which Elon has pegged at 5 million roofs a year for 100% market share. Obviously they wont get to 100%, but 10-20% might be something they can attain. 500,000 - 1,000,000 roofs a year at $30k average if you assume some smaller roofs and some much larger roofs. That's $15B-30B a year. Now granted that will require 2.5-5x the production capacity that they have today. How could they possibly achieve that kind of growth in production. Remember, glass is very easy to work with. Could see a process that is automated from end to end. I still think the average will be higher as I just got a quote for $36k for solar alone and I would assume at least $72k if I did the roof in tile at the same time. I wish I needed a new roof, as I would be 100% in on having the Fed pay 30% for my new tile solar roof.

 

[Thumper]

I assume we should see solar roof pricing some time today since they are taking orders. Has anyone seen pricing?

 

[Reciprocity]

I assume we should see solar roof pricing some time today since they are taking orders. Has anyone seen pricing?

I dont think that is a good assumption at all. You might only see a form to collect your contact information then someone will contact and provide you with a quote.

 

[mmd]

Wouldn't that cost be covered by Takata eventually?

Yes, I think most of it. Tesla said earlier (can't locate) that it is paid by manufacturer. May be, it was a different recall.
Anyway, my point was 'IF the big loss is because of airbag', which was @schonelucht 's guess. I think, the airbag recall is a very small part of the services loss.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

I wasnt have any problems with the conversion. Just wondering if the quoted measure was GW or GWh, I mean the batteries are always quoted as GWh.

I dont know where you come from, but high-end roofs do not cost $5-$10k. 3 tab shingles on a small roof might be 5k. That same roof with tiles would be $10-$15k depending on the tiles. The market for these solar roofs is not those houses. It is the house with a 20-30k roof with Spanish tile or slate or wood shingles today, that needs a new roof and wants solar. Again, if you are selling a billion dollars in solar, it becomes 2 billion dollars in solar roofs for the same solar capacity, by selling the exact same number of jobs and solar cells. whether you are able to manufacture 1GW or 2 or 50. Its only limited by demand, which Elon has pegged at 5 million roofs a year for 100% market share. Obviously they wont get to 100%, but 10-20% might be something they can attain. 500,000 - 1,000,000 roofs a year at $30k average if you assume some smaller roofs and some much larger roofs. That's $15B-30B a year. Now granted that will require 2.5-5x the production capacity that they have today. How could they possibly achieve that kind of growth in production. Remember, glass is very easy to work with. Could see a process that is automated from end to end. I still think the average will be higher as I just got a quote for $36k for solar alone and I would assume at least $72k if I did the roof in tile at the same time. I wish I needed a new roof, as I would be 100% in on having the Fed pay 30% for my new tile solar roof.

I like the way you're going about this, but there just isn't any way Tesla will be able to supply "500,000 to 1,000,000" roofs per year.

I'd be surprised if they can ramp up to 200,000 roofs per year by 2019. They need another Gigafactory focused on Solar to go any higher.

 

[erthquake]

Wouldn't that cost be covered by Takata eventually?

1) Only if they're still in business/solvent.
2) Takata wouldn't cover labor costs (I don't think).

 

[dirtyofries]

I like the way you're going about this, but there just isn't any way Tesla will be able to supply "500,000 to 1,000,000" roofs per year.

I'd be surprised if they can ramp up to 200,000 roofs per year by 2019. They need another Gigafactory focused on Solar to go any higher.

In your estimation - do you mean beyond the Buffalo 'Gigafactory' or are you not including that one?

 

[JRP3]

2) Takata wouldn't cover labor costs (I don't think).

I think they would, though I don't know. The labor was incurred because of their defective product, seems as if they should cover it, (at Tesla's cost, not billed rate).

 

[JRP3]

Interesting note that the recent video from Prof Dahn where he said his team had already double cell life beyond what Tesla was currently using, along with some other interesting hints about the technology, has been removed. After watching it I thought maybe I should save it, but didn't.

 

[ggies07]

HEY HEY! The Jeff Dahn video went private before I could watch it..... Does anyone have another link or did anyone d/l it?

 

[ValueAnalyst]

In your estimation - do you mean beyond the Buffalo 'Gigafactory' or are you not including that one?

beyond

 

[vgrinshpun]

Tesla is hiring roofers

SolarCity, a Tesla Company is Hiring Roofers! (Wilmington, Boston) hide this posting unhide


compensation: SolarCity
employment type: full-time

QR Code Link to This Post

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We would love to speak with you about the opportunities available in North Shore MA. If you're interested in other areas, we're hiring in multiple cities across the US.

Be a part of the winning team! Join our Roofing crew today.

 

[Reciprocity]

I like the way you're going about this, but there just isn't any way Tesla will be able to supply "500,000 to 1,000,000" roofs per year.

I'd be surprised if they can ramp up to 200,000 roofs per year by 2019. They need another Gigafactory focused on Solar to go any higher.

Based on what? Why do we assume that building a solar roof shingle is the same as building a solar panel? I would assume that the panel that is large is more complicated to make, larger machines, tighter tolerances, more chances for imperfections and more changes for quality issues when compared to a 5x5 solar panel embedded in glass. I would assume they are building machines to make the glass part and that it would be pumping them out as fast a bullets from a machine gun?

 

[erthquake]

Interesting note that the recent video from Prof Dahn where he said his team had already double cell life beyond what Tesla was currently using, along with some other interesting hints about the technology, has been removed. After watching it I thought maybe I should save it, but didn't.

Keep in mind that's for stationary storage. He's just starting to looking to the NMC chemistries for EV batteries.

 

[Fallenone]

Some interesting tibits I've found in the 10-Q:

1. "recognition of $81.1 million of Autopilot 2.0 revenue during the three months ended March 31, 2017". Using 25k deliveries as a rough basis, this translates into AP2.0 recognized revenue of $3.2k if all cars have taken it. If they recognized the full $4k EAP revenue, then it would mean the take rate was slightly over 80%.

2. "This was primarily due to a $49.9 million increase in pre-owned vehicle sales" and "This was primarily due to the $53.0 million increase in costs of pre-owned vehicle sales" CPO basically had negative gross margin of around 6%.

3. It's good to see the % of SG&A in terms of revenue decreased significantly even with the addition of SCTY's SG&A. This means the auto business operating efficiency really increased a lot. If they can keep this up, things will be very good.