Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[nativewolf]

The Ford beat VW in the Norway range test because it had a bigger battery. That does not imply it's better or more advanced, just that it costs more to manufacture.

It also recognizes that a big battery is helpful and it was a better battery, especially helpful when dealing with sub optimal charging networks. VW is also heavier than the mach e. I'll say it again Ford did a much better job on a first EV than VW or GM. Having seen VW ID4 breakdown by Munro I'm not surprised in the least, the battery would have been great 10 years ago (not at all today) , they innovated a bit on the motors, they tried to take a legacy ICE platform meant to support small diesels and turn it into a platform for an EV. Every head scratcher that confronted Munro was a result of that legacy platform and shoehorning. Ford breakdown by same guy showed what you'd expect from a first effort from a legacy automaker. Errors sure but the sort of errors you get from version 1 of a whole new product. No octovalve, which is just a stunning piece of innovation, so it was full of hoses and pumps but you expect that in Version 1. How long before octovalve is ripped off by competitors?

Lot easier to build off of the mach-e whereas VW id4 seems a dead-end, a desperate hack to slow competition. Only the motor may be a keeper in the VW lineup they have rolled out so far. Of course, you have Porsche ...the Toycan. Toycan is not terrible, just....why bother. Now Tesla Model S Plaid is here and Porsche...well...why bother with any of it. I bet the ford f150 pickup is not a bad vehicle judging from the mach-e and I bet they sell every one they make and have a waiting list. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[Prunesquallor]

I will have a new update in a week or so; however, I do want to highlight an expected Q2 milestone.
In Q2, Tesla reaches GAAP profits with only Model 3/Y sales. In other words, even if there were no Regulatory Credits and no Models S/X sales, Telsa would still be GAAP profitable (about $400m). Models S/X sales & Reg Credits are icing on the cake.

Oh man, TSLAQ and Gordo are going to go ape. Where do the goalposts move now? I guess there will be the perpetual "competition is coming" and "where's FSD?"

 

[nativewolf]

It's not that I think they are reliable that I mention them, it's because everyone is saying the Mach-e is 2nd to the Model Y and the F-150 lightning will be 2nd to the Cybertruck.

and after seeing all the hoses in the Mach-e tear down, it was on my mind that Ford will be less reliable.

I'm not holding them up as examples to emulate, just saying Tesla beats them and others hold them up as the next best thing, especially in the same breath after saying that Ford has better fit and finish and is probably going to be more reliable (if if it isn't).

I think both points of view are actually spot on. The mach-e seems like a first version of an EV..which it is for Ford. I agree that Tesla does beat them hands down. They also both beat VW hands down which to me is the interesting point. That Ford, without all the VW or GM ballyhoo has launched a half decent EV. Good on them. I wouldn't buy it but good on them, not a bad first try. GIves me hope for the 150 pickup.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Here is the link to original pdf:

拓普集团 ：拓普集团关于投资者交流会召开情况的公告 网页链接 - 雪球

拓普集团 ：拓普集团关于投资者交流会召开情况的公告 网页链接

xueqiu.com

Now you can Google translate it, ok?
Alright let me do that:
Q: A Corp is F***ed in China, how’s the order?
A: No, A Corp did everything right, they have at least 5 years lead. These “problems” are temporary, orders are normal.


Above is the official release, but I found a few other unofficial meeting minutes floating around, which are far more interesting, for example this one:

拓普集团 投资者交流会纪要 2021年6月8日 拓普集团 投资者交流会纪要参会领导：董事长邬总日期：2021年6月8日产品结构：减震、声学套件、汽车底盘、汽车电子、热管... - 雪球

拓普集团 投资者交流会纪要参会领导：董事长邬总日期：2021年6月8日产品结构：减震、声学套件、汽车底盘、汽车电子、热管理（2+3）轻量化底盘业务介绍轻量化底盘的壁垒重资产壁垒，起步投资5亿元；六大加工工艺，对设备、人员、技术要求高时间上：3年土...

xueqiu.com

• Heat management solution(Octovalve) starts to deliver to Tesla in Jan 2021, 500k units for 2021, San hua is the only other heat solution supplier.
• Tesla 2nd GF in China is almost done deal, now picking among three possible locations, likely would be XiongAn(in HeBei province).(TuoPu build new factories close to customers to supply them, so they probably has heads up of next factory plans)
• Parts orders for CyberTruck already started.

Can’t believe Tesla suppliers are spilling beans just like that and we don’t even know…

Tesla announcing a second China GF would certainly put a stake in the heart of the China demand FUD.

 

[SarahsDad]

Hmmmm, think they might be trying to set a record? Good choice in drivers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1403750020965310464

 

[Singuy]

I think both points of view are actually spot on. The mach-e seems like a first version of an EV..which it is for Ford. I agree that Tesla does beat them hands down. They also both beat VW hands down which to me is the interesting point. That Ford, without all the VW or GM ballyhoo has launched a half decent EV. Good on them. I wouldn't buy it but good on them, not a bad first try. GIves me hope for the 150 pickup.

Can someone tell me what is so great about the Mach E? Seems like everyone forgot it uses as much batteries as a model X to get the performance 2nd to the Model Y and being sold at a massive loss.

 

[Unpilot]

OT:

LeoLabs

platform.leolabs.space

That's a lot of stuff!
Surprised we can see the sun and moon.

 

[Singuy]

That's a lot of stuff!
Surprised we can see the sun and moon.

It's so misleading.

It's showing 13000 object's. They are orbiting at different elevations so it looks like they are all about crash into each other. Also if you lay 13000 object's around earth on the same elevation, it'll look like you layed nothing on earth..but in space it's different somehow

 

[jw934]

Tesla announcing a second China GF would certainly put a stake in the heart of the China demand FUD.

After watching this video below, my thought is that while Tesla may have originally planned to have a second China GF, but if the Chinese FUD from competiting OEMs, media, plus government inaction is bent on seeing Tesla fail, then Tesla will need to consider alternatives. Glad to hear, in the video, that all of these are turning around in favor of Tesla. Chinese government may have started to take action after hearing U.K., India, and even Russian GF speculations..

Video is eye opener for me on many the pre-2019 tactics some Chinese "new energy" OEMs were using to bend the government EV credits rules (e.g. one OEM selling its cars to second OEM who resell, and both claiming government incentives for the same cars) .

 

[CorneliusXX]

That is seriously quiet!

If you are selecting a Tartan for your avatar, can I suggest the Munro hunting tartan in homage to Sandy hunting down engineering nonsense.

 

[Baumisch]

I would personally like to see Tesla move this drivetrain into a plaid version of the 3 but it seems like I'll have to wait for the Roadster to get this performance in a car smaller than the S.

I expect model 3 to get ludacrius now as the S is on plaid. 2,5s to 100 would be great for the m3 Performance

 

[Wicket]

Hmmm.. Strange new reports emerging from police departments regarding an uptick in very low altitude UFO sightings. Footage is blurry as usual. Radar producing implausible numbers. A new kind of physics?

”Whatever it is. It’s fast. It’s damn fast”, said Officer Danny Hull. “It seemed to be tracking the road. Just a streak of red light. We tried to follow but quickly lost sight of it. Pulled into a lighted Tesla charger in Fremont and asked if anyone had seen what looked like a UFO and a smiling man there said he had been driving all night since leaving Miami the day prior and hadn’t seen anything like that. I then joked he would have a hard time seeing anything with all the bugs stuck to his headlights and maybe he just wasn’t paying enough attention, but he told me he was waiting for some rain and the car had a feature that would then just blast them right off. Not sure I understand the technology in these cars but clearly I wasn’t gonna get any answers here.“

 

[EVMeister]

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this, but the ranges for the new Model S LR and Plaid have been updated on the Tesla website to reflect the different wheel designs.


19” Tempest = 390 miles (Plaid) / 405 miles (LR)
21” Arachnid = 348 miles (Plaid) / 375 miles (LR)

 

[StealthP3D]

I'll say it again Ford did a much better job on a first EV than VW or GM. Having seen VW ID4 breakdown by Munro I'm not surprised in the least, the battery would have been great 10 years ago (not at all today) , they innovated a bit on the motors, they tried to take a legacy ICE platform meant to support small diesels and turn it into a platform for an EV. Every head scratcher that confronted Munro was a result of that legacy platform and shoehorning. Ford breakdown by same guy showed what you'd expect from a first effort from a legacy automaker. Errors sure but the sort of errors you get from version 1 of a whole new product. No octovalve, which is just a stunning piece of innovation, so it was full of hoses and pumps but you expect that in Version 1. How long before octovalve is ripped off by competitors?

It's faint praise to say Ford did a better job that VW or GM. And the Bolt was a pretty good car (looks aside) - it just wasn't done by GM. The EV1 was a good car too, for the era. But that was a quarter century before the Mach-e and both GM EVs came out before Tesla made the Model 3 so it's not clear to which GM car you are comparing the VW to. Maybe the Mach-e is a better car than the ID4, maybe not, we would be splitting hairs and it might end up coming down to software, which is a work in progress for both of them. It might also come down to personal preferences as I don't think either of them has a clear technological lead. The VW can probably sell closer to the price it cost to produce than the Mach-e. To me that makes it the "better car". Just because Ford is willing to take a big loss on every Mach-e they sell doesn't make it better. You need to look at it like an investor, not an auto consumer.

Even Tesla's original Model S did not have the cluster-suck of hoses the Mach-e has. And the Model S was the better car, nearly a decade earlier. Blaming the Mach-e's hoses on that it's their first effort seems to miss the mark. I think it's revealing as to how they design and engineer vehicles. It's a corporate cluster-suck, just like their hose problem.

I'm not a Ford basher, I grew up in a "Ford family", the two cars I learned to drive on were Fords and my first car was a Ford, the legendary "grandma's car" with only 35K miles, always garaged, never driven in inclement weather and immaculately cared for. She gifted it to me when she could no longer drive. And I bought a new Ford F-150 in 2009. I don't have a problem with Ford's reliability, at least not with their legacy ICE cars, it's the engineering choices they make that tell me they are behind VW in many ways. But we are splitting hairs with the Mach-e vs. ID4. Volkswagen will get a much higher percentage of their investment back on the ID4 vs. Ford on their Mach-e and yet both cars allows their respective manufacturers to gain experience with EV's. So which company made better choices? My main point that instigated this rant was the fact that the Mach-e won the range test does not indicate a technological lead because they did it with a battery of nearly 100 kWh in size. The fact that less than 90% of it is useable actually argues against them having a lead in EV's. When you have little experience and little data you cannot maximize value because you don't know what you are doing.

I bet the ford f150 pickup is not a bad vehicle judging from the mach-e and I bet they sell every one they make and have a waiting list. I was pleasantly surprised.

The F-150 can't be judged yet as it's a work in progress. I don't know how you can judge the F-150 based on the Mach-e considering you were excusing it's issues as a "first effort". And selling every Ford Lightning they produce is not a good measure of how good it is when it will be manufactured in such small quantities. A better measure is whether it could outsell the Cybertruck. Because if Ford can't sell more F-150 Lightnings than Tesla can sell Cybertrucks, well to me, that indicates Ford didn't succeed. Pickup trucks is Ford's market to defend. I don't see them selling many at all, at any price, as far as the eye can see. Selling all they make is not a useful metric if they can't or don't or won't make very many. I hope I'm wrong but consumers like to get more for their money and corporations don't like to bleed money. It comes down to delivering value which is difficult to do when you blow billions on advertising and marketing, have a huge and inefficient dealer network to support and are lacking in the ability to design and engineer to first principles. It all comes down to the ability to offer value to the consumer.

Does Ford have that ability? Or will it be a government bailout? Time will tell.

 

[jbcarioca]

JLR (Jaguar Land Rover)

The premise of major manufacturers failing because of BEV alone, mostly because of Tesla, is quite silly in my opinion.
However, Tata has major challenges in India already and JLR has lost it's temporary sheen. Therefore I would be unsurprised were JLR to be sold again, with or without clear failure. It will not disappear, somebody (e.g. Geely) will buy them and fix them. I'd expect a Chinese company because at the moment they are the only ones with BEV technology, design capacity and manufacturing expertise combined with financial strength and, of course the will to follow bravely on the failures of BMW, Ford and Tata, none of which could overcome the litany of woes. It is sad, but I do think JLR will once again be sold within the near future.

 

[Baumisch]

But you can't use those in daily driving, they are only lit up and active if the center screen fails.

How should the car reliably know the screen failed ? Imho impossible

 

[gene]

How should the car reliably know the screen failed ? Imho impossible

I would think engineers that can accurately dock a spacecraft with the space station while travelling at 18,000 mph can figure out a way to let the car know that the screen has failed. Hell, even I could engineer that!

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Found this on Twitter. Unsure how he’s connecting the dots to 4680’s.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1403325907960487936

Just responding to point out the tweet is wrong. 1p4s means the cells are LiFePO4 cells (nominal voltage of 3.2v to give a pack voltage of 12.8v; or 14.4v when fully charged). Also, they wouldn't be 4680 cells, since the 2170 NCA's are 18wh, so a 4680 NCA would be around 90wh - essentially the entire capacity of Tesla's new 12v battery in a single cell (but at only 3.7v).

So quashing that 4680 speculation.

 

[15Peter20]

Can someone tell me what is so great about the Mach E? Seems like everyone forgot it uses as much batteries as a model X to get the performance 2nd to the Model Y and being sold at a massive loss.

Do we know, for sure, that it sells at a massive loss? I don’t doubt it but haven’t seen any factual numbers anywhere.

 

[Bullpup]

But you can't use those in daily driving, they are only lit up and active if the center screen fails.

Of course, I don't have a refresh S, so I'm piecing this together like the rest of us, but I don't think that is the case. The manual excerpt states:

"In most situations, these buttons are not available until you press one of the gear buttons to activate it. When active, the LEDs associated with each gear illuminate..."

It sounds to me like these buttons can be used without a failure; they just require a double press to prevent inadvertent activation.