Drew Baglino told us during the Q1 Conf. Call that Lathrop is being built in phases, with only phase 1 in production ATM. So it's more likely at about 60-80% ramped in phase 1. I think Drew also mentioned that they will build phase 2 before the end of Q4.
This seems to be the Tesla build method now: build two of everything, and get the 1st one up and running to help pay for the build out of the 2nd one. It's highly capital efficient, and accelerates ROIC. That's how they built Mudel Y in Giga Shanghai.
Beginning of April, there was a guy sitting a few days in in his car in front of the Lathrop factory and he said that they produce 10-11 Megapacks per day, on 7 days per Weeks (TMC Post 7552116).
13 weeks/quarter x 7 days/week x 10.5 Megapacks/day x 3.9 MWh/Megapack = 3.7 GWh/quarter.
In Q1 Tesla deployed almost 3.9 GWh and I would say at least 3 GWh are Megapacks from the Lathrop factory and the rest are probably Powerwalls.
For me it looks like that Lathrop phase 1 is already running very steadily since months and I expect only little improvement for Q2 and even for Q3 regarding production output (margins and revenues could improve a bit more).
On the bright side it looks like Tesla now has a factory design they can copy paste all over the world
- Lathrop phase 2 will ramp in Q4 and Q1 2024
- Shanghai phase 1 will ramp in Q2-Q4 2024
- Shanghai phase 2 will ramp in Q4 2024 - Q1 2025
- Next site phase 1 will ramp in Q4 2024 - Q2 2025
- ..
something like that. Then we need to keep in mind that also the supplier need to ramp their factories.
Regarding the margin aspiration of 25 %: Probably there is a lag until the money is transferred from the customer to Tesla at the end of the project, so we potentially didn’t see the steep ramp last quarter fully reflected in the earnings report. Maybe Tesla is scared that the selling prices will come down significantly over time with significantly increased supply. Also it is not given that purchase costs will go down considering the crazy demand which these products will have over the next years from Tesla and competitors.
A few lines about me personally.
I think the odds for another breakout of the share price in the next at least 6 months are quite low. Therefore I sold about 15 % of my shares yesterday and I now have a round amount of shares. I will not buy a Tesla car with this money since the Model Y is so wide that it is no more practical in Europe, and with no 7 seater option available I don’t see how I can justify buying such a big car. On the other hand the frunk of the model 3 is smaller than the one of my current car which is only 4.3 m long, so also not an attractive option for me personally.