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

[Joe F]

Cease!
Says who?
Sesame.

Thank you. You all were on a roll today.

 

[gerebgraus]

Looking forward to the first tear down analysis of the Model Y. I’m especially curious about the new wiring architecture and to what extent that simplifies construction and reduces cost of construction.

I wonder whether whatever new tech. is introduced for Y will be introduced at the same time for the 3.

 

[lklundin]

Just before reading the above I picked up a handful of 320$ Jan. 17 calls, which I now feel pretty good about.

The thing I start to not like about this trade, is that I did not put a lot more money into it.

 

[Fact Checking]

My worry for downward stock pressure would be if they warn about a weak Q1 in the delivery report, or Q4 results.

Leaks from China suggest that they have orders for all of GF3 production until end of Q1 already.

Assuming they make about 3k GF3 units in Q4 but don't deliver them, enter January with a 1k/week rate and exit Q1 with a 2.5k/week rate (80% of nominal capacity), then that's a GF3 production of about 29k units, and similar deliveries.

That's a lot of Q1 cushion.

 

[sundaymorning]

Leaks from China suggest that they have orders for all of GF3 production until end of Q1 already.

Assuming they make about 3k GF3 units in Q4 but don't deliver them, enter January with a 1k/week rate and exit Q1 with a 2.5k/week rate (80% of nominal capacity), then that's a GF3 production of about 29k units, and similar deliveries.

That's a lot of Q1 cushion.

Is there a guesstimate of how large the China backlog is?

 

[Curt Renz]

Electrek - today:

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/tesla-gigafactory-4-produce-500000-model-y-model-3-cars-per-year/

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/tesla-police-talks-sentry-mode/

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/e...utions-supporting-an-ev-bill-us-mayors-solar/

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/ford-dealership-mustang-mach-e-test-tesla-ev-misinformation/

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/how-will-gm-fund-its-evs-by-launching-bigger-gas-guzzling-suvs/

https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/11/porsche-taycan-turbo-201-mile-epa-range/

 

[AlexS]

He’ll boot you all the way back to Worcestershire!

Wuster

 

[DragonWatch]

Indestrucktable!

yes, that is why I am a miracle baby. I successfully made it through life to date despite my struggle with spelling.

whenever FUBAR struck, senior army officers called Rudolf (me) in to pull the sleigh. My god the academy children hated me.

Told my wife the visual of her selecting me back in 1973 was: “I looked like a half starved stringy soggy wet range chicken held by the legs.” Yes, I was a rescue animal.

Want to see Tesla succeed ~ stay close. As my seven year old grandson says, “I got this.” I think he will inherit the CyberTruck.

FYI ~ I did make the spelling correction before two shakes of salt Or, was it two scoops of sugar? Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

 

[RobStark]

First they have to find a way to actually make a profit, which is hard to do when you are only relying on people traveling plus apartment and condo dwellers. In the future almost all apartments and condos will be charge capable, which limits the long term profits to travel only. Destination chargers eat into the travel only profit.

In the future all vehicles will be BEV, expanding the market.

Large condos/apartment complexes have network chargers and that may expand in the future.

There will be those that need to charge that are out and about not necessarily traveling. Not everyone will have 500 plus mile range that they remember to top off every night.

 

[Curt Renz]

EVBite - Yesterday:

With the Ford Mustang Mach E around the corner and praise being sent towards Ford for their "commitment" to electric vehicles, we thought it would be best to get some first hand experience with their front line.

 

[Tslynk67]

Thank you. You all were on a roll today.

You guys are really beginning to cheese me off!

 

[Nocturnal]

Wow. The Model X Performance beats this. Would probably beat it while towing a Taycan, in fact.

Taycan doesn't use regen breaking right? If that's correct it's a baffling decision to make driving seem more like an ICE at the cost of range.

 

[RobStark]

When Taycan celebrates they sold 20k for the year, GF4 targets 500k/year.

This pretty much sums up all competitions to come.

When they think they can make a car that’s remotely comparable to Model S, Tesla is cranking out Model 3 like crazy, Model S doesn’t have any meaningful impact to financials anymore. And there is just no way they can make anything to compete with Model 3.

When they somehow catch up on Model 3, Tesla is cranking Model Y instead.

When they catch up on Model Y, CyberTruck becomes the real game.

Speed solves everything. Everyone else is playing catch-up and they are not running nearly as fast.

Note: when I say catchup, I mean offering a alternative that’s inferior in every way, and have to be priced at loss to get enough buyers just want to be different.

Taycan is a Model S competitor not a Model 3 competitor. Model S is not meaningfully impacting the financials because it is not selling 25k plus units per quarter

That Taycan is objectively inferior and has already racked up 10k sales in Europe plus 20k pre-orders/reservations of 2500 Euros a pop should alert people that the auto market is not a rational place.

Audi etron is objectively a worse value than Taycan and yet it still sells well in Europe. Brands matter, interiors matter, distribution and service networks matter, and marketing matters.

ID.3 is coming next summer and ID.4 will come shortly thereafter not years later.

Best car doesn't necessarily win.

 

[RobStark]

There is a Supercharger in Moscow.

Isn't it inside one the most exclusive golf/country clubs in Russia?

 

[Beltsbear]

Taycan doesn't use regen breaking right? If that's correct it's a baffling decision to make driving seem more like an ICE at the cost of range.

No. The Taycan has upgraded friction brakes that can handle the load 100% and might do that on the track to keep the battery temps under control. That is not default behavior.

 

[Doggydogworld]

As we’ve learned, the WLTP ratings are insanely gameable and all of the Europeans have designed their cars to excel on WLTP, but not in real life or EPA. The Koreans and Tesla have far less variation between the ratings.

The 4S with the optional battery pack, Turbo and Turbo S Models all have the 93.5 kWh pack
The 4S and even lesser models to be introduced will have a 79.2 kWh pack.

Maybe they’re more efficient so they won’t lose the full 15% (30 miles) of range the smaller pack would indicate.

Thanks - 201 miles on 93.5 kWh is unbelievably bad. Worse than even pre-update i-Pace despite much less frontal area. How did Porsche screw this up so badly? BTW, they got "independent" AMCI to certify it at 275 "real world" miles. Hmmm.

Too bad Taycan didn't do the recent e-Cannonball rally in Germany. It's not scientific since teams can be tripped up by traffic, bad strategy, etc. But it's still interesting. Model 3s cleaned up, taking the top 6 spots and the only times under 9 hours (~800 km). Kona, e-Tron and a 28 kWh Ioniq (!!) finished 7/8/9. The best Model S placed 11th at just under 10 hours. Ioniqs also placed 14th and 18th, so not a fluke. You can see basic results on this video. If anyone has links to the actual spreadsheet I'd be obliged.

I don't ascribe much value to times over 11 hours, a lot of entrants probably just had fun sightseeing and enjoying long lunches or whatever. But the Opel Ampera-e (aka Chevy Bolt), Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoes were all 13+ hours. And the only Jaguar i-Pace took 17 hours!

 

[N5329K]

EVBite - Yesterday:

With the Ford Mustang Mach E around the corner and praise being sent towards Ford for their "commitment" to electric vehicles, we thought it would be best to get some first hand experience with their front line.

Yikes.
Robin

 

[Nocturnal]

Thanks - 201 miles on 93.5 kWh is unbelievably bad. Worse than even pre-update i-Pace despite much less frontal area. How did Porsche screw this up so badly? BTW, they got "independent" AMCI to certify it at 275 "real world" miles. Hmmm.

I don't think they screwed up, it's just that Tesla really has a major lead. They also clearly prioritized speed.

 

[kbM3]

Taycan doesn't use regen breaking right? If that's correct it's a baffling decision to make driving seem more like an ICE at the cost of range.

Taycan does have regen, but I believe it occurs mostly from the brake pedal. It definitely does not have 1 pedal driving, but it may have 2 modes IIRC. 1 where it completely coasts and one where it slows similarly to a normal automatic transmission vehicle, when you let off the throttle.

Bad choice. I LOVE 1 pedal driving. Porsche wanted it to be more comfortable for their current owners.

 

[jerry33]

In the future all vehicles will be BEV, expanding the market.

Large condos/apartment complexes have network chargers and that may expand in the future.

There will be those that need to charge that are out and about not necessarily traveling. Not everyone will have 500 plus mile range that they remember to top off every night.

True, but that still doesn't leave all that much. 1/100?, 1/1000? compared to ICE vehicles.