Great QR and CC, I like how Elon handled those dumb questions. There are some very good comments from Tesla team, I guess shorts won't even recognize that those are bullish.
1. Cobalt - we discussed this in the past, I didn't worry about Cobalt price going up, I worried that big shorts buying all the Cobalt and leave none for Tesla. One big short was openly calling everyone to do this. Tesla knew this issue for years, they must have been working on this. Today they confirmed that they can live without much Cobalt. JB said they have been working on this for years. I hope those who hoard Cobalt will learn the lesson, don't bully Elon. This will be a big problem for Tesla's competitors. I think they still need Cobalt.
Yes and no. Tesla has a huge advantage with NCA that uses less C then NMC 8-1-1. But competitors already are going to be using less cobalt because they are going to be using NMC 811 at some point. Tesla advantage is that they are not using NMC 811, instead using NCA with less cobalt which is massive because it means they get all the density advantages with lower costs/weight.
2. Chip and AI software is going well. Autonomous driving likely coming by end of 2019. Though it will not be officially released as full autonomous, I think the advanced autopilot will work really well by then. That's what I want.
3. Model 3 production is going well. The plan is to achieve 5000 per week in 2 months. In the past I worried that they completely stop production for unexpected reasons. This is good news to me.
4. Tesla's lead on Semi is huge. This is a very large market. It will take market shares from trains and all other Semi trucks. This combined with the coming autonomous driving, Tesla will be capable to get into shipping market with no competitor.
Alluded to greater then 600 miles of range and that 500 was attainable with current tech. Holy crap, what the heck do they have on tap to improve densities 20% after recently increasing 30% with 2170?
5. They revised margin to ~20% instead of 25%, that's strange. But next year target is still 25%.
This is because they had originally targeted 10k/w by the end of 2018d
6. Average selling price on Model 3 is higher than expected. I think this should have been expected. Most people ordered all the options including the 19 inch wheels.
This is the understatement of the century. Which makes the margin question a bit more perplexing.
7. They didn't want to talk about the Model 3 take rate, to me this is not a problem, I expected the take rate to be very low, because most people are waiting for all wheel drive, short range, or performance. This car will sell itself. I think the wait list will well pass one million by early 2019. Now I have first hand experience with the Model 3, I can confidently say at minimum each car will lead to another 20 sales. Those 20 will lead to another 200. Legacy car companies are in big trouble, especially BMW, VW, Mercedes, and also those lower end like Toyota, Honda. The society is switching to EV with autonomous features. Those legacy car companies are not ready to compete. This is coming very fast. Those people who test drove my car will stop considering ICE cars.
This is why that question was really dumb. What in the heck can be gained from knowing what the conversion rate for 1 version of the vehicle? It tells you absolutely nothing. Now if all variations where available then knowing the take rate would be meaningful, but then there wouldnt be a question because Tesla would be still be delivering more cars then they can make. Which BTW is a problem that will persist for the next decade. Tesla will never catch up to demand even at 2M vehicles a year.
The model 3 is competitive all the way down to the Camry even without Credits. Its fact, not fiction. This is why Tesla will dominate the mid sized lux market because it will pull people up just like the Model S did.
