It almost seems like, and correct me if I am wrong, when Elon keeps his mouth shut, good things happen.
Interesting bunch of people if you think about it. Created more than 2 genders, men dressing up like women trying to be accepted. Makes sense, they cry like little girls when offended. Get in a fight and he swings his purse at you. My Tesla is doing great so far, might make it in my longterm investing category of holding over 30 days but still on probation. It's now on the shelf with Apple.
Sorry, this is long. I am now 85% sure the new construction is Tesla. Someone I trust tells me the property was sold to Tesla who is developing it primarily for battery production lines. I'm not sure how CATL fits into the picture but I know Tesla is extremely cozy with CATL. CATL is building near Giga Shanghai at the request of Elon. Meanwhile, the Giga Shanghai expansion is just starting. It is going to double the footprint of Giga Shanghai, which is to say it will be massive. The Shanghai production lot is near empty, right now. They just finished a massive export batch and haulers are taking away production nearly as fast as they come off the lines. For all of the negative Tesla news that is being championed, Tesla is doing everything it should. They have two recent battery breakthroughs, a significant new lithium contract with a Canadian company, 4680 cell production yields seem to have improved significantly in the last 10 days, and work has started on another 1+M annual unit plant. Tesla doesn't appear to be struggling to me. Spread the negative news while it is almost credible because it's going to be one hell of a year. Lots of good things are happening at Giga Berlin but things seem to be moving at a rather measured pace, by Tesla standards. I wouldn't bet against Giga Berlin. I'm just saying they will not be producing 1M units per year any time soon. Giga Texas, on the other hand, will take a significant step forward once the switching substation comes online. I think they are power constrained, right now. I will take a wild guess on the ETC of the substation at 60 days (if it's a constraint, they will push it hard). Perhaps by mid summer, if my ignorance is buoyed by dumb luck, Giga Texas will have cell formation scaled 5x from current (25K cars per month) with the cell building (cathode married to anode, cell formation, possible pack assembly), new cathode building (*another* new cathode building that is about to begin construction), another general assembly line operating in the main building (working and starting to scale), and the new drive building (construction to begin any day) should be taking shape. So much new capacity is coming online but I don't think it will have a profound impact on the annualized production rate. I predict 2.5 unit production rate at year end, a significant margin improvement, and a lot of subsystem capacity that will allow them to supply parts in order to bootstrap two new Gigafactories which I expect will be announced in the first half of this year. By the end of 2024, I expect 3.5M units of annualized production (it will be a big year) and likely a path to 5M units of production capacity by the end of 2025 (an even bigger year).
If anyone cares, Redwood Materials (JB STraubel's company) just secured a DOE loan to build a battery recycling and production facility near Sparks, Nevada. I assume this was coordinated with the Giga Nevada expansion in support of planned new capacity.
Is anyone here near Fremont, CA? I'm serious. The last pic I saw, Tesla had raised a couple of buildings on Kato Road, across from Fremont factory, but those pics are months old. There are no recent satellite pics, either. The most recent Google street view is from 2021. I'd like to see what's going on there. Is Elon living in a Boxable unit that is placed on the rubble of the former buildings? Any pics appreciated.
I just got some battery numbers for 2022. Tesla Energy storage consumed 6.5GWh of cells. Auto consumed about 95GWh of cells.
Here is an EV vehicle to ponder, trucks have came up a few times here in the thread. Thought you guys might find this interesting, although it is not a TSLA deal. Volvo Trucks and CEMEX Unveil First Fully Electric Heavy Concrete Mixer Truck
It's a great idea, Smokie. While counter intuitive, concrete trucks are all ultra low range. Even two hours is on the fringe of a concrete delivery to the point most suppliers around here wouldn't do it. Short trips. Stationary in the same location for a long time during loading. Seems ideal.
The NG M3 is rumored to arrive with new manufacturing techniques that will significantly improve manufacturing efficiency. I hate to spread rumors, but not enough to not do it , but we can be sure it will arrive with cast frames, front, mid, and rear. As well, there is talk if interior simplifications. Throw in a structural battery pack and you are probably at 10% or more simplification and, more importantly, increased production from the same manufacturing lines. It isn't all that difficult to reduce the component count of a complex assembly like the M3 over time. The trick is to get customers to accept the simplified product if features are eliminated. I suspect Tesla is looking at this as a market test for the Y.
I think this post from four months ago (November 2022) was regarding the roll out of 11.3. 11.3 is the first single stack FSD software. Before 11.3, city navigation used different code than highway. I seem to recall they used different versions of the auto labeler but that is from a few releases ago so they may have started using a single labeler prior to 11.3. There are other improvements in 11.3, as well. There must have been some problems with 11.3 because we are just getting to a wider beta now. Apparently, the behaviors are smoother and it can handle more corner cases. I've never used FSD but people who have indicate it's a noticeable step forward. Even I noticed the significant graphics update. I think Tesla is being ultra cautious with FSD software. That makes a world of sense to me. If they jack this up, they will take a massive hit to their forward momentum.
local orange county paper headline. ---- Tesla undercuts average US car by almost $5,000 in EV shakeout Tesla’s Model 3 sedan now sells for $4,930 less than the average new vehicle sold..
Some TSLA news....a slice of the article below. Tesla engineering HQ leaving Texas to return to California, Musk announces (KTLA) – Tesla is returning to California. Elon Musk announced during a joint press conference with California Gov. Gavin Newsom that Tesla would be returning its global engineering headquarters to California, two years after a dramatic exit that saw the electric car company leave the Golden State for a facility in Austin, Texas. Tesla will open up shop in the former home of Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, Musk said. The facility will serve as the company’s engineering headquarters while the corporate headquarters remains in Austin. The move returns Tesla to the world’s center of technology and innovation, and puts Musk in closer to proximity to the headquarters of Twitter, which the billionaire tech entrepreneur purchased last year in a massive social media shakeup.
Expansion has started at Giga Shanghai. It's just some foundation pieces for what looks like a giga press plinth but it harkens to a doubling of Shanghai capacity. The array of battery buildings appear to be coming along nicely. I speculate production equipment will start to be fitted out in 30 days, or so, while they finish the buildings. Giga Nevada has the roof peeled back and is ready to expand. Satellite photos of Giga Nevada are two weeks stale so I don't know how far they have progressed. they might be actively doing groundwork and perhaps pile driving in some column foundations by now. Texas and Berlin continue to be actively progressed. I won't comment on Mexico, as it's all speculative, at this point.
