Tesla are building out a battery production facility at Fremont. This seems odd, given Giga Nevada has always produced batts for Tesla cars. Tesla purchased the Kato Road facility, across the street from Fremont, to specifically produce batts. Odd then, they are moving battery production equipment into Fremont in a minor expansion. I will wildly speculate they have reduced the GA footprint sufficiently with production optimization and product simplification to co-locate battery production adjacent to general assembly. Does this mean Giga Nevada will be getting some general assembly, as well?
Tesla reported 23.3B of profit for the last 12 month period. They also reported non-GAAP margins but I don't relay works of fiction.
Here is something I find confounding. I'm watching some video of the Shanghai CATL factory build in Shanghai. It is progressing, albeit slowly. It's probably moving forward at a normal, non-Tesla, pace. Why wouldn't CATL and China sprinkle some magic powder on this project. The CATL coalescent battery is said to be a world beater. The world is more desperate for batteries than they are for Model Y cars. Why did Tesla get priority but CATL not?
Didn't Tesla have a deal with Ford a few months ago to use their super charger network? Just saw that they also have a deal with GM to use their supercharger network now.
Yeah, definitely going to lead to longer wait times with two more car companies using the same charging network.
The upward move may have something to do with the fact the Tesla connector (NACS) is now the de facto standard in North America. Tesla has opened the connector to the industry and is moving forward to allowed Ford and GM EVs to charge on their network. In the Everyone versus Tesla fight, Tesla has won. At least, in North America. On the short term, perhaps. On the long term, it will lead to a massively expanded SuperCharger network that will be better for all EV drivers. Electricity is the first non-standard fuel to succeed in 125 years. A common connector makes total sense. In fact, the industry's desire to ignore the Tesla connector and create their own was pretty douchy. Now they are choking on their failure with all sorts of press releases demonizing adoption of the NACS connector. At least they have remained fully in character.
I've been busy with life and haven't logged into Stockaholics much. Lots has happened with Tesla but people seem bored with it. Tesla continues to be among the most dynamic equities on the market. People don't bother talking about $100~250 swings in a 60 day period, anymore. That's passe. If Tesla can get it's FSD going, it may be the only company to do so. Google, Cruise (GM), and every other system is having problems making the jump to FSD. They are all competent driver assist systems but nobody seems to have solved the problem of making decisions without a driver that are as good or better than a human driver would make. Tesla is in talks to sell AutoPilot, also. Imagine the revenue? It will be a hell of a lot more than selling electricity on the SuperCharger network. I have no expectation of the SuperCharger network ever being a cash cow for Tesla, even if they can get it fully operating on solar.
I would not expand the charging network myself if I was Tesla. If the network gets expanded, Tesla would be wise to make their new partners pay for it.
In early 2023, there was a ton of talk about expansion. Tesla had permits in place to expand tons of facilities, including the largest ones. Of the work that was discussed at the Q4 EC, the only work that has progressed is the cathode building at Giga Texas. From what I can tell, Tesla has held delayed all of these projects. The delays are likely due to macro economic reasons. I suspect some expansion will resume in the second half of 23. Even though Tesla is setting production records, they are not doing so by dramatically improved numbers. It isn't even certain they have passed the 2M annualized vehicle target but they remain in that region. This is the first time in recent memory Tesla is not hyper scaling.
The Japanese government has offered Toyota $850B USD to build an EV. Toyota has been notorious in their rejection of EV so their outsourcing of that project to Tesla is in character. It's a race to bankruptcy now for GM and Toyota.
If anyone cares, CyberTruck production is ramping. Lots of stampings and a GA line is now operational. It will be a few months before volume gets to where it needs to be. I expect the first CyberTrucks to be delivered within the next week. First deliveries will probably be to employees and extremely select customers.
Something interesting is happening with Tesla with regard to batteries. They laid off a bunch of people from Shanghai battery production. This seems odd. Also, there is a rumor they are unwinding some CATL contracts. I have no idea what this means but I suspect it is significant if Tesla is ramping down their own internal production. Time will tell what these clues mean.
The books look amazing to me. Margins down but total profit from auto at ATH and some pretty big line items of one time spend gluggling through the accounting fire hose. Cathy wood sold a bunch of Tesla, late last week. Time will tell if her gambling strategy pays off, this time. Her gambling has lost a ton of money over time so it's down to loss mitigation now. If she wasn't a compulsive gambler, I would own AARK.
