Curious that Tesla is building a MegaPack factory in California, after Elon basically said he was leaving the state.
I found that odd as well. Then i decided they may logistically make sense for the strongest solar presence? Idk.
It probably has to do with Lathrop being 3h away from the battery plant on Kato Road. Still seems odd, though.
Threats is all it is. California pushes the entire country forward to EV acceptance, why would he want to ruin that relationship?
Giga Berlin is rocking. There must be several hundred workers on site and progress is astonishing. I expect this part of a push to start spot manufacturing in Q4. It won't be the same as production at full pace. They will be using a lot of components from China. It's a beach head, though. That is significant. Batteries to follow in 2022.
There are noticeably more transport trucks removing cars from Giga Shanghai, this week. Time will tell if this is a surge or a new operating level. I suspect the latter.
There is wholesale quantities of fresh pavement at Giga Berlin, with more in progress. They are oiling a huge area that looks like a parking lot for production buffering. I would imagine it will be fully paved by the middle of next week. The battery building is coming along fantastic. Giga Berlin is abuzz with activity. It is wonderful to watch. Apparently, Tesla doesn't have final permits to finish Giga Berlin. They are operating on preliminary permits. It sounds like there is some, small, risk they will be required to exit the site and restore the land to a forested state.
To be clear, Giga Berlin will have no positive impact on Tesla in 21Q4. That isn't possible. Berlin will be turning out cars but not at sufficient volume to make an impact. What's more, they will be pulling resource from Shanghai and possibly Fremont. Still, they are making important steps forward on a plant that will bear tremendous fruit in late 2022.
In the early days of Giga Berlin, there were a lot of declarations of how they were progressing faster than Giga Shanghai did, during it's construction. Myopic points of view give so much and ask so little. Here is some perspective. Giga Shanghai started producing cars 10 months in. Giga Berlin has been under construction for 18 months, and it appears they are on the cusp of production with a stack of welded bodies to indicate they are dialing in the production process, but they have still not produced a complete test unit, to my knowledge. They certainly aren't licensed to produce cars. Giga Texas has been under construction for almost as long as Giga Berlin. It appears Texas is a bit behind berlin, perhaps by about the same amount of time that Berlin lead in breaking ground, so about the same. Now, if we want to talk cost, China mops the floor with most to all of the rest of the world, depending on how skilled the task is. For precision production, China dominates.
Speaking of Giga Texas, I've been looking at a giant shipment of windows sitting on the concrete beside that building for over a week. They have open apertures, a few windows installed, and a crane positioned to hoist the next glass into place. If anyone here has a connection with the Tesla Construction Division, would you please tell them to send over a couple of guys to put in those mo-fo windows before I lose my mind!!!
Tesla delivered 241300 vehicles in Q3. Given the Shanghai ramp at the start of September, I think it's safe to assume Tesla has achieved a weekly production that annualizes to 1M vehicles. This is a milestone. I'm sure it will bump the valuation, once people figure it out in January of 2022, but the company has a valuation of $800B so 1M vehicles should not change anyone's world view. It will change people's view;. I'm just saying it shouldn't. On the other hand, given the scale of Tesla's investment and effort, anyone who still thinks ICE auto manufacturers can just buy some batteries and make millions of vehicles is an incorrigible moron.
The Giga Shanghai inventory parking lot was easily empty, this morning. There are less than 100 cars on that pad. I got out of Tesla in January because of the extreme valuation and an understanding of how long it will take the company to grow into its current valuation, best case. It was the right move. But, the people on other forums and StockTwits make me feel really smart. It is astonishing how few people understand Tesla, even now. If ever I were tempted to trade a stock, it would be Tesla. Alas, I am not.
Tesla has paid back $1.6B in loans from Chinese banks for Giga Shanghai. Meanwhile, "Tesla killers" are struggling for survival. Any questions?
Tesla cites production at Giga Shanghai at 56K for September. That annualizes to 672K vehicles per year. This puts Tesla's current production capacity comfortably at 1.1M units per year. Since Tesla is cell constrained, bringing Giga Texas and Giga Berlin online will not increase their volume. It will simply re-portion some volume to those locations at the cost of lowered volume at Shanghai and Fremont. I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept but everyone seems focused on general assembly lines. A cell constrained company cannot build more cars without more cells. That won't happen until cell production is boot-strapped at Berlin and Austin. Both of which won't start to ramp until 2022. The new factories are important and hugely significant first steps toward expansion but Tesla's fortunes pivot on their ability to source more cells.
I think Giga Shanghai was shut down for about 10 days. The inventory parking lot was nearly empty and almost no haulers removing cars. It is not shut down now, though. The lot is back to 65% capacity after only a couple of days and car haulers are lined up 20+ abreast to deliver inventory.
Michael Burry has exited his short position on Tesla. At least he was smart enough to take his hand off the burner before his burns hit third degree.
