The cars will always catch fire when alt-right people sabotage them. Not as much as gas cars, of course, but they will burn, all the same. The Shanghai fire could be real but it's more than a little suspect. Even if real, Tesla still has the lowest rate of fires in the business. The revolution began some time ago. The back markers have been too caught up in trying to crap on Tesla to know what's happening. To objective people, this video comes as no surprise. Oddly, this video demonstration of FSD is just the beginning. It is going to be excruciatingly difficult for others to catch up to Tesla. I suspect the reason Waymo is using Chrysler gas cars is because their FSD system is going to be real energy thirsty. To have FSD and still have strong range is a feat. Game. Set. Match.
Tesla Motors is at the bottom of its trading range. Maybe it's time to buy soon. But I would have waited for the stochastic below 20. Tesla can still update the lows. Weekly
Paid $4.05 a gallon for 87 octane out here on the left coast today. That should help the EV cause, assuming it is cheaper to buy electricity than gas. Oh, and we don't even get a kiss or a reach around while we're getting screwed.
Earnings call comments were in pretty stark contrast with media reports over the quarter. Model S/X delivery reductions were caused by re-tooling for the S/X upgrades, according to Tesla. Maxwell purchase to be complete by mid June. Predicted two more years of marginal profitability. Meanwhile, Panasonic Japan has upgraded manufacturing lines to allow production of 2170 cells. This could be for supply to GF3 and/or it could mean the S/X is being upgraded to 2170.
In other EV news, Rivian has been given a $0.5B cash injection from Ford in exchange for helping develop an eF150. Audi just revised down production targets for the eTron. This, after a year of delays. Despite every major manufacturer being terribly late and struggling with EV production, the same old story about how Tesla will be put out of business by the majors, as soon as they take notice and start producing EVs in volume never before seen. I wish those people would short Tesla. I could use the money.
Check out this headline. "Tesla losses reach US$702 million as deliveries dry up" As if the two lies in the headline weren't enough, the $702M loss headline was pumped up to $710B in the text. lol! "Tesla posts surprisingly large 1Q loss as sales slump 31%" If there was any question as to how greasy the auto industry is, that question has been answered. Having listened to the ER and now reading the reporting on it, I'm going to enjoy a nice laugh and will continue to stay long.
GF3 status: It appears the lower level roof structure is complete. The smaller, upper level, structure appears to be 50% complete. Overall, the roof structure is about 85% complete. Roof sheathing doesn't look much further along than a week ago. Sheathing is perhaps 20% complete. The perimeter driveway is also complete. I don't know how far around this building will be in 1 month, when Tesla plans to start moving in equipment. It seems like a long shot it will be ready, but not inconceivable.
Some people can't separate their emotional ties to this company from their rational thoughts about monetary preservation. After we saw they could not meet all deliveries for the 1Q you knew the earnings would not be positive. Could have sold then and bought back at much cheaper prices.
I'm going to share a long term investor perspective of this downturn. I've never sold a share. The last stock I purchased was at $258 (a few weeks ago). The fundamentals of Tesla are stronger now than they were a year ago. Lies about Tesla are up 10 fold, year on year. This looks like a great time to make money off alt-right bears. - Model 3 sales outstrip supply (Tesla now owns the luxury car segments in many countries) - Model S/X sales were down in Q1, based on re-tooling for the new drivetrain, suspension, etc. - Maxwell sale is expected to close around the middle of May - Full self driving has been demonstrated - Elon has indicated a 1M mile capable battery pack will be in production next year - The energy storage product line is no longer starved for cells - GF3 is expected to be online before the end of the year - Supercharger network is now over 12,000 charge points and expanding rapidly (this network has no peer)
To me it doesn't look good for TSLA in the long term. Just look at all that supply of stock trading in this market over the last year in the right hand side of this almost 2-year-old trading range. It suggests distribution to the public. Price can't rise significantly with all that stock sloshing around in the marketplace. I expect that the price needs to go down further until large-enough interests are interested in taking significant positions, locking it away, and making the stock scarce. Weekly bars:
Shorter term, TSLA is at the demand line of the shorter-term downtrend channel (red) but it appears like it will undershoot it. The ease of movement is down. Fryday showed slightly more volume than Thursday and also had a slightly larger price range and it closed low-range for the day, so there's no evidence of demand starting to overcome supply yet. Daily bars:
If anyone is interested in the status of GF 3 from a couple of days ago, this 1 minute video will bring you up to speed. Roof sheathing is nearing completion while much of the wall purlins have been installed preparing for siding.
Goldman Sachs just revised their rating on Tesla. The new rating is "Equal weight" at $230. For Goldman to not crap on Tesla, something unreal must be about to happen....
We're all sick of me prattling on about Tesla, including me, but the biggest obstacle Tesla currently faces is the Shanghai rainy season. If GF3 isn't weather tight in the next three weeks, or so, it could mean huge delays which will bring significant financial penalty. Currently, the project is looking marginal on that timeline.
I assume CNBC/Bloomberg/et al are reporting that Tesla needs a cash infusion. That ought to bash down the stock price nicely. The $2B is needed to fund the GF4 build in Germany. I expect it won’t go as quickly or as cheaply as Shanghai. In fact, I’m surprised they are only raising $2B. Obviously, they feel they can cover overages with operating lines and cash reserves. Once GF4 is online in 2021, Tesla will have production capacity beyond 1.5M vehicles annually.
More prattling.... Word is, Tesla Automation (Grohmann Engineering) is finished building equipment for the initial fit-out of GF3. Hopefully, this is true. Also hopefully, this equipment is already enroute to Shanghai. Tesla hopes to produce 2000 cars per week at GF3 by the end of 2019, best case. That is one general assembly line. A GA line at Freemont can produce well beyond 2000 cars per week. Tesla has done "burst analysis" on their GA lines to confirm production limits. Being cell constrained, they have not been able to run GA lines at Freemont to full capacity. They can only test capacity by measuring the burst production rate for one week. GF3 will get optimized production lines. They won't have to go through the same learning curve, as the IP is already in place. This also means that production down time for optimizations isn't as big of a deal as is presented in the media. They can easily consume all of the excess cells and packs that were not being installed during the down time. Battery production will remain a constraint until 2020 when dry anode technology will turn GF1 into a battery production monster. I expect cell production to triple or quadruple. We will see. Meanwhile, GM indicates they are building out an entire line of EV cars and trucks. Notice GM made an overture for Rivian and lost to Ford who splashed down $0.5B to partner with Rivian. GM will now have to go back to LG to develop their EV platform. EVs are almost always presented as simple technology by media outlets. It’s just a motor and battery. A child could do it. … and yet engineering companies like Ford and General Motors spend big money to find partners to develop EV platforms. Ford and GM are full of tremendously talented engineers. I predict a GM truck will go as follows: - Poor range - Take longer to bring to market than expected - Produced in much smaller numbers than expected with analysts being surprised and confounded as to why - Will generally be a good product - Will be a popular product - May only be available to fleets, at least initially - Will cost more than expected - Will take a long time to charge (fast charge in 60 minutes despite having a disappointingly small battery) Now, back to Porsche.... Porsche's 350KW charging is going to kill their battery packs. Perhaps this is OK for a sports car. They will be lucky to get to 100K miles on a battery pack, even with greatly diminished capacity. Further, as the internal resistance increases, they are not going to take nearly the same current. Either Porsche has new battery technology that nobody else has or they have an extremely near sighted strategy that has no regard for battery longevity. Suffice to say, I believe the latter.
Yep. Im enjoying seeing the other auto manufacturers step up and try give Tesla some competition, its a win win for all consumers. We have yet to see something rival the earliest of Tesla models, but Im sure we will see it in time.
The "unreal" event turned out to be Goldman being in lead position for a Tesla capital offering. Once the offering is closed, Goldman will return to working on damaging Tesla in the market any way they are able.
