Here is a quote from an article I read this morning: "EU rules say car and SUV makers must achieve a fleet average of CO2 the equivalent of 57.4 miles per U.S. gallon by next year and 2021. This increases through to 92 miles per U.S. gallon average by 2030 through another step in 2025." Yes, it's Forbes so credibility on this subject is pretty limited. Dual opposed engine designs will accomplish the goal set out by EU rules. Mix in some EV to bring up the fleet average and diesel/petrol cars look easily positioned to make it another decade. They will have to innovate a little, though. Achates Power isn't the only company working on this technology. If they want, EU manufacturers will be able to keep producing current generation engines and improve fleet average emissions by scaling their EV program. That seems to be the direction they are going. Back in North America, we are told that, at least, one manufacturer has chosen to license the dual opposed piston engine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwi...ubsidies-to-spur-electric-sales/#58eb06f421b8
Pics are streaming out of GF3 showing long lines of cars on GA1 (general assembly line 1). Sampling seems to be complete. This appears to be a run of a significant run of cars.
New satellite photos show the GF3 battery plant roof is 80% sheeted. Meanwhile at GF1, a second solar array in as many weeks is proudly soaking up photons on the roof. Is there any other company on the planet moving and shaking as quickly as Tesla?
Tesla current models: S3XY It seems likely the new models will be named as follows: Truck: T Roadster: I Semi Truck: Ts To be clear: Yes, this is in jest.
Nobody likes my name theory? I apologize if the lack of political correctness offended anyone. Regarding the 3000 vehicle production target for GF3, as mentioned by Tesla's auto VP.... Why are there articles regarding 1100 vehicle week target by 2021? Why are we letting morons set the narrative? Tesla fanboys sometimes play the victim card a little hard. To succeed, you must ignore the detractors. The real target was always 2500 vehicles per week by mid 2020. Freemont can do 2500 vehicles per week, per general assembly line, without breaking a sweat. Freemont can do 3000 units per week, and has, but they are starved for batteries. 3K units per week is probably a peak, for GF3. No doubt, by Q3 of next year they will be producing 3K units per week on the existing line and will be bootstrapping, at least, one more line. I don't see a path to 400K units per year at GF3 by 21Q1 but it shouldn't be long after. Of course, I'm using pessimistic time lines and Tesla has been hitting targets lately. All of this hinges on Hibar. I would imagine Hibar staff are currently locked in a cage with food and rations while management spurs them on with chair and whip in hand. Tesla's future hinges on Hibar battery cell production equipment. By 21Q3, I expect Tesla to be netting over $1B per quarter, even while building out GF4.
Model 3 flow to China looks about normal this week. Let's play a game: Somebody name any other product that China is buying as much as we can possibly make and ship to them.
Let's talk rumors. 1) Tesla to supply batteries and technology to VW While stranger things have happened, I am more than a little skeptical on this. If VW were to purchase anything from Tesla, it would be their motor tech. We can see the Audi eTron is 40% down on efficiency from the second gen Model S and less than half the efficiency of the 3 and Raven S. Audi is an engineering company. They could easily dismantle an M3 motor and copy it. There would be no copyright violation since Tesla has open sourced their patents. 3) Tesla to supply technology to Fiat Chrysler This makes a lot more sense to me. LG seems to be the go-to source for EV tech these days but Tesla could easily start making some wins. If FCA adopts a significant amount of Tesla technology and uses the Tesla supercharger network, they could leap-frog everyone else for the #2 EV spot. How FCA can possibly service an EV fleet is beyond me but I'm just a teenager with a cell phone and three shares of Tesla stock.
Tesla truck unveiling event on November 21. Reports of Tesla negotiating with CATL for batteries is not news. We've known this for some time and no agreement has been reached. Nothing to see here. Keep walking.....
The time and effort you have invested "pun intended" in this thread is impressive to say the least. My main question is do you ever flip your holdings? Take your TSLA position for example. Did you sell on the recent news and plan to buy back when it drops back down "and it will" this is one the wildest swinging tickers I have ever played. If not, do you hedge with options? I dont have the stomach for buy n hold investing, way to much fluctuation for me to handle, the trader in me takes over especially if its in the green.
Thanks for the kind words, Slayer. It would seem I'm on the other end of the scale, with regard to buy n hold investing. I purchased a bunch of calls a couple of months ago when the stock was at $217 and sold them shortly after when the stock was at $251. Luckily, it worked out well. I don't have the stomach for the downside. I can't bet against a company I believe in. The justification I had for purchasing the calls was that I want to own more stock, anyway. I'm a semi-retired gent and don't have the need or desire for trading. May the markets rain money on you like a prostitute at a Charlie Sheen party.
Tesla's market cap is $60.77B right now (Nov. 9th, 2019) & they posted returns of $6.3B in Q3 2019. Source link Ford's market cap is $35.96B right now & they posted returns of $37B in Q3 2019. Source link This makes no sense. Ford has way more cash flow annually, yet Tesla is valued far higher by investors. Is market capitalization just totally grounded in investor speculation? Does there need to be any grounding in company revenues at all?
As I understand, the current gf3 hold up is a sales license. I have only a rudimentary understanding of Chinese regulations but I think cars can be made and delivered to customers once the sales license is achieved. It appears they are ready for production and waiting on red tape for a week, or so, by now. Meanwhile, the gf3 battery plant roof is 85% complete. Also, Tesla is in the process of installing a lot more solar on gf1. This solar is only relevant if they plan to use it for battery formation of new battery lines. I recall Elon saying there was a cap on how much power he was prepared to take from the grid. It could just as easily be testing new panels or testing installations identical to the problematic Walmart solar installs, for the purpose of developing the safety of that system.
Personal soliloquy. I have no emotional investment in my Tesla holdings, despite wanting the company to succeed. It's very odd. The valuation swings are of no interest to me. I just want Tesla to focus on business. It wouldn't bother me terribly if Tesla were to go bankrupt. Oh sure, it would pinch financially. When I bought our first tranche of Tesla, I resolved to hang in there no matter what happened. Right now, Tesla is doing epically well but I've considered several dark scenarios. For example, what if Elon smokes his brain with a nuralink implant? What if Elon simply breaks down? What if Elon is assassinated by a nut job. All three of these things are plausible. If Elon goes, the company will struggle. Two years ago,the company couldn't succeed without him. Now, it would certainly struggle. It's hard to say how well they would do minus Elon. At some point in the future, I expect Tesla will arrive at a point where the company would do better without Elon. I don't know when that will come but that day is not today.
Tesla was dominating the European EV market in the first half of the year. I was looking through some manifests and I can see they have vectored production to China. They literally sent cars on just two ships to Europe in Q3. Europe is currently short supplied. China is currently receiving record high shipments of Tesla vehicles. Tesla is really catering to the Chinese market, right now. Looking at production volumes and how far off European shipments are (Chinese shipments do not account for the European shortfall), Tesla must be selling record numbers of cars domestically.
Odd the price is down today. We are currently at $346. The battery plant at GF3 is coming along at a crazy pace. Purlins are up on the walls and I expect wall panels to begin installation by this weekend. I wouldn't put much regard into reports of large orders starting to roll in to suppliers. While I have no doubt this is true, these orders had long lead notice for the 3 so I expect the Y will be the same. More telling, I think, is that Tesla hasn't built the 5th GA line for the 3/Y at Freemont. They haven't even started. A permit was pulled a few months ago, so I expect construction to start this year. I think GA6 (currently 1 GA line for S/X, 4 for 3/Y) is going to need to come online to make it realistic to launch this product. They could easily be waiting for 3 demand to die down a bit before they start the Y. Back at GF3, it is said they want to produce 17K vehicles this year. Given the short time frame involved, that suggests a two week ramp to 3K vehicles per week. I don't have high confidence they will make that goal but I think they will come close. If they can get near 3K vehicles per week at GF3, and they can sustain near 7K vehicles per week at Freemont (have already peaked over 7K weekly production), that will account for a production rate of 500K vehicles per year. Some may recall this is the production rate Elon cited in February that caused some of Tesla's enemies to suggest Elon should be prosecuted by the SEC for saying such.
Wireless vehicle charging. Here's why it will fail, although it might be a good solution for some corner cases. https://insideevs.com/news/382664/gotland-installation-dynamic-wireless-charging/ Wireless charging is not 100% efficient. It's not even close. Consider EVs will require about as much energy as all non-EV energy uses combined. Grid capacity will need to double. If wireless charging can reach 80% efficiency (that would be amazing but let's say it could do it) that would require a 20% grid expansion with convenience being the only benefit. It would cost countless billions to expand the grid 20%. Elon has said Tesla will never participate in wireless charging. It's for the reason of inefficiency. A cell phone can lay right on top of a wireless charger, touching it. Even at that, a thick case will cause most of the power to be lost. With a road situation, there would have to be perhaps 6" of clearance from the power emitter to receiver? That isn't going to be particularly efficient. Power grids are going to struggle with the additional load of EVs. We need a lot of people to adopt solar, just to tread water. This assumes nearly 100% charging efficiency. Imagine 50% charging efficiency. Instead of needing to double power production, we would need to triple it. Tesla plans to automate charging with robots but the current Tesla plan is to always use physical connectors.
With the Chinese edition Model 3 to hit showrooms in the next couple of days, that could mean a sales permit is about to be granted. Meanwhile, the South Australian battery is about to increase in size by 50%. It's starting to sound like the battery is not as much of an abject failure as traditional peak power suppliers claimed it to be, even before it was brought online.
Some weeks ago, I noticed new solar being installed on the roof of GF1. This solar looks different than existing panels on the roof. The new panels look larger than the original panels in the array. Now it has become known that Tesla filed a patent for a new mounting system. It's an aluminum extrusion, much like many other systems. I don't see an advantage of this system, over other excellent systems, particularly the GAF system. Tesla tends to be aggressive on price, so they could easily dominate this space. I think this, far more than the solar glass tiles, will bring success to Tesla's Solar division. Currently, the mounting system costs about as much as the panels so any significant price reduction here could be a game changer. If Tesla could make money with their Solar division, they would be unstoppable. Right now, they are walking around with GF2 on their back.
It's interesting to see the capex was down a little this morning but has recovered to within a few dollars of recent highs. Interesting, because today is the truck reveal. It would seem Elon has done a good job of managing expectations for his cos-play truck.
