I don't know what ya'll think, but if you had asked me a few weeks ago about Vernon Unsworth, the British diver who saved the 12 boys in the Thailand cave, I would have thought, oh yeah, the pedophile. I would not have remembered it was Musk that labeled him as a pedophile but most certainly Unsworth was defamed. I guess Musk considers himself lucky the trial was held in LA-LA land where maybe being a pedophile is not a big deal and where pedophilia is perhaps considered just another lifestyle choice. If I was Unsworth I'd be watching those jury members for years to come for signs of lifestyle changes, e.g., new Tesla in the driveway. Bearing false witness is serious and Musk should have done the right thing, the righteous thing, and accepted his error as a man instead of shirking responsibility as the overfed child that he is. Hopefully some day Musk will pay. Shame on the shareholders who do not call for his resignation. Oh yeah, 99%-plus of shareholders don't have any say so. I guess the self-assigned title of "investor" is just an illusion of deluded buy-and-hold gamblers. Superbrat = a famous person who is known for displays of volatile or emotionally unstable behavior, e.g. Elon Musk.
On Friday, trucks hauled away just over 400 model 3 from the gf3 parking lot. A Shanghai local shared a picture this morning that shows a full lot again with just under 500 cars. The 1000 per week by the end of 2020 target was always ridiculous. 9000 per month by the end of 2020 will be more likely. Price edging up this morning in a mostly down market. Thanks to Jay in Shanghai for the pic.
At this point, much of the Q4 outcome is pretty clear. - GF3 production will have little positive impact to the bottom line for the quarter - Overall, GF3 will be a significant liability for the quarter - production pace will be above the 400K units per year level, as Elon predicted and countless "analysts" disagreed - cash should be stable, despite the purchase of GF4 land I have questions: - how much energy storage sold? - I know they have sold a ton of PowerWalls but many of the PowerPacks seem to have been deployed at Supercharger v3 stations - I suspect energy storage will be up but not as high as Elon predicted (hope I'm wrong) - I suspect energy storage continues to be starved for cells - what are they going to do with their free cash? They currently have well over $5B of cash. That's more than they will need to build GF4 and they are cash flow positive, right now. Perhaps an RoC is in the future? Current price: $347.59
I've done some thinking about Tesla factory scale. They seem to build to 500K unit annual production. There is a trade off between localized production and economies of scale. I don't know where 500K annual units falls on the efficiency curve but it seems like a very reasonable place. It wouldn't make sense to expand Freemont to 1M annual unit production, even if they could. At some point, it would make more sense to build another plant on the east coast of the US. There is no point scaling capacity higher than is needed to sustain the long term need, although there is an argument to scale 3/Y production higher than sustainable, to fill a short term need, and then send that equipment to another location when demand reduces to a steady state. I understand the largest car factory is a Hyundai factory is in Korea. It is capable of producing 1.5M vehicles annually. That is a lot of Excel's. That scale might make sense for Tesla in China or India. Meanwhile, groundwork for a new building at GF3 appears nearly complete. Pile drivers should be on site very shortly. Optimal GF3 scale is less clear to me. It's a free trade zone so I don't see Tesla building factories all around China, as logistics might prescribe. Seems they might want to scale it as large as possible.
I'm comparing GF3 parking lot pics from Tuesday to today and I can see that some of the inventory has turned over. It may just be they moved cars around, but that would be silly. I suspect they have a mix of colors and features and have been shipping from inventory. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to track how many cars have shipped. GF3 cars shipped couldn't matter less, given the small quantities, but I want to know!
If you buy a Tesla do you really own it? I think a fundamental consumer right is your ability to fix whatever you rightfully own. The fact that people don't have another alternative but to go the manufacturer, that's a huge-huge issue. There's a lot of gray area as to what you actually own with these cars because in order for the major functions of the car to work they have to talk to Tesla. ~ Rich Rebuilds
Given the endless stream of car haulers removing GF3 built Model 3, 6 at a time, it seems pretty clear Tesla have their China sales permit. This has been clear for a while. We've seen many hundreds of cars shipped from GF3 so, if they don't have a permit, must have an epic warehouse, somewhere. Meanwhile, they are pouring concrete beside GA1 by the acre. They started prepping that site 8 days ago and now it is half covered with concrete and there are pedestals for underground services. The battery plant is nearing completion of the building envelope. I don't know if it will be done by the end of the month but it will be extremely close. ... and we have pile drivers working adjacent to a finished wall of the battery plant for further expansion. I have no idea what the new building will be for. [Edit: A local on WeeChat indicates the massive new concrete pad is to expand the staging parking space.]
Elon Musk, visionary or fraudster? Could Musk's apparent self-serving bilking of NY state taxpayers out of $750 million that bailed him and his cousin out of Solar City bankruptcy jeopardize the whole Musk empire? Go to 14:20
TSLA is now right around $370 on elevated volume. It would appear someone big is getting in. Yahoo cites 1 year estimate at $292.66
It seems clear the current $377 price is directly connected to the talk of extending the EV tax credit. Personally, I'm highly skeptical the tax credit will be extended but we will see. [Edit: Now at $383. It is very near an all time high.]
EV tax credit in Ontario was apparently ended by the conservative govt, this has lead to a sharp decline in EV sales.
I can't imagine the current administration giving a shit about EV's/climate so I'd imagine the EV tax credit ending.
The EV tax credit is a red herring but I expect a big jump when Tesla releases either an FSD software update or extremely near FSD. We are within days of that update. Too bad I sold my Tesla calls last week. I could have bought a couple more Teslas if I had hung in there.
Another week with very few cars staged to ship to China. It appears GF3 is fulfilling Asian demand. This means Tesla must be dominating in Europe. I expect some high December numbers for EU markets.
"Don't think that the price [of electric cars] is not going to come down...they're just electric motors and batteries, they're not that complicated....there's going to be a bunch of competition for this stuff."
