Again the TESLA competition in China with fleet procurement, & financing services. $0.37 stock; $55 mm market cap ? Three recent EV orders announced $575M for EV electric buses $215M for EV heavy trucks $250M for EV heavy trucks EV Sales Hub in City of Qingdao https://investors.ideanomics.com/20...der-from-Beijing-Silk-Road-Rainbow-Car-Rental
I believe Tesla is better positioned to weather this financial storm than other makers. They will be hit hard but I have no question they will survive. It will be interesting to see what happens when Tesla is no longer limited by production. There is so much pent up demand, around the globe, they may never catch up to the order backlog but I speculate they will. This global financial apocalypse is going to shake the foundations of the world.
This pandemic is directly demonstrating the effects of reduced emissions from internal combustion. The air over Europe and Asia is in far, far better shape than it was two months ago. I do understand that science deniers are not going to change their position over this, or any, clear evidence but the environmental message is getting more credible by the day.
City of Freemont meeting with Tesla about shutting down the plants, but now they are looking into use the space to make ventilators.
Giga Berlin is still buzzing like a bee hive. I thought there was a chance they would have a major portion of the groundwork done and forms ready to pour, this week. It is not going to be so. There is, at least, another week of groundwork before they can think of concrete. Probably more. That's assuming work isn't shut down due to the virus. Meanwhile, any Tesla option I might consider buying is way out of my price range. There are too many other things to make money on, right now. I'm going to remain a boring long.
It appears Tesla has bootstrapped pack production at Giga Shanghai, with cells from CATL. The plan was to use packs from Giga Nevada, at the outset of production. Giga Shanghai is currently producing 3K vehicles per week and I haven't seen any port activity in some weeks so it's pretty clear they producing packs locally.
Looks like this small cap TESLA competitor in China is targeting a large piece of China's infrastructure growth into the next decade. Are we witnessing the next small cap stock moving towards the large cap field ? Ideanomics to Capitalize on $3.4 Trillion in China "New Infrastructure" Investments https://investors.ideanomics.com/2020-03-27-Ideanomics-MEG-announces-the-Formation-of-Business-Entities-to-Capitalize-on-Chinas-RMB24-trillion-USD3-4-trillion-New-Infrastructure-Investments
This is good news for EV sector in China, should help with economy and environment. China Extends New Energy Vehicle Purchase Subsidies and Purchase Tax Exemption Policy for Two Years https://investors.ideanomics.com/20...d-Purchase-Tax-Exemption-Policy-for-Two-Years
Tesla plans to launch a Model 3 in China that has over 400 mile range. This is a revelation. I know there is extra space in the Model 3 battery pack but I don't know if there is 30% extra space when using CATL cells. The extended range might be their next generation batteries coming to production. I believe the plan was to bring NG cells to production in the US before China. That was to happen about now, actually. Tesla is very dyanmic so they may have adapted to the US shutdown by vectoring this technology for a Chinese launch. Giga Shanghai is buzzing like a bee hive with production and construction. Tesla's aggressive posture in China appears to be a sign of excellent corporate strategy. Meanwhile, at Giga Berlin, I suspect dates are starting to slip. They did a bunch of groundwork to level the site, stopped for two weeks at what seemed like completion, and now they are back to doing groundwork. Europe is going to be in depression for a long time. It might even make sense to scale back plans for Giga Berlin. Local production still makes sense to me, based on my modest understanding, and they can't scale too small because they need cell, pack, seat, and full car production to optimize the manufacturing process.
Happy Easter, Stockaholics. Quick update. Activity has stopped at Giga Berlin. The ground is levelled but there isn't even the appearance of an idea of starting foundation work. At Giga Shanghai, work is at a corona fever pitch for phase 3. The new building will be the largest on site. Foundation is done. Vertical steel is in place. Some of the roof structure is up and most of that is painted. I thought the Germans would give the Chinese a run for their money, in terms of construction speed. That has not been the case, to this point. Back at Fremont, Tesla has a permit application for another Model Y production line. The cast frame process facilitates extreme short general assembly production lines. I have no idea what sort of carnage is going on in the casting space. If casting production can keep up, it appears to be yet another game changer from Tesla.
In China maybe some of TESLA's cars will be charging up at these new stations at Petro China "...will demonstrate supercharging stations, provided by CATL into PetroChina gas stations in Nanjing, as previously announced.. MEG and PetroChina have explored various charging technologies and, along with CATL, expect to begin converting gas pumps to EV superchargers as soon as Q4 of this year." Operations Back to Normal; Announces New EV Orders & Announces Q1 2020 Earnings Call $IDEX https://investors.ideanomics.com/press-releases
I'm looking at the steel superstructure of phase 3 at Giga Shanghai, 85% complete, and pondering the future of Tesla and the rest of the world. Those who have been involved in a large capital expenditure project will understand how significant it is that Tesla can break ground and be producing cars in 10 months, compared to 20~24 months as a best case anywhere else in the world. It is now crystal clear the combination of Chinese construction, Grohmann Automation (Tesla Automation), and Tesla are without peer. I direct your attention to the VW production plant in Zwickau, Germany. As I understand, the last ICE Polo was produced at Zwickau in early 2019. The ID.3 is currently projected for "summer 2020". This date assumes they will have their software problems sorted out, by then. That's over a year later and Zwickau is a very capable facility which has been producing the Polo for years, which is a very similar car to the ID.3. What's more, VW is an extremely powerful engineering company. When the first model 3 came out, Tesla fanbois said, "There. Worlds best car. Now all they have to do is scale production to 10m units per year." Creating a compelling car built on battery electric technology is not easy. It's not just a motor and a battery bolted to an existing car, to say the least. Scaling production has little to do with designing battery electric technology. It's a completely different problem and it is one few companies have achieved. Two things are happening in the automotive industry, right now. 1) Tesla is an 800 pound battery electric gorilla, expending little effort to beat up legacy auto makers who have the prowess of field mice. 2) In terms of production capability, Tesla is a field mouse holding it's own in a cage full of 800 pound gorillas.
It was clear in 2012, Tesla had the best BEV technology in the world. In a time when BEV prototypes were being delivered to media and reviewers on flat bed trucks to conserve charge, Tesla was uniquely driving their cars for review and news pieces. If a California venue was sufficiently distant, they would simply charge along the way. It took other auto makers 7 years to get to where Tesla was in 2012. There is talk of the gap widening but I am confident the gap is narrowing. The problem legacy auto has is that Tesla is making money producing EVs today while everyone else is losing money. They are running out of financial runway to compete with Tesla. As ICE profit goes away, so will their financial ability to re-tool. They are down to their final gasps of breath, in this regard. The problem isn't happening, right now. The problem is that in 10 years, when they will either need a line of electric vehicles or close their doors, they will wish they had started earlier and put much more effort into it. Companies I am confident will make the jump to electrification are: GM, Volkswagen, Hyundai.
Right now, Porsche is beating Tesla in charging performance by using a somewhat clever heat pump to remove heat. It is more advanced than the model 3 cooling system. Tesla already has a next generation heat pump that I expect will leap-frog the Porsche system. If this heat pump allows them to charge at 350KW, and I expect it will, they will turn the thumb screws even tighter on the rest of the world. Meanwhile, I just found out they have been using this down time to upgrade the paint shop at Fremont. Hopefully, it will burn down less frequently after the changes. lol! I'm less jazzed about the new refractive paint they are going to adopt, which will allow the car to change color when viewed from different angles. Maybe it's just what the public wants and will add bottom line sales. To me, it's as interesting as my wife's fixation on shoes and handbags.
Does it concern you in the short/mid-term the low oil cost @TomB16? Low gasoline prices kind of encourage more traditional automobiles.
This company is first to market in EV lease financing, insurance, batteries, prepaid energy, in China. EVs Finally Delivering the Familiarity Consumers Crave https://ideanomics.com/leading-the-charge/#respond
