tesla motors

[LawBeefaroni]

The other driver listed her occupation as "Uber driver." Of course she claims she wasn't on the clock but attorneys are getting involved and Uber records are getting requested. If her app was on, Uber is on the hook.

Is this accurate? I thought uber drivers weren't considered employees of Uber?

Dunno but Uber's insurance kicks in for liability for passengers and other drivers. The Uber driver and their car are not covered.

[Zaxxon]

Capacity doesn't change much, but you use more energy per mile. Partially because air resistance is higher with colder, denser air but mostly because the heater uses energy (moreso than AC). My Leaf (EPA range 107 mi) will get 90-125 miles in summer depending on the type and aggressiveness of my driving. In winter that's more like 75-90.

If I fire up the climate control remotely while plugged-in before leaving (can do this via phone or schedule it), that helps as the car is up to temp when I leave rather than having to do that work off battery power.

I guess that's a long way of saying that you could lose 30% in terrible conditions.

[stessier]

Thanks. There is a chance that Minnesota is in my future and while my next car purchase is still a year out by my calculations, I'm trying to keep up to date on things. I'm leaning more toward the Bolt at this point over the Volt, but the Minnesota thing makes the Volt seem more likely to avoid getting stranded. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a massive battery breakthrough in the next year.

[Zaxxon]

It depends more on your driving situation than a breakthrough for most folks. If you would have a garage / place to charge at night, you'd be starting with 230 miles of range every day. Even at worst-case scenario that's 165 miles (assuming 30% hit for terrible conditions, and that you can't charge at work).

Minnesota is also pretty decent in terms of charging infrastructure (check out www.plugshare.com to scope out various places--you'd want to filter to J1772 'EV Plug' and CCS/SAE for a Bolt).

It's a lot more doable in a 200+ mile vehicle than a 90-110 like my generation Leaf.

[LawBeefaroni]

Lots of consternation about the model 3 PUP interior.

Tesla Model 3 owners are unhappy right now after what appears to be a material change in the $5,000 premium upgrade package (PUP) has been seen rolling out of the factory. Originally images of the Model 3 with the PUP showed what appeared to be an Alcantara headliner. The cars that went out in first deliveries with the upgrade package had the Alcantara material.


The problem is that there have been Model 3 vehicles with PUP rolling out of the factory that are using a mix of materials, seen in the tweet below. Images have been seen with headliners and sun visors that are covered in a coarse looking burlap style material. Making things even worse is that some of these cars with the burlap material headliners have the more luxurious Alcantara visors fitted.

Here's a hearsay reason:

Well I've had my S for over 2yrs now. I was picking it up from service. But better late than never, right? Anyway, I talked to a couple of people regarding the Alcantara issue. One person explained to me that they had a supplier that stopped talking to them (Tesla) after about 2,000 vehicles. So this is the material they are putting in the car now.

Apparently all the employee deliveries had the better material.


Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me but then I didn't plunk down $5K for the option.

[Zaxxon]

Seems like typical Tesla to me. If there's one area that they are #charlesbarkley turrible at, it's communication. I've seen the explanation that you posted, which seems to be backed up by the vehicles coming with mixed trim (even Tesla wouldn't do that if they had a choice). Yet no word to the folks actually buying these vehicles regarding what changed or why, nor whether this is temporary.

This is the sort of thing they'd better get resolved before there's true competition in the space. I think Tesla (and Musk specifically) would benefit greatly from a competent COO a la Tim Cook in the Steve Jobs days, or Gwynne Shotwell (who's the CEO but seems to serve the operational competency side) in the today days at SpaceX. Tesla seems to operate far too much by the seat of their pants for a company that's as large as they've gotten / plan to get in the next 12-24 months.

[stessier]

Did we know the tax credits for electric and plug in hybrids survived the tax reform bill passed in December? I was operating under the impression these were gone. I was on track for buying something in March 2019, but now maybe it makes sense to target December 2018. Hmmm.

[Zaxxon]

Yes, they stuck. Killed in house bill, kept in Senate, kept in ultimate bill.

[Zaxxon]

Did any of you catch Tesla's new CEO compensation plan released yesterday? It's pretty crazy.

Back in 2012 they released a plan that sounded pretty crazy at the time--each of the 10 tranches required growing Tesla's market cap by $4B, plus an operational goal (Model X production, Model 3 Alpha, etc). Tesla achieved 9 of the 10 goals.

This new plan has 12 tranches, each of which requires market cap expansion by $50B plus a revenue/profitability goal. Each tranche achieved nets Musk 1.69M shares @ $350/share. Seems crazy (on the market cap side; the revenue/profitability goals don't seem as out-there assuming Tesla's growth goes somewhat to plan).

If all 12 tranches are achieved, the net benefit to Musk after all options are exercised is somewhere in the $25B range, and it would mean his ownership of the company would rise from 21.9% to 25% or so (could be as high as 28% if there's no dilution b/t now and then, and if he doesn't sell any options to pay taxes on the exercise, but neither of those is likely). That's obviously quite a lot of compensation.

On the flip side, if Tesla does not grow significantly, he gets nada for the next 10 years. If Tesla grows slowly (compared to current projections!), he might hit one or two tranches, he'd net somewhere in the $150M-$350M range over the next 10 years.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel as a shareholder--I'd have liked to see the revenue/profitability targets a bit higher. But I'm also not upset about it, as Musk has done a ton for Tesla and in any event, his history suggests that if he makes off with a boatload of cash, he'd likely use it to fund Mars colonization rather than hookers and blow, anyway. And it would imply that Tesla is worth > $650B by 2028, which is insane to contemplate.

[noxiousdog]

And it would imply that Tesla is worth > $650B by 2028, which is insane to contemplate.

I think it's ridiculous. 43 billion a year in profits? GM doesn't even have 43 billion in sales.

I love the idea of the products, but the company value hype has gone beyond the pale. Especially when you consider Musk's history of overpromising and under delivering. This article about self-driving cars rates Tesla dead last out of 19 companies.

[Zaxxon]

We shall see. I think the odds of hitting all the tranches are very low, but as we've discussed before, I also think it's silly to compare to GM. You'd have to include all GM dealers plus an energy generation/storage company.

[noxiousdog]

We shall see. I think the odds of hitting all the tranches are very low, but as we've discussed before, I also think it's silly to compare to GM. You'd have to include all GM dealers plus an energy generation/storage company.

Not in ten years. Maybe in 30.

[Jaymann]

Got my Model 3 order in today, delivery in 3 to 6 weeks! I had to go with the 315 mile radius (I'm not waiting until November for the 215 mile version). Plus $1k for a color other than black. Plus $5k for the interior package (did not appear to be optional). No robot driver for me ($3k or $5k). Altogether $50k, less the $7k rebate will get me down to $43k.

[Zaxxon]

Awesome. Congrats, man. I was pretty sure I'd be the first one on OO, but good for you! Be sure to check back in when you pick it up and provide us with far too much in the way of impressions.

Guessing I'll be in the next batch, as folks who were in line with me (but an hour or so ahead) got their invites, too.

Unrelated news I'd been meaning to post: Tesla this week opened up their Destination Charging program to apartment complexes and workplaces. For those unfamiliar, through this program Tesla gives away a set of their high-power wall connectors plus a J1772 unit, as well as assists with/subsidizes the installation. If you're looking at getting an EV and either live in an apartment complex or work for a company that you think might be interested in supplying workplace charging if only the cost were significantly reduced, you might want to nudge your PTB.

In an ideal world, places would install mostly J1772 (which any EV, including Teslas, can use) rather than mostly Tesla connectors. But at least Tesla's including one J1772 on their dime rather than solely pushing their own tech.

[Kraken]

Eager to hear about your experience. I saw a story last week about widespread quality problems, mainly with fit-and-finish -- misaligned panels and trim. Be sure to look it over with a critical eye before you take delivery.

[Jaymann]

Thanks for the heads up, will definitely look closely.

[Kraken]

Here's the story I was referring to.

[noxiousdog]

Congratulations. I chickened out and pulled my reservation. My biggest desire is automated driving, and I felt there was too much risk in that expensive of a car.

[Moliere]

Tesla raises prices at its Supercharger stations

Tesla drivers may enjoy a vast network of Supercharger stations across the US, but it’s coming at a cost: the price of charging. The automaker has quietly raised prices per kilowatt hour for using the fast-charging stations.

The average increase for pay-per-use customers ranges from roughly 20 to 40 percent, according to Electrek. In California, for example, the price went from 20 cents per kWh to 26 cents. In Oregon, the price doubled from 12 cents to 24 cents, and New York’s went up five cents to 24 cents per kWh. Owners of new Model S and Model X vehicles continue to have 400kWh of credit per year, while Model 3 drivers have no credits.

[Zaxxon]

I'm split on the Supercharger price increases. On the one hand it sucks that it'll cost more, but on the other it'll still be far cheaper than gas (in most cases) and is only relevant on road trips (in most cases), a small percentage of the average vehicle's energy use. It'll also help Tesla have the dinero to continue expanding the Supercharger network to maintain their wide lead in that market.

In today's news, Volkwagon gets a gold star for putting their money where their mouth is. One of the first significant moves to tie up the needed battery capacity to actually start producing long-range EVs in high volume by a company not named after a 19th-century electrical genius.

[Zaxxon]

Got my Model 3 order in today, delivery in 3 to 6 weeks! I had to go with the 315 mile radius (I'm not waiting until November for the 215 mile version). Plus $1k for a color other than black. Plus $5k for the interior package (did not appear to be optional). No robot driver for me ($3k or $5k). Altogether $50k, less the $7k rebate will get me down to $43k.

Jaymann, I'm curious whether you've had delivery scheduled yet. It looks like a lot of those late Feb invites are being scheduled/delivered. Tesla just registered another 2k Model 3 VINs this AM, so I'm hopeful that my invite will be arriving soonish.

[Jaymann]

No delivery date or new estimate yet.

[LawBeefaroni]

Tesla employees claim that a lot of rework is the reason for production delays.

Luxury automaker Tesla is manufacturing a surprisingly high ratio of flawed parts and vehicles, according to several current and former employees, leading to more rework and repairs than can be contained at its factory in Fremont, California.

...

One current Tesla engineer estimated that 40 percent of the parts made or received at its Fremont factory require rework. The need for reviews of parts coming off the line, and rework, has contributed to Model 3 delays, the engineer said.

Another current employee from Tesla's Fremont factory said the company's defect rate is so high that it's hard to hit production targets. Inability to hit the numbers is in turn hurting employee morale.


...

Tesla flatly denies that its remanufacturing teams engage in rework. "Our remanufacturing team does not 'rework' cars," a spokesperson said. The company said the employees might be conflating rework and remanufacturing. It also said every vehicle is subjected to rigorous quality control involving more than 500 inspections and tests.

Lean manufacturing specialist Matt Girvan, founder of MAG Consulting, said: "Even during what is considered 'launch' mode, if a company is selling its cars to customers, it should not be experiencing large amounts of rework. This speaks to an internal quality issue that is on a magnitude that is not normal for most car manufacturers."

[coopasonic]

I saw my first Model 3 in the wild yesterday in Frisco, TX. It definitely caught my eye (may have helped that it was blinding white).

[Moliere]

Tesla's Bonds Are In Freefall As The Financial Noose Tightens

Why is there so much pressure on Tesla shares now? The market is eagerly anticipating Tesla's disclosure of first quarter deliveries and production. Tesla discloses this soon after quarter-end, so that means there will be a discovery action early next week. It has been widely reported, and my sources in the auto supply industry confirm, that Tesla's Model 3 production was well below the targeted 2,500 per week level throughout the first quarter. I guess the market is trying to figure out "how bad is bad" when it comes to Model 3 production, but as I mentioned in my column yesterday, I think SolarCity's massive operational slowdown and intimidating debt burden are pressuring Tesla's balance sheet as much as its automotive operations are.

What can Musk do? When the solution to having too much debt is to issue more debt, that's just not a good solution. With Tesla’s 2025 notes trading at what bond traders measure as a YTW (the annual rate of return to the earliest call date) of 7.18%, it is becoming economically prohibitive for Tesla to issue more straight debt. If the company tried, the YTW on the existing bonds would likely rise to a level well in excess of that 7.18% figure. There is a diminishing return from issuing additional debt owing to the additional default risk it adds.

So, Elon needs to sell stock. I said that in my Forbes column Monday, I said that in my Forbes column Tuesday and I am saying that again today. Will he do it? I don’t know. To raise $2 billion at Tesla's current stock price would entail the issuance of 7.54 million shares, an implied dilution of 4.5%. Of course, such an offering would signal to the stock market what the bond market and I have been saying—this company is in severe financial distress—and likely send Tesla shares lower. Still, 5% dilution seems small in the grand scheme of Musk's plans for global automotive domination. I cannot understand why he has not yet green-lighted such a move.

[LordMortis]

Sidebar... I went to click a Forbes news item the other day and it turned out to be a 21 page slideshow that I immediately closed, so it may have 21 pager plus more even more pages of in additional ads as slideshows often are. So now I see the name Forbes and I equate them clickbait.

[Zaxxon]

Tesla's had a rough couple of weeks. Partially deservedly so--there's no chance that their Q1 Model 3 production was anywhere near on-track. By all accounts they started the quarter around 600 units/week and ended somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000. That compares to guidance of starting the quarter around 1,000 and ending at 2,500.

There was a terrible Model X crash earlier this week where it's unclear whether Autopilot was in use (the car was so badly destroyed that they will need to black box the logs rather than receiving OTA as usual). The accident shouldn't stoke so much angst but it is, in part due to the Tesla association (OMG AUTOPILOT, OMG BATTERY FIRE even though the fire did not spread until no one was in the vehicle, as designed), in part due to the horrific pictures (partially due to a busted crash barrier that hadn't been repaired from a prior accident at that location, causing the vehicle to hit the concrete barrier at highway speeds rather than hitting a soft barrier and in part due to the resulting fire), and in part due to the close temporal proximity to Uber's uber-fail in Arizona where they disabled Volvo's built-in pedestrian detection and Uber's version totally failed.

And the macro world hasn't been great, either.

But a lot of the recent coverage has just been cringe-worthy terrible, even for Tesla where most financial coverage is terrible. Articles quoting 'hedge-fund managers' with $25M (!) under management with a years-long history shorting Tesla who say (surprise!) that Tesla is 4 months from bankruptcy, etc. Tesla doesn't need to issue stock--at least not yet. They had $3.4B on hand entering Q1 which is plenty to get them through Q2 and Q3 barring another 6 months of major ramp-up issues. That may happen, it may not.

It's difficult to get a bead on production outside of Tesla's quarterly reporting, but there are ways to get partial info. We know the Model 3 news will be poor--maybe 10k produced, 7kish delivered in Q1. One would hope that's priced in after a 30% drop in stock price since that 2,500/week Q1 guidance was given. But we can also see positive signs where vehicle registrations are public knowledge--Norway, for example, is up almost 100% over Q1 2017 in S/X registrations. It also seems based on recent Model 3 invite deluges last week in the US and this week in Canada that the Model 3 is actually ramping. There's also a rumored factory shutdown over the Easter weekend to address another bottleneck or two and enter next week ramping further.

Musk's inability to accurately predict timelines on anything has overshadowed what I think is another incredible accomplishment--for all the talk of Tesla being late/slow with the Model 3 ramp, they're already producing (or will be in the next few weeks) more Model 3s than S/X combined. Nine months after first starting the line. It took five years to get S/X to this point, and 9 months for Model 3.

We'll see. I couldn't resist this drop and added a few more shares at $253 this AM. Tesla could absolutely fail and wind up being bought out on the cheap, but I haven't seen any fundamental changes in their plan. If they can get Model 3 ramped up past 5k/week--and I think they can--they'll be fine. And if they continue to have trouble, I'm not yet prepared to believe that Musk won't find a way to pull a rabbit out of his hat again and raise more cash. My bigger concern is that we haven't seen any concrete info on the next factory location. If they're to have any chance of launching Model Y in the next couple of years, that needs to be sorted out post-haste. But I can already see the articles that would appear if Tesla announced capital-intensive plans before the Model 3 is comfortably humming along at a positive gross profit, so I imagine they're remaining mum on that stuff for another quarter or two.

[geezer]

Looks like I'm going electric! Completed a deal today to ditch my SUV and get into a BMW i3. On any given day I rarely travel more than 30 miles, and we'll be retaining other vehicles for longer distance travel, so this just made sense for us.

[Zaxxon]

Looks like I'm going electric! Completed a deal today to ditch my SUV and get into a BMW i3. On any given day I rarely travel more than 30 miles, and we'll be retaining other vehicles for longer distance travel, so this just made sense for us.

Awesome.

[RunningMn9]

If there’s a worse group of human beings on earth than hedge fund shit heads, I don’t know who they are. The are truly despicable human beings.

In any case, I bought 100 shares of TSLA last Friday, with the intent to sell some calls on it. That evaporated Monday morning (brokerage wouldn’t let me sell the covered calls without calling them, and I was too lazy to do that). Then TSLA tanked and I got mad, but then it rallied and I sold it, making a net profit of $12 after transaction fees. Then it dropped $50 a share. Bullet dodged!

This on top of watching a brutal short attack on my long position on GERN. F hedge funds.

[Zaxxon]

Ballsy. I added a bit to my TSLA position yesterday and today but 100 shares at TSLA prices is more than my play budget allows.

[RunningMn9]

I'm old and my IRA has a speculation fund that I use for this sort of thing.

I thought that after the drop to $302, there would be a little pop that I could take advantage of - sell some $315 calls to collect a couple hundred bucks, and then hope they get called in to make $1200 on the selling the shares. Seemed like a solid plan for a week's work at the time. Thankfully when it popped above $302 I just decided I wanted the cash back and to abandon my plans.

Now I'm left with a pile of cash, too scared to invest it in anything, because everything has been a nightmare.

[geezer]

I'm old and my IRA has a speculation fund that I use for this sort of thing.

I thought that after the drop to $302, there would be a little pop that I could take advantage of - sell some $315 calls to collect a couple hundred bucks, and then hope they get called in to make $1200 on the selling the shares. Seemed like a solid plan for a week's work at the time. Thankfully when it popped above $302 I just decided I wanted the cash back and to abandon my plans.

Now I'm left with a pile of cash, too scared to invest it in anything, because everything has been a nightmare.

All the kids tell me bitcoin is the hot thing.

[Zaxxon]

That was last month...

[Jeff V]

Is Musk done geniusing yet?

[LawBeefaroni]

Apparently not done.

He's criticizing the NTSB and releasing crash data during an active investigation. Someone needs to muzzle him.

[Zaxxon]

Just got my Model 3 configuration invite.

Now, how badly do I want AWD...

[stessier]

Very cool!

When you get delivery, pics or it didn't happen.

[Zaxxon]

Oh, there will be pics.

[mori]

Just got my Model 3 configuration invite.

Now, how badly do I want AWD...

Are you willing to make an online statement like this Tesla fan?