Not necessarily:
(apart from filling them once a day)
Tesla Investor Day is on June 13th - a lot of things should get cleared up then and there (hopefully).
Elon will want his pay package re-approved, so I guess he will have to give some answers.
FYI: Elon doesnât get 50b in cash. He gets stock options that he cannot exercise for five more years.
He can probably leverage them (like he did), but if he runs Tesla into the ground, heâs get the mother of all margin calls.
Tesla doesnât have cheap cars to sell right now.
Worse, they donât have factories to build those right now.
In contrast to legacy automakers, Tesla has no ICE business to offset a slowdown in BEV sales - the whole thing was setup for sales to only go upâŚ
And because interest rates are going to stay up for longer (âhigher for longerâ), thereâs no silver lining on the horizon.
So, they have to do some retooling. My guess is that Shanghai will take the lead there, maybe followed by GrĂźnheide.
In the meantime, Elon is in Scrooge Mc Duck mode and slashes costs, hardcore, so the stock doesnât tank too much (among other things).
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Do you think Tesla will still be with us in 2029?
If Elon steps down and brings in a more traditional manager then 2029 and beyond. The era of stunning original technical advances is over for Tesla.
Tesla needs to concentrate on traditional methods like high quality, volume low-cost production and solid product improvements that appeal to new customers.
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Of course. The real question is will VW, GM, Ford, Mercedes, Nisan etc. - even Toyota survive?
We are witnessing a revolution in private transport. Legislation limiting speed, air quality zones, China. Add massive debt among legacy makers and the end of the dealership model all will mean devastation lies aheadâŚ
Too many people see Tesla closing shop, and too many people see VW and Toyota going bankrupt.
Tesla can thrive as an EV Subaru, bit quirky some times, brilliant other times, cult following. No special reason for Tesla to go away. At the same time, no special to see Tesla churning out 10 million cars per year.
VW and ToyotaâŚhaha, appreciate the laugh in a dark Monday morning. The aspirational car for 6 billion people around the world is a fully loaded Toyota Land Cruiser. VW is diversified enough to mutate into anything.
All the traditional managers with âBig Autoâ careers have no idea how to run a profitable BEV company in the 21st century that doesnât only produce cars for the 1%.
I tend to agree that the mourning songs for the traditional manufacturers come a bit early. Most of them are well on track when it comes to EV. Not sure about Toyota; they seem to have wasted a lot of time and resources on fuel cells. Teslaâs valuation issue is that they have sold themselves to investors as a tech and data company when they are a car maker.
I watched a German car show on TV yesterday (Grip) where they compared the Model X to the Kia EV9. The Kia won the comparison easily. Apart from the obvious design differences, what was striking about the Tesla were two things: (1) very poor âautopilotâ function that required lots of intervention, and (2) poor manufacturing quality: poor paintjob with varnish tear (that a word?) and panel gaps. Both these issues are not new, but even more concerning that this is still not under control. Especially on a 115k car.
It is pretty shocking, my Model Y had several panel gap issues which had to go to a Tesla workshop to fix. It only took them an hour to sort out, which is probably not time the QC team in Berlin have when cars are rolling off the production line like biscuits.
In the global world view of Elon Musk, QC probably isnât a big deal and money can be saved by just telling customers that every flaw is within spec. What gets him excited is new features and winning drag races⌠aka cool shit.
June 2023 news, the Japanese government dropped 2 billion USD on subsidies for EV battery production. It takes time to build a new plant of anything. My colleagues that work on âindutriesâ tell itâs 5 years from FEED (preliminary design) to end of ramp-up (full production capacity). The subsidies game can be played by anyone.
Japan raised support for the production of storage batteries to up to $2.2 billion, the government said, pledging nearly $1 billion in new subsidies for Toyota and other manufacturers as part of a push towards greater economic supply chain security.
The government will support Toyota for up to 117.8 billion yen ($841 million) in subsidies for its investment in EV battery production, Nishimura said, adding he hoped it would strengthen Japanâs storage battery supply chain.
There were no further details about the investment that Toyota could provide beyond those already disclosed by the ministry, a company spokesperson said.
The ministry said mass production of the batteries by Toyota was expected to start in stages from October 2026 onwards.
The support comes as Japan and other U.S. allies increasingly look to secure supply chains away from China, which is a major player in EV batteries.
Japan has designated batteries for energy storage, including car batteries, as important under an economic security law.
Typical QC time for a Y running of the line in GrĂźnheide ist apparently something in the 90s region (or much less). I mean, how else are you going to squeeze out 5-6k of them a day?
My pre-owned Chinese Model 3 (03/22) does some to have some wind-noise issue on the rear right door - the previous owner probably always listened to Spotify and never cared enough to have it fixed.
But I usually drive with nothing else on and enjoy a silent cabin: my favorite podcasts are rather technical and I realized I cannot follow them while driving.
Your car is still covered by warranty, so you should schedule a service appointment. I know its pretty late to be pointing gap issues, but you might have to say that the wind noise has recently started to appear, so maybe the panels are shifting etcâŚ
Tesla mechanics here have plenty of experience since its probably the most common delivery complaint.
Yeah, I know.
I just donât know if they can actually do something about it.
You only notice it at autobahn speeds (120). So I doubt theyâll have time to take it to a test-drive.
And at 200+ bucks per hour that Tesla chargesâŚ
I assume the previous owner also never changed the cabin airfilter or did brake maintenance - Iâll have to find a shop that does that (apart from Tesla) and actually knows what theyâre doing or is interested in doing it without screwing up the car in some way.
When I asked that question it wasnât because I doubted the cars longevity, it was because Elon Musk is a dick. (I read that somewhere on the internet).
Multi-Billions down the pan with Twitter, I just wonder what is next.
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Where do you get that from? They openly stated in the last call theyâre going to bring forward production of them on existing production lines in 2025. No need for new factories.
And now a complete reversal on superchargers
From Elon himself yesterday "Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year.
Thatâs just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher."
It is time for Elon to appoint someone more stable to run Tesla.
I believe this is a bluff, expanding the supercharger network without the team in place is an impossible dream.
Edit: As many as 800 activists gathered outside Teslaâs factory near Berlin Friday to protest its expansion plans, and some of them clashed with police as they attempted to break into the plant.
World is full of nutters
I agree, the story goes that he asked the head of the SC team Rebecca Tinucci to layoff a percentage of her team in line with the percentage required of other teams in the company.
She pushed back so Musk responded by firing her and her entire team of roughly 500 people and then sent an email to other executives warning them that he will ask for their resignation if they donât fire the number of people he is requesting. This was not related to any change in the SC roll out plan, especially given that many North American car manufacturers have adopted the Tesla NACS charging standard.
Tesla fanboys will try and justify this for x, y and z reasons but the truth is he is unstable, impulsive and prone to these type of stupid, petulent outbursts. If I was a Tesla investor I would be concerned.
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There are rumors that the (financial) numbers are really bad at the moment, so those workforce reductions are probably more âneededâ when people realize.
The thing with the layoffs is that they would likely be similarly brutal (and bone-headed) with any other executive in charge.
And when leadership requests headcount reductions, you canât just respond with âI canât find anybody to fireâ and expect that to be the end of the discussion.
Itâs the same (or at least similar) in any other large company.
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One of the reasons I avoided investing in Tesla back in the day, silly, silly me.
Tesla April 2024 China factory sales (including exports) were around 18% down year on year, BYD sales (including hybrid) were up 48%, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were up 28%.