Tesla misses the mark on all fronts in quarter of chaos In a dynamic first quarter, Elon Musk's Tesla contended with a terrorist organization, survived an arson attempt, and fiercely competed with hybrid car makers, all against a backdrop of falling prices as competition for electric vehicle customers intensified. As expected, it wasn't a good three months for Tesla. Sales fell 9 …
"Tesla Semi - Completely useless"
It works, but has only been delivered to one client for beta testing. The design was targeted at the driver rather than the logistics/fleet manager which is the one making the buying decision or recommendations. The price can't be anywhere near what was quoted since a rough estimate on just the battery pack is far more. Lots of photos of Tesla Semis being looked after by tow trucks and service crews on the side of the road. Still no solar-powered Megachargers (US government hasn't paid them to install any). Tesla itself is using the trucks, but that's due to producing parts in Northern Nevada that get used in Texas. Rail would be much cheaper and more reliable. Getting those parts to and from the railheads with those trucks could be a good fit, but not the long haul. They'd be able to halve the battery pack size and get the price down to something reasonable with a local delivery version... like BYD sells.
Still no solar-powered Megachargers
Well there wouldn't be, it's a stupid idea. Each square meter gets about 1kw of solar energy but most places are not in direct sunlight and the panels are not all that efficient so you can expect to get about 250w per m³.
The Megachargers are meant to handle 750kw so to feed one charger you'd need 3km³ of solar panels.
Plainly they'd use batteries to store power when the charger is not in use so they wouldn't need that much but it'd still need over 500m³ of panels for one megacharger which is just a tiny bit impractical.
"Well there wouldn't be, it's a stupid idea. Each square meter gets about 1kw of solar energy but most places are not in direct sunlight and the panels are not all that efficient so you can expect to get about 250w per m³."
If you are in the US and drive along the interstates, you find that there are miles of nothing between cities. That land is often not suitable for agriculture so bunging in some fields of solar panels is likely the best use for it if there is use for the power generated nearby. EV charging and rail are two very good applications.
Insolation isn't 1kW/sqm at ground level, it's just a handy figure to calibrate to and can be multiplied and divided in one's head. The energy at ground level also varies by season, humidity, cloud cover, dirt on the panels, etc. A good panel is about 22% efficient so that's a factor in calculations. There's losses converting from DC to AC and back if that's needed, but it's not as bad as some think. Making petrol is also energy intensive. It isn't pumped out of the ground ready to take to the filling station.
By all means stuff the deserts and wasteland with solar panels, excellent idea all round as the microclimate under the panels is beneficial to flora and fauna in hot arid environments.
But just stick the power on the grid and don't pretend it's just for the Megachargers because it wont be, can you see Musk buying up thousands of square km and covering them with solar panels and then paying for the ongoing maintenance? Of course not, he expects the government to supply all that to him at no expense. That is something the power companies should have been doing for the last 25 years perhaps with cheap land lease deals from the government.
"But just stick the power on the grid and don't pretend it's just for the Megachargers because it wont be"
To put that power on the grid means installing pylons and running lines for miles to get to those locations. That's provided that it's possible to get the environmental reports done in favor and there's 4-5 years to quell all of the lawsuits that will pop up over contentions that the routing is crossing sacred lands and some land owners will fight the easements since power lines cause cancer, nervous fits, and fainting in women. The solar installations I am thinking of only make sense if there is a local use for the power. I would like to see rail electrified in the US to cut down on pollution. If locos can be built as tribrids (they're hybrids already), they'd be able to run everywhere while tracks are being electrified at which point some routes could become fully electric. Adding EV charging stations along more of the interstates and smaller highways will make long distance travel in EV's easier to undertake. There could also be a similar effect to when rail was being laid in that businesses would be able to be built around charging facilities where they'd be impossible now with no access to utilities.
"This is why truck drivers say it is crap?"
I've seen a few different takes from professional drivers, but really, this is a fleet vehicle, not something that's going to be purchased by an owner/operator. Maintenance and repairs are big factors which mean parts have to be readily available along with service manuals and diagnostic gear. There can't be games with end of quarter shortages and "Sorry, we require a factory technician to perform that work". Companies with their own fleets do their own maintenance and repairs as much as possible to make sure they have lots of uptime on their expensive trucks.
Going around the back of the seat when you get in is an issue. If it's mucky outside, you can sit on the ledge when you climb up and clean up your boots a bit before getting in and what's left to clean is in a limited area, not all over the interior. With the driver on one side, they get a good view on one side and a more difficult view on the opposite side. Sitting in the middle winds up being crap on either side more than a balancing act. It's also awkward coming from every other vehicle in the world.
I'm also thinking that the lack of a front bumper is an issue and also how the bodywork lines up to make me think that a front impact will propagate up and take out the windscreen too. Any wagers on how much that piece of glass costs to replace and how long it takes to get a replacement? One has to factor in the crane rental as well to hoist it into place.
"Musk makes promises and they'll have to deliver!
No, they don't, Musk NEVER delivers on his promises.
People on Mars by 2022 - Failed
Tesla full self driving - Failed
Hyperloop - Massive Fail.
Boring Company - Bankrupt
Cybertruck - Pile of crap
Tesla Semi - Completely useless
And so on."
Are you going to complain about everything?
He literally runs pump and dump grifts on Xitter all the time for things like crypto. He's even openly admitted to saying things in order to bump the stock price and keep Tesla afloat. How that escaped an SEC inquiry* I'll never understand.
* Maybe it didn't, but they just quickly and quietly settled
You need to know who was buying and how much.
If numbers are above some expectations, an option to buy might be exercised. It could also be some gullible fanboys wanting to help their hero by buying some shares; even if they only buy one the valuation of the whole company will reflected in that transaction. Or someone who had been shorting the stock hit their numbers and got out.
Two different economists got Nobel Prizes for pointing out how erratic and asymmetric markets are, with information unevenly and unequally distributed; but that they eventually get things right.
He told them (no really, he actually said this) to ignore all the bad numbers and gloomy predictions for future quarters, concentrate on what I'm promising like cheaper model next year, and I'm once again promising that full autonomous driving is right around the corner.
How many times are they are going to fall for this idiot?
Yeah he brought up the robot again, even though it has never been publicly seen. The only "demo" was some guy in a spandex suit pretending to be the robot in the initial announcement.
Maybe he's planning on teaming up with Trump, and if he wins the election all the people Trump wants to deport will be clad in spandex and forced to work as Tesla robots?
"Look! A monkey!"
Nothing, not even free rides, could persuade me to trust myself to one of this man's robocabs. That's even assuming they ever happen, which I think is highly unlikely.
NPR reports that he's planning to achieve low manufacturing cost by using a "revolutionary" manufacturing process where almost the whole body is cast in one shot. Surely I cannot be the only person thinking "This isn't going to be as quick or as cheap as he seems to think. Process revolutions never do."
A problem I can see with making the body one piece is that it means you can't make any adjustments, so all the other parts now need more wiggle room built into them.
Boom aerospace who are start up trying to make a new passenger plane put out a post saying that their plane won't have any ugly panel gaps on the interior trim, I spoke to a person who fits plane interiors and he said those gaps are there to make adjustments as the holes are never in the same place on different aircraft of the same model.
"Boom aerospace who are start up trying to make a new passenger plane put out a post saying that their plane won't have any ugly panel gaps on the interior trim,"
It would have to be a really small aircraft since thermal coefficients of expansion are a real thing. It's also going to be a chore to get those interior bits through the door.
Another problem with casting the body as a single piece (if that's even possible) perhaps is that while the new vehicle might be a bit cheaper, repair and insurance costs are likely to be sky high. Bend a fender, scrap the car. Probably not quite that bad. But still, possibly not all that great an idea from the total cost of ownership point of view.
almost the whole body is cast in one shot
That seems to align with Tesla's overall strategy which is focused on sales and ignores any aftermarket requirements such as repairs after an accident.
A single body concept will be a sod to fix after even a small accident, that's why other cars have panels. Oh, and they allow re-use of parts of vehicles that have suffered an accident - also not really a Tesla thing.
Wasn't his initial plan at Tesla to have an almost completely automated manufacturing system, so he wouldn't need pesky humans who expect to be paid? And, IIRC, it failed pretty miserably, because it's not like all the other automakers were just using human labor for the lulz, it's because automation technology isn't there yet for that varied a set of tasks. This just sounds like more of the same.
"It should be 3D printed!"
That's a huge refrain of people that haven't tried to 3D print things. It's also a lot of handwavium when it's suggested that we can just send 3D printers to Mars and print whatever things we need once people get there. The only things that I 3D print now are things that have undercuts, intricate detail that would be impossible for me to do on my lathe/mill, that sort of thing. When I first got the printer I had it going all of the time and had to since printing things can take ages. The time is also a big impediment to using 3D printing in volume manufacturing. Relativity Space is 3D printing rockets and while Tim is a bright guy, I have to question whether he's really run the numbers on if it's not better to make things such as the body of the rocket with more classical methods.
There are also many compromises in strength and longevity with 3D printed parts. They can be really bad in ways that are hard to detect until the part breaks and you can see inside. Even non-destructive testing doesn't show up all of the flaws. Currently I'm running a nameplate for a friend of mine to put on the guitar cabinets he's making. From the polished up print, he'll pull a silicone mold and cast urethane parts. Each iteration on the 3D printer is 6 hours provided it doesn't go wrong. A urethane casting takes about 10 minutes, looks better and is much stronger.
> We are able to do simple factory tasks or at least, I should say, factory tasks in the lab[1]. We do think we will have Optimus in limited production in the natural factory itself, doing useful tasks before the end of this year.
This is a "status report" worthy of being relevant to the analysts?
> These are just guesses.
So the answer to that question is - No. No, this is not a status report.
> And then I think we may be able to sell it externally by the end of next year.
Well, you managed to sell more than one of that flame thrower, so there is probably *someone* who is willing to buy one, if only as a curio.
[1] it can pass a cup of tea but only if the mug is lab-quality ceramicware, with no greasy contanimants and stirred with one of those magnetic bars, so no risk of the spoon sticking out at an awkward angle.
Tesla misses the mark on all fronts in quarter of chaos. Who cares that net profit slid 55%? Not Wall Street.
What does that tell you about the true state and fundamental nature of the US economy and its stock markets? Everyone a winner when no one loses?
Electric vehicles will only dominate if several pain points are solved:
- range has to equal or surpass that of an ICE car
- charging needs to be as quick as filling up your tank with gas(oline)
- battery should last the lifetime of the car with no appreciable degradation
Only if these conditions are met people will switch en masse to EV's.
There's one EV advantage, though: they will eventually be much cheaper to build and maintain than ICE cars.
"You're missing one: electricity grids will have to expand both generation and distribution to meet significant new peak demand."
Not really. At least not for some time. EV's are expensive so the adoption rate has a big throttle point. With power company incentives for EV drivers to charge off-peak at lower rates, it's not a problem. In fact, it's a really good thing for the power companies that have the capacity and would love to make money selling it in the wee hours where they haven't had many customers. More EV's should also mean fewer petrol/diesel cars which consume a fair amount of electricity per unit volume of fuel in the refining process (7.46kWh/USgallon according to Argonne National Laboratories).
The EVSE an EV plugs into at a home can be set to a maximum lower than what the car can theoretically use. If you set for 3.2kW and program the car to start charging during your off-peak tariff period, you'd be putting ~12miles of range back in the car for every hour of charging. If you need more than 72 miles of range replaced overnight, you could hit the "start charging now" icon and just not get the best rates or let it run long in the AM. If the car can charge at 7.2kW (how many kettles is that? 2?), double the miles put back overnight. Nobody is worried about putting the kettle on or using the blow dryer and that can be all an EV is pulling if that's all you need.
We already have limits on the number of charge points that can be put on a street. Peak demand is what you have to plan for and that means lots of vehicles wanting to be charged at the same time. Meanwhile, generation is shifting away from baseload so "off-peak" is less relevant: California imports MWs as soon as the sun goes down.
I'd also add:
- adequate charging infrastructure.
A "green" relative switched to an EV only to sell it and go back to petrol after a year due to range anxiety, lack of charging infrastructure and difficulty with long journeys when discovering charging stations out of order or with long queues. Then you get other issues like being fined for charging your car in a supermarket car park outside of normal shopping hours, or it taking longer to charge than the max permissible parking time. Then there is the plethora of "apps" you need to use which sometimes don't work properly... you pay for a charge, come back later and find your car hasn't been charged but your credit card has.
It doesn't help when you hear of ongoing issues with vehicles like Tesla's truck, which goes rusty in the rain, rain also shorting out the batteries and landing you a £17,000 bill to replace them like the guy in Edinburgh who was foolish enough to drive on a rainy day. /s
One advantage of an EV - no particulate filter or issues with short journeys where engine doesn't have chance to warm up.
I'm not sure we necessary need EVs to match current vehicle's range, just have a reasonable range and quick and ubiquitous charging stations.
I'm looking at a new EV similar to my current car - range is about 50% of my current one, but that just means need to recharge every week rather than visit fuel station every two weeks (I'd much rather just plug in at home rather than visit fuel station)
I agree, but unfortunately plugging in at home isn't possible for many drivers who don't have off the road parking. They are stuck with public charging points... or running very long extension leads over the pavement to wherever they managed to park their car. Could be interesting for someone living in a tenth floor flat. ;-)
You are also left with the issue of what to do if you need to make a long journey? You become reliant on the availability of working / available charging points along your route. Not as quick or easy as pulling into one of the vast number of petrol filling station for 5 minutes. It was the long journeys that put my relative off his EV. Even if 99% of your journeys are local, the other 1% can be quite problematic.
Yes the long journeys and those without suitable off street parking are waiting for the "quick and ubiquitous charging stations"
But for families with two cars available and suitable parking - having an EV instead of a small petrol/gas for local runs is a something to consider
Some places have hundreds of on street chargers already in place. The London borough of Richmond is ahead of the game in this.
Other places don't give to FSCK's about charging infrastructure. My local council is one of those. Rushmoor can't be bovered to have a plan for on street parking. New housing developments don't have anywhere to charge just communual parking at less than one space per dwelling and zero public transport.
None of the candidates for the election in May have a clue about the issues relating to - Climate Change, - PM2.5 particulates in the atmosphere and EV's in general. What is worse, they don't seem to want to know about it.
Numpties the lot of them.
I'm not sure we necessary need EVs to match current vehicle's range, just have a reasonable range
For my primary use case, "current vehicle's range" is "reasonable". Anything much below that is not.
and quick and ubiquitous charging stations.
Yes, when those are present in the rural US Midwest and West, EVs might start looking viable for me. If charging is fast, because I don't want to make my stops significantly longer than they are now. And I'd need an EV without a touchscreen, without spyware, without other obnoxious "features"...
I'm not holding my breath.
A touchscreen isn't a problem for doing things when the car is stationary, e.g. configuring settings, checking service dates etc. For doing anything when driving no I don't want to use it either.
As for range - cars have significantly improved in efficiency since I brought my first one - I suspect we'll see similar improvements in EV over the next decade.
As revealed earlier today, the International Energy Association said adoption of EVs in China is higher than in the West due to local prices being lower than traditional combustion engine cars.
Well, duh. As soon as you can buy an EV for less than an ICE, I too will predict that more EVs will be sold. Follow me for more money tips.
Not necessarily. The drawbacks may still hold back people from buying them. Most people don't have a charger in their driveway and using a public charging station can be a pain.
Most people don't realize that ICE cars are extremely complex. It took car manufacturers over a century to turn up something that's reliable, efficient and comfortable to drive in. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, a steering wheel and four tires! No wonder it will be eventually be (much) cheaper to buy than an ICE car!
range has to equal or surpass that of an ICE car
charging needs to be as quick as filling up your tank with gas(oline)
Actually, neither of those would be true for me, or at least not at the same time. I almost never use the full range of my car and I rarely do more than a 50 mile round trip. Consequently, my car is mostly standing idle and can take all night to charge without any inconvenience. It's only an issue for a long trip without the opportunity for a correspondingly-long break. The problem is that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution at present and manufacturers are largely trying to recover their investment in the more profitable end of the market.
My personal view is that electric vehicle makers are missing an opportunity to create a new market segment for vehicles - possibly second or third vehicles - that do the "around town" job that most vehicles are used for most of the time. Expecting people to put down a large wadge of cash for something that's marginally less convenient to use than their current main vehicle seems like too much of an ask.
"It's only an issue for a long trip without the opportunity for a correspondingly-long break."
Hyundai/Kia are making EV's that can charge from 10-80% in under 20 minutes on a suitably powerful charger (350kW). Charging on a 150kW charger isn't that much slower. Park, plug in, duck walk 5 minutes to the loo, conduct business (~5m, maybe more), walk in a much more relaxed fashion back to the car (5 mins) and the car would be pretty much done charging. Other models might take longer, but you'd make a buying decision on how important that really fast charging time is for you. For me, a solid 250 mile range is more than adequate. A bit less could be fine too. That would take me on the longest trips I make on a more than once a year basis. Those trips have plenty of chargers along the way and charging at the far end. For trips I make every couple of years where it would take a couple/three charging stops each day, I could live with that for the rest of the time when I don't have to stop at a filling station at all and have a "full tank" every morning if I want it.
for when you're out in the wilderness and there's no charging point in sight
It's true this is one reason why I wouldn't be replacing my pickup with an EV, since I do take it on the Forest Service roads occasionally. But even I admit that's a fairly niche use case. (Less niche around here specifically, where many people drive in the national forest, on BLM land, on BIA land, etc; but then "around here" still doesn't apply to that many people. Census Bureau population estimate from a couple of years ago was less than 35,000.)
"- range has to equal or surpass that of an ICE car
- charging needs to be as quick as filling up your tank with gas(oline)"
Why?
It's been years since I've driven as far as a full tank of petrol in one day (450-500miles (flat and no AC)). I do make lots of shorter trips and that means I have to fill up, at a specialized facility which means a trip someplace I have no other reason to visit. I'd save more time and money being able to do that at home while I sleep.
When I do take long trips, I need comfort breaks so the car only needs to go long/far enough to span those breaks whereupon it's fine if it takes 20-30 minutes since I can be doing everything I need to do while it charges. No need to stand there watching. I just did a 450 mile day to attend a conference (round trip). A common EV would have been no problem. On the way there I stopped about halfway to bleed off some coffee and add some margin to the tank since I departed with a 1/2 tank. In the same area there are loads of charging stands so an EV would have been no problem or delay. There's lots of charging at the destination as well so after I was done and ready to go home, the car could have been charged all the way up again. I didn't stop on the way home, but it would have been no big deal if I needed to for 10 minutes. The place I would have stopped has a very good place to eat so I would have been there for 30 minutes if I thought to eat out rather than make something when I got home.
Why? Because not everyone is you.
Yes, GP's criteria don't apply to everyone. They apply to some people, and the implied claim was that they apply to enough people (or enough people believe they apply) to impede widespread replacement of ICE vehicles by EVs. That wasn't supported with any real evidence (it's true for me, but I'm just one data point), but your anecdotal situation is just as meager evidence against it.
Often the anti EV posters come from a position of a mixture of jealousy and ignorance.
Stuff like "the national grid can't cope", even though the National Grid website has a literal article telling you they can (as peak electricity usage was around the year 2006).
There are people who can't charge at home. People who live in flats for example.
But for those that can home charge, drive around the average of 7,400 mile per year on multi short trips to work/hobbies/stores per week with only occasional long distance trips then EV cars are easy to live with. They have their downsides, expensive to buy, and expensive to replace batteries - but the luddites make some of the issues out to be a much bigger deal than they actually are.
"- charging needs to be as quick as filling up your tank with gas(oline)"
Screw the charging one method solves all you problems. Standard replaceable/exchangeable batteries for all makes of cars. You drive into shop they switch a fully charged battery into the car. Totally solves everything you list. Already starting to happen in China so all that is needed is for the parasite corporations in the West to get told the time has come to do it by the useless bastards in government that supposedly want the change to EVs to happen.
Well, yes. Battery exchange would be great. But there's this modest problem. The batteries are currently VERY expensive. Are you going to be happy about swapping the shiny new batteries that you paid maybe $10,000 for for used (but charged) batteries of unknown condition and provenance? I'm guessing not. And most other folks won't be anxious to do that either I expect.
However, battery swap should work fine for fleet vehicles where the company owns both the new battery and the replacement battery. Possibly standardization and swap might technology might develop to support that and maybe, just maybe expand from there into general usage. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
"However, battery swap should work fine for fleet vehicles where the company owns both the new battery and the replacement battery. Possibly standardization and swap might technology might develop to support that "
The question is how many fleet applications are there that need cars to go more than 200 miles each day? Unless that driving is off-peak on a motorway, an average of 50mph would be generous and that multiplies out to 4 hours of driving. How many jobs does the employee drive for that long? Swapping batteries means that the vehicle is built so that it's easy to do and the electrical and cooling connections are built to a spec where they can withstand a large number of mate/un-mate cycles before they have to be replaced/cause issues. Consider a cooling line not connecting properly and falling out while the car is in use. High voltage arcing in a worn connector would also be a big safety issue.
You raise some good points. Especially about connectors. OTOH, plugging a vehicle in to charge involves connectors and no one seems to think those will be a problem.
I agree that many (probably most) fleet situations do revolve around an eight or so hour "day" with the vehicles charging at "night". A lot of delivery, service, and emergency vehicles might operate two or three shifts at busy times. And I think that 200 mile nominal range is on a nice day in May travelling over flat ground. But not every day is a nice day in May. And not all ground is flat. The battery presumably needs to power climate control as well as trundling mass around. I think that's a non-trivial load in Texas in Summer or along the Canadian border in Winter. And batteries I'm told don't work so well in extreme heat or cold. How about snowplowing? I suspect that could go through two, maybe more, batteries in an eight or ten hour shift when trying to push serious amounts of snow out of the way.
"OTOH, plugging a vehicle in to charge involves connectors and no one seems to think those will be a problem."
It is a concern, but in most EV's, that section from the connector to the next terminal isn't super hard to replace. Depending on the car, the max charging current can be much less than the peak current going from the battery to the controller and on to the motors. The liquid conditioning lines are never cycled unless the battery needs to be removed. It might be a good pre-purchase idea to find out what the replacement cost is for that assembly including labor since it's a critical wear item.
There is no "We" with Musk. It's what he believes that count.
And he can go promise yet more awesome and outstanding improvements for his death wagon. I'm pretty sure we'll be hearing more accounts of latest-model Teslas plowing into something or another under Full Self-Hallucinating.
Tesla: "If we make cheap cars, we will loose money. So we want to do something else."
Shareholders: "But we want you to make cheap cars!"
Shares plummet.
Tesla: "Oh, OK, we'll make cheap cars."
Shareholders: "Yay! We're going to make billions from cheap cars!"
Shares bounce back.
All of the rest is just fluff. The core shareholder theory is that Tesla will sell more cars next year than they did last year. Robotaxi was an admission that they haven't actually got some magic sauce that makes their cars dramatically cheaper to manufacture than any other car company on the planet, and they can't scale them infinitely. Musk needs a new growth thesis, but shareholders want him to deliver on the previous set of promises first.
"Musk needs a new growth thesis,"
I can help him there. More varied models. A cheaper vehicle that's all of what a Model 3 is will eat into 3/Y sales, not bring in new customers. Hey, what about that Roadster that's STILL listed as "in development"? Is this the form factor that Elon Must fiddle and cause delays with? He did that with the first one when they could have been shipping what they had much sooner and come out with Rev2 in a refresh rather than delaying sales and adding cost. Stop with distractions, show up for work. Tesla is a car company. The vast majority of revenue comes from selling cars, QED.
All of the above plus, drugs are bad, ex-wives/kids are expensive and telling customers to GFY isn't a good business plan.
There is a use case for a monorail. I just rode the one in Las Vegas to get from the car park with good prices to the convention center. It would have been even better if the system reached all the way to Primm, NV at the California state line and I could have parked there for even less and not had to battle with LV traffic. There's almost continuous road construction that makes it very hard to get around. I heard one person suggest that the state bird should be changed to an orange traffic cone.
It didn't need to be a monorail. An automated light rail system might have been just as good depending on the cost differential in building the guideways. The monorail seems like it could be less expensive to build the pylons and track and take less time. I admit that I'm woefully ignorant of the costs on those sorts of projects. Once you have something though, it seems to be a reasonable expectation that it would be less expensive to extend rather than ripping the whole thing out and starting over.
Strong electric car sales expected for 2024, but charging grid needs work
I'm literally driving* customers away and the company into the ground, I have no plan for dealing with increased competition, and I spend most of my day posting useless shit on Xitter which is why a lot of customers are shopping elsewhere. That'll be $56bn, please!
-- Xitler
* Happy coincidence
All Musk needs to do is stand in an aircraft hangar with a thousand people, announce “At this point, it’s literally crazy to NOT be buying Tesla stock!”* and then have the audience whoop and holler in agreement.
Instant +10% for Tesla.
* or “We will have men on the moon by Q3” or “FSD is in testing and will ship next week” or …
To say that gross profit dropped 55% doesn't take into account that the stock value/market cap has assumptions built in that revenues will grow considerably over time. It's even worse when that missing growth is factored in. The same goes for the number of vehicles shipped. Blaming a slow down on making changes to the Model 3 is not believable.
Ford did a massive changeover of a facility to change from making primarily steel body pickups to mostly aluminum ones which required a whole new layout. As the last version of the steel truck rolled down the line, the equipment was removed, holes patched in the floor and the new setup was built out so by the time that last truck was rolled out of the door, the factory was nearing completion of the new line and already starting in on the new version's production. The planning detail was amazing. Every piece of machinery, every electrical drop, every new lighting fixture and what needed to be done was planned to the mm and minute. This is one of the big differences between the old guard and Tesla. Ford had seen this movie many times and had people that had done it many times so there wasn't a bunch of fumbling about when the day came. All of the new production gear had been prepped, tested and staged ready to install. They even knew the route the forklift would take to move that machinery through the still working factory.
I wonder if they have plans in place just in case a similar thing happens in Germany again. If delays in ocean freight had such an impact, I have a hard time seeing why that would make any difference in the US since all of the fanbois keep saying that a Tesla is the most American made car there is. Why would there be a great need to be moving components on big ships? Could it be that there are a lot of imported parts and materials? Oh my.
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