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Says the guy that goes back months to find a quote...
The hypocrisy is real.
Azuser and I both love to do that.
Y'all are misreading my tone, I'm not bothered or annoyed by his post, I genuinely enjoyed it, as I've stated multiple times. It's illogical and specious, but so are many of his posts, doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I'm just acknowledging and appreciating the effort he took to make it and now y'all trying to turn that into something else.
I'm not a conservative but I'll laugh at a conservative meme, if it's good, which is rare. Good doesn't necessarily mean correct and logical, it just means it was well executed and it made me laugh.
$TSLA's capital efficiency & operating leverage are the most underappreciated aspects of its business
How was this achieved and is it sustainable? What are the long-term implications going forward?
This will briefly cover efficiencies in 3 areas (employees, capex/factories, R&D) before covering go-forward implications
1) Employees
Over the past 5 years, Tesla grew deliveries by 9.1x while headcount grew only 2.6x
Higher production automation/efficiency & online sales mix combined with optimized service (i.e. mobile fleet) helps the business scale with low incremental labor costs
Tesla can also sell more vehicles per service employee. Actual warranty costs (not reserves) per unit continue to decrease as build quality improves
In fact, Tesla now has the 2nd lowest cash warranty cost per unit behind only Toyota
Also one of the most attractive employers in any industry, Tesla can be more selective & only hire the best/most productive engineers
This trend has improved noticeably in recent years, as # of applicants is up 4x since ’19. Of the 3mm applicants in ’21, Tesla only hired 1-2%
2) Capex/factories
New factories are more efficient & have less associated space/overhead/equipment than the GM-built Fremont factory
Fremont mix was 100% until ’20 & will likely fall below 25% by next year
Capex efficiency has improved dramatically as each factory leverages learnings from older facilities
Capex/unit has declined -80% since ’17 despite frontloading investments in Austin & Berlin. Since capex was pulled forward, mgmt doesn’t expect capex to increase much through '24
Localized production also reduces transit costs (for both raw materials & finished goods) and tariffs
The mix of locally-produced vehicles continues to increase towards their target of 100%
3) R&D
Tesla’s R&D budget is unique because it’s mostly either funded by customers or has strong overlap with the auto business
Tesla continues innovating & is well-positioned to expand into massive adjacent markets, despite R&D falling from 12% to 5% of sales from ’17-‘21
Even with a smaller R&D budget, Tesla’s products are improving quicker and have higher battery efficiency than competing EVs
Given the outsized cost of batteries in an EV, battery efficiency is key to cheaper production
All of these efficiencies have resulted in significant operating leverage that will compound with higher unit volumes
In addition, Tesla will also lower direct costs through 4680 & LFP cells, structural battery packs, front/rear castings, & other innovations
Tesla’s unit economics (excl. credits) are improving rapidly, from losing -$2.7k per delivery in ’18 to a profit of $9.4k per delivery in Q1’22
This leads the industry and is almost 3x more profit per car than the average competitor
Cost inflation will be a margin headwind going forward, but Tesla is much better positioned than peers given much stronger:
- margin profile
- EV scale
- raw materials sourcing capabilities
- supply chain integration
Tesla’s advantages in manufacturing, scale, and talent are compounding while core legacy OEM businesses (ICE) are in secular decline
Their new EVs will not drive incremental volumes, but cannibalize their ICE cars at significantly lower margins
What are long-term implications?
Tesla is likely to continue increasing margins despite lowering ASPs
Prices will remain elevated for the foreseeable future given record backlog/wait times, but lowering prices is critical to achieving their long-term goal of 20mm units annually
Given record wait times/strong demand at higher price points, Tesla is likely to take meaningful share in more affordable segments
Tesla’s dominate the luxury market segment, yet only account for ~2% of total auto sales annually
Tesla is structurally better positioned to maintain lower ASPs than peers:
- higher margins that are expanding while competitors’ margins shrink
- greater EV scale
- integrated distribution (no dealers) & supply chain
- less expensive batteries
- no union or legacy asset burden
In summary: Tesla has unique advantages that will allow it to become the first OEM scaling significant EV volumes to more affordable segments of the market, while also widening its industry-leading margin
Elon Musk sent a series of emails yesterday that basically requests employees come back to the office or be terminated:
Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers.
The CEO added that there might be some exceptions, but he will review and approve those himself, which is a good way to incentivize people not to ask for exceptions.
In a follow-up email, Musk reminded employees that he set the example by sleeping in the factory:
The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much – so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.
Finally, the CEO took a dig at the companies who still allow remote work:
There are of course companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.
There is only one other creature on earth who i want to fail more, than elon the asshole...and that creature is orange and skulks around on 2 legs. (Don't want to confuse anything in the animal kingdom. )
There is only one other creature on earth who i want to fail more, than elon the asshole...and that creature is orange and skulks around on 2 legs. (Don't want to confuse anything in the animal kingdom. )
These days it's hard to determine which is which... Elon Trump or Donald J Musk.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric carmaker, he said in an email to executives seen by Reuters.
The message, sent on Thursday and titled “pause all hiring worldwide”, came two days after the billionaire told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and adds to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of recession.
Musk says Tesla’s factories in Berlin and Texas are ‘gigantic money furnaces’
Tesla’s factories in Texas and Berlin are losing “billions of dollars right now” as supply chain disruptions hamper the electric vehicle giant’s ability to ramp up production, CEO Elon Musk said.
“Both Berlin and Austin factories are gigantic money furnaces right now. Okay? It should be like a giant roaring sound which is the sound of money on fire,” Musk said.
He said some of the tools required to make some cars are “stuck in a port in China” because of a resurgence of Covid there and the resulting lockdowns.
I thought Tesla was immune to supply chain effects and the addition of both of those factories would quintuple the output and halve the price of Teslas to the point that they'll become the one and only automaker on the planet?
Tesla Is Now a Top 5 Stock in This Index. Meta Isn’t.
June 23, 2022
Friday will be a big day for the stock market, as index provider FTSE Russell is scheduled to rebalance its stock benchmarks to reflect the current state of the U.S. equity market.
And after several months of extreme market volatility, it is no surprise that this year’s reshuffle includes major changes. The changes will be made after stock markets close Friday.
For the first time since 2019, the five largest companies in the Russell 3000 and Russell 1000 indexes shifted. Perhaps the biggest shift is that Tesla is leaping over Meta Platforms to claim its spot as the fifth-largest company in the indexes. Apple and Microsoft will retain their positions as the largest and second-largest companies, respectively, but Alphabet is replacing Amazon.com for third largest
The Russell U.S. index family is recalibrated every June to reflect the state of the U.S. equity market. With approximately $12 trillion in investor assets benchmarked to or invested in products based on the Russell U.S. indexes, the reconstitution traditionally concludes with one of the highest trading volume days of the year, FTSE Russell said.
Tesla Shanghai to Halt for a Couple Weeks. It Isn’t Covid.
June 22, 2022
Tesla’s plant near Shanghai is going down for a couple of weeks, according to Reuters. The downtime will add some uncertainty into third-quarter numbers. That probably isn’t what investors want to hear during what has proven to be a strange second quarter so far. At least this downtime isn’t about Covid.
Wednesday, Reuters reported that Tesla will shut down production in China for a couple of weeks at the start of July to upgrade equipment.
The Shanghai Gigafactory has been either shut or operating at reduced capacity since late March as China struggled to contain Covid-19 outbreaks. Local lockdowns have affected the entire auto industry. Recent reports have the plant operating at about 70% of its potential capacity.
Tesla delivered about 310,000 vehicles in the first quarter of 2022 and was expected to deliver about up to 350,000 units in the second quarter. That was before Covid-19. Now estimates are all over the place ranging from about 250,000 to 323,000 units, according to FactSet. (Not all analysts update numbers as frequently as others.)
Tesla should report second-quarter deliveries this coming week, on or around July 2. It will be interesting to see how investors react.
EXCLUSIVE Tesla plans 2-week suspension for most Shanghai production for upgrade - memo
June 22, 2022
SHANGHAI, June 22 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc plans to suspend most production at its Shanghai plant in the first two weeks of July to work on an upgrade of the site, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
After the upgrade, the U.S. automaker aims to boost the plant's output to a new record high by the end of July to get closer to its goal of producing 22,000 cars per week in Shanghai, according to the memo.
A two-month-long COVID lockdown in Shanghai delayed Tesla's original plan of reaching production of 8,000 Model 3s and 14,000 Model Ys per week at the Shanghai plant by mid May, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters previously.
The Shanghai factory has been churning out 17,000 Model 3 and Model Y cars per week since mid June, according to previous memos seen by Reuters.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Our constraints are much more in raw materials and being able to scale up production," said Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the Qatar Economic Forum organised by Bloomberg on Tuesday.
"We are increasing production capacity as fast as humanly possible," he added.
Production at the Tesla Shanghai factory is on track to fall by over a third this quarter from the first three months of the year as China's zero-COVID lockdowns caused deeper disruptions to output than Musk had predicted.
Last year, Tesla's China-made cars, which were sold locally and to overseas markets such as Europe and Australia, accounted for around half of the 936,000 vehicles it delivered globally, based on Reuters calculations using China Passenger Car Association data.
Customers in Australia now have to wait until the first quarter of 2023 for their Model Ys while those in Europe can only pick up their cars at the earliest in the fourth quarter of this year, its website showed.
For buyers in China, the waiting time for Chinese-made Tesla cars is between 10 and 24 weeks, the website showed.
You have to remember that Musk holds a larger number of shares (about 16%) followed by Larry Ellison (1.5%). Then there are the large institutions (Vanguard Group, Capital Research & Management, BlackRock, etc) that, in total, hold over 50% of total float.
Individual retail investors who might care about those things hold a smaller amount (less than 20%).
Hard to pass proposals when so few retail investors participate.
Few individual investors participate in shareholder voting
Oct 12 2021
Despite the high demand for values-driven investing, few individual shareholders participate in corporate decisions.
When someone buys a stock, they become part-owner of the company and may vote on decisions — such as executive compensation or picking the board of directors — at the corporation’s annual meeting.
They may also vote on shareholder resolutions, which are proposals that may include investor concerns, such as environmental, social or corporate governance, or ESG, and other issues.
Individual investors as a group owned 29% of shares in 2020, compared to 71% with institutional investors, according to ProxyPulse, which tracks shareholder engagement. Interestingly, institutional investors’ voting increased to 92% of the shares they held (vs. 90% for the 2019 proxy season), while retail investor voting held steady at 28% of the shares they own.
28% of retail investors voting when as a group they hold 29% of shares means about 8% of those retail shares are voting.
Oh definitely, the board will get their way. But it's just hilarious when people (*cough* stunna) tout Tesla as some utopian company that's all about saving the earth and protecting people when:
1) They don't want to report on anti-discrimination or harassment (their reason: our code of business ethics say it's bad, so it doesn't happen here! Mmmkay!)
2) They don't want to report on Board diversity (their reason: we're committed to diversity, we swear!)
3) They don't want to get involved in child labor reporting (their reason: we skip the middle men and buy direct from the mines, and they pinky swore that they don't use slave labor or child labor.)
4) They don't want to report on the water risks where they operate (their reason: we collect rain! Also, reporting on water risks is a waste of time, so go away!)
Oh definitely, the board will get their way. But it's just hilarious when people (*cough* stunna) tout Tesla as some utopian company that's all about saving the earth and protecting people when:
1) They don't want to report on anti-discrimination or harassment (their reason: our code of business ethics say it's bad, so it doesn't happen here! Mmmkay!)
2) They don't want to report on Board diversity (their reason: we're committed to diversity, we swear!)
3) They don't want to get involved in child labor reporting (their reason: we skip the middle men and buy direct from the mines, and they pinky swore that they don't use slave labor or child labor.)
4) They don't want to report on the water risks where they operate (their reason: we collect rain! Also, reporting on water risks is a waste of time, so go away!)
I think a lot of people are finding out that Musk isn't the person they might have thought he was (or hoped he was).
Turns out that he's just another narcissistic asshole with way, WAY more money than he needs, looking to make his pile even bigger. Who knew?
Oh definitely, the board will get their way. But it's just hilarious when people (*cough* stunna) tout Tesla as some utopian company that's all about saving the earth and protecting people
Yeah, I've never thought of Tesla (or Musk) in that way.
Tesla Will Start Refunding Cybertruck Reservations
Australians who ordered the controversial EV can now apply.
The Tesla Cybertruck is one of the most controversial products in automotive history. First unveiled in 2019, the Cybertruck has been delayed several times. Things are not looking good, as Tesla Australia recently told customers that the Cybertruck would not be coming down under.
05-12-2022, 12:47 PM
Keep buying. Need to break through that resistance.
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