TSLA - Tesla’s Battered Stock Looks Like a Buy Again

Tesla's Margin And Why Sandy Munro Was Right


Sandy Munro - WIki


Tesla's Secret Weapon with Cory Steuben of Munro Live - CLIP #TSLA


Two videos that anyone investing in Autos should watch.  The Margin video explains why Tesla will retain revenue after lowering prices.

The secret Weapon video is even more of an eye opener as it explains the importance of common engineered elements across models.

Is Tesla's lower stock price reflective of it finally being viewed as just another auto maker?  This judgement may just require a little more DD and these short videos are a great place to start.

Great questions and observations.  Still, when I compare Tesla to any of the traditional auto companies there is only one who is clearly moving the industry forward.  I am long but significantly underwater on this investment and believe all of the issues you raise should be acknowledged by any investor in the stock.

Tesla has the capacity to substantially increase its production.  That is what I expect going forward as well as a continued shift to EVs around the world.

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I don't have a dog in the Solar City/Tesla fight, but I have crunch payback numbers on multiple solar projects and found those north of 37 degrees latitude seldom pay back. I do own some Ford stock and a Ford Fusion electric hybrid. 

I also took the time to read and understand the SEC complaint before forming my judgement. I also looked at the OPKO trading volume on the TASE and don't see how significant manipulation would be possible. I'd be interested in how the TASE could be used to directly benefit Dr. frost or his friends, although the question is irrelevant to the thread. 

Great conversation.  One aspect of my investment in OPK that I've taken to heart is to consider all views.

Tesla leads in profit margin per vehicle - Sandy Monro covered this so I won't repeat.  It also doesn't have the debt which the other automakers each carry forward and was the first to champion the direct-to-consumer sales model which others are indicating they will also adopt.

So much of the Tesla manufacturing process is forward leaning - they change production line whenever a problem is found and not just when a production cycle changes.  Anyone on the line can stop the production to fix a problem.  Tesla has a world class internal software development team.  Recalls are largely done by software updates.  And then there is the use of the giga-press ...

A Look Inside Tesla's 'Giga Press' At IDRA Open House


Did I mention the lead Tesla has in HeatPumps in EVs? 

Tesla Heat Pump | More Range in Cold Weather


Finally I've left out the leads Tesla has in Self-Driving Mode (think Artificial Intelligence), Motor Design, Robotics, and Battery technology.

Sure these are all very much in development.  Even so, it's hard for me to see them progressing as quickly in any other company.

If you haven't seen the two videos I posted a few messages ago - they are worth the time to view.

Thanks again to all for sharing your thoughts.

What if Musk wasn't running Tesla?  Hum - how about a guy named Herbert Diess - he's available as VW just sacked him for leading the company into the future.  He'd be a very good fit imho.

Herbert Diess, Volkswagen's disruptor-in-chief, runs out of road

www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-s-advances-in-battery-tech-put-korean-battery-manufacturers-in-a-difficult-position-208981.html
Tesla's Advances in Battery Tech Put Korean Battery Manufacturers in a Difficult Position

Article points out paradigm shift in battery design which Tesla is working to complete.

"Tesla is currently dictating where the battery market is leading. Its 4680 batteries promised a quantum leap in energy density and costs. They are not yet there because mastering the process is not easy. Tesla’s 4680 cells are more than just the form factor. The biggest disruptor should be the dry electrode process, allowing Tesla to significantly increase energy density and slash costs. When this happens, all other players in the battery industry, especially Korean manufacturers, will feel the heat."

Is Tesla another car company? This was asked just this week in an article in Barrons. There are so many paradigm shifts which the company is causing it is hard for me to think it is focused on traditional automobile assembly line manufacturing - even one which pulls a large number of outsourced parts.

The comparison to Apple - a company which also is knee deep in battery, glass, software, and chip manufacturing - is imho very appealing.

Here's something more to watch - vehicle weight.

cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/how-much-does-a-tesla-weigh
How Much Does a Tesla Weigh?

"Tesla’s lineup of electric sedans are a few hundred pounds heavier than the average traditional sedan on the road in the U.S., but are not so heavy when compared with other fully electric passenger cars."

"According to the EPA, the average Car/SUV in the U.S. weighs somewhere around the 3,750-pound level, about 200 or so pounds more than a Tesla Model 3, but significantly less than most of the other Tesla models on offer."

"As more and more EVs hit the road, drivers need to be aware that the heavier vehicles wear on the road more than internal combustion engine vehicles, can be more dangerous in crashes and create more road noise on the highway. Additionally, heavier vehicles require more energy to move than lower-weight vehicles."

The $25,000 electric vehicle is coming

Very nicely article about the next years in the auto industry.  Here are some highlights...

Tesla claims it will cut manufacturing costs in its next models by 50%.
GM’s electric Equinox SUV will come in around $30,000 this fall.
VW and Fisker are launching new EVs that are 30% or more below average U.S. new-vehicle prices.

Lower-priced EVs are among a flood of new electric models that have begun to hit the market, with more than 60 new EVs expected in the next few years.

For market leader Tesla, the key to pulling costs down from the $41,990 list price of the Model 3 standard range begins with new or reimagined factories, vastly greater scale and advances in battery technology, Nelson and Ives said. Ives said battery costs have another 30 to 50 percent to fall after years of decline.

Tesla devoted the biggest chunk of its March 1 investor day to explaining its next-generation strategy, which it said will drive down unit production costs that are already low by another 50%. While Elon Musk has been dogged by a history of over-promising and under-delivering — at least by the original deadline — this is a trick the company says it has already accomplished once, when moving from the premium-priced Model S and Model X vehicles to a lineup dominated now by the Model 3 and Model Y.

The keys include new, bigger factories and a design that makes vehicles’ large, flat battery do double duty as the floor of the car. Those moves let Tesla assemble cars in a different order, skipping steps like removing doors after painting to let workers install seats and other interior components, resulting in less downtime during production, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said at the investor day. The company’s new power train factories have 65% lower costs than what they replace, he added.

Tesla argues that its vertical integration, in which it designs its own batteries and much of its manufacturing equipment and software, will drive costs down further. Tesla said its overall efforts have driven the cost of drive units, which include the car’s electric motor, as low as $1,000.

“We don’t think any other automaker is even close to that number,” vice president of drivetrain engineering Colin Campbell said, a contention backed by engineering firm Munro & Associates, which says suppliers to other automakers charge $2,500 or more for similar systems.

“Tesla hasn’t hit a price point yet,” she said.

The real answer depends on exactly how far costs come down, and how aggressively Tesla lowers prices, if at all, as healing supply chains and its own falling costs empower it to squeeze some of the recent inflation in car prices out of the market.

“Everybody is watching to see where Tesla heads,” Ives said. “That’s going to dictate pricing and competition in the market.”

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Posted with lots of omissions to keep observations centered on TSLA - please read entire article for info on other manufacturers.

Note comments on how Tesla is reducing manufacturing costs.  Are other companies following this lead?  Of course everyone is working to lower costs but it seems to me that Tesla has demonstrated that they are so much farther ahead of the other companies.