Tesla’s second-quarter earnings release and call confirm it is on track to continue to expand production like never seen before in the automotive market. I want to highlight a few key trends and what they tell us about what Tesla may do in 2022 and beyond. My thesis, for some … [continued]
As Tesla stock has rocketed off the past few years, a lot of people have been trying to figure out why so many analysts got the stock picture with Tesla so wrong … and so have I!
Looking at the Q2 shareholder letter, I notice something that is underappreciated. Elon did say on the conference call that they could build better factories faster and for less money than before.
Tesla has a long history of in-sourcing production. It started with the idea of following the Apple model. That meant doing the design itself, finding factories which could make it, having no production itself — only design, marketing, and sales. That didn’t work — nobody did know how to make an electric car.
Before people start placing Linette Lopez on a pedestal, note that she is a “champion of Tesla FUD” only outside the realms of Seeking Alpha. It appears the Tesla writers on Seeking Alpha are in a competition about who can create the most outlandish theory about Tesla’s finances, preferably completely devoid of reality, whereas Linette Lopez is more your run-of-the-mill yellow press reporter.
Tesla is looking to provide a smooth transition from college to full-time employment for those interested in an electric vehicle future. One of its programs, Tesla’s Student Automotive Technician Program (aka Tesla START), was designed to help the next generation develop tech expertise through classes, labs, and hands-on learning. Tesla has partnered with North American colleges to integrate its START program into their automotive technician curriculums.
Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter last night that 6 planeloads of equipment that Tesla just flew from Germany to California are indeed robots from Grohmann. Don’t envision Westworld-like robots occupying all the seats in a jumbo jet, enjoying the latest movie. These are automated assembly systems for the Gigafactory to solve the last problems with battery module assembly. For over half a year, it is known that the biggest hurdle to ramping the Model 3 production is unexpected limitations of the battery assembly line.
Did you fall for this clickbait headline? You are not alone. Even the serious Dutch press thought it worthy to write about a car factory in California which performs normal scheduled upgrades/improvements on their production line while it is in development. When the local village paper in Fremont, California, mentions it because of the extra visitors to the shopping mall, that is understandable. But what crazy world do we live in that this is worldwide news? This has happened a number of times, by the way.
Elon Musk believes deeply in vertical integration. Maybe that marks him as a control freak or maybe it just means he is a smart businessman. Over the past year, Tesla has added Riviera Tool & Die to its list of corporate acquisitions and changed its name to Tesla Michigan. That brought control over many aspects of the manufacturing process in-house. While other companies rely on “just in time” relationships with suppliers, Tesla wants to exert greater control over the quality and scheduling of its supply chain.
