View from the sceptical side
Discussion
http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/01/whitney-tilson-ne...
His words...........
I attended Tesla’s tour of its Gigafactory in Sparks, NV (about 25 min outside Reno) from 9am to noon last Wed. There were about ~150 of us, most of whom appeared to be institutional investors
My comments:
I was dumb enough to be short TSLA from ~$35 to ~$205 from early 2013 to early 2014 and, after that traumatic experience
Overall, I was quite impressed and have decided not to short the stock – though with some feelings of regret because I think there’s a decent chance it works on the short side, but this is offset by my feeling that there’s maybe a 20% chance that Musk and Straubel pull another inside straight and the stock spikes upward.
· A friend in the know told me that the companies top engineers graduating from the top schools most want to work at are Google, Facebook and Tesla. And if you want to actually MAKE something – – then it’s Tesla (and, if you’re into rockets, SpaceX) – and who else? I find it hard to believe that any top young engineer (the kind of person who actually WANTS to work 16-hour days) is going to take a job at GM over Tesla (or Lockheed Martin over SpaceX). Why would I want to be short the best, hardest-working engineering talent in the world?
· Tesla has built a very powerful brand. A BrandZ study from last June ranks it 10th in vehicle brands – but my gut says it’s a lot higher. Everyone I know/have met who owns a Tesla is intensely, passionately in love with it. That’s REALLY powerful.....
Interesting reading
His words...........
I attended Tesla’s tour of its Gigafactory in Sparks, NV (about 25 min outside Reno) from 9am to noon last Wed. There were about ~150 of us, most of whom appeared to be institutional investors
My comments:
I was dumb enough to be short TSLA from ~$35 to ~$205 from early 2013 to early 2014 and, after that traumatic experience
Overall, I was quite impressed and have decided not to short the stock – though with some feelings of regret because I think there’s a decent chance it works on the short side, but this is offset by my feeling that there’s maybe a 20% chance that Musk and Straubel pull another inside straight and the stock spikes upward.
· A friend in the know told me that the companies top engineers graduating from the top schools most want to work at are Google, Facebook and Tesla. And if you want to actually MAKE something – – then it’s Tesla (and, if you’re into rockets, SpaceX) – and who else? I find it hard to believe that any top young engineer (the kind of person who actually WANTS to work 16-hour days) is going to take a job at GM over Tesla (or Lockheed Martin over SpaceX). Why would I want to be short the best, hardest-working engineering talent in the world?
· Tesla has built a very powerful brand. A BrandZ study from last June ranks it 10th in vehicle brands – but my gut says it’s a lot higher. Everyone I know/have met who owns a Tesla is intensely, passionately in love with it. That’s REALLY powerful.....
Interesting reading
Teslas future has a lot less to do with the calibre of graduates they can hire but the management and top talent and whether they run out of cash.
I also suspect Elon needs to drop either the chairman or CEO role and get somebody in to tell him to stop d****ing around with silly easter eggs that flap doors and stop pissing off owners who currently can't release the charge cable from their car, who have spent nearly 5k on AP2 that still doesn't do anything, for introducing 20p per kwh for super charging, sort out the bodyshops that are fleecing owners and driving up insurance premiums and a host of other niggles. The shine is still fairly bright amongst owners but its nowhere near as bright as it was a year ago.
Anybody that writes about Tesla in the way this guy has, especially as he admits to dealing in their stock, are just trying to make a few quid and should be ignored.
I also suspect Elon needs to drop either the chairman or CEO role and get somebody in to tell him to stop d****ing around with silly easter eggs that flap doors and stop pissing off owners who currently can't release the charge cable from their car, who have spent nearly 5k on AP2 that still doesn't do anything, for introducing 20p per kwh for super charging, sort out the bodyshops that are fleecing owners and driving up insurance premiums and a host of other niggles. The shine is still fairly bright amongst owners but its nowhere near as bright as it was a year ago.
Anybody that writes about Tesla in the way this guy has, especially as he admits to dealing in their stock, are just trying to make a few quid and should be ignored.
As i've mentioned a few times recently, making a "good" modern car is hard. It's hard because it's really rather boring, time consuming and repetitive. It's real easy for the start-ups to get carried way with the fun things, like 0-60, or remote connected tech or whatever, and fail to realise that the dull but important things like getting the HVAC to work properly, or making sure the wipers wipe quietly and smoothly, things that absorb hundreds of hours of development, require repeated long and boring testing under a myriad of conditions and are about as fun as watching paint dry, are actually the most important. Not for nothing are imo the best cars German........ ;-)
My opinion is that Tesla may have started the next 'industrial revolution'..... a revolution in energy efficiency and storage that is genuinely transformational - a bit like the changes seen at the demise of steam power resulting from the rise of the internal combustion engine.
I think Tesla is a game changer that will become a household name and mega-corporate in decades to come, rather like BP or Shell is now.
I think the cars (as impressive as they are) are an amusing entree for Musk, a chance to stretch his wings and see how good his team are at solving the problems of yesteryear.... that and creating a dataset harvested from the millions of miles covered, gigawatts of energy used, battery health information and charge / discharge cycles provided by the vast numbers of individual Tesla cars running around the world in all manner of different climates and under myriad patterns of use. They don't need to care about the squeekiness of wipers or the perceived quality of interior trim... because it is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme - the fact is they have already created a good enough product for demand to outstrip supply based on their technology. By the time the marketplace is sufficiently saturated with viable competition, Tesla will be way ahead in the distance onto far bigger, more profitable and more mainstream consumable things than cars... think personal or corporate energy supply or on-demand power delivery or something... Sure, cars will still be a decent part of their business, but no longer pivotal.
Everybody else is playing catch up - the other manufacturers have let Tesla get too big a head start to have a chance of competing, mind. Tesla have more experience and better engineers than anyone else in the industry, but more crucially they have way more DATA. They will use this data to continually stay one step ahead of the competition - greater range, faster and fewer charges, greater innovation etc. until the internal combustion engine simply becomes.... outdated. Their cars don't even have to be the best at everything or even the most widely bought, they have already secured the first-movers advantage.
I think Tesla's data is one of the most pivotal parts of their business, the cornerstone of their next expansion which will see them continue to steal a march on their competition and cement their position as THE corporate entity of the 21st century. IMHO.
I think Tesla is a game changer that will become a household name and mega-corporate in decades to come, rather like BP or Shell is now.
I think the cars (as impressive as they are) are an amusing entree for Musk, a chance to stretch his wings and see how good his team are at solving the problems of yesteryear.... that and creating a dataset harvested from the millions of miles covered, gigawatts of energy used, battery health information and charge / discharge cycles provided by the vast numbers of individual Tesla cars running around the world in all manner of different climates and under myriad patterns of use. They don't need to care about the squeekiness of wipers or the perceived quality of interior trim... because it is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme - the fact is they have already created a good enough product for demand to outstrip supply based on their technology. By the time the marketplace is sufficiently saturated with viable competition, Tesla will be way ahead in the distance onto far bigger, more profitable and more mainstream consumable things than cars... think personal or corporate energy supply or on-demand power delivery or something... Sure, cars will still be a decent part of their business, but no longer pivotal.
Everybody else is playing catch up - the other manufacturers have let Tesla get too big a head start to have a chance of competing, mind. Tesla have more experience and better engineers than anyone else in the industry, but more crucially they have way more DATA. They will use this data to continually stay one step ahead of the competition - greater range, faster and fewer charges, greater innovation etc. until the internal combustion engine simply becomes.... outdated. Their cars don't even have to be the best at everything or even the most widely bought, they have already secured the first-movers advantage.
I think Tesla's data is one of the most pivotal parts of their business, the cornerstone of their next expansion which will see them continue to steal a march on their competition and cement their position as THE corporate entity of the 21st century. IMHO.
maffski said:
JonV8V said:
...stop d****ing around with silly easter eggs that flap doors...
If you want your young graduate engineers to work 16 hr days this is exactly what you don't stop.larrylamb11 said:
Everybody else is playing catch up
True. But boy oh boy are they catching up fast!larrylamb11 said:
the other manufacturers have let Tesla get too big a head start to have a chance of competing
Rubbish. Tesla's current platforms are hand-me-down platforms with a cheaply developed Electric powertrain. They simply couldn't afford the money or time to develop their own powertrain from scratch (hence the AC motor and "cylindrical" cell battery). Those practical limits don't apply to the established OEMs. For example, i sat in a meeting last week where a big OEM is specifiying the battery cells for their high volume platform, and because the optimum cell wasn't available off the shelf, they just paid the cell supplier to make an entirely new cell, just for them. The cost including global market certification? Around £25M including tooling. TWENTY FIVE MILLION QUID! And the OEM didn't blink an eyelid at that.....larrylamb11 said:
My opinion is that Tesla may have started the next 'industrial revolution'..... a revolution in energy efficiency and storage that is genuinely transformational - a bit like the changes seen at the demise of steam power resulting from the rise of the internal combustion engine.
I think Tesla is a game changer that will become a household name and mega-corporate in decades to come, rather like BP or Shell is now.
I think the cars (as impressive as they are) are an amusing entree for Musk, a chance to stretch his wings and see how good his team are at solving the problems of yesteryear.... that and creating a dataset harvested from the millions of miles covered, gigawatts of energy used, battery health information and charge / discharge cycles provided by the vast numbers of individual Tesla cars running around the world in all manner of different climates and under myriad patterns of use. They don't need to care about the squeekiness of wipers or the perceived quality of interior trim... because it is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme - the fact is they have already created a good enough product for demand to outstrip supply based on their technology. By the time the marketplace is sufficiently saturated with viable competition, Tesla will be way ahead in the distance onto far bigger, more profitable and more mainstream consumable things than cars... think personal or corporate energy supply or on-demand power delivery or something... Sure, cars will still be a decent part of their business, but no longer pivotal.
Everybody else is playing catch up - the other manufacturers have let Tesla get too big a head start to have a chance of competing, mind. Tesla have more experience and better engineers than anyone else in the industry, but more crucially they have way more DATA. They will use this data to continually stay one step ahead of the competition - greater range, faster and fewer charges, greater innovation etc. until the internal combustion engine simply becomes.... outdated. Their cars don't even have to be the best at everything or even the most widely bought, they have already secured the first-movers advantage.
I think Tesla's data is one of the most pivotal parts of their business, the cornerstone of their next expansion which will see them continue to steal a march on their competition and cement their position as THE corporate entity of the 21st century. IMHO.
I think Tesla is a game changer that will become a household name and mega-corporate in decades to come, rather like BP or Shell is now.
I think the cars (as impressive as they are) are an amusing entree for Musk, a chance to stretch his wings and see how good his team are at solving the problems of yesteryear.... that and creating a dataset harvested from the millions of miles covered, gigawatts of energy used, battery health information and charge / discharge cycles provided by the vast numbers of individual Tesla cars running around the world in all manner of different climates and under myriad patterns of use. They don't need to care about the squeekiness of wipers or the perceived quality of interior trim... because it is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme - the fact is they have already created a good enough product for demand to outstrip supply based on their technology. By the time the marketplace is sufficiently saturated with viable competition, Tesla will be way ahead in the distance onto far bigger, more profitable and more mainstream consumable things than cars... think personal or corporate energy supply or on-demand power delivery or something... Sure, cars will still be a decent part of their business, but no longer pivotal.
Everybody else is playing catch up - the other manufacturers have let Tesla get too big a head start to have a chance of competing, mind. Tesla have more experience and better engineers than anyone else in the industry, but more crucially they have way more DATA. They will use this data to continually stay one step ahead of the competition - greater range, faster and fewer charges, greater innovation etc. until the internal combustion engine simply becomes.... outdated. Their cars don't even have to be the best at everything or even the most widely bought, they have already secured the first-movers advantage.
I think Tesla's data is one of the most pivotal parts of their business, the cornerstone of their next expansion which will see them continue to steal a march on their competition and cement their position as THE corporate entity of the 21st century. IMHO.
Imo there'll be no industrial revolution until they become widely affordable across the full range of needs and that's not going to happen unless there are several players and they'll come from the existing manufacturers. They can't afford not to.
I'd be surprised if the major manufacturers aren't quite ready to move when they have to; might be quite smart to let Tesla dig the hard ground.
They have way more data? Well if they have, they have no idea how to use it because the AP2 hardware cars are all starting again at calibrating and learning from the driving they are doing.
If BMW launched an update to the i3 or given the price of Teslas, the i8, and took an existing option, doubled the price and then told owners it wasn't available yet, it may be available soon, but one day it would hopefully be better and when it did get partially launched it was limited to 34 mph, what an uproar we'd have. This is the Tesla world today.
If BMW launched an update to the i3 or given the price of Teslas, the i8, and took an existing option, doubled the price and then told owners it wasn't available yet, it may be available soon, but one day it would hopefully be better and when it did get partially launched it was limited to 34 mph, what an uproar we'd have. This is the Tesla world today.
REALIST123 said:
Imo there'll be no industrial revolution until they become widely affordable across the full range of needs and that's not going to happen unless there are several players and they'll come from the existing manufacturers. They can't afford not to.
I'd be surprised if the major manufacturers aren't quite ready to move when they have to; might be quite smart to let Tesla dig the hard ground.
babatunde said:
REALIST123 said:
Imo there'll be no industrial revolution until they become widely affordable across the full range of needs and that's not going to happen unless there are several players and they'll come from the existing manufacturers. They can't afford not to.
I'd be surprised if the major manufacturers aren't quite ready to move when they have to; might be quite smart to let Tesla dig the hard ground.
The 'Nokia's & blackberry's' (sic) failed because they failed to innovate. Maybe it was their cultures that led them to do that.
Many of the major manufacturers have proven records in innovation. Not only that, some of them are already competing and beating Tesla in areas with more immediate relevance. E.g. the i3 is technologically ahead of any Tesla, albeit in a small area of application.
They've also been put on political notice that their traditional technologies will be legislated against so I really can't see them all, or even many of them, failing to compete in future technology.
And that's the important point; competition. Without it there won't be true development and the technology will remain unaffordable to the masses. I'm sure it'll happen.
Amateurish said:
I visited the local Tesla showroom last week and went for a test drive. I came away fairly disappointed in the whole experience. This would have been my fourth electric car had I proceeded, so it should have been an easy win for Tesla. I fail to see what all the fuss is about.
If your use to EVs a P100D around town is no different to a Leaf. Infact around town I found my Leaf much easier to drive than the P85D I test drive. But the Leaf will run of charge in less than 1 hour when on the M-way, which in effect is the biggest real life advantage Tesla has over all the other EVs around. Amateurish said:
I visited the local Tesla showroom last week and went for a test drive. I came away fairly disappointed in the whole experience. This would have been my fourth electric car had I proceeded, so it should have been an easy win for Tesla. I fail to see what all the fuss is about.
Can you expand on why you were so disappointed and what your previous EVs were?AW10 said:
Amateurish said:
I visited the local Tesla showroom last week and went for a test drive. I came away fairly disappointed in the whole experience. This would have been my fourth electric car had I proceeded, so it should have been an easy win for Tesla. I fail to see what all the fuss is about.
Can you expand on why you were so disappointed and what your previous EVs were?Negatives:
Poor showroom setup. They have a showroom in the shopping centre and the test drive cars in the car park. I think they are trying to make the showroom like an Apple Store. I did not think that worked well at all. Only two models on display, one of which (Model X) seemed to be pre-production so not the finished article. When it was time for a test drive, we had to hang around in the freezing car park (no coats) while the man went looking for his car. He twice returned to apologise to say he couldn't find where his colleague had parked it. Then one of the two cars we could only test by driving around the underground car park!
Range: we were driving a 75D and after about 10 miles of 70 mph motorway driving (cold and wet), it said we had about 160 miles of range left. That's really poor in my book, given the price. I need to be able to drive 130 miles at proper UK motorway speeds in all weathers, with some reserve in case of diversions. I concluded that the 75kwh battery would not be sufficient.
Autonomous driving: we asked for a demonstration during the test drive and were told that even though the hardware was available, the software had not yet been released. So it didn't even have adpative cruise working. Just basic cruise. Yet they want us to pay a £5k option?
Price: £75k and no free supercharging, before options? I pay less than £2k per year for my Leaf's lease. And it is better specced.
I hate to tell you but what you think is the Nav is only a google map. The nav is some balls up excuse of an implementation that can't navigate its way out of a one way street. The two overlay each other. Even the traffic info you seen on the google map is not the info the nav uses for dynamic routing.
REALIST123 said:
babatunde said:
REALIST123 said:
Imo there'll be no industrial revolution until they become widely affordable across the full range of needs and that's not going to happen unless there are several players and they'll come from the existing manufacturers. They can't afford not to.
I'd be surprised if the major manufacturers aren't quite ready to move when they have to; might be quite smart to let Tesla dig the hard ground.
The 'Nokia's & blackberry's' (sic) failed because they failed to innovate. Maybe it was their cultures that led them to do that.
Many of the major manufacturers have proven records in innovation. Not only that, some of them are already competing and beating Tesla in areas with more immediate relevance. E.g. the i3 is technologically ahead of any Tesla, albeit in a small area of application.
They've also been put on political notice that their traditional technologies will be legislated against so I really can't see them all, or even many of them, failing to compete in future technology.
And that's the important point; competition. Without it there won't be true development and the technology will remain unaffordable to the masses. I'm sure it'll happen.
In addition its not just the EV it's also the way its being built, like a computer or phone, ditto the automation efforts, the Gigafactory is IMO a big part of that clean sheet approach not just powering vehicles but static installations as well, its a whole bold brand new way of doing things and like the Iphone I don't think the GMs and BMWs of the world quite understand the power of the coming storm hey nothing wrong with a bit of hyperbole
On a sub note, servicing, the traditional service interval is dead, the car knows when something isn't right and notifies the relevant persons, (owner/driver/service center) parts to be changed are ordered and ready, the self driving car looks at your schedule and knows when it can get the work done without interrupting your day, its a brave new world, not to worry though there is an underground of ICE users who horror upon horror prefer to drive themselves and have a secret emblem to identify each other, looks kind of like a skull and crossbones
babatunde said:
On a sub note, servicing, the traditional service interval is dead, the car knows when something isn't right and notifies the relevant persons, (owner/driver/service center) parts to be changed are ordered and ready, the self driving car looks at your schedule and knows when it can get the work done without interrupting your day, its a brave new world, not to worry though there is an underground of ICE users who horror upon horror prefer to drive themselves and have a secret emblem to identify each other, looks kind of like a skull and crossbones
The self reporting failure has been in planning for a long time, it started with DTCs years ago and cars increasingly report back of all makes. That's not new.What is interesting is Tesla have one of the shortest recommended service intervals of any modern car. Thats not innovation.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/service-plans
JonV8V said:
The self reporting failure has been in planning for a long time, it started with DTCs years ago and cars increasingly report back of all makes. That's not new.
What is interesting is Tesla have one of the shortest recommended service intervals of any modern car. Thats not innovation.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/service-plans
Same service plan that say thisWhat is interesting is Tesla have one of the shortest recommended service intervals of any modern car. Thats not innovation.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/service-plans
If I choose not to service my Model S, will this void my warranty or Resale Value Guarantee?
It is highly recommended that you service your Model S once a year or every 12,500 mi. If you do not follow this recommendation, your New Vehicle Limited Warranty will not be affected.
Your Tesla vehicle is protected by a 4 year, 50,000 mi (whichever comes first) new vehicle limited warranty and 8 year, unlimited mile battery and drive unit warranty.
babatunde said:
Same service plan that say this
If I choose not to service my Model S, will this void my warranty or Resale Value Guarantee?
It is highly recommended that you service your Model S once a year or every 12,500 mi. If you do not follow this recommendation, your New Vehicle Limited Warranty will not be affected.
Your Tesla vehicle is protected by a 4 year, 50,000 mi (whichever comes first) new vehicle limited warranty and 8 year, unlimited mile battery and drive unit warranty.
And? Do you only service a car to maintain a warranty?If I choose not to service my Model S, will this void my warranty or Resale Value Guarantee?
It is highly recommended that you service your Model S once a year or every 12,500 mi. If you do not follow this recommendation, your New Vehicle Limited Warranty will not be affected.
Your Tesla vehicle is protected by a 4 year, 50,000 mi (whichever comes first) new vehicle limited warranty and 8 year, unlimited mile battery and drive unit warranty.
The guaranteed buy back is invalidated if you do t get it serviced.
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