Featured Bloomberg visits Tesla Fremont

fairly balanced report, shorters won't be happy with bloomberg.

 

agree 100%.

 

some more information

New Tesla Model 3 Battery Details & Images Released

It looks like tesla has dropped battery weight - kg/kwh by 15% (compared to 2012 in 2017 when the new packs came out) mainly by cutting down the weight of the pack structure around cells and electronics. This is possible because of the removal of the requirement of changing packs, which gives the pack designer more freedom. The model 3 also uses high strength steel to protect the pack and people from side impacts, which seems like a better idea than using the pack structure. length has been reduced because the new cells are taller, which seems like a good trade off. The main thing tesla have done is reduce cost in the pack, as the original 85 kwh pack was probably light and small enough, the engineering effort appears to be to drive costs down to $100/kwh on the pack level. That would make the cost of the long range pack (80.5 kwh) drop to $8500. Tesla says they will do this in the next 2 years, but my guess is 4 years.

Tesla has improved seats in the model 3 in the current cars versus the initial deliveries. This is a much faster change than would have been implemented if tesla used a vendor, but if they had used a vendor for the interior, it is likely it would be nicer from the start. I've got to say doing things differently here was probably necessary when tesla was a low volume producer, and could not command vendor resources. With the higher volume model 3 they should take a loss on fixed costs and get a vendor like adient to supply them. This is a fairly low margin business compared to the rest of the car, and tesla already is having trouble hiring enough good people.

 

another reason not to be too early an adopter.

 

But like big screen TV's - the next great thing is always just around the corner. You could end up just waiting for ever.

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i think the second year is just about right. unless they are giving everyone upgraded seats.

 

Tesla just cut 9% of workforce, mostly salaried, that's like 3,400 workers. I'm thinking, well, if you lose money long enough, going to happen.

 

maybe because of all the robotics they just installed?

 

Car manufacuturers hate seats, huh? Do they hate seats as much as I hate ill fitting seats? Bad enough spending lot of time in car commuting, battling traffic. Doing that in ill fitting seats is not something I sign up for anymore. That said there is only one model of car that checks all my boxes, 2018+ Accord.

Couple weeks ago, was blowing off few minutes at Toyota, salesguy said, oh u gotta try the 'all new' Avalon. Wah, wah, fail. Lacks headroom, less headroom than Accord and seats are typical Toyota, small cushions that squeeze legs and hips. All for $40k? Ah, next.

 

Tesla announced 6-8 weeks ago a restructuring in the company.
Sounds as if the severance package was quite generous.

I’m not thinking this is running out of money, I think it is an effort/result of efficiency gains.

 

Musk calls the cuts, "flattening management" which is often the best thing to do. Chop down the deadwood ... including the deadwood that hires layers of deadwood underneath - just to make their purpose less relevant. Over the past 1½ decades - our company needs to do this in the worst way.
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if they can keep churning out model 3's without them, good riddance.

 

"Generous" is a relative term. The employees don't have a lot of tenure. I wouldn't expect much in salary continuation but if their stock becomes vested they have an opportunity or two to make some money. Are there any old Solar City employees left?

Maybe Elon will give them all printed shirts: I was Elon's barnacle and all I got was this Boring t-shirt.

Rolls-Royce also announced a similar sized layoff.

 

Oh, Oh, so, imagine Toyota buying Tesla and Rolls Royce, the workforce talent, the upgraded interiors, (Rolls Royce) the inefficiency (Tesla).

 

The Model 3 LR is rated 130mpge. That makes it the third most efficient plug in on the US market after the Ioniq Electric(136mpge) and Prius Prime(133mpge). It has nearly two and half times the range of the Ioniq, and the prime needs gasoline to go past 25 miles.

The Model S and X are less efficient because Tesla chose to use induction motors to avoid the need for rare earth minerals in the magnets. Even though "inefficient", an ICE car would need to get around 100mpg to match them.

 

Unlikely as these were all salaried positions. Zero production floor cuts as I recall.