Investor's Corner
Tesla Model 3 drive unit production reportedly hits 10k/week amid end-of-Q3 push
Despite facing a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission about his “funding secured” tweet last August, Elon Musk appeared to be in light spirits on Friday, expressing his gratitude to the Tesla community for their help, at one point even posting a “Don’t Panic” reminder on his Twitter page. Musk reportedly rallied Tesla’s workers as well, stating that the company has achieved a notable milestone in its ongoing Model 3 ramp — the production of over 10,000 drive units in one week.
In a series of letters to employees following the release of the SEC’s lawsuit, Elon Musk reportedly urged Tesla’s workers to pay no attention to distractions. One of the letters, a copy of which was reportedly obtained by Bloomberg, stated that Tesla’s Model 3 drive team had produced “more than 10,000” units in a seven-day period. Musk reportedly praised the Tesla team as well, urging them to push through “one more hardcore weekend” as Q3 nears its close.
“You’re doing an incredible job. Ignore all distractions. One more hardcore weekend and we will be victorious,” Musk wrote.
And remember … pic.twitter.com/UaDUv4OlZf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2018
The Model 3’s drive units are manufactured in Gigafactory 1, Tesla’s expansive facility in Nevada, which is also tasked with the production of the electric sedan’s batteries. The update on Gigafactory 1’s 10,000/week Model 3 drive unit production comes amidst news that Tesla’s battery partner Panasonic is aiming to complete three new battery cell assembly lines in the facility earlier than expected. This was related by Yoshio Ito, head of Panasonic’s automotive business, who also noted that the bottlenecks in Gigafactory were primarily due to the Japanese company’s incapability to produce enough batteries to meet Tesla’s demand.
Panasonic’s new battery assembly lines are not the only upgrades set to be installed in Gigafactory 1. After a tour of the facility, analysts from Worm Capital stated that Tesla is also expecting the arrival of new machines from Grohmann Automation, all of which are designed to boost the facility’s production capabilities. During the Gigafactory 1 tour, Tesla head of investor relations Martin Viecha reportedly noted that the new Grohmann machines would help battery module production become “three times faster, and three times cheaper.” The new Grohmann machines are expected to be sent to Gigafactory 1 by the end of Q3 or the beginning of Q4.
Tesla might be on track to produce and deliver a record number of Model 3 to reservation holders this quarter, but the ramp of the vehicle remains only partly complete. Ultimately, Tesla aims to produce as many as 10,000 units of the electric sedan per week, including the highly-anticipated $35,000 Standard Range RWD Model 3, which is expected to start production sometime in 2019. If the emails obtained by Bloomberg are accurate, then it would mean that Tesla’s Model 3 drive unit production has taken a definitive step forward.
Considering Tesla’s 10,000/week milestone with its Model 3 drive unit production, as well as the upcoming upgrades to Gigafactory 1 in the form of Panasonic’s new battery cell assembly lines and Grohmann’s new machines, Q4 2018 is shaping up to be a historic quarter for the electric car maker.
Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
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