Investor's Corner
Tesla registers another strong batch of Model 3 VINs as Musk sees end to production hell
Just a day after registering more than 6,000 new Model 3 Dual Motor AWD vehicle identification numbers, Tesla has filed for another batch of 2,226 VINs for the compact electric car. With this latest filing, Tesla has registered 15,430 Model 3 for July so far, bringing the total number of registrations to 71,827.
#Tesla registered 2,226 new #Model3 VINs. ~60% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 71827. https://t.co/UNJGKI2Hb5
— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) July 12, 2018
The newest batch of filings comes at a time when Tesla is hard at work attempting to prove that it can sustain the “burst” rate for the Model 3 the company displayed during the final seven days of Q2 2018, when 5,000 of the vehicles were produced in one week. While the electric car maker managed to hit its Model 3 production targets for the second quarter, doubts about the company’s capability to maintain its optimal levels of production caused Tesla’s stock to plummet.
While doubts about the company’s capability to effectively scale the Model 3’s production are understandable, recent signs from Tesla indicate that the present quarter would end with far better figures than that of Q2 2018. In a statement to Bloomberg Businessweek, Elon Musk admitted that while the past year has been very challenging, he remains optimistic about the company’s chances for the coming year.
“The past year has been very difficult, but I feel like the coming year is going to be really quite good. (We) still (have) one foot in hell. Manufacturing hell will be over in a month,” Musk said.
Musk’s latest statement comes amid reports from the Tesla community stating that the automaker’s investor relation team headed by Senior Director of Investor Relations Aaron Chew held a meeting with investors and analysts last Tuesday. According to reports, Chew gave some new updates on the Model 3’s production, stating that GA3 is currently running at 4,000 vehicles per week while GA4, which is set up in a sprung structure on Fremont’s grounds, is producing 1,000 cars weekly.
Chew also reportedly stated that Tesla is expecting GA3 to ramp to 5,000 Model 3 per week while keeping GA4 at 1,000 weekly by the end of July. With this setup, Tesla would be producing 6,000 vehicles per week, but realistically sustaining a 5,000 a week rate for the rest of Q3 2018. From this point, Tesla would be ramping the Model 3’s production at a deliberate pace, targeting 7,000 cars per week for Q4 2018 and 10,000 per week by mid-2019.
Considering Tesla’s targets for the coming years, the company must be able to tick off the Model 3’s manufacturing from its to-do list. Tesla, after all, has a long list of projects ahead, including the recently-announced Gigafactory 3 in China, the Model Y, the Tesla Semi, the next-gen Roadster, Gigafactory 4 in Europe, and the Tesla Truck. If Tesla is to finish all these projects, it would have to start earning revenue from the Model 3; and for this to happen, the production of the vehicle must be fully optimized.
With Elon Musk’s estimates that production hell is ending in a month, however, together with Andrew Chew’s statement to investors regarding the Model 3’s sustained production rate for Q3 2018, Tesla could very well end the year with enough momentum to start 2019 on a strong note.
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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