Tesla's Big F***ing Field

[LandArchPoke]

From what I have heard the next factory will be located closer to the eastern US markets.  Not sure if that means somewhere in the Rust Belt or somewhere in the Southeast.  I know Nashville/Tennessee were in the mix for the last Gigafactory.  

I could definitely see this, given everything else going on in Nashville. It's essentially that part of the country's 'Austin'

Elon has said that at some point they will need a plant in that part of the country for Model 3 & Y production for the east coast. I really wouldn't be surprised if Tesla didn't build 2-3 plants in the US in the next 5 years.  

I could also see somewhere like a Columbus or Pittsburgh being a location for the NE as they expand manufacturing capacity. All three have solid universities and larger 'tech' presence than Tulsa.

[Oil Capital]

Alright, my work here is done.  Anyone who can read can readily see that, contrary to the (false) claim made above, Tesla has in fact made no announcement about planning a new gigafactory for the semi or that the semi will be manufactured somewhere other than their current locations.

[LandArchPoke]

Alright, my work here is done.  Anyone who can read can readily see that, contrary to the (false) claim made above, Tesla has in fact made no announcement about planning a new gigafactory for the semi or that the semi will be manufactured somewhere other than their current locations.

Oh yes, you twisting "announcement" when the original post has quotations around that word and wasn't meant as me saying official announcement. Learn to read yourself. The entire point of the original post was all about the chart in the SEC filing and you decided to go on a rant and take it out of context like you have done with many others on here, hooray for you making a point that was never made by me in the first place. Then try to attack people's opinions when confronted about it. Go away troll.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

The Giga Factory doesn't need to be in a city with major tech and highly acclaimed university/college. The existing Giga Factory is located 30 some miles from Reno/Sparks NV which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It's almost 400 miles from the plant to the Bay Area.

https://goo.gl/maps/ezK5BgYZ81AgTR836

And a plant for the Semi or roadster tin the Tennessee area is a great choice because you already have Nissan, Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Mercedes with plants in that part of the country.

[Tulsan]

Consensus seems to be that there is intent for a third US factory, more likely than not in the Northeast.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-fifth-gigafactory-united-states/

[LandArchPoke]

The Giga Factory doesn't need to be in a city with major tech and highly acclaimed university/college. The existing Giga Factory is located 30 some miles from Reno/Sparks NV which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It's almost 400 miles from the plant to the Bay Area.

https://goo.gl/maps/ezK5BgYZ81AgTR836

And a plant for the Semi or roadster tin the Tennessee area is a great choice because you already have Nissan, Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Mercedes with plants in that part of the country.

Definitely doesn't have to go in a 'tech' hub but Tesla did seem to make that a point as to being a key weakness in Austin vs Tulsa is the employment base/quality of life, that it'd be easier to recruit engineers in a market like Austin. Obviously with the plant in the Reno area it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue or the plant in Buffalo.

If they do intend to build a plant for the semi separate from others then I'd think the middle of the US would make sense and Nashville could be close enough toward the central US to make that work versus Tulsa. Like you said there's a huge employment base to recruit from with all the other plants in neighboring states.

I do think at some point regardless they will build a second plant for Model 3 & Y production in the Eastern US and Tulsa will have no shot at getting that. Likely our only hope to get a Tesla plant is if the semi needs its own plant/production. That's why I found that chart in their filings so interesting.

Something others mentioned here that made a lot of sense and why they are building out plants like this is the direct to consumer sales that's different than traditional car manufacturing. They want locations near key markets, and why the truck is being built in the central US and probably why the Fremont plant will stay important given they sell so many cars in California. Elon has made it clear he wants to expand marketshare in the east and having a plant to improve delivery speed out that direction will become a necessity at some point.

[tulsabug]

Lemme just chime in here that Elon Musk is an a$$. Beyond that, once Tesla can't rely on selling carbon credits to turn a profit they're going to have problems. At this point things might seem rosy since they're the only game in town to a degree, but once other manufacturers start selling more EVs and need to buy less carbon credits, the Tesla balance sheet isn't going to look good (it doesn't look good now either but I digress). Musk, like Trump, is a blow-smoke-up-your-a$$ salesman and once you start digging all you find are smoke and mirrors. I'm glad Tulsa didn't get the Tesla factory - the last thing we need is another big empty building when the poop hits the balance sheet.

[SXSW]

Tesla isn't the only player in the electric vehicle game.  There's Rivian, Lucid, etc in addition to the traditional car companies that will be converting to EV's over the next decade.  It absolutely should be something Tulsa continues to pursue along with aerospace/drones and robotics, we are very well-suited to be heavily involved in this budding industry.

[tulsabug]

Tesla isn't the only player in the electric vehicle game.  There's Rivian, Lucid, etc in addition to the traditional car companies that will be converting to EV's over the next decade.  It absolutely should be something Tulsa continues to pursue along with aerospace/drones and robotics, we are very well-suited to be heavily involved in this budding industry.

I completely agree. I just don't think we should be looking for something as big as a car factory especially from a company like Tesla whose fortunes, I believe, are on rather shaky ground. I would love to see multiple smaller facilities pop up to make various components for EVs.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Tesla originally planned on building a factory to build cars in Albuquerque NM because of it's central location. The reason they wound up at the old GM/NUMMI plant in Fremont CA is the mayor of Fremont gave them a deal at $42 million dollars to take over part of the plant while they were trying to work with other manufacturers. The NUMMI plant had been vacant for some time and was scheduled to be demolished. It was originally built by GM in the early 60's as the GM Fremont Plant. Tesla opened in October 2010. It had nothing to do with Silicon Valley, or the colleges and universities in the area, Elon got a facility for dirt cheap.

As for rail line access, just like the Giga Factory in NV, the facilities have no direct rail access (spurs or direct lines) into them.

One advantage Austin has for the semi plant is that it's located near quite a few shipping hubs for over the road transportation. Walmart would be one of their biggest buyers in Bentonville, FedEx in Memphis and several others I'm sure. Having the plant in Austin also creates a good R&D and engineering environment.

Going back to the rail line discussion, here are links from Google Maps that show that the NUMMI plant now has no rail connection, and the rail yard next to it has no roll on/rolloff facilities.

https://goo.gl/maps/RL4PZdcuF2pmRa1T6

https://goo.gl/maps/hHbTZ6sfnEHb4FEm6

https://goo.gl/maps/jKXYgXYd9foxsDdb9

GM production from Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Assembly

NUMMI joint GM Toyota use from Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI

[dbacksfan 2.0]

People call Musk crazy, but lets look at some real numbers. Musk founded Tesla in 2004 received $0.4 billion dollars in loans from the US Gov't, and paid them back with interest from the production at the plant in Fremont.

Solyndra, the darling of the green energy tech got $0.5 Billion from the US Gov't  and built a plant to make solar energy panels just a few miles from where Musk started building electric vehicles.

Which one lasted? Which one tanked in six years? And before you call BS, Solyndra was surrounded by Silicon Valley, Stanford, Palo Alto and Livermore. These are universities and facilities that helped in the creation of the US nuclear program after WW II.

[LandArchPoke]

Lemme just chime in here that Elon Musk is an a$$. Beyond that, once Tesla can't rely on selling carbon credits to turn a profit they're going to have problems. At this point things might seem rosy since they're the only game in town to a degree, but once other manufacturers start selling more EVs and need to buy less carbon credits, the Tesla balance sheet isn't going to look good (it doesn't look good now either but I digress). Musk, like Trump, is a blow-smoke-up-your-a$$ salesman and once you start digging all you find are smoke and mirrors. I'm glad Tulsa didn't get the Tesla factory - the last thing we need is another big empty building when the poop hits the balance sheet.

I had this same fear as well about Tesla for a long time (also had the same doubt about Amazon and I was so wrong about that). I've drank the 'kool-aid' on Tesla for a few reasons. They are sprinting toward a scale of production where they can be profitable without those subsidies and I think they recognize that those will be getting smaller and smaller every year as the other autos produce more EVs. They have by far the best battery technology, so even if for some reason their car production never becomes profitable they could easily pivot and be the sole battery provider for most major auto companies. Even the closest competitors, EV only, like Rivian or traditionals like Porshce and Audi are a decade behind Tesla in battery technology and Tesla is arguably widening that gap each year. A law that has gotten very little press, but is probably the biggest game changers for EVs in the US is California will require any car sold in a few years to be zero emissions. Anytime California has changed laws, given the size of the auto market there, it forces the hand of every company to change production nation wide as it's not profitable to make a car specific to California standards then to the rest of the US. They've done this with safety requirements and they were a key factor in getting auto makers to increase MPG and lowering emissions and is why we have the start/stop features on most cars now when you're at a stop light or stop briefly for example. If Trump is re-elect I'd expect this to be one of his bigger fights given he's already tried to go after their MPG efficiency requirements, I'd expect his administration to fight the requirement of any new car to be zero emission. Regardless, this is the future whether people like it or not, in 10-15 years most cars are likely to be EVs and not gas and Tesla is so far beyond any competitors they will have a leg up for a very long time. They have the cash to burn to get themselves to profitability too, which is critical to allowing them to expand quickly to get to the right scale needed to be a successful auto maker.

Just my thoughts on why I've changed my mind on Tesla, a year ago I was still in the camp of people who thought they'd be bankrupt in a few years. Which could still happen, but I think they have more positives going forward than negatives. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if GM and Ford don't exist in a decade and Fisker, Tesla, Rivian (Ford owns part of them) are the major car makers. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

Musk, like Trump, is a blow-smoke-up-your-a$$ salesman and once you start digging all you find are smoke and mirrors. I'm glad Tulsa didn't get the Tesla factory - the last thing we need is another big empty building when the poop hits the balance sheet.

Like that big empty plant GM left in OKC...?   Good thing Tinker AFB was there to use it....


As for Tesla getting $$$ by whatever means he has used in the past, well, it ain't even within the same universe as the bailouts and subsidies and tax breaks oil and gas has gotten for 100 years.  If they were gonna be "successful" wouldn't they be off the government nipple by now?   Oh, wait... I forgot... never mind!

And wasn't it GM that got $50 Billion from Baby Bush last big recession we had?  Granted, tiny drop in the bucket compared to the other money he shoveled at his buddies, but hey, $50 billion would make my life a lot easier...!

And Tesla reported $104 million profit in 2nd quarter of 2020.  On $6 Billion in sales.  Lot of money. 

When everyone else was lined up asking for one of those PPP checks...  

[heironymouspasparagus]

Tesla originally planned on building a factory to build cars in Albuquerque NM because of it's central location. The reason they wound up at the old GM/NUMMI plant in Fremont CA is the mayor of Fremont gave them a deal at $42 million dollars to take over part of the plant while they were trying to work with other manufacturers. The NUMMI plant had been vacant for some time and was scheduled to be demolished. It was originally built by GM in the early 60's as the GM Fremont Plant. Tesla opened in October 2010. It had nothing to do with Silicon Valley, or the colleges and universities in the area, Elon got a facility for dirt cheap.

As for rail line access, just like the Giga Factory in NV, the facilities have no direct rail access (spurs or direct lines) into them.

One advantage Austin has for the semi plant is that it's located near quite a few shipping hubs for over the road transportation. Walmart would be one of their biggest buyers in Bentonville, FedEx in Memphis and several others I'm sure. Having the plant in Austin also creates a good R&D and engineering environment.

If OK had been using even a scrap of a brain, Stitt would have scrambled around, worked with Langford (since Inhofe is such a worthless lump...) and gotten the GM plant back from Tinker to give to Tesla.  I bet that would have been a HUGE factor in the decision.

But sadly, none of OK's recent politicians have that much initiative or brainpower.

[LandArchPoke]

If OK had been using even a scrap of a brain, Stitt would have scrambled around, worked with Langford (since Inhofe is such a worthless lump...) and gotten the GM plant back from Tinker to give to Tesla.  I bet that would have been a HUGE factor in the decision.

But sadly, none of OK's recent politicians have that much initiative or brainpower.

I believe the GM plant is being used now after Tinker bought it... it's not just sitting vacant. So that would not have been an option.