Thread by @ICannot_Enough

“Tesla market share of battery electric vehicles in the U.S. is 80%. So all other manufacturers combined were the other 20%. I think that’s not bad.”
-Elon Musk
$TSLA 🔌🔋⚡️🚘🇺🇸

“I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward.”
@elonmusk

“We are going to be stocking all parts at all service centers. Also it’s going to make sense for our service centers to do basic bodywork... in 15-20 minutes, so there will be no more of this weeks at a body shop stuff.”

“I expect model Y will be maybe 50% higher (sales) than Model 3: maybe even double. As I understand it, the SUV segment is the most popular kind of vehicle worldwide, so will probably see higher volume than 3.”

“We already have full self-driving on highways. In a few weeks we’re going to be pushing an update that removes stalk to confirm. It’s really quite sublime to have it pass slower cars.”

“With the release of Enhanced or Advanced Summon you will see the first indications of the car being able to navigate complex parking lots. That’s also coming out pretty soon, probably next month. And development no the car already does all of the things I just mentioned.”

“We have no plans to switch Model S and Model X to 2170 cells.”

“We feel confident in saying there will be volume production of Model Y next year.”

“The first units of Semi will also be next year, but they will be for our own usage.”
-Jerome Guillen

“The plan is still to get the majority of the funding for capital spending (for GF3) from local China banks and we expect very attractive rates based on the dialogue we have had.”
-Deepak Ahuja

“Tesla has the first wholly-owned facility in China- of any automotive company- so this is profound and we are very appreciative of the Chinese government letting us do this. I think it is symbolic of them wanting to open the market with fair rules for everyone.”

“Autonomy has the potential to save millions of lives and give people time back so that they can spend time doing things they enjoy instead of (fighting) terrible traffic.”

The (real world driving) miles (of video footage to feed an autonomous driving neural network) that we have- if you added everyone else up, they probably have 5% of the miles Tesla has.

I’m not sure how anyone competes with that.”

“Week over week we take fewer hours to assemble Model 3 and S and X as well and then we track that very closely and carefully with the engineers and supply chain and the quality in the field is also improving week over week with less need for cars to be in service.”
-Jerome

On timing of introduction of standard range Model 3:

“We expect to introduce the standard range model 3 sometime probably in the middle of this year... as a rough guess. We are working hard to improve our cost of production.”

“We need to bring the Shanghai factory online. I think that’s the biggest variable for this year. Our car is just very expensive to import to China in duties & transport costs. We’ve never been eligible for any tax credits...

I think that’s the biggest variable for this year. Our car is just very expensive to import to China in duties and transport costs. We’ve never been eligible for any tax credits.”

I want to be a broken record about this because it’s cost cost cost. Getting those variable cost and fixed costs down lets us lower the price and be financially sustainable and achieve our mission of environmental sustainability. So we have to be absolutely serious about this.”

On Europe and China demand:

“It seems good. Our challenge with Europe and China is how do we get the cars made and put on the boat. It’s not (limited by) demand, it’s how do we get the cars there fast enough.

Demand is really not one of the things were thinking about.”

On Model 3 reservations:
“Reservations are like pre-orders. My guess is demand for model 3 in a strong economy is like 700,000 to 800,000 per year and even in a weak economy would be like half a million.”

“I plan to make several trips to China this year and I’m working very closely with the team that’s building the factory. And we’re only just talking about phase 1. Phase 1 is about 10% of what the gigafactory will ultimately be. It’s a major, major deal.”

On EV cost parity vs. ICE:
“The cost of electricity is quite a bit less than the cost of gasoline, especially in Europe, or California, or China. Basically everywhere except the middle of the United States.”

“If there’s a given amount of free cash flow, you decide to achieve that with a smaller amount of production at a higher margin or more cars at a lower margin. I think we’re more towards the second. We want to make more cars at a lower margin.”

“To the best of our knowledge our (battery pack) costs are the best in the world, and they are improving.”

“We’ve been reluctant to introduce the leasing on model 3 because of respect to GAAP earnings. It makes thr financials look worse, so we’re not planning to introduce that right away. Will introduce that later sometime this year probably.”

“Restructuring costs are roughly around 40 million.”
-Deepak Ahuja

“Our costs will improve actually quite a bit. Our (part logistics) are currently quite boneheaded, speaking self-referentially. Just stopping doing foolish things will massively improve our service costs, customer happiness around the world, and fundamentally better all around.”

On analysts missing earnings:
“We are providing certain guidance here and you should reflect that in your modeling- that’s the best indication from the company of our projections. In all fairness, that’s the best way I can think of answering your question here.”
-Deepak Ahuja

“I am confident that Tesla will remain at least slightly profitable, even if there is a recession. We have to be relentless about cost. We have to be super hard-core about it- it’s the only way to make cars.”

Deepak is going to be retiring, again, from Tesla. I think it’s now been about 11 yrs. Thank you for your tremendous contribution to Tesla. Deepak will continue to be at Tesla for a few more months & will continue to serve as a senior advisor for probably years to come hopefully.

“I’ve learned a lot from you and I’ve been very inspired by you and the team at Tesla who are incredibly brilliant, very passionate, and just amazing. So thank you everybody for that.”
-Deepak Ahuja

Note:
Incoming CFO is VP of Finance, 9-year Tesla veteran, and Harvard Wharton School graduate Zach Kirkhorn

Audio is now posted to the @Tesla investor relations site so you can hear exactly how poor a transcriptionist I am for yourselves:
edge.media-server.com/m6/p/2ck8auvi