Thread by @BradMunchen

1) Why did an unheard-of $TSLA subsidiary called "Tesla Beijing" cut a deal w/ Chinese banks for a $700m loan facility for the "purchase & import" of cars to China? Why did this get signed 2 biz-days before Q3 end? It's odd & might account for higher Q3 deliveries than expected.

2) I searched for "Tesla Beijing" in the past four 10-Qs & found nothing. This is puzzling, as $700m is a large sum to be able to tap into for a subsidiary never mentioned before. I also thought $700m would be better used as capex for GF3's equipment, not car orders for Fremont.

3) $700m is roughly 15K Model 3s, which, if subtracted from reported Q3 deliveries, gets you to 82K, or exactly where $TSLAQ delivery bros like @DeanSheikh1, @btsparks, @Paul91701736, etc had been pointing to. And the timing is uncanny: US demand cliff + super-tough YoY hurdles.

4) My own Q3 estimates for China are 8.2K, but I've got no clue how many could be in transit. There is a spike in orders for $TSLA right now in China b/c the CCP exempted it from China's 10% purchase tax (usually only for local producers), but I thought this would only impact Q4

5) A ship w/ around 1K cars landed in China on Sep-23, mostly w/ Xs (h/t: @Paul91701736). SUVs are more popular in China & the X has bigger absolute savings in a 10%-Off Sale. The rest of the orders could've been made on Sep-27 after the loan deal & now en route to China.

6) Many feel that Q3 InsideEV #'s in the US were too high, so China could be the balance of lower "real" #'s in the US.

If so, is it really wrong for Tesla Beijing to order 15K a day after signing the $700m loan deal? Q2'18 had 15K in transit. Wonder what Musk would say?

7) @AaronGreenspan may have found out. In this spy novel-like thread by @PlainSite, he's shown digging into an account that "sounds" like Musk, after getting no reply from a direct email to Musk on the issue a few days before. Must-read material.

https://twitter.com/PlainSite/status/1180557907722567680?s=20

8) The reply, "Every auto manufacturer does this", sounds exactly like something Musk would say. But I've never heard of any automaker in the world who orders >10% of their quarterly revenues only 2 business days before quarter-end. Only @elonmusk operates like this.

9) I hope $TSLA did stuff the China channels in Q3, as it'll be a huge one-off (tariff hike on US cars from 15%->40% on Dec-15) & will cause a slump from mid-Dec unless GF3 is pumping out 12.5K M3s/month. Judging from recent spy pictures, I wouldn't long that prospect.
$TSLAQ

Here's a link that shows the details of Tesla Motor Beijing. The 8-K from Oct-2nd may have misspelled the Chinese name. Nevertheless, if you search the 10-Q w/ "Beijing", etc it still doesn't show up. H/T: @4xRevenue
m.qichacha.com/firm_0984f5b61…