With the second order for ultra-fast chargers at 120 new sites, Tritium is now the largest supplier to the IONITY network. Australian manufacturer Tritium announced a second order for ultra-fast DC fast chargers (up to 350 kW) from IONITY in Europe. The joint venture charging network (founded in 2017 by BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford… Continue reading Tritium Secures New Order From IONITY For Hundreds Of Chargers
Tag: Tesla
Read Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s email to employees: Company averaged 900 Model 3s per day this week
Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y in Hawthorne, California on March 14, 2019.Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty ImagesTesla shares rose more than 1% Thursday after CEO Elon Musk sent an e-mail to all employees saying the electric vehicle maker is close to reaching its target production numbers for the Model 3 this quarter.
The e-mail's optimistic tone helped Tesla shares turn positive for the first time in seven days. The company added over $500 million to its market cap, reaching around $34.6 billion, in early trading on Thursday.
Here's what Musk wrote to employees:
Subj. Exciting Goal!
Date: May 22, 2109
To: Everbody
As of yesterday we had over 50,000 net new orders for this quarter. Based on current trends, we have a good chance of exceeding the record 90,700 deliveries of Q4 last year and making this the highest deliveries/sales quarter in Tesla history!
In order to achieve this, we need sustained output of 1,000 Model 3's per day. Almost all parts of the Model 3 production system have exceeded 1,000 units on multiple days (congratulations!) and we've averaged about 900/day this week, so we're only about 10% away from 7,000/week.
If we rally hard, we can do it!
Thanks for your hard work
Analysts had been losing confidence in Tesla's stock during the past week as the company entered cost-cutting mode. In an email to employees obtained by CNBC last week, Musk stressed the need for “hardcore” measures to cut spending.
Citi analysts wrote Tuesday that Tesla's shares could fall more than 80% to $36, citing “lingering demand/FCF (free cash flow) concerns.” In a private call with Morgan Stanley clients Wednesday, Morgan Stanley research analyst Adam Jonas said he was skeptical about the company's ability to grow, CNBC reported.
“Tesla is not really seen as a growth story,” Jonas said on the call, which CNBC heard in a recording. Today, “It seems like a distressed credit and restructuring story.”
Loup Ventures co-founder Gene Munster gave the stock its latest downward revision Thursday. Munster expected the company would miss its delivery expectations this year especially as trade tensions drag on between the U.S. and China. He lowered 2019 delivery estimates about 10% to just 310,000 vehicles compared to guidance between 360,000 and 400,000.
While Musk's email to Tesla employees shed a light on production progress, logistics remains another challenge for the company in meeting its second-quarter delivery goals.
In the first quarter of 2019, Musk said the increase in overseas business stressed the company's logistics operations. Half of Tesla's global deliveries happened in the final 10 days of the first quarter.
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Watch: How Elon Musk's tweets might be affecting the latest price targets for Tesla
VIDEO7:3607:36How Elon Musk's tweets might be affecting the latest price targets for TeslaSquawk Box
Musk’s leaked email shows Tesla to make record deliveries in second quarter
(Reuters) – Tesla Inc is on course to deliver a record number of cars in the second quarter, beating the 90,700 it sent to customers in the final quarter of last year, according to an internal email from Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk to staff. A Tesla Model 3 sedan, its first car aimed at… Continue reading Musk’s leaked email shows Tesla to make record deliveries in second quarter
Tesla deliveries set to top record in second quarter: Musk email
A Tesla Model 3 sedan, its first car aimed at the mass market, is displayed during its launch in Hawthorne, California, U.S. March 31, 2016. REUTERS/Joe White (Reuters) – Tesla Inc is on course to top its record for quarterly deliveries in the second quarter, beating the 90,700 it sent to customers in the final… Continue reading Tesla deliveries set to top record in second quarter: Musk email
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First IONITY station in England works fine, but the location could be better in terms of the surrounding infrastructure. The IONITY fast charging network expands to more countries in Europe and recently the first was opened in Maidstone, Kent in England with four chargers (of course CCS-only). Thanks to Andrew Till we can take a… Continue reading Kia Niro EV Tests First IONITY Charging Station In England: Video
Don’t expect Apple or Amazon to buy Tesla, Morgan Stanley analyst warns investors
Elon MuskMike Blake | ReutersIn an invitation-only call with institutional clients of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, research analyst Adam Jonas — a long-time Tesla bull — expressed skepticism about the electric vehicle maker and said not to count on a buyer like Apple to bail the company out.
“Tesla is not really seen as a growth story,” Jonas said on the call, which CNBC heard in a recording. Today, “It seems like a distressed credit and restructuring story.”
Some details of the call were previously reported by Business Insider.
Jonas spent some time on the call responding to the hope that a big tech company like Apple or Amazon might buy Tesla. in a CNBC interview on Tuesday, analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners rekindled the rumor that Apple once made a bid for Tesla.
But Jonas poured cold water on the notion of a big tech acquisition today.
He explained, “For risk mitigation and liability containment, they may not want to expose themselves to the unlimited liability of being involved in owning a business where occasionally a car catches on fire, takes down a building, or accidentally kills a pedestrian or passenger, things that happen. The auto industry has an ugly side to it. The roads are very dangerous. There's a lot of stored energy in a vehicle. And the regulatory environment [around autonomous cars] has not had time to cure yet.”
Jonas acknowledged that Apple has interest in transportation (as do Amazon and other big tech firms). But Morgan Stanley's tech researchers, he said, don't expect Apple to have a service or related hardware devoted entirely to transportation until the 2030s.
He added, “Perhaps those big tech firms don't want to expose themselves to that up front. And moreover they realize the autonomous race is more of a marathon where over a 10- or 20-year period you collect real world miles. There may be other ways to do that besides owning a full-stack, awesome, great auto company.”
SpaceX to the rescue?Apart from shooting down the idea of a white knight, Jonas also expressed skepticism about the company's current state.
“In late 2018, demand was exceeding supply, cash flow was strong, there was a ton of excitement around the Model Y,” Jonas said. “Today — supply exceeds demand, they are burning cash, nobody cares about the Model Y.”
Finally, Jonas told investors that, given the precedent of Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity, there's a possibility Musk could use his 54% stake in SpaceX, a company that has a post-money valuation of $31.5 billion, to eventually collateralize Tesla.
“There's a precedent for Elon Musk to think across his portfolio of companies,” he said.
Jonas said near-term, Wall Street is expecting Tesla to deliver just 70,000 vehicles in the second quarter of 2019. While he and Morgan Stanley have a more optimistic estimate of 82,000 vehicles, that still falls short of Tesla guidance. The company said it would deliver 90,000 cars this quarter, and wrote in a first-quarter shareholder letter:
“Although we are driving towards higher internal goals, we reaffirm our prior guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries in 2019, representing an increase of approximately 45% to 65% compared to 2018.”
Tesla and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the call.
Morgan Stanley was a lead underwriter in Tesla's $2.7 billion offering of stock and convertible notes, which closed earlier this month. The week of the offering, Morgan Stanley said it saw the funding as a 12-month bridge to help the company gain a foothold in China.
Tesla's stock is down 15% since last Thursday, and dropped 6% on Wednesday to under $193. The slide began last week after an e-mail surfaced in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged employees to cut spending and told them he would personally oversee outgoing expenses.
That news was followed by a bad Consumer Reports review of Tesla's new Autopilot Navigate feature in its Model 3 electric sedans. The stock may also be reacting to ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, as Tesla has staked its future on building and selling its cars there.
WATCH: Morgan Stanley says Tesla could hit $10 if this happens
VIDEO6:1906:19Tesla could hit $10 if this happensFast Money
Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies
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Published on May 16th, 2019 |
by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies
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May 16th, 2019 by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
The news of the day is that Tesla bought around 79% of Maxwell’s shares on May the 15th, 2019, after the acquisition offer was extended twice. The original proposal was from February 4th, 2019, and was discussed well by our authors in “Tesla Inks Deal To Acquire Maxwell Technologies In Stock Deal” and “The Ultracapacitors, Electrodes, & Battery Manufacturing Tech Tesla Gets With Maxwell Technologies.”
To make it clear that this is a 100% merger, the stock not offered is converted to a right to get Tesla shares and cash on the same conditions as the shares offered and accepted in the acquisition. They are not shares any more — they are essentially IOUs.
It is a short but very important announcement. Now let’s look a bit more closely at what Tesla bought.
Maxwell Technologies.
Maxwell Technology was a company specialized in high-quality supercapacitors. A supercapacitor is a kind of electricity storage device that can charge and discharge very fast and many thousands of times without any wear and tear. But the density of energy is very low, making supercapacitors unusable as permanent storage. It has been speculated, though, that use of supercapacitors could enable better storage and reuse of braking energy, making EV’s better track cars.
Perhaps, but that is not what made Maxwell a target for Tesla. Maxwell developed a way to improve battery production. The company’s own estimate was that, in time, Maxwell could grow to a many-billion-dollar company, multiplying their stock value at least tenfold and perhaps a hundredfold. If only they could bring the patents to production. An excellent description of the technology is in an article by Randy Carlson, “Tesla and Maxwell: Assessing the deal.”
To become so valuable, you need customers for your batteries and/or other battery companies willing to use your technology for a fee. Alas, only Tesla was a little bit interested. Tesla and Panasonic can likely realize the billions in saving on battery production that Maxwell predicted. Others?
This would give Tesla, currently having already the lowest cost batteries, an unassailable advantage over the competition for the coming years. The questions are how fast this can be incorporated into the Panasonic processes at GF1, and how big the savings will really be.
For the time being, Maxwell will continue with its business all over the world. Too many employees and customers and contracts to do anything else.
What the future will bring we can only guess. I would not be surprised if the capacitor business gets a management buyout after the battery technology is transferred to Tesla.
About the Author
Maarten Vinkhuyzen Grumpy old man. The best thing I did with my life was raising two kids. Only finished primary education, but when you don’t go to school, you have lots of time to read. I switched from accounting to software development and ended my career as system integrator and architect. My 2007 boss got two electric Lotus Elise cars to show policymakers the future direction of energy and transportation. And I have been looking to replace my diesel cars with electric vehicles ever since.
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