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  • Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to

  • the Tesla Second Quarter 2017 Financial Results Q&A Conference Call.

  • At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

  • Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time.

  • As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

  • I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Jeff Evanson.

  • Mr. Evanson, you may now begin.

  • Thank you, Shree, and good afternoon, everyone.

  • Welcome to Tesla's Second Quarter 2017 Q&A Webcast.

  • I'm joined today by Elon Musk; JB Straubel; Deepak Ahuja; and Jon McNeill.

  • Our Q2 results were announced 80 minutes ago in the update letter we published at the same link

  • as this webcast.

  • During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements.

  • These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today.

  • Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties

  • including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC.

  • During the question-and-answer portion of today's call, please limit yourselves to one

  • question and one follow-up.

  • But before we jump into the Q&A, Elon has some opening remarks. Elon?

  • [AV issues, skip to 11:15.]

  • All right. Thank you. All right, we apologize, everyone.

  • Elon, over to you.

  • All right, thank you. My apologies, we actually tried a new audio system

  • with a bunch of individual mics that seems to have malfunctioned,

  • so we went back to our standard conference call object.

  • Anyway, I just want to confirm people can hear what I'm saying? Okay, great.

  • So first of all, I want to say that Friday night was an amazing time for Tesla.

  • It was one of the most important days in the history of the company.

  • It's something we've been striving for, for 14 years.

  • Having with us steady production of Model 3s was just an incredible milestone in the company's history.

  • We wanted to make a great, affordable electric car which is a fundamental thing that is missing.

  • We wanted to make that from day one, and if we could only have done it sooner, we would have.

  • And I'm glad that this day has come.

  • What we have ahead of us, of course, is an incredibly difficult production ramp.

  • Nonetheless, I think we've got a great team, and I'm very confident that we will be able

  • to reach a production rate of 10,000 vehicles per week towards the end of next year.

  • And we remainwe believe on track to achieve a 5,000 unit week by the end of this year.

  • So, I would simply urge people to not get too caught up in what exactly falls within

  • the exact calendar boundaries of a quarter, one quarter or the next, because when you

  • have an exponentially growing production ramp, slight changes of a few weeks here or there

  • can appear to have dramatic changes, but that is simply because of the arbitrary nature

  • of when a quarter ends.

  • But what people should absolutely have zero concern about is that Tesla will achieve a

  • 10,000 unit production week by the end of next year.

  • So, if you can sort of see where we came from, the Roadsterwe were making only 600 units

  • a week where the non-powertrain portion of the car was made by Lotus.

  • And we did the powertrain and final assembly of the car, and then we went from that to

  • 20,000 units a year of the Model S, a far more complex car, where we did the whole thing.

  • And then with Model 3, we are more vertically integrated.

  • I think people should really not have any concerns that we will reach that outcome from

  • a production rate.

  • We're also very confident about costs.

  • We feel we gained a lot of experience.

  • We certainly aspire to learn from the mistakes of the past, and I think we largely have.

  • Deepak will go into some of our margin expectations there.

  • And unlike, say, for example, the Model X, where the mistake that we made, and I obviously

  • take the prime responsibility here, was having far too much advanced technology in version

  • one of our product.

  • Model X is an incredible car, but it was overreaching for the first-generation of the product.

  • In the case of Model 3, we're strived hard to simplify and make sure that it has everything

  • essentially to be a fantastic car.

  • If you see the reviews, the reviews areone could not ask for better reviews.

  • And I just thought I'd give you one little anecdote, which waswhich I found quite

  • surprising is that when we were giving test drives toor the journalists were driving

  • the car and doing test drives.

  • About 80% of the journalists said that they would buy the car themselves.

  • Most of the remaining 20% said probably.

  • This is crazy.

  • I've never seen anything like it.

  • So this is a very good sign.

  • It should also be noted that one of our big concerns was that Model S, particularly, and

  • Model X demand would suffer with the introduction of the Model 3.

  • In fact, this has turned out to be the opposite situation.

  • Model S and Model X demand increased with the release of Model 3.

  • Jon, would you like to just elaborate on that?

  • We did express this as a concern.

  • Yes.

  • And it was a big concern, but it has turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

  • Yes.

  • I think that's right.

  • Not only as Elon said, we expressed it is a concern.

  • We had positive comps, both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter in orders in the

  • second quarter.

  • But since then, orders have accelerated in July as we noted in our shareholder letter.

  • And they've accelerated further since the hand-over event on Friday for the Model 3.

  • So, it clearly shows that S and X as our flagship products have a strong position in the market

  • and strong demand.

  • And that's super encouraging that we've got a strong product lineup with three cars that

  • are proving to be very popular in their individual segments.

  • Yes.

  • In fact, I don't know – I think we mentioned some of this in the earnings letter, but just

  • some of the key stats on, say, July orders for S and X were...

  • Yes.

  • July orders were 15% higher than our Q2 average weekly order rate, so we accelerated off of

  • Q2 into July.

  • Yes.

  • And as we noted in the shareholder letter, deliveries grew by 53% compared to the Q2

  • 2016 in a flat luxury vehicle market, so we're gaining share...

  • Yes.

  • In a flat-to-down market, and the order has accelerated.

  • So July was one of our best months ever.

  • Yes.

  • Again, contrary to our expectations, I want to emphasize.

  • Of course, who knows if this will continue, but all indications are that it will.

  • So that's very exciting.

  • Yes.

  • A side note, we're making great progress on our internal Autopilot software.

  • It's getting better and better.

  • I'm really, really excited.

  • I test drive the latest development release as soon as it comes out, and I'm like this

  • is really getting to be something special.

  • Yes, it's really, and I think it's going to accelerate from here.

  • And the talent that we're seeing join on the technical side for Autopilot is really world-class.

  • I don't think there's – it's unmatched anywhere, I would say.

  • So, let's see, Model 3 net orders arethere's not that many cancellationsabout 1,800

  • a day.

  • I want to emphasize you can't see the car, unless you want to look at pictures online.

  • You can't test drive a car.

  • You have to put down a $1,000 deposit.

  • We're not promoting the car.

  • We're not promoting the car.

  • If you go to our stores, we don't even want to talk about it, really, because we want

  • to talk about the thing that we can supply.

  • If somebody orders a Model 3 now, it's probably late next-year before they get it.

  • We want to give people a car where it's, in fact, maybe a one- or two-month wait for an

  • S or an X.

  • I think the point that we're trying to make is that the S is still a superior sedan.

  • It seems to have come through, and that's true.

  • Things got a little confusing because of the nomenclature of being Model 3 versus Model

  • S and X, which was, I guess, sort of my fault, being too clever for my own good there, because

  • especially the Model E, as you can tell, I have a wonderful sense of humor.

  • But then people mistook that for generation three, but in fact, if you look at, say, what

  • we're really on right now?

  • I would say is approximately generation four.

  • We're on generation four of S, X and 3.

  • At the risk of really confusing matters.

  • Model 3 is generation four, but so are S and X.

  • We evolve the technology all at the same time.

  • So overall, looking really good.

  • And then Solar Roofwe have installed and working the Solar Roof tiles.

  • I have it on my house.

  • JB has it on his house.

  • I think we included some of the pictures in the earnings letter.

  • I want to emphasize that there's no Photoshopping on the roof.

  • That is actually how it looks, and it wasn't taken by someit was take some pics with

  • your phone and send them over.

  • That's what we're talking about here, not some special lighting conditions, pro-photographer

  • situation.

  • And this is version one, and I think this roof's going look really knockout as we just

  • keep iterating.

  • Now it is a very challenging technical task to get this right, get the costs good, streamline

  • the installation process, ramp up the production.

  • Again, this is sort of follows a similar S-curve to vehicles where it starts up very slow,

  • but then it grows exponentially.

  • Also, our conventional solar is doing quite well and generating significant positive cash

  • flowjust standard flat panel stuff, which, I think, is still the right solution for any

  • kind of flat roof situation, which is most commercial installations in a lot of houses,

  • or some part of the roof where it's really not visible and therefore, doesn't really

  • matter from an aesthetic standpoint.

  • And then, batteriesalso making great progress on the battery front.

  • I'm hoping to do something around the International Astronautical Congress, which is in Adelaide

  • this year.

  • Not promising anything, but we're aspirationally going to have a very substantial portion of

  • the battery pack, already done in about eight weeks, which is hard because we have all the

  • shipping and logistics challenges of getting things across the Pacific.

  • Not promising anything.

  • It's an aspirational goal.

  • Team's working super hard to make it happen.

  • But I'm excited about the prospect, and I feel, of course, optimistic that that will

  • take place.

  • So, yes, I think and we're really proud of the Tesla team for getting to this point.

  • And I really want to thank the whole Tesla team, and we already have 33,000 people at

  • this point, for working hard to achieve some very difficult things.

  • And I can be prouder to work with such a great team.

  • So, let me go toanything else you want to add, guys?

  • All right.

  • Let's go to questions.

  • All right.

  • Shree, let's open it up to Q&A.

  • And everybody in Q&A, we have a lot of people in queue, so Shree's going to be real hard

  • core on the one question, one follow-up.

  • Yes.

  • Not the, one question with eight nested questions.

  • Correct.

  • No nesting.

  • Yes.

  • But as one question part A through H.

  • Thank you.

  • Our first question comes from James Albertine with Consumer Edge Research.

  • Very good.

  • Thank you for taking my question.

  • Good afternoon, and congratulations on the first 30 deliveries last week.

  • It was a great event.

  • Thank you.

  • I wanted to ask if I may, my one question on capital expenditures.

  • Wanted to get an idea, what comes next with respect to some of your spending on the Model

  • 3?

  • And I guess, if I can nest one in, related to (25:23).

  • Oh, God.

  • You know what?

  • Fine.

  • Do it.

  • You know.

  • Fine.

  • It's one question on CapEx.

  • But really want to understand what the big next steps are in 3Q and 4Q as we start to

  • kind of build-out our models and figure out from there?

  • Thanks.

  • Certainly.

  • I mean, I do want to emphasize like but a lot of us is actually very hard for us to

  • know.

  • When we make mistakes is because we're stupid, not because we're trying to mislead anyone.

  • I just want to emphasize – I – we aspire to be less dumb over time.

  • So if I knew it, I would tell you.

  • It's sort of like I've got this, like secret hand of cards that I'm holding close to my

  • vest and I'm not telling you.

  • It's just fundamentally impossible to predict the exponential part of the manufacturing

  • S-curve.

  • It's crazy hard.

  • And S-curve is a simplification because it's really running through a series of constraints

  • that, if youit's like a really jagged sort of upward growth and it'll plateau and

  • then it'll grow rapidly, and it'll plateau again.

  • And then sometimes it'll go backwards because something broke.

  • Yes.

  • When I said manufacturing hell and supply-chain hell on Friday.

  • I meant it.

  • I mean, we know this.

  • Signed up for it.

  • Not blaming hell because when we bought the ticket.

  • So but I think at a high level, I don't think we should expect any significant negative

  • surprises.

  • There will beas usual be the case, there tends to be some cost growth in CapEx for

  • unexpected things.

  • So we've got to expedite this, you've got to fix that, or this supplier doesn't work

  • out, or this machine we bought doesn't work out.

  • And you've got to be all hands on deck 24/7 to fix it or replace it.

  • But I don't expect any significant – I think that is relatively contained.

  • Deepak, do you want to...

  • Yes, I think maybe the other way, James, to answer your question is.

  • You need to talk to close with this.

  • Yes.

  • I think you're asking where we are spending the money.

  • I think it's in the completion of the Model 3.

  • We are bidding-off on the equipment.

  • Right.

  • We are.

  • Yes.

  • And also, we are just continuing with the construction of Gigafactory to continue to

  • scale that.

  • And so that's where the majority of our CapEx...

  • Overwhelmingly.

  • Yes.

  • Listed there.

  • Overwhelmingly.

  • Overwhelming (28:14).

  • Overwhelmingly is Model 3.

  • Obviously, there are expenditures associated with the Solar Roof and with our Buffalo factory.

  • Correct.

  • We're trying to keep those relatively light for the next few months.

  • In the marketing and sales, we're growing our infrastructure there and our Supercharger

  • networks.

  • Those are the other smaller piece.

  • Yes.

  • Just on the Buffalo front – I really want to emphasize, we expect the Buffalo Gigafactory

  • to be a powerhouse of solar panel and solar glass tile output.

  • It is going be a kick-ass facility.

  • We have made that commitment to the State of New York.

  • We are going to keep that commitment.

  • And then, we're also thinking hard about, where do we put Gigafactorys three, four,

  • five and six?

  • We expect to keep the majority of our production in the U.S., but it's, obviously, going to

  • make sense to establish a Gigafactory in China and Europe to serve the markets there, because

  • it's not to build cars (29:23) in California and truck them halfway around the world, particularly

  • when you're trying to make things as affordable as possiblethat really hurts.

  • We really want to make our cars as affordable as possible.

  • And so that does require some amount of local market production, particularly for the mass

  • market vehicles in order to make it as accessible as possible.

  • So we're thinking hard about that.

  • I think we'll have some announcements on at least a few of those locations before the

  • end of the year, but we don't expect to spend significant money on them.

  • It's just identifying the location, doing the long-lead time stuff, the permits, the

  • planning.

  • This doesn't cost a lot of money.

  • It's only when you really start moving dirt and putting up concrete and steel and buying

  • equipment that the big money starts to be required.

  • Yes.

  • So anything you want to add on that?

  • No.

  • That's good.

  • Yes.

  • And CapEx on Model S and X, it's not reallyit's minor compared to the next.

  • The next.

  • Yes.

  • There is continued improvement, of course, to keep pace with the Model 3s.

  • So that all of our products are at the same level of technology, but it's more painless

  • (30:42) compared to the Model 3.

  • And we're continuing to achieve cost reductions on S and X, so there's a bit of investment,

  • but negligible.

  • Yes.

  • Exactly.

  • Absolutely.

  • And in cases where we see cost reductions on S and X – those are the cases where we

  • want to pass along some of those cost reductions to customers.

  • So overall, we're feeling reallythis is maybe the best I've ever felt about Tesla,

  • to be frank.

  • Last week, stressed the hell out of me, but I really think that this is probably the best

  • I've ever felt about the company.

  • Oh, and one thing I wanted to correct.

  • I think in a prior call, we publicly had said that Model Y, or our compact SUVit's

  • called Model Y.

  • It may or may not bewould be a totally new architecture.

  • Upon the council of my executive teamthank you.

  • Thanks, guyswho reeled me back from the cliffs of insanitymuch appreciatedthe

  • Model Y will in fact be using a substantial carryover from Model 3 in order to bring its

  • market faster.

  • Yes.

  • So that will really accelerate our ability to get to Model Y to market faster, because

  • fundamentally people prefer a sedan, people prefer an SUV.

  • And in fact, the SUV market is larger.

  • It's the biggest single product (32:35) I believe in the world.

  • So, I'd like to thank my executive team for stopping me from being a fool, and yes.

  • The Model Y or whatever the hell will have relatively low technical and production risk

  • as a result.

  • I still think we want to do the crazy thing in the future, but we will punt that until

  • after the compact SUV.

  • Anything else you think I should add?

  • No.

  • That's great.

  • (33:06)

  • Yes.

  • We'll probably have as much time for questions as we can.

  • We had a lot of operational issues to get back to, like to work on that manufacturing

  • ramp, and I'm always incredibly grateful for anyone who is an investor in Tesla, and you

  • put your faith in us.

  • We will do whatever is necessary to reward that faith.

  • All right.

  • Shree.

  • Why don't we go to the next question, please?

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question comes from Rod Lache with Deutsche Bank.

  • Thanks.

  • I was going to ask you which is harder, AI or AV, but I think at this point we may not

  • know the answer.

  • Well, as you know, I'm terrified of AI.

  • I've read that.

  • Yes.

  • You may have read that off a few places.

  • And it's just something weanyway, I definitely don't want to derail the conversation on that

  • front.

  • Right.

  • It's just something that I think, anything that representsthat is a risk to the

  • public at least insight from the government, because one of the mandates of the government

  • is the public well-being.

  • And that insight is different from oversight, so at least the government gained insight

  • to understand what's going on, and then decide what rules are appropriate to ensure public

  • safety.

  • That is what I'm advocating for.

  • I'm not advocating for that we stop the development of AI, or any of the sort of straw man, hyperbole

  • things that have been written.

  • I do think there are great benefits to AI.

  • We just need to make sure that they're indeed benefits, and we don't do something really

  • dumb.

  • Okay.

  • Well, I hope that doesn't count against my Tesla questions.

  • But the two things I was going to ask you were you mentioned in the letter this confidence

  • in getting the 25% margin on Model 3.

  • Could you just mention what the level of production is that you feel you need to get to in order

  • to get there?

  • What run rate?

  • And, secondly, there've been a fair number of battery announcements, solid-state battery

  • technology, Toyota, and a few others.

  • Oh, man.

  • What's your general assessment?

  • Are we getting close to some kind of breakthroughs here?

  • Oh, god.

  • Or what's your thoughts?

  • Okay.

  • Here's my opinion.

  • The battery breakthrough of the week, battery breakthrough du jour.

  • When somebody has like some great claim that they've got this awesome battery, you know

  • what, send us a sample.

  • Or if you don't trust us, send it to an independent lab, where the parameters can be verified.

  • Otherwise, STF.

  • Yes.

  • So everything works on PowerPoint.

  • You know, I could give you a PowerPoint presentation about teleportation to the Andromeda Galaxy.

  • That doesn't mean it works.

  • So Tesla is the biggest buyer of lithium ion batteries on earth.

  • You know who people come to first when they've got a lithium ion battery?

  • Us, because we're their biggest customer.

  • I would love it if we could have some breakthrough.

  • It'd be awesome.

  • I think there are some interesting things on the horizon.

  • But then the time it takes from something working in the lab to working at moderate

  • production levels to working at higher production levels to optimizing the cost is several years.

  • So it's not like it suddenly pops out of nowhere.

  • JB, do you want to add to that?

  • No.

  • I totally agree with the sort of cautious skepticism on all these announcements.

  • And just more specifically on the solid-state batteries, Rod.

  • I mean, we've talked to a number of different groups that are researching this.

  • We actually have tested a number of those different prototype, very early prototype,

  • single cells, but we don't yet see anything that changes our strategy, and we don't see

  • anything there that's ...

  • Although we'd love it if it did.

  • Please.

  • Please.

  • If someone please come up with a battery (37:43) breakthrough, we'd love it.

  • We would be the first ones to want to implement it.

  • Yes.

  • Totally.

  • I mean, there are some breakthroughs that I think are achievable.

  • They're confidential, so I can't talk about them on this call, but there's one particular

  • avenue that I'm confident could be made to work.

  • That would be fairlythe most significant one breakthrough in a while.

  • But, again, you got to make it work in the lab.

  • It doesn't yet work in the lab, it's promising in the lab, a year from the lab to small production.

  • Then you go to large production then you get to cost optimization, these are several years,

  • okay?

  • I wish it were shorter.

  • That's the way it goes.

  • Sorry about that.

  • Yes.

  • So was there -

  • The 25% Model 3 gross margin target, when will we get there?

  • Yes, so, Deepak want to elaborate on this, but I feel like the point which we are at

  • steady-state 5,000 units a week for Model 3 is about when we reach the 25% gross margin

  • level.

  • So it wouldn't be right when we get to 5,000, because initially when you get to 5,000 a

  • week there's still a lot of overtime.

  • We're still expediting parts from all around the world.

  • So you've got a lot of expedited fees, you've got a lot overtime, and so it takes probably

  • from the point at which you get to the 5,000 a week, it's probably another three or four

  • months before you hit the 25% gross margin.

  • Would you agree Deepak?

  • I agree.

  • Yes, I was just going to be more cautious...

  • It's something like that.

  • It's certainly...

  • Yes.

  • You need to reach a production level and then optimize at that production level.

  • Yes, I think ultimately it's a variety of factors including material cost and sell and

  • the efficiencies to achieve at the Gigafactory on ourselves.

  • And we are very confident we will achieve the 25% target, seriously on Model 3.

  • For sure, next year.

  • 100%.

  • That's right.

  • It's a question exactly when.

  • Yes.

  • Again.

  • I'd say 100% probability achieving that at some point next year

  • Yes, and I feel really good about it because the bill of material that we have is so well

  • defined and so clear in our...

  • Yes.

  • The premiums that we have on prototypes is...

  • Another way of saying, we're significantly less dumb this time, we think.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • The labor hours required are significantly lower.

  • The way we have structured the manufactured...

  • It's designed for manufacturing.

  • Exactly.

  • So all of those gives me much more confidence in this target.

  • And exactly when we'll achieve?

  • I think we'll give you more clarity over time.

  • Yes, and I'd like to give some credit to our suppliers here.

  • Yes.

  • With Roadster and certainly with Model S and to a slight less degree with Model X, we often

  • could not get the top suppliers, and we certainly couldn't get the A-team at the top suppliers.

  • Right.

  • What's great about the Model 3 is we have the A supplier, and we have the A supplier

  • and we have the A-team at the A supplier.

  • I can't tell you how important this is.

  • It makes a massive difference.

  • Right.

  • So just a thank you to all the suppliers that work so hard to get us to this point.

  • There is a lot of credit for any success that we have.

  • Yes.

  • Next question.

  • Shree.

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question comes from Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan.

  • Great.

  • Thanks for taking my question.

  • Just thinking about your liquidity position, while you're operating with more cash than

  • you historically have, $3 billion, I see you're also guiding the $2 billion CapEx in the back

  • half, and you've previously said $1 billion of gross cash is as low as you're comfortable

  • operating at.

  • So are you guiding to positive cash from operations in the back half, presumably on the Model

  • 3 ramp in 4Q.

  • But if it's only a little positive, then I guess you would be close to your target at

  • cash level.

  • So the question is, can you help us size up how positive do you expect the cash from operations

  • to be in the back half?

  • And if that level of cash from operations plus whatever remains available to draw on

  • your asset backed line, if that's sufficient cushion for you relative to your $1 billion

  • target?

  • Or whether it might make sense to do another equity raise?

  • Yes.

  • Deepak, do you want to...

  • Sure.

  • Sure, Elon.

  • So we expect our operating cash flows to be significantly better in the second half compared

  • to the first half.

  • Yes.

  • At the highest level, scaling generates cash.

  • Yeah.

  • Absolutely, it does.

  • And it's a better situation than S and X.

  • And our cash conversion cycle, particularly for the next four quarters, is going be really

  • great while we're shipping Model 3s in North America.

  • And...

  • Yes.

  • And one thing perhaps we're trying to get to it is, is that with Model 3, with our suppliers

  • we've been able to getnegotiate much better terms, payment terms.

  • But the payment terms are significantly longer.

  • So I think we're close to...

  • Close to 60, exactly.

  • Close to 60 days.

  • Right.

  • Payments to those of our suppliers (43:21).

  • And we were also able to make the car a lot faster.

  • So obviously, the Nirvana is that we can make the car and get paid for the car before we

  • have to pay our suppliers, which then the faster you grow, the faster your cash position

  • grows.

  • Obviously, that's like thethat's the promised land right there.

  • And that's howit's what we've aimed for.

  • And I think we'll achieve that maybe not immediately but pretty quickly.

  • And now that said, there may be some wisdom in having a cash cushion for unexpected events.

  • You just never know if there's going be some significant force majeure events in the world.

  • It could be an earthquake in California, for example.

  • But we're not at this point considering an equity raise.

  • We are thinking about debt, but we're not thinking about an equity raise.

  • Okay.

  • That's very helpful.

  • And then just the follow-up is about the $1 billion of desired minimum gross cash.

  • Does that go up when the Model 3 launches because you're a bigger company or does it

  • go down because of what you just said about the ability to generate cash and working capital

  • while production's ramping?

  • In the long run as we go up as our balance sheet grows.

  • And just to finish off on your question, we also have liquidity through the lines of credit,

  • our ABL line.

  • Yes.

  • We've just grown it to $1.9 billion.

  • We have untapped $800 million there.

  • Of course, how much we can tap there depends on our borrowing base, but that's a source

  • of liquidity.

  • And then for our solar lease assets, we have $700 million of funding, which is untapped

  • on our tax equity funds and application debt.

  • So we have significant amounts of liquidity we get from those lines too.

  • Yes.

  • Very helpful.

  • Thank you.

  • One side for this (45:29) is this, as far as people look at our finished goods inventory

  • and compare that to other car companies, they compare it in the wrong way.

  • Because Tesla does direct distribution, we are the dealers.

  • You reallyto accurately compare Tesla to other car companies, you must include the

  • finished goods inventory, not just at the car companies but at the dealers.

  • And typically that combined time of finished goods from manufacture all the way through

  • to dealer to end customer is, I believe, on the order of 90 days.

  • So maybe 70 to 90 days.

  • For other OEMs.

  • For the other, OEMs.

  • Yes, yes.

  • Yes.

  • And for us that same metric would be approximately 30 days.

  • So this is a – in other words, at a systemic level, we're substantially more efficient

  • than other carmakers when you consider the system as a whole.

  • Okay.

  • Shree, let's have the next question, please?

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question comes from Adam Jonas with Morgan Stanley.

  • Hi.

  • Just a couple quick ones.

  • First on safety.

  • Elon, you're putting a liquid cooled supercomputer in all of your cars.

  • You're obviously ramping up more and more of those.

  • Whether the system is being activated or not, it's collecting data, learning, you're getting

  • better every mile.

  • I imagine you're in a position to kind of share that data with the public or the regulators

  • or Congress, whoever, where it matters.

  • I've even seen an announcement since the 40% reduction in accidents from NHTSA back in

  • January.

  • When could we be in a position to hear some more on this?

  • It's true that there is an enormous amount of sort of visual data being gathered.

  • It's actually quite a challenge to process that data and then train against that data

  • and have the vehicle learn effectively from data, because it's just a vast quantity of

  • data.

  • I do want to emphasize that this is disaggregated from a specific vehicle.

  • So we're always on the side of the owner of the car and do whatever is possible within

  • bounds of the law to protect privacy.

  • But I don't have a good answer for you.

  • If I have good answer right now.

  • I spend a lot of my week working on Autopilot, with the Autopilot team.

  • Wright down in the trenches, the individual details of how we can improve this or that

  • or enhanced in your math (48:27), enhanced vision and advanced improved control.

  • And I think the release that should go out soon is, I think people were really pleased

  • with it.

  • And it's going to get better from there.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • Obviously, over time, an autonomous vehicle is going to be far, far safer than a person.

  • Yes.

  • It's really hard for a person to compete.

  • I mean, the car has eight cameras looking 360 degrees all the time.

  • It's got a (49:12) radar.

  • It's got 12 high-precision ultrasonic sonars.

  • It's got initial measurement units, so high-accuracy GPS, and over 10 Teraops of computing capability

  • that never sleeps.

  • Okay.

  • Elon, just a follow-up then on space, but not on Mars but more Earth, in Earth (49:39)

  • Oh, God.

  • Come on, looks like it gets (49:39)

  • No.

  • It's actuallyit's really relevant.

  • I was just curious ifis there anything that SpaceX is doing that we're enabling that

  • could be advantageous to Tesla's mission to accelerate sustainable transport?

  • There's a recent anecdote, actually, that Jon just shared with me.

  • And, Jon, maybe you...

  • Yes.

  • There's some really great collaboration continuously between the SpaceX teams on materials and

  • other challenges.

  • And we had a challenge in service over the pastjust over the past week.

  • Just this is X-factor (50:15).

  • Yes.

  • Just told about this today.

  • Yes.

  • Where we needed to determine the ferocity of an object deep within our structure and

  • that's something that SpaceX...

  • Aluminum casting?

  • Is an aluminum casting.

  • That's something that SpaceX knows how to do.

  • Our team reached out to the SpaceX team.

  • The SpaceX team helped us to solve that with some ultrasound sensors that we could quickly

  • isolate where the issue was and take corrective action in it.

  • It saved us eight hours of work per car.

  • Per car.

  • That was kind ofthat could potentially experience this issue.

  • And that's just one example of a lot of examples of how the SpaceX team and the Tesla team

  • collaborate, and we get help from them continually on material issues and other issues like that.

  • Yes.

  • That's cross-fertilization of knowledge from the rocket and space industry to auto back

  • and forth, as I think it's really been quite valuable.

  • It's certainly been very valuable for me in thinking about how do we make mass-optimized

  • vehicles because spacemass optimization (51:25) is extremely important on the space

  • side.

  • It's helpful because what really goes into high-volume manufacturing of something that

  • has to be extremely reliable.

  • So it's been good.

  • And, of course, companies are competing anyway, so it's been quite helpful, actually.

  • Shree, next question, please?

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question comes from Colin Langan with UBS.

  • Oh, great.

  • Thanks for taking my question.

  • How do you come up with your estimate for the number of Supercharges and sealers that

  • you need because you're doubling the number of the base, the number of Supercharges going

  • into the release?

  • But these three is going to have multiple higher in terms of demand.

  • So, I mean, how do you frame that and engage that?

  • Yes.

  • First of all, I will actually clarify that the numbers of charges will in fact triple

  • between now and the end of next year.

  • And we're confident that that will address the supercharging needs of S, X and 3.

  • So we'll try to stay ahead of it.

  • There are occasional places wherethat are tricky to find a location, like Malibu's

  • really difficult.

  • There are a few places, but thewe're staying ahead of that.

  • I think it's going to be good.

  • We should see some immediate relief even for S and X customers on some of the key supercharge

  • locations whilst weexperimenting with our first sort of – I don't know what we

  • call itmega supercharging location, like really big supercharging location with a bunch

  • of amenities.

  • So we're going to unveil the first of those relatively soon.

  • And I think we'll get a sense for just sort of how cool it can be to have a great place

  • toif you've been driving for three, four hoursstop, have great restrooms, great

  • food, amenities, hang out and for half an hour and then be on your way.

  • If I could just follow-up with a related question...

  • Maybe just one other point on that and how this can scale pretty effectually.

  • We have Superchargers that serve two major separate needs.

  • There's long distance root enabling between cities, and then there's also within the cities.

  • And while there are definitely some congestion issues which we're expanding out of very quickly

  • in the cities, for the most part the Superchargers that are in between cities have a lot of extra

  • capacity.

  • And we've put those stations in place to serve travel between the cities, but they can absorb

  • a lot more cars.

  • So even if we double fleet size, it doesn't mean that we need to double the entire Supercharger

  • network.

  • We have to address the few urban sites that are currently in high use, but that can be

  • done much more effectually with less CapEx.

  • So that's kind of what you're seeing.

  • And what about, just as a follow-up, the charge time?

  • I know Porsche has said that they could charge in 15 minutes.

  • Do you think that's possible in the future?

  • And is the charge time on the 3 the same as the S?

  • I wasn't sure in some of the release.

  • It's about the same.

  • It's comparable to the high-end S. The recharge rate of how many miles per hour you recharge

  • is sort of a function of the battery pack size.

  • So, like a 100 kilowatt-hour pack, because charge rate is a function of percentage of

  • packthink of 3 and a high end S as being similar in charge rates.

  • And over time, we want to keep moving that rate up, but one thing I want to correct from

  • Friday – I don't think it really has much materiality, but I did misspeak at the Journalist

  • Review on Friday.

  • I had said that there were 500,000 net reservations.

  • I did also say that I wasn't sure because I don't follow this number, and this was just

  • a guess.

  • And so we did check to get some precision on this.

  • So to be more accurate, there have been 518,000 gross reservations for 3, and we have 455,000

  • net reservations.

  • But those cancellations occurred over the course of more than a year.

  • The net gain since Friday, net of cancellations, has been over 1,800 per day.

  • But I just didn't want to leave people with the wrong impression.

  • I think this is inconsequential because with a small amount of effort we could easily drive

  • the Model 3 reservation number to something much higher, but there's no point.

  • It's like if you're a restaurant and you're serving hamburgers and there's an hour and

  • a half wait for the hamburger, do you really want to encourage more people to come order

  • hamburgers?

  • It doesn't make sense.

  • So I think it's neither here nor there, but I wanted to make sure there was not a misunderstanding.

  • And maybe just one quick point on your very fast charge time comment or question.

  • We've actually tested cells and even full battery packs that can do something like a

  • 15 minute recharge, but to date the tradeoffs to achieve that we don't feel are the right

  • ones for the customer overall.

  • You end up sacrificing on overall cost per kilowatt-hour and also sacrificing on energy

  • density in the product, and for something that's used not every single day, not every

  • single charge, we feel that we've hit the sweet spot in terms of the value to the customer

  • and the best product.

  • And that's kind of what's guided our philosophy, but obviously there's ongoing work to reduce

  • those tradeoffs and make it better still, but yes.

  • And particularly (58:07) 310-mile range for Model 3, let me tell you, the amount of times

  • you will have range anxiety is zero.

  • You don't even think about it.

  • All right.

  • Shree, next question?

  • Your next question comes from Toni Sacconaghi from Bernstein.

  • Yes.

  • Thank you.

  • I have one question and one follow-up as well, please.

  • In terms of the Model 3, at the delivery event, 20 of the units were for engineering validation.

  • And the first several thousand it appears are going to be going to employees prior to

  • going to the general public.

  • So I guess the question is, what are you hoping to learn or what might you learn from these

  • engineering validation units that have come out from your employees?

  • And then, realistically, what's (59:04)?

  • They're not engineering validation.

  • They're fully-certified, fully-DOT-approved, EPA-approved production cars.

  • These are not prototypes in any way.

  • They're not validation anything.

  • They're full-production cars.

  • The reason they are initially going to employees, and some cases, investors, or anyone has been

  • a long-time investor is that for the first several thousand vehicles, there are problems

  • that crop up that are rare.

  • On a percentage basis, they might be like 0.1% likely to occur.

  • But then there are a whole bunch of these things that only show up 1 in 1,000 cases.

  • And it's good to iron out these things with a (59:59) than to with customers.

  • It also (60:05) reward for those who work on the underlying development and creation

  • of the vehicle.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • I mean, it's important to note too that all those people paid full price for their car.

  • Yes.

  • Full price.

  • There was no discount internally at all.

  • Exactly.

  • Right.

  • No.

  • I mean, the root of the question is if you realistically uncover something and even if

  • it's 1 in 1,000, what flexibility do you think you have to actually be able to rectify that

  • concern in a way that won't impact your ramp?

  • And if this is being done arguably later in the process than a traditional OEM, that's

  • not trying to ramp necessarily as aggressively as you need to, I'm, again, just trying to

  • understand realistically what can be done and what kinds of things, like perhaps you

  • can give an example of what you might uncover and what the rectification might be?

  • Yes.

  • These are not (61:13), obviously.

  • These arewhat we're talking about here are inconsistencies in the production process

  • or in the quality control from a supplier.

  • So they're relatively easy to correct.

  • They tend to be quite a large number of them.

  • But, again, only rarely occurring.

  • Usually, it involves like a tolerance stack up, or some combination of factors that we

  • didn't anticipate, but they're almost always very easy to correct, but there's just a bunch

  • of them.

  • It's a lot of work.

  • Yes.

  • And these may be software issues, as well.

  • Yes.

  • Exactly.

  • Not necessarily supplier or hardware issues.

  • Yes.

  • It's software-hardware interaction as well.

  • Yes.

  • And I think the main benefit is that we can learn about them faster and therefore we can

  • fix them faster.

  • That simply is the benefit.

  • Right.

  • Exactly.

  • The people driving them are the same ones who actually fix the problem.

  • It's a great feedback loop.

  • And what we're doing is above and beyond others.

  • We've done a lot of testing like the other OEMs.

  • So this is just helping us get above and beyond by selling it to our employees and getting

  • feedback from them.

  • And investors.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • All right.

  • Shree.

  • Next question, please?

  • Our next question is from David Tamberrino with Goldman Sachs.

  • Hey.

  • Thank you.

  • Thanks for updating with the net reservation number.

  • Actually, I want to follow along those lines on your order rates.

  • You've given us additional color based off of 2Q trends and average weekly orders.

  • Can you share a little bit more maybe what the 1Q and 2Q order rate trends look like

  • for the Model S and the X?

  • Not relevant.

  • I don't think that those numbers would be helpful for producing things in the future.

  • And like once you get into the granularity, people read things into numbers that really

  • don't have a lot of relevance.

  • There's for sure seasonality in vehicle orders.

  • Fewer people order cars in the dead of winter than order them in spring or summer.

  • So just like other retailers really.

  • And then we do batch cars, so that we'll make typically at the beginning of the quarter,

  • we'll make cars for Europe and Asia.

  • And then we'll make cars for the East Coast of North America then the West Coast of North

  • America.

  • And that's generally sequence within a quarter.

  • Then you'll see someone, right, something where they think they've uncovered some gotcha

  • where there were very few Tesla's registered in the given country in a particular month,

  • I guess because none of them arrived.

  • So this is meaningless extrapolation.

  • Okay.

  • Then I guess my follow-up question will just be on your 3Q gross margin guidance of a dip

  • below 20%.

  • How far belowto phrase correctly, how dependent upon production and hitting an S

  • curve or ramping up do you think that below 20% is?

  • Could it be a couple hundred basis points below 20%, or is it just you think you're

  • going be around that area based on what the curve that you've laid out so far is going

  • to look like?

  • Yes.

  • This is just because of Model 3 is fundamentally negative gross margin in the very beginning.

  • Because you got a gigantic machine producingmeant for 5,000 vehicles a week.

  • And it's producing a few hundred vehicles a week.

  • Exactly, that's the short explanation.

  • I mean, it's a denominator problem.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • Looking back, probably something fundamentally wrong with the...

  • Yes.

  • It's a temporary situation, and it's a dip which corrects itself.

  • This is true for anything.

  • If you had like a soap factory, let me tell you, your first bar of soap would be like

  • millions of dollars.

  • Okay.

  • But then you get to volume production, and then it's like $2.

  • Okay?

  • So true for any manufacturing situation.

  • Yes.

  • Okay.

  • Next question, Shree.

  • Our next question is from Brian Johnson with Barclays.

  • Brian, are you there?

  • Yes.

  • Hi.

  • I have you on muted and then...

  • It may be he had a mic problem too.

  • Hello?

  • Yes.

  • We can hear you.

  • Go ahead.

  • You're a bit soft but go ahead.

  • Yes.

  • Just wanted to ask about – a couple questions around the pace of spend in the second half...

  • Please speak up.

  • You're a bit soft.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • The pace of OpEx through second half you guided through flat.

  • With the Model 3 going out, are you basically saying you have the operating infrastructure

  • to handle that but then does that ramp in 2018?

  • And similarly for CapEx to go from 30 Model 3s up to the exit rate, you're talking $2

  • billion.

  • How do we think about, A, that run rate and given how do we tie it to your exponential

  • ramp?

  • And, B, what does that imply for CapEx going into 2018?

  • Yes.

  • So, your first question was operating expenses?

  • And do we have enough infrastructure in place to service the Model 3.

  • And I think, yes, we're finding actually leverage in our own infrastructure and that's helping

  • us.

  • So I'll give you an example of that.

  • In service, as we've talked about, we discovered that 80% of the cars that we repair don't

  • require lift.

  • And so we're deploying a mobile service strategy to take 80% of the cars and fix them where

  • it's convenient to the customer.

  • Not at our location but their location.

  • Make it invisible to them.

  • Exactly.

  • Thethe nice thingyoulike the ideal service is it's invisible.

  • You don't even notice it, and when it's done, you love it.

  • So what we're talking about here the mobile service tracks.

  • As Jon was saying, really most of the time we don't really need a lift.

  • Is that your car could be parked and it could be at your office parking lot or at your house.

  • But let's say it's at work.

  • Tesla will come there, fix your car and by the time you need to leave for work, it's

  • done.

  • That's right.

  • And so what that does for us is it takes 80% of the volume out of our existing footprint

  • and allows us to leverage that footprint to grow with Model 3.

  • And we'll give you similar examples in stores.

  • So that's why we've guided to the OpEx.

  • We've guided for the second half.

  • We feel like we've got leverage there, and we've got plans in place to further lever

  • that in 2018.

  • I think it's been really great for customers.

  • I mean this is what you want.

  • Totally.

  • I mean, you don't want to bring your cars at your service center.

  • You just want your car to be magically fixed in the parking lot and that's what we're going

  • to do.

  • Yes.

  • So we're going to provide really great customer happiness at increasing OpEx levels of leverage.

  • And second question was similarly around CapEx leverage.

  • So you put in $2 billion second half to get to that exit rate.

  • One, is that affected by the timing of Elon's production ramp?

  • And then, two, keeping the ramp from 5,000 to 10,000 in 2018, what's your preliminary

  • view of CapEx for 2018?

  • So I want to put a pin on 2018.

  • We'll talk about that when we get to that time.

  • But in 2017, our CapEx expense is a continuum.

  • There are long-lead items of different kinds likely the Gigafactory.

  • And for the Model 3 and the equipment we are buying, our CapEx spend is at historical highs.

  • We're spending $100 million a week.

  • So a week or two here or there is a couple of hundred million.

  • So what we are spending now is the completion of all of our Model 3 equipment and tooling,

  • as that gets signed off.

  • And it's taking us to 5,000 and beyond.

  • So I can't necessarily break it out for you, but it just allows us to hit our operating

  • plan that we have at a high level.

  • I want to do a quick time check here.

  • So some of us have some other things scheduled in 20 minutes.

  • So we've gotten some good thorough answers here, so we'll probably take a few more questions.

  • Yes.

  • Few questions, and yes.

  • And then wrap it up.

  • Yes.

  • So, Shree, next question.

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question is from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.

  • Thanks so much.

  • Can you talk a little bit about the conversion rate of customers coming into stores and actually

  • ordering cars?

  • And then, similar question on what's happening with solar and energy storage in terms of

  • how many customer impressions you've got, and the conversion rate into actual sales?

  • The conversion rates have continued to improve quarter-over-quarter and month after month,

  • our conversion rates get stronger.

  • And we don't obviously publicize specifics on those, but they're improving with every

  • week and every month.

  • On the solar side, one of the interesting things that we're seeing is we've put a solar

  • display and an energy display into our stores in North America.

  • And we've got energy experts that are on staff.

  • And what we're finding is it's a really natural transition in conversation from somebody is

  • buying a car and talking about where they're going to charge the car to then where their

  • energy comes from.

  • Yes.

  • Totally.

  • I mean, we talked about the importance of integrating energy, production, storage and

  • electric vehicle transport.

  • And what we said is coming true.

  • It's really working well together.

  • And we're actually able to leverage our existing stores to generate even more sales per square

  • foot.

  • I'm not sure what our – I think our sales per square foot...

  • Our sales per square foot is so high -

  • are so high -

  • It actually moves the total number of...

  • You need a telescope to see who's in second place.

  • Yes.

  • Exactly.

  • Yes.

  • And it actually moves the overall...

  • It's like stupidly high.

  • Square footage, sales-per-square-foot numbers for some of the larger (71:45).

  • But, I mean, (71:50) Model 3, because there's no point there, but (71:54) eventually.

  • And I think that the new integrated app, with where you can see the status of your car,

  • your power wall, and your solar, and see at any given time of the day how much energy

  • is coming from the sun, how much from is coming from the power wall, what your house is consuming.

  • You can alsoit tells you when the power wall saved you from utility interruption.

  • People don't realize they're like there are many small utility interruptions in a given

  • month.

  • And that's why you'reyou see the blinking 12 on your microwave oven or whatever the

  • case may be, or your computer suddenly went dark or you can even get data corruption and

  • that kind of thing, or your food went bad mysteriously.

  • The power wall saves you from all of that.

  • And I think it's particularly important in cases where there's like a natural disaster,

  • which could be floods, hurricanes, ice storms, earthquakes, fires, anything that disrupts

  • the utility system.

  • But having an uninterruptible power supply in the form of power wall gives you security

  • in those situations.

  • And it's kind of like insurance, like you only really want it when you really want it.

  • And I think people love that.

  • I just saw the app for the first time today.

  • I'm using it myself and it's like, wow, this is great.

  • All right.

  • Shree, next question, please?

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question comes from Martin Viecha with Redburn.

  • Hey.

  • This is Martin.

  • I have just two very quick questions.

  • The first one is on the battery production for S and X.

  • Is there any plan to move it to the Gigafactory?

  • For pack production.

  • Yes.

  • (74:07) production?

  • We do notin the short term, we will not be moving it.

  • So sometime next year, we may move it sometime next year in order to make space for additional

  • production volume of Model 3.

  • That's one of the things under consideration.

  • But in the short term we're keeping it here in Fremont.

  • But it is going be tricky to squeeze in all the space for increased Model 3 production.

  • Particularly, if that run rate goes above 10,000 units a week then we're going to have

  • to move more stuff out.

  • Yes.

  • And it may just be worth a reminder also that the cells for S and X are actually still 18-650

  • lithium-ion and those are coming from a different production pathway in Japan.

  • Very similar technology.

  • Yes.

  • Almost same technology.

  • Yes.

  • Internal source actually.

  • Yes.

  • But different supply chain.

  • Different set of geography.

  • And then the follow-up question is on the Model Y.

  • I think you just mentioned an hour ago that it's going be made probably on the same platform

  • or very similar platform as the Model 3.

  • Yes, 3.

  • Yes.

  • We're really going to have...

  • Is it going to have...

  • We're going to aim for maximum carryover.

  • Okay.

  • I mean, just one thing to clarify is this still going to be the 100 meters of cables

  • which you touched upon last time?

  • Or actual it's going to be the next generation of vehicles?

  • No, that's one of the things that we would include.

  • We would aim to switch out the wiring on this forthe one that coming is wiring on is

  • for a redundant flex circuit.

  • That's on more in the order of 100 meters or so.

  • But then we'd, obviously, aim to do that both for the Y, if it's called a Y and the Model

  • 3 as well.

  • All right.

  • Next question, please?

  • Thank you.

  • Our next question is from Alex Potter with Piper Jaffray.

  • Yes.

  • Hi.

  • Thanks.

  • Just one for me.

  • I was wondering the degree to which Tesla would eventually consider maybe charging more

  • for, I guess, what you would call nontraditional product offerings?

  • Things like software, over-the-air updates, but also shared mobility, supercharging, aftermarket.

  • I know in the past you've talked about running a lot of those businesses just to breakeven,

  • but I guess maybe just wondering the circumstances under which you would consider trying to earn

  • a margin on some of these businesses versus situations where you'd prefer to just give

  • them away?

  • Well, I think we have a major element of that which is the Autopilot.

  • That's a software.

  • That's basically uploading software to the car.

  • Every car made since October last year is capable of full autonomy we believe.

  • And such really just a question of uploading the software for autonomy.

  • There will be some other things I think in the future.

  • But I – and our focus is in the Model 3 ramp and we don't want to get too distracted.

  • Maybe one more question.

  • All right.

  • Shree, one last question, please.

  • Our final question comes from Rob Cihra from Guggenheim Partners.

  • Hi.

  • Great.

  • Thanks very much.

  • Just going back to Autopilot development, obviously not talking personal details or

  • anything but you had some personnel changes in the quarter.

  • I'm just wondering if those reflected any kind of change of strategy or scope, or if

  • it was just kind of a personal thing?

  • And I guess just related, are you still hoping to be able to do the autonomous drive L.A.

  • to New York by the end of this year?

  • Thank you.

  • Yes.

  • I may not comment too much on like individual personnel changes, but Tesla is 33,000-person

  • company.

  • If you actually look at our executive tenure at Tesla, it's extremely good.

  • It's above average.

  • I think we're at least maybe a year or two above average in terms of executive tenure

  • here.

  • Every now and then something doesn't work out for one reason or another.

  • In the case of Autopilot, it's very centrally about vision and image recognition, neural

  • nets, effectively narrow AI.

  • And so, that's the focus from our recruiting standpoint, and I think we've really got – I

  • think we've got the best team in the world by a long shot on that front, and we are growing

  • it rapidly with world-class talent.

  • And then, the coast-to-coast drive, autonomous drive by the end of the year, I believe we're

  • still on track for that.

  • It is certainly possible that I may have egg on my face on that front.

  • But if it is not, at the end of the year, it will be very close.

  • Great.

  • Thank you, everybody, for joining us today.

  • Thank you for Shree, for your help, and wish everybody a great day.

  • Bye-bye.

  • Thank you.

  • Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference.

  • This does conclude the program.

  • You may all disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to

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