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Giga-Berlin and Giga-Austin are Tesla’s newest car manufacturing plants. Wall Street hopes the new technology will bring costs down.
Patrick Ball/Paul/AFP via Getty Images
Investors want to peek inside
Tesla
‘s
New car factories And see how production is increasing.
It’s also fun to look at the latest Automotive technology But it’s not always easy to take a tour.
Tesla
And the
However, Wall Street analysts are allowed to visit and their insights provide a useful lens for investors.
Recently, both New Street Research analyst Pierre Virago and UBS Analyst Patrick Hamill Visit
Tesla
(Stock ticker: TSLA) GIGA Factory Berlin, which began production early this year. Both liked.
Hummel writes that Tesla’s hypertrophic broadcasting was the main innovation at the plant. Tesla is casting the rear chassis out of aluminum, replacing a part of the car that was individually stamped out of the metal, machined, and then welded together. Casting is where a part is made, essentially, of pouring molten metal into a mould. Less complex parts mean less and higher strength.
Hummel wrote that the casting process “replaces an army of welding robots for a single rear bottom,” adding that Tesla is now casting the butt and has plans to start casting the front of the bottom soon.
There are eight maples in the plant. Giga in gigapress, gigacasting, or gigafactory is not a technical term. Tesla likes to hit hard, well, everything.
The Giga prefix may have started with Tesla’s first battery factory in Nevada – built with a partner
Panasonic
(6752 Japan). This plant was producing 20 GWh of batteries per year in 2018. Tesla plans to increase the production of this plant to 150 GWh per year.
One gigawatt-hour battery is enough to power approximately 10,000 to 15,000 electric vehicles.
Hamill believes that the giant plant in Berlin could produce gross profit margins of 30%. Tesla’s gross profit margin was about 25% in the second quarter. According to the analyst, manufacturing innovations combined with a rich product mix will result in better than average profit margins.
Virago, for his part, drove a Berlin-made Tesla Model Y when he visited. “Perhaps the most exciting moment of the day was the moment I expected to say the least: the opening and closing of the door of the YI demo model,” Virago wrote. “I’ve done it 20 times in a row and can’t believe the quality of the experience.” driving Y . model at home.
Tesla lags behind other luxury car makers in primary quality, based on research by automotive data provider JD Powers, which asks owners about their experience with new cars during the first few months of ownership. Improving build quality is important as a way to reduce costs and enhance the strength of the New York automaker’s brands and pricing.
Like Hummel, Ferragu was also impressed by the efficiency and cost of the plant. Virago said the logistics within the plant are simpler than it was at Tesla’s first plant, in Fremont, California. Each car is designed to sit at a station on the assembly line for 45 seconds.
Berenberg Analyst Adrian Januschick He also visited a Tesla factory recently. He went to the Fremont factory, where he noticed that labor costs there were above average, along with more old production equipment.
Yanushik also took a demonstration ride in a self-driving Tesla car while in California. He’s not sure that advances in technology justify Tesla’s $15,000 plans to charge for its fully autonomous driving program.
As a result, he is more conservative about the outlook for Tesla and the stock, rating the stock with a $290 price target. Virago and Hamel are more optimistic. Both are the purchase rate of Tesla stock. Hummel has a $367 price target. Ferragu has a $527 price target.
Tesla stock was down 2.5% in late trading on Friday. The
And the
are of 2.6% and 3.2%, respectively. Markets fell after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made hawkish comments from Jackson Hole, Wi.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]