Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 119 posts

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#11

Post by jonknee »

api wrote: post #6

There's a story behind the story re: Tesla's scaling difficulties. America has lost its manufacturing base and with it the skill set to build large scale manufacturing easily. Tesla is going to China because that's where the expertise is.

No, it's because China is the largest car market in the world (yet is not a significant automobile exporter because that's not where the expertise is). Also, this:

> Last week, in response to tariffs imposed by the United States, China increased the import duty on U.S.-made cars to 40%, prompting Tesla to raise prices. A plant in China also would reduce shipping costs and could make sourcing components more economical.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#12

Post by GW150914 »

johnm1019 wrote: post #5

Excuse my ignorance, can someone explain how they are going to pay for this? My internet experience in the last months has been mostly articles about how they would keep enough cash with one factory? Then others about Elon said no more cash raises, etc... Even if they start turning a profit on their cars, that isn't going to magically give them the millions (billions?) needed for a new factory.

It’s a preliminary plan to build something... so basically a fantasy at this point. It’s also an old fantasy, he’s been saying this for at least two years.[1] Mind you...

Musk said in May 2016 that he expected Tesla would produce 500,000 vehicles a year in Fremont by 2018, but the company has repeatedly fallen short of his manufacturing goals with the Model 3 sedan. Tesla built about 88,000 cars in the first half of this year.

With Musk and claims YMMV, and it pays to believe it only when and if he delivers. In this case there is no reason to believe it isn’t what he does best: PR.

[1] https://mashable.com/2016/06/24/tesla-factory-china-9-billio...

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#13

Post by jessaustin »

jonknee wrote: post #11
api wrote: post #6

There's a story behind the story re: Tesla's scaling difficulties. America has lost its manufacturing base and with it the skill set to build large scale manufacturing easily. Tesla is going to China because that's where the expertise is.

No, it's because China is the largest car market in the world (yet is not a significant automobile exporter because that's not where the expertise is). Also, this: > Last week, in response to tariffs imposed by the United States, China increased the import duty on U.S.-made cars to 40%, prompting Tesla to raise prices. A plant in China also would reduce shipping costs and could make sourcing components more economica…

TIL tariffs are good for the environment.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#14

Post by ashraymalhotra »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

I wonder what other countries they considered, did they consider Mexico ? (Ford has plants there) or Brazil? Or perhaps India?

Not an expert but I believe controlling Lithium reserves is a great way of attracting companies that rely on Battery tech?

[1] - https://qz.com/1292202/china-now-effectively-controls-half-t...

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#18

Post by mkhalil »

Tesla should be very wary of the very real threat from corporate espionage in China. Brining a factory to China would allow a bad actor to really get into enterprise and create even better clones. Tesla wouldn't be able to keep up financially if Chinese manufactures built cars using Tesla research resources.

side thought: Maybe TESLA turns into a research company that sells its IP to manufactures instead of actually building cars.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#20

Post by adventured »

jonknee wrote: post #7
johnm1019 wrote: post #5

Excuse my ignorance, can someone explain how they are going to pay for this? My internet experience in the last months has been mostly articles about how they would keep enough cash with one factory? Then others about Elon said no more cash raises, etc... Even if they start turning a profit on their cars, that isn't going to magically give them the millions (billions?) needed for a new factory.

By issuing the debt and new shares that Elon swears he's not going to do.

You're misconstruing what Musk actually said. He said they're not going to need to issue / raise in 2018. They're not going to begin building a factory in China this year and won't need financing for it in the next five or six months.

Edit: for the anti-Tesla downvoters -

"CEO Elon Musk has said that Tesla wouldn't require new funding in 2018, in either equity or debt. On a call with investors, in response a question from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, Musk said that when it comes to raising new money, "I specifically don't want to." "

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-on-raising-more-mon...

Post reply on HN