Look how many engineers and other technical degrees are awarded in India, Brazil, etc. Lots of technical work being done "remotely" at a very attractive cost. The US can staff the support centers with all the womens studies, etc. degrees awarded on every corner of America.
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- Thread starter pmclaine
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Tesla is cutting labor from salaried positions while increasing hourly payroll related to production, battery, and solar.
That is a wise move... during a recession, production is what keeps the light's on and the bill's paid...
Yes, production jobs can't be done by remote (although I have seen experiments where large equipment at large process facilities (think chemical and paper) can be run remotely from a central control room. I have seen copper mines in Chile run by remote from 1000+ mile distance. Most people don't realize that AI, Machine Learning, and "robots" will take more white collar jobs than blue collar jobs.
I want do do a "tie in" here... Everything is related in this Matrix:
It takes 28 gallons of oil to put tires on a Tesla to get it rolling off the assembly line.
According to the Rubber Manufacturer’s Association (RMA), it takes about seven gallons of oil to create a standard car tire.
How Much Oil is Needed to Make One Car Tire? - TireMart.com Tire Blog
Today, you can buy tires that can carry your vehicle tens of thousands of miles. Modern tires are the results of decades of tire engineering progress. The tire compound is a versatile material that comes with a range of properties depending on the raw materials used to manufacture it.
blog.tiremart.com
Tesla just reported first-quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers for 2022.
Electric vehicle deliveries (total): 310,048
________________
310,048 X 4 tires = 1240192 tires X 7 gallons of oil = 8681344 gallons / 42 gallons in a barrel = 206698 barrels of oil needed to roll 3 months of Tesla off the assembly line.... Not taking into consideration all of the plastic, wire insulation and paint....
Not seeing any less need of oil in my life time.
Electric vehicle deliveries (total): 310,048
________________
310,048 X 4 tires = 1240192 tires X 7 gallons of oil = 8681344 gallons / 42 gallons in a barrel = 206698 barrels of oil needed to roll 3 months of Tesla off the assembly line.... Not taking into consideration all of the plastic, wire insulation and paint....
Not seeing any less need of oil in my life time.
Ford has reduced their workforce by 20,000 people over the last 5 years, while Tesla has increased their workforce by 60,000 people.
Ford Motor total number of employees in 2021 was 183,000,
Tesla Growing Steadily: More Than 100,000 Employees Worldwide
Walmart had about 2.2 million employees in the fiscal year of 2019, the highest of all companies in the Forbes 500 global ranking.Jul 25, 2021LOL...
Tesla Growing Steadily: More Than 100,000 Employees Worldwide
Tesla continues growing, increasing its staff at a steady pace. All in all in 2021 the firm had 30% more employees than in 2020, exceeding a total of 100,000 well-qualified workers.
www.torquenews.com
Ford Motor: Number of Employees 2010-2024 | F
Interactive chart of Ford Motor (F) annual worldwide employee count from 2010 to 2024. <ul style='margin-top:10px;'> <li>Ford Motor total number of employees in 2023 was <strong>177,000</strong>, a <strong>2.31% increase</strong> from 2022.</li> <li>Ford Motor total number of...
www.macrotrends.net
Let me know how well those factories can ramp production with fewer salaried workers.
People who spout this nonsense don't know how factories work.
This take is even worse when one considers the need to design and validate new product to keep those factories busy.
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It depends on how productive the people are. I deal with several large companies that could cut half their salaried positions that don't do anything.
Back of the envelope, replacing 310000 gas powered cars will save about 1B gallons of gas (50 M barrels of oil) over 100K miles assuming 30 mpg.
Yes then (50M bbl / 2.5 d) x 365 d/y that’s 7.3B bbl/year of oil we consume. Approx 134B gallons of gas (from 6.7B bbl oil) is burned in US by vehicles per year, ie most of the oil we consume (6.7/7.3=91%) is burned in vehicles. Long term as more gas powered vehicles become ev’s we will need less oil. Still need some to make tires etc. of hcourse. My math may have been impacted by beer consumption.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=23&t=10
In trade for how many heavy metals, rubber, etc. Now tell me how we support this sweeping change on our power grid. Let's use Dallas Texas as an example. I'm sure they are primed and ready to shift people to electric vehicles.
I don't get your point but
My point is that even Elon came to the realization that it's not possible to continue the infinite-growth narrative and simultaneously talk about headcount reduction. Someday, he may be able to directly control a hundred thousand minions through Neuralink connections, but there are some intermediate steps.
You can scale back salaried workers by 10% and continue a 50% CAGR...
You are speaking as if every role/team is saturated correctly but that is not the case when the company has expanded and hired as much as they have in past years.
I believe the ratio of salaried to hourly at Tesla is 20/80. 10% reduction in salary is 2% of the total workforce and can remain flat as they scale existing factories and hourly headcount.
Does that sound consistent at all with the narrative of building a completely new supply chain and bringing unprecedented levels of automation to manufacturing and introducing new products all while achieving growth rates that would be spectacular in the most basic consumer product?
Tell me you've never scaled a sophisticated manufacturing process without telling me you've never scaled a sophisticated manufacturing process...
It's a moot point - Elon either sobered up and realized that what he said was stupid, or actually has a trusted adviser giving him good advice.
What salaried positions must be ramped from where they are at now to assist current factories achieve higher output over the next 12 months.
Well, I dunno, this is like the first time I've ever thought through any problem of this type
sneaky, but maybe it's something like...- Process/manufacturing engineers and technicians to address the bottlenecks that will occur when ramping production, as well as support this "alien dreadnaught" vision that's been articulated for the past half-decade
- Design engineering resources will be required to make various changes to product that improves production efficiency
- Validation engineers to execute the testing required to prove the above changes haven't compromised product safety, performance, and longevity
- Supply chain management ("purchasing") resources to work with suppliers (or find new ones) to increase production at a rate that frankly is not typical of the auto industry
- *More* design, production and validation resources to support the insourcing of components when management throws a fit about the perceived inadequacies of the existing supply base
- Production team leaders, production planners, buyers, etc. to lead larger teams and additional shifts (this is a layer of management that lots of people like to shit-talk or ignore, but they basically keep factories running)
- Additional maintenance resources to keep equipment running through more shifts
- QA/QC resources that verify everything from the compliance of the smallest incoming parts to the fit-and-finish and regulatory compliance of the completed product
... and so on. I'm probably forgetting another half-dozen categories of people that are really damn important at turning about 12 million pounds of parts each day into a half-million finished cars each year.
Note that this doesn't assume any work on new products (whatever we're calling the mythical $25k product, plus transitioning the Semi, Cybertruck, and Roadster from the design phase to production, plus replacing the dated S & X, plus refreshing the 3 & Y, plus launching FSD, plus developing the Robotaxi support structure). It also doesn't include whatever's required to build out the next assembly plants, because the existing four won't support the 50% CAGR behind 2023 or so. It doesn't include the support for developing and launching indigenous battery tech. It doesn't include resources to launch Optimus as a standalone product.
In short, there is a metric shit-ton of work to be done if the company is going to grow into something rivaling Toyota and VW by the end of this decade. Head-count reduction shouldn't even be crossing anyone's mind right now, much less becoming a headline. Note that this doesn't preclude cutting some "dead wood", but that should look something more like cut the bottom 10% and then hire another 25% each year for the foreseeable future.
I'm guessing that Elon knows this, and what he also knows but isn't willing to say (yet) is that 50% CAGR ain't gonna happen.
Can you explain why there would need to be significant hiring of Process/manufacturing engineers/technicians, validation engineers, supply chain mgmt, etc. when the factories are copycats? It doesn't seem like a new factory would require a whole new supply chain mgmt team.Well, I dunno, this is like the first time I've ever thought through any problem of this type
- Process/manufacturing engineers and technicians to address the bottlenecks that will occur when ramping production, as well as support this "alien dreadnaught" vision that's been articulated for the past half-decade
- Design engineering resources will be required to make various changes to product that improves production efficiency
- Validation engineers to execute the testing required to prove the above changes haven't compromised product safety, performance, and longevity
- Supply chain management ("purchasing") resources to work with suppliers (or find new ones) to increase production at a rate that frankly is not typical of the auto industry
- *More* design, production and validation resources to support the insourcing of components when management throws a fit about the perceived inadequacies of the existing supply base
- Production team leaders, production planners, buyers, etc. to lead larger teams and additional shifts (this is a layer of management that lots of people like to shit-talk or ignore, but they basically keep factories running)
- Additional maintenance resources to keep equipment running through more shifts
- QA/QC resources that verify everything from the compliance of the smallest incoming parts to the fit-and-finish and regulatory compliance of the completed product
... and so on. I'm probably forgetting another half-dozen categories of people that are really damn important at turning about 12 million pounds of parts each day into a half-million finished cars each year.
Note that this doesn't assume any work on new products (whatever we're calling the mythical $25k product, plus transitioning the Semi, Cybertruck, and Roadster from the design phase to production, plus replacing the dated S & X, plus refreshing the 3 & Y, plus launching FSD, plus developing the Robotaxi support structure). It also doesn't include whatever's required to build out the next assembly plants, because the existing four won't support the 50% CAGR behind 2023 or so. It doesn't include the support for developing and launching indigenous battery tech. It doesn't include resources to launch Optimus as a standalone product.
In short, there is a metric shit-ton of work to be done if the company is going to grow into something rivaling Toyota and VW by the end of this decade. Head-count reduction shouldn't even be crossing anyone's mind right now, much less becoming a headline. Note that this doesn't preclude cutting some "dead wood", but that should look something more like cut the bottom 10% and then hire another 25% each year for the foreseeable future.
I'm guessing that Elon knows this, and what he also knows but isn't willing to say (yet) is that 50% CAGR ain't gonna happen.
I'm confident that 50% CAGR is locked in for the next 4 years.
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This isn’t an on/off switch, there is incremental progress in photovoltaic and battery design and the cost of solar energy is dropping steadily. This is research-intensive and progress is intrinsically hard to predict. Will some lab find a replacement for Li or lower the cost of mining? (check out the Salton sea projects). Also ev’s and gas vehicles can coexist and some areas and many rednecks will want to keep gas vehicles whatever the cost difference.
But as far as net US oil consumption goes, it goes down in nearly direct proportion to the ev replacement rate. The only question is how fast is that rate changing.
You left out the "politics / political" piece of the puzzle. America is the proverbial "house divided". In the short term, follow the money. Politics has oil drilling, transporting, refining and fuel use hobbled. Pipe lines cancelled, drilling leases unobtainable, antiquated refineries, oil reserved depleted, EPA over reach are building up to a Government created national emergency. Now, while sitting on oil in the ground, America is importing finished petroleum products.
EV's getting a boost with $6/ gallon gasoline, of course. A shortage of electrical generating plants and a grid on the ragged edge... Doubtful there is enough capacity to charge batteries at peak travel times.
Because the factories aren't copycats. You've apparently bought into the idea that this is mature product running through a mature process, and that you can just dial production rates up and down like selecting the number of photocopies that get printed. It's not the way any of this works. Look at the running change to the Model Y rear subframe and floor structure - cool tech that I'm confident saves money in the long term, but it definitely wasn't free.
The new factory itself doesn't automatically drive a new SCM team, but you'll hit "walls" as production is increased that will drive non-linear resource allocation. It's just like capital allocation; you're good up until a certain point and then *bam* you're spending a ton of time and money. In Tesla's case, they also are being actively hurt by their own treatment of suppliers, and that's about all I can say on that topic.
Tesla may have "locked in" 50% CAGR, but the market has not.
If you want to send me a PM explaining your current field of work, please do as I'm curious. If not, that's OK; hopefully others are finding value in the conversation.
You are likely correct that they are not copycats in the sense of say factory design. As Texas will build cybertrucks and Berlin I don’t believe has any intentions too. However, the production process for model Y should be the same between both.
I believe the main point we have been talking about is can Tesla currently cut 10%? The answer is yes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this 10% leaves because the mission of Tesla doesn’t override the want to work remotely.
All companies from time to time should reevaluate the work that they employ. For example, Tesla has clear goals today that does not support operations which do not benefit today. Those roles can be eliminated. Optimization of the workforce is a qualitative step in maintaining positive cash flow without spending where it is not needed.
Remember this is only talking about 12 months out. If Tesla is to expand into a new country, then salaried headcount is likely the same as other stand alone. However, Giga Shanghai 2 will likely have many shared services.
I work in Corporate Finance. (Liaison, Business Analyst, Project Manager)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vit...es-,Overview,nonproducers and should be fired
I can say my last workplace could have used a bit of this approach to great effect.
I can say my last workplace could have used a bit of this approach to great effect.
Things we have learned since last week...
1. Some weakness in Household Survey, but a high level of labor demand still outweighs layoff news.
2. Slowdown in manufacturing is a signal of rotation, not recession. Consumer spending is buoyed by high pent-up savings. Inflation derivative slowing, but not seeing sustained sequential slowdown needed.
3. No sign of demand destruction in commods + energy.
1. Some weakness in Household Survey, but a high level of labor demand still outweighs layoff news.
2. Slowdown in manufacturing is a signal of rotation, not recession. Consumer spending is buoyed by high pent-up savings. Inflation derivative slowing, but not seeing sustained sequential slowdown needed.
3. No sign of demand destruction in commods + energy.
I like your report... Short and to the point.
I'll hold this to one question:
Considering all of your information, is this the beginning of a "plateau" ?
What's the scope of your question? Stock market? Inflation? Growth?
Also, you would like to know... I sold more ENPH this morning.
Scope is not stock market due to manipulation by mega fund managers.
Not inflation, currently, because no one is tapping the brakes.
Lean more towards consumer spending / credit card debt / preliminary notice of defaults in SFR housing / discretionary spending..
Over the next 3 month's can the "man on Main Street" catch his breath ?
The single biggest impediment in the US market are the ~330 million cars currently in the road that burn fossil fuels. Currently, we're displacing maybe 0.25% of those with EVs each year. The remaining 99.75% will have a service life of 12-15 years on average. A large segment of the population is dependent upon automobiles and yet too poor to ever afford a new one, and so they will bitterly cling to their 2006 Pontiac Grand Ams not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. Any policy that aims to increase EV adoption by making fossil fuels less affordable is unnecessarily cruel to all of those who are least able to make such a shift.
Then we have the fleet of commercial vehicles, which last time I checked burn about the same amount of liquid hydrocarbons as do personal automobiles on a yearly basis (on a fleet vs. fleet basis, obviously). These vehicles are turned over more frequently as a whole (3-5 years for OTR and some vocational uses such as refuse; less frequently for other vocational uses like liquid and dry bulk). Certain usages are poorly suited to alternatives (OTR), but LTL, urban delivery, refuse, etc. are probably better-suited to EVs than to ICEs.
This is not suggested as a broad endorsement of any specific policy, but rather as a suggestion that the current fetish with personal vehicles may be less-than-optimal at achieved the stated goal.
In that regard, yes I would say so. Let’s see what the FED does.Scope is not stock market due to manipulation by mega fund managers.
Not inflation, currently, because no one is tapping the brakes.
Lean more towards consumer spending / credit card debt / preliminary notice of defaults in SFR housing / discretionary spending..
Over the next 3 month's can the "man on Main Street" catch his breath ?
Understood... My age, working world and craft are different from yours. Here is what I saw, time and time again. My work buddies call it the "Bear Trap"... We would travel, get on a project and soon our world would plateau. We would be working some OT, had plenty of material, weather was great, etc. At that point the lunch room conversations would turn to new trucks, snow machines, bass boats, jet skis. I was the only one reading an Investors Business Daily (before IPhones, laptops, etc). I could see a slow down in the economy. My coworkers could not see it. Our project had a few months to completion, money and OT was great. Soon there were new trucks in the parking lot, guy's would buy a snow machine in June, haul it home during our 4th of July break. There were great deals to be had. The plateau is a comfortable place. Project completed, we all head home or to a new project... Except those new projects were pushed back until after the first of the year. Soon my phone would be ringing and guy's were looking for a project that was hiring... they were falling behind on paying bills...
I too can see an economical plateau forming, as we speak. The middle class could not afford a new car so they did the maintenance (tires, oil, front end work) on their 10 year old car. Their employer gave them a small pay raise. They started eating more ground meat and store brand products. Rather than go to Costco, they went to Walmart... Many are at the break even point. Except, when we are breaking even, we are loosing. Summer time is here, perhaps no vacation but just some weekend camping trips.. The budget is a little tight.
But things have leveled off and life on the plateau is not bad. Could be a quiet summer but we are hearing the price of gas will come down in September, maybe we can put a little money back in the savings account, boss said some new orders are in the works and there might be some OT by November.... The Bear Trap has been set. Beware.
My friend is a lineman. He is already hearing of people being cut. However, most he said is due to lack of material/inventory and trucks. We are in a interesting spot… many will benefit. Many will be bankrupt.
Mega stores are giving their "warnings" of the future this morning. "Magically" the market shakes off the bad news. The reality is the Mega Fund's managers are using their cash to prop up the Index Funds... They are buying the laggards at reduced prices and moving the "averages" up. The cash belongs to pension funds, 401k's and offshore investment funds. This can not go on forever. When they run out of cash the markets will adjust.
www.barrons.com
Stocks Rise Despite Target's Profit Warning
Investors fear the Federal Reserve and other global central banks will have to be more aggressive in their efforts to tame inflation.
www.barrons.com
So you've got several distinct products/architectures and different plants, and the future will bring yet more complexity in the form of additional plants that presumably incorporate lessons-learned, new architectures that will need to be less costly, and further vertical integration. Someone will need to do that work is simply the point I'm attempting to drive home.
I don't disagree with the concept of flushing the bottom-of-the-barrel performers. It's going to be especially true for a company growing at the rate of Tesla. Doing so without spooking the top talent (who tribally can easily find other employment) or the mid-tier (who constitute the bulk of a company's ability to get done the boring but necessary "blocking and tackling" work) requires a careful approach, and once again I don't believe that Tesla will be able to maintain flat headcount.
We'll eventually see where Musk ends up relative to someone like Jack Welch (not exactly the greatest benchmark, but he did popularize this concept). My guess is that this whole conversation goes away if the grow narrative persists.
This is just one maneuver of the Deep State to force the "Prepared American's" to use up their inventory....Once inventory is used up, it will be impossible to replace, at any price. Target stepped into that Bear trap.
Target warned investors Tuesday that its profits will take a short-term hit, as it marks down unwanted items, cancels orders and takes aggressive steps to get rid of extra inventory.
www.cnbc.com
Target warned investors Tuesday that its profits will take a short-term hit, as it marks down unwanted items, cancels orders and takes aggressive steps to get rid of extra inventory.
Target expects squeezed profits from aggressive plan to get rid of unwanted inventory
Target said it will take a short-term hit from markdowns, but wants to clear room for groceries, back-to-school supplies and other items consumers want.
www.cnbc.com
This is just one maneuver of the Deep State to force the "Prepared American's" to use up their inventory....Once inventory is used up, it will be impossible to replace, at any price. Target stepped into that Bear trap.
Target warned investors Tuesday that its profits will take a short-term hit, as it marks down unwanted items, cancels orders and takes aggressive steps to get rid of extra inventory.
Target expects squeezed profits from aggressive plan to get rid of unwanted inventory
Target said it will take a short-term hit from markdowns, but wants to clear room for groceries, back-to-school supplies and other items consumers want.
Investors and the tax code already do a fine job of discouraging any sort of excess inventory; no additional intervention required.
Today's "High Flyer" on the NASDAQ 100..... Unfortunate
JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and its biggest overall retailer, as well as the country’s biggest Internet company by revenue. JD.com sets the standard for online shopping through its commitment to quality, authenticity, and its vast product offering covering everything from fresh food and apparel to electronics and cosmetics. Its unrivalled nationwide fulfillment network covers 99% of China’s population, and provides standard same- and next-day delivery - a level of service and speed that is unmatched globally.
Introduction to JD.com
JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and its biggest overall retailer, as well as the country’s biggest Internet company by revenue. JD.com sets the standard for online shopping through its commitment to quality, authenticity, and its vast product offering covering everything from fresh food and apparel to electronics and cosmetics. Its unrivalled nationwide fulfillment network covers 99% of China’s population, and provides standard same- and next-day delivery - a level of service and speed that is unmatched globally.
JD.com, Inc.
JD.com is the largest retailer in China, a member of the NASDAQ100 and a Fortune Global 500 company.
corporate.jd.com
Young company (1996)... Wrong clients to take into a recession, selling off divisions (ThoughtTrace, Inc.) that gave them a black eye in the market in May 2022...... Unfortunate for the stock holders that have stuck with them.... Pretty much a vote of no confidence in the market place.
Without a doubt the companies in their sector are taking note of this crash and burn... Watch their crisis management kick in.... or not.
News & Resources - Altira Group LLC
The latest news and helpful resources about Altira, our portfolio companies and the energy industry.
www.altiragroup.com
(MO)-
Altria Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; and moist smokeless tobacco products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands, as well as provides on! oral nicotine pouches. It sells its tobacco products primarily to wholesalers, including distributors; and large retail organizations, such as chain stores. Altria Group, Inc. was founded in 1822 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.
Addicted users are one division I want to own going into a recession. They are not going to quit smoking. They will eat less before stopping smoking. Hell. They will cut cords before it. Not take that vacation or pick up a second job to keep the habit.
Big tobacco has been one of the few solid areas of performance.
Zero reason for a downgrade other than for their fund managers to pick it up cheaper. 7% discount and a dividend of almost 7%.
I’m not a fan of this source but they are right in this. Dated last week.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022...m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article&yptr=yahoo
Let’s see where it is in 2 weeks.
Altria Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; and moist smokeless tobacco products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands, as well as provides on! oral nicotine pouches. It sells its tobacco products primarily to wholesalers, including distributors; and large retail organizations, such as chain stores. Altria Group, Inc. was founded in 1822 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.
Addicted users are one division I want to own going into a recession. They are not going to quit smoking. They will eat less before stopping smoking. Hell. They will cut cords before it. Not take that vacation or pick up a second job to keep the habit.
Big tobacco has been one of the few solid areas of performance.
Zero reason for a downgrade other than for their fund managers to pick it up cheaper. 7% discount and a dividend of almost 7%.
I’m not a fan of this source but they are right in this. Dated last week.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022...m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article&yptr=yahoo
Let’s see where it is in 2 weeks.
No mention of tobacco on their website. Are we looking at the same company ?
I was looking at Altira... Different one
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