Tesla Shanghai is shutting down? The automotive world is in crisis in China And boy do we have updates about Tesla Folks today is December 9th 13 years ago I Stood in front of the New York Stock Exchange and folks today at the closing bell I Get to ring the closing bell I Hope it marks a bottom for the stock market I Hope Santa Claus comes to town after really good inflation data next week. But hope is not an investing strategy so we must continue to be informed investors and we will have a public Meetup at 5 PM outside the New York Stock Exchange at one broad If you're interested in coming to show up at 5 pm and let's get into the video but I'm very very excited. Today is December 9th. It is also the coupon code expiration day which doesn't mean prices will be going up and when I get back from New York we'll be releasing some new lectures for all of the courses which I'm very excited about constantly expanding.

Okay So first things up, we've got to talk about this: Tesla Shutdown Tesla To suspend output at Shanghai later this month, most workers on the Model Y Model 3 Lines might not be required in late December Now look: Shanghai Recently underwent production shutdowns for upgrades a few months ago. even during the Shanghai shutdowns anytime generally Tesla shuts down its factories. It takes advantage of the opportunity to upgrade the assembly lines to make sure they are as efficient as possible to increase those margins. Remember: Tesla has some of the most phenomenal profit margins, gross profit margins.

and quite frankly, net profit margins and cash flow of any automotive company to ever exist and stark contrast to Lucid who not only are Lucid and Rivian on a path towards bankruptcy, but apparently Lucid is now in a rush to prevent people to cancel orders and you're not going to want to see the kind of methods they're going through to prevent these, but I'll explain those in just a moment anyway. Tesla will suspend output in stages at Shanghai at the end of this month until as early as a January. Some people familiar with the matter said this is all reported here by Bloomberg Most workers on both the Model 3 and Y assembly lines will not be required the last week of December and could also continue into Chinese New Year People said asking not to be identified because they're not authorized to speak publicly. Model Y output disruptions could extend through early January production.

Uh, it, You know, upgrades are obviously expected right now. We're just expecting the suspension between December 25th and January 1 Consumer demand for cars in China has been dented by the country's still strict policy to covid, which has resulted in obviously these strict lockdowns and and apparently keeping buyers away not only from showrooms, but orders just getting canceled and syncing. In fact, orders Across the Nation and sunk almost 11 in November from October. Keep in mind that Tesla sold over 70 percent more Vehicles year over year in China in November than they did last in November which is very, very incredible.

But folks, this is not a Tesla problem. this is I mean it ends up being eight Tesla problem as well, but it is a national problem for China China is probably in a deep deep recession and I want you to look at this chart right here, which I'll hide myself for in a moment so we can look at this in a little bit more detail, but this is very critical. This Chart This will share shared by Gary Black. Thank you to him for for sharing this.

but I Want you to understand this chart. So first of all, this is the seasonally adjusted annual rate of production for vehicles. And when you zoom into this chart at the very bottom, you're going to see quarters and you can see uh, Covid q1 Q2 Jan 20 and March 20 down. Uh, just about where I am right there just to the left of me Jan and March and you can see how that line is basically zero right? This is because obviously at the beginning of the pandemic, you had a very, very, uh, large shutdown in everything.

But that also happened again right here in May of 2022. That's when also Tesla Shanghai was shut down and when you zoom out for a moment, you could actually see and you will go ahead and hide. Kevin You can actually see that the bar on the right the orange bar represents the lowest point in nine years of production in China. Now keep in mind that there are some benefits to this lower production in China.

Notably, we are seeing prices of vehicles across the globe fall. This is a huge disinflationary impetus, which you might think, oh my gosh disinflation. That means prices might come down. But wait a minute.

If prices come down, that means inflation can come down and that can actually boost stock prices, right? That is a benefit. We do believe that not only are used car prices falling, but we also believe that as used car prices fall, less people might be interested in buying new vehicles and that can lead to prices for both new and used vehicles to continue to fall, which is so incredibly important for disinflation. Now, as long as these price decreases occur at a company like Tesla where we expect margins to still be maintained because of falling input costs like commodity prices which will take a while for contracts to roll roll off and those falling commodity prices actually be realized, but also EPS to continue to grow earnings per share to continue to grow, then we believe that Tesla can actually be strongly positioned. uh for for uh within the certainly the next I would believe no guarantees within the next three years A Tesla to potentially be a 3xr.

Now, we don't want to say that with opium right. We want actual facts and data. so we want to see that happen because if demand for Tesla specifically fall off a cliff, that might not happen. However, if this is just a Chinese problem then this this I believe is a realistic expectation.

Of course, it's certainly not a guarantee now. Uh, what I do think is very interesting about Tesla is that Tesla is the company that is all about efficiency that you just don't see at other companies. I Want to show you this picture right here? This is Tesla Giga Berlin This is where you go to pick up your Tesla in. Germany You pick up your car now at the factory rather than going to a dealer, shipping these vehicles to a dealer and then getting them to customers.

customers can just go pick them up right at the factory. Obviously, not everybody's going to do this. There's going to be a lot of shipping coming out of factories, but it's quite remarkable. Just everywhere Tesla is trying to improve their efficiencies.

Look at this from Austin three Noob hairs. Uh, well. now we have three total pairs of Rail lines, two new ones just finalizing their production. So that way as Giga Austin ramps, it's much easier to get.

Tesla's right into the rail network. so you can actually see the rail network over here in the distance. you could get Tesla's right on the rail network straight from the factory. This is phenomenal.

No. Trucking Between the truck to the rail yard, why not just build the factory right next to the rail yard and stick the train or the plane? stick the cars right on the rails? Really incredible. Here's another photo from another angle, you can see the main Rail lines right here and where Tesla's Rail lines are being connected. You could also see another photo that I'll share from Giga Berlin Looking at expansion plans to the right of the blue line here.

Looking for expansion plans? Quite incredible. Now what's important to do at this point is realize that most Automotive manufacturers will not be as lucky I believe as Tesla when you look at a company like Lucid Lucid right now according to Uh, potentially a little bit of a bias Source But Drive Tesla Canada is reporting that Lucid is doing the following in a in coordination here with Business Insider to make sure that individuals stop canceling orders for lucids which I'm going to give you an anecdotal update about Lucids in just a moment because remember: I bought a Lucid to compare it to Tesla's Innovation capabilities and I gave it to my father-in-law I'll give you an update in a moment apparently according to Business Insider and drive Tesla Canada Now the procedures for getting people to not cancel their Lucid orders or that if somebody wants to cancel a lucid order, the customer is immediately to be assigned to a case manager and within 24 hours, they are supposed to be contacted by their case manager who has to attempt to contact that customer three times over three days. If that person fails, they move up to a manager who has to make five attempted contacts within five days. And if that fails that person, the customer gets promoted to a regional manager who has 24 hours to initiate contact and call them three more times within three days.

So in other words, if you want to cancel your Lucid order, you're expecting 11 calls within 11 days from three different people to beg you not to cancel your order. So in other words, if if you do not want all of these phone calls, make sure you answer your first call from Lucid asking you please not to cancel your order. This is quite remarkable. I Do think there's a lot of pain in the industry and I don't want to make light of any company.

Uh, you know, trying to survive a recession, right? recessions are hard, Everybody suffers in a recession and uh, while I do believe the growth story is still intact for Tesla and that their EPS will will not suffer the EPS downgrade cycle that most companies I believe will face in uh, going forward into 2023.. that doesn't mean there aren't overhangs for Tesla and paying for Tesla Consider just what the Twitter overhang has done and the relationship between Uh Tesla investors and the perceived relationship between Tesla investors and and Elon Musk right, not only selling Tesla shares, but potentially now margining them to lower interest costs over at Twitter Which ironically, could be good because the sooner Twitter gets the stability, the less likely Tesla actually needs to be a piggy bank for Twitter. But anyway, Elon Musk did respond to Uh indirectly to some of these uh CEO concerns about his potential absence while he's at Twitter and he says quote: I continue to oversee both Tesla and SpaceX but teams there are good are so good that often little is needed for me. fair.

I Think uh, people still believe that Elon should be heavily involved and I'm sure he is to the extent that he's needed. I Don't think you could be a Tesla investor without having faith at this point. Um, but I do want to give that anecdote about Lucid. So my father-in-law is somewhat frustrated that the over-the-air updates are not making the Lucid better.

In fact, he believes they're making the Lucid more buggy. he. uh, I was actually really surprised by this. I would have never taken my father in love for this, but so hold on.

Yeah, it's it's worth pouring a cup of coffee for this one because it's pretty remarkable. So I asked him how it is and his responsible as yesterday. Uh, interesting. I Go.

No. What happened? he goes. Oh nothing. It just tried to kill me and I'm like dude, shut up what what happened So apparently he gets a software update saying oh, now we've enabled the Lidar all the lidar cameras because Lucid has like I don't know 13 of these Lidar cameras.

It's crazy. It's got a lot of lidar and he's like oh yeah, I get a software update that that now it's enabled And so he's excited and he reads the notes and it says drive on a straight highway for 30 minutes and I'm thinking to myself, okay, he'll probably just do that. You know, whenever it just happens along with his ordinary driving and he says no, you know what? I'm I'm excited I I want to see Lucid succeed Uh so he hops in the car and drives on the highway for 30 minutes. Okay, your lidar's now active.

Then he's holding his hands above the steering wheel, driving on a road to turn around and get back. He's got his lidar enabled every all that. all the signs and everything say this is okay. The road you're driving on everything is fine in terms of being able to activate this this centering steering lidar system.

It basically just keeps you in in the middle of your lane. Think of it kind of like other cars have this already like adaptive cruise control, but then it also centers you apparently through my father-in-law Okay, so the second hand information: he's driving on a road. the car Yates over into a left turn lane with no signaling, no indication and that left turn lane uh, stops short and right at the other end of that uh, left turn lane is oncoming head-on traffic because that left turn lane kind of stops and they kind of traffic that goes around that left turn lane and he has to, you know, take control and overtake the vehicle and pull to the right. Thank God he's you know, holding the steering wheel or nearly holding the steering wheel.

Uh, again, this is an anecdote, but now the vehicle is in service and it's been in service for like eight days or something at that effect. He does mention that there are quite a few bugs and frustrations, like every time a software update comes, it resets his driver profile and he has to like reprogram everything. Uh, he's frustrated about this Lidar. He says pretty much anytime a new feature comes out it's just buggy and you know I Don't take him as somebody who's just trying to, you know, Poop on Lucid He's an Apple investor.

Okay, he? he. he's a house hike investor too. and and you know, uh, like he's obviously supportive of me, but he's not a test semester. He's actually not an Elon Musk fan.

So I'm I'm not here to suggest that. Uh, you know, here's somebody that's a testify I'm trying to bag on Lucid He wants to see Lucid succeed because he actually thinks if companies like Lucid could succeed, they could you know take some Edge away from Elon I think this one's a victory so far for Elon uh and I don't want to laugh at it because it is dangerous. Uh and I do wish the best for Uh for Lucid and and the Lucid team because I do think there are hard workers working there trying to work it and and figure it out. but um, it all.

Let me put it this way, when I first bought the Lucid, I was um a little frustrated that it was sort of my first tell that when you asked Amazon Alexa to do something it, you got this response in certain circumstances that was like this version of the free source Alexa API does not have that capability and I'm like this is just a bolt-on software. This was not by any means designed to integrate with Lucid this is probably just some free Amazon Alexa code you could pull off the internet and it has very limited functionality, but it sounds like you have Alexa and now you could like advertise. Oh, the car has Amazon Alexa but it's by no means customized for the car. Uh, I mean maybe it is.

Maybe Lucid is able to customize certain things, but but it seemed very frustrating. Anyway, those are just some thoughts. Look I I know recessions are hard and I I know it is. It is easy to lose Faith Um, let's see what happens when when Tesla's able to ride with with growing EPS while other companies in the S P 500 and across the border seeing their EPS get slashed and certainly would help if we see some disinflation because we need to get out of the Federal Reserve's grasps.

Anyway, thank you so much for watching! Cheers! We'll see at the New York Stock Exchange Next, check out those programs on building your wealth link down below.