2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[Fast Laner]

Elon Musk on Twitter

This is just so brilliant.
5 million $ worth of PR for like 10k$ cost. And only Tesla understands to do this. This is how Tesla gets to spend 0$ on marketing.

Link to report by german newspaper WELT
A9 bei München: Tesla-Fahrer lässt Passat absichtlich auffahren - WELT

 

[racer26]

Elon Musk on Twitter

This is just so brilliant.
5 million $ worth of PR for like 10k$ cost. And only Tesla understands to do this. This is how Tesla gets to spend 0$ on marketing.

Probably not even 10k. From what I read about the crash the other day, the damage to the Tesla was minimal - contained to the rear bumper IIRC. Pop a new one on and all should be well.

High-but-approximately-equal speed collisions aren't much different than low speed collisions. It always surprised me how little damage we would do to my race cars despite all the contact with other cars at speeds > 100km/h. The rubbing, bumping, nudging stuff did almost no damage to the cars.

If this driver knew what he was doing, and it sounds to me like he did, he would pull in front, match speeds, and gently ease off the power until the vehicles made contact, and then start decelerating more aggressively to bring the vehicles safely to a stop, being careful to maintain control and not collide with the guardrail himself.

 

[mmd]

I'm not expecting Elon to do anything which hasn't already been done in both Germany and Australia. I do wonder why the solar installers in the US are wasting money on sales & marketing when they could be offering cheaper prices and getting more business as a result.

May be, it's the silly competition in a shrinking market? Elon was the Chairman of Solarcity too. If selling a bunch of rooftop solar without any advertisement was easy, he would have suggested that already. The game outside the 1% club is very different. Until recently, Solarcity online ads and their reps in Home Depot followed me like my shadow. Let's see how many solar installs get reported for Q1 with no advertisement.

 

[neroden]

May be, it's the silly competition in a shrinking market? Elon was the Chairman of Solarcity too. If selling a bunch of rooftop solar without any advertisement was easy,

It *is* easy. It's happening in Australia and Germany, therefore it is easy.

What's wrong with the US?

he would have suggested that already.

Maybe he has and maybe we'll see the company retool. The new game plan is, offer the solar installs at the Tesla stores and on the Tesla website, right?

 

[AcesDealt]

May be, it's the silly competition in a shrinking market? Elon was the Chairman of Solarcity too. If selling a bunch of rooftop solar without any advertisement was easy, he would have suggested that already. The game outside the 1% club is very different. Until recently, Solarcity online ads and their reps in Home Depot followed me like my shadow. Let's see how many solar installs get reported for Q1 with no advertisement.

I watched a SunPower rep try to sell solar roofs at Costco for a bit. She started with 'Have you thought about getting free energy?' and after about 5 people walking by without much interest, she said 'SOLAR POWER!' to a frightened 6th before saying how bored she was. Didn't help it was raining bigly.

At the moment, this stuff is not very exciting. Maybe that'll change in the longer haul. I'm not in Tesla for solar roofs which seem silly and uneconomic relative to utility\commercial. Auto and mobility-as-a-service is where it's at. Maybe some stationary storage.

 

[kenliles]

Anyone else just see a bunch of tweets about the "Muslim ban" from Elon that disappeared almost instantly? Something about it being not right, but I couldn't fully read them in time.

As EM replied to an inquisitor - they were pre tweets - and essentially reflect the same position he relayed earlier with different ones. The 3 deleted tweets in question were:
"Regarding govt policy, there are often things that happen that many people don't agree with. This is normal for a functioning democracy"
"They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the ban on Muslim immigrants from certain countries rises to this level. It is not right."
"The Muslim immigration ban is not right"

 

[esk8mw]

Thanks all. If nothing else, this supports the idea that Elon carefully chooses his words when sending original one-off tweets (i.e., not replies or tweets amid a tweetstorm).

 

[Quesder]

Should I sell all my TSLA, roughly $200K, and other stock, roughly $75k, to buy a $1M house? How much will the rate go up next year? How much will TSLA go at the beginning of 2018?
I got to sell the stock because I ordered a Model X which costed me $120K, unless I let Tesla forfeit my $2500 deposit.

 

[dirtyofries]

Should I sell all my TSLA, roughly $200K, and other stock, roughly $75k, to buy a $1M house? How much will the rate go up next year? How much will TSLA go at the beginning of 2018?
I got to sell the stock because I ordered a Model X which costed me $120K, unless I let Tesla forfeit my $2500 deposit.

I'm having a hard time believing you're managing this kind of money and yet asking this question. I'm sorry if that's rude.

 

[jhm]

Why would anyone do that indeed.

Yep. The more storage there is at the point of use, the less need there is to transmit power. Make enough locally and store for later use. This is also why distributed solar is more valuable than grid storage. T&D is about 70% of the cost of residential power from the grid. With local storage and solar, most of the cost of the grid can be avoided. What is left for the grid to do can be done much more efficiently.

 

[kenliles]

Reflection of disruption-
10 Years After * I'd Love To Change The World
BlackBerry Hits '0%' Market Share Nearly Ten Years After iPhone Launched

 

[austinEV]

Should I sell all my TSLA, roughly $200K, and other stock, roughly $75k, to buy a $1M house? How much will the rate go up next year? How much will TSLA go at the beginning of 2018?
I got to sell the stock because I ordered a Model X which costed me $120K, unless I let Tesla forfeit my $2500 deposit.

you will be $725k short... if you are talking down payment, that is 27.5%, and you are then out of cash? Sounds like you need to lower your sights.

Related: I am putting off home ownership for the foreseeable future. For the first time in 20 years I do not own a home. For me, it is better to be flexible about how I deploy my assets.

 

[GoTslaGo]

Should I sell all my TSLA, roughly $200K, and other stock, roughly $75k, to buy a $1M house? How much will the rate go up next year? How much will TSLA go at the beginning of 2018?
I got to sell the stock because I ordered a Model X which costed me $120K, unless I let Tesla forfeit my $2500 deposit.

We intentionally bought a lower value house so we could have extra income to invest, buy stuff and pay for things (live life). Don't get house poor. Unless you are going to rent out the house and/or use it for income, then that's a different story.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Musk is speaking 03:30-4:00 and the Sheik is speaking at 04:20 in the same room.

This might be somewhat relevant too.
Masdar City seeks firms to develop driverless transport system

Edit: Dagger answered my question regarding timezone.

Source for speaking slots: Speakers

Was wondering when someone would post something with new information about what the heck is going on with Masdar. I've asked for info about it a few times, and my posts have usually gone unnoticed. Anyone know anything about the current status of Masdar?

 

[racer26]

you will be $725k short... if you are talking down payment, that is 27.5%, and you are then out of cash? Sounds like you need to lower your sights.

Related: I am putting off home ownership for the foreseeable future. For the first time in 20 years I do not own a home. For me, it is better to be flexible about how I deploy my assets.

I'm in a similar boat: Sold a decent house in the country about an hour's drive from work for $285k. Moved closer to work and invested the equity while renting a townhouse. In my area, the price/rent ratio is out of control in favour of renting. I rent the townhouse I live in for $1800/mo, and the owner bought it just before renting it to me for $620k.

Someday (likely after the baby boomers start dying off) I'll buy another house, but that day is a ways off.

I anticipate that as the boomers start dying off, the market for housing will collapse as there will be many houses available and not nearly enough well-off millennials to buy them. There's a lot of macroeconomics going on behind that, but that's what I think will happen. Its out of control right now, because the largest demographic cohort (the boomers) are still living in their houses, and the second largest (the millennials) are just now coming of the age to think about buying a house. That set of conditions doesn't last forever.

 

[Intl Professor]

This might be answered somewhere in the Model 3 thread but that has just under 1600 subthreads and I don't know how to search through them.

Does anyone have a way of determining whether it might be worthwhile to exercise both of our two M3 reservations and use one as an investment, either under the Tesla network, or for sale once any tax limitions have been satisfied. I believe selling one might be possible at a premium for a year or so. Also, would Tesla consider this dodgy? (We don't need two cars. Initially I thought to transfer one of the reservations to my son or brother but neither seem interested now although that might change.)

 

[Intl Professor]

I anticipate that as the boomers start dying off, the market for housing will collapse as there will be many houses available and not nearly enough well-off millennials to buy them. There's a lot of macroeconomics going on behind that, but that's what I think will happen. Its out of control right now, because the largest demographic cohort (the boomers) are still living in their houses, and the second largest (the millennials) are just now coming of the age to think about buying a house. That set of conditions doesn't last forever.

A long shot, but you might get a lot of us fleeing the U.S. I can think of at least three different reasons for this.

 

[AcesDealt]

Yep. The more storage there is at the point of use, the less need there is to transmit power. Make enough locally and store for later use. This is also why distributed solar is more valuable than grid storage. T&D is about 70% of the cost of residential power from the grid. With local storage and solar, most of the cost of the grid can be avoided. What is left for the grid to do can be done much more efficiently.

Abstractly these claims could be true if various numbers check out, which is not guaranteed. You claim a 70% hit for distribution which i find dubious, but even still compares well to the 100% higher cost for residential install over utility just for the panels, and then the .10$+/kwh depreciation on a battery. Of course, my original point wasn't really about this specific idea, but maybe it's lost in the humorous team building exercises.

 

[Quesder]

I'm having a hard time believing you're managing this kind of money and yet asking this question. I'm sorry if that's rude.

Ok, let me tell more about detail.
I live in Milpitas, a small city below Fremont, CA the sanctuary. I already have a condo that is roughly $720K. To buy another house, I may or may not sell it, depending on whether I want to be house poor.
Everybody knows that the Bay Area real estate price has been rocketed up for a couple years, but now it is slowed down. Still, it is like 0.7% a year. And all of you know that the rate is hiking.

I just found a property last week, yes, only one, that is 1 block away from my son's current elementary school and future middle school, for $1M.
It is on the market for 11 days up to now. If it was not this house, I probably would't think about it. For the Model X, I ordered it in Dec 2016.

The information here in the forum tells me that TSLA SP will be at least $400 in 2019 (unless something really bad happens). My shares' value will be $84000 more if that happens.

But how much will the real estate market change by that time? Up or down?
I want to hear your opinions and I appreciate those who already shared their opinions.

 

[T3slaTulips]

LG Chem expansion in Holland, MI doesn't look to be capacity expansion after all, but rather a pack production facility.
(local paper website. sorry it's kind of a poor website and details were mostly about job growth rather than battery/plant specs. )
LG Chem to add new production facility, adding 100-150 jobs in Holland area