Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[mongo]

Quick math:

365*24*60/68*2400000=18550588235.3 = $18.5B worth of megapacks. 50% margins = $9B profit

68 minutes per unit all year is 7.7k, but they call out 10k/ yr (53 minutes) so maybe total includes GF1?
However, that volume increase is offset by pricing base MP:
10k units per year * $1.8M (average of 2 and 4 hour units without installation at 100 qty) = $18B
From there, add on installation at a different margin.

Before they pulled the public estimator:

4 hr MP $1.77 million to $1.74 million each (qty 1 to 100)
2 hr MP $1.88 to $1.84 million

Installation adder (if selected):
2hr
$720k for single unit
$2.6 million for 10, $260k each
$17.4 million for 100, $174k each

4hr
$340k single
$2.18 M @ 10, $218k each
$11.1 M @ 100, $110k each

 

[JRP3]

Are you all disagreeing with me or with Chatbox?

 

[lascavarian]

Are you all disagreeing with me or with Chatbox?

Chatbox provided an excuse to look it up and enjoy Cosmo again. Can’t feel anything but gratitude for that. Have a great weekend

 

[Todd Burch]

It's worthy of note to mention:

Tesla said the *factory* can produce 1 Megapack every 68 minutes, not that they are *currently* producing that. So nobody should be projecting a quarter of that revenue into Q1 since they are still ramping.

 

[Singuy]

Tesla can pump out 90 Model 3/Ys from Shanghai gigafactory in the time it takes to build 1 Megapack XL 2.

Revenue wise, this megapack gigafactory output ~half a giga shanghai

 

[Usain]

What are you basing this even split on? I see an overwhelming overweight of D among Tesla owners so far, from personally being in touch with around 50/50 D/R. Not that Republicans don't want the best car (=Tesla), many just don't seem to like to support the perceived enemy side (=left, clean energy, liberal, previous Elon et.c.).

News articles like this one were circulating in early 2022, which was before news about the Twitter acquisition. Maybe all the articles were reliant on the same surveys, but it's what I'm basing my opinion on.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/cars/tesla-buyer-politics/index.html

To the tiny extent that political affiliation might affect demand for Tesla vehicles, it's hard to argue that the Twitter acquisition changed the addressable market much. The split was already pretty even.

Like I said, Tesla just makes the best cars. As long as that's true they won't have a demand problem. So Twitter doesn't help or hurt much in that regard.

 

[Buckminster]

Threads of the day:
EV and Battery Credits - following $80k bump
Tesla Optimus Sub-Prime Robot - new AI office coming to silicon vallley
Discussion: Tesla Megapack Battery Storage - new mega factory video
Elon & Twitter - serves a purpose

 

[Singuy]

68 minutes per unit all year is 7.7k, but they call out 10k/ yr (53 minutes) so maybe total includes GF1?
However, that volume increase is offset by pricing base MP:
10k units per year * $1.8M (average of 2 and 4 hour units without installation at 100 qty) = $18B
From there, add on installation at a different margin.

Before they pulled the public estimator:

I don't know, after watching it again it seems to be for Megafactory only. To me it sounds like they are at a 1megapack/68min right now, but full ramp they are thinking 10k/year as the goal.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

LOL, me and Chatbox stand corrected.

 

[Singuy]

It's worthy of note to mention:

Tesla said the *factory* can produce 1 Megapack every 68 seconds, not that they are *currently* producing that. So nobody should be projecting a quarter of that revenue into Q1 since they are still ramping.

68 min is hell of a specific number. Who the heck project that they will one day produce one every 68 mins? Pretty sure someone took a stop watch and had at least 1 megapack pumped out in 68 min.

 

[Prunesquallor]

"Funding secured" has gone to the jury.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1621547465546801156

 

[Ogre]

Value of Supercharger network just increased.

Electrify America increasing charging fees amid network reliability issues

Electrify America has announced today it is increasing prices at its electric vehicle (EV) charging stations across the US. The price increases will take effect next month and come at a time when the charging […]

driveteslacanada.ca

When EA executives heard 30% of their units were inoperable at any given time they realized they had a huge problem. After days of debating expensive fixes they realized that they could make just as much money from the remaining units if they bumped prices by 30%.

Dodged that bullet.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Closing price $189.98


Roulette croupier: "Double-zero. House wins”.

 

[Mengy]

Tesla can pump out 90 Model 3/Ys from Shanghai gigafactory in the time it takes to build 1 Megapack XL 2.

Revenue wise, this megapack gigafactory output ~half a giga shanghai

Yeah, the financial math on Megapacks going forward is so very juicy. Imagine when they get a couple of these Megafactories up and running!

 

[AMN]

Closing price $189.98

I sold $190 puts during the power hour. Let's see if those clowns cough it up!

 

[space_s3x]

68 min is hell of a specific number. Who the heck project that they will one day produce one every 68 mins? Pretty sure someone took a stop watch and had at least 1 megapack pumped out in 68 min.

68 is a round number in the base-68 number system.
68 in binary is 1000100, which would be a nice round number in decimal.
I'm pretty sure it was some random number like 69 and someone just rounded that down to 68.

 

[mickificki]

Megapack valuation from Bradford Ferguson and Matt Smith:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1621619729008918530

 

[kbM3]

It's not hard, quite simple actually, but I agree, most people make a mess of it. The shotgun approach doesn't work as well as concentrating your investments in a very small number that have a low risk. Managing risk is key because it doesn't take many losses to wipe out some nice gains. But you don't avoid losses by selling when you think the market looks risky, or you see a weak quarter coming up, you avoid losses by investing only in companies that will actually go somewhere and not selling them just because they 5X'ed or 10X'ed or whatever. Only sell them because their growth is ending.

Those are the two keys:

1) Only pick companies that are highly likely to be much bigger in the future and very unlikely to flop and,
2) hold them until they are done growing or you see a much better opportunity

Following my own rules, I was chomping at the bit to invest in TSLA since the IPO, but I couldn't because they didn't meet my investment criteria until 2019. Following these rules you will miss a lot of great companies but it's more important to avoid the ones that don't work. Just because they have the latest and greatest invention is not a good reason to invest. You have to see visionary leadership and good execution. It will probably already be considered expensive when you find it, not always but often, but that doesn't matter because you are investing for long-term growth that you can see will happen. There, I just gave you the core of the secret. It's ignoring Wall Street brokerage analysts, p/e ratios, Jim Cramer, CNBC, and actually investing for the long-term.

It's what word "invest" means. Pick wisely and hold tight unless the reason you invested fundamentally changes. It's not luck but perhaps some people are not suited to seeing how things will likely unfold. No one is right 100% of the time, that is just what you are striving for. It's not about timing, it's about being right in the long-term. The more you have to buy/sell, the lower your returns will probably be.

IIRC the big dip in 2019 was in large part because of one particular fund with a very large holding liquidating, and also because other Wall St. funds were boneheads who couldn’t see Tesla’s value like we did.

So in a sense, you got lucky that 2019 dip happened or you would have REALLY missed out.

 

[AudubonB]

Mostly I agree with your comments. From past working/living in multiple European countries as well as England the parking issue is always one major constraint. Any BEV solved congestion charges and ICE prohibited zones but not the parking issue. On narrow roads in rural areas it seems there are issues almost everywhere, but manageable usually. (it is inconvenient to need to reverse from time to time on narrow roads, curves and switchbacks abound.

It is clear that many wealthy people who have rural dwellings do use very large vehicles, and even improbable ones (e.g. Chelsea tractor). However, the scale is a real problem.

In all our debates here the master issue is always the potential addressable market for a Tesla vehicle somewhere around the Golf/Corolla/Peugeot 208 sizes. As we all probably know that range covers a wide variety of sized and widths, and includes the largest sellers in many markets.

The repetitive debates we have all repeat three themes:
1. Size outside and inside (FWIW check out a Mitsubishi i-MIEV to see giant inside with tiny outside);
2. Price (Cheap! vs Pocket Rocket), including both sales price and production cost;
3. Efficiency (small more efficient vs larger better aerodynamics).

For everyone who offers doubt that this makes is probable anytime soon I ask one question:
Do you really think Tesla is incapable to optimizing the motive and minimizing the negative?
For those who thin this is an obvious near term choice I ask one question?
Do you really think Tesla has solved the battery availability problem in supply and price well enough to make a smaller car/truck/van work?

From all my posts on this subject my opinion is clear. in 2024 we will probably see between 2.5 million and 3.0 million Tesla vehicles produced.

Chances are good that producing a smaller platform can be done using a single casting, and a structural pack that drops in. The designs have been floating around as the promised designed in China model. Will that be a topic on March 1? Concepts were presented as early as 2018, as recruiting devices.

Something along these lines will be part of the nest GF, if not sooner. Only my opinion, of course. I have no crystal ball.

Sitting in a waiting room this morning means I’m not teaching this morning means I have time and ability to join in this morning’s discussion.

So using @unk45 ’s post as reference, I see a long-tailed sweet spot in the mini-Tesla conundrum.

To the extent that Tesla has {battery + overall production} constraints at present - an extent which is very clear to me, esp. as Tesla has asserted it on several occasions - then:

• This leaves an opportunity for other companies to fill the gap
• If that/those are successful, this assists in fulfilling Tesla’s mission.
• If not, then customer dissatisfaction would shunt business to Tesla’s alternative.
• The delayed response, so to speak, of the latter would be inconsequential to Tesla’s bottom line because of the continued opportunities in sales of extant models.
• PERCEIVED - if not genuine - monopolization of an industrial segment is nothing to be belittled or discounted. I can argue ‘til the cows come home that there is a meaningful and honest distinction between “a monopoly” and “monopolistic practice”. Regardless, that can count for naught either in the 21st c US sociopolitical environment, that of W. Europe, or in much of the rest of the world where memories of perceived predatory practices remain.

Exited waiting room hours back; getting to hit "send" only now.

 

[petit_bateau]

You're worried how the paint and resale value of a Model 3 will hold up if you have to push aside some hedges on narrow lanes and get some micro-scratches in the clear coat??

Oh, my! I never knew I was hanging with such stuffy, straitlaced Tesla people! Have some fun and live a little! Tesla are not one-of-a-kind art masterpieces; they are mass-produced production cars meant to be used hard and put away wet! Just another tool in your toolbox, and what a fun one at that! Don't waste your money on petroleum products to protect the body, that's what the paint is for! First principles thinking. Just wax it a couple times a year, wash it when it gets too filthy and then give it a good buffing and a wax before you sell it. It'll look great. Better yet, pay the kid down the street to do it, he will have a story to tell his friends and a few more bucks in his pocket.

It's gonna be worth whatever it's worth when you sell it. Even one scratched to hell and back is going to be worth good money after you've had your way with it. It'll be yours, enjoy it fully, life is too short to worry whether it's worth a few hundred more or less. Try not to dent the body panels, then you will have a real road warrior! Sure, dents can be fixed but it's far better to avoid them in the first place. But scratches? Have at it! I take mine off-road all the time and beat up the alder saplings and it still looks new!

Buy a Model 3 and live a little, I recommend the Performance version but a regular AWD will be a hoot too! Open it up now and again on some of the more abandoned rural routes, push the hedgerows aside as needed to be a good brand ambassador, give them plenty of room so they don't have to fret about scratching theirs while you smile and wave and plow through that hedge. The mirrors will self fold if they encounter a stiff enough branch. Don't worry about the paint, it'll buff out real nice and if you get a deep one, who cares? Cars are not investments in anything but transportation and a bit of fun when going about your day. Enjoy it, don't live in fear! I bet it'll still be worth at least half of what you paid for it after you've had a few thousand carefree adventures in it. Go ahead, cost it out, it'll amount to a few bucks per day any way you slice it, might as well feel liberated while you're having fun!

Life is too short to fret about the little stuff!

My skis, my climbing partners, my business partners, my boats, my cars, my bank balance, all are very clear where I am on the risk/reward line; oh and the ex's [*]

If you want to bring your super-dooper ding-dang rich-mobile over to the lanes here, we can see how you feel about some not-so-micro-scratches in your clear coat. It'd be a blast. On your dime. There is already a charger in the driveway, waiting and running off the solar, on my dime.

So far there ain't been nothing better for these lanes than either the old Delta HF or the 205GTi or 1.9DTi. And in some hands the Golf GTI and (big memories) the final evolution of the Alfa 33 1.7 16vi of which I had the final estate that came to the UK (great engine, less brakes, so all about judging the gap size). All of which are pocket rockets. It will be great when (if) a Tesla 2/Z arrives and can take the knocks and squeeze into the same tight corners and rather abrasive hedges and in time become another numero sacre.

More seriously, only half is not much. Size does matter, and bigger is not always better. Depreciation curves on a Tesla have yet to experience our hedges as most are still living a life of pampered luxury around here, which is not at all my intention.

But the same size constraints that make for a good fit in the lanes, also make for a good fit in a very constrained parking environment. That is the real issue to be faced in accessing a very significant market that is second only in size to the SUV segment. ("Medium" car C-segment is 12m worldwide. The next segment down is the "small" B-segment, typified by Clio at 7m worldwide. Sum them and you have 19m/yr which is almost as significant as the SUV segment of 25m that the Y targets.) This is a big market opportunity waiting for Tesla when the time is right.


* that is, the surviving ones.