2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[Reciprocity]

November sales in Germany up 98,5% versus November 2016 and 85,8% YoY Jan-Nov.

Total Vehicles sold: 3042.

Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt - Fahrzeugzulassungen - Pressemitteilung Nr. 29/2017 - Fahrzeugzulassungen im November 2017

Thats a great development!

And this is just MS and MX of course...... a market that is still growing ....

There is massive demand left in the greater addressable market. China could easily double just to come inline with the US. Places like the middle east and South Korea are relatively new markets that should be very strong. Tesla does not yet sell in India for example. There are huge markets that could add significantly to demand. My question is how is Tesla going to make the cars? It seems like they fulfill a bunch of cars in say HK as some incentive gets removed and then turns that volume to another place. Germany and Spain for example are posts we have recently seen with huge upticks. The X is also still not a mature model and will not be until probably 2019 or beyond. What I mean by that is that even if you want an X today, but last year you leased a G Wagon and wont be able to get out of it until the end of 2018. Also, people havnt started purchasing their second model X's yet. The CPO market is pretty close to nil for Model Xs. I still just dont know how they intend to produce 120k or even 150k S/X. One theory I have been chewing on is a Model 3ification of the S/X production where they simplify the interior to allow for a lot more automation. This would start with Model 3 battery modules and of course 2170 cells. I cannot imagine when this will happen, but I always assumed it would be around the time the Fed Tax credits expired as a way to pump up demand. Maybe they could get to 120k with 3 shifts, but the demand should be well above that by this time next year.

Also, I am calling my shot, if the Fed Tax credits go away prematurely, Tesla will extend free supercharging for life to Model 3/S/X that would have qualified for the credit but are now unable to get it. If the Tax credits go way on time, then I foresee it coming back for S/X as a way to maintain the value at the current price (along with refresh and 2170 packs.)

 

[Reciprocity]

The key part of this article tied both Tesla and General Motors to the project.

If its a $7B steel factory, then it could be tied to every automaker and thousands of other companies evil and good. Maybe they are going to use massive amounts of solar and batteries to create the temps needed to make the steel. Tesla would be a great partner for that.

 

[Reciprocity]

Damn, when will this nightmare called production hell end? Musk said 6 months of production hell, and I guess he wasn't lying. It seems we'll just have to keep watching cars trickle out til end of January.

Regardless, it sucks. I'm ready to throw some *sugar* in a few naysayers' faces!

GM Beating Tesla at their Own Game

View attachment 264663

Wait, GM is selling more cars at a loss then Tesla? No way.. Not buying it. JK.

 

[Drax7]

Your points are always the same -- tunneling is a big, hard, expensive problem and Elon hasn't said how he's going to do way better than everybody else. The problem with your position is that Elon has now disrupted multiple industries. So being knowledgeable about the industry and saying you don't think Elon can disrupt it comes across as pretty meaningless, merely confirming that you'll be one of those embarrassed when he does.

Now, I'm not saying Elon has a better solution for everything, but he does seem to have a pretty decent sense of which projects are worth pursuing. Maybe this time it's different. Maybe The Boring Co. will go nowhere. But I wouldn't bet against him. Certainly not on the word of "some guy on the internet" (that's you) who says the problem is hard. Elon eats hard problems for breakfast.

Don’t forget that hubris plays a part in decision making, even when it comes to Elon.
On the other hand, LA traffic must be so frustrating that boring seems the path of least resistance.

 

[Reciprocity]

Don’t forget that hubris plays a part in decision making, even when it comes to Elon.
On the other hand, LA traffic must be so frustrating that boring seems the path of least resistance.

I think Elon did what he always does.. He looked 100 years into the future and thought about what the world would look like. He could have done flying EVs or hyperloops but what he saw was bank vacuum tubes shooting people all around the city and country through tubes and he noticed how bad it looked to have tubes running every where through a city, so he thought, lets bury them. Hyperloop is interesting but getting the right away you need to make it really viable is going to be a nightmare. Really only one way to go. Down. This stuff is not really hard to conceive, its really difficult to have the massive gonads it requires to actually take the risks and the will to execute. Thats the difference between Elon and others.

 

[JRP3]

Speaking of Germany, Mercedes caught abusing a rented Tesla How Mercedes got caught trashing a rental Tesla Model X

 

[mongo]

If its a $7B steel factory, then it could be tied to every automaker and thousands of other companies evil and good. Maybe they are going to use massive amounts of solar and batteries to create the temps needed to make the steel. Tesla would be a great partner for that.

Just drank coffee, so this could be the caffeine talking..

What is Michigan surrounded by??? H20
What is this coal fired plant going to produce besides steel? CO2.

What do you need to make BFR/ BFS fuel without oil? CO2 + H20 + electricity.

Maybe not the lowest cost way to do it, but nicer than pumping/ cracking oil. (we also have landfills production CH4...)

 

[Runarbt]

If its a $7B steel factory, then it could be tied to every automaker and thousands of other companies evil and good. Maybe they are going to use massive amounts of solar and batteries to create the temps needed to make the steel. Tesla would be a great partner for that.

" ..coal-fired power plant to melt iron ore. "

Report: 'Project Tim' involves billion-dollar steel mill in Durand

 

[DragonWatch]

Just to ReCap ~ it’s December, and me I believe in the tooth fairy. I have lost all four wisdom teeth, and two crowns. So, saying at my age you should respect age as wisdom, well I am not sure it is always justified. Oh, and a night guard helps! So, thank you tooth fairy, I still have most of my original teeth. I am blessed!

Today is the 5th of December 2017.

Sugar Daddy’s tax incentive is sacking the alternative fuel program as I think I understand the bill/law ~ if I understand it. Therefore, based on past sales/deliveries during this month, I believe we will see record deliveries. I think that with the alternative fuel project being abandoned, there will be buyers anything Tesla (new). That deal could spike MS & MX sales! The only thing spiking M3 sales is clearing the loggerheads. We have wild a$$ guesses from our bean, I mean VIN counters in the wild. I love the term “wild” since nothing is wild anymore. To those that are excitedly reporting in with your findings; many of us here say thank you!

Now, being it is the Happy Holliday period; you know time to visit the relatives and get drunk or high in marijuana states. Therefore, as is typically the case manufacturing may slow/stop. Or, are we at such a point in technology that stopping is no longer necessary? Back in my day if you were single, you got stuck with skeleton shifts while the family oriented folks got the time off with their family. Like we had no family:-(

We have heard that a M3 with all the bells and whistles takes you to the the cusp of the starting price of a MS, therefore, in the current political environment it makes perfect sense to get off the dime of a M3 and buy that MS or bridge the gap with an MX. This will also be reflected in used Tesla car sales.

If I viewed the InsideEVs chart correctly the Leaf is having trouble. Probably the range and you have to enter a special closet at the dealership to make the deal. The Volt is got a steady stream flowing out the door ~ good from the competitive side of the house and global warming/climate change. But, and this is an interesting but, there are some brands instead of increasing, they are decreasing. Porsche, and Mercedes are finding trickle down economics are not favoring their flavor of EV. Now, keep in mind that the InsideEVs is only US based and we are dealing with a lot of fake news. But, I take eggshells and often try to put Humpty Dumpty back together or follow the bread crumbs (gluten-free) back to the source. And yes, sometimes it is like walking on eggshells

Then recently we got a really good report from Spain. Spain appears to be becoming a potential leader in striving to lead the world in converting from fossil fuel to EV. Here I thought their fifteen minutes of fame ended with pointed steel helmets, spears and of course swords. Okay, their wind powered boats were good too.

On the battle front; well, while it may look like Tesla is losing on the perspective of Bears/Shorts (fossil fuels/ICE), Tesla is still getting out the door most everything they produce, while the big guys are feeling the effects of growth not so much. Even Solar energy is feeling the affects of Sugar Daddy Politics. At first it is sticky, but not everyone will be encased in the rock candy. Based on the negative incentive approach by my state, Washington, I am looking to move towards big time battery backup to my solar system. Why give solar energy free/at cost to big corporations. Having Solar panels is like harvesting your own honey from bees without the sugar high

Please note that Tesla/Elon once presented with a crack in the armor; always not only fixes it, they improve it. Tesla is going from golf cart to roadster in the blink of an eye. While all the salmon are swimming up stream to die, Tesla is swimming back out to sea to live.

While I am not in the ozone layer to benefit from the new taxation incentive, those that are will see the alternative fuel incentive work in their favor on purchases of the newer Roadsters and Semi’s. So, not all is lost

Where GM is playing ostrich with Sugar Daddy’s new plan; selling to tear III tax payers your mass market cars will find sales drying up. Additionally, if they stick with reduced life span of parts, they will lose even more sales. Lutz recently touted that big car makers would disappear; was this what he had in mind? A few years back someone gave us $600 tax bucks back; I think it was Daddy War Bucks, and like most folks I peed it away within three days ~ I know what took me so long ~ right

Bullish ~ Go Green! Looking outside the box, my glass will always be half full or empty ~ not sure which way the wind is blowing. Tesla fundamentalists have not changed, and we are still in the six or so months of HELL Elon said you and I would go through ~ so buck up. The employees are the ones lifting the real heavy load ~ you and I are just along for the ride. When the going gets tough, the tough get going ~ Elon/Tesla (employees) always do. Is this ReCap enough for you? :-( or

Edit ~ I hope I caught most of the highlights ~ if I misspelled or grammatically misspoke I apologize up front. I do not like my iPad when it comes to putting words to paper. But, hey ~ work with what you got. My tooth fairy came early ~ my MX is quietly charging in the garage where she (Xena) has been since 31Mar17 or 1Q17. Okay, so give or take 13K miles of pure driving pleasure If you want something bad about Tesla from me; well good luck with that

 

[DragonWatch]

There is massive demand left in the greater addressable market. China could easily double just to come inline with the US. Places like the middle east and South Korea are relatively new markets that should be very strong. Tesla does not yet sell in India for example. There are huge markets that could add significantly to demand. My question is how is Tesla going to make the cars? It seems like they fulfill a bunch of cars in say HK as some incentive gets removed and then turns that volume to another place. Germany and Spain for example are posts we have recently seen with huge upticks. The X is also still not a mature model and will not be until probably 2019 or beyond. What I mean by that is that even if you want an X today, but last year you leased a G Wagon and wont be able to get out of it until the end of 2018. Also, people havnt started purchasing their second model X's yet. The CPO market is pretty close to nil for Model Xs. I still just dont know how they intend to produce 120k or even 150k S/X. One theory I have been chewing on is a Model 3ification of the S/X production where they simplify the interior to allow for a lot more automation. This would start with Model 3 battery modules and of course 2170 cells. I cannot imagine when this will happen, but I always assumed it would be around the time the Fed Tax credits expired as a way to pump up demand. Maybe they could get to 120k with 3 shifts, but the demand should be well above that by this time next year.

Also, I am calling my shot, if the Fed Tax credits go away prematurely, Tesla will extend free supercharging for life to Model 3/S/X that would have qualified for the credit but are now unable to get it. If the Tax credits go way on time, then I foresee it coming back for S/X as a way to maintain the value at the current price (along with refresh and 2170 packs.)

I bought my (our) MX without the Free SC and were grateful when it was gifted to us afterwards. But while it seems cool and I like anything ~ okay almost ~ free, it is not or was not a game changer. We charge at home typically and took the one trip south to visit grandma and visit Tesla factory. The road trip, again charging was free, but not a breaker of the bank nor would it have prevented the trip had we had to pay for the charge.

As much as I love Tesla and again love of free things; I do not think it is up to Tesla to carry the water for Rome.

 

[Waiting4M3]

There's one particular bit in the math about electric semis being competitive with freight rail that is important and not somethign I've seen addressed. The trucking industry is the recipient of a huge subsidy from society in the form of road building and maintenance - something the rail industry isn't a beneficiary of. If the two industries were subsidy neutral, would it still be financially sensible to shift bulk heavy freight to trucks? My guess is no.

Depending on a subsidy to continue for the economics ... that isn't a business model I'm putting into my own investment equation. I big increase in road wear and tear, and thus maintenance, is also going to translate into a bigger subsidy or it's going to translate into bigger road use fees more in line with the damage trucks are doing. And that'll take some of the economic benefit away.

For my part, the beginning of your point is plenty for my own ongoing investment. I don't need Tesla Semis to start taking business from freight rail (though I wouldn't mind seeing a battery electric train in 10 years - wouldn't that be a kick).

You just reminded me of a way they will probably go after the semi, since it has more power than diesel trucks, they will invent a new Tesla semi tax for road repair because it will cause more damage to the road than diesel semis.

 

[mongo]

You just reminded me of a way they will probably go after the semi, since it has more power than diesel trucks, they will invent a new Tesla semi tax for road repair because it will cause more damage to the road than diesel semis.

At which time we point out that an electric motor has a smooth and controlled torque output whereas a standard tractor is jerky with higher force excursions.

 

[scaesare]

Y Maybe The Boring Co. will go nowhere.

It has nowhere to go but down, really.

 

[neroden]

Your points are always the same -- tunneling is a big, hard, expensive problem and Elon hasn't said how he's going to do way better than everybody else. The problem with your position is that Elon has now disrupted multiple industries. So being knowledgeable about the industry and saying you don't think Elon can disrupt it comes across as pretty meaningless, merely confirming that you'll be one of those embarrassed when he does.

In Tesla, he *said* how he was going to do better. In SpaceX, he *said* how he was going to do better (although admittedly they were a bit quiet about their main cost-reduction method). Furthermore, in both cases, he was looking at the right problems.

I think he's not looking at the right problems with the Boring Company. I wish he would look at the right problems, because then he might make real progress. If I see confirmation that he's looking at the right *problems*, which could come at any time but has not happened yet, then I'll believe he can make progress.

Has he figured out that one of the biggest cost problems isn't even technical? It's the mobbed-up nature of the heavy construction business in many areas. Starting his own company is a start at dealing with that, but, uh, get some really good security guards if you're going to try to fight that...

Regarding the technical problems, he's consistently proposing solutions for non-problems while not looking at the actual problems. This is emphatically NOT what happened with Tesla or SpaceX, though arguably it is what happened to SolarCity, whose initial business model almost took down the company.

Now, I'm not saying Elon has a better solution for everything, but he does seem to have a pretty decent sense of which projects are worth pursuing. Maybe this time it's different. Maybe The Boring Co. will go nowhere. But I wouldn't bet against him. Certainly not on the word of "some guy on the internet" (that's you) who says the problem is hard. Elon eats hard problems for breakfast.

Yeah, but if he's looking at the wrong problems, which he is, that doesn't MATTER. It's not that the problem is hard, it's that he's looking at the wrong problem. This is an old engineer's error, and *Musk is an engineer*.

 

[DragonWatch]

I think Elon did what he always does.. He looked 100 years into the future and thought about what the world would look like. He could have done flying EVs or hyperloops but what he saw was bank vacuum tubes shooting people all around the city and country through tubes and he noticed how bad it looked to have tubes running every where through a city, so he thought, lets bury them. Hyperloop is interesting but getting the right away you need to make it really viable is going to be a nightmare. Really only one way to go. Down. This stuff is not really hard to conceive, its really difficult to have the massive gonads it requires to actually take the risks and the will to execute. Thats the difference between Elon and others.

If the tubes were above ground, we would look like the kids hamsters

 

[mongo]

You may have missed my point. (Possibly two of my points.) If you've ever followed a tunnel being built, an exorbitant amount of the time and a disproportionate amount of the money is spent on the initial digging from the surface to get underground, not on the straight underground digging. (There's also an unusual amount of money and time spent on junctions.) You can't just drop a tunnel boring machine on a muddy field and have it start going. Even Musk's test bore suffered the same problem; a large amount of slow work setting up the "launch site". Without dealing with this problem, the tunnel cost is going to end up roughly proportional to the number of portals, and the portals are going to be blow-out expensive same as they always are.

I would feel more positive if Musk had, so far, suggested even *one* way in which he was going to cut these costs. But he hasn't. When he does, let me know.

Doesn't the elevator concept go a long way to addressing this issue? No large underground cavern/station to excavate and stabilize, no ramped excavation for stair/ escalators. You need one clear large spot for each TBM (two if you start in the middle) to be inserted to dig the horizontals. With enough starting space, it seems you could start at/ near the surface then down tunnel to the right depth and continue on, this makes the material handling much simpler.
Once the TBM is doing its thing, you use pilings, caissons or such to access the tunnels. Minimal overdig involved. Not sue how they'll do the side track load/unload sections though...

 

[3Victoria]

.... The trucking industry is the recipient of a huge subsidy from society in the form of road building and maintenance - something the rail industry isn't a beneficiary of. If the two industries were subsidy neutral, would it still be financially sensible to shift bulk heavy freight to trucks? My guess is no.
... (though I wouldn't mind seeing a battery electric train in 10 years - wouldn't that be a kick).

Thanks for making this point, and for Neroden pointing out the intrinsic efficiency of trains. We should never put all our eggs in one basket. Rail should best best for long distances, and electrifying them is a solved problem (look at EU trains). Trucks are better for distribution over moderate distances. A mix is best.

 

[3Victoria]

You just reminded me of a way they will probably go after the semi, since it has more power than diesel trucks, they will invent a new Tesla semi tax for road repair because it will cause more damage to the road than diesel semis.

Road damage is related to vehicle weight. Tesla Semi is about the same weight as other semis/trailers: 80000 lbs. Of course, that fact does not politicians constructinh illogical taxes.

 

[tander]

Thanks for making this point, and for Neroden pointing out the intrinsic efficiency of trains. We should never put all our eggs in one basket. Rail should best best for long distances, and electrifying them is a solved problem (look at EU trains). Trucks are better for distribution over moderate distances. A mix is best.

This makes me wonder about trains. If we've got platooning self driving semis are trains still going to make sense? If they still do does it make more sense for them to all head underground? Could battery powered trains make sense? Could there be freight applications for hyperloops?

 

[MitchJi]

Why do you think the estimate is incorrect? Is it too good to be true? What if someone outside of Tesla had told you on Nov 15 that Roadster 2 would have a 200kwh pack and 620 mi range and cost only $200K? or that a semi with 500 mi range would cost less than that?

Because he based his estimate on the cost of an above ground hyperloop system in California. He made a huge reduction based on his belief that a nhpppp he thinks that the hyperloop cars will cost a lot more than the hyperloop pods.

I don’t think that the Roadster and semi prices are that surprising and I don’t see any connection between tunnel boring costs and any of Tesla’s prices.