2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[drinkerofkoolaid]

It's really a simple question about why you cut his last part of his statement. My question has nothing to do with him. I'm asking what benefits do you get misrepresenting his statement.

I didn't misrepresent anything. You're misrepresenting reality, and are not actually saying anything. Trump, is that you?

Cherry picking facts to cause confusion. The tactic used by the merchants of doubt. I posted what was actually said. You can claim his last sentence represented the dearth of his speech, but the reality is it DID NOT.

 

[SwTslaGrl]

I posted an idea for simplified Model 3 manufacturing here: Model 3 Only 1 Screen Officially

 

[EnzoXYZ]

I didn't misrepresent anything. You're misrepresenting reality, and are not actually saying anything. Trump, is that you?

Cherry picking facts to cause confusion. The tactic used by the merchants of doubt. I posted what was actually said. You can claim his last sentence represented the dearth of his speech, but the reality is it DID NOT.

There is no disagreement on what you post isn't what he said. By cutting out his very next part is purposefully dishonest.

I misrepresent his last sentence

Ah thank you for being truthful! Just posting what you said and oh don't be bothered by the places I cut out.

 

[RobStark]

It's super low as a percentage of the real value of the property, just so you know. Super super low.

http://www.anaheim.net/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/694

Total revenues for Anaheim are $570M.

I don't trust your definition of super super low.

 

[kenliles]

We'll just great...
EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Says Those Who Want To Kill His Agency Are 'Justified' | The Huffington Post

snips:
'
OXON HILL, MD ― Those who want the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate the department are “justified” in their beliefs, the EPA head under President Donald Trump told a gathering of conservatives on Saturday.
“I think people across this county look at the EPA much as they look at the IRS,” said EPA chief Scott Pruitt during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in a suburb of D.C.
'...
'
Pruitt, who was opposed by hundreds of former EPA employees, said that the agency did some “very important” work, but added the Obama administration was too focused on climate change. (Pruitt claimed “we don’t know” how much of an impact that humans had on climate change.) Republicans don’t have anything to apologize about their views on the environment, Pruitt said.
'

 

[RobStark]

You know, your own posted graphic says that California spends less than $10K per year per student for public schools. Would you care to retract your claim?

Here is the specific number.

2016-17 Budget Act Letter - Education Budget (CA Dept of Education)

On a per-pupil basis, Prop 98 spending for K–12 education is $10,643 in 2016–17, up from $10,203 in 2015–16. When all funding sources are considered, per-pupil spending for K–12 is $14,799 in 2016–17, compared to $14,302 in 2015–16.

 

[techmaven]

We'll just great...
EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Says Those Who Want To Kill His Agency Are 'Justified' | The Huffington Post

snips:
'
OXON HILL, MD ― Those who want the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate the department are “justified” in their beliefs, the EPA head under President Donald Trump told a gathering of conservatives on Saturday.
“I think people across this county look at the EPA much as they look at the IRS,” said EPA chief Scott Pruitt during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in a suburb of D.C.
'...
'
Pruitt, who was opposed by hundreds of former EPA employees, said that the agency did some “very important” work, but added the Obama administration was too focused on climate change. (Pruitt claimed “we don’t know” how much of an impact that humans had on climate change.) Republicans don’t have anything to apologize about their views on the environment, Pruitt said.
'

Allergy season has started in the mid-Atlantic area. It's still February. The plants know the climate is changing. And the human factors are the most likely culprit.

 

[SPadival]

Here we have Montana Skeptic predicting Tesla will be bankrupt within four months unless they raise money. Hilariously, he for some reason thinks the entire accounts payable of $1.86B needs to be paid down to zero in that time. Nobody in the comments section picked up on this glaring error. Seeking Alpha is an absolute loony bin.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4049370-tesla-capital-raise-now-bankruptcy-4-months

Poor old Montana Cryptic is arguing for the counter factual now with the sure knowledge that it will become a counter factual later!

I mean everyone and their dog knows Tesla is going for a cap raise within the next 4 months! So when they do, MC will publish another "See..they would have gone bankrupt otherwise" counter factual article. LOL. I don't mind as long as he keeps his "long dated puts" .

 

[MitchJi]

One interesting detail that came out of the leaked Elon e-mail to the employees is that Tesla hired workers for the third shift. This potentially could mean that Tesla can increase production throughput to higher than 2500 MS/MX per week, if final assembly production area will indeed switch to 3 shift operation. BTW, for anybody with upcoming factory tour in the near future this is one piece of information that would be very useful (whether final assembly area is currently running three shifts).

Good catch! What else could it mean? The Fremont production factory had what some employees considered excessive overtime and Tesla hired a third shift. Who else at Fremont had excessive overtime

What I mean with insufficient testing includes production testing. Before rollout typical auto makers spend a good amount of time hashing out production issues during their testing. As you stated it appears Tesla is still ironing out production problems by delivering cars to customers diet and fixing problems second. This can and should be avoided by fixing those problems earlier through more exhaustive testing and test production runs prior to shipping cars. If Tesla would have done that, the MX rollout would have been so...

Maybe Tesla feels that they can't afford to produce runs of cars in order to verify production and it seems as though they don't believe it's necessary?

I remember reading about a MX that had been tested off road, so it's not that they don't do any testing. I'm not stating that their procedure is optimum. Clearly selling signature cars to customers to find and fix production problems isn't good. I was disagreeing with your conclusion that the problem is likely to be an issue with the M3.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

This is only an inferred possibility, and not one that you substantiate with a reason or evidence, which is why I disagreed with you on this in part.

Lack of 2H guidance could be that they just don't know how the production mix will settle between S, X, and 3. Major changes to factory layout could cause disruption in the lines.

If you want to make a case, your going to need something better than: "No guidance... it must be management is concerned about XYZ". I'd like to know WHY you believe 3 will displace S sales. And X sales. With the X in particular it is confusing.

I just bought S60, would have gotten Model 3 if it were available. Model S size is a disadvantage for me, not an advantage. It was also a financial stretch from what i wanted to spend.

This is only an anecdotal evidence, but there is certainly portion of S buyers that would be more than happy to go with Model 3, especially if they live in city cores (I live in the downtown of Toronto, this is typical size of single [expensive!] home) or anywhere in Europe... I was _schocked_ after parking my Model S first time, and started looking if there is a way to return it inside of first few days. Of course I didn't, but maybe because there wasn't a way?

 

[DaveT]

I'm not stating that their procedure is optimum. Clearly selling signature cars to customers to find and fix production problems isn't good. I was disagreeing with your conclusion that the problem is likely to be an issue with the M3.

I'm somewhat confused. What are we disagreeing about? Seems like both of us are saying their previous testing procedures, especially related to the Model X, aren't optimal. And both of us think Tesla has a good chance at fixing that and making a good quality Model 3. Am I missing something?

 

[madodel]

There is no disagreement on what you post isn't what he said. By cutting out his very next part is purposefully dishonest.



Ah thank you for being truthful! Just posting what you said and oh don't be bothered by the places I cut out.

Can you two children please take this nonsense somewhere else.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

The reason Elon used a 4 year holding period is because that is required by the grant. The options take 4 years to vest. The employees didn't have a choice to sell them until just recently.

That's not how ISO's work. Yes the time period for the options is 4 years, but they vest in tranches. The typical incentive stock options vests 25% after the first anniversary of working for the company, and then 1/12 of 25% every month thereafter, until all of your stock options have vested by the 4th anniversary of working for the company.

One thing to note is that these are options, and you can't really trade them even if they've vested. You have to exercise the options to get the stocks, and those you can sell on the open market.

There's an additional wrinkle, although your options don't vest until after the first year, with some companies, you can actually exercise the options well in advance of vesting. It's just that if you choose to do this, and leave the company before they've vested, you'll have to return the shares back to the company, not a very smart option.

Anyway, the point is that the employees can start exercising their options and selling their shares (25% of them) after just 1 year.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

The outcome of the war between the bulls and bears will ultimately come down to this fundamental issue: how stellar (or unstellar) the Model 3 is.

I feel qualified to comment.

As a car guy, someone that spends waaay more budget-wise on cars than is appropriate, owner of couple of Porsches over the years (that's my current GT4 in my avatar) and anything and everything else sport/luxury-wise, frequent visitor to race-tracks(to drive, not observe , brother of a guy who lives in a very poor country and yet owns 9 cars (runs in the family!), and most importantly, as a new owner of S60 (bare-bones stripper one), I can confidently say:

There is no way M3 doesn't shake car-industry and change the world.*

*(after first few quarter of glitches)

 

[KLC13]

I feel qualified to comment.

As a car guy, someone that spends waaay more budget-wise on cars than is appropriate, owner of couple of Porsches over the years (that's my current GT4 in my avatar) and anything and everything else sport/luxury-wise, frequent visitor to race-tracks(to drive, not observe , brother of a guy who lives in a very poor country and yet owns 9 cars (runs in the family!), and most importantly, as a new owner of S60 (bare-bones stripper one), I can confidently say:

There is no way M3 doesn't shake car-industry and change the world.*

*(after first few quarter of glitches)

Agreed. I drove down Avenue Rd. from 401 to Downtown Toronto today. Counted 5 Model S's and 2 Model X's. The most Ive seen in one short trip in the city. Tesla has shaken the luxury auto market already, mid-size sedan getting ready to be shaken in a few months.

 

[kenliles]

So in addition to (allegedly) using stolen assets from Google (lawsuit filed),
NY Times reports Uber lied about the infamous red light issue. Not human error after all.
Advantage Tesla
(and whoever pocketed their stolen software as it seems to actually work )
Gettin' pretty desperate out there- trying to keep up with the real McCoy.
Even with all those extra billions Tesla doesn't have...

From the article (my bold):
'
Uber, a ride-hailing service, said the incident was because of human error. “This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers,” Chelsea Kohler, a company spokeswoman, said in December.

But even though Uber said it had suspended an employee riding in the Volvo, the self-driving car was, in fact, driving itself when it barreled through the red light, according to two Uber employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements with the company, and internal Uber documents viewed by The New York Times. All told, the mapping programs used by Uber’s cars failed to recognize six traffic lights in the San Francisco area. “In this case, the car went through a red light,” the documents said.
'

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/...vandowski-waymo-uber-google-lawsuit.html?_r=2

 

[zdriver]

Apparently Tesla started putting customers on the list of reservations for Solar Roof:

I actually just got a call a few minutes ago from a Solarcity employee saying Powerwall and Solar Roof should be ready towards the end of this summer and putting me on the list of reservations. She also said they will discontinue the name Solarcity by then. Exciting stuff.

Of course I'm in Nevada so we have to wait for our dipshit Governor to get off his ass and approve the laws we voted for, re-allowing residential solar installs. But better than nothing.

I actually got a call 2-3 weeks ago (probably 50-100 pages ago in this thread...) about my interest in a Powerwall and Solar Roof, as did @neroden iirc. Said they were starting as planned in summer (no mention of "end of summer" at that time), but didn't have installers in Wisconsin, so they could instead put me on a list to contact me when it was available in my area.
For the Powerwall however, they seemed confident there would be an installer available from the start (before summer I presume?) and were asking me to confirm my interest by putting down a deposit. Passed on it for now, as I don't have my solar array completed yet, or the electrical done in the building it's going to hook into. (Wasn't expecting Powerwall 2's to start shipping until spring or summer...)

 

[mmd]

Can anyone comment on the wording of the 8-k released yesterday that says Wheeler notified Tesla on the 21st he is leaving? I highly doubt they could have Deepak lined up that quickly so I guess it may have been in the works but he didn't hand in official notice until the 21st. I just have no way of knowing if that is strange or not.

Curious to say the least. Wondering, if he didn't agree with some of the stuff in the quarterly report, or if he forced somethings in there that Elon didn't want to see. Both CEO and CFO need to sign the shareholder report. Some disagreements might have showed up. He was also snubbed by Elon in the ER for giving a straight answer about the available credit line.
But it seems, Jason Wheeler didn't see a path to $1000 SP. He is leaving with only 30% of his stock options vested.

The reason Elon used a 4 year holding period is because that is required by the grant. The options take 4 years to vest. The employees didn't have a choice to sell them until just recently.

This is wrong. Typical option vesting is 25% after year 1, then 1/48th of the total grant vesting each month thereafter.
What’s a typical vesting schedule for employee stock options?

If it was true (all options vest after 4 years), then taking a 4 year period starting Jan 2013 would be the most biased comparison. A fair method would be to do random simulation (yes, simulation!) with employees joining and leaving with different lengths of employment, and see what the compensation converges to. But that would require writing a few hundred lines of code, and may not yield the desired result.

 

[EnzoXYZ]

Can you two children please take this nonsense somewhere else.

It was in good fun lol. Yes mother.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

If it was true (all options vest after 4 years), then taking a 4 year period starting Jan 2013 would be the most biased comparison. A fair method would be do random simulation (yes, simulation!) with employees joining and leaving with different lengths of employment, and see what the compensation converges to. But that would require writing a few hundred lines of code, and may not yield the desired result.

I have worked with CEO (and I agree in principle) who recognized and wanted to encourage long tenure, on the grounds of higher engagement, corporate memory etc. In that model, one wouldn't necessarily worry about making sure all is the same for employees leaving after short(ish) period of time, i.e. under 4 years.

Company I worked for was starting with 3 weeks of vacation, moving to 4 weeks after 5 years, and 5 weeks in 10th year. On top of increasing salaries, option grants etc.

I'd be surprised Elon cares to financially reward people that leave after 2 years. Now, he may have to do that in fields that are incredibly competitive, like engineering, but outside of it, programs are likely not structured, nor geared towards rewarding short stays. And on the long stay, it all comes in a wash.