2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[phil0909]

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Hint: pay attention to the synonyms.

Well, you may or may not be an herbivore, but you're certainly as stubborn as a rhino!

Still wrong, however. Here's the thing about synonyms - they often have similar, but not identical meanings. Synonyms can help you understand a word, but they do not supersede the definition, and they do require some consideration. This is why Merriam Webster, for example, provides a discussion with its list of synonyms. Enjoy, and learn!

"Synonym Discussion of mislead
deceive, mislead, delude, beguile mean to lead astray or frustrate usually by underhandedness. deceive implies imposing a false idea or belief that causes ignorance, bewilderment, or helplessness (tried to deceive me about the cost). mislead implies a leading astray that may or may not be intentional (I was misled by the confusing sign). delude implies deceiving so thoroughly as to obscure the truth (we were deluded into thinking we were safe). beguilestresses the use of charm and persuasion in deceiving (was beguiled by false promises)."

Do you think the sign was lying?

 

[Hogfighter]

I posted this a year ago. Looks like it needs to be restated:

Lying is stating what you currently know to be incorrect.

Exaggerating is only stating the most positive of all the facts, and omitting the most negative ones.

Speculating is stating what you believe the most likely future will bring, which may or may not turn out to be correct.

Misspeaking is stating what you believe to be correct, only to be proven incorrect (human error).

Please refer to these when commenting on one's statements. Elon et. al. occasionally exaggerate, often speculate, rarely (but sometimes) misspeak....but I have never heard a lie.

 

[Driver Dave]

Consumer Reports is schizophrenic when it comes to Tesla.

I think they get caught up with nit picking, and then remember "oh yeah, these cars is a 1000x more awesome than everything else" and the nits go back to just rounding errors.

 

[kenliles]

Ugh... I don't have any other words

Beijing wants to replace its 70,000 taxis with electric vehicles to fight local air pollution

 

[disagree]

I posted this a year ago. Looks like it needs to be restated:

Lying is stating what you currently know to be incorrect.

Exaggerating is only stating the most positive of all the facts, and omitting the most negative ones.

Speculating is stating what you believe the most likely future will bring, which may or may not turn out to be correct.

Misspeaking is stating what you believe to be correct, only to be proven incorrect (human error).

Please refer to these when commenting on one's statements. Elon et. al. occasionally exaggerate, often speculate, rarely (but sometimes) misspeak....but I have never heard a lie.

You forgot duplicity -- deliberate deception through double-talk.

 

[racer26]

I would say that the opposite is closer to the truth. I want to know when the Model 3 will be sold in volume. I personally care much less about management's honesty or exposure to fraud charges. YMMV...

So does management, me, and everyone else want to know when Model 3 will be sold in volume. That's the problem with forward-looking statements though. They attempt to predict the future of something difficult to predict. Management is in a better position than the rest of us to do so, and so what they have to say about it holds a good deal of weight.

Thus, since we are still within a week of management telling us that we're on-track for a July initial deliveries with full volume production in September, that can be taken as gospel until such time as there is hard evidence, or even some shred of something to the contrary. Having a belief that is different from what management said less than a week ago requires that either you think they're lying, or that something has materially changed since they made that statement. If something has materially changed, you should be able to point to it as the reason you disbelieve.

Past performance in this case is a poor indicator of future performance for many reasons already beaten to death around here. You can't simply say "Tesla is always late to launch products, so they're going to be late again." You have to have an actual reason to disbelieve them, or else you're accusing them of lying.

Nobody cares about exposure to fraud charges. They care about how trustworthy what management says is. My argument is that what they say is indeed trustworthy - but its subject to forces beyond anyone's control that mean those predictions can be substantially different from the eventual reality that occurs.

 

[Noble Ninja]

Unsure, as to how impactful this is.

Target price hoisted by equities research analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from $245.00 to $314.00 in a report.

Tesla Inc (TSLA) PT Raised to $314.00

RBC upgrades their PT by a whopping $69 leading to not much price action, and GS downgrades by a mere $5 leading to a big drop of 5% in one day. Makes sense.

 

[Navin]

Odds of Elon making an appearance tonight - " we are sending people around the moon - it's going to be huge"

Pan shot of Elon musk sitting in the audience doing the musk nod with Ivanka and Melanie both sitting next to him.

 

[schonelucht]

According to the lawsuit you provided the purchase orders issued by Tesla to Hoerbiger span the time between February 2014 and May 2015 and covered tooling expenses, engineering, design and testing. How Tesla could have concluded that Hoerbiger design did not work if it was not tested out by them, let alone Tesla. In the sequence above, PO for testing would be the last of the ones listed above, so it must have been issued after the 2014Q3 call.

Please read the lawsuit again. That solely the last PO would be the one for testing and would be where Tesla found out is just not substantiated at all. On the contrary.

Between March 2014 and May 2015, pursuant to the nine Discrete POs, HOERBIGER provided TESLA with several iterations of the proposed hydraulic actuation system. During this process, TESLA discovered several fundamental problems with the proposed system. For example, the system was prone to overheating, ...

...TESLA repeatedly advised HOERBIGER of these issues and attempted to work with HOERBIGER to fix them

Clearly the fundamental problems weren't discovered right at the end of the of the cycle. Over several of the iterations Tesla was actively involved trying to help Hoerbiger to get it right. But the continued finding of the same errors without remedies is what kept the cycle going. Again, at the point of the conference call, Tesla was already running behind on their schedule.

 

[dw4ngg]

Tesla And The Market: A Mystery Wrapped In An Enigma, Wrapped In Blind Faith

Pretty garbage article. Please discuss. This guy is basing his entire bearish stance on capital raise and profits..... which we all know is dumb when you're reinvesting in an even more profitable product to be sold later...

 

[erthquake]

Odds of Elon making an appearance tonight - " we are sending people around the moon - it's going to be huge"

Pan shot of Elon musk sitting in the audience doing the musk nod with Ivanka and Melanie both sitting next to him.

Wishful thinking. Trumps guests are "the widow of Justice Antonin Scalia and three families who have been victims of violence by undocumented immigrants." From Politico.

 

[PaulRocket]

Uber seems to have only negative news lately, some of you might find this interesting:
In Video, Uber CEO Argues With Driver Over Falling Fares

 

[kenliles]

Tesla responds to allegations of discrimination made by a female engineer, 3rd party review found no wrongdoing

Tesla Statement regarding the employee lawsuit case
"
“Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. Ms. Vandermeyden joined Tesla in a sales position in 2013, and since then, despite having no formal engineering degree, she has sought and moved into successive engineering roles, beginning with her work in Tesla’s paint shop and eventually another role in General Assembly. Even after she made her complaints of alleged discrimination, she sought and was advanced into at least one other new role, evidence of the fact that Tesla is committed to rewarding hard work and talent, regardless of background. When Ms. Vandermeyden first brought her concerns to us over a year ago, we immediately retained a neutral third party, Anne Hilbert of EMC2Law, to investigate her claims so that, if warranted, we could take appropriate action to address the issues she raised. After an exhaustive review of the facts, the independent investigator determined that Ms. Vandermeyden’s “claims of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation have not been substantiated.” Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.”
"

 

[Muaddid]

Odds of Elon making an appearance tonight - " we are sending people around the moon - it's going to be huge"
Pan shot of Elon musk sitting in the audience doing the musk nod with Ivanka and Melanie both sitting next to him.

Maybe the Trumps are the one going around the moon ?

 

[myusername]

Maybe the Trumps are the one going around the moon ?

and their tickets were paid for through anonymous donations.

 

[sdtslafan]

and their tickets were paid for through anonymous donations.

Finally an investment you and I can agree on

 

[kenliles]

and their tickets were paid for through anonymous donations.

Gives new meaning to
Americans sent to space by Russians

 

[Waiting4M3]

Please read the lawsuit again. That solely the last PO would be the one for testing and would be where Tesla found out is just not substantiated at all. On the contrary.



Clearly the fundamental problems weren't discovered right at the end of the of the cycle. Over several of the iterations Tesla was actively involved trying to help Hoerbiger to get it right. But the continued finding of the same errors without remedies is what kept the cycle going. Again, at the point of the conference call, Tesla was already running behind on their schedule.

If there is time to place 9 PO in the span of 15 months (Mar '14 - May '15), then it doesn't appear that the Hoerbiger part is a long lead time part, maybe 1-1.5 months.

It's not clear when all of the issues were discovered, but lets say you're right and Tesla had found all the problems by Nov 2014, 6-7 months away from the Q2 2015 target, given the 1+ month lead time and reputation of the vendor, is it not reasonable for Tesla to believe that the problems can be fixed without impacting the schedule? If they didn't believe it could be fixed, then why did they continue to order more parts to try for another 6 months, throwing money and time away?

 

[jhm]

Shell's 1991 warning: climate changing ‘at faster rate than at any time since end of ice age’

 

[dc_h]

I am more interested in the Uber\Otto lawsuits. If Uber paid $680 million for Otto, what would Waymo and Tesla expect to gain in a lawsuit, if they prove that Otto stole the technology and that Uber knowingly acquired stolen IP?
I would have to guess this lawsuit could be in the billions. It has had little press and I have to assume people are not thinking about the true value of first mover in this market space.
I have enjoyed Uber in the past, but will be Lyft if needed in the future.