2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[mmd]

Pumped storage is useless when there is a drought, or it is full, as the article I linked (and you apparently did not read) explained. Overfilled pumped storage that will be in forced spilled IS one of the reasons for the glut of energy and expected curtailment California will face this spring. Next time please do your homework before posting.

Some of them, sure. But most pumped water storage stations are closed systems and have nothing to do with the drought or excess rain. AND, they could control th espill at peak hours, cutting other peaker usage. It is not like hydro generation cannot be controlled, like in solar r wind. So, I am not seeing the problem here.
If that doesn't work, utilities can always let @FredTMC and other EV owners charge their EVs for a lower price during the few hours around noon.

Note, minimum daily consumption is ~20 GW in California. So, as of yet, there shouldn't be an issue in consuming 8-10 GW of 1-2 hours of peak solar + wind generation.

Even if all you say is true, AND there is really a need to curtail more this spring, it's too late for batteries to impact in any significant manner. This is an unusual year for California rainfall. Most of the time it is getting less rainfall than normal.

 

[erthquake]

It will have a speedo. It's in the upper left hand corner of the center screen.

This is NO different then some other cars that have the speedo in the center of the dash. Actually, tesla's is better because it's closer to the driver than the center of the dash. It's right near your right hand.

Tentatively disagree that it's better than a center-dash speedo. Center-dash requires less movement of the eye as it's angle is closer to the center of the wheel than the upper left corner of the 15" screen. It's easier for the eye to focus on the center-dash after looking the road that it is to focus on the much closer center screen. The center screen is closer than a traditional instrument panel.

But like I said, I'm betting on Musk's engineering sense for now.

 

[austinEV]

Who says Tencent will stop buying when they have 5%? If that was the plan, they would probably stop at 4.9999% so that they don't have to report.

Then they would accumulate 5.0001% and enjoy the 3% rise on the news...

Elon seems to have ended the HUD speculation.

Elon Musk on Twitter

Interestingly, though, when pushed with "please I really want a speedo" he says you won't care. Wonder what he's alluding to? As a reservation holder, I'm certainly bent out of shape by the lack of a traditionally placed speedometer, but reserving judgment till I see the final product. What trick does Elon have up his sleeve?

Once again he answers the direct question about an instrument cluster instead of saying "no HUD either". We have known for a while it won't have a "speedometer" in the dash.

Ars technica suggesting that they received an enigmatic 'Next week' from Elon via twitter DM when asking about a rumoured 4th model.

Tesla sells 5 percent stake to Chinese firm Tencent

Holy cow, that is interesting. Tradeable in fact.

 

[MitchJi]

20+63+5 = 88, leaving a float of 12%. Precariously close to about half of the short interest - a very very similar situation to VW.

I'd use a different word. Maybe "deliciously " close.

Who says Tencent will stop buying when they have 5%? If that was the plan, they would probably stop at 4.9999% so that they don't have to report.

No, they'd continue so that the SP would spike.

Re: Service Center Ramp and Model 3 Deliveries

Looks like they could probably deliver 15-20 cars/hour at that facility (and it's open 7 days/week) -- it was too big for me to estimate the overall square footage. Obviously, still just a beta test, but a pretty easy fix to start dealing with deliveries in larger metropolitan areas.

Tesla said that they are planning to reduce their delivery time from one hour to about five minutes by providing videos and streamlining their paperwork. Even if they only hit half of that that takes care of the problem until they hit about 600k cars per year. They still need places to park the cars while they are waiting to be picked up. The warehouses solve that problem.

I wonder how many warehouses GM needs to add to handle demand for the Bolt .

 

[DurandalAI]

I think people are getting too caught up in the need to look at a speedometer, just in the same way people get caught up in "where is the gas port?" Elon Musk says you won't care that the speedometer isn't right in front of your face. So people speculate on HUDs or other such things. He's implying you won't need to visually confirm your speed every few seconds, but why?

My speculation:
Speed limit aware cruise control will be an inexpensive option, or standard feature. Do you guys remember a few updates back where the UI was showing reading the speed limit signs as Tesla owners passed them?
Ok, so you can set your Tesla to either have the speed limit as a maximum, or you can set the cruise control to be speed limit +5, or +X, whatever.

If you had this, would you care that the speedometer was on a screen in the middle of the car? I would hazard that you wouldn't, just like you don't look at the speedometer when you're using standard cruise control AFTER you've set it unless you move into a new speed zone.

It's not new tech, and I bet an upcoming version of the Tesla software will give this to current S & X owners on at least HW2 platform, along with the announcement that it will be included in M3.

Edit: My statement of saying it's not new tech is to counter against Musk saying that the M3 won't have anything new that the MS and MX don't have. We already know the car is reading the speed limit signs, it's just not applying it currently.

 

[MitchJi]

@AudubonB Would you please move the hud discussion to it's own thread?


Please?!

 

[MitchJi]

Tesla Inc. Stock Rises After Tencent Reveals 5% Stake -- The Motley Fool

The large position in Tesla makes Tencent Tesla's fifth-largest shareholder.

What does Tencent do?
Tencent is primarily known for its popular messaging app, WeChat, and its significant share of mobile game sales in China.

Launched in 2011, Tencent's WeChat boasts an impressive 889 million monthly active users, making it the No. 1 smartphone community in China. Notably, the platform is still growing rapidly. Its 889 million monthly active users were up 28% year over year in the company's most recent quarter. And Tencent is replicating its success with its instant messaging service QQ, which has garnered 652 million monthly active users on mobile and 868 million when including PCs.

In addition, with the help of its social networking reach, Tencent maintains a dominant position in gaming distribution, making it China's biggest gaming company.

Tencent paid about $1.8 billion for the shares, including commissions, the filing said. But the total position is already worth about $2.3 billion as of Tesla's stock price on Tuesday. Tencent provided a statement about the position.

While Tencent's 5% stake doesn't impact Tesla's intrinsic value, it does highlight a key vote of confidence in Tesla by a major company in China with an excellent track record of execution and investment.
Sounds like the SP bump is overblown?

 

[GoTslaGo]

Thoughts about Tencent.

They are big backers of DiDi in China (as article up thread noted), who successfully competed with Uber.

Uber is going autonomous (or trying and having a hard time).

Maybe DiDi is thinking of a strategic alliance with Tesla for autonomous vehicles via Tencent buy ins. Maybe they are seeing the fiasco Uber is having and want to avoid that...(why struggle to create it yourself when you have "big brother" able to "buy" you the tech).

IIRC Tencent is also making big Nvdia chip purchases.

Very interesting...

 

[neroden]

Could Tencent induce a squeeze all by themselves if they wanted to?

Yes, though I think it's unlikely to happen. They generate $6 billion in profits per year. Now, they're reinvesting a lot of that in their own companies, but they did just buy $2 billion of Tesla in less than 6 months.

Tencent could easily buy another 5%. After calculating, that *might* not be enough to cause a true squeeze. If they went for another 5% after that, it totally would be....

If the short-sellers are still heavily in TSLA next year, then I would expect a squeeze when Tesla has been profitable long enough that it gets added to the S&P. My calculation is that index funds will need to buy at least 5% of the float when that happens *and they'll have to do it practically instantly*, which is pretty nasty for them and for short-sellers.

 

[racer26]

I think people are getting too caught up in the need to look at a speedometer, just in the same way people get caught up in "where is the gas port?" Elon Musk says you won't care that the speedometer isn't right in front of your face. So people speculate on HUDs or other such things. He's implying you won't need to visually confirm your speed every few seconds, but why?

My speculation:
Speed limit aware cruise control will be an inexpensive option, or standard feature. Do you guys remember a few updates back where the UI was showing reading the speed limit signs as Tesla owners passed them?
Ok, so you can set your Tesla to either have the speed limit as a maximum, or you can set the cruise control to be speed limit +5, or +X, whatever.

If you had this, would you care that the speedometer was on a screen in the middle of the car? I would hazard that you wouldn't, just like you don't look at the speedometer when you're using standard cruise control AFTER you've set it unless you move into a new speed zone.

It's not new tech, and I bet an upcoming version of the Tesla software will give this to current S & X owners on at least HW2 platform, along with the announcement that it will be included in M3.

Edit: My statement of saying it's not new tech is to counter against Musk saying that the M3 won't have anything new that the MS and MX don't have. We already know the car is reading the speed limit signs, it's just not applying it currently.

This is about the only way I could not care about speedometer. If speed limit, traffic and control device-aware cruise control is basically handling accelerating/decelerating for me the majority of the time, to the point where I don't care how fast I'm going.

@AudubonB Would you please move the hud discussion to it's own thread?


Please?!

Its relevant here. If people are going to cancel reservations or otherwise not buy the car over it, its relevant. You want a pure-investment thread, go read the market action one. This is precisely why everyone was pining for the split, was so that these forays off into the weeds would be separated from the purely market-related discussion.

 

[rallykeeper]

Tesla said that they are planning to reduce their delivery time from one hour to about five minutes by providing videos and streamlining their paperwork. Even if they only hit half of that that takes care of the problem until they hit about 600k cars per year. They still need places to park the cars while they are waiting to be picked up. The warehouses solve that problem.

I think they may be rethinking 5 minute delivery. Sure, the paperwork part only takes 5 minutes (probably fewer than that), but it'll never be that quick.

People simply don't want a 5 minute delivery experience on a $35,000 purchase (much less a $100,000 purchase). This is one of the largest purchases most people ever make and they will naturally linger, ogle, etc.

In Tesla's case, they are enhancing the experience with a high-end coffee bar, free snacks, goodies for the kids, techno music (it is Tesla after all), and lots of friendly delivery specialists ready to answer all your questions.

I'm a prior owner, didn't need to watch the training videos and seminar, not that picky, and it took us 45 minutes to go through the process. I think that's about as fast as anyone can reasonably expect.

 

[neroden]

You know, I haven't seen anyone mention this, but what if there is something no one has yet imagined. Something that is truly new...? Like what? I don't know. But when Elon says we "won't care", then I think something unimaginable might be what's coming. Just a thought. Trying to think outside the box.

Something with voice commands?

 

[EinSV]

Ars technica suggesting that they received an enigmatic 'Next week' from Elon via twitter DM when asking about a rumoured 4th model.

Tesla sells 5 percent stake to Chinese firm Tencent

If this is an actual product announcement (not entirely clear to me), since Elon was downplaying the timing of the Model Y intro in his tweet last week, I wonder what this is? Tesla Semi maybe? Elon has been mentioning it more often lately than the Model Y. It might seem odd at first blush but since Model Y market overlaps so much with Model 3 it could make sense to announce a move into a new market (trucks) before announcing the Y. Might be a good time to make the announcement since the Tencent news has dampened capital concerns.

Will be interesting to see this play out.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Worth noting the yield on T-Bills has been significantly increasing. There is another Treasury auction on March 30th. Last auction raised ~$400 billion, a third of the tender offer, almost all of which has been used to keep the debt Ceiling from being breached.

While everyone is busy taking about the rollback of environmental regulations, and the terrible "replacement" to the ACA, and talk of magical tax reform, no-one is taking about the debt ceiling. Where will the US government get the trillions that will be needed to overhaul US infrastructure?

Note: Trump has not reduced US debt by $100 billion as he claims. He is using accounting gimmicks to create the illusion that he has, by using funds from Treasury auctions to reduce the total debt figure. This isn't magic, or good policy. It's an accounting gimmick.

 

[MitchJi]

Its relevant here. If people are going to cancel reservations or otherwise not buy the car over it, its relevant. You want a pure-investment thread, go read the market action one. This is precisely why everyone was pining for the split, was so that these forays off into the weeds would be separated from the purely market-related discussion.

You mean you think that the significant number of people are going to not buy the car! I believe it's less than mouse nuts!

It's relevant in its own thread! Like the demand thread.Tencent Backs Elon Musk With 5% Stake in Tesla

If people want to continue to obsess over something that is probably not an issue they should at least be courteous enough to move the discussion to a separate thread!

 

[MitchJi]

James Albertine thinks that there's another reason for ten cents purchase:
Tencent Backs Elon Musk With 5% Stake in Tesla

It's only on the video.

 

[MitchJi]

While the press will likely have a field day with everything that surrounds this, I must admit I see this has having the potential to be a very positive move. Not only does Kushner embrace technology, but both he and his executive officer (Ivanka) embrace the need to aggressively combat Climate Change (recall the recent spat between Ivanka and Bannon over this - which greatly displeased the POTUS..........and having a daughter I am pretty certain whose side he might be on if push came to shove). So this offers the potential for the Administration to take steps to move on Climate Change using technology without needing the support of their own party or even the Democrats that continue to support fracking, etc.

I think you are not paying enough attention to what trump is actually doing. Approving the Keystone and Dakota pipelines for example.

 

[GBleck]

I think you are not paying enough attention to what trump is actually doing. Approving the Keystone and Dakota pipelines for example.

He can approve all he wants but I'm not convinced the financing for the Keystone XL is still viable. Same goes for coal on federal land.

 

[Gerasimental]

techno music

Please don't confuse the stuff that Tesla blares out with techno!

Here's a helpful reference (skip to about 2 mins to avoid the talking)

 

[austinEV]

@AudubonB Would you please move the hud discussion to it's own thread?


Please?!

You should get your wish now, since Elon tweeted, directly this time, that there is no HUD.