2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[racer26]

Haven't seen this posted yet, found the link on Reddit.
Mashable on M3 ramp

Couldn't agree more with the article except for the last bit. I think it's naive to think Elon/Tesla could just not do M3 ramp predictions and say "you get it when you get it". You can't do that to 500k customers and you can't do that to Wall Street. Tesla is a publicly traded company, it has certain obligations to investors.

But I do wish Elon had more realistic public road maps. Internal ones are another thing.

Its a problem of accountability. If you don't make the insane goal public knowledge, you're not as accountable to it. By making his insane goals public, Elon drives his teams to achieve the impossible. The teams work harder to get the goals met so the public doesn't crucify them. Along the way, they capture excellence.

Vince Lombardi has a fairly famous quote along those lines.

 

[Intl Professor]

This is an extremely serious accusation.

Please elaborate with specific examples of incredible subjectivity so that I can understand what led you to make this very serious accusation when I personally know for a fact that my motivations are rational, investment thesis is well supported by more research and analysis than I have ever done on any company in two decades, and when I have publicly documented my reasoning in nearly 100 articles throughout the last 15 months.

I also note that you're not the first one to make this accusation, and I know that you won't be the last. In the last 18 months I've been writing, there has never been an article, whether bullish or bearish, on any company, in the comments to which at least one person did not accuse me of "having an agenda." This has been true for my Tesla articles, Ford, GM, other automakers, social media companies, homebuilders, offshore drillers, and many other unrelated industries, despite the fact that my batting average has been very high.

As I've noted many timesbefore, I think we people tend to just assume the other side "has an agenda" when they don't agree with us. Writing for Seeking Alpha has truly been an eye-opening experience for me. Not only it has allowed me to better understand how markets functions, but more importantly, it's given me a front-row seat to seeing our cognitive and emotional biases in action.

We all have agendas, otherwise getting out of bed in the morning is pointless. What is blindingly obvious is whether they are hidden or nefarious. I see no scrap of that in your posts. I don't understand much of your writing but that is because I am more interested in the product and almost not at all interested in the mechanics of markets, analysis of production, yada yada, about which you are competent and well versed. Others here are more competent in those matters so the dialogue is quite informative for those, like me, who are less competent. Keep up the good work.

You have faulted yourself on tone. The same has not been admitted--so far as I can recall--by others. We have a divider-in-chief who raised the issue of budget-busting in the face of Puerto Ricans, for example. That is like the Sheriff of Clarke County consoling the Las Vegas victims with "well your loved ones were ugly anyway." "Just a joke, of course!" Given the seriousness of the country's problems and the subsequent (and prior) issue alternatives that divide us we should in meticulous fashion be more careful in sweeping pronouncements that might be hurtful since the tone for the country set at the top is problematic.

 

[dalalsid]

If Tesla awards franchises to the same large capital rich dealership groups you will get the same craptastic results. After Tesla has built the brand.

Trying to find qualified business people that don't have ICEv franchises to become Tesla dealers will be more difficult that building out a Tesla store network to deliver and service millions of cars.

Elon has said that if Tesla were to partner with dealers he won't partner with the same people that have been attacking Tesla for years.

Tesla could sell through Amazon now that Amazon is getting into owning retail locations. Put Tesla stores inside whole foods.

 

[kenliles]

Ok, that's really gruesome. How about if they just crap their shorts and do the "I just crapped my shorts" walk?

fixed that for you--

 

[Zaxxon]

Mentioned in the Action thread, but deserves mention here, as well.

I like the cut of this one's jib. (Nomura initiates TSLA coverate at $500 12-mo price target.)

Shah is highly ranked on TipRanks, so there's that.

 

[Krugerrand]

In my view Musk needs to learn to be more conservative with his public projections and to push his employees through internal projections that are much tougher to achieve (through bonuses, PSUs, etc.). This stock will likely get unnecessarily beaten down in the coming days and weeks (and months if the ER is not good) after what was a good delivery/production report (save for the M3 numbers, which if projected more conservatively to the markets would have been just fine) for Tesla simply because Musk once again set unrealistic expectations.

1) Being publically aggressive serves a purpose, you simply need to remember it's aggressive and therefore adjust accordingly
2) I think if you had a little chit chat with some of those employees they'd be telling you they're already being pushed about as hard as you can push a person and that you should bite them
3) Stock up $6.61 Tues and today it's up $9+ this very second on Wed; I'll take that kind of a stock beating every day

 

[dmvevguy]

This is an extremely serious accusation.

Please elaborate with specific examples of incredible subjectivity so that I can understand what led you to make this very serious accusation when I personally know for a fact that my motivations are rational, investment thesis is well supported by more research and analysis than I have ever done on any company in two decades, and when I have publicly documented my reasoning in nearly 100 articles throughout the last 15 months.

I also note that you're not the first one to make this accusation, and I know that you won't be the last. In the last 18 months I've been writing, there has never been an article, whether bullish or bearish, on any company, in the comments to which at least one person did not accuse me of "having an agenda." This has been true for my Tesla articles, Ford, GM, other automakers, social media companies, homebuilders, offshore drillers, and many other unrelated industries, despite the fact that my batting average has been very high.

As I've noted many timesbefore, I think we people tend to just assume the other side "has an agenda" when they don't agree with us. Writing for Seeking Alpha has truly been an eye-opening experience for me. Not only it has allowed me to better understand how markets functions, but more importantly, it's given me a front-row seat to seeing our cognitive and emotional biases in action.

@ValueAnalyst I am grateful for your wisdom on this board, as well as every single one of your articles including the one yesterday that hit prime time around noon, and hope you continue to share. I need to hit you up on macro b/c I feel uneasy with NK at the moment.

Anyways, thank you for sharing your thoughts and please do so more!

 

[jimmyjohn]

Whole Foods already -- based on my rough calc -- takes 30% of my take-home pay. If Tesla moved in, I'm fearful what the new calculation would yield (in terms of money, and - oh yeah - time in the store).

Tesla could sell through Amazon now that Amazon is getting into owning retail locations. Put Tesla stores inside whole foods.

 

[22522]

Ok, that's helpful. Thank you. I get attacked by bears (and a few bulls) on a daily basis so I may get defensive quickly at times (working on it). You're also one of the people I look up to here ever since I stumbled upon TMC after having watched the TSLA Valuation Discussion Google Hangout and think your views were very informed, so waking up to that post this morning was additionally impactful.

What I have discovered is that people think words are spoken (and not spoken/edited) in the self interest of the speaker, and motivated as such. That is true in so many cases that people take it to the bank in a pigeon hole kind of way.

I want Tesla to do well, but have some sort of selfish deficiency (obvious to any financial observer). Generally I am just trying to put more options on the table, so that when people are choosing multiple choice interpretations they have more choices, and probability wise are probably better off. But people process that as an agenda as well. It might mess up other people's agenda...

That is probably what you are seeing/doing. Your facts/math messes up other people's agendas, so you are attacked and driven out. This is a mechanism for agenda protection since the beginning of time.

 

[SBenson]

Porsche is undoubtedly going after Tesla with the all-electric Mission E

Well, this assumes that Tesla is a sitting duck. Can't wait to see the so called October refresh... Wonder if we have to wait until Semi-unveil... Model S face-lift happened without an announcement and any fanfare though. So not clear if it will be a silent refresh or a full song and dance on the stage type refresh.

 

[AudubonB]

Whole Foods already -- based on my rough calc -- takes 30% of my take-home pay. If Tesla moved in, I'm fearful what the new calculation would yield (in terms of money, and - oh yeah - time in the store).

Translation:

"Whole Paycheck" no longer appropriate moniker. New name is "Whole Portfolio".

 

[notsosure]

1) Being publically aggressive serves a purpose, you simply need to remember it's aggressive and therefore adjust accordingly
2) I think if you had a little chit chat with some of those employees they'd be telling you they're already being pushed about as hard as you can push a person and that you should bite them
3) Stock up $6.61 Tues and today it's up $9+ this very second on Wed; I'll take that kind of a stock beating every day

It is definitely hard to argue with Musk’s success. As a retired executive from an also very succesful public company, I guess I am just a bit more conservative in my public facing approach (this is a company where employees were pushed VERY hard (still are), but in a more private way - the company experienced 100% growth for many years, and 50% growth for many more - the growth was a great strain on employees, and the employees efforts, of course, were a large driver behind the growth). But, I get that there is not one approach to an issue. Again, hard to argue with the success of Tesla and Musk’s other ventures.

 

[dalalsid]

Whole Foods already -- based on my rough calc -- takes 30% of my take-home pay. If Tesla moved in, I'm fearful what the new calculation would yield (in terms of money, and - oh yeah - time in the store).

That 30% got fixed for me when Trader Joe's opened here.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

@ValueAnalyst I am grateful for your wisdom on this board, as well as every single one of your articles including the one yesterday that hit prime time around noon, and hope you continue to share. I need to hit you up on macro b/c I feel uneasy with NK at the moment.

Anyways, thank you for sharing your thoughts and please do so more!

Thank you for sharing that and your kind words. I truly appreciate it.

 

[tlo]

Waymo’s Foes: Left Turns and the Mean Streets of Phoenix

Waymo's self-driving cars experiencing left turn issues, The Information says

Alphabet's Waymo is planning to launch a self-driving ride-sharing service in Chandler, Phoenix this fall but is facing issues with the technology that could impede the capabilities of the service, The Information reports, citing interviews with people involved. The autonomous vehicles are experiencing issues with the ability to consistently make left turns and in some instances, the cars have had to stop attempting the turns as the software was not safe enough.

I find this very interesting. The first fully autonomous vehicles can potentially be right-turn only, which simplifies the problem quite a bit.

 

[jbcarioca]

...
As I've noted many timesbefore, I think we people tend to just assume the other side "has an agenda" when they don't agree with us. Writing for Seeking Alpha has truly been an eye-opening experience for me. Not only it has allowed me to better understand how markets functions, but more importantly, it's given me a front-row seat to seeing our cognitive and emotional biases in action.

Most of us know @ValueAnalyst will alter his views based on facts. Many people will not do that. He also provides documentation of the basis for his views, which allows civil discourse about differences of opinion, mostly based on facts.

We should be happy we can do that, so we can learn more. I prefer to learn more from as much of a scientific basis as is possible in a given situation.

Criticism never seems to bother @ValueAnalyst. Political and non-rational dissing seems to bother him. Both outcomes make sense to me.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

@ValueAnalyst I am grateful for your wisdom on this board, as well as every single one of your articles including the one yesterday that hit prime time around noon, and hope you continue to share. I need to hit you up on macro b/c I feel uneasy with NK at the moment.

Anyways, thank you for sharing your thoughts and please do so more!

Most of us know @ValueAnalyst will alter his views based on facts. Many people will not do that. He also provides documentation of the basis for his views, which allows civil discourse about differences of opinion, mostly based on facts.

We should be happy we can do that, so we can learn more. I prefer to learn more from as much of a scientific basis as is possible in a given situation.

Criticism never seems to bother @ValueAnalyst. Political and non-rational dissing seems to bother him. Both outcomes make sense to me.

Thank you to both for being supportive.

As always, I can neither confirm nor deny that I'm a "he" but I also note that there now seems to be about an equal number of votes on both sides of the guesses, which means my efforts on that front are working!

 

[ggies07]

Waymo’s Foes: Left Turns and the Mean Streets of Phoenix



I find this very interesting. The first fully autonomous vehicles can potentially be right-turn only, which simplifies the problem quite a bit.

haha.

*Dave gets in car*

Dave: take me to this store....wait, why are you not taking a left, it's right there
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave
Dave: Why not? It's right there, I could get out and walk over there...
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave - no left turns
Dave: BUT IT'S RIGHT THERE.
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave - will take on another 7 minutes. Please wait patiently.

*Dave sees Tesla car drive up, person gets out, car drives away*
Dave: Son of a ...........

 

[TradingInvest]

Waymo’s Foes: Left Turns and the Mean Streets of Phoenix
I find this very interesting. The first fully autonomous vehicles can potentially be right-turn only, which simplifies the problem quite a bit.

Full autonomous driving is super difficult. This is by far the hardest technical issue Elon ever faced, much harder than landing the rocket. I think eventually Tesla will solve it, meanwhile the autopilot will improve dramatically because of their work on L5.

All the other guys (Waymo, Uber, Volvo, GM, Nvidia ...) who claim they are close to achieving full autonomous driving, probably only got 2% of the work done. The few difficult cases is 99% of the work, and it can't be solved by piling person hours.

 

[kenliles]

haha.

*Dave gets in car*

Dave: take me to this store....wait, why are you not taking a left, it's right there
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave
Dave: Why not? It's right there, I could get out and walk over there...
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave - no left turns
Dave: BUT IT'S RIGHT THERE.
HAL 9000: I am afraid I can't do that Dave - will take on another 7 minutes. Please wait patiently.

*Dave sees Tesla car drive up, person gets out, car drives away*
Dave: Son of a ...........

still -
It'll be popular in conservative states