General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[RobStark]

When is this violent coup likely to take place?

Shortly after the economy contracts by more than 2.5%.

 

[AZRI11]

Yeah...the color yellow cost us $10 today.

Parts of a car being outside of the factory cost us $10 on Friday.

Tomorrow a scheduled production upgrade will cost us $20.

Wednesday will cost us another $10 as more stop-losses are triggered.

Thursday will be a head-fake break-even day that started off bad.

And Friday will be option wipeout day and we close at another 52-week low.

Investing in this company and looking at the stock price is depressing.

I'm sure Amazon and Apple drove their investors crazy.

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

They are setting themselves up at least one full week of production before the Q1 ER by shutting down Model 3 production now. This should allow Elon to talk about a nice production rate if things go to plan.

 

[ggr]

I know I'm a few days late, but this tweet really is just way across the line:

Elon Musk on Twitter

This is why the SEC is investigating Tesla. You shouldn't be CEO of a 50B+ public company and give guidance like "will be profitable & cash flow positive in Q3 & Q4" via tweet. Especially if that guidance is not true or otherwise uninformed.

On the short side, the Model 3 shutdown today is mostly irrelevant. And the safety report is ridiculous.

But that tweet is just reprehensible. The SEC angle was never part of my short logic, but I'm now starting to see it.

He already said it in the Q4 investor call. So why is the tweet, reiterating something he already said, across the line? Anyway, the SEC already OK'd some of his earlier tweets as being widely enough distributed to not violate any rules.

 

[sundaymorning]

They are setting themselves up at least one full week of production before the Q1 ER by shutting down Model 3 production now. This should allow Elon to talk about a nice production rate if things go to plan.

This explanation is the best one I’ve read so far.

 

[ZeApelido]

Elon Musk's Boring Company raises $112.5 million for hyperloop

"Elon Musk invests 100 million into his own company"

Fixed

 

[Yggdrasill]

Don't be too nice. Most likely she is paid. Everyone loves money.

I doubt Lora is paid. My impression is that she’s a bit like Trump. Lazy and willfully ignorant, yet ambitious.

She seems quite content in getting fed a constant stream of FUD "scoops". Easy-to-write articles that generate a lot of noise. I wouldn't be surprised if she believes she's a hero, exposing the shenanigans of an evil corporation. Never mind her getting into bed with usavoury people for personal gain.

 

[juanmedina]

I doubt Lora is paid. My impression is that she’s a bit like Trump. Lazy and willfully ignorant, yet ambitious.

She seems quite content in getting fed a constant stream of FUD "scoops". Easy-to-write articles that generate a lot of noise. I wouldn't be surprised if she believes she's a hero, exposing the shenanigans of an evil corporation. Never mind her getting into bed with usavoury people for personal gain.

She might be getting paid. She has favorable articles about BYD in CA; they bring workers from China and pay them slave labor wages and she is ok with that .

 

[j0hn]

China scrapping ownership rules this year for electric car manufacturers, not until 2022 for ICE.

China to scrap foreign auto ownership limits by 2022

 

[stef]

China scrapping ownership rules this year for electric car manufacturers, not until 2022 for ICE.

China to scrap foreign auto ownership limits by 2022

Awesome. Let’s see if it gets the same coverage as Elon doesn’t like yellow.

 

[Cattledog]

China scrapping ownership rules this year for electric car manufacturers, not until 2022 for ICE.

China to scrap foreign auto ownership limits by 2022

Shows how focused the market is on Model 3 news - premarket down 1.5% with this announcement because of other news of Model 3 production halts for a few days of retooling. Last time they halted to retool (mid-February?) there was a step change in production, so I hope that's the case this time. But this China news is very welcome if there's follow-through and a plant happens in Shanghai as we hope.

 

[22522]

Is Google on our side?

This showed up in a Google search this morning:
Video: Test-driving Tesla Model 3 as waitlist and anticipation build

 

[wnorris]

China scrapping ownership rules this year for electric car manufacturers, not until 2022 for ICE.

China to scrap foreign auto ownership limits by 2022

This is very important news and is exactly what Tesla was requesting. As I read it this benefits Tesla significantly more than other automakers. I would imagine negotiations can now pick back up where they left off.

Edit: adding a positive article for a change

China just rolled out the welcome mat for Tesla

 

[Reciprocity]

I doubt Lora is paid. My impression is that she’s a bit like Trump. Lazy and willfully ignorant, yet ambitious.

She seems quite content in getting fed a constant stream of FUD "scoops". Easy-to-write articles that generate a lot of noise. I wouldn't be surprised if she believes she's a hero, exposing the shenanigans of an evil corporation. Never mind her getting into bed with usavoury people for personal gain.

She is paid, by CNBC. Who approves her obviously tilted articles. It's because they get clicks and they are in the business of getting clicks. They are not news, they are entertainment.

 

[Reciprocity]

This is very important news and is exactly what Tesla was requesting. As I read it this benefits Tesla significantly more than other automakers. I would imagine negotiations can now pick back up where they left off.

Edit: adding a positive article for a change

China just rolled out the welcome mat for Tesla

This should double the size of the market for Tesla's by dropping the cost there by over $25,000 each for S/X and more then $10k for your average model 3. The size of the market is already close to the size of the US market for Tesla. Ot and 3 shifts coming. I think they could top out at 2500/w and maybe some improvements can come from a refresh and simplification and more automation. Demand will not be going down for S/X even without tax credits because now when demand is pulled forward as the credits expire, they can shift cars to China while the demand returns to normal levels. Of course that will be spurred by a refresh and 2170 and augmented reality HUD. I could see 120,000 S/X next year and going forward as they improve automation and go back to 2 shifts to maintain costs.

 

[elasalle]

Are we in day one or two of the Production stoppage? Even though info came after hrs yesterday, it looks like activity stopped yesterday as well?

 

[dc_h]

This should double the size of the market for Tesla's by dropping the cost there by over $25,000 each for S/X and more then $10k for your average model 3. The size of the market is already close to the size of the US market for Tesla. Ot and 3 shifts coming. I think they could top out at 2500/w and maybe some improvements can come from a refresh and simplification and more automation. Demand will not be going down for S/X even without tax credits because now when demand is pulled forward as the credits expire, they can shift cars to China while the demand returns to normal levels. Of course that will be spurred by a refresh and 2170 and augmented reality HUD. I could see 120,000 S/X next year and going forward as they improve automation and go back to 2 shifts to maintain costs.

Interesting that commercial opening starts in 2020 and personal vehicle production opens in 2022. Tesla could build the semi or another truck plant in 2020, but not a model 3 or Y until 2022.

 

[EinSV]

View attachment 294723

3 more M3s to go ...

Lora K's FUDticle seems to have done its job of diverting attention from increasing signs that the ramp continues.

A couple data points from the spreadsheet:

Reported weekly VINs in the last 12 weeks
Week Reported VINs
28 Jan - 03 Feb 2018 46
04 Feb - 10 Feb 2018 34
11 Feb - 17 Feb 2018 31
18 Feb - 24 Feb 2018 11
25 Feb - 03 Mar 2018 22
04 Mar - 10 Mar 2018 102
11 Mar - 17 Mar 2018 89
18 Mar - 24 Mar 2018 99
25 Mar - 31 Mar 2018 119
01 Apr - 07 Apr 2018 164
08 Apr - 14 Apr 2018 209
15 Apr - 21 Apr 2018 46

Reported monthly invites in the last 6 months
Month Reported invites
Nov 2017 82
Dec 2017 169
Jan 2018 344
Feb 2018 650
Mar 2018 713
Apr 2018 669 (1254/month rate)

Sample rate for VINs in Q1 was .0677, which translates to a production rate of 3087/month over the past week (209/.0677). Even assuming the sample rate has increased since Q1 due to higher participation the trend over the past few weeks looks very promising and together with other information suggests to me that production is now well above 2000/wk. Hopefully we get an update during the ER in a couple weeks.

Elon mentioned during the CBS interview that at least as of that time (early last week) battery production was still the bottleneck. Since there are indications that production has ramped significantly since then, one reading of all the tea leaves is that battery production has improved substantially recently leading to an increase in production and that Fremont is or will soon be the bottleneck.

With the Grohmann equipment (hopefully) starting to come on line and the latest round of improvements in Fremont we could see some nice production numbers by the time of the ER.

 

[scaesare]

It's apparently revealing that Kolodny implies Tesla's rebuttal blog was nothing of interest to her.

And, you really seem like a rather nasty fellow who would send something mean and unprofessional to her via DM.

You cad.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

She is paid, by CNBC. Who approves her obviously tilted articles. It's because they get clicks and they are in the business of getting clicks. They are not news, they are entertainment.

Exactly. Bravo. In other words: