General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[neroden]

Or, you know, it could totally be 11,000 Puerto Ricans suddenly buying power walls on their own accord separately .........

Because, you know, they lost power, and Musk was in the news talking about how he could make them independent of the (failed) grid. (And he was in the news in a *big* way.) The idea that 11,000 of them phoned him up is in fact completely plausible.

As a mental clarifying exercise: when Tesla sells 11,000 Model Ses, do you assume it must be a single project, a fleet sale? If not, why not? Because with Tesla Energy, that's your entire logic: it's a lot therefore it must be a single fleet sale.

So clearly the same logic applies to car sales, right?

 

[neroden]

Below is found in my daughter’s year book (kindergarten- 5th grade). Obviously kids knows best when it comes to technology. I was very pleasantly surprised to see Tesla mentioned. Someone at their school knows the impact Tesla will have in their future.

View attachment 307036

Link failed.

 

[Todd Burch]

We do indeed have a great lack of information -- on this we agree

I hope we will get some more detail on the production rate of the various GA lines at some point.

Whatever they were planning, I doubt they did anything that would affect gross margins by much.

 

[neroden]

I think as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer people who prefer leather so it won't matter.

Well, I don't have a particular preference for leather, but I am seriously allergic to polyester, so the trend towards polyester seating and steering wheels is definitely a problem for me. Nylon would be a nice option, but I have a friend who's allergic to nylon. Good old fashioned wool, but many people are allergic to that... Very few people have cotton allergies, and I get a lot of cotton stuff, but hoo-boy, cotton's an environmental disaster as bad as factory farming.

You have to have multiple fabric options just to accomodate allergies. Very, very few people are allergic to cow skin, though some are allergic to the tanning compounds used in leather. Perhaps the safest option would be varnished wood, which essentially nobody is allergic to, but some people like their seats softer.

 

[Todd Burch]

I agree that the 11,000 PR projects are mostly private households, some businesses, and some government agencies.

My Uncle owns a house on Vieques Island. (Abandoned since the storm). Amazing how unstable the power grid is there, if anyone is lucky to have any at all. People who can afford it are definitely springing for Powerwalls.

 

[JRP3]

You have to have multiple fabric options just to accomodate allergies. Very, very few people are allergic to cow skin, though some are allergic to the tanning compounds used in leather. Perhaps the safest option would be varnished wood, which essentially nobody is allergic to, but some people like their seats softer.

Hemp or soy based textiles and plastics maybe?

 

[neroden]

Hemp or soy based textiles and plastics maybe?

Hemp's great: durable fabric, and grows like a weed with low resource usage. Pity there's been US suppression of the hemp business for so long. (I'm sure someone's allergic to it, of course; you name it, someone's allergic to it, which is why there should always be two options, preferably ones with low cross-allergy rates)

 

[Causalien]

You know, I never thought of this before. I'm not sure if you're a genius or not but if I ever get a leather jacket this is exactly what I'll do lol

I am no Genius. I am just "the" 8 ball.

 

[SPadival]

Dana goes meta. Don't adjust your TV sets (like I did - I thought the article got truncated when it was archived) !!

Musk Delivers $1.1 Billion ‘Short Burn’ by Touting Model 3 Progress

I guess Dana is at a loss for words when it comes to anything +ve about TSLA. I wonder what Q3/Q4 will do to her Cash burn graphic.

 

[defc0n]

Because, you know, they lost power, and Musk was in the news talking about how he could make them independent of the (failed) grid. (And he was in the news in a *big* way.) The idea that 11,000 of them phoned him up is in fact completely plausible.

As a mental clarifying exercise: when Tesla sells 11,000 Model Ses, do you assume it must be a single project, a fleet sale? If not, why not? Because with Tesla Energy, that's your entire logic: it's a lot therefore it must be a single fleet sale.

So clearly the same logic applies to car sales, right?

The nature of Model S sales and Tesla energy sales have literally almost nothing in common. That is a horrible analogy.

With that said, if Tesla suddenly one day(s) sold 11,000 model S in a very small market like Puerto Rico in a short time frame, I would very much suspect it was very likely related to one single project.

 

[defc0n]

Which of course wouldn’t make sense, as large numbers of model S sales have essentially nothing in common with large “individual” tesla energy sales (distributed grid).

 

[defc0n]

https://www.electrive.com/2018/04/20/tesla-to-power-puerto-rico/

I find a lot of similar news like this and it screams country wide central government involvement. And I’m not saying Tesla won’t get paid, just that it’s absolutely a concern.

 

[RobStark]

There's a market for seats that are hand stitched by Monks from Nepal. And some "carriage maker" can offer that. Tesla doesn't have to.

You have the market sized reversed.

People who prefer vegan interiors are a micro niche.

People who prefer leather seats to vinyl are much bigger.

Tesla's mission is to make EVs ubiquitous. Not cater to childless vegans.

 

[brian45011]

The lady from PETA should be setting up tables outside supermarkets to educate people about the health and environmental reasons to give up or limit beef consumption, rather than wasting her time lobbying against steering wheel leather.

Let's all do our share to rid the environment of bovine flatulence!

 

[dc_h]

The nature of Model S sales and Tesla energy sales have literally almost nothing in common. That is a horrible analogy.

With that said, if Tesla suddenly one day(s) sold 11,000 model S in a very small market like Puerto Rico in a short time frame, I would very much suspect it was very likely related to one single project.

I hope this talk past dialog ends soon. Perhaps it’s a combination. A few thousand homeowners small hotels, hospitals and government agencies. So maybe 50-50 ad hoc vs big project govt.
doesn’t sem like an either or situation.

 

[JRP3]

You have the market sized reversed.

People who prefer vegan interiors are a micro niche.

People who prefer leather seats to vinyl are much bigger.

Tesla's mission is to make EVs ubiquitous. Not cater to childless vegans.

Apparently Tesla disagrees since they already eliminated leather seating.

 

[Zaxxon]

People who prefer vegan interiors are a micro niche.

People who prefer leather seats to vinyl are much bigger.

Sure, because for forever cars have been marketed as textile meh, leather luxurious and much more betterer.

The fake leather in my old Prius V was fine. The fake leather in my Model 3 is very nice. Comparable to my uncultured taste to the real leather in my Volvo.

People will get over it, and a decade or two from now, the market that cares that their leatherish car doesn't actually contain animal hide will be miniscule.

Reminds me of the talk when the iPhone came out. The huge market majority preferred physical keyboards because that's what was 'best' according to conventional wisdom. A decade later, physical keyboards are a tiny market on phones and the high-end devices are all touchscreen.

Tenuous analogy there, but the point is that for *many* (not all, but I'd wager a great majority), the attraction of leather seating has nothing to do with it being cow hide. A leatherish material is just as good for those folks, and their numbers will rise over time.

 

[BLSmith2112]

What drives me crazy. Some guy on Reddit gets +12,400 upvotes on disinformation: r/news - Tesla shareholders reject bid to strip Musk of chairman role

 

[scaesare]

You have the market sized reversed.

People who prefer vegan interiors are a micro niche.

People who prefer leather seats to vinyl are much bigger.

Tesla's mission is to make EVs ubiquitous. Not cater to childless vegans.

1) None of which contradicts the point I made.

B) Synthetic leather != vinyl

0x11) The 400K folks with a non-leather-seat Model 3 reservation don't seem to mind

IV) Vegans can't have kids?

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Perhaps it’s a combination. A few thousand homeowners small hotels, hospitals and government agencies. So maybe 50-50 ad hoc vs big project govt.

Sorry, good point but Im’ma talk past both of ya for a sec...
Look again at the number ...it’s literally eleventy hundred. Who amongst us can say with certainty that he wasn’t ‘cheezburgering’ an inexact but properly large number, it transcribed as the more boring “11,000” and we aren’t overthinking the statement?

Source: I’m rather fluent in Hobbit