General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[RationalOptimist]

Is no one watching the spacex livestream? unbelievably inspiring. i think it will be great for elon's rep.

 

[Ovulation]

My comment on this retread NYTimes article giving shorts more exposure:

Articles on Tesla's financials never seem to go into any detail. Incompetence or laziness? Not sure. But here's a key conceptual detail about Tesla's financials: They are spending a lot of money (aka burning cash) on future products and assets that aren't generating revenue today. Like any hardware startup, albeit on a much longer timeframe due to the nature of the industry. Some examples of what Tesla is "burning" cash on: 1. Construction and expansion of largest battery plant in world for vehicle and energy products 2. Development of more "affordable" SUV (Model Y) 3. Development of long range semi-truck 4. Development of fastest production car (next-gen Roadster) 5. Development of large pickup truck 6. Software development of autonomous driving Going forward, these will all be revenue and profit-generating assets, aka they will make more money than they spent on them. You are just seeing the spending part right now. That's not to say Tesla isn't wasting money on ineffiencies, but the conversation really has to parse out these different concepts. This future asset development is a primary driver in the valuation of Tesla. They are in a state that no other car company is at. They have a wide open road. The international and domestic demand is seemingly there (I mean, 400000 deposits, are you kidding?) Grow baby grow. Burn that cash now. If you build it, they will come.

When you read stuff like that piece in the New York Times and you know a bit about the issue you have to wonder where else you get mislead, very annoying ... and when you ask yourself something like that loud the media types cry Trump.

 

[schonelucht]

So says the body shop.

If it was one body shop, and Tesla wouldn’t already have said before that they need to do better at stocking parts, i’d agree. As it stands we have testimonials of tens if not hunderds of body shops all over the world. At some point, it’s just not plausible anymore that they are all lying and keeping hunderds of cars around in their shops for months ‘just because’.

 

[SlicedBr3ad]

If it was one body shop, and Tesla wouldn’t already have said before that they need to do better at stocking parts, i’d agree. As it stands we have testimonials of tens if not hunderds of body shops all over the world. At some point, it’s just not plausible anymore that they are all lying and keeping hunderds of cars around in their shops for months ‘just because’.

You're probably wrong. I've read horrible stories of different shops ordering one part, waiting to get it, then ordering different part, then waiting some more. It would seem there is enough blame to go around. Regardless of what we know, it's another Tesla shop to fix our Teslas, can't be bad for us owners.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

When you read stuff like that piece in the New York Times and you know a bit about the issue you have to wonder where else you get mislead, very annoying ... and when you ask yourself something like that loud the media types cry Trump.

Of late, it’s started to make me question my position on Trump. I know a lot about Tesla and Elon via primary sources to know when things are being screwed, distorted or outright made up. I don’t have any such first hand knowledge of what’s going on in DC and what I do know largely comes from news outlets that have proven themselves to me to be untrustworthy. NPR is my main remaining holdout that seems to have some reasonable standards.

 

[MartinAustin]

Color me skeptical

No.... not you? Surely not.

 

[heltok]

Listened to the Audi E-Tron presentation. Q2 2019 it is. Game on!

This gives Tesla plenty of time to update the Model X. Tesla will likely switch to 2170, simplify cabling, improve automation and maybe cut some weight also. So by then they could probably lower the price a little, maybe get price down to slightly below Audi while still being better at every metric and much better at some. As they switch to 2170 they will not be constrained to 100k cars per year so it makes sense to increase the demand a little.

 

[SPadival]

. Here is thread with 100 posts or so over the last 3 months, full of screencaps of owners complaining about parts availability. And supposedly the solution is replicate that -failing- effort in every single in house body shop location? Not seeing it.

LOL. You link to a well known obnoxious $TSLA troll on twitter as evidence??

Many of these are faked/hijacked accounts pretending to be Tesla customers. Even I have caught one bot account which was RTed by Mark Spiegel himself.

Twitter

 

[Buckminster]

I haven't finished this yet. Nobody here will learn very much at all but it is first class anti FUD. Pitched at just the right level for people who understand a little but not enough.

 

[neroden]

Of late, it’s started to make me question my position on Trump. I know a lot about Tesla and Elon via primary sources to know when things are being screwed, distorted or outright made up. I don’t have any such first hand knowledge of what’s going on in DC and what I do know largely comes from news outlets that have proven themselves to me to be untrustworthy. NPR is my main remaining holdout that seems to have some reasonable standards.

Well, I can help you out here. I do have firsthand knowledge of what's going on in DC from civil servants we know -- and Trump is just as bad as everyone says he is. Behaves like a toddler.

If you want something you can verify yourself, you can just check the long lists of Trump lies for yourself:

Analysis | President Trump has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims over 355 days

I would be skeptical, however, of any claims that Trump is personally pursuing any policy whatsoever; the evidence shows he's not thinking enough for that.

 

[SPadival]

Must Read: To understand what the Shorty McShortface of $TSLA bears has on Tesla short position (spoiler: not much)

How Jim Chanos Uses Cynicism, Chutzpah — and a Secret Twitter Account — to Take on Markets (and Elon Musk)

 

[marcobel]

News from EU

European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Antitrust: Commission opens formal investigation into possible collusion between BMW, Daimler and the VW group on clean emission technology

 

[30seconds]

Listened to the Audi E-Tron presentation. Q2 2019 it is. Game on!

This gives Tesla plenty of time to update the Model X. Tesla will likely switch to 2170, simplify cabling, improve automation and maybe cut some weight also. So by then they could probably lower the price a little, maybe get price down to slightly below Audi while still being better at every metric and much better at some. As they switch to 2170 they will not be constrained to 100k cars per year so it makes sense to increase the demand a little.

The comparison will be to the Y which will also seat 5 but have better range, charging and acceleration for about $20k less

 

[mutle]

The shorts are latching on to their next round of FUD: Tesla won't be able to get the Model 3 approved for sales in EU. Can't wait to prove them wrong when I get my car.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

4Q18 Model 3 Production

 

[Sancho]

Is no one watching the spacex livestream? unbelievably inspiring. i think it will be great for elon's rep.

While Musk’s missteps get more exposure by the clickbait press, Musk continues to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, artists and dreamers.

 

[avoigt]

Another German EV has been release a lot of people have high hopes for.

Its looks like a decent car, not futuristic but thats fully okay, good to drive, comfortable and all a usual QX driver would look for.

Nevertheless the e-tron plays in the field of the EQC and I-Pace. Range, Acceleration, Charging, Top speed all of those do unfortunately disappoint versus the X. All of those spec would have been nice to have 5 years ago. As of now all what we have seen from the large Automakers from Europe is below par with Tesla.

It looks almost as Tesla remains to play in the own league and all other EVs are just one below competing against each other and of course against their ICE vehicles.

Still I am grateful for every EV that is produced and sold regardless if a Tesla or not as long as their carbon footprint is okay. After investigating a little bit more about lithium, cobalt, rare earth and carbon emissions for production I believe the Tesla's have another positive nobody is really yet aware about.

There is Tesla and then all the rest.....

 

[tander]

Tesla is 'headed for the graveyard,' predicts former GM exec Bob Lutz

It doesn't sound like he has done his homework on Tesla. Has he done it on GM? Anybody been paying attention, are they really planning to take losses on all their electric cars and make up for it with gas cars? I assumed that when they announced a bunch of electric cars they are planning for them to be profitable not just compliance?

 

[Ovulation]

UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla

• UBS believes Tesla's lead in electric vehicle technology may last longer after seeing Audi's latest offering.
• The Audi "e-tron underscores that catching up with Tesla is more difficult than expected by many," analyst Patrick Hummel says.

UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla

btw. This analyst is not a Tesla fanboy

btw2. to be a Tesla fanboy these days means only that you think a car company with a 25% margin per car, a yearly revenue growth rate of 50% and more demand than they can satisfy has a positive outlook lol

 

[Ulmo]

Is no one watching the spacex livestream? unbelievably inspiring. i think it will be great for elon's rep.

Thank you for letting us know! That was great.

I love the idea of artists going; they will naturally communicate their experience to our societies through their art, and our real dreams of space will be all the more vivid and imaginative!

As usual, I love watching the little bits of iterative physics we get to see on the designs.