General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[RobStark]

UPDATE: Chevy Bolt Sales Up 19.6% YTD: GM Confirms 200k In Q4

Since GM doesn't own their dealers they can't perfectly control when they cross the 200k threshold.

But passing it in Dec is just stupid, as looks likely.

They can cut back allocation to US and eliminate all incentives. Like cash back and subsidized leasing.

 

[ThereAre4Cars]

Including the loss of this tax incentive, I wonder if this administration is going to be pondering some approach to provide relief to the domestic manufacturers competitively. The tariffs and rising interest rates are already not doing many favors.

 

[bhtooefr]

But passing it in Dec is just stupid, as looks likely.

Unless they don't really want to sell Bolts.

 

[RobStark]

BMW to gain control of China venture in 'new era' for foreign carmakers | Reuters

SHENYANG, China (Reuters) - Germany’s BMW (BMWG.DE) said it will take control of its main China joint venture for 3.6 billion euros ($4.2 billion), the first such move by a global carmaker as Beijing starts to relax ownership rules for the world’s biggest auto market.

 

[heltok]

Watching latest South Park, s02e33. Is the episode related to Elon? Ambien->tweeting->defamation lawsuit, wife leaving etc. Seems to be some similarities?

 

[SPadival]

Been seeing reports of James Murdoch being the lead candidate for chairman, and am concerned enough to want to float an alternate candidate: Christine Todd Whitman (as suggested in the comments section of: Tesla’s next Chairman needs to be all-in with the mission, here are the names being floated )

Elon Musk on Twitter

Elon Musk‏Verified account @elonmusk
Replying to @FinancialTimes
This is incorrect

4:20 PM - 10 Oct 2018

4:20PM AEST h/t to Aussies there? Senior Murdoch is ex-Aussie

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

UPDATE: Chevy Bolt Sales Up 19.6% YTD: GM Confirms 200k In Q4

Since GM doesn't own their dealers they can't perfectly control when they cross the 200k threshold.

But passing it in Dec is just stupid, as looks likely.

They can cut back allocation to US and eliminate all incentives. Like cash back and subsidized leasing.

Since, yet again, there's legislative threat to the tax credit, and since they can't increase production that much anyway, they may be better off getting the sales in 2018Q4.

 

[RobStark]

Since, yet again, there's legislative threat to the tax credit, and since they can't increase production that much anyway, they may be better off getting the sales in 2018Q4.

It may be 1k-2k past the 200k in December.

Versus the entire Q2 2019.

GM said they are getting ready to increase production by 20% for Bolt

 

[bhtooefr]

Elon Musk on Twitter



4:20PM AEST h/t to Aussies there? Senior Murdoch is ex-Aussie

It shows up as 7:20 PM US Eastern Daylight Time for me, which would be 4:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time (local time for Tesla).

 

[SPadival]

It shows up as 7:20 PM US Eastern Daylight Time for me, which would be 4:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time (local time for Tesla).

That is weird. It shows up as 4:20PM to me in AEST.

 

[bhtooefr]

That tells me it may not be picking up your time zone at all, and defaulting to Twitter's native time zone (also PDT).

 

[Gwgan]

“Tesla Is Having Difficulties Paying Their Bills”: Is Wall Street Ready to Punish Elon Musk?

I thought most of the debt was in the hands of Elon and friends and the plan is to have enough cash from sales going foreward to cover this debt. Other than reiterating Quadir’s concerns is there any meat to this piece?

 

[Droulas]

View media item 118991
I made an excel to compare tesla's total current liabilities (due to be paid in the next 12 months I think), in the last 5 years, as a percentage to cash plus the next Q revenue vs some other car makers. With red it's my prediction for the Q3 2018 revenue.

I think that financialy speaking, tesla is pretty much ok, don't you think?

 

[ValueAnalyst]

Ford may be about to blow up in "three months maybe, six months definitely," assuming Tesla introduces Pickup with or shortly after Model Y.

Even without Tesla, Ford is highly exposed to rising gasoline prices and interest rates, due to its F-Series and highly levered balance sheet.

ValueAnalyst on Twitter

 

[RobStark]

 

[Driver Dave]

Ford may be about to blow up in "three months maybe, six months definitely," assuming Tesla introduces Pickup with or shortly after Model Y.

Even without Tesla, Ford is highly exposed to rising gasoline prices and interest rates, due to its F-Series and highly levered balance sheet.

ValueAnalyst on Twitter

Yeah, I looked up Ford recently and saw this exact chart and thought:

Why is everyone focused on TESLA?

FORD is going down!!!

 

[ThereAre4Cars]

Yeah but the Bugatti is really loud and has vaguely foreskin-like body panels. That's worth something.

 

[STARR X]

Ford may be about to blow up in "three months maybe, six months definitely," assuming Tesla introduces Pickup with or shortly after Model Y.

Even without Tesla, Ford is highly exposed to rising gasoline prices and interest rates, due to its F-Series and highly levered balance sheet.

ValueAnalyst on Twitter

I would love to see Tesla & Ford partner with a pick up truck before Tesla comes out with one as I was a Ford F-150 kind of guy before I got my MS. I think Bill Ford is somewhat of an environmentalist and a partnership like that along with access to the SuperCharger network is really something that would jumpstart Ford’s stock.

 

[DaveT]

More specifics on how I think Tesla can win the propaganda/media war:

DaveT on Chatstarter: "Part 4: The Turning Tide - How Tesla can win the negative propaganda war against their company and founder"

 

[bdy0627]

“Tesla Is Having Difficulties Paying Their Bills”: Is Wall Street Ready to Punish Elon Musk?

I thought most of the debt was in the hands of Elon and friends and the plan is to have enough cash from sales going foreward to cover this debt. Other than reiterating Quadir’s concerns is there any meat to this piece?

I would recommend checking out the thread by @luvb2b. It's got a great amount of info, estimates, and discussion about all of this. Comparing Tesla with Valeant is just nuts, obviously done, like Enron, for the hysteria of the association. They are a pharmaceutical company, which normally succeeds by continually creating innovative products (drugs.) Valeant decided to focus on growing the stock by no longer innovating on drugs and instead set out on a strategy to demonstrate revenue growth by buying up smaller companies with good products. This showed revenue growth that wasn't actually being created by Valeant. The finances looked good until they could no longer continue the feverish pace of M&A, then they looked awful. As soon as the buying of companies stopped, the revenue growth ground to a halt and their bubble burst. The only way they could avoid that day of reckoning was by continuing to buy up other companies, which they obviously couldn't do indefinitely.

How an even modestly intelligent person could use Valeant and Tesla in the same conversation, or Enron for that matter, just makes no sense other than trying to associate those deceptive and failed companies with Tesla. Tesla is innovating at a feverish pace, creating massively desirable products that they cannot produce enough of. They are running finances at the bleeding edge to try to grow as fast as possible without crashing. The model 3 ramp required a huge amount of resources and it did not go according to plan. This has caused liquidity to become very tight. The solution has already occurred - get to a reasonably high level of production with the model 3, where there is positive cash flow. They were also very smart in negotiating a delay in payments to suppliers to allow positive cash flow to start building liquidity. That was a critical move to get through this very phase. In fact, without that particular move, they almost certainly would have had to raise funds over the next 6 months. I think bears/shorts see that move as somehow deceptive and count it as debt that is looming that Tesla will be unable to pay, rather than recognizing that it is a dynamic situation that Tesla can adjust as liquidity improves. It's a temporary measure to get through this liquidity crunch caused by the slow model 3 ramp. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Valeant situation.