General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[BioSehnsucht]

That's hardly what I'd call catching on. You're probably seeing the same ones repeatedly, there are a few around here as well, in the summer.

I only see perhaps one or two Harley bikes in a week, or the occasional crotch rocket - does that mean these variations of motorcycles never caught on either?

I see the Slingshots more often than I see OG Tesla Roadsters, Lotus Elises, all manner of Ferrari and Lamborghini and so on combined. Does that mean expensive sports / super cars have no market?

The market for three wheelers may not be huge, especially something like the Arcimoto, but as long as you don't overestimate the demand and build too much supply capacity, there's a market for it.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi folks,

If you haven't watched this video yet, be sure to take a few minutes to do so.

CH3ERS!

 

[replicant]

Hi folks,

If you haven't watched this video yet, be sure to take a few minutes to do so.

CH3ERS!

At 2:53 in the video, there appears to be some blue-white-red flags around the deck of the factory. Is that usual? Is this a major entrance/office? Could this to welcome a delegation?

It happens to be the flag of Mannheim. According to Wikipedia:

a city in the southwestern part of Germany, the third-largest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.

Mannheim is located at the confluence of the Rhine and the Neckar in the northwestern corner of Baden-Württemberg

The city is home to major corporations including Daimler, John Deere, Caterpillar, ABB, Fuchs Petrolub, IBM, Roche, Reckitt Benckiser, Unilever, Phoenix Group, Siemens

The successor to the Karl Benz automobile manufacturing companies begun in Mannheim, Daimler AG, has had a large presence in Mannheim. Today, diesel engines and buses are assembled there.

Some important inventions were made in Mannheim.

• Karl Drais built the first two-wheeled draisine in 1817.
• Karl Benz drove the first automobile on the streets of Mannheim in 1886. At his workshop in Mannheim he produced a lightweight three-wheeled vehicle powered by a single cylinder petrol/gasoline-fueled engine, first shown in public during 1886. This powered tricycle subsequently came to be widely regarded as the first automobile/motor car powered by an internal-combustion engine. Karl's wife Bertha Benz undertook the world's first road trip by automobile from Mannheim to Pforzheim in August 1888.
• The Lanz Bulldog, a popular tractor with a rugged, simple Diesel engine was introduced in 1921.
• Karl Benz developed the world's first compact diesel-powered car at the Benz & Cie. motor works in Mannheim during 1923

It would make a nice place for the European Gigafactory, don't you think?

 

[replicant]

At 2:53 in the video, there appears to be some blue-white-red flags around the deck of the factory. Is that usual? Is this a major entrance/office? Could this to welcome a delegation?

It happens to be the flag of Mannheim. According to Wikipedia:








It would make a nice place for the European Gigafactory, don't you think?

Also, from Teslarati:

Several areas in Germany close to the Benelux countries actually have thriving car industries. Baden-Württemberg, for one, is home to facilities owned by legacy automakers such as AMG, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi. Apart from being the third-largest state in Germany, Baden-Württemberg is also one of the regions in the country with the highest density of electric cars and EV charging infrastructure. Baden-Württemberg is also home to a good number of academic institutions, which could provide Tesla with a sizeable pool of potential employees.

Other sources about the Baden-Württemberg being a leading contender:
- Auch Baden-Württemberg bemüht sich um Ansiedlung von Tesla - WELT
- Automobilbranche: Der rote Teppich liegt schon bereit: Baden-Württemberg buhlt um Tesla-Werk
- Tesla wird in Deutschland heiß umworben – Baden-Württemberg mischt mit - Südwest - Badische Zeitung

 

[JRP3]

I only see perhaps one or two Harley bikes in a week, or the occasional crotch rocket - does that mean these variations of motorcycles never caught on either?

How about we agree that anecdote is not data. Data shows that 2 wheeled motorcycles far outsell 3 wheeled anything.

I see the Slingshots more often than I see OG Tesla Roadsters, Lotus Elises, all manner of Ferrari and Lamborghini and so on combined. Does that mean expensive sports / super cars have no market?

See above, anecdote is not data. Plus every car you listed with 4 wheels is in a high end, profitable, niche market.

The market for three wheelers may not be huge, especially something like the Arcimoto, but as long as you don't overestimate the demand and build too much supply capacity, there's a market for it.

Of course there is a tiny, irrelevant market for it, just don't pretend it's significant or will ever be. It's not influential, game changing, or relevant to anything, and most importantly has nothing at all to do with Tesla, not even in the General Discussion thread.

 

[JBRR]

Tesla Depreciation Case Study a Positive Read on Demand | Loup Ventures

 

[jbih]

At 2:53 in the video, there appears to be some blue-white-red flags around the deck of the factory. Is that usual? Is this a major entrance/office? Could this to welcome a delegation?

It happens to be the flag of Mannheim. According to Wikipedia:

It would make a nice place for the European Gigafactory, don't you think?

It's the flag of the Netherlands, just upside down. Or France's, just sideways. Or Russia's, just mixed up the colors a little...

 

[Mich]

This stuff is truly convoluted, which precipitated my aspirin reference. Much of the problem is that the settlement language applies to various scenarios--not just during the Free Conversion Period over the next three months. Nonetheless, IMO this topic is relevant to how shares will trade during the next three months since $920 million ain't chump change. While there are numerous factors that influence the trading price for shares, I suspect redemptions of 2019 notes will tend to operate as a ceiling at $360. My rationale is that note holders are largely institutional convertible note mutual funds that are largely indifferent to Tesla's corporate mission.

My best guesses are:

-If Tesla tells note holders before 12/1/18 that conversions will be redeemed only with cash then that eliminates the fluctuation issue. It would also be consistent with what both the SEC filings and Elon have been stating regarding settlement in cash. (I personally think that cash can be far better deployed in R&D and CapEx for new products development and/or filling the M3 delivery pipelines to international markets and settlement in shares only {even at a higher conversion ratio} while somewhat dilutive is preferable.)

-IMO, a conservative in-house securities attorney would recommend filing an 8k to announce the redemption method as corporate CYA. However, Tesla Securities Lawyer Heads to Sonder as GC | Corporate Counsel Regardless, I doubt the decision on how the 2019 Notes will be settled during the Early Conversion Period can be kept secret for long

So why was nothing communicated before Dec. 1st and what does it mean?

All this bond stuff is way too complex for all the well educated folks here...

 

[neroden]

It might mean that they're electing combination settlement. Or it might not, because they might have notified the noteholders and not notified the general public.

Suppose they're electing combination settlement.

If they're electing combination settlement, the essence of it is that they pay off the principal ($920 million) in cash and the excess of settlement value over the principal in stock. (The text is very complicated but this is the essence of it; I worked that out back when the bonds were issued.) Tesla's hedged for this amount. It's not clear exactly how the hedges work: they cover the excess of payment over the principal, but it's not clear to me whether they're paid off in stock or cash, or whether Tesla has a choice.

So there's a possibility that Tesla will effectively end up issuing some stock, amounting to the excess of the stock price over $359.87. (If the stock price was $1 above that, they'd effectively be issuing $2,556,478 in stock, if I've calculated it right.) And by "stock price" we mean volume weighted average stock price during the "measurement period", which is basically the month of February. If the average stock price is below that, obviously, nobody will convert, and this is all irrelevant.

 

[JRP3]

Einhorn getting spanked, I hope his TSLA short caused the most pain
Losses at Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight grow in November

 

[aubreymcfato]

Einhorn getting spanked, I hope his TSLA short caused the most pain
Losses at Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight grow in November

I love this:
Einhorn's fund allows investors to exit in June and December. A spokesman declined to comment.

I'm cooking popcorn, I bet we'll see some house of shorts' cards falling in the next weeks.

 

[EinSV]

Einhorn getting spanked, I hope his TSLA short caused the most pain
Losses at Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight grow in November

“The firm sent an investor update after the close of business on Friday informing clients the fund lost 3.6 percent net of fees in November, bringing the loss for the first 11 months of the year to 27.7 percent, according to a copy of the update seen by Reuters.

The decline puts Einhorn, whose stock picks are closely watched on Wall Street, among the industry's biggest losers for the year.”

Wonder how many of his investors cut their losses when they can exit this month .....

 

[Artful Dodger]

the fund lost 3.6 percent net of fees in November, bringing the loss for the first 11 months of the year to 27.7 percent

Makes sense. My TSLA shares are up about 30% over the same period. So he must be padding his losses with some other trades, wot?

YTD, TSLA is up around 9%, so maybe he's leveraged 3x?

Cheers!

 

[jbih]

I'm constantly wondering if shorts make money with the market manipulations and I'm guessing that some are, otherwise they wouldn't do it*. However, it appears others are losing money...

* Except for oil barons, but that's a different story...

 

[K3jSe7Llp7]

Yay. Finally some intelligence regarding trade instead of calling Trump literally Hitler. Something had to be done with China, people that disagree are just blinded by their hatred of Trump.

I still think Trump will soon tweet something positive about how Tesla is the most American car company. That will be an easy +10% day. GM has been a very bad boy.

I'm an investor in tesla and have been lurking here long enough to know there are a lot of exceptionally smart contributors. I don't know where best to post this off topic question but looking for feedback (and influence if I'm right). We here all know that climate change is virtually the only thing that matters, but most favor free trade. It seems to me that free trade means massive petroleum consumpsion by ships for which there is no better alternative. As a sailor I know that's not going to happen. Short range ships can be electrified but not those crossing oceans. I see no way to solve climate change but to manufacture locally, like the coming Shanghai tesla factory, and cut back exponentially on trade. So although I despise much about trump, are not his tariffs an environmentalist wish come true?

Moderator edit: Moved this post out of "Market Action" into here....thank you for initiating the question and welcome to TMC.

 

[Chop110]

Anybody see this from Business Insider? Not likely to happen, but wouldn't that be awesome if Elon was mulling this over?

5 reasons why Elon Musk should rescue a GM factory in Ohio

 

[EnzoXYZ]

I'm an investor in tesla and have been lurking here long enough to know there are a lot of exceptionally smart contributors. I don't know where best to post this off topic question but looking for feedback (and influence if I'm right). We here all know that climate change is virtually the only thing that matters, but most favor free trade. It seems to me that free trade means massive petroleum consumpsion by ships for which there is no better alternative. As a sailor I know that's not going to happen. Short range ships can be electrified but not those crossing oceans. I see no way to solve climate change but to manufacture locally, like the coming Shanghai tesla factory, and cut back exponentially on trade. So although I despise much about trump, are not his tariffs an environmentalist wish come true?

Moderator edit: Moved this post out of "Market Action" into here....thank you for initiating the question and welcome to TMC.

Point of his tariffs is a mean to fair trade or reciprocal trade. Others have mention his deregulation of EPA is causing a coal boom which isn’t helping. I argue he is letting the market determine which energy source is economical. Some where here I read trucks and cars produce a significant amount of CO2 therefore death of ICE can infact do more for that concern.

If you take Musk’s comments seriously on all transportation in the future will be electric except rockets then cargo ships will too.

 

[K3jSe7Llp7]

Point of his tariffs is a mean to fair trade or reciprocal trade. Others have mention his deregulation of EPA is causing a coal boom which isn’t helping. I argue he is letting the market determine which energy source is economical. Some where here I read trucks and cars produce a significant amount of CO2 therefore death of ICE can infact do more for that concern.

If you take Musk’s comments seriously on all transportation in the future will be electric except rockets then cargo ships will too.

Just looked it up, super tankers carry 55 million gallons of fuel, container ships 1.5-2 million gallons. That would take a BIG battery pack. Maybe Elon sees trade ending too hence gigafactories the world over.

 

[K3jSe7Llp7]

Agree if Trump is doing something pro-environment it's by accident.

 

[EVNow]

Einhorn getting spanked, I hope his TSLA short caused the most pain
Losses at Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight grow in November

If a short squeeze were to ever happen, it will start with Einhorn announcing that he is now long on Tesla.