General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[skitown]

This package will be difficult for other companies to copy. It's real rocket science.

Some might even call it a moat.

 

[MP3Mike]

I've yet to see a Twitter joke from Elon not turn into reality at some point - regardless of the ridiculousness. So this'll probably happen.

In that case I can't wait for this: Elon Musk on Twitter

Each flamethrower comes with a state-of-the-art The Boring Company brand fire extinguisher.

Will offer a TBC ice blaster before the dry season starts in winter.

Then I can have a set of fire and ice guns!

 

[Cosmacelf]

Would you wise folks help me understand something. I am really puzzled by the level of confidence some otherwise very intelligent people put on incumbent car manufactures, alone the line of these big guys can crush Tesla like a bug. This is especially baffling after we saw so many big and powerful enterprise failed to compete with the new comers, just in the past twenty years. what gives?

Go back a few years and it was common knowledge that "No one ever got fired for buying IBM".

People can be smart in one area, like being able to speak well, or write well, but not have a clue about anything to do with math or science. Indeed, the two are usually incompatible. So the people who know technology, usually can't communicate that knowledge well, while those who know nothing about it, can talk seemingly fluently for hours about it.

The fact that "otherwise very intelligent people" think something doesn't mean much. Always make up your own mind, never believe anything anyone says to you, verify all "knowledge". If you can't do that, then maybe you are trying to do something you can't do.

 

[Stretch2727]

Would you wise folks help me understand something. I am really puzzled by the level of confidence some otherwise very intelligent people put on incumbent car manufactures, alone the line of these big guys can crush Tesla like a bug. This is especially baffling after we saw so many big and powerful enterprise failed to compete with the new comers, just in the past twenty years. what gives?

Good read to help understand.

The Innovator's Dilemma - Wikipedia

Maybe a very simple answer. Your the CEO of big auto. You tell the shareholders, no more divided and losses for the next few years while you properly invest in electric cars which have less than 1% market share. You will be gone very quickly.

So many think big auto can crush Tesla late in the S curve. Very hard for them to catch up.

 

[mongo]

Good read to help understand.

The Innovator's Dilemma - Wikipedia

Maybe a very simple answer. Your the CEO of big auto. You tell the shareholders, no more divided and losses for the next few years while you properly invest in electric cars which have less than 1% market share. You will be gone very quickly.

So many think big auto can crush Tesla late in the S curve. Very hard for them to catch up.

We don't make cars, we make dividends.

 

[Intl Professor]

Go back a few years and it was common knowledge that "No one ever got fired for buying IBM".

People can be smart in one area, like being able to speak well, or write well, but not have a clue about anything to do with math or science. Indeed, the two are usually incompatible. So the people who know technology, usually can't communicate that knowledge well, while those who know nothing about it, can talk seemingly fluently for hours about it.

The fact that "otherwise very intelligent people" think something doesn't mean much. Always make up your own mind, never believe anything anyone says to you, verify all "knowledge". If you can't do that, then maybe you are trying to do something you can't do.

Wise words. Similarly, one of my favorites is a quote by Jose Ortega Y Gassett which, if memory serves goes something like this: "People are wrong about skeptics. It's not that they believe nothing, they believe practically everything." But one does have to decide and risk failure or there is no progress. BFO.

 

[avoigt]

Some news from Diesel Gate:

• 15,000 VW Diesel cars are under threat from the German Authorities to loose their technical permission
• Owners did not show up at shop to load new SW and now get another and last 4 week
• First cars in different cities have been closed down already
• Daimler is under investigation and its assumed millions of their cars not compliant with regulations
• They found further inconsistencies and strange behaviors of Daimlers Diesel
• Government said it will costs Daimer 5k€ per car if proven right, that adds to 4bn€ altogether

 

[avoigt]

David Jenkins
@Djenkins6
I reckon it’s adapted cold gas thrusters used in upper stage rocket guidance, using plain old compressed air.

Elon Musk
Verified account
@elonmusk
Using the config you describe, plus an electric pump to replenish air in COPV, when car power draw drops below max pack power output, makes sense. But we are going to go a lot further.

Elon Musk on Twitter

Ooh ooh ooh...

Speculation:

That sounds to me like they want to use the thrusters to keep the car on an insane high speed that they achieved initially through the "normal" batterie driven acceleration. That initial jump may be not possible for the batterie to keep up in the R2.

With that technology Tesla is getting to a complete new level and leaves the competition in the dust. No one will even attempt to compete in that field.

The energy from the batterie will flow into compressing normal air I hear from him. It does not burn or creates emissions but its like a fire extinguisher. Depending how you design that thing if should be able to fly indeed. Used also for braking and turning so they are indeed around the car. It may be therefore create a new level of safety even used in a car with very high speed and controlled by a smart algorithm of course.

Thats all pretty crazy stuff but technically sounds feasible. Its a very polarizing matter and some people will get enthusiastic while others will hate Tesla even more.

Also I believe people who have such a "weapon" need a special drive training and I cannot imagine that such a drive train will be approved by car authorities around the world for normal roads and highways.

I am a bid cautions here that if they really do it it turns into a PR disaster as it gives the Tesla haters a broad field where they can attack again.

Its honestly almost a hybrid between a car and a plane.

 

[sundaymorning]

Some news from Diesel Gate:

• 15,000 VW Diesel cars are under threat from the German Authorities to loose their technical permission
• Owners did not show up at shop to load new SW and now get another and last 4 week
• First cars in different cities have been closed down already
• Daimler is under investigation and its assumed millions of their cars not compliant with regulations
• They found further inconsistencies and strange behaviors of Daimlers Diesel
• Government said it will costs Daimer 5k€ per car if proven right, that adds to 4bn€ altogether

German regulator found defeat devices in Daimler diesel cars: BamS

More bad news for Audi.

Germany orders recall of 60,000 Audis over emissions

 

[avoigt]

How Q3 and Q4 will likely look like.....

I have to say that since 2012 I did see it coming arguing with my friends who did not believed in it at all. It turned me nuts, me not working in the automotive industry to see them all missing the ship.

So, I said to myself they may know something I don't know and may be right after all because I am not an expert so should be wrong by definition.

Its kind of sad for me to see I have not been wrong....

Tesla Model 3 On Verge Of Dramatically Disrupting Mercedes, BMW, & Audi | CleanTechnica

 

[Yggdrasill]

David Jenkins
@Djenkins6
I reckon it’s adapted cold gas thrusters used in upper stage rocket guidance, using plain old compressed air.

Elon Musk
Verified account
@elonmusk
Using the config you describe, plus an electric pump to replenish air in COPV, when car power draw drops below max pack power output, makes sense. But we are going to go a lot further.

Elon Musk on Twitter

Ooh ooh ooh...

I suspected cold gas thrusters using air, but this indicates they are going further. When used extensively for turning, braking and accelerating, cold gas thrusters don't really have the energy efficiency/density required to be used for several laps at the track. I don't think resistojets have sufficient power, either, so I think you are looking at a combustive fuel.

The combustive fuel needs to check some boxes, in my view:

- Energy density
- Easy storage
- Safety
- Availability
- Zero emission

At first I was thinking about hydrogen. It does check most of the boxes, and it would just be so deliciously ironic, but safety would be an issue. Hydrogen is difficult to store, and if you have any leaks, you could easily blow a garage sky high. With piping and valves for 10 thrusters, I think the risk of a leak would be way too high.

Then I started thinking about propane. Zero emission is an issue, but other than that it checks the other boxes. And it is possible to get propane from agricultural waste and such. And the Boring Company uses it for the Not-a-flamethrower. So yeah, I think propane is probably the best bet.

A 20 kg tank could store probably 30 kg of propane, which could provide probably around 10 times more thrust than my previously suggested compressed air solution with 45 kg of air.

 

[Sean Wagner]

Let's not forget that the new, more automated part of the line is supposed to lower manufacturing costs, so it's reasonable to expect [sub-]lines 1 and 2 to be retired at some point. Production numbers may hold steady for a while at 5'000 give or take.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Tesla has decupled (ten-fold) its weekly production rate every three years, and there is no fundamental reason why this pace of growth cannot continue. If it does, then following 500,000 annualized rate by the end of 2018 or early 2019, we can expect 5 million by the end of 2021, and 50 million by the end of 2024, but let's say 2025 to be conservative. Combined with the fact that full self-driving will allow tomorrow's vehicles to be used up to 20x more than today's cars, which are parked 95% of the time, 50 million annualized production effectively equal one billion annual units by 2025, which is the current population of vehicles in the world today. Note that I did not even mention tomorrow's Boring tunnels, which I expect will comprise majority of "ground" miles traveled by 2025.

What is your target demand constraint in terms of vehicles per year?

 

[winfield100]

We don't make cars, we make dividends.

alah
"We made our money the old fashioned way, we stole it"
(hey it's the weekend!! back to mostly lurking)

 

[1101011]

Let's not forget that the new, more automated part of the line is supposed to lower manufacturing costs, so it's reasonable to expect [sub-]lines 1 and 2 to be retired at some point...

Then use those components as the prototype lines for Model Y.

 

[neroden]

OK, so I'm thinking of switching brokerages to one which will lend my fully-paid shares out. Does anyone have quotes regarding what Fidelity and Interactive Brokers are currently paying for lent shares, so I can make an informed decision?

 

[neroden]

Yes, quarterly reports for public companies of a certain size were mandatory since the original SEC act, and the SEC sets financial reporting laws for US corporations and international ones that trade on US exchanges. However I think it was probably in the 80s-ish when all the filings started to become easily accessible with the internet/tv business shows, and public conf calls. I guess prior to that if you wanted to look at a 10-q you'd probably have to call up investor relations and ask them or the SEC to send it to you via snail mail or fax, or maybe get it in the library? I kind of like that idea though of just reading a shareholder letter once a year and otherwise not paying attention to companies, quarterly reports and all that are kind of annoying.

They didn't even have 10-Qs in the library. 10-Ks were considered good enough.

I finally found a source which indicated that the rise of quarterly reports started in the 1950s and went on until the 1970s (though it's behind a paywall so I'm going from the abstract). The source disapproves of quarterly reports.

 

[neroden]

Regarding General Assembly:

I think a lot of people here has glossed over this bit of a golden nugget that Elon dropped during the shareholder meeting as I haven’t seen it discussed much. If you go back and listen to Elon’s presentation, he says that he is confident Tesla will achieve 5,000 a week even with the current 2 general assembly lines, hence, with the addition of a 3rd line it’s very likely to get Tesla way beyond the 5,000 number. Which is why he’s confident that they’ll get to 5k a week by end of June. My guess is that he’s really aiming for 6k end of 3rd and 7k end of 4th (conservatively).

Oh, I agree. (Thanks for clarifying that.) I think they'll easily be up to 7500/week before the end fo the year.

The need for three lines has simply caused me to be worried about margins. I'm hoping they can get back to the planned margins.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

What is your target demand constraint in terms of vehicles per year?

This is at least a decade away, but instead of units of vehicles, I think of demand as miles traveled, which will increase rapidly as per-mile costs decline. Even if Tesla can continue to decuple units produced every three years, and invents FSD that is widely accepted by populations and regulators, and TBC can accelerate the speed at which it digs tunnels while also reducing per-mile costs at a rapid rate, Tesla would still not reach demand constraints until after 2025. The simplifying assumption here is that Tesla will be the marginal cost producer, which I believe will be the case. Again, this is a long-term outlook that involves lots of assumptions, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[KnowLittle]

OK, so I'm thinking of switching brokerages to one which will lend my fully-paid shares out. Does anyone have quotes regarding what Fidelity and Interactive Brokers are currently paying for lent shares, so I can make an informed decision?

Last week IB has been lending out my shares at 2.63% & I've been getting 1.32%.