General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[mongo]

Another thing to keep in mind is that it isn't necessarily 200k US deliveries, but 200k deliveries where the tax credit was claimed.

I do not think that is correct. No one claims the credit till they file taxes, so that would make the system practically unusable.

IRS allows manufacturer to certify what cars get the credit and what the credit level is. IRS also uses sold vs acquired, but at least acquired is based on State title transfer.

Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2009-48 | Internal Revenue Service

This notice also provides guidance to taxpayers who purchase motor vehicles regarding the conditions under which they may rely on the vehicle manufacturer’s (or, in the case of a foreign vehicle manufacturer, its domestic distributor’s) certification in determining whether a credit is allowable with respect to the vehicle and the amount of the credit. The Service and the Treasury Department expect that the regulations will incorporate the rules set forth in this notice.

Possible June 30 bonus day (from @luvb2b or others):

All references to § 30D in subsequent sections of this notice are to the provision as amended by the Act. Guidance regarding the credit under § 30D for qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles acquired before January 1, 2010, is provided in Notice 2009-54, 2009-26 I.R.B. 1124. This notice also amplifies Notice 2009-54 and Notice 2009-58, 2009-30 I.R.B. 163 (relating to the plug-in electric vehicle credit under § 30) to provide that a vehicle is considered “acquired” when title to that vehicle passes under state law.

The new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle credit phases out for a manufacturer’s vehicles over the one-year period beginning with the second calendar quarter after the calendar quarter in which at least 200,000 qualifying vehicles manufactured by that manufacturer have been sold for use in the United States (determined on a cumulative basis for sales after December 31, 2009) (“phase-out period”).

 

[Stretch2727]

This information, if accurate, doesn't seem like it would be any kind of catalyst for the "short burn of the century".

Tend to agree. I am beginning to think it has to do with announcing increasing reservations or the actual order backlog.
Maybe they expect 25% margin on the current backlog with the P/AWD in the mix. If they have 100K actual orders to fill in Q3/Q4 this is $1.5B gross profit @ 60K ASP. This is before you consider S/X which could also surprise. I think Elon is setting this up for massive cash generation in Q3/4.

On the other hand I don't think the delivery letter will get into margins, but they will give guidance on the Q2 earnings call. So they announce the order backlog in the delivery letter and the margins in the earning call. Could be a long slow burn.

 

[defc0n]

Tend to agree. I am beginning to think it has to do with announcing increasing reservations or the actual order backlog.
Maybe they expect 25% margin on the current backlog with the P/AWD in the mix. If they have 100K actual orders to fill in Q3/Q4 this is $1.5B gross profit @ 60K ASP. This is before you consider S/X which could also surprise. I think Elon is setting this up for massive cash generation in Q3/4.

On the other hand I don't think the delivery letter will get into margins, but they will give guidance on the Q2 earnings call. So they announce the order backlog in the delivery letter and the margins in the earning call. Could be a long slow burn.

All sounds plausible except this time I'm not so sure about it being a slow "slow burn" -- the language Elon has been specifically using leads me to believe its news that should lead to a very sudden high rise in SP at the date/time of his choosing. Otherwise, in my opinion, Elon should not be using the language that he is.

 

[defc0n]

I don't know guys, I actually thought Trip did a very bad job. Gordon kept throwing out incorrect and half true "facts" and Trip just kept going on about how numbers don't matter. That makes him look like a cult member. It would have been pretty easy to retort the FUD:

1, "Tesla burned 3.5Bn last year". I think it was like 2.2Bn

2, He could have pushed back on the burning money analogy. They have factories and hardware to show for not just expense

3, he could have also explained how you need to advance sales and service and supercharger investments in anticipation of 3-500k new cars you are putting on the road

4, he says they don't make money on the cars but later says they think Tesla had a 22% gross margin last year

5, the whole part about Elon predicting being cash flow positive in 2015 has to do with Model X and later Model 3 ramp issues both of which appear to be mostly resolved by now.

6, Missing half a million cars produced by a year has to do with trying to pull M3 ramp forward by 6-9 months which failed. Not ideal but hardly fundamental. They will still grow production by 2.5-3x this year and will double next year. Then new models go into production

7, clearly Tesla NEVER said they will grow S&X sales by 66%. S is segment leader in NA and EU. They have said repeatedly that they do not intend to invest in going above 100k on S+X except for efficiencies.

8, the Chevy Volt (sic!) came and took market share? ARE YOU EVEN AN ANALYST? There is no evidence of that in sales numbers plus once again different market segment. It's like saying the BMW 3 will come in and take Mercedes E or S sales. Absurd. If anything Model 3 is sucking the oxygen away from Bolt (and Volt)

9, we have the Audi e-tron? Really? Where is it? Do prototypes count now?

10, all those cars don't have the supercharger network plus their sales numbers are already dwarfed by M3. M3 quarterly production is now as much as some of those EV's annual.

And so on so forth. I realize he was on the spot and live, but I'm just typing this on my phone while cooking lunch on an open fire with the other hand...

I didn't like Trip's performance for the simple fact he didn't actually refute any of Gordon's assertions.

 

[22522]

Not a peep?

 

[ZsoZso]

Model 3 deliveries in Canada:

• 279 in May
• 1,023 in June
• Q2 2018 total = 1,302

This is most definitely short of reality. I know from a very reliable source (Tesla engineer who flew over to Toronto for a month to help with the delivery) that they have delivered over 2500 Model 3 just in Toronto during the period he was here: mid May to mid June. I believe (but do not have any numbers) there were additional deliveries in Vancouver and in Montreal too.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

ValueAnalyst on Twitter

Poll: Do you have a short-term position in $TSLA

Short-term positions include options that expire in less than one year, as well as shares that you know you will need to sell in less than one year.

 

[1208]

Elon Musk 'to build the world's biggest battery' in Britain as part of £400m plans to carpet a swathe of Kent with almost a million solar panels


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5905675/Elon-Musk-build-worlds-biggest-battery-Britain-400m-solar-panel-plans.html

 

[neroden]

My Q2 2018 Estimates:

• 27,443 Model 3 production in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 95%)
• 23,756 Model S+X production in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 92%)

• 15,814 Model 3 deliveries in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 85%)
• 11,269 Model S deliveries in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 85%)
• 9,674 Model X deliveries in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 85%)

• 14,512 Model 3 deliveries in the US in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 85%)
• 1,302 Model 3 deliveries in Canada in Q2 2018 (Expected accuracy: 85%)

• 205,121 US sales at the end of Q2 2018. (Expected accuracy: 96%)

Most people believe that I'm wrong on the 200K calculation but I have to go with what the data shows. If it's wrong, it will demonstrate that it's difficult to estimate deliveries. Generally speaking, estimating deliveries is a lot more difficult than estimating production because a ship might not have arrived yet in Europe or Asia or they might have decided to add more cars to the new inventory fleet. Lot's of things can affect deliveries. Estimating production is easier because of VINs.

Predicting the 200K is really difficult because it turned into a close call. Initially, it looked like they would exceed 200K by 15K. However, Tesla dramatically lowered the deliveries in June. If you look at the table here, it shows 3472 US deliveries for June. In addition, insideEVs calculation is much closer to 200K than mine and they are known to over-estimate the number by 2-3%. I could be 96% accurate and still wrong. They might have managed to postpone 200K to Q3. It's a close call.

The actual numbers for the first 5 items on the list will be released by Tesla in a few days. I will measure the accuracy in percentage. I don't think Tesla will release the Model 3 US and Canada delivery numbers but I added those just in case they decided to release them.

There is strong evidence that your Canadian numbers are WAY off -- as in, they've delivered well over 3000 cars to Canada (maybe even 5000 or more). So your expected accuracy is very low on that. We know of 200 cars/day being delivered to Toronto for 2 weeks; reports of over 800 arriving in Vancouver over one week; and so on. (No reports from Montreal or Calgary. But there were reports from Toronto and Vancouver that "regular" service center deliveries continued and these mass deliveries were in addition to those)

The US deliveries may be much lower, due to Canadian redirection and stockpiling.

There is no way in hell they ran over 200K by a mere 15K, with the known drop in US deliveries, the mass shipments to Canada, documentation of stockpiling, and so forth. I would bet you on that.

 

[22522]

Is there a CO2 calculation for the grass that does not receive sunlight when these solar panels are installed?

 

[22522]

They did not run over.

 

[tlo]

Looks like they hit 5k/week.

Marsalis C on Twitter

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

Looks like they hit 5k/week.

Marsalis C on Twitter

Kinda hard to argue w/ this pic! Now the question is, when was it taken? Today, yesterday, last week?

 

[Seesaw]

Amazing effort, well done!

 

[SeriousCallers]

This was posted on Twitter this morning

 

[ggr]

This was posted on Twitter this morning

That's so last half hour...

Welcome to the forum.

 

[RubberToe]

Kinda hard to argue w/ this pic! Now the question is, when was it taken? Today, yesterday, last week?

What milli-second, of what second, of what minute. Maybe the 5k didn't happen until 17 seconds after midnight, so technically they didn't hit it in quarter 2. Maybe they signed the table "before" the cars actually rolled off the line? Who knew what, when, and when did they know it. Who was privy to the picture taking planning? When did they get called to get ready for the picture? Surely this could not have happened! Let's get Mueller investigating this, we need to get to the bottom of this fake news!!!!

Maybe they stole the Bolt 5k per week table and slapped a Tesla logo on it!



So, did Tesla come up "short" again @bro1999 ? LOL

RT

 

[Rarity]

Kinda hard to argue w/ this pic! Now the question is, when was it taken? Today, yesterday, last week?

You can see at the bottom a date signed as 7-1-18.

Congratulations to all who contributed! Quite a milestone in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

 

[ZsoZso]

That's a very nice milestone to reach. Congrats to Tesla team for reaching the 5k/week !!!

However, I do not think production hell is really over yet. My recollection from a year ago is, that the original plan was to reach 5k/week by December 2017 on a single robotic GA line, then replicate it to reach 10k/week. But now, it looks like they have 2 robotic lines operating already and those together couldn't reach the 5k/week so they setup the infamous tent-line with human/manual labor to get to the 5k/week number. So they still have to figure out how to speed up those robots to get to 10k/week, I do not think they plan on installing 3 more lines to reach 10k/week.

 

[RubberToe]

Someone on Twitter said: "Did Elon sign that, or was he still tightening bolts?"

Love it...

RT