Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[MitchJi]

↑{below is quote}
prismatic cells vs cylindrical cells may be the answer
Absolutely not! Why would you even think that's a possibility?
{above is quote}

apologies for being obscure, meant cylindricals easier to control temp, C rates, etc. prefer the thought processes favoring cylindricals
again apologies for not being clear, except to myself

You didn't answer the question.

Why would you think that the the from factor of the cell has anything to do with the c-rate or controlling the c-rates? That statement doesn't make sense, you control the c-rate electronically.

Why would you think that cylindrical cells would make it easier to control the temps?

First principles question. Why would taking the all layers of the battery and curling them into a circle, then squeezing them into a cylinder, instead of laying them between flat thin sheets of aluminum foil make it easier to control the temperature? If anything that would make it more difficult.

I apologize for the negative tone of my posts. I get a little annoyed with posts that are based on the assumption that Tesla has an advantage that isn't real. Cylindrical vs prismatic clearly falls into that category. Tesla has a huge advantage in battery pack and cell costs and prices. It's not constructive to invent nonexistent advantages.

 

[Green Pete]

I would say for about a year now. What percentage of total Asia/Pacific deliveries do you think are going to China?

I can't answer that question, but I'd be willing to bet far more Model Xs than Model Ss are shipped to China. The falcon wing doors being the major selling point in my mind. Although I base that off of nothing other than idle speculation.

 

[bonaire]

It was 3 years ago Tesla entered China. Today Tesla China's official social media gave a review of what was accomplished in China in three years. One interesting information is that it says China has become second largest market for Tesla and one of the fastest growing markets as well. Since Norway is more or less saturated, it is not surprising China has become 2nd. But if anyone has any detailed info on the largest European country, then it would be safe to say China has more sales than that one.

If China is double Norway, would you call that good? Triple? It has to make up for the loss of Denmark and Norway and others. The USA is by-far the #1 market (USA has the most millionaires by number and probably the most ardent Tesla fans who buy more than one unit), China second compared to Europe is still not a great compare since Europe is waiting to come to full speed with the Model X deliveries during December. This page shows how Europe has "softened". Tesla Europe Registration Stats The big notable compare is 2015 Model S to 2016 Model S in Europe. 10,880 thru Nov. 2016 and 16,701 thru dec. 2015.

What are the markets? The initial three being tracked: N. America, Europe, Asia? Or USA, China, Norway, etc. (by country) Everyone should pick a market and stick with it, rather than tune markets to make words sound better. Why not say "Asian market is #2 to N. American"? When comparing countries, then say China is the #2 country market to the USA at #1. And why are China's numbers so well hidden? Other than ev-sales.blogspot.com - where can someone actually vet these "markets"?

 

[Fallenone]

I would say for about a year now. What percentage of total Asia/Pacific deliveries do you think are going to China?

Frankly, no concrete idea. Hong Kong as we know is doing well. Australia I don't know but should be doing well too. If I take the 148 in first week of Dec as average. Then it implies 7-8k a year. I think this is an overestimate since there should have been growth throughout the year. 4-5k for 2016 might be more realistic. Also if you remember, Tesla's website source code had a leak on a number that was highly suspected as the reservation number chronically. I did some survey and research with Chinese reservation holders of Model 3 (it was possible because China has a different system of numbering their sequence, it started with 8 instead of 1) and turns out there was about 7% of the global reservation in China. It's not a direct evidence of current sales ratio of course but I think it shouldn't be too far off.

 

[Fallenone]

If China is double Norway, would you call that good? Triple? It has to make up for the loss of Denmark and Norway and others. The USA is by-far the #1 market (USA has the most millionaires by number and probably the most ardent Tesla fans who buy more than one unit), China second compared to Europe is still not a great compare since Europe is waiting to come to full speed with the Model X deliveries during December. This page shows how Europe has "softened". Tesla Europe Registration Stats The big notable compare is 2015 Model S to 2016 Model S in Europe. 10,880 thru Nov. 2016 and 16,701 thru dec. 2015.

What are the markets? The initial three being tracked: N. America, Europe, Asia? Or USA, China, Norway, etc. (by country) Everyone should pick a market and stick with it, rather than tune markets to make words sound better. Why not say "Asian market is #2 to N. American"? When comparing countries, then say China is the #2 country market to the USA at #1. And why are China's numbers so well hidden? Other than ev-sales.blogspot.com - where can someone actually vet these "markets"?

IDK, ask Tesla PR maybe.

 

[Gerardf]

And why are China's numbers so well hidden? Other than ev-sales.blogspot.com - where can someone actually vet these "markets"?

As far as Tesla is concerned China numbers are no more hidden than other numbers. Tesla has chosen to report Quarterly totals for production and deliveries. The fact we know more details about the European delivery numbers is a result of these countries reporting monthly.
Personally as a shareholder I am fine with quarterly reporting, as monthly reports currently do not make much sense as a result of the way geographic deliveries are scheduled. And of course geographic monthly DELIVERY reporting also make little sense as long as Tesla is production constrained (and they will be for years to come).

Monthly PRODUCTION reporting would be of interest however, but that is something completely different.

In case you own shares and do not like the choice Tesla made on their reporting, feel free to sell your shares.
In case you do not own shares : who are you to complain ?

 

[landis]

Cylindrical vs prismatic clearly falls into that category

Do you have a link or two for this assertion?

 

[techmaven]

Well, the only data point I have seen for China lately is this one:
EV Sales: China October 2016 (Updated)

That claims 1,085 Model S's sold in China for October, 6,964 YTD. I imagine that Model X is now quite popular there, but not clear why Jose has Model S data and not Model X data. And of course, I don't know exactly where he's getting his data.

Since we have some Chinese language readers, can someone provide any color on the reports from autohome.com.cn Tesla threads? It's quite hard to do it by machine translator. THX!

 

[Fallenone]

Well, the only data point I have seen for China lately is this one:
EV Sales: China October 2016 (Updated)

That claims 1,085 Model S's sold in China for October, 6,964 YTD. I imagine that Model X is now quite popular there, but not clear why Jose has Model S data and not Model X data. And of course, I don't know exactly where he's getting his data.

Since we have some Chinese language readers, can someone provide any color on the reports from autohome.com.cn Tesla threads? It's quite hard to do it by machine translator. THX!

autohome threads are not systematic and I don't think it can provide sufficient insight on delivery in China. Most of the posts there are people asking questions about Tesla or newly owners writing up their experience of taking delivery (a custom in the forum).

 

[vgrinshpun]

Frankly, no concrete idea. Hong Kong as we know is doing well. Australia I don't know but should be doing well too. If I take the 148 in first week of Dec as average. Then it implies 7-8k a year. I think this is an overestimate since there should have been growth throughout the year. 4-5k for 2016 might be more realistic. Also if you remember, Tesla's website source code had a leak on a number that was highly suspected as the reservation number chronically. I did some survey and research with Chinese reservation holders of Model 3 (it was possible because China has a different system of numbering their sequence, it started with 8 instead of 1) and turns out there was about 7% of the global reservation in China. It's not a direct evidence of current sales ratio of course but I think it shouldn't be too far off.

I don't *know* as well, but your estimate of 4-5K per year works out to 1,000 to 1,250 per quarter, which is more than any single country in Europe for about a year now. This is exactly why I reacted to your post the way I did - because in my mind China having deliveries higher than any other country except the US, is a foregone conclusion. I do not say that it will happened again, but in Q3, out of 4414 Asia/Pacific deliveries probably more than 3,000 were to china. So if in Q2 Asia/Pacific deliveries grow by, say, 2,000 cars and this growth is in China, the total Q4 delivered would be around 5,000 cars, which *would* be more than the whole of Europe if European deliveries in Q4 are the same as in Q3.

So this is not that far fetched, nor it would represent a very surprising turn of events.

 

[MitchJi]

Do you have a link or two for this assertion?

Link for simple first principles analysis?

 

[Off Shore]

At some point they will either cause interest rates for TSLA borrowing to rise or they will start running low on funds to keep throwing at TSLA.

Only assuming their funds are limited. Let's hide and watch.

 

[Green Pete]

Only assuming their funds are limited. Let's hide and watch.

The amount of money behind groups against Tesla and the incentive for them to spend money for it to fail make me think that the financial backing behind short interest is probably in a practical sense inexhaustible. Financially speaking, there are some very wealthy organizations that could see shorting Tesla as a loss leader to preserving their existing business models. So I think its less about "when they run out of money" and more about when it becomes clear shorting the stock will no long have any impact on the financial stability of the company. Some in the forum may believe that time has already come, I imagine that ideal will become more universal once the Model 3 is in full production.

 

[N5329K]

That suggests their #1 priority will be to keep the Model 3 launch from being successful.
Robin

 

[landis]

Link for simple first principles analysis?

Yes please.
I may be horrible at searching but I haven't found a decent description of prismatic cells beyond containing them in a pouch...

 

[MitchJi]

As I said making assumptions based on one conciliatory speech is probably inaccurate, unless you believe that should not apply to conservationists (link to article by Fred at electrek):

Trump’s horrific pick for EPA boss Scott Pruitt is currently suing the EPA to stop the Clean Power Plan

Donald Trump is currently considering several candidates with close ties to the fossil fuel industry for the role of US Secretary of Energy. While that’s far from being progressive since renewables are widely considered to be the future of energy, it makes some sense from a conservative point of view since fossil fuels are currently the main source of energy in the US.

It is a whole lot more difficult to justify the nomination of someone with close ties the fossil fuel industry to the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yet in an obvious ‘fox guarding the henhouse’ metaphor, that’s exactly what Donald Trump did yesterday. Several news outlets are reporting that Trump finally chose Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the agency. The details on why this is reprehensible…

Ironically, Pruitt, a climate change denier, is behind one of the main legal efforts to stop the EPA from implementing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to force states to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy in order to meet U.S. obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement.

It’s only one of many of Pruitt’s efforts to curtail the deployment of renewable energy in favor of coal and oil. In some cases, those efforts were directly backed by the oil industry. The New York Times reported:

A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.

The close ties have paid off for Mr. Pruitt politically: Harold G. Hamm, the chief executive of Continental Energy, an Oklahoma oil and gas company, was a co-chairman of Mr. Pruitt’s 2013 re-election campaign.
<Snip>

 

[Papafox]

That suggests their #1 priority will be to keep the Model 3 launch from being successful.
Robin

Indeed. One implication is that we may see this drag from the shorts until the volume production of a profitable Model 3 is assured. Their resolve might crack sooner as it becomes apparent that spending all this money on expanding the short holdings is no longer as effective as in the pre-merger days. For example, instead of the typical short-induced slow-descent in stock price in the low-volume afternoon hours, we're more often seeing a slow afternoon rise of SP that undoes the morning's short-selling efforts. Their resolve might also crack if Tesla's cash flow, with the help of Tesla energy, starts to back up Elon's claim that an equity raise prior to Model 3 production is not essential. We live in interesting times.

 

[ggr]

Do you have a link or two for this assertion?

I found "Lithium-ion Cylindrical Cells Vs. Prismatic Cells" thought provoking. For large applications, pouch cells are often used, my understanding is that they are usually folded layers somewhat like prismatic. Cooling is cited as an argument against prismatic.

 

[SebastianR]

The amount of money behind groups against Tesla and the incentive for them to spend money for it to fail make me think that the financial backing behind short interest is probably in a practical sense inexhaustible. Financially speaking, there are some very wealthy organizations that could see shorting Tesla as a loss leader to preserving their existing business models. So I think its less about "when they run out of money" and more about when it becomes clear shorting the stock will no long have any impact on the financial stability of the company. Some in the forum may believe that time has already come, I imagine that ideal will become more universal once the Model 3 is in full production.

Count me as being in the camp of "shorting has will no longer have any impact on the financial stability of the company", nor will recalls, fires, accidents have a huge impact on the financials of Tesla. Of course we should never tempt fate and I certainly don't hope that any of these events will become true. I also don't think that Tesla is risk-free - not by a long shot. If Model 3 is a failure, they wouldn't get TE to work or mess-up the solar part of their business they would surely be in trouble. But these items are all in the control of Tesla.

So no, shorting Tesla won't hold Tesla back. Why does shorting still exist? Well, part of that may be "good ol' tradition" - the cost of shorting Tesla may just be a small marketing expense for those in the oil+gas industry. But I think the whole game may have an impact on other start-ups who still need to go to the market for funding and I come to think that's of increasing importance.

I'm a bit conflicted about that: on the one hand, this will make Tesla stronger and they will be able to grab more of the market. On the other hand it is detrimental to Tesla's vision. So even if it makes me money (through my long-term investments in Tesla) it is holding back progress and that's not good.

 

[vgrinshpun]

There was a significant drawdown in shares available for shorting at Fidelity - 465k shares. Looks like a concerted effort to prevent SP from further gains...