jhm
Well-Known Member
So oil is down 3.6% while Tesla is up 2.3%. Looks like a great day to me. My SCO hedge is up 6.7%, so it's good to be hedged, even on a strong day for Tesla.
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I personally don't like EM's latest tweet. 180k reservations is cool. But giving the price of average option mix and bragging 7.5B in a day seems a little childish for a CEO. It's like you want to prove something to someone. Those are reservations, not orders, to begin with.
Elon gleefully tweeting about the number of reservations and that the future of electric cars looks bright, seems to imply confidence that first quarter's delivery numbers are strong and that the earnings report will look good.
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Possibly slightly off topic takedown of BYD competition FUD or just something to read while the stock completes its U-turn into an all-out rally.
Little photo of yours truly in a public area of BYD Shenzhen.
BYD won't. Absolutely not. Last time I was at BYD they had barely got to grips with vehicle manufacturing techniques mastered in the West in the 1970s for their BYD E6 and they seriously backed the wrong rustled horse with Lithium Iron Phosphate. The BYD I met are primarily motivated by not getting sued for battery *ires - and until far too recently and probably to this day they rigidly imagined that pacifying the chemistry was the way to do that and under no circumstances could they comprehend the idea of the routing the output of a battery to bypass an in-series PCM let alone a high current DC charging input because according to them that had never succeeded that was not how it's done. The culture I met there tended to know whatever they learned in a Chinese university whose primary function was to aggregate and disseminate knowledge of techniques studied at Western and Japanese joint ventures (effectively state ratified and funded industrial espionage) and then that knowledge appeared to freeze in a time warp in whoever graduated. I witnessed no ability to innovate or even countenance it in the engineers I met there. In fact the LiFePO4 mainstay of the BYD battery business is a battery chemistry design John Goodenough is on the record to state was stolen from him - lifted without recompense in the middle ages of Lithium secondary battery development - and at BYD that design is pretty much frozen in time unhindered and unfazed by A123 taking that tech to its logical conclusion with additives and nanostructuring the chemical contact interfaces and going royally bust in competition with LG as definitive commercial proof of BYD's battery core technology dead end-ness as one could wish for - and the Karma caught *ire regardless and so did the E6 for reasons that were obvious a decade ago or more on the basis of basic common sense. Big wads of self oxygenating reactants separated only by intentionally thin and porous plastic and cased in nylon coated aluminum foil that melts without difficulty if not combusts along with the contents - not good above a critical mass especially when energy density matters in the slightest as it very much does in a vehicle.
The other thing about BYD is a strategic error. Lacking IMO a credible internal driver of innovation and basically reliant on being a contract engineering house with massive access to cheap labor (200,000 employees spread over seven sites at the time) for third party innovators to tap into - what they have actually done is employ a strategy of trying to compete with their customers to the point that they are difficult to trust in a way that Foxxconn with its Taiwanese management isn't. Take BYD a project and more likely than not they'll turn round and make clones of your design under twenty different random brand names and pop them up on Alibaba to see what sticks. Apple for example would not even give them a license to buy one of its iPhone connectors to make an Apple-approved product with - I deduced this because a group of their people asked me to apply for the license and back-door it to them for a cut. Back on point: In the Auto and Automotive battery space BYD has gone too far in trying to take it from both ends. No battery technologist would be mad enough to take them a competent automotive battery design and no auto manufacturer in their right mind would take them a competent vehicle design or any of its manufacturing techniques - so they are kind of muddling in the middle making bad cars with bad batteries - hence the BYD Qin Hybrid of the two - which by the way looks suspiciously like they have reversed an old Toyota Corolla in terms of styling while underneath it's reportedly a stretched BYD F3 platform that famously struggled to even pass a Euro NCAP crash test let alone collect a single star - and yup they are still using the LiFePO4 battery (13KWh lump of prismatic cells), the same basic type which contributed to the BYD E6 having a power to weight ratio that practically prevented it climbing a steep hill. As for the Qin selling in volumes in China, that is not that difficult when the government sets quotas for hybrids and in the case of BYD can effectively buy them from itself in 1000 unit blocks at a time as taxis, subsidize themselves or simply issue purchase vehicle ownership permits to match the quota with nothing else to choose from until the quota is filled - none of it implying any connection to the quality of the vehicle or consumer demand except for demand for a vehicle permit to drive anything at all.
So far they have managed to get Brazil to take a few Qin-s. I suspect NHTSA would fine them on principle for even requesting a US homologation crash test. Like why are you even bothering us when we're busy with cars that might pass?
This is not the Tesla competitor you are looking for.
BYD won't. Absolutely not. Last time I was at BYD they had barely got to grips with vehicle manufacturing techniques mastered in the West in the 1970s for their BYD E6 and they seriously backed the wrong rustled horse with Lithium Iron Phosphate. The BYD I met are primarily motivated by not getting sued for battery *ires - and until far too recently and probably to this day they rigidly imagined that pacifying the chemistry was the way to do that and under no circumstances could they comprehend the idea of the routing the output of a battery to bypass an in-series PCM let alone a high current DC charging input because according to them that had never succeeded that was not how it's done. The culture I met there tended to know whatever they learned in a Chinese university whose primary function was to aggregate and disseminate knowledge of techniques studied at Western and Japanese joint ventures (effectively state ratified and funded industrial espionage) and then that knowledge appeared to freeze in a time warp in whoever graduated. I witnessed no ability to innovate or even countenance it in the engineers I met there. In fact the LiFePO4 mainstay of the BYD battery business is a battery chemistry design John Goodenough is on the record to state was stolen from him - lifted without recompense in the middle ages of Lithium secondary battery development - and at BYD that design is pretty much frozen in time unhindered and unfazed by A123 taking that tech to its logical conclusion with additives and nanostructuring the chemical contact interfaces and going royally bust in competition with LG as definitive commercial proof of BYD's battery core technology dead end-ness as one could wish for - and the Karma caught *ire regardless and so did the E6 for reasons that were obvious a decade ago or more on the basis of basic common sense. Big wads of self oxygenating reactants separated only by intentionally thin and porous plastic and cased in nylon coated aluminum foil that melts without difficulty if not combusts along with the contents - not good above a critical mass especially when energy density matters in the slightest as it very much does in a vehicle.
The other thing about BYD is a strategic error. Lacking IMO a credible internal driver of innovation and basically reliant on being a contract engineering house with massive access to cheap labor (200,000 employees spread over seven sites at the time) for third party innovators to tap into - what they have actually done is employ a strategy of trying to compete with their customers to the point that they are difficult to trust in a way that Foxxconn with its Taiwanese management isn't. Take BYD a project and more likely than not they'll turn round and make clones of your design under twenty different random brand names and pop them up on Alibaba to see what sticks. Apple for example would not even give them a license to buy one of its iPhone connectors to make an Apple-approved product with - I deduced this because a group of their people asked me to apply for the license and back-door it to them for a cut. Back on point: In the Auto and Automotive battery space BYD has gone too far in trying to take it from both ends. No battery technologist would be mad enough to take them a competent automotive battery design and no auto manufacturer in their right mind would take them a competent vehicle design or any of its manufacturing techniques - so they are kind of muddling in the middle making bad cars with bad batteries - hence the BYD Qin Hybrid of the two - which by the way looks suspiciously like they have reversed an old Toyota Corolla in terms of styling while underneath it's reportedly a stretched BYD F3 platform that famously struggled to even pass a Euro NCAP crash test let alone collect a single star - and yup they are still using the LiFePO4 battery (13KWh lump of prismatic cells), the same basic type which contributed to the BYD E6 having a power to weight ratio that practically prevented it climbing a steep hill. As for the Qin selling in volumes in China, that is not that difficult when the government sets quotas for hybrids and in the case of BYD can effectively buy them from itself in 1000 unit blocks at a time as taxis, subsidize themselves or simply issue purchase vehicle ownership permits to match the quota with nothing else to choose from until the quota is filled - none of it implying any connection to the quality of the vehicle or consumer demand except for demand for a vehicle permit to drive anything at all.
So far they have managed to get Brazil to take a few Qin-s. I suspect NHTSA would fine them on principle for even requesting a US homologation crash test. Like why are you even bothering us when we're busy with cars that might pass?
This is not the Tesla competitor you are looking for.
ssq
Member
While you have a fair point, let the guy enjoy the moment a bit, he works his butt off and is deeply passionate about his companies and work. Its OK once in a while, adds a personal/emotional side to the occasion. Would you think he should have a disclaimer to this twitter so they are not taken as company facts and predictions? I am serious, it may make sense to be on the safe side, perhaps..
chickensevil
Active Member
Most likely for the capital raise they undoubtedly want to make. A higher price means less dillution (meaning less capital Elon is going to have to front as his part of the buy in, in order to keep his ownership percentage solid).
I am not complaining about this at all, these numbers are good enough that essentially we have almost 2 years of sales sold out now even in some of the more optimistic estimates. If even HALF of these convert to real sales this is way more than they can handle and they are going to need to fast track additional production, which means they are going to need more space sooner rather than later.
Clearly they have been putting feelers out for JVs in China and a location in Europe. I bet they have less trouble getting a good deal with these numbers (which means less capital needs to get where they need to go). And they need to be getting a new building *today* if they want to satisfy any of this demand in a reasonable time-frame.
I am not too sure we will see positive cash flows and any amount of profits this year if they have to fast track a second location over what they were originally planning for a timeline. That being said, if the money is spent well, I have *no issue* with them doing what they need to do to accelerate their production and the market should take production acceleration more favorably.
If they come out and say on the Capital Raise: "Hey, we were just going to live off of the money being made this year and next year to fund this, but all this was going to lead to ~80k deliveries in 2018. Clearly, if we operate at that speed, people are going to be waiting a *very* long time for their cars. In order to overcome this we are wanting X billions to try and get production ramped 2-3x faster overall with the goal being 2M cars by 2020."
Or something like that... it would come across well received since everyone's complaint is that they just don't go fast enough.
I see 0 issues with him tweeting those numbers. He has worked for years on this. His primary goal is to drive the advent of sustainable transport. Showing numbers like these forces everyone to take electric mass transit more than seriously.
I love it.
I think they also want to control and set the agenda. Too much room before for anyone to write whatever.
Being more open means the public and the market will wait for information from them instead of speculation and articles and FUD from others. This of course also supports the share price.
There is also that other objective about saving the planet and showing everyone as early as possible that demand for electric cars are massive.
I am adjusting my 2017 before production reservation target to 400k
I think I actually prefer long off-topic posts in this thread to constant posts with no info from worried weak longs.
I was delighted to add a modestly to my position this morning at 240. Might be down now, but can't see it lasting.
Thumper
Active Member
For me, the biggest unexpected news from last night was that the base model 3 would have autopilot and the robust expansion of the supercharger network.
1. This is essentially a cancelable pre-order. Nothing wrong about that.
2. He estimated the average sales price with options will be 42k. So those pre-orders will translate to 7.56B sales. Elon rarely makes mistakes.
Seeing how great this deal is. I think the eventual cancellation rate will be extremely low. Don't forget the part 2 will bring the model 3 to a whole new level. (autonomous driving?) Elon mentioned in two years one can summon the car from anywhere in north America. That implies your car can earn money for you while you are not using it. This is huge.
Longtime long & lurker, but infrequent poster. The price action today motivated this post:
The mainstream media is very negative about Tesla save for a few outlets like NPR. Everybody is so damn focused on criticizing them. Friggin Wired had a live blog yesterday for the model 3 reveal and it was the second story about Tesla. The first story on them was about how electric cars are not as green as you think. On the 3 reveal day.
LA times likewise bashes them on subsidies, which is all hogwash. NY times tried to screw with them on a range argument. All these liberal pubs, you think, would support Tesla.
So much happened with Tesla yesterday and very little on CNBC. They had a segment about how Tim Cook went to greet some iphone purchasers in the line. WSJ today comes out and bad mouths Tesla.
Its completely friggin nuts.
May be it's old news, but it dawned on me today that Tesla doesn't spend a dime on advertizing while their competitors and oil companies spend tons taking out full page ads, buying superbowl ads and what not.
This is infact hurting Tesla, because this negativity is hurting the share price and raising the cost of capital. I believe it is important because the right thing for Tesla is to raise more capital (as unpopular as it may be on this forum).
The speed advantage more capital gives them would in the long run benefit the shareholders more, as it completely shuts out the traditional automakers and lets Tesla dominate the real contenders like Apple and Google who are certainly looking at this ginormous market.
I think the right strategy for Tesla is to spend a good amount on advertizing, but not on its products. It should take out full page ads on what global warming is doing to our planet. It should talk about the amount of disease and deaths caused by pollutants. Basically the first few minutes of Elon's presentation. It should commit to the media that its going to spend this money. And it will go a long way in shutting up the media.
Hopefully this would create long run goodwill in the minds of consumers instead of short term demand that Tesla doesn't need more of at the moment. Most importantly it would help co-opt the media, which you have to grant does have a lot of power in shaping peoples minds.
The mainstream media is very negative about Tesla save for a few outlets like NPR. Everybody is so damn focused on criticizing them. Friggin Wired had a live blog yesterday for the model 3 reveal and it was the second story about Tesla. The first story on them was about how electric cars are not as green as you think. On the 3 reveal day.
LA times likewise bashes them on subsidies, which is all hogwash. NY times tried to screw with them on a range argument. All these liberal pubs, you think, would support Tesla.
So much happened with Tesla yesterday and very little on CNBC. They had a segment about how Tim Cook went to greet some iphone purchasers in the line. WSJ today comes out and bad mouths Tesla.
Its completely friggin nuts.
May be it's old news, but it dawned on me today that Tesla doesn't spend a dime on advertizing while their competitors and oil companies spend tons taking out full page ads, buying superbowl ads and what not.
This is infact hurting Tesla, because this negativity is hurting the share price and raising the cost of capital. I believe it is important because the right thing for Tesla is to raise more capital (as unpopular as it may be on this forum).
The speed advantage more capital gives them would in the long run benefit the shareholders more, as it completely shuts out the traditional automakers and lets Tesla dominate the real contenders like Apple and Google who are certainly looking at this ginormous market.
I think the right strategy for Tesla is to spend a good amount on advertizing, but not on its products. It should take out full page ads on what global warming is doing to our planet. It should talk about the amount of disease and deaths caused by pollutants. Basically the first few minutes of Elon's presentation. It should commit to the media that its going to spend this money. And it will go a long way in shutting up the media.
Hopefully this would create long run goodwill in the minds of consumers instead of short term demand that Tesla doesn't need more of at the moment. Most importantly it would help co-opt the media, which you have to grant does have a lot of power in shaping peoples minds.
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Nope, he said "autopilot hardware" and the safety features... Enabling AP convenience features will cost extra - see: Elon Musk on Twitter
sub
Active Member
Little advice, when Curt speaks you listen.
We don't need a play by play of every tic of TSLA, we all have Internet. Based On your non stop panic I would suggest you stop investing in TSLA, emotional investors seem to get chewed up and spit out by this stock. Take a look back at the November to January posts in this thread, a few frequent posters panicked and sold near the bottom while the unemotional were accumulating.
Yeah, but we have 10 fingers
Still, it's a cool $180 million of interest-free working capital in the bank in a day and a $7.5 billion letter of intent and he does have the security of knowing nobody can beat him on the price and performance of his product - that and the fact that it is day two and it would be reasonable to suspect that this number is now at least 25% or possibly somewhere between 50% maybe even 100% higher already.
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