Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[Ukland Wombat]

IMPORTANT: It is not in Tesla's interests as a business to comfirm it's reservation numbers. This is proprietary strategic information. The Australian store staff reportedly confirmed that they won't. There is no reason for them to change this policy which they have progressively strengthened over the years. As soon as they give this datapoint potential competitors in China for example can work up a quantifiable investment case and US obstructionists can build a quantifiable case for an anti-Tesla lobbying and without it they are left to guess in the dark not knowing something that Tesla knows while the doubters and deniers help suppress competitive and obstructionist resolve on Tesla's behalf.

Best not to build hopes on a datapoint reveal for a short-term stock pump. That is not how they roll.

The first time Tesla uses this information will be in trade for massive material gain FOR THE BUSINESS - i.e. Incorporated in the prospectus for a massive minimally dilutive and ridiculously low-interest bond sale, NOT to help speculators to cash out of short term calls. The most likely timing for this IMO remains around the Q2 ER where the reservation account total becomes public information unless they apply to the SEC for confidentiality - which I think is unlikely. This is also the timing when the longer term reservation trends for M3 will be solidified in data and coincident with when Tesla has stated it will start the big push for pre-production capacity ramp CapEx. Anything prior to that would be opportunistic but suboptimal from a strategic perspective and this management team is way smart enough to know it.

Julian, I think most who post here are greatly underestimating reservation numbers if the M3 will be shown to have enough 'wow' about it. (Won't expand here but just say I did in reply to Lango in this thread a few minutes ago.)

My point being: If reservation numbers are staggering (yes that is my guess) we will be treated to a running tally maybe even broken out country by country. My bet is Musk is thinking bigger than just TM here.

 

[Fallenone]

About 70 at Santa Barbara now. Store opens in a little less than one and a half hour

 

[Citizen-T]

I was wrong about Raleigh. Didn't realize the line wrapped around the whole building. Probably closer to 300.

 

[sunhelm]

Just finished with depositing my Model 3 reservation. Not one minute after, their servers crashed. Sorry don't have an update after that but glad to confirm I got the Thank you for reserving confirmation and card was charged. Was worried my info was not captured.

This was in Paramus.Nj. Was about the 26th person in line when I checked in at 9:20 am but then line grew an additional 30 as the store opened.

So you could spin this as reservation turn out so big servers are under capacitized!

 

[Julian Cox]

Julian, I think most who post here are greatly underestimating reservation numbers if the M3 will be shown to have enough 'wow' about it. (Won't expand here but just say I did in reply to Lango in this thread a few minutes ago.)

My point being: If reservation numbers are staggering (yes that is my guess) we will be treated to a running tally maybe even broken out country by country. My bet is Musk is thinking bigger than just TM here.

Disagree for reasons stated. Quantifiable knowledge of a pool of untapped EV demand is a Tesla proprietary asset, not to be given away freely. Tesla is managed to make money for tesla and its long term shareholders, not a flash in the pan stock promo to help short term stock speculators to cash out!

 

[MartinAustin]

There are reportedly 250 people/voters in line at the Austin, Texas showroom. (you know, where the legislature banned sales).

 

[sundaymorning]

Wow! Just wow and mind blowing isn't it? Soon, all these reservation holders will be "talking" about the M3 with their F&F.
FF: So Joe, when are you gonna get out of that beat up junk and splurge yourself a new car?

Tesla Fanboy: Already bought myself a M3, but it won't be delivered till 2017-2018.

FF: You got yourself a Beamer M3?

Tesla Fanboy: please, don't offend me, I'm not that dumb. You haven't heard of the 3? It practically drives itself! Just google it, it's all over the Internet. People camped out for it, I was 2nd in line and waited 5 hours just to make a deposit with 100 other people.

FF: you're joking right? What is this, Black Friday or something? Did you get a discount?

Tesla Famboy: no, I would pay more just to get the car in advance, but Tesla won't take my money, I'm bummed that I have to wait along with 50,000 other reservation holders .

FF: 50,000?!? When did they release the prototype?

Tesla Fanboy: 3 days ago, I think they'll be sold out for 2018 soon. So that's why I stood in line. So, John I heard you're having a baby soon, if safety is your priority, you have to see the X!

FF: oh, I don't talk with my X anymore...

 

[30seconds]

I suspect Elon will announce numbers tonight. It helps build confidence for those waiting to order online but more importantly it places significant pressure on other manufacturers to get with the Secret Master Plan

 

[roblab]

..(we've been going along in first gear but its like accelerating downhill (less resistance to picking up speed) in third from here on).

Teslas go 0-155 in first gear. This is another area where the existing auto makers can't catch up. We don't need any third gears. Obviously.

 

[theschnell]

Just finished with depositing my Model 3 reservation. Not one minute after, their servers crashed. Sorry don't have an update after that but glad to confirm I got the Thank you for reserving confirmation and card was charged. Was worried my info was not captured.

This was in Paramus.Nj. Was about the 26th person in line when I checked in at 9:20 am but then line grew an additional 30 as the store opened.

So you could spin this as reservation turn out so big servers are under capacitized!

Maybe that's why I don't have an email confirming my reservation. If they lose my spot in line, I'm gonna be pissed.

 

[Tslynk67]

Just finished with depositing my Model 3 reservation. Not one minute after, their servers crashed

Always a sure sign of success

This is an incredible phenomena we're seeing here. Surely this is the first time that people have queued to put money down on a car they haven't seen that they won't get delivered for at least two years?

I can't quite understand why the share-price is so flat.

 

[austinEV]

Disagree for reasons stated. Quantifiable knowledge of a pool of untapped EV demand is a Tesla proprietary asset, not to be given away freely. Tesla is managed to make money for tesla and its long term shareholders, not a flash in the pan stock promo to help short term stock speculators to cash out!

There are more reasons to not give numbers than to give them.

Cons:
1) Julian's theory that really good numbers might be best strategically hidden. No point giving out valuable industry data that they uniquely own. Nothing good can come of sharing this with the industry and they can still use it to do capital raises later. They can show the totals, broken out by region, over time etc to tell a compelling story to investors that there is untapped demand.
2) It distracts from the narrative that I think Elon will favor which is that the car is terrific, not that TSLA is terrific. He will have one theme and not two.
3) What is impressive to one audience is not impressive to another. If he shows 30k (an impressive number) it is easy to write a negative article about why that is a bad number. They don't have to even play.
4) It will be a dumb time to give a number. Here is a cartoon of how I think reservations will come in. Magnitudes are debatable but the shape of the curves feels right: If you want to impress you wouldn't do it today. The tiny blue datapoint at the left is for today, a drop in the potential bucket. (I have 1k per day steady state, not zero...)

 

[sunhelm]

Maybe that's why I don't have an email confirming my reservation. If they lose my spot in line, I'm gonna be pissed.

I was worried about that too as I didn't get my email either. In Reddit also seeing the same issue so it's not isolated which means it will be massive enough not to notice and get corrected.

 

[hershey101]

The emails will be sent out by tomorrow for those that are worried. I just put down my 3 reservations. 3 reservations for the model 3 (one for everyone in the family). "you get a car, you get a car, you get a car..." #Oprah

 

[jhm]

I wonder if Tesla Motors website is bogged down with volume. It is not responding well. I'm not able to get into MyTesla to make my payment. (I'd like to have it show up on Q1 customer deposits.) Talk about a shut up and take my money moment.

 

[theschnell]

I did an informal survey of the 5 or so people standing around me. Only one was a shareholder and he said he only owned a few shares. These are folks who stood in line for 2 hours to buy the model 3 and they are not shareholders. We have many more to become owners eventually. Maybe when they get their cars...

 

[vgrinshpun]

Here is the sight at the King of Prussia Mall in Philadelphia suburbs...

EDIT: According to my relative's report, there is total about 70 peoples in the line.

View attachment 169487

Update from the relative who placed an order in King of Prussia store near Philadelphia: he was about 50-ies in the line; with three Tesla store employees taking reservations, and each reservation taking 2-3 minutes he was out of the store and into the mall in about 45 minutes. The line after he exited the store grew much larger, to about 250 people strong snaking into the mall...

...and we are having a lift-off...

Thanks to everybody posting pictures and data from the stores. Robots are welcome to peruse this thread very much.

 

[GoTslaGo]

Yes... I was wondering the same. Who are the robots?

 

[theschnell]

I wonder if Tesla Motors website is bogged down with volume. It is not responding well. I'm not able to get into MyTesla to make my payment. (I'd like to have it show up on Q1 customer deposits.) Talk about a shut up and take my money moment.

What are you reserving? I thought your car was to arrive before month end?

 

[Ukland Wombat]

I am fully positioned for a run up, but I think it is very hard to say when it will happen in 2016. But there is way too many positives coming and bear stories being proven false for it not to happen in 2016. Macro can change this though..

A cut-off for the performance model would be nothing but a dick-move. You would say no sales of those very high gross margin cars. too and for what reason? Almost not worth commenting on.

Thanks for that last paragraph, and I REALLY mean it! It helps me understand your perspective!

In my perspective, think of it this way:

Assume online reservation is a massive number (which you don't, it seems?)
Then how long will it take TM to deliver that massive number of reservations?
Many years in my view
By which time there are new M3 models on offer (which TM would no doubt prefer to sell instead of a model conceived 3 years before).