mejojo
Active Member
But why is it that someone thinking Tesla can't do it in 2018 make things far worse than them thinking Tesla can't do it in 2020?
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
- Status
But why is it that someone thinking Tesla can't do it in 2018 make things far worse than them thinking Tesla can't do it in 2020?
That estimate is absurd, 3 billion is likely more than the max by a decent margin. (I do realize it isn't you making that estimate) Tesla's exceptional return on capital and their continued mention of using free cash flow to fund as much as possible basically rules out numbers that large.
Curt, I would also like to know the expiry/strike point with your, IIRC, initial foray into TSLA LEAPS.
Today I bought a small amount of trading stock and LEAPS: J17 300s (for max leverage..but also max loss potential) and DITM
J17 150s and J18 150s. I caught them as 'falling knives' so they are down about 4% on average at the end of the day.
You are merely thinking by analogy. Obviously they would need the cooperation of the supplier.
Experience. For example when I designed the live launch of the Compaq Presario Home PC, what I did for them was to built a road-show that toured major shopping malls with a giant movie-prop scale replica Compaq Presario personal computer with a dance show on its giant keyboard in front of its giant screen that was of course linked to an actual computer so we could pull crowds and segue in and out of a computer demo without boring people. I got it co-sponsored by Disney for the launch of the Lion King and by Microsoft, Intel and EA Games. What we also did was arrange for Compaq to pay staff in local computer stores an override commission from Compaq to the store staff to incentivize them to take a training class and to process the early adopter leads we sent them in the form of crowds of live customers that we had introduced to the concept and possibilities of owning a fully multimedia capable Compaq home computer.
This is a rudimentary example from my personal experience of incentivizing third party staff. It happens in retail. Most likely bonus commissions and top dealership salesman holidays etc paid for by the OEMs happens in automotive retail. Anyway. Naturally in the case of my personal experience with this, the stores were delighted to have a third party train and pay its staff to get more excited than usual to create sales turnover and as a result - guess what - the stores across the major malls prepared for our events by placing large wholesale orders with Compaq for computers and merchandising them better than other computer brands and some stores stocked them for the first time and probably thereafter for the useful life of the Compaq brand.
I hope this little segment of my life history was useful.
Personally I prefer things that just make sense on their own merits. Huge fallacy to think that just because you never heard of something personally it can't exist. Most things statistically speaking fall into that category for everyone especially when it comes to things that have yet to be done or invented, which is most likely most things given time enough for current inventions to fall below 50% of all inventions.
dandurston
Member
If we really knew that, sure, but we don't. The price is low now and mostly likely it'll be far higher 2 years from now, so it's a good opportunity now to buy some. Where the bottom is in between is anyone's guess. Buy some now, if it goes lower buy a little more.
Please stop arguing. Tesla is not a heavy mature industry and I am not talking about Tesla handing options to companies - least of all ones that can be described and heavy mature industries!
I am talking about a pass through equity-backed options bonus plan for the teams of people that Musk is meeting with in the Tesla supply chain who will be working on Tesla projects for other companies "harder than they have ever worked before because they all want to be part of the Tesla Model 3 program".
It is doable. Its smart. It explains why Tesla would be talking about issuing equities while busy deliberately tanking their own stock. That would be to back a third party incentive scheme to seriously lock suppliers into not screwing up the work or the timeline on the Model 3. They must not have a cock up. What do you expect them to do? Wish harder that doing the same thing as they did with the X will just work better because lady luck has arrived? Are you kidding me?
I cannot hear it any more about how traditional this and that makes doing the ultimately smart mission critical thing that passes the entire Occam's Razor test like no other explanation for Tesla's actions is improbable as far as you are concerned.
dandurston
Member
Anyone think there's a chance that TSLA is already well on their way to arranging an equity raise with another firm rather than the open market? I'm no expert but it seems like there's probably a few companies that wouldn't mind 10% of TSLA in exchange for 3 billion (Google, Apple, Honda, Ford, Uber etc).
I got them at 212.
But if you want something to feel tingly over, last week I bought at 250 and had to bail out at 238. It's been a bad couple of weeks.
Depends on what kind of trader/investor you are. If you think it'll drop lower, you could always sell now, rebuy at a lower price. It's a risk, and it'll suck to lose out on the amount difference loss, but you could have more shares. I sold 44 shares last week as it was falling and was able to buy 50 today. I sold them all today, of course. I seem to have bad luck with keeping shares overnight.
If you think it'll increase in price, then you can just wait it out.
Look, I fully agree with you that incentive based compensation is a powerful and motivating tool. What I was pointing out was that Telsa granting stock options (instead of cash) to 3rd party employees is very difficult. I'm sure there is a way to make it happen, despite my personal inability to do exactly this, but I'm not sure it is really worth it. I have no idea why you would think that I haven't heard of this when I am directly telling you that I have tried to implement the exact same thing you described.
Go try to explain the value of Tesla options to line workers at auto part supplier factories. Then cut whatever value you think the options are in half and offer that as a bonus in cash. Which one do you think they will take? Telsa could make the commitment to cash bonuses now and sell the stock to fund it when the supplier hits the goal.
The Blue Owl
Endangerous Herbivore
Cramer: Elon Musk getting away with financial murder
Quote:
He credits Anton Wahlman for calculating that Tesla "loses >$19,000 per car". Concludes with:
Quote:
But we've never seen the likes of Elon Musk in our lives. Musk, the CEO of Tesla makes a total mockery of the process, picking numbers that suit him, and he's not in the least concerned about the consequences of being wrong.
And:
Without government subsidies for electric cars, Tesla is a goner.
He credits Anton Wahlman for calculating that Tesla "loses >$19,000 per car". Concludes with:
Elon Musk can say or do pretty much anything he wants, because he has demonstrable demand for his product.
Last edited:
Bond raise, not equities, and there is no need for them to approach potential competitors. Plenty of pure investment capital out there.
Please. The whole point is to link the value of the work to the value of Tesla and to set it on the non-GAAP non-Cash side of the equation. The secondary benefit is to addict the best workers to working for Tesla rather than just for cash from whatever source.
Elon knows the value of a low stock price. Fresh in his mind he just converted a bunch of options at the 2016 bottom. If you are going to create this kind of a scheme at the lowest cost you tank your stock and then issue the scheme.
What do you get out of arguing this point? That it's difficult? Who cares about difficult? What about the difficulties of suppliers that are not laser focused on Tesla's priorities and blow up the entire company by missing deadlines and producing crap - that needs to be great and in huge volumes on a traditionally impossible ramp. Surely the first thing to go out of the window is traditional ways of getting that done that make it impossible?
Unless someone has a genuinely better idea, the alternative is to conclude that Elon does not know how to manage a fund raiser in the best interests of Tesla despite repeated proof of the exact opposite since IPO, or he mis-spoke on ER when he used the words "some equity". Do you find that to be more probable?
Last edited:
Stretch2727
Engineer and Car Nut
Some thoughts from a manufacturing guy a day after the conference call.
-Elon raised the risk/reward level for this stock yesterday. If this was a high risk/high reward stock before yesterday it moved up many notches for me yesterday.
-His comments about having every component ready to insource concerned me. For anyone that has worked in manufacturing and product development you know this is just about impossible. This is the time to leverage suppliers to minimize the capital expense and speed the development. A properly selected, properly managed supplier can add a lot of value. With the model 3 reservations the suppliers will be all over Tesla to get the business. The risk can be managed by having a good team to manage the suppliers. My guess is Tesla has not put much effort in this area (managing suppliers) in the past. You can't just send the drawings and specs and wait for the parts to arrive.
-Targeting the launch readiness (July 1, 2017) way ahead of a schedule is something most auto companies already do. GM is piloting the Bolt on the production line with production parts now before the fall launch. Good move by Elon realizing the production target date needs to be way sooner than the expected market launch.
-The risk is also higher for labor costs. You will need to hire a lot more people much sooner than planned. They need to be there fully trained ready to go. This will lead to lower margins and huge negative cash flows if the volume is not achieved as planned. Raw inventory sitting is one thing. People sitting and not fully utilized is throwing money out the window.
-Appreciated his comments on making manufacturing world class. Some of the best companies in the world are built on this foundation. It's not always the design but the ability to reliably produce a product at volume levels day in day out that sets them apart. Toyota and Intel come to mind. Elon is gunning for world class design and manufacturing which will set them apart. After sleeping in the factory I am sure he fully appreciates how difficult manufacturing can be to get right.
I don't think they will hit the 500K mark for 2018. Just too much too fast. I do think they will hit 70-80% of this. In 10 years hitting 350K or 500K in 2018 will not have mattered as even if they hit 70% of 500K they will be totally dominating the EV market. They will have gained economies of scale in battery manufacturing that no other auto manufacturer will have.
To quote Jim Cramer of CNBC "I would not bet against Elon Musk".
Still long on Tesla.
-Elon raised the risk/reward level for this stock yesterday. If this was a high risk/high reward stock before yesterday it moved up many notches for me yesterday.
-His comments about having every component ready to insource concerned me. For anyone that has worked in manufacturing and product development you know this is just about impossible. This is the time to leverage suppliers to minimize the capital expense and speed the development. A properly selected, properly managed supplier can add a lot of value. With the model 3 reservations the suppliers will be all over Tesla to get the business. The risk can be managed by having a good team to manage the suppliers. My guess is Tesla has not put much effort in this area (managing suppliers) in the past. You can't just send the drawings and specs and wait for the parts to arrive.
-Targeting the launch readiness (July 1, 2017) way ahead of a schedule is something most auto companies already do. GM is piloting the Bolt on the production line with production parts now before the fall launch. Good move by Elon realizing the production target date needs to be way sooner than the expected market launch.
-The risk is also higher for labor costs. You will need to hire a lot more people much sooner than planned. They need to be there fully trained ready to go. This will lead to lower margins and huge negative cash flows if the volume is not achieved as planned. Raw inventory sitting is one thing. People sitting and not fully utilized is throwing money out the window.
-Appreciated his comments on making manufacturing world class. Some of the best companies in the world are built on this foundation. It's not always the design but the ability to reliably produce a product at volume levels day in day out that sets them apart. Toyota and Intel come to mind. Elon is gunning for world class design and manufacturing which will set them apart. After sleeping in the factory I am sure he fully appreciates how difficult manufacturing can be to get right.
I don't think they will hit the 500K mark for 2018. Just too much too fast. I do think they will hit 70-80% of this. In 10 years hitting 350K or 500K in 2018 will not have mattered as even if they hit 70% of 500K they will be totally dominating the EV market. They will have gained economies of scale in battery manufacturing that no other auto manufacturer will have.
To quote Jim Cramer of CNBC "I would not bet against Elon Musk".
Still long on Tesla.
Fun read. Or at least, for me, a bit enlightening
Elon Musk Keeps Promising the Impossible. I Think I Know Why.
Elon Musk Keeps Promising the Impossible. I Think I Know Why.
Krugerrand
Meow
I like your first two paragraphs, not the last. There is no button choice for that, but I wanted you to know that I was thinking it because it's the thought that counts. (Calling for an official 'like 2/3rds button')
Concerning the last, Elon did NOT over promise in the ER. In fact, he quite emphatically said they'd miss the impossible target and people would get that wrong - which you just did.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
