Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[bh1783]

I wonder if Tesla will also go with a subscription model for autopilot and data(kind of like onstar does and other car companies do for internet)

 

[TMSE]

I think the thing is many don't think Q3 delivery #'s will be that great. Do we have any reason to think they will be?

In Q2, signs of production troubles were all over the place, but we all ignored them: In May, there were plenty of people here on TMC, commenting about their delivery delayed by 4-6 weeks.

In Q3, I haven't seen even a single sign of production issues so far. Infact, majority of them are getting their deliveries about a week earlier. Production has to be doing really great so far.

I have high confidence that we will see over 27K production for Q3.

My delivery estimate is around 24K for Q3. I have been awfully wrong about it before, so be warned. I don't like it, but for the first time, Tesla may report 3-4K inventory for Q3.

 

[Topher]

There are undoubtedly many more potential buyers who would prefer pay-as-you-go Superchargers.

Presumably that half of buyers who predict that they will use less supercharging than the cost of buying 'free for life'. Of course this mean that the only ones who WILL buy that option, are those that predict they will use more than the pay per use charge. Meaning that Tesla will be losing money on the 'free for life' option, or will need to adjust the price upwards, which drives more people into the first category. and so on.

Thank you kindly.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

SP decline might have something to do with uncertainty about the Florida accident earlier this year. TM cooperating with NHTSA but requested one more week to collect all desired information.

 

[mmd]

Curt, I completely agree with "pay as you go" for supercharger use. Here in SoCal the Superchargers are overwhelmed with locals getting free charges without a real need.

Ahem! Not free, but prepaid. Included in the purchase price. They will continue to get free charges as long as the cars last.

 

[RobStark]

Presumably that half of buyers who predict that they will use less supercharging than the cost of buying 'free for life'. Of course this mean that the only ones who WILL buy that option, are those that predict they will use more than the pay per use charge. Meaning that Tesla will be losing money on the 'free for life' option, or will need to adjust the price upwards, which drives more people into the first category. and so on.

Thank you kindly.

True, if people can accurately predict their Supercharger use plus that of 2nd,3rd, and 4th or however many owners there are before said Model S ends up in the junk yard.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Old news from June, but good to know that deliveries in Denmark have been significant during June:
AID Newsletter on Twitter

 

[Curt Renz]

Presumably that half of buyers who predict that they will use less supercharging than the cost of buying 'free for life'. Of course this mean that the only ones who WILL buy that option, are those that predict they will use more than the pay per use charge. Meaning that Tesla will be losing money on the 'free for life' option, or will need to adjust the price upwards, which drives more people into the first category. and so on.

Thank you kindly.

The factor that would largely make the difference would be no longer having upfront charging purchasers abusively using local Superchargers rather than charging at home.

 

[Curt Renz]

Ahem! Not free, but prepaid. Included in the purchase price. They will continue to get free charges as long as the cars last.

Apparently you understood what he meant, since you similarly used the term free in your final sentence. The point was that the prepayment is not for a specific number of charges but is without limit. That leads to some owners abusively charging at local Superchargers when they could be charging at home. Pay-as-you-go would prevent that for new owners.

 

[bh1783]

Seems like a necessary step. "free" supercharging will always be abused by rent seekers. It doesn't make sense for Tesla to pay the electricity for users who make money from superchargers by charging their vehicles for Uber and Nimber services.

You have some Tesla owners that are abusing the system to profit off of the superchargers. I'm sure a lot of people would stop using Tesla's for ride sharing and deliveries if they actually had to pay for their electricity consumption.

 

[aronth5]

Someone found evidence Tesla might be readying a pay-scheme for using Superchargers.

Tesla adds section for supercharger payments to users' MyTesla page

Tesla removed this from the web site earlier this evening

 

[ggies07]

Tesla removed this from the web site earlier this evening

hahaha, of course they did. I don't know why their coders continue to label things in such an obvious way.....at least abbreviate the ids.....

 

[geneclean55]

hahaha, of course they did. I don't know why their coders continue to label things in such an obvious way.....at least abbreviate the ids.....

Seriously.. at this point i just consider it a planned leak

 

[bh1783]

Seriously.. at this point i just consider it a planned leak

It would be a nice way to spur demand prior to Model 3 release. All they have to say is that all cars released after the Model 3 will have a pay as you go method. It would give people an incentive to buy the S or X before the Model 3 is released.

 

[roblab]

Pay as you go will have the highest rate (e.g. $0.20/kWh) but you won't be paying for power you don't use. There won't be tacky credit card machines at the chargers, but rather if you show up without credits you can use the App to buy some.

Regular "free supercharging" will cost less than $2000 because it excludes heavy users. It might be $1000 for up to 1000 kWh/year. So it's a good deal for moderate users and will be subsidized by light users that still like the simplicity of having charging for the life of the car.

Huh? Supercharging will have to be more than what you'd pay at home, plus more than what you'd pay to have a home charger or outlet installed. Otherwise, it's cheaper to use the SC, and the system crashes. Pay per use has to be expensive.

I easily use more than 1000 kWh/year at superchargers. Why? Because I travel about 30,000 mi per year and drive long distances, like 1000 miles one way per trip. Otherwise, it's all at home.

 

[FredTMC]

Ahem! Not free, but prepaid. Included in the purchase price. They will continue to get free charges as long as the cars last.

Elon clarified many times, it's free "long distance" supercharging.
Wasn't intended for local opportunistic free fills ups on a frequent basis for local travel.

 

[Papafox]

Some of those birds COULD be the 2018 note holders who noticed early conversion for $411 million in face value. The notices had to be between 7/1 and 8/5. If it were towards the end of that window, it might mean the hedges (if any) related to the 20 trading day VWAP valuation period are coming off. The last possible day for the VWAP is this Friday. Holders who gave notice would probably sell the shares (up to 1.5 million) they receive in exchange for their notes. (If they were interested in staying invested in TSLA common shares, they would not have given conversion notices.)

Other chirping birds COULD be equity holders who were displeased by the Musk/Rive purchase of $100 million of the $124 million in SCTY 18 month notes.

IF either were part of the reason for today's decline it may take the market several days to sort out.

Perhaps Brian45011's theory of 2018 note holders doing some selling this week might need a second look. We're seeing some really strange happenings with short interest.
* This morning, vgrinshpun reported that shares available to short at Fidelity had dropped more than 100,000 shares from close of market yesterday to 9:47am today. Estimated interest rate was 13%.
* In the tracking short interest thread, Mario noticed that shares available to short jumped up to greater than 100,000 shares at IB and this afternoon, adiggs stated that Fidelity was charging only 6% for TSLA short lending.

So, I've seen all the hallmarks of short selling last week and especially this week on Monday morning and other times, and suddenly we see lots of TSLA short shares available and yet you don't see the run up in SP that would accompany shorts covering.

I see different possible explanations:
* Perhaps brokerages made more short shares available today (but why?)
* Perhaps the drop in SP which involved short selling encouraged 2018 note holders to sell their shares this week (as per Brian45011's post above), and once note holders started selling this was an opportunity for shorts to start exiting their positions while the SP remained low

I'm open for suggestions, but if we understand what's happening to short interest and who is selling shares we can get a better feel for the likely trajectory of TSLA in the near future.

 

[racer26]

The pay-as-you-go supercharging makes sense for a lot of customers, but "free long distance travel" is also a powerful marketing message for Tesla. To have both, I suspect Tesla is going to go to three tiered system such as:

1) Pay As You Go
2) Free Supercharging* (*up to a limit)
3) Free Supercharging Max* (up to a really high limit)

Pay as you go will have the highest rate (e.g. $0.20/kWh) but you won't be paying for power you don't use. There won't be tacky credit card machines at the chargers, but rather if you show up without credits you can use the App to buy some.

Regular "free supercharging" will cost less than $2000 because it excludes heavy users. It might be $1000 for up to 1000 kWh/year. So it's a good deal for moderate users and will be subsidized by light users that still like the simplicity of having charging for the life of the car.

Even the upper tier will have a limit because folks that supercharge regularly still don't want to pay sky high prices because of daily charging taxi's. Tesla likely has little desire to cater to the upper 1% of Supercharger users, so they'll set a cap of about 5000 kWh/year. As both the "light" and "max" packages won't truly be unlimited, beyond the cap it'll be pay-as-you-go at a rate a bit less than option #1.

All of this will only apply for new cars. Base S will drop $2000 and won't have included supercharging. Mid and upper range cars will have the medium package as standard.

I almost agree - except that I think the highest tier will be no limits, the mid tier will have a lower per-kWh overage fee than the lowest tier, and the lowest tier (PAYG) might include a handful of free supercharges per year - that would still satisfy most people's long distance travel needs.

There may be 4 tiers, instead of three, but I think there is a market for the truly unlimited service, for livery/taxi use, and a few other things. Its a use case that cars have, and its one of the more significant places to impact auto emissions since they spend so much time on the road. I have to imagine that there is some price that Tesla can charge and that such enterprises would be willing to pay for no limits recharging as necessary.

 

[RobStark]

I don't think Tesla minds taxis/ride share services using Superchargers for local 2012-2017 Model S and Model X fares.

It is another form of cheap advertising and getting butts in seats.

But at some point the system crashes if the number of Model S and Model X taxis using unlimited pre-paid Supercharging becomes too big.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

ADP data to be published later today. Any other macro events this week?