Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[Value Ev]

Model X has issues because of the complexity of the doors. I.

Check out consumer reports on the X and the threads here.
It is not just the doors.

 

[3Victoria]

The X-story that it has problems is old.

 

[Jayjs20]

Took a sizeable loss but I decided to cut my losses and dump all my stock. Either the end of this week or the beginning of next, I'll pour everything into SCTY, whenever I think it's at its lowest. There's really no reason to doubt that the merger won't go through anymore, so it's basically free money/shares at this point.

Clinton is still the favorite to win, but uncertainty is driving the entire market down. That uncertainty will begin to dissipate as pre-voting numbers comes out, so I'm guessing we have 1-2 more negative days assuming Clinton remains definitively ahead of Trump in important states.

In my opinion, TSLA won't go back up until the election, the merger and the potential rate increase (end of this year) is behind us.

 

[doggusfluffy]

I really wish Tesla would publish a "Common Misconceptions about Tesla (and SolarCity)" blog entry which captured and coherently & thoughtfully refuted every bear/bullsugar/Lutztard argument against TSLA and SCTY. The FUD machine is out of control; let's have one place we can point to for analysts, reporters, civilians, etc. to go that shows reality. Relying on Elon's tweets & philosophical answers to analysts' questions, reading tea leaves, a few good journalists and reality itself is not working...

Yeah it's weird, I've been thinking about this phenomenon recently. I think it's partially a credibility problem, but it's exasperated by the lack of detailed information Tesla provides. It reminds me of the clever Gigafactory opening slide, raw materials come in, bunch of stuff happens, finished products exit the factory. After the full Model X story has come out and basically now we can also extrapolate Powerwall 1 seems to have been a similar early misadventure when juxtaposed with the "Off the hook" demand...this is the new reality of "trust us" from the markets. Missing the self imposed deadlines only adds to the reputation of "pie in the sky predictions" which explains the cold shoulder to profitable quarter AP 2.0 and all the great recent news. Has the market even considered the Tesla ride sharing business or ignored it entirely? SolarCity is to my view, the same fundamental problem on steroids as the conventional market wisdom already believes Solar is a dead end business. I think, and sadly bet wrong that Elon and Tesla would understand this and provide the information needed for better financial modeling...which alleviates some of the arguments and misconceptions. SolarCity has always been lacking it's own Secret Master Plan to help investors grasp what is probably more confusing business minefield than Tesla Motors.

 

[electracity]

My Model S is pretty much flawless so I am not sure about the doubt of Tesla as a manufacturer. Model X has issues because of the complexity of the doors. I am actually impressed that Tesla is making so many Model X now.

I don't have doubts about Tesla manufacturing. They are a newbie with newbie problems when trying to launch new cars and do volume. It is to be expected. It takes a long time to get "the machine that builds the machine" running smoothly.

If Toyota did 10% as much rework as Tesla the Japanese would reinstitute ritual suicide.

The Gigafactory is a new industry. The car plant is not. The car plant is a new entrant in a very mature and skilled industry.

 

[esk8mw]

Here's an interesting tidbit on the equity compensation portion of the 10-Q since I like to nerd out there - 2 new items on the various NEO option grants became "probable of achievement" for the first time and therefore needed to begin being expensed in Q3:

- production of 100,000 cars in a trailing 12 month period
- 300,000 total car production

I believe "probable" generally means "likely to be achieved in the next 12 months" but it's still interesting nonetheless.

 

[CaliBear1]

There is not the slightest evidence that Tesla is a better manufacturer than BMW. In fact, the anecdotal evidence of rework indicates the opposite.

Fortunately Tesla just needs to be a "good enough" car manufacturer to be very successful.

There's lots of evidence that Tesla is a better manufacturer than BMW. Hey, my last 4 cars have been BMWs. I loved the performance and feel, but the performance in particular comes at an awful price...especially when the cars go out of warranty. Good luck! They may pump out more cars than Tesla, but it is disingenuous to suggest that there's no "rework" going on with BMW. In fact, their products are much more flawed (beyond the inherent issues with ICEs) than Teslas once the kinks have been worked out on the Tesla factory lines.

I will leave you with this funny and frightening account from a former Bimmer aficionado. Sure it's anecdotal, but trust me, based on my experiences with my e46, e82 and e39 and the experiences of friends who have owned BMWs, this rings utterly true.

http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/bmw-engines-are-gigantic-pieces-of-*sugar*-1784684330

So now I wait patiently for the word that it's time to configure my Tesla Model 3. In the meantime I've jettisoned my last BMW and I'm currently driving an utterly reliable but mind-numbingly boring 16-year old Honda Civic. I may not be able to wait for the Model 3! The siren song of the S is strong and the ties binding me to the mast are fraying!

 

[Skryll]

Welp. My Jan 2017 options are screwed. The stock price is the exact opposite of where I thought it'd be after a full month of ground-breaking news. Wtf is going on?

Scary thought: The big investors bet that Trump wins and puts the Oil barons back in power, unrolling renewable technology advancements and letting china gain the technology advantage.

I also think this is going to be fixed after the election, unless the unthinkable happens and then all bets are off.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

On a separate note, does anyone know the timeline of payments to Panasonic?
Tesla obliged to pay $1.7 billion to Panasonic for gigafactory cells

The person who wrote that article left out a lot of important information, and didn't attempt to cite the portion of the article that mentions his "observation".

This thread from May 2014 is also very significant.
Will Tesla and Panasonic again expand battery cell supply agreement in Q4 2015 (to meet increasing global demand for S/X/E etc)? | Tesla Motors

I'll include a citation of the relevant info from the 10-Q filed today.
tsla-10q_20160930.htm

As of September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, we have pledged or restricted $1.9 billion and $1.4 billion principally from finished goods and raw materials inventory, as well as certain property and equipment, direct lease vehicles, receivables and cash as collateral for letters of credit including our Credit Agreement, real estate leases, and insurance policies.

Also:

In 2014, Panasonic agreed to partner with us on the Gigafactory with investments in production equipment that it will use to manufacture and supply us with battery cells. The parties had agreed to one such investment to be made by Panasonic, with additional investments to be made from time to time if and as agreed to by the parties. As of September 30, 2016, the quantities, cost and timing of potential purchases we may make under this arrangement were subject to a number of factors, such as future vehicle demand, that could not be determined with certainty. Additionally, as of September 30, 2016, any obligation to make payments to Panasonic pursuant to this arrangement was subject to the achievement of certain technological and engineering milestones and other contingent events. Based solely on certain preliminary assumptions made at the time the arrangement was entered into in 2014 for purposes of reference and further ongoing discussion as of September 30, 2016, the potential battery cell purchases that we may have to make from Panasonic pursuant to and during the term of the one investment agreement existing at September 30, 2016 would equal approximately $1.7 billion in the aggregate.

 

[techmaven]

I'm confused with the excuse given for negative margins for TE, and talks of higher margins with more volume. During Giga factory opening ceremony, people saw robots assembling TE products, and crates and crates of products ready to ship. Some members here counted hundreds of millions in revenues from the number of crates. How much more will it scale? It is already fully automated with robots. IMHO, the low margins are here to stay, because the TE assembly is already automated.

On a separate note, does anyone know the timeline of payments to Panasonic?
Tesla obliged to pay $1.7 billion to Panasonic for gigafactory cells

That's a strawman... who counted hundreds of millions of revenues from the number of crates? Did you visit the factory? The module assembly is reportedly automated. The rest of it is partially automated. And they were not at high volume levels and full automation at all.

Low margins are not here to stay... one of the big inputs it the cost of the NMC cells. That cost structure likely differs from the NCA cells that Tesla uses in vehicles. Further, that price will change with Gigafactory output. Finally, as with all manufacturing, product introductions often causes havoc on margins. Especially when the factory is ramping up workforce.

Clearly, Tesla Energy has been moving through various startup phases.

As for the contractual obligations, no timetable was disclosed for the Gigafactory related ones. Presumably they don't kick in until the Gigafactory actually start to make cells. In any case $1.7 billion is not much at all. It's 75% of one year's full output of phase 1.

 

[electracity]

Check out consumer reports on the X and the threads here.
It is not just the doors.

The X was just born premature. It will follow the same quality trend as the S, but faster.

 

[viKtor slamet]

The X was just born premature. It will follow the same quality trend as the S, but faster.

I really like this analogy. A lot of Tesla's products are born premature.
- Powerwall is premature: Powerwall 2 is the real deal.
- Powerpack is not too bad, but Powerpack 2 is the real deal.
- Autopilot is premature. Tesla Vision is the real deal

Similarly, imo, adding/buying shares here is premature. $100 is the real deal. Would like to bet the farm if it goes to $100 on FUD in the next 2-3 months

 

[TNEVol]

Here in Trumplandia there is now near certainy of his victory coming from behind at the last minute. This possibility has absolutely affected my feeling about near term investments. I suspect that fear and uncertainty about this election are the major reasons for the Market trend. Pure blind guess however.

 

[Ulmo]

Took a sizeable loss but I decided to cut my losses and dump all my stock. Either the end of this week or the beginning of next, I'll pour everything into SCTY, whenever I think it's at its lowest. There's really no reason to doubt that the merger won't go through anymore, so it's basically free money/shares at this point.

Clinton is still the favorite to win, but uncertainty is driving the entire market down. That uncertainty will begin to dissipate as pre-voting numbers comes out, so I'm guessing we have 1-2 more negative days assuming Clinton remains definitively ahead of Trump in important states.

In my opinion, TSLA won't go back up until the election, the merger and the potential rate increase (end of this year) is behind us.

I'm going to pick this boat to ride for now.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Is there any rule that would prevent Elon from buying $100-$200 million in stock today? Lyndon

Every other time SolarCity was ~$18 he made a nice size purchase. If he bought a very big position this week, it would probably shift the media narrative and make it clear to investors that the naysayers are very wrong.

Maybe Lyndon is planning something like this? Lyndon Rive is able to exercise options to buy 1,647, 913 shares (~$30 million) any day between now and November 22nd. If he re-invested all of the cash into SolarCity, it would cause some very interesting things to happen.

 

[EnzoXYZ]

There's lots of evidence that Tesla is a better manufacturer than BMW. Hey, my last 4 cars have been BMWs. I loved the performance and feel, but the performance in particular comes at an awful price...especially when the cars go out of warranty. Good luck! They may pump out more cars than Tesla, but it is disingenuous to suggest that there's no "rework" going on with BMW. In fact, their products are much more flawed (beyond the inherent issues with ICEs) than Teslas once the kinks have been worked out on the Tesla factory lines.

I will leave you with this funny and frightening account from a former Bimmer aficionado. Sure it's anecdotal, but trust me, based on my experiences with my e46, e82 and e39 and the experiences of friends who have owned BMWs, this rings utterly true.

http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/bmw-engines-are-gigantic-pieces-of-*sugar*-1784684330

So now I wait patiently for the word that it's time to configure my Tesla Model 3. In the meantime I've jettisoned my last BMW and I'm currently driving an utterly reliable but mind-numbingly boring 16-year old Honda Civic. I may not be able to wait for the Model 3! The siren song of the S is strong and the ties binding me to the mast are fraying!

That article is just plain FUD. Never totally trust things you read on the internet. He takes all the stories on bimmer forums and complies a hit piece. You have issues of 1 in 100K but the internet makes it as if it was 1 in 10. His time is better spent looking at Mercedes body rust issue than looking at BMW engine as it one of the better manufacturers at making engines. I had e36 M3 and the engine was perfect @155K before I sold it. Our family had more oil leaks in Mercedes than anything else.

The amount of lame analogies should tell you something.

 

[electracity]

Here in Trumplandia there is now near certainy of his victory coming from behind at the last minute. This possibility has absolutely affected my feeling about near term investments. I suspect that fear and uncertainty about this election are the major reasons for the Market trend. Pure blind guess however.

Well then I guess I need to rewatch Talladega Nights to prepare for redneck cultural dominance. Do I need to give up craft beer?

 

[winfield100]

Yeah it's weird, I've been thinking about this phenomenon recently. I think it's partially a credibility problem, but it's exasperated by the lack of detailed information Tesla provides. It reminds me of the clever Gigafactory opening slide, raw materials come in, bunch of stuff happens, finished products exit the factory. After the full Model X story has come out and basically now we can also extrapolate Powerwall 1 seems to have been a similar early misadventure when juxtaposed with the "Off the hook" demand...this is the new reality of "trust us" from the markets. Missing the self imposed deadlines only adds to the reputation of "pie in the sky predictions" which explains the cold shoulder to profitable quarter AP 2.0 and all the great recent news. Has the market even considered the Tesla ride sharing business or ignored it entirely? SolarCity is to my view, the same fundamental problem on steroids as the conventional market wisdom already believes Solar is a dead end business. I think, and sadly bet wrong that Elon and Tesla would understand this and provide the information needed for better financial modeling...which alleviates some of the arguments and misconceptions. SolarCity has always been lacking it's own Secret Master Plan to help investors grasp what is probably more confusing business minefield than Tesla Motors.

Please, bullet points or paragraphs or something. I lose my place trying to read this long a comment

 

[McMuggets]

Took a sizeable loss but I decided to cut my losses and dump all my stock. Either the end of this week or the beginning of next, I'll pour everything into SCTY, whenever I think it's at its lowest. There's really no reason to doubt that the merger won't go through anymore, so it's basically free money/shares at this point.

Clinton is still the favorite to win, but uncertainty is driving the entire market down. That uncertainty will begin to dissipate as pre-voting numbers comes out, so I'm guessing we have 1-2 more negative days assuming Clinton remains definitively ahead of Trump in important states.

In my opinion, TSLA won't go back up until the election, the merger and the potential rate increase (end of this year) is behind us.

Not sure why anyone would sell now, it's at a low. FWIW, $18 is solid territory for SCTY and I picked up some more today as a way to own Tesla.

 

[TrendTrader007]

Selling TSLA now? Really!