Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Fact Checking]

disagrees and no agrees!? Thought I was stating the obvious. I'd love to hear your arguments disagreers.

Your comment was so nonsensical that I don't even disagree: you conjured a $100 figure out of thin air, it's not based on any facts. For all we know Elon's social media presence might have increased Tesla's valuation by +$100 and has increased actual vehicle sales - without his social media presence mainstream media might already have eaten the Tesla bull thesis alive.

But we don't know, you just made up that figure: garbage in, garbage out. Why did you expect anything else but disagreement?

 

[Carl Raymond]

8 disagrees and no agrees!? Thought I was stating the obvious. I'd love to hear your arguments disagreers.

9 now. You can’t know where the share price would be if Musk had never tweeted at all. Quite possibly zero. You need to look at net value.

Other factor is the share price today is irrelevant to longs. I only care about the CAGR, because that determines the true share value accumulation, as measured years from now when the FUD has been crushed with volume.

 

[Fact Checking]

What would you estimate the "actual" production number QTD is, based on realistic estimates of the above?

This is really hard due to the potential double-counting of leases: about 10% of all S/X sales are leased - so end of Q4 total deliveries is AFAICS detached from actual production, and Tesla never shared with us a precise fleet size. (Nor would they have any reason to do so, it would only help competitors and conspiracy theorists.)

My current Q1 estimate is 70k-80k deliveries and 90k-100k production, with very large error bars:

Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable​

 

[KarenRei]

Nice find, but careful with the Q4 subtraction:

• This is apparently the factory internal tool where new vehicle batches are initiated, and "cars registered" at the end of Q4 would include all in-transit, fleet and other inventory vehicles as well - not just "delivered" vehicles.
• Leased vehicles returned and delivered again would be counted twice as deliveries.
• Scrapped vehicles would count to a few hundred at minimum as well over such time frames, and they'd increase end of Q4 total deliveries, while not being 'registered' anymore in the database.

Here's the Model 3 inventory estimate, based on delivery reports:

  ========|============|============|============|===========|=========|======
  quarter | production | deliveries | Δinventory | inventory | transit | fleet
  ========|============|============|============|===========|=========|======
  2017/Q2 |          0 |          0 |          0 |         0 |       0 |     0
  2017/Q3 |        260 |        220 |        +60 |        60 |      40 |    20
  2017/Q4 |      2,425 |      1,550 |       +875 |       935 |     860 |    75
  2018/Q1 |      9,766 |      8,180 |     +1,586 |     2,521 |   2,040 |   480
  2018/Q2 |     28,578 |     18,440 |    +10,138 |    12,659 |  11,166 | 1,493
  2018/Q3 |     53,239 |     55,840 |     -2,601 |    10,058 |   8,048 | 2,010
  2018/Q4 |     61,394 |     63,150 |     -1,756 |     8,302 |   1,010 | 7,292

I.e. 7,292 units at the end of Q4 and Model S/X inventory is even bigger.

I don't think we can use this screenshot without having a similar screenshot at the end of Q4 as well ...

Thinking about this some more, wouldn't Q4's max fleet be the total delivered at the end of Q4 (531268 - is that right?) plus Q4 inventory (2907), for a total of 534175? So production would be 83953 over 79 days, or 7,4k/wk total vehicle production? Assuming that this means that they're somewhere around 8k/wk now, then that would be around 101095 vehicles produced this quarter, no?

 

[PANN]

I saw it a couple of days ago - I specifically noted it because the Model X didn't have the option. Note that Standard Range Model S is also gone from the European configurators.

So this is a pretty recent change and yet another sign that a refresh with possibly even higher prices is imminent. Anyone who likes the current prices should consider that possibility. Tesla is doing a hard inventory flush: everything must go.

Just checked, Standard Range Model S is also gone from China configurator.

 

[Creekstalker]

8 disagrees and no agrees!? Thought I was stating the obvious. I'd love to hear your arguments disagreers.

I think you are correct insofar as there are some specific tweets that have hurt the stock price. Your analysis turns to voodoo when trying to assign values, however. You also don't seem to acknowledge or attempt to quantify the positive effect that Elon's social media presence has had on the stock price. It's Tesla's only form of advertising and it reaches millions of people.

So yeah, some of the tweets have hurt but I suspect the positive has outweighed the negative.

 

[KarenRei]

This is really hard due to the potential double-counting of leases: about 10% of all S/X sales are leased - so end of Q4 total deliveries is AFAICS detached from actual production, and Tesla never shared with us a precise fleet size. (Nor would they have any reason to do so, it would only help competitors and conspiracy theorists.)

Yeah, I'm not trying to convert production figures into delivery figures, just trying to get a handle on production figures. If we have a solid net deliveries figure for end-of-Q4 (do we?), and add to that Q4 inventory, that should be net production, no? Or are there other complicating factors? Might that approach make for a reasonable "upper bound" which might be lowered by various factors, such as inventory write-offs?

 

[KarenRei]

Negative premarket price action. Downgrade? Started at 7:06 EST, accelerated at 7:15 EST.

ED: Seems to be a dive in futures as well.

 

[T@oo]

On a completely unrelated note. After VW did go all-in on battery electric vehicles, the heads of Daimler, VW and BMW apparently agreed in a phone call yesterday, to adopt this strategie.

Original report: Autobauer in puncto Batterie-elektrische Mobilität einig - electrive.net
And for the single language readers: Google Translate

Who would have thought.

 

[Fact Checking]

Thinking about this some more, wouldn't Q4's max fleet be the total delivered at the end of Q4 (531268 - is that right?) plus Q4 inventory (2907), for a total of 534175? So production would be 83953 over 79 days, or 7,4k/wk total vehicle production? Assuming that this means that they're somewhere around 8k/wk now, then that would be around 101095 vehicles produced this quarter, no?

Indeed, so basically the VIN database they have would be smaller than actual delivery numbers.

We still have to factor in the end of Q4 inventory fleet though: those are real cars with VINs which have not been delivered yet. Note that the "2,907 vehicles in transit" at the end of Q4 is not the total inventory: there was about 5k Model 3 worth of unsold inventory Tesla made at the end of Q4, plus whatever fleet of test drive and showroom units they have.

Don't we have all the production figures though? The sum of those should be a lot more accurate - it over-estimates end of Q4 fleet due to VIN destruction (totaled in an accident, etc.), but thus it would offer a conservative under-estimate of Q1 production.

 

[tslalala]

Don’t forget “Rest of world” - namely the wealthy rcountries that are not yet able to get any version fo the Model 3: England and the other Europe countries not yet served, Japan, South Korea, Australia/New Zealand.

Does anyone know when Model 3 will be available in England, Japan, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand?

 

[Fact Checking]

Negative premarket price action. Downgrade? Started at 7:06 EST, accelerated at 7:15 EST.

Overall market crash in NASDAQ Composite and Dow futures started at the same time.

 

[ReflexFunds]

Nice find, but careful with the Q4 subtraction:

• This is apparently the factory internal tool where new vehicle batches are initiated, and "cars registered" at the end of Q4 would include all in-transit, fleet and other inventory vehicles as well - not just "delivered" vehicles.
• Leased vehicles returned and delivered again would be counted twice as deliveries.
• Scrapped vehicles would count to a few hundred at minimum as well over such time frames, and they'd increase end of Q4 total deliveries, while not being 'registered' anymore in the database.

Here's the Model 3 inventory estimate, based on delivery reports:

I don't think this tool would double count any vehicle deliveries, it appears to be a tool for tracking the status of all vehicles in the fleet. Therefore it should track the actual fleet size. But whether this is only delivered vehicles or includes inventory/transit/loaners etc, i don't know.

I am somewhat sceptical of this data given the vehicle miles counter stands at 10.3 billion. Electrek reported crossing 9 billion miles in early September 2018 and 10 billion in mid November. The fleet should be higher than 10.3 billion miles by now.

From the same Electrek report, we were told the Tesla fleet hit 500k on 15th November. I think there is a good chance both of these data points came from the same internal tool posted above. If we add half of Q4 production to 500k in mid November, we get to 543k fleet size at the end of 2018. This would suggest c.75k vehicles produced so far in Q1. But as you say, without knowing the exact number at 2018 and exactly what the number refers to, this can't give us much reliable information.

 

[Pras]

Does anyone know when Model 3 will be available in England, Japan, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand?

Elon said for Australia around July. So I guess that would be the next milestone to watch for.

 

[wnorris]

This is a new one...Ford owners stating their SUVs are making them sick.

Potential exposure to toxic levels of carbon monoxide...complaint count is ~3,000 owners.

 

[schonelucht]

Wow... This was just posted on Reddit:

And counting : teslamotors

Showing 618128 cars currently "online / registered" with Tesla. Someone is about to get fired.

If end of Q4 2018 Tesla had 531268 cars delivered (is this right?), that means currently, there are 86,860 already manufactured this Q. Would probably have to take inventory into account (and take into account the original roadster numbers as they are not connected?), but still, that's a good number with a week and a half to go and the "big push" is next week... Record numbers again it seems

Obviously good for investors if true, bad for owners. Open serious questions on how tightly privacy safeguards are enforced when someone with access to a tool that shows vitals for any car is so casual about taking and (letting distribute) a screenshot.

 

[Fact Checking]

Yeah, I'm not trying to convert production figures into delivery figures, just trying to get a handle on production figures. If we have a solid net deliveries figure for end-of-Q4 (do we?), and add to that Q4 inventory, that should be net production, no? Or are there other complicating factors? Might that approach make for a reasonable "upper bound" which might be lowered by various factors, such as inventory write-offs?

Tesla's delivery reports started in 2014 AFAIK, and they only reported deliveries early on. From Q2 2016 they started reporting production numbers as well. Here's the raw data, deliveries up to 2016/Q1, production afterwards:

      2014/Q1 = 10,030
      2014/Q2 = 11,507
      2014/Q3 = 11,580
      2014/Q4 = 17,192
      2015/Q1 = 10,030
      2015/Q2 = 11,507
      2015/Q3 = 11,580
      2015/Q4 = 17,400
      2016/Q1 = 14,820
      2016/Q2 = 18,345
      2016/Q3 = 25,185
      2016/Q4 = 24,882
      2017/Q1 = 25,418
      2017/Q2 = 25,708
      2017/Q3 = 25,336
      2017/Q4 = 24,565
      2018/Q1 = 34,494
      2018/Q2 = 53,339
      2018/Q3 = 80,142
      2018/Q4 = 86,555

These numbers add up to 539,615 - but we'd still have to include 2010-2013 numbers, to the extent they are still in the fleet database. But probably a lot of VINs fell out of the database as well.

So I don't think we can properly calibrate the end of Q4 state. Maybe @ReflexFunds has better ideas?

 

[lascavarian]

A lot of it is because it takes much longer to go a given distance, e.g. more time spent sitting around in the car with the heat on. AAA also tested cold-weather driving without the heat on and the city-driving impact wasn't nearly as bad.

Regen has a lot/everything to do with the pack temperature.

This is a thermal management technology discussion really. Losing regen changes one peddle driving for the worse. Mitigating loss of regen is a worthy goal separate from range capacity.

If regen could be decoupled from the pack such that regen was became consistent independent of temp, it would be a good thing.

 

[replicant]

8 disagrees and no agrees!? Thought I was stating the obvious. I'd love to hear your arguments disagreers.

It has definitely cost nothing to me. I still own hundreds of shares of a company that is producing amazing products that people are eager to buy. The financial markets, as short-sighted as they are, seem incapable of valuing the company for what is is actually doing, so they take any input as another sign of the company's demise. Because these markets are all-powerful in this increasingly short-sighted society, and because they captured both the regulators and the media, "tweets" are now considered by short-sighted individuals as yet-another-proof that the company will go bankwupt.

I have no idea why I should care about this superficiality: I bought shares in an auto-manufacturer and a renewable energy leader, not in a social media celebrity game.

 

[ReflexFunds]

On a completely unrelated note. After VW did go all-in on battery electric vehicles, the heads of Daimler, VW and BMW apparently agreed in a phone call yesterday, to adopt this strategie.

Original report: Autobauer in puncto Batterie-elektrische Mobilität einig - electrive.net
And for the single language readers: Google Translate

Who would have thought.

While this is positive on the whole, i get the impression the main agreement is to lobby to stop incentives and pressure to develop fuel cell, gas cars & other lower CO2 alternatives. This means they agree that EVs (still including hybrids) are clearly superior to fuel cells & other technology options, but it doesn't mean they agree EVs are better than ICE or that they are really going to accelerate the transition.