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

[traxila]

Honestly, if anyone, large or small was really planning to load up, why would you not wait until after earnings when everyone knows it will be bad?

I bought back some 250 puts I had sold yesterday at a small profit just to take some leverage off the table, but I think is great chance that I will wish I would have waited until tomorrow.

 

[Nocturnal]

Nothing that I read by Elon during Q1 convinces me a loss is expected. Wording was very carefully chosen, and if you believe he's setting up the squeeze now, like I do, his words were spot on.
Then I just had lunch at the airport in Houston, and this was my fortune cookie. No lie.View attachment 400240

GF2 must be going really well if they are sneaking messages out that way!

 

[mongo]

I don't agree that a change to the power train with entirely new suspension and a new front motor (different form factor entirely) is "trivial to implement". I think this change probably accounts for some of the lack of S/X production last quarter, while the lines were shut down and robots re-trained and brought back up to speed.

Indeed.
There is also the (soon to be) obsolete parts inventory to consider. Order enough to finish production on n cars, then update the line, process, training, and start up again.

 

[ggr]

It only really makes sense to produce 2170 in Japan if Tesla is planning to switch S/X from 18650 to 2170. If this is the case Panasonic will be left with a cylindrical cell factory and staff in Japan with no customers (few competitors using cylindrical cells in their cars because they don't know how to affordably assemble them into packs). Panasonic would likely offer Tesla a good deal on Japan 2170s to keep this factory in production. I'd guess these would be mostly for GF3 though.
Still skeptical of the report though.

Maybe. Part of the problem in GF1 seems to be hiring good people, and I really can't imagine that people used to working at Panasonic in Japan would want to move to Sparks NV. Maybe P have decided on their own to spin up another factory in Japan?

 

[CyberDutchie]

Options are a hell of a drug. Beware!



I think you're being a little hard on the modest refresh of the S/X.

The "kWh usage" has already been illustrated to "translate", as exemplified by MotorTrend's test drive linked and discussed at length in this very thread yesterday. The range improvements are all based on increases in efficiency, which will keep margins higher since cell costs will remain static. The margin hit from the drivetrain change should be minimized due to cost efficiencies based on parts sharing with the Model 3. Perhaps more importantly, a lower priced variant has been re-introduced, expanding the addressable market for these vehicles.

The changes, combined, strike me as significant enough to likely result in an increase to sales -- I know I'm certainly interested as a prospective buyer.

Don’t forget the upgrade buyers. I immediately looked how much it would cost to trade in my 3-years old Model X for a new version capable of FSD, and it looks really attractive!

In fact, I can actually reduce my monthly payment, upgrading from 90D to P100D. (Plus get Ludicrous for free!)

Of course I’d be adding another three years of payments before the car is paid off, but I can easily make up for that from future earning with the Tesla Network.

As always, I look at my own buying behavior as potentially typical for a number of owners who think alike. It bodes well for Q2 Model S/X sales IMO.

 

[ZachF]

I'm gonna guess $5.3b in revenues and a loss of $320m

 

[capster]

On topic anecdote regarding the Ford investment in Rivian. When I worked at Qualcomm, a more senior guy I worked closely with was assigned to work on a Q-Ford telematics joint venture called Wingcast. It failed in 2002, a year or two later. Wingcast Joint Venture Company in Telematics to Dissolve | Qualcomm

I can't begin to tell you how scathing my colleague was about Ford. For example (assuming I recall correctly) the layout of buttons on the dashboard was set in stone 5 years in advance. Screen? Forget it. So they started thinking about basic voice recognition, but this was when Dragon Dictate was the best available, and it wasn't just able to sit there waiting for you to say "Hey Taurus...". It needed a button to start it listening. (Hmmm, sounds familiar...). "NO, you can't have a button. How about you simultaneously press the 1 and 5 preset buttons on the radio? That sounds like something no-one would do by accident." (Or intentionally...)

I had high hopes for Rivian. Now I'm pretty sure they're cactus.

Based on first hand experience, I'll second how deeply incapable the legacy auto OEM's are of delivering meaningful innovation to the market.

Personally, I think a credible total expenditure north of $100 Billion would be needed from the first legacy automaker to bring a product to market that is competitive with any Tesla product available at the time the product from the legacy automaker reaches the market. Heck, I'll even throw in acquisitions and government assistance as a gimme.

 

[AudubonB]

S LR has now reached "needlessly long range". Especially with the improvement in charge speed and efficiency. Others WILL be trying harder. Efficiency saves production cost at the cell count level.

Not a hugely helpful or even considerate remark. 370 “rated” miles still will not get us back home from shopping in town (Anchorage), what with our elevation gain and lousy roads and, of course, no Superchargers. I don’t often beat my breast about How My Situation Is Worse Than Some Others, but it’s useful to keep in mind that edge cases are for more than just autonomous driving - they occur in range situations still, too.

 

[EVDRVN]

My brother just bought an M3 base model with FSD today. (Get this... he forgot about my referal code and can't change it.)
Anyway, I bet the Tesla sales pitch is working with many others as well. He's the brother who lost all his money on Tesla options, so he plans to Uber his way through the payments... for now. Strong indicator even though just 1 data point.

I can get mine added if he doe snot want to use yours

 

[Fact Checking]

This just came up on my Chinese news feed, Google translate below.

Japan media: Panasonic will produce electric car batteries for Tesla in Japan

April 24th, Beijing time, according to the Japanese "Daily Industry News" website, Panasonic has decided to produce electric car batteries for Tesla in the factory in Osaka City.

The report said that after negotiations with Tesla, Panasonic will start new battery production by the end of 2019.

Currently, Panasonic only produces batteries in conjunction with Tesla at the Gigafactory plant in Nevada, USA.

It only really makes sense to produce 2170 in Japan if Tesla is planning to switch S/X from 18650 to 2170. If this is the case Panasonic will be left with a cylindrical cell factory and staff in Japan with no customers (few competitors using cylindrical cells in their cars because they don't know how to affordably assemble them into packs). Panasonic would likely offer Tesla a good deal on Japan 2170s to keep this factory in production. I'd guess these would be mostly for GF3 though.
Still skeptical of the report though.

Interesting tidbit from two weeks ago that might be related:

I don’t think Elon was watching from the gulfstream this time. Although It looks like Larry Ellison’s gulfstream was in Osaka earlier this week. Panasonic meeting?

The plot thickens ...

 

[ggr]

What demand problems do you see? (Serious question.)

“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.” -- HHGTTG.

 

[bdy0627]

I'm gonna guess $5.3b in revenues and a loss of $320m

Mine is similar: $5.1, loss of $400M

 

[adiggs]

Don’t forget the upgrade buyers. I immediately looked how much it would cost to trade in my 3-years old Model X for a new version capable of FSD, and it looks really attractive!

In fact, I can actually reduce my monthly payment, upgrading from 90D to P100D. (Plus get Ludicrous for free!)

Of course I’d be adding another three years of payments before the car is paid off, but I can easily make up for that from future earning with the Tesla Network.

As always, I look at my own buying behavior as potentially typical for a number of owners who think alike. It bodes well for Q2 Model S/X sales IMO.

That's about how the deal on my 90D Model X works out (swap cars, add performance, upgrade from 90 to 100 kWh pack) - car costs about a wash. There's a whole LOT more car for sale today than a couple years ago, while still leaving the non-performance Model X I bought 2 or 3 years ago as one of the best cars on the planet (IMHO).

Anyway - if only I could transfer the free supercharging for life to an upgraded car, I think that'd probably be the nudge that would do it for me. Just thought I'd type that out for Tesla's text parsers to pick up on when they sweep through the forum and pick up another vote

 

[Nocturnal]

Based on first hand experience, I'll second how deeply incapable the legacy auto OEM's are of delivering meaningful innovation to the market.

Personally, I think a credible total expenditure north of $100 Billion would be needed from the first legacy automaker to bring a product to market that is competitive with any Tesla product available at the time the product from the legacy automaker reaches the market. Heck, I'll even throw in acquisitions and government assistance as a gimme.

87% of fortune 500 companies fail, merge, drop drastically in size etc. over a 50 year timeline (from the 50s to now). That ignores the fact that technology is growing at an ever greater rate so that timeframe will likely be even shorter from say 2000-2050. The legacy auto companies are simply too old, they reached maturity level years ago and realistically should be gone by now.

Fortune 500 Extinction | csinvesting

 

[Doggydogworld]

You’re missing a few price increases in there...

Probably, there were several. I noted the 2/28 price drop was later partially reversed as kind of a catchall for $500-1500 changes.

I didn't list the move from $5k EAP to $3k AP as a price change, since the features also changed. I don't consider the subsequent force-bundling of the $3k AP for $1-2k to be a price cut or increase. I see all that as fine-tuning their AP/FSD strategy.

They dropped MR, add/dropped LR-RWD and semi-dropped SR. I don't read those as demand signals, either, just fine-tuning their lineup.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.” -- HHGTTG.

OT: I no longer remember the details, but I remember that you do, in fact, find out why the pot of petunias think that several books later in the series.

 

[WarpedOne]

Yes, you do. You also find out a lot more about the nature of the Universe...

 

[CyberDutchie]

That's about how the deal on my 90D Model X works out (swap cars, add performance, upgrade from 90 to 100 kWh pack) - car costs about a wash. There's a whole LOT more car for sale today than a couple years ago, while still leaving the non-performance Model X I bought 2 or 3 years ago as one of the best cars on the planet (IMHO).

Anyway - if only I could transfer the free supercharging for life to an upgraded car, I think that'd probably be the nudge that would do it for me. Just thought I'd type that out for Tesla's text parsers to pick up on when they sweep through the forum and pick up another vote

Good point about the free supercharging for live. I would actually prefer that over free ludicrous mode.

 

[ggr]

Source, please.

LMGTFY:

Sometimes it's reasonable to ask for sources. Sometimes it's trolling.

 

[Boomer19]

Good point about the free supercharging for live. I would actually prefer that over free ludicrous mode.

yeah, but 20k is a helluvalotta supercharging on one vehicle, no?

if the avg SC session is $10, that’s 2,000 charges, even at 200 mi/session it’s 400k miles

i’ll still take ludicrous, but i like the excitement