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

[EVNow]

Probably pushed by lawyers envisioning their cut of $500 million jury awards when a drug addict racing across the street to rob someone is run over.

Ironically, pushed by Uber.

 

[RobStark]

Aluminum F-150 proves less costly to repair

So is Ford, whose big bet on aluminum for its hugely profitable F-series franchise prompted persistent questions — and relentless attacks from rivals — about whether the pickup would cost more to repair and insure. But insurance data shows that an extraordinary effort to train dealers, educate insurers and design the vehicle to be as repair-friendly as possible helped make it ultimately cheaper to fix and replace than the previous generation, a goal to which Ford engineers aspired from the project's inception.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Re: negative stories about Tesla.

My theory is more benign and challenging:

It's all clicks.

People who consume online media are generally more technologically savvy and generally more intrigued by Tesla.

Positive headlines don't get clicks. Negative headlines do. That's just the way the internet works.

Journalists have always been compensated by their ability to cover news that readers care about.

Online media measures that by clicks.

It's hard to fight that trend.

I dunno, I imagine, say, confirmation of industrial sabotage by hacking the robots in the paint shop probably would have gotten some clicks. And yet, it garnered a whole 1 sentence buried in a NYT article about something else.

 

[mongo]

Aluminum F-150 proves less costly to repair

So is Ford, whose big bet on aluminum for its hugely profitable F-series franchise prompted persistent questions — and relentless attacks from rivals — about whether the pickup would cost more to repair and insure. But insurance data shows that an extraordinary effort to train dealers, educate insurers and design the vehicle to be as repair-friendly as possible helped make it ultimately cheaper to fix and replace than the previous generation, a goal to which Ford engineers aspired from the project's inception.

The reduction in cost is due to changes in the truck that make it easier to repair, not because it was changed to aluminum. Had it stayed steel with all the modifications, it would likely be even cheaper to fix than the current version.

 

[sundaymorning]

It appears the Semi is going to rely on Maxwell battery tech to achieve the 1M battery pack, thus it's unlikely Semi will be accelerated in timeline.

I recall Maxwell announcing that they were working with an “unnamed” automobile company. It’s quite possible that Tesla has been already testing Maxwell from the get-go, and decided to buy them now. This makes a lot of sense as on the date of the semi announcement Tesla stated that the battery breakthrough has already occurred, and that they’re not relying on future technology to get them to the stated range.

 

[RobStark]

The reduction in cost is due to changes in the truck that make it easier to repair, not because it was changed to aluminum. Had it stayed steel with all the modifications, it would likely be even cheaper to fix than the current version.

Can't disprove a theoretical. We don't know if all the modifications that were made can be done in steel.

Many people believe aluminum in automobile fabrication by its very nature is significantly more expensive to repair.

Ford's experience proves otherwise.

 

[bobo]

I just read a report that I think may be relevant:
Who is winning the global lithium ion battery arms race? | Benchmark Minerals

Shows a big difference between capacity and manufacturing. Tesla and Panasonic seem to be wining in manufacturing, but LG Chem and CATL seem to have more capacity.

 

[UncaNed]

I could understand if you posted this a month ago, but right now, AFTER all of the carnage?

How do you KNOW it's "after" the carnage?

 

[SPadival]

anti-Tesla dreadnaught that reaches the eyes and ears of nearly the entire cable news audience. Like it or not, that's where a huge segment of the population of this country gets its news

On what basis are you saying that?

 

[Fact Checking]

On what basis are you saying that?

Not @ruralectric, but it's the truth that while in 1983 90% of U.S. media was owned by about 50 corporations, by 2012 media power became immensely concentrated in the hands of just 6 companies.

This is a graph from 2012:

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America​

GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS own ~90% of what U.S. consumers watch, read and listen to. Since 2012 media concentration has further increased.

 

[SPadival]

Not @ruralectric, but it's the truth that while in 1983 90% of U.S. media was owned by about 50 corporations, by 2012 media power became immensely concentrated in the hands of just 6 companies.

This is a graph from 2012:

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America​

GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS own ~90% of what U.S. consumers watch, read and listen to. Since 2012 media concentration has further increased.

Having been a fan of Jimmy Dore, I am very acutely aware of this. My question is on the quantum of people still watching cable TV. The average age of a CNN/Fox News viewer is 60+ years. It is a shrinking demographic.

 

[ruralectric]

Having been a fan of Jimmy Dore, I am very acutely aware of this. My question is on the quantum of people still watching cable TV. The average age of a CNN/Fox News viewer is 60+ years. It is a shrinking demographic.

Yeah I can believe that that demographic is shrinking. I'm just relying on my own experience here though, and it's frightening to me to see the way cable tv is used as a pacifier in so many public places. In airports I'd say nearly universally (at least in the US). Unfortunately that demographic doesn't seem to be shrinking to me, just getting dumber and dumber. Sad. Scary.

I'd be happy to be wrong about this though.

 

[JRP3]

How do you KNOW it's "after" the carnage?

It's definitely after some carnage.

 

[aubreymcfato]

@Papafox thanks for your helpful post.

I might just add that there probably is a large chunk of TSLA investors, like myself, that are not quite able to adjust ourportfolio in a efficient manner (accounting for taxes and whatnot).
Psychologically, "buy and hold" is nice because it's a very simple strategy. I just buy few shares when I can, when the price is low enough and I have spare money. No margin, of course.

I'd love to be a more rational and efficient investor, but with Tesla it's very difficult to sell high: FOMO is powerful and you always think it will skyrocket... I suffer that feeling much more than I suffer these dips (I'm down 11%, so not very much). Also, "groupthink" in our beloved forum just amplify these feelings, in both directions.

 

[cricketman]

I'm "down" 25%, although I've not lost anything because I've not sold any shares

To work on a Warren Buffet analogy, few people would sell their house because the house market is valuing it at less than a few months ago.

I hold shares in Tesla because I believe in them and in Elon, despite his clumsiness at times. Amazon, Apple, Google, their share prices did not grow linearly, they went up and down and experienced massive growth in relatively short periods of time, I should think Tesla will be similar and we might see the next growth spurt take the share price up to 500 or 1,000.

Nobody knows when this will happen of course, such skills would mean that any person who could know this would surely already be a billionaire through playing the markets

 

[SPadival]

Reuters (years of history smearing EVs — though, seemed to be much worse years ago before the environment editor moved on to work in the oil industry, iirc), and LATimes (seriously have no idea why they have such horrible pieces on Tesla, but holy batman they do).

Neal Boudete from the NYT and Russ Mitchell from LAT behave as if they are a wholly owned subsidiary of TSLA trolls on twitter.

You just have to peruse their twitter feed (link in the names above) to realise that @tinm is living in la la land. They don't even bother to hide the fact that they are anti Tesla.

EDIT: Russ Mitchell has blocked me on twitter

 

[RobStark]

I just read a report that I think may be relevant:
Who is winning the global lithium ion battery arms race? | Benchmark Minerals

Shows a big difference between capacity and manufacturing. Tesla and Panasonic seem to be wining in manufacturing, but LG Chem and CATL seem to have more capacity.

I think they are comparing Tesla-Panasonic production vs planned capacity of LG and CATL.

No point in starving Jaguar,VW/Audi,Mercedes and Hyundia/Kia for cells if they actually have all this capacity NOW.

Jaguar CEO says they don't worry about selling IPaces, they only worry about getting more cells.

 

[juanmedina]

Wow this market action is madness. Hold your shares. The model 3 is such an amazing product I just don't understand what's going on.

 

[Chartered321]

Wow this market action is madness. Hold your shares. The model 3 is such an amazing product I just don't understand what's going on.

50k shares traded with no significant news, someone is panicking big time.
Time to buy

 

[Analyst007]

I am really not sure if I should hold my shares or not. Tesla is in very big trouble but I just do not understand why. After Q4 2018, everything looked so promising but it seems like this quarter was just a very lucky one.