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

[Intl Professor]

The problem is people don't seek for the truth. Everyone has their own "truth". This is why we have a huge set of people in the U.S that believes in a narrative based on experience vs digging into statistics and actual facts.

I'm not sure this is a bad thing. As Buddha has said, "All I know is from my own experience." Word of mouth is better than professional reviewers of movies, for example, except for the coterie of reviewers. Works for me. Also, how many times have we seen a change of heart once exposed to a ride or driving a Model 3?

Freedom is the capacity to exercise enlightened choice. Experience is the best teacher. Why do they call Buddha the enlightened one? The great unwashed need the bath of experience. Wait and see. The same for investors. An advice?

 

[mariaaa]

In my opinion it will go down.

As I posted earlier, if they near 100K deliveries and are GAAP neutral then maybe it goes up to say $250. Anything else, the shorts will beat it down as more evidence that demand is not sustainable and burning more cash.

AKA the TSLA circus.

Just my two cents of course.

Dan

Damn, this is my worry as well. I hope you're wrong. I want Tesla @ 300.

 

[KSilver2000]

I'll go one further: if he felt there's a real chance they will fall below target, putting out this email (which he knows by now will reach investors by next day) would be even more damaging once delivery numbers are posted, as it would indicate that the company couldn't push hard enough.

EM is not one to think that way. I don’t think he cares how people respond to his comments and actions for better or worse. I think people here analyze his emails/comments way too far sometimes.

 

[gtrplyr1]

I think you are taking this too far.
The purchase of Maxwell is public knowledge. The cell job postings are public knowledge. That Tesla's growth is dependent on cells is public knowledge. Kato road as the location may not have been, but that is not anything important.

Ok .... I'll agree it's pretty well known Tesla's been working on this. Maybe it's the Apple investor in me that values corporate secrecy. I certainly don't want to hear about it from some reporter that has questionable motives at best. (That's probably the main reason it got me to respond .... I don't think she has been very fair in her reporting of the company)

 

[Singuy]

I'm not sure this is a bad thing. As Buddha has said, "All I know is from my own experience." Word of mouth is better than professional reviewers of movies, for example, except for the coterie of reviewers. Works for me. Also, how many times have we seen a change of heart once exposed to a ride or driving a Model 3?

Freedom is the capacity to exercise enlightened choice. Experience is the best teacher. Why do they call Buddha the enlightened one? The great unwashed need the bath of experience. Wait and see. The same for investors. An advice?

Oh God if everyone used their own experiences as their best teacher then we will still have technology from the Stone age. The biggest problem with using our own experiences as truth is that our senses cannot be trusted, hence the scientific method +, peer review. When people use their own senses to judge the world based on truth, then you end up with flat earthers(whose entire premise is based on personal senses). And don't even get me started with all those people who had a.."spiritual experience".

 

[Artful Dodger]

These big pre-market swings are often just trying to set the narrative and sentiment with comparatively very few shares traded, especially in thinner summer trading.

Yes, there were just 92.7K shares traded in the Pre-Market session until 08:05 am

Its a head fake (redFayk?)

Cheers!

 

[abasile]

We are reluctantly selling our MX because my wife finds the gullwing doors to be a nuisance. We will lease an ICE car for a few years until MY is available.

Very sorry to hear. I'm not a big fan of the Falcon Wing doors, either, and I wish the Model X were available with regular doors as a lower cost option. But an ICE?? What about a Model S? The S is quite roomy, actually close to the Y in size. At this point, now that the X is a more mature product, I think Tesla could sell more by offering regular doors.

 

[Intl Professor]

Oh God if everyone used their own experiences as their best teacher then we will still have technology from the Stone age. The biggest problem with using our own experiences as truth is that our senses cannot be trusted, hence the scientific method +, peer review. When people use their own senses to judge the world based on truth, then you end up with flat earthers(whose entire premise is based on personal senses). And don't even get me started with all those people who had a.."spiritual experience".

A lot of sociologists would say reality is a social construction. Even C.S. Pierce, the first American philosopher to give pragmatism a sound footing argued science was a social enterprise. I think what divides us is language, not disagreement. And, of course, to preserve the fiction we are separate individuals. (Just to blow your mind spiritually.) My mind is much more flexible than my body with age. It has more experience. Now I can barely walk for ten minutes at a time and that with a cane. Thanks to the internet and especially TMC, my mind is exposed to novelty daily.

Edit: And of course my wife who calls me an "Extinguished professor."

 

[abasile]

Unfortunately, given that the average age of cars on the road is over 11 years, I figure we have to get near "esssentially all new car sales are electric" before the drop in gas sales starts causing accelerated gas station closure. Gas stations are already closing at about 2% per year, of course, faster in areas where land is valuable and faster in "non-Interstate" locations. But I think we have to get to around 50% of new car sales electric before we see the 5% drop in gasoline sales which should be enough to accelerate the closures.

With EV adoption continuing to be primarily in the upper half of the auto market, that'll be a catalyst for more rapid gas station closures in wealthier areas with more expensive real estate. A virtuous cycle will likely be the result.

 

[anthonyj]

How sustainable is this price action? Something's got to give

 

[Tslynk67]

What sound does an alarm clock make in Europe?

2021 CO2 targets would generate €34 billion euros in penalty payments within Europe | JATO

How to reduce the penalty?

View attachment 423313

"The conclusion of this study is the worst case scenario for manufacturers. We are assuming that nothing would change from now until 2021, and unfairly excluding the plans for electrification. Effectively, OEMs can claim up to 7.5 g/km of CO2 from 2020 to 2022 to offset their total CO2 number for vehicles that meet the eco-innovation criteria.

"Moreover, we will definitely see many models dropped where investment to reduce their averages is larger than the profits generated. This will include the axing of more combustion engines, large and heavy cars, or those slow-selling models. To sum up, the manufacturers may have the technology to launch cleaner cars and alternatives to reduce the fines – their only limitation is time."​

Spoiler

Tick Tock 2021

Bit of an old photo they used there...

 

[abasile]

For example riding a bicycle would be better for the planet, but for many, many people it's not practical: it's dangerous in the winter or in the hot summer, taking home groceries or picking up young kids is problematic with a bicycle, especially for older people. It's not a practical replacement for a car, even if everyone riding bicycles would save the planet.

Riding an e-bike is clearly better for the planet than driving, but I've argued elsewhere that the primary benefit of bicycling or walking is likely for personal health, not for the planet as a whole. Making some guesstimates, if the human body is ~20% efficient at converting food calories to "work", and if food production/distribution which usually depends on fossil fuels is ~20% efficient from farm to table, then traditional bicycling may be less efficient in terms of greenhouse gas impact than driving an EV. I don't think anyone is going to "save the planet" by bicycling, but they'll generally be healthier.

 

[abasile]

Keep in mind that the UCS study had one major flaw in the study. It assumed the electricity to produce the batteries also came from coal. But the model 3's batteries are built in a factory that sources all its power from renewables (Nevada has a considerable amount of hydro and solar), with no natural gas provided to the factory at all. So that CO2-debt isn't as high as what the study assumes. Enjoy driving your car!

FWIW, northern Nevada actually gets a great deal of its power from geothermal sources.

 

[abasile]

That strike price is too low to get real returns. Selling $200 strike puts is more like it, that's what I say.

Yes, a $100 strike price is kind of low for "real" returns, but $100 puts are far less likely to be assigned. So I guess it depends how eager one is to buy more TSLA shares.

 

[Singuy]

A lot of sociologists would say reality is a social construction. Even C.S. Pierce, the first American philosopher to give pragmatism a sound footing argued science was a social enterprise. I think what divides us is language, not disagreement. And, of course, to preserve the fiction we are separate individuals. (Just to blow your mind spiritually.) My mind is much more flexible than my body with age. It has more experience. Now I can barely walk for ten minutes at a time and that with a cane. Thanks to the internet and especially TMC, my mind is exposed to novelty daily.

Flexibility is not what I would call an aging experienced mind. The most flexible minds are those that are young. A lack of experiences subject you less to skepticism and confirmation bias.

 

[Pezpunk]

Heck, the day before Q3 closed last year Musk e-mailed that Tesla might possibly show a profit if everyone pitched in and gave an all-out effort. They made 300m! I'm sure that last 24 hours put them in the black, lol.

If he believed an email like this could goose sales by an extra couple thousand cars he'd send it even if 95k was already in the bag.

Irrationally optimistic expectations only make it easier to tank the stock. I see Tesla bulls every quarter get sucked into this kind of expectation inflation as the quarter closes out, to their own detriment, only making the bears’ job easier.

 

[Intl Professor]

Tesla now up. The MMB (mid-morning beat)?

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

CNBC's lead story right now. I haven't read the article yet, but am sure there's a negative spin.

Tesla has a secret lab trying to build its own battery cells to reduce dependence on Panasonic

They've changed the story multiple times since I first saw it this morning. In the first edition, they blatantly said to not expect Tesla made battery cells for a long time because Tesla wasn't even remotely close to that stage. Which is of course BS.....we know Tesla has been validating Maxwell over the past year. They made it sound like Tesla was still in the early stages of R&D and thus, 4-5 years away from cell production

 

[dc_h]

They've changed the story multiple times since I first saw it this morning. In the first edition, they blatantly said to not expect Tesla made battery cells for a long time because Tesla wasn't even remotely close to that stage. Which is of course BS.....we know Tesla has been validating Maxwell over the past year.

I wonder if this could be the really big Grohmann machine?

 

[neroden]

Just as importantly, a real journalist will establish a reliable home charging setup before trying out EVs.

Yes. And for a Tesla, this usually means a NEMA 14-50 (electric stove / RV) outlet in the garage (yes, you gotta buy the NEMA 14-50 adapter). This cost me a total of $250.

One can't claim to have a representative EV experience if they're hunting all over town for places to charge, as we've seen with far too many journalists.