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

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This is pretty much exactly why I'm not bothered by the "the new XYZ EV is a Tesla Killer" thing... the very expression is de-facto recognition that the Tesla is the market leader best-in-EV's to beat. If pundits are saying this Porsche is the underdog that just maybe can wrest the EV performance crown from Tesla, that's not so bad, especially since when an excited buyer does any sort of deeper analysis - it doesn't, and maybe they buy a nice high margin high end Tesla now instead.

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." - Oscar Wilde

I can’t wait until Tesla Roadster 2 comes out and Porsche builds a BEV 911 type car, unlike their rumored hybrid version trash. Not sure when Porsche will do BEV, but you can bet it will be a very compelling sports EV when they do given their record with the 911.

The more success that all manufacturers have with EVs, the better for everyone. No one needs to be better than Tesla, and Tesla doesn’t need to be better than everyone else. The world just needs more converts from ICE to EV, regardless of brand.
 
It seems to me P&D news is old, something something about production increase, but you won't know the effect until Q3.

Production and delivery news isn't "old news", it was barely reported upon, at least not in proportion to its significance. On top of that, the little bit of reporting that did cover the momentous achievement (not an exaggeration), was accompanied by a bunch of fake news and misguided opinions that this was a one-time event, an anomaly and that NOW demand is drying up. :rolleyes:

It takes time for the significance of the P&D report to sink in. And the earnings release, while maybe not "blowout" in absolute dollars, will likely beat expectations by a huge margin and add a lot of color on future expectations.
 
I always find it funny how badly some stock market articles age even within the trading day. The current top TSLA headline on my stock app`s news section reads: "Tesla Stock Deliveries Rally Fizzles, Now What?".

Yesterday at the Shortsville Times:

Boss, the stock is rallying. What’s the plan?

OK, we short sell heavily this afternoon, stop this train before it picks up speed. Then tomorrow we lead with “Tesla Stock Deliveries Rally Fizzles...”.
 
I think investors are making the bet that an early earnings day announcement will yield some positive surprises.

If Tesla shows a breakeven or profit from Q2 then shorts will be in a bad place. EM didn’t see profitability returning till the second half of the year, and many felt their losses would be substantial in Q2.

At that point with production ramping up, demand still high, Tesla going global, and all signs pointing to the second half of the year being an investors dream with Tesla headed towards production goals and profitability you’d have to believe you are on the wrong side if you are betting against this company.

Definitely no guarantee on Q2 having shown good earnings numbers, but if you can place your bet before an announcement then there could be a nice payoff waiting on the other side.
 
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Definitely no guarantee on Q2 having shown good earnings numbers, but if you can place your bet before an announcement then there could be a nice payoff waiting on the other side.

Well, there's never any guarantees, of course, but every analyst wildly underestimated deliveries. Given that fact, do you really think they are off on the earnings estimates by a smaller amount?

Because more volume typically means higher margins. As to Average Selling Prices, I don't believe there were any price reductions during the quarter (didn't they include AutoPilot on most trims (all trims?) and RAISE the base price?). I expect ASP's to be good.

Most of the analysts following Tesla couldn't find their belly button if their life depended upon it.
 
Has there been any clarity as to whether the Q1 writeoff partially or completely compensated for the price cuts on S/X inventory that made up such a large part of Tesla's S/X deliveries this quarter? Yes, Model 3 prices were raised, significantly. Now, a SR+-richer mix would be worse than an LR mix, but SR+ deliveries were rare in Europe (presumably China as well). There would be a significantly more SR+-rich in Canada this quarter. I think the US would be somewhat more SR+ rich, but I'm not sure. And regardless, with how much they've raised the base price, there's still going to be significant profits in SR+.

One of the nice things about higher volumes is that it means lower per-unit depreciation :) On top of the ongoing quarterly pushes to bring down production costs, which shorts seem to keep for some reason never anticipating yet always happen.

Next quarter will be richer in SR+ (probably not much SR+ in RHD countries yet, but significantly more in LHD countries). EU and China can probably eat as many SR+ as they can send, given how many sales they've done almost exclusively on LRs so far. ;) On the other hand, S/X will be overwhelmingly Raven units, with higher price points and lower production costs. Tesla will lose a bit more money on US leases next quarter, and US sales will probably be down a bit due to the loss of nearly $2k in credits (but nothing like when they lost nearly $4k in credits and really rushed people into buying early). Tesla will anticipate this and time its market expansion as it thinks it needs to in order to max out sales. Hopefully including Iceland (come on!)... I mean, they're not building that service centre/store and Superchargers just for people who imported their own cars, they have to open deliveries at some point! ;) Netherlands sales are expected to grow in Q3 and esp. Q4 due to an incentive cliff. BC's incentives are decreasing but will still be strong. California is considering new incentives.

In short:
  • As usual, sales will move around, with some markets becoming stronger and some weaker
  • As usual, Tesla will try to anticipate each market strength and when / where it needs to move into new locations to maintain volume at the target ASP.
  • As usual, Tesla's global ASP will drop a small amount
  • As usual, Tesla's manufacturing costs will roughly match that amount to maintain margins, as Tesla controls the ASP/sales volume ratio and has a long history of using it to maintain margins.
  • As usual, Tesla might totally screw up the above balancing act, but probably won't, and might blow things out of the park, but probably won't.
 
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Who was the guy on here that used to constantly say that gas prices were going to skyrocket. It seems that gas prices will remain historically low for some time to come. I can't imagine what Tesla's sales would be if the national average for gas ever got back to the $4.00 level again (or $4 plus if adjusted for inflation). I tell people all the time that Tesla is one oil crisis from being one of the biggest car companies in the world. What bad luck that the world has seen historically low prices for several years now (probably longer than I recall in my entire life).

Texas Oil Boom...

Neroden said it already, but there was little reaction, so I’ll repeat because it’s worth understanding.

EVs are a pressure release valve on the oil price. Tesla breaks the oil stranglehold on transportation energy.

This holds true until such time as the oil industry shrinks so dramatically that they start suffering diseconomies of small scale. That’s a long way off.

This new industrial revolution, just getting started, puts *downward* pressure on oil prices. The reason it’s important for people to understand this is because they will otherwise mistake the depressed oil price as a recession indicator. It’s the opposite.
 
From the 'Musk Halo' portfolio, Tim Urban got a preview of Tuesday's Neuralink news today (Tim is the author of the 'Wait But Why' series on Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink from a couple of years back).

His mind was blown. Should make for an interesting Tues.

Tim Urban on Twitter

Perhaps we'll have some small impact on TSLA next week due to this.
 
They planned to assemble Chinese components in Indiana in former Hummer factory.

With 25% tariff that is no longer viable.

That is definitely a legitimate reason to fold/pause, but it also emphasizes how foolish it is for analysts to assume that every company that announces an EV is automatically considered to be a Tesla competitor. Maybe the analysts should wait until they start shipping cars in volume before making that declaration.
 
And regardless, with how much they've raised the base price, there's still going to be significant profits in SR+.
Lets not forget they raised prices after tariffs(for the imported chip at least, but could be also for raw materials.) I don't know how much of their stuff comes from China. Tesla sometimes eats some of the extra costs, so $400 extra on the car price may not necessarily pay for their extra tariff costs.
 
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Everyone needs to sit down and just STFU.

Porsche is not a Tesla killer. [...]

I think the Porsche will be awesome compared to the gas porsches. The detroning of their lighter gas cars is more likely prevented by the weight of the batteries. Will be interesting to see how the 'real car companies like porsche have so much more experience with things like suspension and steering' will play out in a vastly different weight scenario. Maybe tesla does have a ten year advantage even there over porsche at this point.
 
Lets not forget they raised prices after tariffs(for the imported chip at least, but could be also for raw materials.) I don't know how much of their stuff comes from China. Tesla sometimes eats some of the extra costs, so $400 extra on the car price may not necessarily pay for their extra tariff costs.

I'm not talking about $400. For the latter part of $Q1, the starting price on the Model 3 was $35k. Now (except off-menu in specific markets with minimal supply and long delivery times), the starting price is $39,9k. That's a lot more than $400 difference. (Yes, they had to give up EAP revenue to get that, since EAP is now included, but of course the gain is far more than they gave up by making it mandatory). +$4,9k over the previous base, +$2,4k over the previous SR+, is a big deal.
 
I hear you. Since I have no basis for comparison, do you think the handling of a Porsche is superior to a Tesla? Or is it just brand loyalty?

For me, there's no need for Tesla to be the end-all of cars. If Porsche can make a compelling EV (which it sounds like the Taycan likely is, whether or not it is competitive with Tesla) that bests Tesla in at least one area I think that is a good. I really want there to be some competition in the EV space, not just compliance cars and some weak attempts to delay the inevitable.

Put another way, I think it will be a sad future if the only cars are S3XY. I love them, but I want variety.

Um...what variety from S3XY is there that could possibly be desirable? HOM3LY? FU6LY?