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

[uselesslogin]

I would assume so. If you want the panels removed from the house you have to pay $1,500. I haven't looked at the contract, but from what I looked at it looked like you could cancel and leave the panels on the house. You only had to pay the $1,500 if you wanted them removed.

So maybe a new plan for the shorts to bankrupt Tesla would be to sign up to have Tesla put solar on their house and then cancel after the first month. It would cost them $50, but Tesla has paid for all the permitting, installation, and equipment costs. (Sure they will get their money back eventually but it could put pressure on the FCF.)

But maybe Tesla plans to "securitize" all of these installs and just scrape some profit off of the top, so they don't have to outlay all of the cash themselves.

Huh? This is a rental agreement. Sure, you probably don't have to pay Tesla $1,500 to remove and collect the panels but you sure as heck have to get the panels that you rented back to the company that you rented them from one way or another.

 

[carterm2]

If the panels stay on the roof, the installation generates income... the homeowner is literally paying Tesla to make money on the power generated. (paying = paying property tax, and providing access to the power source, maintaining the house/support structure for the panels.)

The panels remain inventory for Tesla to depreciate... not sure what to do with the panels after removal. Likely refurbish and re-deploy.

My concern is that the rent will go up. It usually does.

 

[Off Shore]

Ron Baron hasn't sold a single one of his tesla shares despite the downturn. Kudos to him!

FWIW Neither have I.

 

[MP3Mike]

Huh? This is a rental agreement. Sure, you probably don't have to pay Tesla $1,500 to remove and collect the panels but you sure as heck have to get the panels that you rented back to the company that you rented them from one way or another.

From their FAQ:

What happens after I cancel my agreement?

If you want your system removed to restore your roof to its previous condition, it will be $1,500 to cover Tesla’s cost. Tesla does not make a profit on this.

So you don't have to remove the panels, but Tesla can keep selling the electricity to your grid provider. This is probably why they limit rental to people with certain grid providers. Ones that will keep the solar separate enough to be able to offset the home owner or buy the electricity from Tesla if the homeowner cancels. Essentially the home owner would be providing Tesla free rent to their roof.

I don't know if anyone has gotten the actual contract/rental agreement to get all of the nitty gritty details...

 

[Alphacrux]

Anandtech has a live blog from Hot Chips on Tesla’s self-driving computer. Live NOW. Pete Bannon and team. Ha. I used to work with a bunch of these guys at AMD. Good guys..

Hot Chips 31 Live Blogs: Tesla Solution for Full Self Driving

 

[Curt Renz]

Electrek - 20 minutes ago: Tesla releases new software update with adaptive suspension damping improvements and more - Electrek

 

[Singuy]

Huh, 2.5x perf over hw 2.5? What happened to 10x?

 

[kengchang]

Huh, 2.5x perf over hw 2.5? What happened to 10x?

10x is referring to the 10x framerate it can process vs nVidia.

 

[Causalien]

Huh, 2.5x perf over hw 2.5? What happened to 10x?

Probably theoretical vs real world after taking into account failure rates, thermal dissipation and propagation delays.

 

[HG Wells]

Huh, 2.5x perf over hw 2.5? What happened to 10x?

Nope, slide refers to power consumption.

57 WATTS vs 72 WATTS

 

[ev-enthusiast]

No powerful rebound after big drop after last ER.
Looks like a slow slide down again to $177.
Damn it's a long way to 52wk high at $379!
Thoughts?

 

[Singuy]

Nope, slide refers to power consumption.

57 WATTS vs 72 WATTS

I was referring to what they said which was 2.5x perf at 1.25x more power. But I guess they meant DL performance vs image processing.

 

[Driver Dave]

No powerful rebound after big drop after last ER.
Looks like a slow slide down again to $177.
Thoughts?

Clear data coming in about competitors floundering to make "Tesla Killer" will at least keep it where it's at.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Eventually people are going to look at the true valuations of Uber and WeWork, realize they are horse-sh*t and reallocate those funds to a company that is actually growing into serious profitability. I expect in the next feww months to see a few big buys into TSLA. Not to do so, once we have evidence that the etron and the taycan are both effectively dead on arrival, would be silly.

EVERYONE agrees the EV market is going to be huge, there are still some delusional people thinking Porsche or audi will have a big chunk of it. I think that theory is pretty much crumbling before everyone's eyes right now.

Plus I see no reason that deliveries and revenue are not going to be significantly better for Q3, putting paid to another host of bullshit theories.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

The math seems to work for the consumer but how is Tesla going to make moeny at this?

Maybe they are a loss leader to sell high margin powerwalls and perhaps even cars

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

When Elon spoke about creating a cyborg dragon, could he have been referring to GF3 being alien dreadnought 1.0? Seeing his comments on twitter today along with his new profile pic just made me wonder....

 

[Doggydogworld]

OK thoughts on CFP and new Solar Panel rentals.
How does the latter effect the prior (CFP - Cash Flow Positive) - which I thought was now a quarterly goal ?

It will have no measurable effect unless it causes a large increase in solar deployments.

If it does grow solar deployments, it won't affect Operating Cash Flow because this spending goes under Cash Flows from Investing Activities on a line item called "Payments for the cost of solar energy systems, net". I don't think it will affect FCF, either, because that's usually defined as OCF - Capex.

Finally, it shouldn't affect the actual cash balance very much because the leases will be pooled into a subsidiary that receives roughly 100% financing from lenders and "tax equity" partners, same as the old SCTY solar leases.

 

[Green Pete]

When Elon spoke about creating a cyborg dragon, could he have been referring to GF3 being alien dreadnought 1.0? Seeing his comments on twitter today along with his new profile pic just made me wonder....

He's a clever man, with lots of clever ideas. I don't think trying to interpret his profile picture or how he changes his twitter handle to ln(e) or anything of that nature is worth the time. If it ever came out that there was clear covert intention to communicate something like that in that manner I'm sure he and his lawyers know it would be a shitstorm of bullshit. If you want to take anything from it, he seems excessively playful and confident, which by itself is a good sign.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Clear data coming in about competitors floundering to make "Tesla Killer" will at least keep it where it's at.

Good point. Let's hope this will help during the next weeks/months and provide some support for SP.

 

[KSilver2000]

The math seems to work for the consumer but how is Tesla going to make moeny at this?

I’ve written a full outline of this new rental agreement in the Energy forum. But, basically, Tesla gets to keep all tax credits/incentives available, and the renter is charged $1,500 to remove the system if they want to stop making monthly payments. That $1,500 will likely deter some from canceling the subscription because that’s worth almost 2 years of rental for the basic 3.8kW system. Also, the agreement does not allow the renter to purchase the system until after 5 years. And the purchase price even after the 5 years wait time will be at the original price when contract was signed (currently $2.50/W)—not at a likely lower price in 5 years (no residual price like with a car lease).

In the end, this is a crappy deal for the consumer in the long run just like any other PV PPA/lease deals.

Tesla may get some dumb nuts to bite, but not many once you dig down into the details.