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

[EVDRVN]

I like the pricing change on autopilot. Before it was complex. Now, with two levels: 3k or 5k for full at time of purchase vs 4k or 7k later. This is a no brainer. I will be getting the full at 5k w/ purchase. Why spend 3k on half-ass autopilot. I know full self-driving is not there yet, but in the meantime you get a lot more features and then continuous future updates. And this is all margin for Tesla. Releasing the base M3 w/ the lower and simplified autopilot pricing structure is going to be gang busters for Tesla sales this year. Watch. Why bother with the mid-level European luxury brands and also why bother with Camry or Accord? The Tesla stretch just went from a yoga class to an evening yawn.

You pay $3k for the more popular features or $8K for some marginal ones plus the promise of something else. There is not an "or" between $3K and $5 it's an AND. It's no less complex you just have to commit more for marginal or potential features to the tune of $8K.

 

[AcesDealt]

Resistance is futile. Welcome to the brave new world. You can dig your heels in all you want, you will be assimilated.

It’ll work. After all these years, we still have longs who doubt. Tsk. Tsk. And if by chance Tesla sees it’s not working, they’ll simply change direction again. No biggie.

I wonder just how many hundreds of pages one would have to scroll back to find something useful from this fellow.

 

[NicoV]

Adam Jonas is so clueless. Years ago, he was saying how Tesla is worth 500. Last year he changed his tune. How's that? After some years of significant progress, Tesla is worth now almost half. Apparently, he has no more faith in autopilot and thinks its a show me story. Meanwhile, he pontificates about robotics and the space industry. He thinks he's some kinda academic scholar musing on future technology disruptions, but in reality what's needed is a little bit more down to earth analysis. I just ignore his reports these days.

Adam Jonas is just mad at Elon because Elon (and the rest of the world) laughed at his ‘military grade AI’ question on a CC. That just showed how clueless AJ is.

 

[Antares Nebula]

@Cherry Wine @EVDRVN

Re Autopilot: Oops! I missed that. Thanks!

Hmm... have to think about that now.

 

[EVDRVN]

@Cherry Wine @EVDRVN

Re Autopilot: Oops! I missed that. Thanks!

Hmm... have to think about that now.

Don't spend more than 10 seconds, it's not worth a fraction of that.

 

[Krugerrand]

I’m not in the kitchen; hence, my comments

I wish I were in the kitchen. But, this isn’t meant to be negative criticism so let’s not just assume all bulls have to say positive things all the time. It’s meant to be constructive bc no matter how great you are, you can always get better

Uh, huh. And Tesla/Elon continually refuse to try to be better.

That particular criticism is unwarranted and you know it.

 

[Drumheller]

OT:

If you want to watch the launch happening in 2 minutes, here is a live link

CREW DEMO-1 MISSION | SpaceX

 

[winfield100]

t -2 min

 

[wipster]

T -2 minutes

 

[Cherry Wine]

Don't spend more than 10 seconds, it's not worth a fraction of that.

 

[wipster]

Awesome!!!

 

[winfield100]

gogogo spacex

 

[Krugerrand]

You're exactly right here Karen. This is what Adam Jonas is hinting at when he writes 'Tesla is fundamentally overvalued but strategically undervalued.

Let's unpack this. First, A/J is says TSLA is oversold based on its fundamentals? Can this be a serious reading of the financials? Jonas has been wrong for so long on Tesla that its a running joke. This same guy said in July 2018 that 'Telsa won't be able to maintain 4K/wk Model 3 production by May 2019'. Funny stuff, even better if you can get paid for it.

Second, Tesla is 'strategically undervalued'? This is WS code for Tesla being a prime take-over target. In spite of the wet dreams of Wall St, Elon has bigger plans for the future. Where Jonas can't see 1 year in advance (and has burned/tossed his rear-view mirror), Elon is thinking about 2030 and beyond.

Automaker don't have the capital to buy Tesla (it would surely go for more than $420/share now based on the progress since Aug 2018). So that means raising equity from Wall St to make that happen. And now we start to see what makes Jonas salivate like the mutt he is: juicy fees for his employer.

Same way Wall St is begging for Tesla to do another capital raise, so they can take their cut in broker fees. Not going to happen. So now they try to damage the company and pretend they can force a bankrupcy sale. Also not going to happen.

Telsa no longer depends on Wall St. for its survival and growth. When the last big bond payment is made in 2024, Tesla will be debt free and generating $12B FCF/yr. Then the stock buybacks begin. And the market makers can naked short sell themselves 'til they're blue in the balls, 'cuz they will have to buy real shares eventually.

Some thesis, huh? Well, that's the one I'm going with.

Cheers!

Can they pay the bonds early if they want to?

 

[Tslynk67]

Another fabulous Space-X launch, separation(s) and landing - they never cease to amaze!

 

[Krugerrand]

I wonder just how many hundreds of pages one would have to scroll back to find something useful from this fellow.

Start us off. Post something useful and I’ll reciprocate.

 

[CalX]

Without test drives, interested people will just rent the cars on Turo or from somewhere else. They'll be a ton of cars for rent I bet. And maybe Tesla should offer a rebate of $200 to cover the rental fee if someone purchases a car and shows the car rental receipt within the past few months.

 

[SPadival]

To me, monetizing the Tesla screen won't start to really happen until FSD. Then I think you'll see things like Netflix and other streaming services. I'm sure Tesla doesn't want to be liable in situation like someone watching Netflix while on Autopilot. I'm sure there will be requirements that you have to have FSD running in order to watch Netflix or use apps while the car is in motion

Another big monetizing piece is that if someone wants to use their car in the Tesla Network service, they'll not only have to split the money with Tesla but they'll have to buy FSD(as well as Autopilot). That's a lot of revenue with super high margin!

Somewhat answered in today's call when Ben Sullins asked about an App Store.

Ben: So I'm curious if you see other updates like this possibly an app store or some other way to turn the cars themselves into more of a platform with other services you can add on top of it.

Elon: <snip other stuff>. And that's I mean we're just we're just update the car and make it better for free. That's just that's been our philosophy for many years but we're not planning to make the car a sort of a big platform at this stage. I mean maybe if we have like tens of millions of cars on the road at some point then it would make sense to be a platform. But I think until you have sort of at least in the tens of millions it's not realistically a platform except in a sense that the car has all of what we've [inaudible] all of the sensors necessary for full self-driving.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Yes. To borrow a term from aeronautics, Tesla is like an aerodynamically unstable Eurofighter.

Traditionalists will always point to the unstable nature and expect it to fall out of the sky at any moment. But the instability is part of the design to give it increased manoeuvrability - which will leave other slow moving OEMs in the dust.

The guys at Polestar copied everything that Tesla has done so far and yet within days, they are left twiddling their thumbs.

An unfortunate side effect of this design is that us shareholders should be able to handle the extreme G-forces without throwing up

That was beautiful man. Great analogy

 

[schonelucht]

You sure you have that conversion right? Last time I checked 1 Euro equaled 1.14 USD. Does the 98,300 euro include VAT and import tax?

Correct. There are conflicting reports about the import tax being 0% or 5%. But there is anyway an extra cost associated with shipping and assembly in Tilburg so it's going to be a wash or change the equation $1000-$2000 either way but nothing fundamentally.

 

[schonelucht]

So, Dana Hull's story on Bloomberg in December was false. She ignored Tesla's guidance wrt the bonds both before and after her unsourced story. Was it complete fiction? Who told her to write it? What else does she have wrong?

He no. It wasn't false. That story was about what Tesla would do should bond holders elect to convert. The stock price just didn't reach the conversion point, so no bond holder elected for conversion. Meaning Tesla had to pay in cash.