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

[Tes La Ferrari]

Was thinking about the effect that the upcoming US election will have in the SP.

The SP has done well under both party administrations, and this post is not about which party is better.

I’m interested in hearing thoughts on the impacts of the election on TSLA, whether that’s as a result of dropped macros during a likely period of uncertainty of outcome? Or other factors that could impact the SP and what you think it might do, and why - between Oct and January.

 

[Alexandros]

Korea Times reporting that Tesla is looking to buy 10% of LG's battery unit? Weird... Not their style to buy fractions of other companies but who knows.

[EXCLUSIVE] Tesla looking to acquire stake in LG

 

[Speedr117]

So Elon foresees Tesla taking 20M BEV share out of 30M BEV total market.

66.6% share.

2 different time frames for those numbers. 20 million by 2030 vs.30 million in the next 6 or 7 years. Hopefully there will be 45-50 million by 2030, but yeah, even with that, it's 40-44% market share for Tesla...

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

No.. He's predicting 30M total market in 6-7 years, Tesla doing 20M/yr probably before 2030.

The 30M+ is predicted by Elon for about 2027. Tesla will be at 6M in 2027 if you extrapolate back from 20M in 2030 and a yearly growth of 50%. That corresponds to a market share of 20%. Which is higher than what Ark is using as market share in their calculations (bull case: 18%).

 

[Tslynk67]

Was thinking about the effect that the upcoming US election will have in the SP.

The SP has done well under both party administrations, and this post is not about which party is better.

I’m interested in hearing thoughts on the impacts of the election on TSLA, whether that’s as a result of dropped macros during a likely period of uncertainty of outcome? Or other factors that could impact the SP and what you think it might do, and why - between Oct and January.

A few days back someone said that although elections cause a bit of froth, the winning party doesn't tend to affect the market that much. Conventional wisdom says GOP are seen as more "business friendly" with lower taxes and less regulation, however for Tesla, a DEM victory would obviously bring a much less hostile environment in the US and would probably accelerate the fossil-fuel death-spiral.

I think control of the Senate is the most important factor the the actual president.

 

[AudubonB]

https://twitter.com/cathiedwood/status/1310400552468131842?s=21

View attachment 592949

i am in disbelief that Cathie Wood could have made such a fundamental error. The best I can come up with is that she was trying to say that OTHERS in Wall St were conflating a new $25K car with a big reduction in the Model 3s price, but there’s nothing in the tweet’s wording to bolster that “others” theory.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Can't wait to see Arks share price projection after they plug in battery day and Elon's est of 66.6% market share of EV sales in ten years to equal 20mm Tesla EVs. So much for waiting for lower IV to jump into some more options.

60% of ALL car sales in 2030 then (leaving a few ICE for North Korea and other refusniks).

 

[ZachF]

Tesla posted the data on Twitter:

@Tesla on Twitter | Sep 19, 2019​

"Data from our track tests indicates that Model S Plaid can achieve 7:20 at the Nürburgring. With some improvements, 7:05 may be possible when Model S returns next month."​

Sep 19, 2019​

"Until then, auf Wiedersehen Germany Here’s some of our initial Model S Plaid data to keep you buzzing until we return:"​

Read the Y-axis of this chart for 500 kW max power, then compare power to the various locations on the road course. This was discussed extensively here on TMC in Sep'19.

Cheers!

I think the Plaid that went around the 'ring and the current plaid are two completely different cars. I don't think they had the Roadrunner batteries yet. For one, the new plaid makes >800kw of power vs the 500kw shown there.

I think the new one will be much faster...

 

[Tslynk67]

I think a few people here bought $PLL anticipating a Tesla deal, no? If you did, congratulations, starts trading today:

 

[cricketman]

i am in disbelief that Cathie Wood could have made such a fundamental error. The best I can come up with is that she was trying to say that OTHERS in Wall St were conflating a new $25K car with a big reduction in the Model 3s price, but there’s nothing in the tweet’s wording to bolster that “others” theory.

Yes it does make you wonder whether she was even watching battery day. I love Ark Invest but this is a big clanger.

Buzz made the point above with Gali having the chance to ask any Q at all about battery day, and then asking about electric airplanes...

Now, Tesla investors are feeling very self congratulatory at the moment, and some of it is well deserved, but the above are examples of people not understanding the details and getting carried away, from two of Tesla's biggest advocates!

Battery day was awesome and is a big positive whichever way you look at it. Just how positive battery day is depends on:
1. The stacking up of benefits
Is it 54% range increase OR 56% $ per kwh reduction OR 69% capital investment reduction, or as others such as Now You Know have reported, is it 54% range increase AND 56% $ per kwh reduction AND 69% capital investment reduction.
I believe it is the former which is fantastic, if it is the later then Tesla will become the biggest company in the world within 5 years!

2. Have Tesla already invented the industrial processes to get these figures and now its a case of scaling up?
Or are the processes a mere twinkle in Elon's eye.
And how far along is each of the processes e.g. anode, cathode, new battery, integrated design etc.
If the new batteries are already in the Q4 Model S' but with old anode/cathode tech then awesome, or is that that they have made tons of the new batteries but entirely for prototype vehicles? The share price dropped following battery day because it sounded like these innovations were three years away, but I think the message is that it will be three years until the ENTIRE SYSTEM is ready i.e. all innovations are at full production and working together, but some of the innovations are already in production

 

[MC3OZ]

I think the Plaid that went around the 'ring and the current plaid are two completely different cars. I don't think they had the Roadrunner batteries yet. For one, the new plaid makes >800kw of power vs the 500kw shown there.

I think the new one will be much faster...

There were rumours of Model S testing with new batteries on the Mojave desert well before the 'ring test.

Kim from 'like Tesla' was the source.

However, it seems to me the original 'ring runs were test events used to gather engineering data, and the prototypes probably involved some short term compromises.

So I agree new Plaid is better. even if the prototypes had an early version of Roadrunner cells. From the description it is likely that the prototypes had tab-less DBE cells, but not necessarily 4680s.

 

[Singuy]

Was thinking about the effect that the upcoming US election will have in the SP.

The SP has done well under both party administrations, and this post is not about which party is better.

I’m interested in hearing thoughts on the impacts of the election on TSLA, whether that’s as a result of dropped macros during a likely period of uncertainty of outcome? Or other factors that could impact the SP and what you think it might do, and why - between Oct and January.

Equal weight for me.

Trump wins': trade wars continues, tax relief for corp continues and perhaps even more tax relief

Biden wins: ease of trade war, less volitality, the thought of tax relief gone eventually although it'll stick around for awhile due to recession. More green energy policies. Min wage push which is bad for market.

Trump would have been overall positive for the market if it wasn't for the volitality he introduced with the Chinese. So for Tesla specifically I am giving the edge to Biden but probably a wash.

---

Mod: I'll leave this 'fairly' neutral political comment for now, but there's no mercy for anyone who uses it to start an exchange of political bickering.

 

[Singuy]

Pre market is extremely good carrying momentum from last Friday. Local resistance at 415 smashed, next resistance in the 460s. Macd in Tesla's favor for more upside. Rsi steady as neutral.

 

[Favguy]

60% of ALL car sales in 2030 then (leaving a few ICE for North Korea and other refusniks).

Do we know what percentage of phones and tablets are Apple? I expect Tesla to achieve similar for cars. 60% seems a very high figure to me. Now, with the exception of the Model S (a premium niche product) and the Roadster, (even more niche) I personally don't like the styling of all the other models. I'm all in on TSLA and have been since 2012 with my life savings and they don't come more bullish than me, so their must be a significant percentage of the great majority of none investors out there who won't buy based on design/styling either?

I would add that I hope I am woefully wrong on this!

 

[H Mak]

I don't want to give anyone a heart attack but for a laugh I just plugged in the 20m cars production figure into my (very high level, not very detailed, full of assumptions and therefore shouldn't be relied upon) spreadsheet, and it gave me a share price of $3,400 and market cap of $3.2tn.

Please forget this as soon as you have read it

 

[MC3OZ]

Yes it does make you wonder whether she was even watching battery day. I love Ark Invest but this is a big clanger.

Buzz made the point above with Gali having the chance to ask any Q at all about battery day, and then asking about electric airplanes...

Now, Tesla investors are feeling very self congratulatory at the moment, and some of it is well deserved, but the above are examples of people not understanding the details and getting carried away, from two of Tesla's biggest advocates!

Battery day was awesome and is a big positive whichever way you look at it. Just how positive battery day is depends on:
1. The stacking up of benefits
Is it 54% range increase OR 56% $ per kwh reduction OR 69% capital investment reduction, or as others such as Now You Know have reported, is it 54% range increase AND 56% $ per kwh reduction AND 69% capital investment reduction.
I believe it is the former which is fantastic, if it is the later then Tesla will become the biggest company in the world within 5 years!

2. Have Tesla already invented the industrial processes to get these figures and now its a case of scaling up?
Or are the processes a mere twinkle in Elon's eye.
And how far along is each of the processes e.g. anode, cathode, new battery, integrated design etc.
If the new batteries are already in the Q4 Model S' but with old anode/cathode tech then awesome, or is that that they have made tons of the new batteries but entirely for prototype vehicles? The share price dropped following battery day because it sounded like these innovations were three years away, but I think the message is that it will be three years until the ENTIRE SYSTEM is ready i.e. all innovations are at full production and working together, but some of the innovations are already in production

People are discounting Battery Day becuase it seems too good to be true and because it will take sometime for price drops and range improvements to show up in cars and it will take sometime to increased margins to show up.

But also becuase they don't understand it.

Tesla has to invest in new equipment and get that equipment working.

Lithium extraction from clay seems early stage.

The one part that seems too good to be true to me is the silicon anode, mainly becuase it is new and I don't fully understand it.

On the other hand DBE and tab-less cells are not hard to understand, a faster more compact line isn't hard to understand. Attendees saw a demonstration of the line in operation.

These things are not hard for us to understand, the structural pack and the future compact 25K car are not hard to understand. But the media and some analysts seem confused, they were expecting shipping cars with a million mile battery and V2G. Some of them were inclined to sell the news before the event.

 

[Singuy]

There were three questions I missed getting answered on battery day:

• Are all of the technologies presented on the "roadmap" already in the current roadrunner plant and they're "just" working on yield and ramp? Or is the current pilot line "only" new cell size, tabless & DBE with common NMC-chemistry shiped in, and the rest will get added over time?

• How much of the presented technologies can be applied to the current 2170 lines and is Tesla willing to share those with its suppliers?

• How is the structural pack affecting serviceability and repairs? (This might actually have gotten us the "million mile battery" quote, as in: "We guarantee 1m miles on the pack, if it breaks, you'll get a new car." )

I don't think we gained more infos on these questionsin the days after the presentation.

But Gali got to ask about electric airplanes... Yay!

I really want to know is during the Semi reveal, were those specs based on old or new cells in mind? This is the elephant in the room no one addressed as it gives us a clue of when new cell plans were initiated and if these cells were the key to unlock megacharges. While also give us a clue on range of the Semi(more improvements or 500 was a projected number with newest cells).

 

[Words of HABIT]

I think the Plaid that went around the 'ring and the current plaid are two completely different cars. I don't think they had the Roadrunner batteries yet. For one, the new plaid makes >800kw of power vs the 500kw shown there.

I think the new one will be much faster...

"current plaid"? Agads! Did I miss something here?

 

[Favguy]

I don't want to give anyone a heart attack but for a laugh I just plugged in the 20m cars production figure into my (very high level, not very detailed, full of assumptions and therefore shouldn't be relied upon) spreadsheet, and it gave me a share price of $3,400 and market cap of $3.2tn.

Please forget this as soon as you have read it

Just stop it! Myself and the wife whilst planning retirement from necessary work over the weekend came to the conclusion that we won't make very good wealthy people. We can't even bring ourselves to make the switch from Aldi/Lidl to Sainsburys, and I almost never buy anything based on brand image, and my clothes are all scruffy! Still it's good for hiding in plain sight I suppose as I'm not much of an extravert.

 

[mongo]

Yes it does make you wonder whether she was even watching battery day. I love Ark Invest but this is a big clanger.

Buzz made the point above with Gali having the chance to ask any Q at all about battery day, and then asking about electric airplanes...

Now, Tesla investors are feeling very self congratulatory at the moment, and some of it is well deserved, but the above are examples of people not understanding the details and getting carried away, from two of Tesla's biggest advocates!

Battery day was awesome and is a big positive whichever way you look at it. Just how positive battery day is depends on:
1. The stacking up of benefits
Is it 54% range increase OR 56% $ per kwh reduction OR 69% capital investment reduction, or as others such as Now You Know have reported, is it 54% range increase AND 56% $ per kwh reduction AND 69% capital investment reduction.
I believe it is the former which is fantastic, if it is the later then Tesla will become the biggest company in the world within 5 years!

I'll take the latter on that.

1. Range is a result of energy (per pack), minus electrical losses, minus mechanical losses
   
2. Cell cost numbers are in $/energy
3. Factory costs are in $/energy (per time)

If these are not simultaneously applicable, there is a problem:
3 cannot be dependant on 2. If it were, DBE and increase in energy per cell bring almost nothing to the table (percentages are very similar). This is not logical.
3 and 1 cannot be linked. The manufacturing infrastructure cost does not impact vehicle efficiency.
2 and 1 cannot be linked. Having more kWh per pack would increase range. However, range is miles/wH (kWh/100km), not miles per $.

The cell is more efficent and lighter per unit energy, and the car is ligher due to pack design (with deoendancy on cell manufacturing):
Result: More range per kWh

Each cell hold more energy, the process steps are fewer, the supply chain is streamlined, and the factory amortized costs per cell are less (this is a linkage, but a small%):
Result: Less $/kWh

Each factory (both cell and vehicle) have multiple steps/ equipment removed and the quantity of cells is slashed (linked to cell design):
Less cost per GWh of build capacity.

Improvements are dependent on all the changes happening, but each aspect's improvement percentage stands alone.

Edit: finished post