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

[Knightshade]

"No economic sense" and yet living in The City - I'm guessing you haven't ever lived in Manhattan.

Your guess would be wrong then.

First, one is always balancing economics with quality of life. It makes no economic sense to buy a Model X Performance over a Model X LR+: it's more expensive and less efficient. Yet, people buy those all the time because it improves their quality of life. Same for owning a car to use versus renting for when you need one. Do you really want to take a family vacation in some worn, smelly rent-a-car?

I've rented a LOT of cars.... inside the US, in Canada, and Western Europe, they've always been now more than about 1 year old or newer, and never worn and smelly.

(rentals in a few less developed nations are another story).


Further- unlike cars I own, I'm much more ok with people eating, drinking, etc in rentals.

Plus, I can rent for a trip a significantly bigger car than is useful for daily driving, and one with worse efficiency if I need the space, since I'm only driving it for a week or two instead of the other 50.


Plus the wear and tear I save on my own vehicles.

So again, if the ONLY reason I had a car in NYC was for road trips- that'd be insane financially.

I agree people do insane financial stuff all the time, but I don't suspect that's the driving force for most NYC car owners.

Second, it is more than just road trips. Like heading out to your second home in the Hamptons on weekends. Yeah, it'd be more economical to take the LIRR and then hire a cab/uber/rent, but we're talking convenience and quality of life here.

They have helicopters specifically for that exact route.... that are a lot better for convenience and quality of life than spending 6 hours in traffic on the LIE (worlds largest parking lot) driving the entire length of long island.

(honestly the LIRR is noticably faster unless you're travelling odd hours too)

You're not thinking like a Manhattanite thinks because you haven't lived that life.

I didn't own a second house in the hamptons, but definitely lived in NY (and on the island, just not the hamptons)


You also appear to have read the exact opposite meaning into why I brought up the nonsensically high rate of car ownership in NYC.

It was to point out people REALLY like owning individual cars even in the situations it makes the LEAST economic sense.... so the OTHER folks suggesting robotaxis will magically make most car sales vanish because folks won't want to own their own cars was contraindicated by things like said NYC car ownership stat.


If the NYC folks still own cars in shockingly high %, surely the people with LESS access to great alternatives are even LESS likely to give them up.

 

[printf42]

This is a graph of current OEMs from Nov issue of “car and driver”.
View attachment 599865
Where is Tesla?

Yes Tesla is not just an auto OEM, but their auto business is already bigger than some of the old world players listed here.

I see a web of OEMs totally unprepared for EV transition, and throwing money at questionable autonomous contenders.

Tony Seba summarized it very well, disruption of an industry often comes from outside, the industry that’s being disrupted is often blind to the land shifting under their feet and do not even have the time to embrace for impact.

They think they are investing for the future, while what they could do is only demonstrate their mentality of spending equals progress, in reality they are just throwing money away and don’t even know what they need.

The same magazine, in another article, said in 2030, 78% of new vehicles will still have some kind of ICE in it...

Let’s revisit in 2030 and see how the industry is doing, and how wrong they were.

Oh went back to the magazine and double checked, I made a mistake, they said 87% of new cars in 2030 will still have an ICE in it, that’s a really mind boggling number...

 

[Artful Dodger]

For what it's worth, Troy has released his first estimate for Q4...

Hi everybody. This is estimate #1 for Q4 2020. I estimate,
• 181,365 deliveries in Q4 and
• 500,052 in 2020

https://twitter.com/TroyTeslike/status/1317936523166273536

So Troy is modeling a 17% increase in U.S. Model S Q4 vs Q3 sales after a 15% price decrease: ($79,900→$69,420)

That increase in volume is likely enough to see Tesla make a net gain in gross profit from US Model S, even before any potential decreases in costs of goods sold (such as lower bty cell costs from Panasonic).

Cheers!

 

[jerry33]

Your guess would be wrong then.




I've rented a LOT of cars.... inside the US, in Canada, and Western Europe, they've always been now more than about 1 year old or newer, and never worn and smelly.

(rentals in a few less developed nations are another story).


Further- unlike cars I own, I'm much more ok with people eating, drinking, etc in rentals.

Plus, I can rent for a trip a significantly bigger car than is useful for daily driving, and one with worse efficiency if I need the space, since I'm only driving it for a week or two instead of the other 50.


Plus the wear and tear I save on my own vehicles.

In a previous life, I've rented far too many cars to ever be comfortable renting one where my family was going to be in them. Expensive, often not very clean, questionable maintenance, and then there's the safety aspect of driving an unfamiliar car at high speeds. Remember the Toyota, CHP officer, and his family (and no, it wasn't a Prius). They didn't know how to operate the vehicle and died because it was an unfamiliar vehicle. I'd likely never go on vacation if I had to use a rental.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

So Troy is modeling a 17% increase in U.S. Model S Q4 vs Q3 sales after a 15% price decrease: ($79,900→$69,420)

View attachment 599917

That increase in volume is likely enough to see Tesla make a net gain in gross profit from US Model S, even before any potential decreases in costs of goods sold (such as lower bty cell costs from Panasonic).

Cheers!

though he could deliver 500k + the one if the 2 unmentionable numbers, I would love to see the annual deliverIes number at 500,001.

Just because Elon.

 

[Silentk]

Seen on Twitter

 

[Etna]

Maybe they didn't talk about a million mile battery at battery day because they are working on 2M miles.

Jeff Dahn starts at 22:30

Jeff Dahn reveals that the "million mile battery" is actually peanuts compared to what he found out since Electrek picked up his publication, and turned a bit viral, from about a year ago.

They are still life cycling batteries in their labs and going 10000 or 15000 cycles, (5000 cycles was the million mile battery) and when you only use the battery to 50% of its capacity, they see no measurable loss of capacity and no end in sight as far as cycles are concerned.

This is a significant breakthrough in terms of the economics of storing wind and solar energy. It basically flatlines the curve of energy cost to near zero over the years.

Very practically speaking, I am working on fairly large single aisle aircraft program that cycles a (heavy) million dollar battery pack ten or fifteen times a day. If you have to compare the replacement cost of that million dollar every year and that million dollar every decade or never, it changes everything on operating costs. Just today I was pulling my (whatever is left) hair on setting up models on that topic.

Jeff Dahn specifically mentions vehicle to grid, wearing his Tesla shirt, that with this kind of breakthrough in battery life cycle, the whole economics of solar and wind power going directly to grid is game changing.

One of his quotes I like: "Tesla is just moving forward at the speed of light. They are upscaling their factories, they know they need Tera Watt Hours for both energy storage and vehicles, and it's incredibly exciting times."

 

[JustSaying]

Ramon in Cat city. Going to miss it this year. Border is still closed and little chance of it opening before Feb or March. Time will tell.

Sorry to hear that, hopefully you will be able to enjoy your place down there soon, my wife and I hid out at our little place in Rancho Mirage for almost 4 months during the lock down.
Lots of streaming movies , 750 piece puzzles, walks and food pick up .

 

[Knightshade]

In a previous life, I've rented far too many cars to ever be comfortable renting one where my family was going to be in them. Expensive, often not very clean, questionable maintenance, and then there's the safety aspect of driving an unfamiliar car at high speeds. Remember the Toyota, CHP officer, and his family (and no, it wasn't a Prius).

It also wasn't a toyota- it was a Lexus. And it wasn't a rental it was a loaner.

And it wasn't something he would've been unfamiliar with- he had a Lexus loaner because his Lexus daily driver was in for service.

Both cars used the exact same controls for ignition, gears, brakes, etc.

The accident had nothing to do with controls- the accelerator got stuck under a floor mat.

I
They didn't know how to operate the vehicle and died because it was an unfamiliar vehicle

They died because the driver was an idiot.

I feel terrible for his family- but he failed to prevent the accident at least 3 different ways, 2 of which would work fine on any car- and the third one operated the same on the loaner as the car he dropped off to get the loaner.

3 chances (at least) and he missed all of em.

Put the car in neutral. Which works the same car to car. Suddenly the floored accelerator means nothing. Car will then brake (or even coast) to a stop just fine.

Slam the brake pedal and KEEP IT THERE- which works the same on EVERY car (instead he kept braking partially, then letting off- eventually overheating the brakes. Just slam it down and keep it down the brakes win every time (numerous car mags tested this afterward and all found the same))

Hold down the ignition button for 3 seconds- engine will turn off. This is the only "special" knowledge option, and again his daily driver uses exactly the same ignition button so he should've known that one too.

. I'd likely never go on vacation if I had to use a rental.

Weird... I'd never go on vacation very far if I couldn't.

Haven't figured out yet how to drive my Tesla to Europe for example.

Out of at least 100 rental cars I've had over the year on trips the only place I ever got one that was at all dirty or poorly maintained was in Aruba (it was like a 10 year old toyota, and still wasn't awful it just seemed like a normal 10 year old toyota with wear and tear)

All US rentals ever, dozens and dozens of... and at least a couple dozen in US and Canada- were all clean, well maintained, vehicles roughly 1 year or less old.


So other than rentals within 1 year of me personally buying a new car, anything I ever rented (outside of Aruba) was newer than whatever else I'd have taken on a road trip.

I imagine that's true for like 99% of people since folks don't usually buy a new car every year.

 

[Knightshade]

Seen on Twitter

View attachment 599936

Makes sense- the current antenna is way too big and impractically shaped for an EV sedan/SUV, but would be trivial on a semi

 

[Thekiwi]

Often overlooked is the optionality of having your own vehicle. One major one is natural disasters. Ask anyone living on the gulf coast or in Paradise, California if they think it would be a good idea to not have a privately owned vehicle and instead rely on ridesharing services.

 

[joh01652]

Futures are green. Seems like a stimulus bill before the election is still possible...

Pelosi gives White House 48 hours to reach coronavirus stimulus deal before election

Pelosi Shifts Deadline If Trump Wants Pre-Election Stimulus

 

[Mo City]

Seen on Twitter

View attachment 599936

Starlink having the capability of serving fast moving objects all around the world makes the revenue potential almost infinite.

They better offer it to Tesla owners.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

If the NYC folks still own cars in shockingly high %, surely the people with LESS access to great alternatives are even LESS likely to give them up.

Hell no. All the 30 something's I know in Philly and NYC would be perfectly fine not owning a car if robotaxis were ubiquitous and they could easily rent when needed. More likely in the short term, I see couples going down to 1 car rather than the required 2 for my generation.

 

[yesoptus]

Hey all! i'm relatively new here to please excuse if I'm in the wrong spot.

I'm wondering if anyone has any info on present and historical take-rates on Tesla's FSD software options?

Thanks in advance

 

[Bet TSLA]

If it's true that the real bottleneck slowing world domination is hiring great engineers, then this is truly brilliant:
Tesla starts exporting Model 3 from Gigafactory Shanghai
It appears that Tesla Gigafactory Shanghai has started exporting its locally-made Model 3 to Europe. In September 2020, the all-electric car maker began preparations in Giga Shanghai to produce Model 3 vehicles optimized for export in Asia and the European region.

Can you imagine the sense of pride in the Chinese Tesla workforce? For decades if a Chinese buyer wanted the best and had the money they bought a BAM (BMW, Audi, Mercedes) car. Now at Tesla Shanghai they're building cars better than any of those and selling them back into Europe. Every single Chinese worker is going to want to be part of that. In the US, Tesla and SpaceX are right at the top of "most desirable places to work" lists. This cements the same thing for China. Recruiting takes care of itself. Cars sell themselves.

It's just amazing. I'm in awe. Workplace motivation made into art. Selling through pride and quality instead of advertising.

 

[FireMedic]

I always thought they were HVAC mounts. But I'm no expert in constructing.

I am neither a solar installer or an HVAC expert. But as a firefighter I spend a lot of time on roofs looking at HVAC units and I have solar experience…
HVAC is usually mounted directly to a roof over large timbers like purlins or girders. They would not be mounting heavy HVAC units on those chintzy little frames. Those would be perfect for mounting solar panels to.

 

[Singuy]

If it's true that the real bottleneck slowing world domination is hiring great engineers, then this is truly brilliant:
Tesla starts exporting Model 3 from Gigafactory Shanghai
It appears that Tesla Gigafactory Shanghai has started exporting its locally-made Model 3 to Europe. In September 2020, the all-electric car maker began preparations in Giga Shanghai to produce Model 3 vehicles optimized for export in Asia and the European region.

Can you imagine the sense of pride in the Chinese Tesla workforce? For decades if a Chinese buyer wanted the best and had the money they bought a BAM (BMW, Audi, Mercedes) car. Now at Tesla Shanghai they're building cars better than any of those and selling them back into Europe. Every single Chinese worker is going to want to be part of that. In the US, Tesla and SpaceX are right at the top of "most desirable places to work" lists. This cements the same thing for China. Recruiting takes care of itself. Cars sell themselves.

It's just amazing. I'm in awe. Workplace motivation made into art. Selling through pride and quality instead of advertising.

The Chinese see BAM as a status symbol since they were mainly driven by the early entrepreneurs during the expansion phase in the last 30 years. People think "you made it" by getting a BAM, but they are not just any BAM..they are 7 series/S class/6 or 8 series. So it's not a matter of high quality but it was a matter of social acceptance when Chinese made cars were cheap junk, and Japanese were mostly hated(due to anti-Japanese campaign dated back to WWII). Due to this, BAM has cemented in people's mind(at least older people) that these are the symbol of success.

We don't see this with Chinese Americans as reliability is the name of the game, therefore Japanese cars and Lexus are more accepted here.

So Tesla needs to attack BAM with a different angle. So we will see again, millennials wanting to be apart of this climate crisis revolution being more of a Tesla buyer. Elon's brand with SpaceX helps a lot as rock star engineers are celebrated.

Also I don't agree that Chinese people are filled with pride making Teslas for the European market(probably in the camp of indifferent) because Tesla is still an American company. China make goods of quality shipped throughout the entire world. In fact China is the manufacturing hub of the world. The Chinese WILL feel more pride if one day a CHINESE branded car has became so good it's accepted in Europe. So it's all about the branding status, not the actual product.

 

[Buddyroe]

So Troy is modeling a 17% increase in U.S. Model S Q4 vs Q3 sales after a 15% price decrease: ($79,900→$69,420)

View attachment 599917

That increase in volume is likely enough to see Tesla make a net gain in gross profit from US Model S, even before any potential decreases in costs of goods sold (such as lower bty cell costs from Panasonic).

Cheers!

The Model S was $74,990 for the entire 3rd quarter. It was a 7.5% cut.

 

[dc_h]

So Troy is modeling a 17% increase in U.S. Model S Q4 vs Q3 sales after a 15% price decrease: ($79,900→$69,420)

View attachment 599917

That increase in volume is likely enough to see Tesla make a net gain in gross profit from US Model S, even before any potential decreases in costs of goods sold (such as lower bty cell costs from Panasonic).

Cheers!

Based on 18650 battery supply, that is not a sustainable production rate. Good enough to clear out S and X inventory though. Would be interesting if more updates are planned for early 2021. Seems early, but would love to see.