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

[Cosmacelf]

Elon just gave the best answer to comparing Tesla to traditional car companies. Traditional companies do "catalog engineering" where they buy parts from suppliers. Now, those suppliers aren't slouches, they do innovate. But they don't do full car engineering, which Tesla does, so the starting point, the design, of a Tesla car in going to be better in terms of functionality and cost.

Then Tesla goes further in that they build the manufacturing machines themselves. Or invents a new castable aluminum alloy.

But even that is underselling the differences. Other car companies don't own their own sales, delivery and service networks. So when thinking about the value of Tesla as a car company, you should be including the value of each mom and pop car dealership in 40 different countries.

And there's more. Tesla energy will, over time, be as big as the car business.

There's even more, but you get the idea. No wonder Tesla's market cap is so high.

 

[Boomer19]

My days of not taking Adam Jonas seriously have come to a middle.

i was at a local maximum with him over 2 years ago

 

[Reductionist]

Notes from the conference call
~~~MOD: For posterity's sake, this excellent summary has been copied in the "Of Merit" thread~~~
Elon

• First roadrunner battery line at scale in Berlin
• FSD:
  • somewhat wider release early next week, wide release "hopefully by the end of this year"
  • works offline, no high definition maps needed, works in places new to the Tesla fleet
• Berlin and Austin: expect to deliver cars next years, but initial production volume will be low due to new tech, 12-24 months to reach capacity
• never felt more optimistic about the future of Tesla

Zach

• credits stronger than expected, tracking more than double than last year
• excluding CEO grant and credit sales fair to get image of true profitability
• improved reliability across the fleet
• revised CAPEX expectations for 2021, 2022 up by $2-2.5B due to additional insourcing (batteries)
• aiming for 500k deliveries, possible with tight execution, but challenging

Energy

• Megapack large growth segments
  • more demand than supply for 2021
  • order book rapidly filling up to 2023
• very large backlog of powerwall orders
  • continuing to invest into additional capacity

Q&A

• 4680 into many applications across many products energy and storage, Kato Rd. can support Giga Berlin during production ramp
• limited impact of tabless on charge rate, more impacted by anode chemistry (lithium plating)
• Solar roof bottlenecks: getting enough installers main issue, improving material flow on job site
• "Solar roof is a killer product. This will become obvious next year." -Elon
• "Insurance could be 30-40% of the value of the car business" -Elon
• no plan to spin any business units off
• focus on robotaxis, no plans for uber-style product without autonomy
• heat pump in model 3 confirmed (again), works up to - 20-30°C
• no prototype or similar for HVAC, just an idea that makes sense for now
• push as much volume as reasonably possible, margins important but not top priority
• COGS, OPEX has fallen more quickly than ASPs, so more affordable with increased gross margins
• Ramping stationary storage rapidly. Double stationary storage in 2021 relative to 2020
• tried to de-risk 2021, almost no dependence on internal cell production, will support ramp in 2022
• 20m sales per year not a sure thing, but a good goal to have (replace 1% of global fleet annualy)
• cell production system fairly agnostic to anode, cathode, electrolyte
• switch to solid state not a big issue for internal production (contingency/insurance not a plan)
• Adam Jonas with a LiDAR question: would you use it if it was TOTALLY free? "Probably not" -Elon
• Cybertruck design being optimized in a lot of different small ways, some deliveries end of 21', high volume production 22' if things go well.
• production expectiations for 21' "in the vicinity" of 840k-1m
• Gross margin growth driven mostly by reduced production cost, FSD revenue recognition not very relevant
• prioritizing production for different markets, unable to fulfill demand with current capacity
• sounds like Tesla is working on a common charging standard for the semi?
• cell production main roadblock for significant semi production

 

[TheTalkingMule]

But Zach? confirmed that they are still getting revenue from the Aus. energy storage installation. So if they had sold it for more, they would get less over time.

The batteries in Australia are also doing the job of frequency regulation and load balancing that used to cost the utility millions. Since Tesla batteries do it so effortlessly, utilities are hesitant to pay the same compensation. It really is an interesting conundrum.

Demanding more $ on day 1 is likely the move now that this is an establish and proven product.

 

[jerry33]

I think he was expecting to be able to say "CHECKMATE!"

Nah. I think he's trying to make Elon lose his cool. That happened the first time. Won't happen again.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Ugh . . . Adam Jonas

Lidar question AGAIN. . .


"If LIDAR was totally free, would you use it?"

Elon - "I don't think so"

At least it set up Elon to give a massive beat down to it. "I wouldn't even use it if it were free!"

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Was anything said about the supposed stake in LG or perhaps even buying the spun off battery division?

 

[Krugerrand]

Epic ER call and Adam Jonas is a fool. That is all.

 

[Big Time]

Would you eat a turkey sandwich everyday if it was free?

 

[jerry33]

Would you eat a turkey sandwich everyday if it was free?

If you've ever been to a processing plant, you would hesitate even if they paid you.

 

[engle]

I can’t get over Jonas.....what a complete tool. He’s probably sitting in an empty room with his shirt tucked in and gel in his hair. Pro

Agree AJ provides the comedic interlude on the CC's.

At least he hasn't exposed himself on Zoom yet as Toobin did 'accidentally'. Personally I don't care about it and miss JT's talking head (the big one) commentary on the Clinton News Network. JT is a Harvard man both undergrad and Law.

Now I have to call Tesla Energy to see if they can let me pay them for a solar & powerwall system (PG&E activated or not!) in Fremont by 12/31/2020 because I'm in desperate need of tax credits and deductions this year...

 

[vikings123]

I feel like in the past we would have been up 10% AH by now (only to give it up the next day). It seems like someone is trying to cap it, which might mean it actually goes up tomorrow instead of down....

I think we are missing a key piece of information. Did you sell?

 

[Knightshade]

Funniest remark I've heard regarding the call so far-

"I wouldn't hire Adam Jonas if he was free"

 

[ZsoZso]

Poor, poor Gordo, how will he explain that revenue peaked in 2018 now ?

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Surprised no Q&A questions asked if the re-write build aka now called the FSD beta build that is being pushed out to beta users is considered content complete or just the rewrite with a one or two new features.

 

[Christine600]

I thought the quality of the questions were better this quarter than earlier quarters. With a few exceptions of course; Jonas...

It's been a fantastic evening. Sitting in my half dark living room enjoying all the good news.

 

[Rohan]

Tabless battery isn't a new idea, it's used in other form factors already, just that Tesla are the first one to have the engineering smarts to put it in this type of cell and make it work.

Which is very much what patents are granted for, so should be good for one

 

[Cosmacelf]

2021 production not dependent on in house cell production, so not 4680 dependent?

Yes that seems to be the case. Makes sense. Kato road, while it is a big pilot plant, is still testing out different technologies, and currently constantly iterating.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Zach mentioned spending money on 2021 and 2024 convertibles. !!!

Spending money or getting money? ie. if the converts convert (which they will at these share prices), then Tesla doesn't have to pay back the loans. Tesla won't get any more money, but their loan balance will go down making their balance sheet even stronger.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Lol @ these clowns trying to cap SP after hours. How embarrassing!