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

[mongo]

OT AH MI

I still paid sales tax to Michigan when I registered my car. Michigan still gets their cut while putting in roadblocks.

Interesting, what location did you buy through?

 

[Zaxxon]

OT:

Two Nissan dealerships in my area, both McLarty, only one has a SINGLE Nissan Leaf (S trim) in stock. They have no interest in selling them. Whenever I have inquired about them carrying they Leaf, they say nobody buys them. (Hard to buy what you don't stock, right?) It's a little bit of an anecdote why Tesla moving to online sales only may not be the best move, but most car drivers aren't as willing to give strangers rides in their cars, unlike Tesla owners who want to spread the word.

If only all dealers were as forward-thinking as the one from which I bought my Leaf: 46 New Leafs in stock and another 17 used. Although since we're giving Tesla crap about web site inaccuracies--note that all these Leafs have HUGE STEALS OFF OF MSRP, followed by SELLING PRICE that equals MSRP.

 

[Fact Checking]

BTW., latest BEA U.S. car sales data (SAAR) is out for February:

16.53m annualized seasonally adjusted sales, a -2.3% YoY drop over 2018.

 

[mekberg]

OT AH MI


Interesting, what location did you buy through?

Wisconsin is the same way. Sales ban but the state will gladly take my "use tax" money for a car purchased out of state (Illinois). Wisconsin gives a credit for tax paid out of state, but Illinois does not tax cars intended to be registered out of state. I would have loved to cut WI out by purchasing from a state like California who collects tax regardless of intent to register in that state. Ultimately it wasn't worth it to pay ~9.5% instead of 5.5%.

 

[Cosmacelf]

What do you guys think about ARKK as a growth stock fund?

 

[luca]

BTW., latest BEA U.S. car sales data (SAAR) is out for February:

16.53m annualized seasonally adjusted sales, a -2.3% YoY drop over 2018.

not bad considering bad weather

 

[K_Dizzle]

Charles Gasparino on Twitter

FUD or real?

Sounds like the opposite of FUD to me

 

[Fact Checking]

not bad considering bad weather

And a government shutdown and recession fears.

Could recover later in the year.

 

[mongo]

Wisconsin is the same way. Sales ban but the state will gladly take my "use tax" money for a car purchased out of state (Illinois). Wisconsin gives a credit for tax paid out of state, but Illinois does not tax cars intended to be registered out of state. I would have loved to cut WI out by purchasing from a state like California who collects tax regardless of intent to register in that state. Ultimately it wasn't worth it to pay ~9.5% instead of 5.5%.

Gotcha, it's an Illinois thing, Ohio charges its sales tax of 5.75%, so Michigan only gets 0.25% if you buy from there.

 

[Thekiwi]

A little OT

As a TSLA shareholder these days I feel like I’m Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in the movie) in “The Big Short”. The path that Tesla is on is crystal clear to me…and the rest of the world (present company excepted) is in massive denial and peddling bullshit.

The problem is, all the shorts also think they are Michael Burry...

 

[KarenRei]

I interpret it as the former.

That very roughly works out to negative $3.5K gross margin. That is inline with a company wide email that Musk sent a few months ago in which he said SR would cost 38.5K to build. The email was screenshot somewhere in Asia and was circulated on various twitter accounts - both bull and bear. The figure is also inline with the transcript of the conference call published by some shorts (Game of Pennies).

"Tesla indicated that initially, the $35k Model 3 will generate a positive cash gross margin (gross profit plus depreciation of approximately $1,500)"

How you go from "they'll generate a positive cash gross margin" to "they'll lose $3,5k" is beyond me. $38,5k was what it cost in December, which - ignoring a whole quarter of margin improvements, including lower depreciation from faster production, and also before 7% layoffs.

 

[printf42]

A little OT

As a TSLA shareholder these days I feel like I’m Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in the movie) in “The Big Short”. The path that Tesla is on is crystal clear to me…and the rest of the world (present company excepted) is in massive denial and peddling bullshit.

You got it wrong, in that movie the guy was a short, I’m pretty sure every one in TSLAQ crowd feels themselves as that guy in real life.

Edit: I was late on this one just a few posts.

 

[EVNow]

The TL; DR: next election too crazy; will try to do useful stuff instead; unspoken: run in 2024 if Democrats lose to Trump again

He would be 82 in 2024.

 

[neroden]

Right, right. We’re basically saying the same thing. People are questioning why they would lower the prices 6% vs just taking the increased money as more profit. My answer is to offset the drop in demand caused by closing stores. Same thing you said, just with directionality reversed.

EDIT: re-reading, I guess you’re saying it’ll increase demand over keeping the stores. Could be. I doubt even Tesla knows that answer for sure.

The rule of thumb I read was that cutting prices on a car $5000 *doubled* addressable market.

The stores weren't pulling their weight.

 

[hacer]

OT
...
False, here n is just the number of free electrons per m^3 in the conductor. Which is dependent on the mass density, molar volume, free electrons per mole. What I think you are referring to is electric resistivity, which is a function of temperature.

So you believe the thermal expansion coefficient of copper (with impurities) is zero then?
/OT

That bot makes no sense.
Look at AMZN amzn | Volumebot
55%? Yeah right.

Why Short Volume is Important | Volumebot

Most of the short volume simply represents market makers front running the large market orders routed to them through paid order flow. So a market order to sell 10,000 shares comes in, the MM nakedly shorts 10,000 shares into the bid, driving the bid price down in the process, then they buy the 10,000 shares from the seller who gave them the paid order flow at the new best bid.

This shows up as 10,000 shares of short volume which was held for a fraction of a second before they closed the short by buying from the selling customer. So this is just fleecing the customer stupid enough to enter a large market sell order (whether a short, or a long bailing out). It is nearly risk free money for them - they win if the bid doesn't hold up through their short sell, and if it does, they only lose the small payment they made to get the order flow.

 

[SO16]

OT AH MI


Interesting, what location did you buy through?

Chicago. They delivered to my house.

 

[M3Rider]

It's quite true. Even before the Model 3 was available in volume, BMW sales fell. I expect ICE CUV sales to fall considerably after the Model Y unveil as people delay their normal vehicle refresh cycle to hold out for a Tesla. I expect the fossil car companies to be hurting in 2020, and to see at least one bankruptcy by 2022. The Osborne Effect will most certainly apply to fossil cars a couple of years before the car buyers purchase their next vehicle. I expect used vehicle prices for fossil cars to also drop precipitously.

What I mean is that per that estimate, the market will be up for the grabs in 2024, there will just not be enough EVs made.
So, if others do not rump up the EVs production like Tesla does, it seems people will be delaying a car purchase by 3-5 years by the time they can get a hold of one.
The cars around here might start looking like those in Cuba.

 

[anthonyj]

Would love for Tesla to clarify on why SR is still 2-4 weeks delivery everywhere, especially if they are only starting to produce them. Really hope InsideEVs Jan and Feb #s are wrong too

 

[neroden]

Would love for Tesla to clarify on why SR is still 2-4 weeks delivery everywhere,

Because nobody has updated the webpage. Communications strikes again!

especially if they are only starting to produce them. Really hope InsideEVs Jan and Feb #s are wrong too

We have two separate sources saying they're wrong, including AlphaHat Don't get me wrong, they're probably not that much lower than the real number, but I'd go with AlphaHat's number right now.

 

[neroden]

You got it wrong, in that movie the guy was a short, I’m pretty sure every one in TSLAQ crowd feels themselves as that guy in real life.

Pffft. They haven't got the personality for it. Burry was steely calm. I think they think of themselves as the semi-hysterical Mark Baum (played by Steve Carrell) -- but they aren't.