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

[StealthP3D]

GM won't have all their Ultium BEVs on the market til 2025 but the first one arrives this Fall. The second, the Cadillac midsize CUV, arrives next Fall. You want to create demand for those before dealer lots are full of them. The Cadillac Lyriq was in the Super Bowl commercials.

Oh, yes, the Hummer EV. This fall. OK.

All 1000 of them? Or do you expect more? As in a lot more?

I can guarantee they were not priming the market for the Hummer EV or the Cadillac EV (which is a year and a half out by their own admission) because that's not how you market to sell more Hummer EV's and Cadillac EV's - they don't want to sell more because their ICE vehicles have sweet margins but they would be lucky to make a single dollar per Hummer or Cadillac EV, high prices aside and they know they can't sell enough to make a difference anyway. It would be dumb to advertise for the Hummer EV and Caddy EV at this point in time. Superbowl ads are not cheap and they need revenue to show for their expenditures.

I do agree, part of the ad was brand-building. Yes. They don't want their ad to help Ford just as much as it helps GM. They also need to tread carefully around EV's and avoid offending EV enthusiasts and environmentalists. This ad sliced their difficult pie perfectly - it gave GM EV fans a good feeling and something to look forward to while subtly positioning EV's as not ready for prime time yet without actually saying that. But that's the message fence-sitters got. That there will be plenty of time to go EV down the road. Go ahead and buy one or two more ICE vehicle with fat margins because we're not really ready for EV's yet. And there is no shame in buying ICE - I mean, you're an American, right?

And they did this all without looking lame. We are going to kick some serious EV ass, but not on the Norwegian's terms, on our terms. We are Americans and we are not bad people for doing it when we are good and ready! Personally, I think it was over the top but just sitting there and saying nothing about EV's will start to make them look lame.

It sounds like you actually believe they will have 30 Ultium BEV's available by 2025. I would love that, but it's not gonna happen (mark my words). I'm more than a little surprised that you actually believe them. It's just marketing double-speak. Oh, sure, they will have an excuse why it didn't happen, maybe the economy isn't strong enough and their customers demand better value, maybe the charging infrastructure didn't get built-out as fast as expected and they want to ensure their EV customers have a good ownership experience. So, here, by another gas car knowing we are hard at work on the problem. He-he!

 

[st_lopes]

I know if BTC drops during a quarter Tesla has to declare it in the earnings report, but they can’t count a profit in their earnings report until they sell. However, does Tesla have to report every time they buy/sell BTC during the quarter? Could they have sold at the previous high of $58K and bought back in the 40s? If so, this could have a significant positive impact on EPS.

Any dispositions would be disclosed with the realized portion of profit or loss being recognized as a gain or loss from disposition of an asset (and would impact EPS).

 

[Prunesquallor]

Those wind farms electricity generation is similar to Solar panels and Tesla Power Wall/ Megawatts, part of Tesla Clean Energy & Power Storage $200B business: Tesla Energy to become $200B revenue business, Piper analyst predicts (NASDAQ:TSLA)

If every home, apartment building, office, restaurant, and retail center in Texas had a Tesla Powerwall over the past several months, stored excess power and hosted it on-site for use on a 2-weeks “rainy day” — then no one in Texas would’ve lost power in February, water pipes will not bursted and people had to wait in line for water in freezing weather.

Elon Musk is getting into the Texas power market, with 100 Megawatt gigantic battery in Houston area being built and will be connected to an ailing electric grid that collapsed 4 days last month. The move marks Tesla Inc.’s first major foray into the Epicenter of the U.S. Energy economy. The battery-storage system being built by Tesla’s Gambit subsidiary is registered with ERCOT. Warren Lasher, senior director of system planning at ERCOT, said the project has a proposed commercial operation date of June 1. The site is adjacent to a Texas-New Mexico Power substation.

Interestingly, it appears the Gambit gambit is associated with Texas-New Mexico Power. It doesn’t serve Houston (they are Centerpoint), but the burbs and Galveston County to the south (including us).
I will be watching with interest whether any changes are coming our way.

 

[JoRoMo]

I've previously detailed why TSLA is not a good candidate for a successful anti-trust suit, now or in the future.

But let's look at MSFT, a company that I think probably deserved it. The feds first brought their anti-trust concerns public in 1990. MSFT has appreciated over 24,000% since then! May 18th, 1998 the feds filed formal charges. In the 18 months following the lawsuit, MSFT tripled in price before the tech bubble burst in 2000. Think how much money you would have left on the table had you sold upon filing of the lawsuit! Or worse, when the feds first raised anti-trust concerns in 1990.

Microsoft has been under anti-trust concerns for over half of it's existence! And that's a company that probably deserved to be sued for anti-trust. Tesla? No, not even similar. Anti-trust requires more than a monopoly, it requires abuse of that monopoly power to actively prevent competitors from competing. Innovating too quickly does not trigger anti-trust concerns and Tesla's mission and corporate culture do not point to anti-trust ever being a serious concern.

I'm guessing that was said at least partially in jest but an anti-trust lawsuit is not even on my list of concerns.

?

 

[Johnny Ma]

Randomly got a chance to see a Taycan and a Mach-E in person.

The Taycan is beautiful. It's a shame many of its specs are poor.

The Mach-E is eye-grabbing when viewed from the front. Looks terrible and cheap from the back. Build quality (from inspecting exterior) roughly on par with my 2 year old Model 3. Interior, especially infotainment, reminds me of a 2016 Honda, but i didn't get a chance to test it out. Dealer plates on the Mach-E. Waited around for a few in the parking lot to try to meet its owner, but no luck. The Mach-E, in particular, might sell well, if they can get the price down.

 

[Artful Dodger]

TSLA had a SP of $695.00 at the S&P inclusion on Dec 18, 2020. If TSLA varies substantially from that, and more specifically, substantially differing vs relative change of other S&P 500 components, then large index funds will adjust their stock holdings accordingly.

Paging @lklundin

Yeah, so it's pretty clear the 'cap' was put in on Fri, Mar 12 at $695. We were rejected at that level at 12:31 pm, and again during the runup into the Close:

So now we're left asking if the $695 cap was simply to avoid letting TSLA have a postitive quarter going into the S&P 500 rebalancing event next Friday? Most likely, but I do have two alternate "break-even" SP points for TSLA's weight vs. the IDX:

649.88 * (3,943.34/3709.41) = 690.86 ; if TSLA weight was set on 2nd Tue (Dec 08)​

693.73 * (3,943.34/3709.41) = 737.48 ; if TSLA weight was set on 3rd Fri (Dec 18)​

TSLA's new S&P 500 weight will be proportional to one of those two values, depending upon which Reference date was used for TSLA's addition to the Index in Q4 2020.

The new Index weights will be available around 9:00 am EDT on Mon, Mar 21. Then I'll have enough data to fully model the inner workings of the S&P 500 Addition and Quarterly rebalancing procedure (very useful for pre-cognition going forward).

This data is (ironically) still needed to understand the S&P 500 Addition procedure, even after weeks of wading through endless circular documentation.

S&P DJI are not the Iron Curtain; they're the Irony Curtain.

Cheers!

P.S. if TSLA had closed yesterday at this month's intraday low, I estimate that Index funds would sell approx. 17.5M shares during the rebalance event (I can also model the effect on the SP, but thankfully that won't apply)

 

[Prunesquallor]

...
It sounds like you actually believe they will have 30 Ultium BEV's available by 2025. I would love that, but it's not gonna happen

...
There is no doubt in my mind they will have 30 Ultium BEVs by 2025.


Oh, wait you meant 30 models..

 

[larmor]

...
There is no doubt in my mind they will have 30 Ultium BEVs by 2025.


Oh, wait you meant 30 models..

They will have 30 ultium batteries for their one EV in 2025. (I fixed it for you)

 

[mongo]

P.S. I've been saying for years that "robotaxi" should NOT have friction brakes; AWD with regen braking is fit for purpose, saves money and weight, wear and repair, and allows extra safety and maneuverability via torque vectoring that you can not obtain with simple ABS.

Even though you are in Canada, your vehicle requirements lean heavily on The USA's FMVSS.
As such, no one is going to get away with a non-redundant braking system. 49 CFR § 571.135 - Standard No. 135; Light vehicle brake systems.

135: S5.1. Service brake system. Each vehicle shall be equipped with a service brake system acting on all wheels.

S7.9.3. Performance requirements. The service brakes on a vehicle equipped with one or more variable brake proportioning systems, in the event of any single functional failure in any such system, shall continue to operate and shall stop the vehicle as specified in S7.9.3(a) or S7.9.3(b).

(f) Alter the service brake system to produce any single failure. For a hydraulic circuit, this may be any single rupture or leakage type failure, other than a structural failure of a housing that is common to two or more subsystems. For a vehicle in which the brake signal is transmitted electrically between the brake pedal and some or all of the foundation brakes, regardless of the means of actuation of the foundation brakes, this may be any single failure in any circuit that electrically transmits the brake signal. For an EV with RBS that is part of the service brake system, this may be any single failure in the RBS.

(h) Number of runs: After the brake warning indicator has been activated, make the following stops depending on the type of brake system:


(1) 4 stops for a split service brake system.


(2) 10 consecutive stops for a non-split service brake system.

So, based on the existing spec, the service brake system needs to continue functioning even if the main pack pyro fuse or contactor goes out. One of the reasons there is a 12V subsystem that runs the brake booster.

Of course, there are changes coming for self driving vehicles, but those are more toward the how of activation, not the base requirements.

even large diesel-electric locomotives rely 100% on regen braking w/o a bty pack

With a gargantuan (3MW 4000hp) resistor bank and high volume fans (unless it's a newer high capacity passenger train that has enough electrical load to not need a resistor bank). It's not 100% braking anyway, and every car on the train (including the locomotive) has fail safe air brakes in use.Dynamic Brakes (Trains): Resistor, Control, Locomotives

While dynamic braking (which can be engaged as low as 6 mph) does help control a train, whether that be a heavy freight or otherwise, it is only an added safety measure in doing so and is not a replacement to air or pneumatic braking.

Dynamic braking

Dynamic braking alone is not enough to stop a locomotive, as its braking effect rapidly diminishes below about 10 to 12 miles per hour (16 to 19 km/h). Therefore, it is always used in conjunction with the regular air brake. This combined system is called blended braking. Li-ion batteries have also been used to store energy for use in bringing trains to a complete halt.[1]

Although blended braking combines both dynamic and air braking, the resulting braking force is designed to be the same as what the air brakes on their own provide. This is achieved by maximizing the dynamic brake portion, and automatically regulating the air brake portion, as the main purpose of dynamic braking is to reduce the amount of air braking required. This conserves air, and minimizes the risks of over-heated wheels. One locomotive manufacturer, Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), estimates that dynamic braking provides between 50% to 70% of the braking force during blended braking.

robotaxi will NEVER drive with a cold battery pack (depot charging b4 departure)

So a robotaxi in the winter will keep the heater going continuously? Heck of a standby loss.

wheels integral with the motor as a unit:

• steel wheel takes on a dual role as tyre rim and SRPM rotor
• mass of brake rotor removed to compensate for integrated motor mass
• brake disk caliper replaced with stator (could be hubless, airless design)
• tyres are replaceable rubber tread inserts for million-mile service life

Assuming the friction service (and parking?) brakes are removed, did you also move the inverter to the wheel? Not that there is much difference between running 3 HV cables instead of 2HV (plus control signals and 2 cooling lines, of course).
Given the breakaway design of the wheel/suspension, how does this system deal with the severed cables and coolant lines?
Any concern with wear due to continuous movement or damange due to road debris, improperly installed tire chains, or mechanic at the tire shop?

 

[Norwalk79]

I was referred to this beloved TMC by a long time member PeterJA of this club when he corrected one of my posts in the Tesla shorts/writers ridden seekingalpha.com (SA) site, a partner of the also Tesla shorts/writers ridden CNBC.com. I paid $239 for 1 yr sub to the SA site to fight misinfo, bad rumors/news to protect my Tesla investment and other EV stocks. I feel very welcome here and not being discriminated like in other group discussions that I joined.

If a person is discriminated because of religion, sex or sexual identity, skin color, race, country,… then his/her opinion will be ignored/discarded/not taken seriously. I’ve lived long enough to observe many aspect of our human being on this planet earth deserved a second look because they are no longer valid for our well advanced society. I will just briefly mention each topic just like food for thought, not intended as a threat. I hope the admins will tolerate for a brief side post, for example:

I always think short selling is unnatural and reverse/contrary with normal intention of investing your saving/retirement money. In fact I tried several times to tweet the Senators/House Reps to forbid/make short selling illegal and our dear Elon tweeted:

@elonmusk tweeted: u can’t sell houses u don’t own u can’t sell cars u don’t own but u *can* sell stock u don’t own!? this is bs – shorting is a scam legal only for vestigial reasons

It happened so many times: after Dow Jones and Nasdaq advanced, they will be shorted to much lower value the very next day due to shorts’ robbing action. During last Fri Jan 29th, Both Dow Jones and Nasdaq were down heavily due to Shorts Fund managers sold their long positions and keep shorting Tesla and Apple to cover their huge loss on GameStop.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1354890601649610753

Yes, Elon Musk Still Hates Short Sellers

Musk agreed with another Twitter user’s call for making shorting illegal.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-board-member-mizuno-blasts-040743131.html

In announcing a plan for action, Rep Maxine Waters noted the “long history of predatory conduct” by hedge funds, adding that “private funds preying on the pension funds of hard working Americans must be stopped.” Make shorting stock illegal

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[SO16]

The Taycan is beautiful. It's a shame many of its specs are poor.

It does seem that the EPA rating was understated by quite a bit. This one did get 293 miles on a charge.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Toyota president warns Apple that it will need to provide 40 years of support for ‘Apple Car’ - 9to5Mac

Apple is widely expected to enter the car industry sometime over the next decade, and legacy automakers have largely said...

9to5mac.com

When asked about Apple’s rumored plans for Apple Car, Toyoda said:

Anyone can make a car if they have the technical ability, but, once they make a car, I hope they’ll recognize they have to steel themselves for 40 years of responding to customers and to various changes.

He went on to elaborate:

Technology companies entering the car industry means that the car industry has a future and choices for customers will widen. We welcome new entries, but I don’t think it would be fair for those people who are newly entering to say, ‘We don’t need to steel ourselves for 40 years, and you other folks who have been around for many years, you do that.’

 

[PeterJA]

Or you just move your eyeballs, which is a thing humans can do.

In fact it's why the Model 3 doesn't need an instrument display directly in front of your head like a traditional car.

It's also why systems actually designed for driver monitoring do so by adding hardware to be able to see your eyes not just your head even in conditions like low light, no light, or wearing sunglasses.

Thanks for the anatomy lesson. The next time you read your phone or laptop without touching it, or turn your gaze from the road ahead to your girlfriend in the passenger seat by moving only your eyeballs, please shoot a video and show us. My eyeballs usually stay in their sockets (unless the girlfriend is really hot).

What I don't like about your argument is your assumption, based on zero insider knowledge, that Tesla engineers never thought of any other plans for the interior camera besides the one you thought of... and that therefore Tesla's driver-monitoring system is inferior to other manufacturers'. Those Tesla boys and girls are pretty smart, possibly smarter than you. Just because Tesla's technology is different doesn't necessarily mean it is inferior. For example, their FSD doesn't use lidar like other systems, but is doing pretty well.

Again, Tesla's camera sees the driver's whole upper body, not just his head. Therefore Tesla's AI can make judgments about driver attentiveness based on other behavior besides the direction of his eyeballs. If he's poking his phone, the camera doesn't need to see his eyes. I admit low light is more challenging (no light doesn't exist in a driving car), but even at night, brighter light often spills briefly onto the driver from outside. Maybe the AI can form judgments based on these brief intervals. Those neural nets can get pretty smart too.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Even though you are in Canada, your vehicle requirements lean heavily on The USA's FMVSS.
As such, no one is going to get away with a non-redundant braking system. 49 CFR § 571.135 - Standard No. 135; Light vehicle brake systems.






So, based on the existing spec, the service brake system needs to continue functioning even if the main pack pyro fuse or contactor goes out. One of the reasons there is a 12V subsystem that runs the brake booster.

Of course, there are changes coming for self driving vehicles, but those are more toward the how of activation, not the base requirements.


With a gargantuan (3MW 4000hp) resistor bank and high volume fans (unless it's a newer high capacity passenger train that has enough electrical load to not need a resistor bank). It's not 100% braking anyway, and every car on the train (including the locomotive) has fail safe air brakes in use.Dynamic Brakes (Trains): Resistor, Control, Locomotives

Dynamic braking


So a robotaxi in the winter will keep the heater going continuously? Heck of a standby loss.



Assuming the friction service (and parking?) brakes are removed, did you also move the inverter to the wheel? Not that there is much difference between running 3 HV cables instead of 2HV (plus control signals and 2 cooling lines, of course).
Given the breakaway design of the wheel/suspension, how does this system deal with the severed cables and coolant lines?
Any concern with wear due to continuous movement or damange due to road debris, improperly installed tire chains, or mechanic at the tire shop?

Those are really helpful (and important) questions, the stuff of real engineering problem-solving. Thank-you! Obviously, I only got as far as "rim brakes" (like on a bicycle wheel) used as an E-brake...

But if Tesla throws $300M at your R&D Centre, could you solve those problems? How about $2B? Because seriously, there's a $5T T.A.M. at stake here, and the "first mover" advantage is still up for grabs!

Even writing the specs for robotaxi is a daunting task. I bet you could do it! And forever change the World.

Cheers!

P.S. Can we get a injection-cast stainless-steel metal-foam unibody in those specs? TIA

 

[Artful Dodger]

Toyota president warns Apple that it will need to provide 40 years of support for ‘Apple Car’ - 9to5Mac

Apple is widely expected to enter the car industry sometime over the next decade, and legacy automakers have largely said...

9to5mac.com

When asked about Apple’s rumored plans for Apple Car, Toyoda said:


He went on to elaborate:

Hah, they'll just make it so the bloddy screen cracks every year, and the EULA you agreed to says replacing the screen costs $100 more than a new car...

Cheers!

 

[Jack6591]

The reason you've never seen a company advertise a non-existent product is because companies don't do that. They spend money to make money. What does that tell us? That they were trying to sell something else. Specifically, their gas cars (instead of their competitors electric cars). They are terrified of the mad rush to EV's when they don't have a volume solution.

What that ad was really saying was; Norwegians are different from Americans. You don't drive an EV because you are an American. A lot of Norwegians do that but not many Americans. You want to live like the American you are. It's OK to treat yourself to another gas car, the EV's will be even better in a few years. As an American it's OK to do this. It's normal. Buying an EV would only be normal if you lived in a foreign country.

Someone recently said I would never make it in marketing. That's because I understand it too well (and don't like what I see).

Often, sensible arguments are made that “demand” trumps Tesla’s need to advertise. While persuasive, they overlook sound reasoning for controlling the narrative.

In Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” — he uses Apple’s Think Different messaging — to demonstrate inspiration to action. Emphasizing, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Apple compellingly communicated their corporate ethos; We think differently in everything we do.

Tesla’s strategy of replacing mine and burn with renewable energy and sustainable transportation is a positive story. Tesla acts to the benefit of mankind, to the benefit of our children.

Tesla has surrendered the telling of their narrative for too long. Now is the perfect moment in time, to tell a great story. To define Tesla with a better narrative. Tesla’s narrative.

On a personal note, I don’t like the overwhelming majority of advertising. CNN, once upon a time was the Cable News Network — they have become the Commercial News Network. I don’t know if it is possible for them to squeeze in any more advertising. The evolution of Internet advertising has ruined the promise of the Internet. It could not possibly be worse.

Advertising should be done rarely; and then only with excellence.

 

[Norwalk79]

As I get paid $150 several times to evaluate new car comparisons from an agency providing surveys/polls to car manufacturers. In fact, recently I attended a session that was intended for Tesla model 3 vs Mercedes C300, Toyota Lexus iS 250, BMW 5 series…

This is the first time I ever see a Tesla in close details. After the 3-hr session and I recognize within minute that the only suggestion I have for Tesla is: Move the largest 12in dash display to in front of driver with mouse controls on steering wheel so you can do both driving and moving mouse to the operation wanted, much safer than its current location to your right side in the center dash.

The existing 100 yr old analog RPM and Speed are not understood by most women/girls/young dudes so it has to go and be replaced by the new 12in computer monitor/display with mouse controls on steering wheel.

 

[Rohan]

One of my charge port pin deadfronts popped off earlier this week. Yesterday I took a photo and scheduled service without having to leave the Tesla app or speak to a human. Today, less than 24 hours later, a shiny Model S showed up and a friendly service tech replaced the pin in about 30 minutes.

In the interim, I approved the cost estimate ($0), was notified of the tech's arrival, and received the final invoice. Again all within the app.

Not sure it's possible to beat that level of service.

Lucky you, it is impossible for me to book a service through the app because it doesn't recognise my address. All our cars are now Teslas, I hope nothing goes wrong

Sorry to ask but the new format is confusing me with the new navigation, where is the button that tells me when to buy Tesla? The one that starts a countdown timer to let me know when to sell. Was it removed or is it just a new type of icon?

Yes I was confused too, but if you look at the top of your screen there's a clock, that clock tells you the time, the time it tells you is... its time to buy TSLA. Since it's never time to sell that functionality has been removed.

 

[Singuy]

It does seem that the EPA rating was understated by quite a bit. This one did get 293 miles on a charge.

The Taycan performs better on the hwy while cruising on it's second gear but it's efficiency gets trashed stop and go traffic due to a lack of brake regen and utilization of the first gear a lot in city driving.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Outstanding post with link, A+++++. I like to have your permission to use your post as a reference whenever I need to mention Tesla's Clean Energy and Power Storage business. Details of Tesla’s $200B energy storage business:

Tesla Energy to become $200B revenue business, Piper analyst predicts (NASDAQ:TSLA)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1216753556134486022

Octopus Energy (closely tied to Tesla in some ways, plus have an alternative to Autobidder called Kraken). NOT 'Corporate' as a company, interesting (they have no HR or IT teams)
Octopus in UK, have heard launching in Germany, Australia & USA

There is an entire forum on here somewhere under UK I think (for looking up loads of negative price events etc).

Tariffs (prices/rates/energy plans)

Tesla: (needs Powerwall/solar, Octopus will arrange 1 or both) - can't remember details
Agile: Time of USe tariff, sometimes goes negative. On 13/1/2021 03:30 (international date format), you could charge car, powerwall, heating etc for free
Go: EV charging at cheap times (00:30-04:30)