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

[EVNow]

This is a repeat of his comment to Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) in their Aug 2018 video:

“To get ultimately to something like a $25,000 car, that’s something we could do, but that’s probably 3 years away if we work really hard.”
Notice how time has not moved forward during the intervening 6 months?

To get to mass market, that is really what is needed. I'd put that around 2025, though.

 

[Artful Dodger]

To get to mass market, that is really what is needed. I'd put that around 2025, though.

Why 2025? All Tesla is missing is the 'Maxcells' and some production facilities. China can do that in 1 year. They are the obvious 1st market for the 'Model 2'. Add production at GF1 a year after that, once profits are rolling in?

Cheers!

 

[KarenRei]

They call them station wagons or breaks elsewhere. Different name, same vehicle. Sedans have probably died off as much as they are going to.

Not really.
* Station wagons / estate cars are long hatchback sedan-like cars with a minimized rear taper. They appear to have two "boxes" (segments) - an engine "box", and a cabin "box" (in contrast to sedans which are "three box" designs, with the third box being the rear taper zone)
* CUVs (crossovers) have a similar shape / seating position to SUVs, but are unibody and generally smaller (sometimes much smaller - CUV does not in any way imply "large").

Modern station wagon (Golf SportsWagon):

CUV / Crossover example (Hyundai Kona)

 

[Unpilot]

I don't get the whole SUV craze...but that's me.
I hope Tesla sells a bazillion.

 

[Artful Dodger]

288? Sparty On, Wayne! (ya kno ya wanna)

P.S. Not sure when the $25K 'Model 2' will be introduced, but I know the 2019 Investors Thread just passed 25K comments.

 

[Curt Renz]

Tomorrow at 1:30 pm EDT, ARK Invest will conduct its monthly webinar.

Registration Link: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7119127061193927937

Tesla is the #1 overall holding among the ARK ETFs. It is usually discussed either in the main webinar presentations, or in the Q&A portion during which you can submit a question.

EDIT at 14:10 CDT: ARKK is up 3.1% right now, and all of its top 10 holdings are well into the green.

 

[Joe F]

288? Sparty On, Wayne! (ya kno ya wanna)

View attachment 385309

P.S. Not sure when the $25K 'Model 2' will be introduced, but I know the 2019 Investors Thread just passed 25K comments.

Wait a while till the mods catch up and delete many of the off-topic comments.

 

[ZachF]

Europe is also starting to get hooked on crossovers and small SUVs (Hyundai, Nissan, VW, Renault), so Model Y will ride that same wave on the old continent.

Ditto with China.

 

[NicoV]

At risk of getting too off topic, I had a friend who worked as a Russian translator for the US military back during one of the nuclear disarmament treaties... think it must have been SALT II or something like that. Both sides sent inspectors over to ensure that the agreed-upon weapons were actually being destroyed**. She always found it tragic that these missiles, these marvels of modern engineering, were just being scrapped and wasted. So along with the rest of the team, they put together a tongue-in-cheek (but very detailed) proposal to retrofit them as an Intercontinental Pizza Delivery System. They did all the calculations for how they'd have to modify it for the racks of uncooked pizzas, how they'd have to modify the heat shield, how hot it'd get inside and how long they'd bake for, how to parachute them down, etc, including cost projections (I think the delivery cost worked out to $15 per pizza if you bought a full missile's worth). Eventually it fell on her to present the proposal to a Soviet officer (I think she said the rank was equivalent to a colonel), with as straight of a face as she could muster. She said he just stared at her like she had lost her bloody mind.

** Fun side story: both sides were allowed to inspect any area large enough to conceal a "treaty limited item". So the US sent their teams over with these fancy laser measuring devices to see if they were allowed to inspect. The Soviets were very impressed by this. They had sent their teams over with... a stick. If the stick fit, they could inspect

Similarly, she described the system for if you get pulled over. You know how in the west, if an officer pulls you over, they take your license, run it into a computer, it gets transmitted into some database and the offense registered, possibly triggering other actions, etc etc. In the USSR they'd take your license... and punch a hole in it. If you had too many holes in your license... they'd keep it

Similarly, the USA developed (for a lot of money) a pen that could work in zero gravity. The Russians just used a pencil.

Reminds me of the flufferbot issue. Removing the fluff altogether is a very Russian way of dealing with the problem.

 

[ZachF]

288? Sparty On, Wayne! (ya kno ya wanna)

View attachment 385309

P.S. Not sure when the $25K 'Model 2' will be introduced, but I know the 2019 Investors Thread just passed 25K comments.

How many times are we going to kick that poor guy down the well....

 

[Carl Raymond]

On Feb 28 during the conference call with analyists, Elon repeated that Tesla would have a new cheaper car in 2-3 years, but probably closer to three:

Elon Musk: Expect a cheaper Tesla in '2 - 3 years'

This is a repeat of his comment to Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) in their Aug 2018 video:

“To get ultimately to something like a $25,000 car, that’s something we could do, but that’s probably 3 years away if we work really hard.”​

Notice how time has not moved forward during the intervening 6 months?

So 3-4 yrs is a good WAG, but its not actually what Elon said. We should always be careful with quotes, memory being what it is.

Something about the relativist time distortion field, mumble, Elon time...

Cheers!

A three year old Tesla model 3 SR would be worth around $25K, no?

Done. Tick that box.

But seriously, is a cheaper car necessary when they scarcely wear out? There will always be people wanting the freshest off the production line, so their hand me downs supply the low end. Nor is it like smaller electric cars pollute less. Zero is zero.

 

[kyzhk]

Similarly, the USA developed (for a lot of money) a pen that could work in zero gravity. The Russians just used a pencil.

Reminds me of the flufferbot issue. Removing the fluff altogether is a very Russian way of dealing with the problem.

It's a myth. A pencil would produce large amount of tiny graphite particles floating everywhere (due to zero G) which is a hazard to the health of astronaut, and to the electrical system (random shorts).

On topic:
I predict share price will slowly go up until the day / after model Y unveil. I am not looking to sell near term calls yet - the rise in SP should make selling calls at the same strike price more profitable later despite theta decay for the short term expiration options.

 

[Anstandswauwau]

Tesla never indicated that test drives were disappearing. They were closing stores, not test drives.

"We are also making it much easier to try out and return a Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed." ~ Source

Huh?

Plus:

• There were rumors on reddit that store employees had indeed already stopped arranging test drives.
• The idea of moving test drives to service center was pure speculation on community's part.

 

[RobStark]

i would expect that to not be in the cards for some time. Too expensive and far removed from their domain to contemplate.

With trucking, that fits in with electrified semi. They have nothing for electrifying ships.

Fun to contemplate though

So far as the public knows!

 

[Tslynk67]

You're missing the fact that there's a very obvious reason why Tesla does this every bloody year. You trigger a domestic surge in March so that you can stop shipping international at the end of the month (trying to time it so your international inventory reaches a minimum around the end of the quarter) and switch to (much faster) domestic shipping that you can complete by the end of the quarter. It's all about minimizing inventory at the end of the quarter.

Every year.

And shorts keep forgetting about this fact. Every year.



You are.

Ignore the chart at the top; YTD is meaningless when trying to determine the current delivery rate because they only started in mid-to-late February, and had to ramp up. Look at the multicolored graph below. Look at the right-hand side - that's March. That's what we want to look at when assessing the current rate. Check out the number of deliveries. Now divide by the number of weeks that have gone by in March so far. That's the current delivery rate per week. There's 1123 thusfar in March, and it's March 11th - and the day is only partway over.



We have entirely different sets of data for that - the initial February (fractional month, during rampup, so not full speed) numbers. Regardless, 3,5x would be a pretty normal ratio.

And don't forget that 18Q4 was a special one for the USA because of the tax-credit drop, so Tesla restricted M3's to there, otherwise they would have put one on boats already in December for January delivery.

 

[Curt Renz]

Similarly, the USA developed (for a lot of money) a pen that could work in zero gravity. The Russians just used a pencil.

Reminds me of the flufferbot issue. Removing the fluff altogether is a very Russian way of dealing with the problem.

It's a myth. A pencil would produce large amount of tiny graphite particles floating everywhere (due to zero G) which is a hazard to the health of astronaut, and to the electrical system (random shorts).

Snopes - Rating False: FACT CHECK: NASA's 'Astronaut Pen'

It's normally wise to check with Snopes before passing along assertions made on the internet without sound sourcing.

 

[Artful Dodger]

A three year old Tesla model 3 SR would be worth around $25K, no?

Done. Tick that box.

But seriously, is a cheaper car necessary when they scarcely wear out? There will always be people wanting the freshest off the production line, so their hand me downs supply the low end. Nor is it like smaller electric cars pollute less. Zero is zero.

You will be able to get a Model S for that if you wait long enough. But this is all about replacing the existing FF fleet as quickly as possible. A used Tesla doesn't displace a FF car because the previous owner will never go back to buying a FF stinker.

This is about tapping the latent demand for affordable EVs that people actually WANT to own (not weirdmobiles), thereby opening up the flood gates of sales in the meaty mid range of the demand curve. Once Tesla can build to scale, look out KIA (and 20 other marques).

Cheers!

 

[Vad42]

Similarly, she described the system for if you get pulled over. You know how in the west, if an officer pulls you over, they take your license, run it into a computer, it gets transmitted into some database and the offense registered, possibly triggering other actions, etc etc. In the USSR they'd take your license... and punch a hole in it. If you had too many holes in your license... they'd keep it

Likely often avoidable by placement of appropriate bill in front of the license

I’ll have to ask my father if the hole punching ever happened to him, as this would be before my time...

 

[Tslynk67]

They did, and that will teach me to skim-read... but they also include March (3 full weeks) so about 630 per week. European demand right now is going to be reservation holders and other pent-up demand, I still really want to see the sustained growth we were all hoping for.

Since we started discussing this, 12 more have been registered in Norway!

3 full weeks of March, how do you work that out? Today is the 7th business day of March or, if you prefer roughly 1.57 weeks into a 4.3 week month.

In March, in Norway, they are averaging 187 per day - that's lumping the small numbers of weekend deliveries into weekdays as they don't normally deliver on Saturdays and Sundays.

As far as I can tell, the limiting factors are a) delivery capacity, b) getting the cars there quickly enough

God only know what's possible when the MR and then SR becomes available, I seriously think they could just sell all production to Norway...

 

[Tslynk67]

It's possible. Some think it suggests an upcoming refresh. Clearing out old models would make sense if that was the case.

Except that Tesla don't have "old models", they have the ones they build to order - OK, with a little excess inventory for opportunistic sales.

Maybe they have a backlog of parts to make cars, this might be a reason...?