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

[Tslynk67]

I've been discussing cars with some taycan owners and people waiting for one and... omg. Its like a reality distortion field around these people. The Taycan MUST be better than the model S because... I dunno... reasons?
I'm told very clearly by them that the taycan is the same spec but you get a much higher quality car for a bit more money.... when the specs are not VAGUELY comparable (the taycan is laughably inferior in many metrics), the taycan has no supercharger network, and no OTA updates, and the price is stupidly higher...
And when i point out the vast difference in top spec WLTP ranges, I am assured that it is 'common knowledge by everyone' that tesla overstates their range and porsche understate it...
the WLTP figures...
MUST be wrong!

And if they are wrong, it must be tesla who lie, and porsche (part of the VAG mess who should be imprisoned for lying about dieselgate) who are just being super chivalrous and modest and understating...

What drugs are people on that they swallow all this? honestly feel sorry for people whose blind hatred (i suspect mostly jealousy) of Elon Musk is so strong that they believe all this crap. If this is the kind of lies and hand-wavey nonsense that people are having to resort to in order to buy a taycan, it makes me think the plaid is going to absolutely vaporize the profits of the 'luxury' car makers. Its going to cost a LOT of media-bribes to get people to keep parroting this FUD.

They are totally different cars, IMO, addressing different demographics. Porsche owners are very loyal to the brand, like we are to Tesla, they think they were F1 drivers in a previous life and are always thinking about track days, plus they pine for the oldy-worldy feel of wood and leather, so Tesla's sparse interior and yes, flimsy, poor materials they used in the past (maybe better now, we'll see when the new S&X finally appears) turns them off. I have this directly from my friend who has a Taycan (coming from Panameras, Caymans, and ha, a Fisker back in the day), so I don't make it up, and I think as a stereotype it's not far from the mark

But it's OK, as long as they're buying an EV, displacing and ICE, who cares - the market is huge, no threat to Tesla at all, zilch, zero, nada

 

[Tslynk67]

He said two weeks a couple of weeks ago. I am getting tired of his predictions. Always excuses. This is getting boring ridiculous.

Sue him then

 

[StealthP3D]

Elon Time is always going to exist. It is better than it used to be, but he's always going to throw around timelines...

Let's look at the upside for a minute:

When FSD actually happens, no one will be expecting it!

 

[StealthP3D]

Most HODL'ers agree with Elons policy to not do traditional advertisement. But ... above stance perhaps proves that advertisement works? Or that the 5+ year campaign to smear Tesla and Elon worked? Or a kinda cultural lag making established automakers seem more reliable, despite evidence to the contrary?

I would say the decade long smear against Tesla has left lasting damage, mostly in those who are still fooled by it.

That's quite different from saying it "worked". The failure of the smear campaign is largely due to the outstanding performance of Elon and team and their laser-like focus on disrupting traditional auto, not by using propaganda and trickery, but simply by producing increasingly better products with a better value proposition through harnessing the power of first-principles thinking and innovation to gain manufacturing efficiencies while constantly improving the product.

 

[StealthP3D]

Porsche owners are very loyal to the brand, like we are to Tesla,

I can't speak for the rest of you, but I am totally NOT brand loyal to Tesla. I would flip the instant I saw a better product. While I don't see that happening anytime soon, I am fully capable of being unbiased as I check out various options from other makers. I would probably sell my stock too. I am a Tesla fan boy but only because I'm a fan of their products and technology. They design the kind of cars I like using state of the art technologies to make them objectively superior. If that ever changes, I'm not going to hang on and defend the indefensible.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Yup, I'm not 'loyal' to any brand. I buy whats the best deal, and right now thats tesla by a laughably long mile. I also agree that marketing trumps ads, if you have a smart enough team to make marketing work.
I think tesla miss a trick by not aggressively getting into actual proper racing in a big way. Once every single race that can have an EV in it is totally and utterly beaten by a roadster or a plaid S, then all those kids with porsche wallpaper on their laptops will have a re-think.

The very best bit of marketing tesla did was shoot the roadster into space. I am surprised they don't make a bigger deal out of that in their website / branding etc. They have a roadster currently doing a bazillion miles an hour in space. Why would you not keep mentioning that?

 

[Tslynk67]

Wow ARK, I bailed on COIN quick once I saw frenzy wasn’t materializing. They really must have lost some serious dough!
I’ll be shocked if COIN goes back above 381 anytime soon. I’m sticking with TSLA.

Yeah, but I bet they got in at a much lower price than the plebs

 

[lascavarian]

Yup, I'm not 'loyal' to any brand. I buy whats the best deal, and right now thats tesla by a laughably long mile.

Another way to say that would be that you are not “religious” about Tesla. This seems healthy. This is investing and not cultish behavior.

Cramer started his show this evening with a rant about broad selling of quality stocks because of a religious conviction toward cryptocurrency and COIN. He followed this with a segment on waiting and buying good companies at IPO at a rational price.

Later he did a takedown of recent failing EV stocks (not Tesla) and how they had over-promised. Then (on the date of Madoffs death) he wrapped up the EV segment with a promise to bring back his “Wall of Shame”.

 

[Tslynk67]

Trying to understand, how to read some of volume and price behavior today. Would love inputs from folks here.
Today was higher volume than yesterday on a downward price movement.
Does this indicate that pretty much all large buy orders before ER were already placed and executed.
If you think there's more planned buying-before-ER to expect in the coming days, why wouldn't they have made use of the lower price today?

• Pre-Market was really strong peaking in the $787's
• This was too close to $800 for the MM's liking so they instigated a 2% walk-down in the run-up to main market to avoid hitting $800 and risking a run up
• Regardless of this, $TSA still hit $780 in main and MM's were doing their best still to keep away from $800 - most likely with naked shorting
• Then macro took over and once again, the EV/growth got hit the most and $TSLA naturally fell with those, but at a lesser rate than other stocks
• MM's went with the flow, but when $TSLA once again hit green, they stepped-in and started to amplify the dips
• As it seemed $800 was no longer a threat, they could unwind their hedges a bit and target $750
• Once $750 was conquered, they could have a go at $730, and bingo, just before close we saw a series of amplified dips and suppressed pops to hit that figure
• AH yesterday they covered the shorting

Macro looking stronger today, if it holds then they might give up with $730 and we'l move back to capping at $750. I think $800 is off the table now

MM's win again, if you don't think this is manipulated then you're not only fooling yourself, but you're missing out on a lot of free money

Addendum: note that the call volume this week is roughly 10x that of next, so a run above $800 this would be very damaging, but next not so much, so better to create a load of synthetic shares to short now and cover in AH over the coming days or even as of next week

 

[WarpedOne]

>> so better to create aloud of synthetics shares

I'm a buyer of blockchain shares.
FYI

 

[Todd Burch]

Fade in to a Roadster II racing around a track.

“The Tesla Roadster: The second fastest production car ever...”

Cut to shot of original Roadster flying thru the Kuiper Belt as it races toward Mars.

“...and the fastest.”

 

[winfield100]

SpaceX have started building their own water towers fuel storage tanks. The question is - "could it fly?"
View attachment 653903

wildly OT
well, of course it could fly, once you are in zero G, anything can fly, heck, stick engines in icebergs and you have both fuel and a (shrinking) ship, as evidenced by a speculative fiction (science fiction) story from 1962 that uses beer barrels, fermenting beer and such as a rocket and rocket fuel, (respectively) to tell a very inappropriate wild tale of alcohol inspired and fueled and concocted revolution and counter revolution while drinking same in the asteroid belt in a near future

 

[nativewolf]

Poul was great. Really great, just missed a reading he did back when I was a hitchhiking college kid and I regretted it. Ah, but digress.

Today and tomorrow will be interesting, world events are whip sawing the markets. Tesla is, in some ways, trapped by these external events. The big news to watch out for is the status of Berlin. If they are truly targeting July for limited production we should be seeing some indications by May. FSD may get headlines but the day to day of getting Berlin up and going and increasing battery production is really what will differentiate Tesla this year. Just as Austin opening. Once these 2 are open, and fully supplied with battery production, the other aspects of the business start to come together. FSD, Energy (powerwalls being the differentiator), Semi, Trucks. So my take on this year is just to HODL, 2022 is going to be amazing from a scaling point of view.

 

[SN_8]

The difference in leadership between legacy companies and innovators was on display in just the last 18 hours...

Ford CEO:. Lie about and criticize the leader in autonomous driving.

Tesla CEO: Give props to the leader in AI (rhymes with Shmoogle) in the spirit of competitiveness.

P.S. Jim Farley isn't even the best automotive CEO in his family.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

Who needs headlines?

I can't wait to read the reaction of the naive folks on this forum who think the FSD subscription price will be ~$99/month (or anything remotely close).

My salty, buttery popcorn is ready for the show!

I guess you would be thinking of someone like me who has argued about the subscription price in the past.

Just to be clear. I don't necessarily think the price will be $99 at start. Actually when I, and most others I've seen, has discussed it we have talked about different price points depending on usage, location, mileage and length of subscription. Possibly even different for different models. Also, if there is a one time activation fee that should have an impact on the monthly price.

I really have no idea what prices Tesla will come up with. The good thing with a subscription model is that it can be changed often, not like Tesla has a problem doing this anyway, and they will quickly see how the take rate changes with price.

I would be surprised though if within a year or two you won't be able to get a $99/month subscription, with possibly say a $500 one time fee to unlock the car, locked in for at least a year with no commercial driving included. That's with no taxi driving even with driver in car. So no Uber/Lyft.

I think the whole argument that price needs to be connected to what the cost for buying it now is, is misplaced. The price needs to be what the market will accept to get a high take rate while keeping Teslas revenue as large as possible. Historic price should have no influence.

If that price turns out to be regarded as 'unfair' for previous buyers it's easily fixed by giving them some kind of rebate on the subscription price for their next Tesla.

With all that said Tesla could well start at $300 a month. I think they would lower it soon if they do.

In the end for a regular user I would think the value from FSD would be between 10-20% of their total car cost. This is people that drive around their home city and maybe do one longer trip a month at most. Which is most people. Obviously worth more for people that drive longish distances regularly.

Oh, and within a couple of years you won't be able to buy FSD outright. At least not unless you are a commercial company paying a whole lot more.

 

[HG Wells]

Who needs headlines?

I can't wait to read the reaction of the naive folks on this forum who think the FSD subscription price will be ~$99/month (or anything remotely close).

My salty, buttery popcorn is ready for the show!

That's too high.
$49 month plus 25 cents per mile.

 

[Singuy]

The difference in leadership between legacy companies and innovators was on display in just the last 18 hours...

Ford CEO:. Lie about and criticize the leader in autonomous driving.

Tesla CEO: Give props to the leader in AI (rhymes with Shmoogle) in the spirit of competitiveness.

P.S. Jim Farley isn't even the best automotive CEO in his family.
View attachment 653911

Ford like Lucid is using a trolling style campaign to grab headlines and baiting Elon to engage. They want some free publicity, especially with elons 50 million Twitter followers. How can Ford make you think about them when thinking about a Tesla? This is smart on ford's part, but Elon isn't taking the bait for now.

 

[OrthoSurg]

I guess you would be thinking of someone like me who has argued about the subscription price in the past.

Just to be clear. I don't necessarily think the price will be $99 at start. Actually when I, and most others I've seen, has discussed it we have talked about different price points depending on usage, location, mileage and length of subscription. Possibly even different for different models. Also, if there is a one time activation fee that should have an impact on the monthly price.

I really have no idea what prices Tesla will come up with. The good thing with a subscription model is that it can be changed often, not like Tesla has a problem doing this anyway, and they will quickly see how the take rate changes with price.

I would be surprised though if within a year or two you won't be able to get a $99/month subscription, with possibly say a $500 one time fee to unlock the car, locked in for at least a year with no commercial driving included. That's with no taxi driving even with driver in car. So no Uber/Lyft.

I think the whole argument that price needs to be connected to what the cost for buying it now is, is misplaced. The price needs to be what the market will accept to get a high take rate while keeping Teslas revenue as large as possible. Historic price should have no influence.

If that price turns out to be regarded as 'unfair' for previous buyers it's easily fixed by giving them some kind of rebate on the subscription price for their next Tesla.

With all that said Tesla could well start at $300 a month. I think they would lower it soon if they do.

In the end for a regular user I would think the value from FSD would be between 10-20% of their total car cost. This is people that drive around their home city and maybe do one longer trip a month at most. Which is most people. Obviously worth more for people that drive longish distances regularly.

Oh, and within a couple of years you won't be able to buy FSD outright. At least not unless you are a commercial company paying a whole lot more.

FSD is not worth the same value to someone driving 10 miles commute and 100 miles commute.
if it is a $/mile driven, you will get more subscribers from short commuters who go for a road trip once in a while who would have not paid the full upfront FSD cost.

if it is a $299 monthly subscriptions, this would reflect the actual cost of total FSD spread on the average consumer car ownership, this would increase the number of people who drive a lot but can’t afford the upfront full FSD cost.
if it is a $99 monthly subscription, this will be unfair to the owners who purchased FSD upfront in the last year and would not cover the actual value of it. This would cause a mass adoption from everyone and might triple the actual number of cars with FSD. I don’t know if it would grow the revenues with more widespread adoption, that would be a market case to study.
An interesting option would be to offer different options that fit different consumers. $/mile driven to very low mileage car users, $99 monthly for 4 or less drives per month, $299 monthly for unlimited FSD Drives per month, $599 monthly for ride hailers sending their Tesla for robotaxis and making profit out of it. When you have an option for everyone, you have more subscribers, more revenues, widespread adoption and possibly increasing TSLA with higher profit margins.

 

[saniflash]

That's too high.
$49 month plus 25 cents per mile.

I agree that a distance-based component (or even making the entire subscription fee distance-based) would decrease the threshold for ppl to sign up. Does it maximize the revenue? Not sure.

I like the idea a lot. At the end of each month, you'll receive a statement saying you drove 420 miles on AP on highways x $0.30 & 69 in city x $0.40.

Has Elon stated at any point in time that "FSD subscription" = "monthly fixed payments"?

 

[Singuy]

Some guy on reddit is saying SX line delay continues due to failed bus bar inspection. I don't know much about permitting or understand any of this stuff so I'll throw it out to you guys to check. I vetted this guys historical post and he's not a Tesla troll or anything. Just someone waiting for his new S refresh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/mr3f09