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

[neroden]

Worst case scenario is a full on trade war with Gina

Or perhaps a full trade war with China.

(Actually, I think the motivations in China mean we're never going to get a *full* trade war; they still want Tesla to manufacture there, for example, and they still want to buy up US companies, and...)

 

[neroden]

OT

OT:
There's a technological solution: boring a ~600 km tunnel from the north to the south and routing power through that.

It's a superior technological solution:

• it doesn't mess up the skyline and doesn't trigger NIMBY resistance from locals,

Have you paid attention to the NIMBY resistance to cables at the base of Lake Champlain? To underground pipelines? There will ALWAYS be NIMBY resistance, to ANYTHING.

• if it goes deep enough it gets a public way of right and has very little environmental impact, making permits a lot cheaper and faster,

I would be interested to know if that is how the rules work in Germany. Here in the US, property owners often own their property "to the center of the Earth", and yeah, they WILL complain...

It's a good technological solution. Just, y'know, there are more NIMBYs than you imagine.

 

[neroden]

Shush - don't tell neroden. He is going to be unbearable. This combined with:

I told you he is always right...

I'm going to be spending tomorrow trying to figure out where I lost my checkbook yesterday. :sigh:

 

[neroden]

Is the UK a major market for Tesla, like US, China or the EU?

Actually, it is. Smaller than those three, but significant in size.

 

[neroden]

Its remarkable how the market is disconnected from US politics. Literally the market doesn't care if the government is shutdown or working !

This is always true in the early days. It's when consumer spending drops, or housing sales drop, or farms start filing for bankruptcy, that the market starts to care.

For some reason, government shutdowns are a thing where the market is almost always *late* and *backward-looking*. Not entirely sure why; maybe the excessive numbers of delusional libertarian-extremist types in the Wall Street trading offices.

 

[neroden]

OT
I feel you are placing undue burden of intelligence on people falling for fear/hate rhetorics. You expect them to be able to accurately place blame for issues on OI? I wouldn't bet on it.
From what I've seen, it's easy to make all problems: 'other guys fault'. And that you recognize truth, that means very little for target audience of those kind of speeches. They may be drinking up every single word and agreeing in earnest...
Not that I care. It's your American thing, it concerns me only to the extent that it affects markets...

You could be right. However, I am already reading articles about Trump voters who are disgusted because Trump has severely damaged their business. Doesn't need that many of them.

I checked: farm subsidies are already stopped. The farmers in ND, SD, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas are going to start to hurt bad if this isn't resolved by the end of the month, and the Senators from those states are going to be getting an earful. They'll cave.

Everyone knows the shutdown is Trump's fault because he openly took credit for it. Everyone knows their farm subsidy checks aren't arriving because of the shutdown. This is quite wonderfully clear.

Very importantly, Trump's very clearly lost the support of big money. While easily manipulated members of the proletariat may continue to look whichever way Trump points, this will be less true of the money men.

I will say I was genuinely worried by G W Bush, when he stole the Presidency using professional rioters, ginned up the Iraq war based on lies... and then mailed $300 checks to everyone who filed taxes. Now those checks were a playbook for being able to stay in power despite incompetence and corruption. However, the rest of the Republican Party prevented him from ever doing the check-mailing thing again, and thankfully his popularity proceeded to slowly vanish.

Trump seems incapable of cooperating with anyone long enough to do anything similar. Due to his NPD, he's alienated everyone around him, and Republican politicians only hang on to him out of fear, not seeing any alternative. Big business sees alternatives and has dumped him.

 

[RobStark]

"Passenger vehicles" does not include trucks, SUVs, or commerical vehicles. Sales of passenger cars were 24,961,948 in 2017, vs. 29,122,531 for all vehicles in China. Passenger cars were only about 6m of the 17m US sales.

Sales Statistics | OICA

In the US passenger vehicles include "trucks" and "cars"

Commercial vehicles are split into "light commercial" which are repurposed passenger vehicles and "medium/heavy" commercial vehicles.

The often reported in the USA number is passenger plus light commercial.

Do you know if "passenger vehicles" in China include low speed vehicles like the Chery QQ ?

 

[neroden]

Nate, you may well be omniscient and capable of accurately predicting the future. I'm not

Then shut up.

 

[neroden]

Macros and Tesla took more hits a few minutes ago after Trump asked Pelosi if she would support a border wall. According to Schumer she answered negatively causing Trump to slam the table and immediately walk out of the meeting. Trump tweeted that the meeting was a waste of time. And it was revealed that Trump lawyer Giuliani has informed Special Counsel Mueller that Trump will not respond to any more questions in the probe of Russian involvement in his campaign.

I guess the only real questions are when Trump is going to be indicted and by which prosecutors, and when the Republican Senators are going to decide that Trump is a liability and start overriding his vetoes.

 

[neroden]

A decision that's been a long time coming. And a good decision.

Note: this should lower Tesla's max production capacity for S and X.

To me this speaks of retooling. I don't think there's a shortage of demand for S75s, and so lowering production would be leaving production capacity idle. Of course, if they're going to need to lower production for retooling anyway, then...

 

[Intl Professor]

Why do you still reside here?

Because of the people here, because I have been well treated, because I don't know Danish and the weather in Denmark is not as good as California, because I have family here, because it looks like some people, present company excepted, of course, are waking up and treating democracy more seriously. As a critic from an undistinguished university, I have been privileged to say what makes sense in foreign policy to thousands of students, three of whom have become judges, another just took the job of chief lobbyist for California industry, a Republican, who probably agrees with all I have said that appears so unpatriotic to some. Because of the Second Amendment, despite its distortion by the Supreme Court, because the only way this country will stop declining is because of progressive policies which Elon is implementing in a positive way and I want to help in any way I can. Because I was raised a Christian though a non-believer for 70 years now. It's all about who my parents were. Dad hated FDR, but didn't lose security clearance for it when he purchased all the heavy equipment used to construct the Thule Air Base. As a child, I guess I should have asked him why he lived here, but then he was beloved by all.

Sorry you are upset about people who disagree with you. Frankly, I've learned to be less intellectually brittle with age but at the expense of neglecting the body. Tangling with your sort helps to clarify my views where I agree with you and where not. A moral beacon as I presume you are, I am not. I just enjoy learning something new and TMC is tonic for a nerd snubbed in High School. Don't take me seriously, I don't, but I'm surprised if people consider me a threat as has happened in the past. (Our local sheriff had a spy in my class. The topic of the course, Rebellion in America, was of a piece of our serendipity group's effort to get students opportunities to discuss issues of change systematically in an academic setting without violence. We never had it on our campus in the 60s. The Secret Service service seized without warrant the tapes of a speaker in one of my classes, because of something he said later. Yet, I was once approached by someone claiming he represented an "intelligence family" because the CIA had determined my predictions of Soviet behavior were more accurate than other experts. Scared the hell out of me.)

Last, but probably least important, I'm sitting on a bit of a nest egg in TSLA and BIDU which I might see double in a year. The easiest hundreds of thousands I've "earned." KarenRei and others make Iceland sound appealing, but then I might have trouble moving money around as she does. Thailand is always a possibility, and I like the people and the country. Their politics is much worse than here. But now I am happily married after 15 years, and my wife would possibly signal with her snipping fingers more often than she does here. Besides, she is getting a degree in gerontology which we can afford here. When she graduates Canada might be appealing, if they haven't built the wall by then.

 

[keydiver]

Bjørn Nyland says in his newest video that the Nissan Leaf E+ supply to Europe this year were only be about 5k.

Not just that, but I also just watched a Youtube video where they said that Nissan has backpedaled on having a TMS in the new Leaf. LG is supplying the pack, but without any liquid coolant loop. Such a waste.

 

[neroden]

75 kWh S & X is a hobbled horse. Can't do trips in them comfortably in winter.

Pffft, it's only got slightly less range than the 85, which is fine for winter road trips.

 

[RobStark]

Correlation is not causation, there might be other reasons for a drop in car sales. That's not to say there would be zero impact from trade war, but from the wording in the article it could be that also a lot of buyers switched from cars to SUVs/CUVs/etc which aren't necessarily classified as "passenger vehicles" or "cars". How many vehicles sold in China originate in the USA anyways? It seems most imported vehicles would be still benefiting from the lowered tariffs earlier in 2018?

Increasing sales for almost 30 years.

Right after trade war. Pull back in car sales.Yes, it is likely a coincidence.

The thesis isn't that Chinese tariffs on American cars in causing people to buy less cars in total.

It is American tariffs on Chinese goods is stunting Chinese economic growth and undermining Chinese consumer confidence. So Chinese consumers are buying less made in China cars and European cars with lower tariffs.

 

[neroden]

Bloomberg already posted an article today about how difficult it is to road trip in a Tesla in Europe
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Basically says that it's pretty easy, but you have to make a point of actually going to the Superchargers.

 

[KarenRei]

Due to an influx of shorts, we have to implement some security measures around here. Please complete the following captcha: click all of the images of *cranes*:

Ht. Earl of FrunkPuppy

 

[neroden]

I'm no expert, but I believe most large companies are opposed to the tariff war.

This is correct. It's almost universal for large companies to oppose tarriffs.

Apparently their CEOs agree a trade war is not helpful, negotiations for collective benefit, on the other hand, are. I could be wrong but I believe the Chinese opening bid included negotiations on all outstanding issues including intellectual property rights. But in his superior wisdom, the Donald believes a lot of huffing and puffing has to occur first before the other side pleads "uncle." The Chinese then realized he was not a serious person.

As did most of the members of Congress. Listen to the quotes about how it's impossible and pointless to negotiate with Trump because he doesn't actually have consisent requests and just shouts something different every day.

Trump will eventually fold when it's clear he has no chance, just like he did in all his lawsuits. Question is how long it'll take, and when each Republican Senator will switch sides.

I would agree that there is a very great deal wrong with what the experts have told us about foreign policy and a host of naive presidents who have implemented it. Those policies go way back and were worst when we took the position of "our way or the highway" as gut is substituted for intelligence. One great example, the Baruch Plan on nuclear weapons under Truman called for international control of weapons and technology, but only after the Soviet Union had agreed to it. Truman was not interested in negotiating as an equal in getting there. Conservative governments in Israel do the same, agree to the end result, then we will negotiate how to get there. The relative success of Bush I's Gulf War had many features, but among the best, a collective effort with relevant allies. Contrast that with his son's, strike that, Dick Cheney's approach. When he found out State had convened a panel of experts to plan for the aftermath of the war, he stopped it forthwith out of fear the problems might lead to a more cautious approach at getting into it.

:giant thumbs up:

 

[Intl Professor]

This is correct. It's almost universal for large companies to oppose tarriffs.


As did most of the members of Congress. Listen to the quotes about how it's impossible and pointless to negotiate with Trump because he doesn't actually have consisent requests and just shouts something different every day.

Trump will eventually fold when it's clear he has no chance, just like he did in all his lawsuits. Question is how long it'll take, and when each Republican Senator will switch sides.


:giant thumbs up:

On the last I added: George Kennan who was always frustrated by our Soviet policy used to say of negotiations: "There are two ways to get people to go through a door. One is by opening it." The real Nobel Peace Prize winners will be Kim and Moon when they announce their peace treaty.

Trump's place in history will be positive if we learn to hobble the presidency rationally and we really do learn to take democracy more seriously and actually practice it. A start will be when we get so tired of this guy we ignore him. Without the oxygen of the press the guy will suffocate.

 

[anthonyj]

I’ve gotta say, Mark Spiegels tweets are funny af. These shorts are so ridiculous... They remind me of flat-earthers. I can see how it would be fun to troll longs, they take the trolling too seriously!

 

[Causalien]

I am curious on what Elon is feeling right now after encountering the contrast between the Chinese gov response to him vs USA gov response. One is giving him almost free reign and the other is actively hindering him.

Maybe TSLA-China should IPO in CHina.