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

[Sean Wagner]

Very good.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Tesla should IMHO avoid the $35k situation: they could have announced a $39k Model 3 and kept $35k an internal price target.
OTOH "patience" is not one of the strongest traits of Elon.

They have learned the lesson. Will not make the same mistake with Y or future cars.

 

[Pezpunk]

unfortunately, the only glimpse we've gotten so far -- the front end -- is the least interesting part of the car. the real story is going to be what the back looks like, and frankly, whether or not it can fit a pinball machine.

Vehicles for Moving Pinball Machines - PinWiki

 

[mongo]

Also note that the judge could have limited Elon's broadening of the argument already by calling a contempt hearing straight away - instead she allowed the SEC another round of reply and signaled willingness to hold an evidentiary hearing to cross-examine the broader evidence and testimony.

I fully expect the SEC's rebuttal brief to argue against the broadening.

Note that broader evidence only matters under the broad issues Elon's filing rises - under the SEC's theory the whole matter could be decided just based on the undisputed literal contents of the tweets, Tesla's prior guidance and the wording of the consent degree. Neither the expert testimony not Elon's state of mind would matter under the SEC's theory.

To me this strongly suggests that the judge is not only taking the constitutional arguments seriously but agrees that they are relevant - which is not unsurprising from a judge who clerked for Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court ...

I think you may be looking at too narrow a document set (or I missed something in the last xx pages). The SEC's initial filling in the contempt issue only includes as exhibits their request for information from Tesla on Feb 20 regarding the 7:xx and 11:xx tweets (hereafter termed the 7-11 tweets) and the Tesla/ Elon consul reply on Feb 22.
What the SEC did not file with their motion, that Elon did with his, is the SEC's follow up email on Feb 24th that strongly implies they intend(ed) the concent decree to require pre approval for all tweets (the very thing that Elon is stated as would not have agreed to and which runs into the 1st ammendment. ).

1. After December 11, 2018, has Mr. Musk, in accordance with the pre-approval provisions of the mandatory polices implemented by Tesla pursuant to the final judgment entered in SEC v. Tesla, submitted any tweets for pre-approval before publishing them?
2. If so, please identify the tweets Mr. Musk submitted for pre-approval.
3. After December 11, 2018, has Tesla, in accordance with the pre-approval provisions of the mandatory polices implemented by Tesla pursuant to the final judgment entered in SEC v. Tesla, approved any of Mr. Musk’s tweets before he published them?
4. If so, please identify which tweets Tesla approved before Mr. Musk published them and explain how they were pre-approved.

This was the 'sent on Sunday 10:28 (eastern?) respond by 5pm PST' request. SEC filed their contempt motion the next day even though consul dud reply on the 24th saying they were otherwise occupied from seeing/ replying to the e-mail and it would take time to pull together a response.

 

[Tslynk67]

Ron Baron on CBNC - likely helping with the PM SP:

Why legendary investor Ron Baron is betting big on Tesla

 

[Tslynk67]

Haven't seen this reported:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's customs authority has lifted its suspension on imports of Tesla's Model 3, an official in the authority's news department told Reuters on Thursday.

"We can confirm that the warning notice on Tesla has been canceled," said the official, who only gave his surname as Tao.

Tesla declined to comment. Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier on Thursday that the suspension had been lifted after Tesla made the necessary rectifications.

China's General Administration of Customs stopped clearing Tesla Model 3 imports last week, saying they did not have the required Chinese language warning signs and had missing or incorrect nameplate labels.

Tesla said at the time that the company had reached a solution with the authorities.​

I thought they had a work-around already last week...?

In any case, it's a +ve story to get out there and now with Ron putting the record straight on CNBC, I think we might be in for a good day

 

[KarenRei]

SR+ partial premium interior, first look:

tesla_raj on Twitter

Looks very nice. I'd probably get it if full premium was extra (I'll be getting LR, so full premium is included)

 

[Yuri_G]

One of the best Model Y front view mockups I've seen so far:

Spoiler: Model Y mockup

Source: Reddit.

These mock-ups look too similar to the 3. I'd expect more of a Model S to X type styling difference. It has been 3 years since pencils down on the Model 3 after all!

 

[Dan Detweiler]

These mock-ups look too similar to the 3. I'd expect more of a Model S to X type styling difference. It has been 3 years since pencils down on the Model 3 after all!

I can't believe there hasn't been 100 pages of debate as to whether it will have a mustache or not! Remember all the heated posts about the Model 3 nose? LOL!

For what it's worth, I kinda think it's gonna be a clean nose, like Model 3.

Dan

 

[Sean Wagner]

In dutch: Controverse over de elektrische auto: nieuwe cijfers gepubliceerd (RTBF - 2019) - AutoGids

A Wallonian professor last week claimed on national TV (french part of Belgium) that electric cars had to be driven for 700K km before they became cleaner than an ICE car. That (understandably) created a big media controversy, with lots of people debunking his calculations. That professor has now updated his calculations, and his beeak-even point is now at less than 35K km. (Yes! 20x less).
Unfortunately lots of people will only remember the 700K km number (because that ‘s what they want to remember

Your Wallonian professor is not the only one engaging in wanton disinformation.

Interestingly, during the Nevada Gigafactory construction, and according to JB Straubel, Tesla uniquely redesigned a process so it could be run on electricity [from coal fired plants, of course] [[I jest, I jest!]] instead of natural gas. Their aim is to run the Gigafactory completely on renewables.

Now, for the people beyond this forum who might require illustrations of a more classic provenance, VW just announced they would build the coming ID with a zero-CO2 balance, and also supply an option to run it so. I have to say that's very smart, and I think they will keep repeating this exact message - as well they should. Tesla should not be shy in doing the same, even if they lag.

As uninformed and illogical as it is, this line of FUD comes up again and again.

[Edited: VW production info]

 

[elasalle]

Any chance of Mexico adding to Q1 M3 numbers? Heard 3K reservations, so could add like 1K sales?

 

[uselesslogin]

I think it's in line if the announced base model is AWD-only and SR+-ish. There is no RWD version of the Model X.

Tesla should IMHO avoid the $35k situation: they could have announced a $39k Model 3 and kept $35k an internal price target.

OTOH "patience" is not one of the strongest traits of Elon.

There is also no RWD version of the Model S. Or maybe you mean they never sold RWD X although they did originally plan it.

 

[Fact Checking]

Model Y is targeting 700k/year sales, vs. 500k/year for Model 3. That will only happen if there's cheap versions available.

I think you are right.

BTW., I believe the Model Y target market is even larger than that, here's what Elon said about Model 3 demand on January 30:

Elon Musk:

"Reservations are just like preorders. It's like here - like some video game come out and there's like a preorder number, then that's like - stops being important once you start shipping the game or product. So yes, as I said earlier, I think - my guess is demand is somewhere on the order - in a strong economy is on the order of 700,000 or 800,000 units a year for Model 3 and even in a recession is probably on the order of 0.5 million."​

And here's an older 1-year old Model Y statement from Elon from February 2018:

Elon Musk:

Yeah. Just to give some sort of flavor for optimism on Model Y for a minute. I think – Model Y, I think, we might aim for something like maybe capacity of 1 million units a year, something like that, just for Model Y alone. And I think we'll be able to do that for CapEx that is less than the Model 3 CapEx at the $0.5 million. So probably – I think we can probably improve CapEx by a factor of 2. Not a promise, but that's my gut feel on Model Y CapEx, just to give you a flavor for my level of optimism on improvements on the manufacturing front.​

So while Tesla was careful to not talk too much about the Model Y recently, I'm pretty sure that if they start building in GF1 then their expected demand and the manufacturing capacity would still be about twice that of the Model 3 expectations: i.e. 1.4-1.6 million per year globally. If we take out China GF3 Model Y capacity then we are still above a production capacity of 1 million in NA.

Obviously that much capacity probably cannot be fit into Fremont - but what Tesla could attempt is to:

• shoehorn a couple of thousand units per week Model Y capacity into Fremont to start offering higher ASP configurations faster, even at the expense of some Model 3 capacity, to tie up Fremont capacity even in worst-case macroeconomic scenarios (similarly to how Model S/X assembly is shared) and to increase Fremont ASPs,
  
• and start building a vehicle factory at GF1 in parallel, that would in principle be capable of producing both Model 3's and Model Y's. This would be the "Dreadnought v2", a first-principles design decoupled from the necessity to get Model Y production up ASAP.

The "conservative" approach would be to:

• Let Fremont max out at 500k/year sedans for the NA and European markets - maybe even increase it to 600k/year with incremental, low-risk improvements.
• Build Model Y capacity at GF1, with incremental improvements over Fremont and an accelerated schedule.
  
• Clone the lines at GF3 whenever they are happy with their performance.

I have the impression that which variant to chose was a hot debate they are (or were) having internally, even in recent months.

Assuming that these are the main variants they are considering to begin with - I would love to be a fly on the wall during those internal deliberations.

 

[KarenRei]

Any chance of Mexico adding to Q1 M3 numbers? Heard 3K reservations, so could add like 1K sales?

Certainly, they're close enough geographically. IMHO, it's not an issue of who's going to be making "orders" in time for delivery, but who's going to be making the highest-ASP orders that can be delivered in time.

 

[Tslynk67]

1,800 Teslas are due to be delivered by ship directly to central Oslo today. In context, that is equivalent to 1.2% of Norway annual car sales, in one day, from one brand.

"The 1,800 Teslas arriving in Oslo on Thursday will be offloaded starting early Friday morning, before being transported to the nearby town of Lillestrom. The cars will then be readied for delivery to customers, a process that includes fitting them with winter tires."

The cars are on Glovis Courage which arrived at Pier 80 in San Francisco on February 8th, departed on February 12th and offloaded cars in Zeebrugge on March 6th.

Have any other ships offloaded cars in Europe outside of Zeebrugge?

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Looks like it arrived!

Tesla Driver ‍ on Twitter

 

[Fact Checking]

I thought they had a work-around already last week...?

I think last week they had a "plan" which was "approved" by the Chinese customs officials as a solution. But last week's news said nothing about the suspended/held cars being released and about the suspension being lifted - which apparently happened today.

My take: it took this much time to relabel the drive units of ~5,000 Model 3's and for the customs officials to inspect them.

Tesla employees probably had a very busy weekend: they had to access every car's drive unit under less than ideal conditions, in temporary storage near the port I suspect.

 

[humbaba]

Apparently that Ohio tax proposal does not consider miles driven. It's the same for anyone who drives 50,000 miles a year or 2,000. As a retiree I'm in the latter camp. Tesla can easily report your odometer readings to the state due to the wireless readings it takes of your car's usage. That's even less of an intrusion than your brokerage being required to report your stock trading to the IRS.

The proposed tax in Ohio will discourage low mileage drivers from buying an electric car. Moreover, it's large trucks that are almost entirely responsible for erosion of the roads. Their owners are the ones who should be paying more than they are. Although gasoline propelled cars cause more harm to roads than electric cars due to the dripping of fuel and oil, and the exhaust fumes. That’s not to mention no need for electric cars to visit the state’s emission checking stations.

Thankfully, I'm not in Ohio. I'll just have to do what I can to make sure that Illinois handles this matter reasonably and fairly.

EDIT: I just now emailed my concern to the Illinois governor and my two state legislators. Taxation of electric cars is inevitable, but I just wanted to get in front of the matter here and make sure it is eventually done right. Others may want to do the same.

Too late for me: already subject to a flat EV tax that assumes more miles driven per year per vehicle than my household has ever done with all vehicles. I forget the numbers, but when I bought my MR I looked up the fuel tax to determine how many miles I was paying for. At the time time I didn't realize that the average mpg was so low and simply based it on the economy of the vehicles I drove so you have either of two results:

1) taxed for many more miles than I will ever drive in a year

2) taxed as if I was comparable to a gas guzzling behemoth

I'm not happy with either interpretation. If they wanted to cover maintenance via a usage tax then they should tax the hell out of the big rigs -- which has significant implications. If they don't want to disturb the economy and distribute it to those who benefit from the trucking industry (everyone...) then they should simply make all registered vehicles pay a "road use" tax. For roadways with significant non-local traffic (interstates) then tolls could be used. Personally I hate toll roads, but it is a saner alternative than taxing EVs out of existence.

 

[elasalle]

Why legendary investor Ron Baron is betting big on Tesla

 

[shlokavica22]

I think you are right.

BTW., I believe the Model Y target market is even larger than that, here's what Elon said about Model 3 demand on January 30:

Absolutely. When the calculation of current vehicle sales are done, they consider purchase prices. Tesla owners know, the correct calculation is cost of ownership. This calculation results in a lower price bracket (with even bigger market potential).

 

[elasalle]

Does FSD upgrade get you free HW3 upgrade in future? Anyone?