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

[M|S|M MYP]

Anyone get the feeling that demand is through the roof that eventually placing an order will result in a minimum of a 1 year wait?

 

[printf42]

What did I miss today?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1396233128549797901

 

[Curt Renz]

Teslarati - today: Model Y Megacast Trial

Excerpt:

Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas is not yet producing vehicles, but crucial parts of its production line already seem to be well into their testing phase. Among these is the Giga Press, which would be producing single-piece megacasts for the Made-in-Texas Model Y’s front and rear underbody. Over the past days, aerial flyovers of the Giga Texas site have shown an increasing number of megacasts piling up in the upcoming EV production site.

 

[Curt Renz]

In case anyone was curious...I was...I now better understand why Elon joined the board of Endeavor (who's major property is MMA). I read a profile this weekend of Ari Emanuel who is the CEO. He is the brother of Rahm who the former Mayor of Chicago and was chief of staff to Obama. Anyway seems Elon and Ari are good friends. So I guessed Ari asked him. The profile was not overly flattering of Avi nor overly negative. I hope Elon spends 0.000001% of his time thinking about Endeavor. Can't think of 2 companies with more opposite 'usefulness'. Tesla's, too me, is so important. Endeavor could disappear tomorrow and...yawn.

I converted 2 on-the-fence friends to placed model Y orders this weekend. What did the rest of you lot do?

Apparently they got him a gig on SNL, so now he may be hoping to influence them to find him a full time job.

 

[Artful Dodger]

TSLA decoupled from renewables and only generally correlating with FAANG. The move is TSLA-specific suggesting to me possible Monday unwinding of shenanigans from last week.

Was definately MM shenanigans last Friday to drop the SP to 580 (750K open contracts set to expire on May 21st). MMs largely sat out today (until 3:30 pm) likely while buying back their shortzes as cheaply as possible.

Today, non-FINRA trading accounted for only 47.4% of all TSLA trading on NASDAQ. That's the lowest proportion of trading by MMs since Dec 31, 2020

Also today, Retail shorting was at its lowest since May 11, 2021 ranking at the 44th Percentile.

Let's see what happens with 250K open contracts set to expire this week (as of 7 a.m. today). Heavy options trading volume today, but we won't have new Open Interest data until tomorrow.

Cheers!

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Interesting from Gary Black:

 

[MXWing]

In case anyone was curious...I was...I now better understand why Elon joined the board of Endeavor (who's major property is MMA). I read a profile this weekend of Ari Emanuel who is the CEO. He is the brother of Rahm who the former Mayor of Chicago and was chief of staff to Obama. Anyway seems Elon and Ari are good friends. So I guessed Ari asked him. The profile was not overly flattering of Avi nor overly negative. I hope Elon spends 0.000001% of his time thinking about Endeavor. Can't think of 2 companies with more opposite 'usefulness'. Tesla's, too me, is so important. Endeavor could disappear tomorrow and...yawn.

I converted 2 on-the-fence friends to placed model Y orders this weekend. What did the rest of you lot do?

MMA is great.

Combat sports will outlast electric cars, and people will be throwing down on mars.

Think some pasty nerd is going to make Elon apologize, scramble and find the man a car?!?!?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394056099582652426

 

[insaneoctane]

... You can't just "plug your truck into your house" without doing the required electrical work. Which then costs money above the $90K cost of the truck. The truck starting at $52K has the smallest battery with only 230 miles of range....

This ^

V2G (or even V2H) is being overplayed IMO. Mostly marketing at this point. The hardware required to have your vehicle power your house and/or grid isn’t trivial. Think of it this way. How many solar installations do you think can use the power of the sun during a blackout? Very few. It requires specialized hardware to switch your house off the grid during the blackout. Why? Well, because when the power company wants to work on the power lines to fix the problem during a power outage, they can’t have solar customers backfeeding their solar production into the grid and zapping the linemen dead, right? So, electrical codes mandate safety for the power company workers and your solar panels are shut down during grid outage. Having said that, any solar customer can choose to install a power transfer switch on their equipment to allow them to use solar during an outage. Cost can range from hundreds to thousands of $ depending on your equipment and permitting. Very few solar owners do this. Cost and complexity. This is the same issue for V2G. Sounds good on paper, but it will likely not be implemented due to cost and complexity in real life (maybe this changes in several years).

Using my CT outlets for longer lasting outages for my refrigerators, routers, modems, WiFi, etc. via a few long extension cords works fine and avoids needing a backup generator for me.

 

[dhanson865]

Do we have any reasonably accurate idea when the Biden EV credit will be a thing? Tons of articles about how much it might be but I can't seem to find an answer to "when".

 

[elasalle]

Production is HARD


Lordstown Motors' shares tumble after slashing 2021 production plans
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/24/lordstown-slashes-21-production-plans-says-more-capital-needed.html

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Do we have any reasonably accurate idea when the Biden EV credit will be a thing? Tons of articles about how much it might be but I can't seem to find an answer to "when".

Democrats have repeatedly said July/Aug timeframe

 

[JRP3]

Think some pasty nerd is going to make Elon apologize, scramble and find the man a car?!?!?

It'd be better if it didn't take implied threats of physical violence for people to get their vehicles. Every Tesla customer has to sign up for MMA classes?

 

[steve3]

I'm going to Vegas. Anyone know how I can get in on this?

Vegas Loop Capacity Test

Eventbrite - Vegas Loop presents Vegas Loop Capacity Test - in Las Vegas, NV. Find event and ticket information.

www.eventbrite.com

The Boring Company opens registrations to test ride the LVCC Loop

The Boring Company has opened registrations for volunteers who want to test ride the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) Loop. The Boring Company will be conducting a Vegas Loop Capacity Test with the volunteers. The tunneling company probably wants to do some final tests before it officially...

www.teslarati.com

 

[Cherry Wine]

Production is HARD


Lordstown Motors' shares tumble after slashing 2021 production plans
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/24/lordstown-slashes-21-production-plans-says-more-capital-needed.html

Were they always seen as a less serious competitor? I haven't paid as much attention to them.

 

[thx1139]

This ^

V2G (or even V2H) is being overplayed IMO. Mostly marketing at this point. The hardware required to have your vehicle power your house and/or grid isn’t trivial. Think of it this way. How many solar installations do you think can use the power of the sun during a blackout? Very few. It requires specialized hardware to switch your house off the grid during the blackout. Why? Well, because when the power company wants to work on the power lines to fix the problem during a power outage, they can’t have solar customers backfeeding their solar production into the grid and zapping the linemen dead, right? So, electrical codes mandate safety for the power company workers and your solar panels are shut down during grid outage. Having said that, any solar customer can choose to install a power transfer switch on their equipment to allow them to use solar during an outage. Cost can range from hundreds to thousands of $ depending on your equipment and permitting. Very few solar owners do this. Cost and complexity. This is the same issue for V2G. Sounds good on paper, but it will likely not be implemented due to cost and complexity in real life (maybe this changes in several years).

Using my CT outlets for longer lasting outages for my refrigerators, routers, modems, WiFi, etc. via a few long extension cords works fine and avoids needing a backup generator for me.

Also should people really get so excited about how many outlets are on a truck? Wouldnt most people for most use cases be running 1 or 2 long heavy duty power chords plugged into a power strip?

 

[StealthP3D]

I was actually thinking of something like this today in my quest to figure out what the hell Elon is doing with crypto and BTC, and there it is all written out.

Well done @kyzhk and StealthP3D.

If this is the way it plays out, then Elon is indeed a GrandMaster like no other. Is it all planned or developed on the fly with his sixth sense?

I would like to see the rest play out.

Go ahead, Elon. Force all cryptos to go clean and ramp renewables like mad, a ramp that otherwise would not have happened.

Make a monkey out of me. I am game. I mean, monkeys and me, we go way back...

Yes, us mental midgets can only be baffled by the action of magicians until we watch the entire performance in awe. Of course it seemed awfully contrived when Elon suddenly "became aware" of the carbon footprint of Bitcoin. Now it's starting to make more sense as the pieces fall into place. I learned long ago that when things don't make sense it's almost certainly because they are not what they appear to be. So that was the second big clue. The first was when Tesla bought Bitcoin to begin with.

Imagine how much traction Elon would get if, before he became the "friend" of crypto, he decided to attack crypto's carbon footprint. Not too much traction, just a lot of resentment. Now, he's holding crypto 'hostage' to achieve his goals gently. And the primary goal is probably not even to clean up crypto, that's the second bird he will kill with one stone, the first is to leverage the needs of crypto to create a flood of renewable energy and a support mechanism, bitcoin mining, that can be one more useful economic and practical pawn in load balancing a modern grid. Someone has to pay for all the infrastructure - follow the money.

None of this is guaranteed to succeed of course, it could even backfire, but better to try and fail than throw your hands up in exasperation and watch as stupidity runs it's course. If someone with the proven success rate of Elon thinks he has a chance to make the world a better place, I'll support the effort.

 

[Pezpunk]

Democrats have repeatedly said July/Aug timeframe

so ... November?

 

[woodisgood]

This ^

V2G (or even V2H) is being overplayed IMO. Mostly marketing at this point. The hardware required to have your vehicle power your house and/or grid isn’t trivial. Think of it this way. How many solar installations do you think can use the power of the sun during a blackout? Very few. It requires specialized hardware to switch your house off the grid during the blackout. Why? Well, because when the power company wants to work on the power lines to fix the problem during a power outage, they can’t have solar customers backfeeding their solar production into the grid and zapping the linemen dead, right? So, electrical codes mandate safety for the power company workers and your solar panels are shut down during grid outage. Having said that, any solar customer can choose to install a power transfer switch on their equipment to allow them to use solar during an outage. Cost can range from hundreds to thousands of $ depending on your equipment and permitting. Very few solar owners do this. Cost and complexity. This is the same issue for V2G. Sounds good on paper, but it will likely not be implemented due to cost and complexity in real life (maybe this changes in several years).

Using my CT outlets for longer lasting outages for my refrigerators, routers, modems, WiFi, etc. via a few long extension cords works fine and avoids needing a backup generator for me.

Sometimes I think folks get a little narrow-sighted because they are hoping Tesla provides a solution for THEIR specific use-case or situation. But that's really not Tesla's goal - in transitioning the world to renewable energy they're trying to make the biggest and broadest and fastest impact without worrying about the niche cases. That means they might not have the perfect solution for a given customer, or *gasp* shareholder.

Customer preferences aside, you know who V2G makes a hell of a lot of sense for? Car companies that are planning on doing battery replacements down the line, maybe throwing their dealer networks a bone...

I'll be honest - in researching solar panels, I've decided that I may not be going with Tesla (depending on how Solar Glass evolves in the next year or so). But that's because I want some premium features which many other customers may not care about and I'm willing to pay a premium for them. So I may not be Tesla's ideal customer and they may not have my ideal product. Doesn't mean I think their solar solutions won't absolutely kick butt in the marketplace.

 

[Beltsbear]

Were they always seen as a less serious competitor? I haven't paid as much attention to them.

Well way less serious than Tesla, but ahead of a lot of others. It still looks like they will be building trucks in 2021 in limited numbers. That is ahead of FCA and most of the other ICE truck builders. Everything they can make, they will sell.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

so ... November?

Dem’s don’t need to negotiate or need a single Republican vote. Don’t be fooled by the appearance of what’s going on. They’re using the month of May to show that they’re willing to play ball with Republicans in good faith....but they can pass this thing at any time they want.