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

[M|S|M MYP]

The remarkable thing to me is THAT is how he found that out.

How do you run a car company that is going "all in" on EVs and not already know the state of EV charging networks?

Maybe it's because that was the first time Diess actually took a meaningful trip in an EV and 'had' to charge en route to his destination....Letting Elon drive VW's POS ID3 was probably the 2nd or 3rd time he was actually in an EV

 

[PeterJA]

Informed investors are aware that Tesla and SpaceX share engineering talent and technology (such as rocket steel used in Cybertruck). So it seems reasonable to believe sharing also occurs between Tesla and other Musk companies, including Neuralink.

As we wait for AI Day and speculate about Tesla robotics, be aware that Neuralink is doing cutting-edge robotics, because a robotic surgeon is required to implant their brain-interface device.

Warren edited and annotated a little-seen presentation by a Neuralink scientist from last March. His whole video fascinated me, but I set it to the part about robotics.

 

[Krugerrand]

The remarkable thing to me is THAT is how he found that out.

How do you run a car company that is going "all in" on EVs and not already know the state of EV charging networks?

He wouldn’t know if he hadn’t gotten out there to experience them. So, he got out there and experienced what many of us already knew through our own experiences.

 

[corduroy]

Just wanted to share this with you after kind of a downer day.
Spoiler: The Tesla Economist shows his math; says that he thinks Tesla energy mega pack product alone to be valued at $15 trillion by 2025
Have a nice weekend everyone.

Edit: Sorry looks like I was beat to the punch but I’ll let it stick here for a little while just for a little extra much wow.

This is on top of the AI/Robotics division that we are going to find out about soon , which is a gazillion $ TAM? I need more LEAPs.

 

[EVforLiPo]

So this happens almost every Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Next weeks Put options increased100% while TSLA drops by a small amount.
On Tuesday the Aug 13 $600 Put was around $1 however today it was over $1 for most of the day and hitting a high of $1.78.
You would think the premium should be higher at the beginning of the week not at the end of the week.

Is there a group of people that think if TSLA flat lines that means the next move must be down?
I sold some $600 Puts along with a boat load of $550 for next week. Basically weekly income for me with next to no risk. Or am I missing something here?

 

[PeterJA]

Speaking of robots, forthcoming robotaxis from Chinese company Baidu look more attractive than Waymo's, but they are lidar-based, several years away, and twice the current price of Model 3.

 

[SPadival]

It was Democrats selling their Economic/Climate agenda, something they have repeatedly failed to do with previous great legislation.

You should do a little fact checking before you post.

Biden Promised To End New Drilling On Federal Land, But Approvals Are Up

New permits for companies to extract oil and gas from U.S. public lands are on pace to hit their highest level since George W. Bush was in office, undermining the president's ambitious climate goals.

www.npr.org

Approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president, underscoring President Joe Biden's reluctance to more forcefully curb petroleum production in the face of industry and Republican resistance

Approvals have since rebounded to a level that exceeds monthly numbers seen through most of Trump's presidency.

This is under his executive authority, immune to Republican obstruction. And remember that GWB was a Texas oilman, for crying out loud

 

[Doit]

This is hilarious:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1423765442037002240

https://twitter.com/x/status/1423766260316266499

 

[Duffer]

Sorry but this is just silly. The government isn't going to make a EV tax credit that excludes 98% of the manufacturing capability in the US (Tesla, Ford, GM, etc..) by making it for only start ups.

Not sure why people speculate like this. Biden was very clear in his words - $7,500 credit + $2,500 for American made + $2,500 for Union made. Tesla would be eligible for $10,000 of the credit. There's no way to exclude Tesla. Tesla's vehicle are priced across multiple ranges so they can't even try to exclude Tesla based on selling price of the car. There's nothing left to speculate on except for maybe speculating that the Union made part gets dropped all together.

My lack of clarity appropriately earned down votes.

You are correct in that there is no way that the Administration would exclude America's 3 largest UAW employers from the EV tax credit.

I agree that Tesla can't be excluded by name from having vehicles that are eligible for the proposed EV credit. However, other countries have successfully excluded Tesla from their EV credit programs. Yes, they usually do it by limiting the price of the eligible vehicle but I believe that a Canadian province did it via vehicle size (1 cm too long?).

This Administration could try to protect the "Big 3" by excluding Tesla from the proposed EV credits in the exact same way Tesla is now excluded from the current program. This could easily be accomplished by using language that makes it clear that the intent of the EV credits are to expand the production of EV's both by start-ups as well as established manufactures (aka Big 3). Then ensure that Tesla already has or will shortly exceed whatever arbitrary maximum number of EV's sold. This would allow the "Big 3" to be "bailed out" without any negative public opinion.

A potential $12,500 advantage to the "competition" could sway the uninformed buyer not to mention how that would be used to influence the SP.

ETA: Any complaint by Tesla/Musk would be spun into "Billionaire wants a hand out" by the media.

ETA 2: Tesla will crush the "Big 3" even if they are excluded from the EV credits.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

My lack of clarity appropriately earned down votes.

You are correct in that there is no way that the Administration would exclude America's 3 largest UAW employers from the EV tax credit.

I agree that Tesla can't be excluded by name from having vehicles that are eligible for the proposed EV credit. However, other countries have successfully excluded Tesla from their EV credit programs. Yes, they usually do it by limiting the price of the eligible vehicle but I believe that a Canadian province did it via vehicle size (1 cm too long?).

This Administration could try to protect the "Big 3" by excluding Tesla from the proposed EV credits in the exact same way Tesla is excluded from the current program. This could easily be accomplished by using language that makes it clear that the intent of the EV credits are to expand the production of EV's both by start-ups as well as established manufactures (aka Big 3). Then ensure that Tesla already has or will shortly exceed whatever arbitrary maximum number of EV's sold. This would allow the "Big 3" to be "bailed out" without the negative public opinion.

A potential $12,500 advantage to the "competition" could sway the uninformed buyer not to mention how that would be used to influence the SP.

You're confusing/mixing up a couple things here. Other countries can exclude "imported" goods from incentives by making the incentives only for locally manufactured goods. Lots of countries do this and the US is within their right to say only vehicles made in America get this credit.

Tesla is excluded from the current system because they hit the sales limit. If the US government tried to have the same stipulation again, GM would lose out on the credit since they're already past it and Ford would only get a year or so of using the credit before they would lose it as well..........it's not going to happen.

Again, there's no way to exclude Tesla on the $10,000 part credit and absolutely now way the US government can simply say only these 3 big automakers and only these startups get it. It would be shot down in court immediately. They're already stretching things by including the Union made $2,500 specific credit which I still think is going to get removed because Democrat's do not want to take the risk of having the entire reconciliation bill be voided by the court system.

I would please ask people that before they put on their conspiracy theory hat to please look into how the court system works here. What you're suggesting here would be by far the most blatant example of the US unfairly and unconstitutionally targeting a company and it's employees. The US government would be violating multiple laws. Not only would the US government lose that case in the courts in the matter of hours, they would be on the hook for billions in damages.

 

[SPadival]

indeed any government that has automakers within its jurisdiction, is going to stand by and let those automakers collapse without trying to intervene.

Australian government

 

[Bouboule]

Would you care to provide us with better calculations?

I stopped watching when he started his calculations based on a 30$/Kwh price for batteries. From what I have seen, we are close but not yet below 100$/Kwh.

 

[Thekiwi]

Would you care to provide us with better calculations?

Well to start with he is using $25-$30 perKW cost at pack level. Tesla has not suggested anything like that is possible any time soon. Also he is using current pricing for Megapacks as if Tesla will be able to maintain that price forever despite industry wide decreasing cell costs enabling ever decreasing costs industry wide for stationary storage products. Also includes tech advances by suppliers, which will by design be available to other energy storage providers.

I’m not saying Tesla Energy isn’t going to be a large and profitable business - but entertaining these sorts of grossly over-optimistic estimates makes Tesla bulls look amateurish.

 

[Drezil]

I stopped watching when he started his calculations based on a 30$/Kwh price for batteries. From what I have seen, we are close but not yet below 100$/Kwh.

For LFP 30$/kWh at the cell-level ist plausible in 1-2 years.
Tesla is at ~80-90 at the cell level for NCA and around 120$ or so at the Pack-Level..
What adds a lot are things like inverters, control-stuff, etc..

The plain Material-Bill for lfp-cells was 7$ or something rediculous low.. but manufacturing etc. makes it expensive. And they are usually too heavy and foremost too big for long range automotive.

Iirc the lfp-pack is bigger than the long-range-pack while only yielding 60% or so if the range..

But that is all not relevant für storage.
30$/kWh at the pack-level is also one prediction of Simon from the limiting factor.

 

[MC3OZ]

Well to start with he is using $25-$30 perKW cost at pack level. Tesla has not suggested anything like that is possible any time soon.

The BYD balde LFP battery is currently around $92 kWh,

Raw materials for LFP are $8 kWh....

If Tesla make in house LFP batteries I can see them getting to a range around $55-$75 kWh by say 2023, perhaps lower...

I agree with most of your comment,, energy storage prices will drop, and that will unlock extraordinary amounts of demand.
As with vehicles < $100 kWh unlock a lot of demand... So the Tesla energy business growing much larger is very likely, increasing margins slightly likely if retail price drops lag production price drops..

 

[Paul_SF]

OT, being the weekend and maybe you want to watch something to make it even more obvious how ridiculous and oblivious our leaders and many of us still are:

Watch Breaking Boundaries: The Science Of Our Planet | Netflix Official Site

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

www.netflix.com

 

[AZRI11]

You should do a little fact checking before you post.

Biden Promised To End New Drilling On Federal Land, But Approvals Are Up

New permits for companies to extract oil and gas from U.S. public lands are on pace to hit their highest level since George W. Bush was in office, undermining the president's ambitious climate goals.

www.npr.org

This is under his executive authority, immune to Republican obstruction. And remember that GWB was a Texas oilman, for crying out loud

 

[Knightshade]

Maybe it's because that was the first time Diess actually took a meaningful trip in an EV and 'had' to charge en route to his destination....Letting Elon drive VW's POS ID3 was probably the 2nd or 3rd time he was actually in an EV

Yeah I mean that's what's surprising.... Granted I've never run a 150 billion dollar market cap company like Diess... but first thing I do when I'm in charge of anything is actually, practically, USE THE THING like an actual customer so I can understand WTF I'm working with and where the good and the bad are.

Is there a group of people that think if TSLA flat lines that means the next move must be down?
I sold some $600 Puts along with a boat load of $550 for next week. Basically weekly income for me with next to no risk. Or am I missing something here?

You're missing much larger premiums selling so far OTM, that's about it... I sold 690s this week... Selling $695s for next- these are "protected" by 595 bought puts, but still collecting over $1000 per contract net in premium.


This might be a good thread for you BTW-

Wiki - Selling TSLA Options - Be the House

The roll for credit through the midpoint in the spread assumes no tweaking of the spread size. I.e. a $100 sized spread continues to be a $100 sized spread on rolls for credit all the way into $50 ITM on the short strike. And then you get into the management tweaking that is available. Cut...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[JustMe]

Nice FSF 9.1 demo drive video. It gave me a good sense of the progress that is being made.

 

[UncaNed]

Just wanted to share this with you after kind of a downer day.
Spoiler: The Tesla Economist shows his math; says that he thinks Tesla energy mega pack product alone to be valued at $15 trillion by 2025
Have a nice weekend everyone.

Edit: Sorry looks like I was beat to the punch but I’ll let it stick here for a little while just for a little extra much wow.

@FireMedic , What does he say at 0:35?? Sounds like "...consistently hearing noxoffs" of energy and a reason not to grow that side of the business too much..."??