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

[Artful Dodger]

I think including the Tesla Pickup unveil in 2019 is presumptuous. Elon said the pickup is a priority, and that its the project he's most excited about, but he didn't say anything about a reveal date. Certainly not 2019.
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Elon Musk on Twitter

That's a good digg, thanks for that. I actually already did have that link bookmarked to Elon's Tweeter feed:

"I’m dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year"​

5:50 AM - 11 Dec 2018
​

So "might have" is NOT a promise or a deadline. It's barely an aspirational goal. Boomberg is groping for future "misses" to gloat about, when no such promise exists.

The Recode.net interview from Nov 5, 2018 was much more informative on the 'pickup' project. Here's a transcript of that portion of the conversation:

Elon Musk:

Then we’ve got the pickup truck, which — actually, I’m personally most excited about the pickup truck.

Why’s that?

Well I can’t talk about the details, but it’s gonna be like a really futuristic-like cyberpunk, “Blade Runner” pickup truck. It’s gonna be awesome, it’s gonna be amazing. This will be heart-stopping. It stops my heart. It’s like, oh, it’s great.

Who do you wanna sell that to? People that buy F— whatever?

You know, I actually don’t know if a lot of people will buy this pickup truck or not, but I don’t care.

Okay.

I mean I do care, eventually, you know. Like sure, I care. We wanna get gasoline, diesel pickup trucks off the road.

Right.

It’s something I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. If there’s only a small number of people that like that truck, I guess we’ll make a more conventional truck in the future. But it’s the thing that I am personally most fired up about.​

So that won't fit it a tweet right, but Elon said "maybe" and that appears to reach Boomberg's minimum standards for informational reporting wrt deadlines. No evidence that Boomberg attempted to contact Tesla to confirm their reporting though.

I repeat my opinion: Boomberg is dishonest, unethical, and should be consumed in very tiny doses to avoid toxicity effects. Or as the CDC might say, there is no safe dose.

Cheers!

 

[SPadival]

I think including the Tesla Pickup unveil in 2019 is presumptuous. Elon said the pickup is a priority, and that its the project he's most excited about, but he didn't say anything about a reveal date. Certainly not 2019.

Elon retweeted Tom’s tweet that mentions the pickup

 

[AudubonB]

Reuters is reporting what they call an "exclusive", to be presented in detail tomorrow, Friday, in an release dated 4pm Alaska Time:

According to this report, GM is handing over to Cadillac the reins for spearheading GM's push into the EV world. Cadillac will present its vehicle on the so-called "BEV3" platform; other than that, including what kind of vehicle will first emerge, have not been announced.

Link here:
Exclusive: GM's Cadillac will introduce EV in fight against Tesla - sources | Reuters

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Elon retweeted Tom’s tweet that mentions the pickup

View attachment 367952

I have to wonder if, in their analysis, they use the actual original estimate for model 3 production or the revised one after all the preorders.

 

[Dig deeper]

Luvb2b's model updated right after Q3 showed $2.96.
q2-q4 2018 financial projections

I wish that thread was as lively now as it was back when Q3 numbers came out. That model has been quite a valuable resource for many of us here.

 

[KarenRei]

Have you guys thought that Elon maybe wants to mirror 2013 and make earning call on 20. February instead of end of January like we expect

That would be super annoying if it were after February options expiry :Þ How much advance notice did they give back then?

 

[JRP3]

So apparently this is actually a thing Republican Senator Graham: Trump Should Use Emergency Powers to Fund Wall

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Thursday that President Donald Trump should declare a national emergency and bypass Congress to fund a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

 

[Carl Raymond]

OT
Ross Gerber on Twitter
Attention all #Tesla drivers. Often when I'm driving and see another Tesla, we wave to each other. I think this should be a formal thing. The Tesla wave. Every time you see another Tesla driver while in yours, wave hi. What a wonderful community. $TSLA #TeslaModel3 @elonmusk

I likes the idea of doing this, and I actually do this when I see another GT86 while in mine.
But it is a safety hazard to do the same in the Tesla, in the area I usually drive around, my hand will be permanently in the air and never touch the steering wheel.

Do you guys do this in your neighborhood?

I wave to any EV. It means ‘thanks for not polluting’.

 

[dc_h]

There are a couple of problems (this is a followup to @KarenRei's post as well):

• Panasonic 18,650 production is at 10 GWh/year, Panasonic 21,700 cell production is currently at ~28 GWh/year.
• If Tesla doesn't buy the 18,650 cells, what happens to that 10 GWh/year capacity? Panasonic will be free to sell them to other carmakers - many of whom would be happy with competitive, time-proven cells that are enough for either 100,000 100 kWh packs per year or 200,000 50kWh packs per year. Does Tesla want to push Panasonic into doing that, or do they want to make a deal with Panasonic to use that 18,650 capacity? My guess is that Tesla doesn't want to leave that battery supply on the market - which would also come with a matching raw materials drain on the world market (lithium, etc.). So the 'sunk cost fallacy' does not apply at all here - the 18,650 supply is a highly successful product that Tesla shouldn't abandon.

Using 18,650 cells in storage might work - except that Tesla appears to have standardized in 21,700 cells for storage - they are more cost efficient, plus the 21,700 cell manufacturing supply can be flexibly configured to either be for storage or for automotive.

A couple of possibilities:

• Bringing the 18,650 lines from Japan over to China. 10 GWh/year capacity just happens to be enough to make 3,000 Model 3 Standard Range versions per year, and would be a good way to bootstrap battery production in Shanghai. Panasonic's CEO expressed interest in the summer to invest into the Shanghai Gigafactory.
• Bringing the 18,650 lines (and other equipment) from Japan to the U.S. and consolidating all battery production in the Nevada Gigafactory.
• Converting the 18,650 lines to the 21,700 format. It's literally just a dimensional change - albeit it would impact a lot of bits of the production lines. Maybe this is possible - maybe it's too expensive.
• Note that the Shanghai Gigafactory lines, if they come from Japan, could also be converted to 21,700 format, because if the S+X is migrated to 21,700 first there's no disruption to existing production.

In any case, I'd be very surprised if Panasonic threw away the lines or if Tesla left them for the competition to pick up.

Note that the most important step to move the 18,650 lines would be to migrate the S/X battery pack to 21,700 cells - and the phase-out of the 75 kWh model might be the precursor to that.

Sorry to enter the fray, since none of us know until Tesla reveals some future product, or doesn’t.
Another possibility is that the new Panasonic cell machines are so much more productive that they want to update the 18650 lines. If they can reduce labor costs 75-90% a capital investment might have a very fast turnaround and could position them to build for TE or Shanghai. If it was my Excel sheet I wouldn’t be typing here.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Just more confirmation that Elon reads this forum!

Well if he did before, he certainly doesn't waste his time here now. As have other forum members who have dropped as contributors due the distressing decrease in the signal-to-noise ratio in the 2019 thread.

Just today, we had 2-dozen-odd irrelevant posts on airplane tracking, devolving into aircrew flightime rules. Why? This affects TSLA how?

Then things devolved into posting picture of pink sextoys (which earned 19 'funny's). But we will have no more MSG comments? Really?

This is why I am spending less and less time here during the trading day (9 pm EST as I write this). This thread is a circus now, with any actionable info buried deep then made inaccessible by a steady stream of B.S.

If things improve, I may resume contributing in this thread. Right now, it's overwhelmingly treated as a fun way to waste time, but with little relevant content for someone who's actually trading.

Hope things get back on track. I'll visit this thread in my spare time (evenings & weekends).

Bye for now.

 

[dc_h]

Any one wonder why Elon is in the Netherlands ?
Any gigafactory possible locations near there ?
Preliminary talks in the Hague ?

Since Tesla apparently put nothing down for the China plant, they can probably afford to start GF4 this year. Wouldn’t that be a pisser for the shorts.

 

[JRP3]

Just today, we had 2-dozen-odd irrelevant posts

Wait, you mean like these?
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable

 

[Artful Dodger]

Wait, you mean like these?

No, the ones posted during the trading day, which I stated clearly in my comment. After hours OT is fine. It doesn't affect people looking for info during the trading day.

EDIT: It seems I'm not the only member who feels this way: @Hogfighter

This thread has become nearly unusable.

I know that having two threads was more work for the mods, but at least limiting the conversation and having boundaries is better than 30 pages of randomness every day.

Please bring back the market action thread!

 

[neroden]

OT

Hehe. I used to believe ERTW (engineers rule the world). But reality smacked me in the head with politics.

I finally concluded that bacteria rule the world.

 

[dc_h]

Flying from LIR to DFW tomorrow afternoon Will try to get the tail number so I can post it here.

I’ll keep an eye out. Leaving DFW at 2:35.

 

[neroden]

OT

Montana Skeptic at QTR

Mainly discussion is that he was speaking on Robinhood seminar along with Kathy Woods(ARK) and Trip Chowdry, sorry for my spelling.

One thing he said is if TSLA will post four quarters in a row GAAP profit, he will change his mind about Tesla.

Yeah, keep track of that. In July when TSLA posts its fourth quarterly GAAP profit, I betcha he comes up with some new bearish conspiracy theory and pretends he never said that.

 

[neroden]

Technically yes... I have now called pretty much Tesla Sales in every single country where configurator is open and they all refuse to deliver the car without registering it first in the country of delivery. And to do that you need to have an address in that country. So you'd have to involve a 3rd party that would 1st buy the car and then sell it to you for export. And this is exactly what I've been trying to arrange for the last week with various friends in various countries, but hitting tiny obstacles. I'm quite desperate to get the car in March as I'm gonna be traveling around Europe a lot in the spring and currently don't have a car at all.

Rent an apartment in a country which is accepting deliveries and have it delivered there? Expensive but should work (you're an EU citizen so you can rent anywhere in the EU).

 

[Remster32]

I'm back with the detailed First Call TSLA Q4 revenue estimates:

(In $ millions)
BofAML 6,926.6
Canaccord 7,715.0
Deutsche 6,976.1
Elazar Advisors 7,084.2
Evercore 6,805.5
Goldman Sachs 6,851.1
JMP 6,848.7
JPMorgan 7,020.0
Macquiarie 7,089.9
Needham 7,523.4
Oppenheimer 7,440.8
Piper 7,226.1
RBC 7,139.3
Roth 6,985.0
UBS 6,820.2
Undisclosed 6,895.0
Undisclosed 7,192.0
Undisclosed 7,032.0
Undisclosed 7,067.2
Wedbush 7,188.5
Wolfe Research 6,899.0

Consensus 7,082.2
Maximum 7,715.0
Minimum 6,805.5

Excluded
Undisclosed 6,749.0

 

[neroden]

OT

It's easy to get upset when duty calls.

<--- Me

 

[EVNow]

I'm back with the detailed First Call TSLA Q4 revenue estimates:

(In $ thousands)
BofAML 6,926.6
Canaccord 7,715.0
Deutsche 6,976.1
Elazar Advisors 7,084.2
Evercore 6,805.5
Goldman Sachs 6,851.1
JMP 6,848.7
JPMorgan 7,020.0
Macquiarie 7,089.9
Needham 7,523.4
Oppenheimer 7,440.8
Piper 7,226.1
RBC 7,139.3
Roth 6,985.0
UBS 6,820.2
Undisclosed 6,895.0
Undisclosed 7,192.0
Undisclosed 7,032.0
Undisclosed 7,067.2
Wedbush 7,188.5
Wolfe Research 6,899.0

Consensus 7,082.2
Maximum 7,715.0
Minimum 6,805.5

Excluded
Undisclosed 6,749.0

These are really useful. Thx !

BTW, do analysts tend to update these nearer to the earnings release ? May be some kind of herding ?