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

[dhanson865]

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslainvestorsclub/comments/qtogro

I'm not sure why that got posted today, the article it came from is from February. Not exactly news.

 

[berryja]

I’ve yet to have a negative customer service experience with my MY. Maybe my expectations are too low.

Have an appointment this week for tire swaps, winterizing windows and handles, and to check a rattle under the hood (a panel isn’t snapping back in to in place). Let’s see if I still feel the same after that day.

I picked up my Model S Plaid two days ago in Jacksonville. They handed me my keys and said any questions look on YouTube. Definitely gone down hill since the red carpet treatment I got in 2014. The whole ordering process this go around had been horrible. I do believe in the mission and the product and I hope that customer service will improve.

 

[Buckminster]

News from Glasgow: EU will ban sales of new fossil fuel cars from 2035. Only zero-emission allowed.
This has been ratified and signed by all member states.

I googled this - got a link?

 

[JustMe]

Weekends are such a drag…

 

[navguy12]

It’s a four year warranty

Not on squeaks and rattles. IIRC, that is a 12 month covered item.

 

[H Mak]

Musk has a small number of weaknesses, one of them is not realising that the US works by lobbying and the optimum thing to do is to cultivate politicians on both sides.
Doesn’t matter what politicians say but what they do. For example on a state level because of dealers influence Tesla can’t sell freely.
So far the product is to good but one day this oversight may hurt Tesla a lot more if adversaries use their political influence to actively thwart Tesla.

Blimey, this forum still has members who think Elon Musk should follow the crowd rather go his own way. Interesting take on the man who has spent his whole life doing the opposite of what everyone else does.

 

[Highway2Heel]

I’ve had nothing but excellent experiences with Tesla customer service. Recently, a Tesla mobile unit came and repaired wheel well damage on my X from debris in the road and they were on time, did a terrific job and the price charged was more than fair.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

I don’t think Waymos will take the highway either, right?

I don't know. Certainly not if the highway/freeway is outside the geofensed area.

 

[15Peter20]

As someone who is already 100% in TSLA, all I see is my portfolio shrinking. It’s not a buy opportunity because most of my life savings is already in TSLA. So yes, it’s irritating.

But unless you’re planning to sell soon the recent dip from ATH is just noise, albeit unnerving no doubt. If the long term trend is holding up then all is well, right?

Others, like me, were a bit late to the party and are trying hard to accumulate TSLA, so these dips are helpful (and also unnerving!).

 

[JRP3]

This feels like one of those times when Elon has stabbed himself in the leg and is now twisting the knife... I understand his frustration, but he will never appease politicians and selling core Tesla stock was the one thing he said he would never do before he needed to fund missions to Mars.

He's sold shares before and he told us a few months ago he would sell these shares. He's just selling some extra.

 

[insaneoctane]

. . . .and there's more! This was part of what Clayton Christensen was pointing out when he wrote his book The Innovator's Dilemma.

Let's say Tesla makes $10k on each car while Legacy makes $2k on their Electric vehicle.
But for every electric vehicle sold an ICE vehicle sale is lost. If Legacy was making $10k on the lost ICE vehicle sale, they are down $8k ($2k less the $10k)

I worked a large company that held significant market share and we brought in Clayton Christensen to take us through the innovator's dilemma theory.
Bringing him in was meant to get us to think about changing our strategy (as startups were starting to disrupt our industry). When the session with Clayton was over, instead of motivating us to change, we walked out of there thinking, "We're Screwed".

View attachment 732896

It would be very enlightening to do this math for Ford and the F150e, F150 and CT....

 

[CanadaEV]

There is room to disagree but my point is not to fall into the trap of assuming the best answer can only be the traditional answer.

Exactly.
The traditional answer is just as fake as corporate advertising.
The customer is always right... subject to a cost/benefit analysis.

Would you go back to your friend who sold you his car three years ago, complaining about a rattle?
Why would corporations promote this kind of behaviour, warranty or no warranty?
It's all fake and designed to weaken the integrity of the other side in the relationship.

 

[Opus BC fan]

Elon, like many of us, has had to deal with bullies all his life. Greed, power, and envy motivate bullies. Every group, organization, political party, and corporation has them. Good for Elon that he sticks up for himself. Great for us that he has not let these people deter him.

"Illegitimi non carborundum" is the last page of my high school yearbook - I think it was good advice.

OT - now I will drop this...

 

[Rarity]

Musk has a small number of weaknesses, one of them is not realising that the US works by lobbying and the optimum thing to do is to cultivate politicians on both sides.
Doesn’t matter what politicians say but what they do. For example on a state level because of dealers influence Tesla can’t sell freely.
So far the product is to good but one day this oversight may hurt Tesla a lot more if adversaries use their political influence to actively thwart Tesla.

Honestly, I don't know what Musk is doing. I don't see all the angles.

There are several conversations going on. At times, there is direct public dialog. Sometimes, it's using the other guy as a prop to make a point. Some of this dialog is really about an argument that is happening off-line. And then we have the conversation in DC and the internet that ebbs and flows every day as the government's voracious appetite for funding searches for the full pockets.

I do think it's important to keep in mind that the US body politic is substantially to the center-right versus other countries. Sanders, Reich, et al. are not the ones making real decisions. This is in part a parochial discussion and at times it may be useful for Musk to make comments using them as a foil. Of course, Sanders, Reich, et al. (and the WFP and UN, etc.) will use Musk as a foil too, considering he is now by far the richest person in the world.

 

[Gigapress]

Benefits of opening up the supercharging network:

• Accelerate transition to sustainable energy
  • This is the point of Tesla existing
  • Also comes with political benefits
    • Tesla doesn't look like an evil monopoly, and garners support from the growing number of decarbonization activists
  • Also helps keep employees motivated and makes them continue to be dedicated beyond their short-term desire for money or prestige
    • Being truly mission-driven is, in my opinion, Tesla's single biggest fundamental competitive advantage that is a root cause of almost all the other competitive advantages

• Less chance of waiting in line, assuming that network scales in proportion with total number of users
  • This is counter-intuitive, but I have math to prove it.
    • Every station has a probability distribution of how many people are using it in a given time interval. I suspect that no one (except @jhm) wants to see the full math, but here's a summary.
      • Suppose Station 1 and Station 2 have peak demand in a 20 minute interval that approximately follows a Poisson probability distribution
      • Both stations are sized such that the average peak demand is 70% of the number of stalls
      • Station 1 has 10 stalls and 7 users on average at peak times
        • 9.9% likelihood of Station 1 having a wait time in a given 20 minute rush hour period
          • Excel formula: =1-POISSON.DIST(10,7,TRUE)
      • Station 2 has 30 stalls and 21 users on average
        • 2.4%likelihood of Station 2 having a wait time in a given 20 minute rush hour period
          • Excel formula: =1-POISSON.DIST(30,21,TRUE)
      • So, Station 2 is going to have 4x less chance of needing to wait in line in rush hour than Station 1 despite both stations having the same 70% average capacity factor!
      • In general, it can be shown that bigger stations with a proportionally bigger customer base always have less chance of hitting saturation, which is better for everyone
        • Or equivalently, a patch of several smaller stations in an small area experiences a similar effect
        • Alternatively, Tesla could design the network to maintain constant likelihood of waiting in line, but increase the average capacity factor, thus requiring fewer stalls per user for the same level of service. Or they could choose somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Any way you look at it, scale makes the network better.

• Everyone who uses it must install the Tesla app, make an account, and use it every time they charge.
  • Tesla app cross-sells on other products: Cars, FSD, Solar, Powerwall, any future consumer products
  • The mere act of establishing a relationship with the Tesla brand majorly increases the likelihood of interest in a future purchase, because in a sense it lowers the mental "activation energy" for deciding to explore the Tesla website more. It's a similar mechanism and effect as clickbait has, but stronger.

• Everyone who uses it will see a lot of Tesla vehicles
  • Meeting Tesla owners, asking questions, seeing concrete social proof of the product from "normal" people who seem friendly and reasonable, rather than abstract easily-dismissable cult members.
  • Familiarity bias. Consumers prefer products that they have seen more frequently.

• Everyone who uses it sees the Tesla vehicles charging faster, starts to learn about the battery superiority, then starts to want a Tesla

• Greater number of users --> Greater number of stations --> Greater density of stations --> Lesser average distance between stations --> More convenience, more route options and more route planning simplicity for all network participants

• Greater number of users --> More economies of scale for manufacturing and software upgrades --> Lower average cost per stall

• ICE owners see EV chargers more often

Notes: As someone already mentioned, jerks who take up two stalls to lazily accommodate the fact that their vehicle has an inconvenient charger location can have their privileges removed, or they can simply be charged twice the money.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Weekends are such a drag…

I wonder if we'll think that after Elon dumps his shares for the next couple of weeks.

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

I picked up my Model S Plaid two days ago in Jacksonville. They handed me my keys and said any questions look on YouTube. Definitely gone down hill since the red carpet treatment I got in 2014. The whole ordering process this go around had been horrible. I do believe in the mission and the product and I hope that customer service will improve.

It’s 2021. That’s the way things are and should be. Just like how video games don’t come with instruction booklets anymore. Anyone under the age of 50 just doesn’t need that stuff anymore, we’re able to learn on the fly. Not to mention Tesla had all kinds of tutorial vids on their site and in the app. I’d rather they spend time delivering cars than wasting time explaining features to people.

 

[JustMe]

I wonder if we'll think that after Elon dumps his shares for the next couple of weeks.

I honestly don’t see why that’s a problem for LT investors. A year from now I reckon most folks will see this as a buying opportunity.

 

[Singuy]

Honestly, I don't know what Musk is doing. I don't see all the angles.

There are several conversations going on. At times, there is direct public dialog. Sometimes, it's using the other guy as a prop to make a point. Some of this dialog is really about an argument that is happening off-line. And then we have the conversation in DC and the internet that ebbs and flows every day as the government's voracious appetite for funding searches for the full pockets.

I do think it's important to keep in mind that at least in the US, the body politic is substantially to the center-right versus other countries. Sanders, Reich, et al. are not the ones making real decisions. This is in part a parochial discussion and at times it may be useful for Musk to make comments using them as a foil.

Musk calling their bluff. He knows the billionaire tax is nonsense...and he is sick and tired of being demonized for political points when the unrealized gains tax is not a real plan. So he just give them all the power right now..have Elon pay all the tax and tank the market..one word and Elon will do it(and he doesn't care about paying taxes nor does he need the money).

 

[hobbes]

Blimey, this forum still has members who think Elon Musk should follow the crowd rather go his own way. Interesting take on the man who has spent his whole life doing the opposite of what everyone else does.

He should go his own way if it is the right thing - like revolutionize the auto industry and help limit climate change. But his juvenile/insulting comments on twitter (what we discussed today was by far not the first he has written lately) cannot be justified just by saying it is good for him to go his own way. Elon has not disrupted fossil fuel car industry by insulting the incumbents, but by setting a good example and dragging everyone along.