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

[Chenkers]

Okay, wait.. do you consider a beta of 2.x to be LOW? I find that very very high relative to the company size, history, growth expectations. Or are you referring to % change and not truly “beta” ? Higher than that would be surprising short of a few random days. I’ve never seen anything reasonable at 4+

On days like today I typically see Tesla trading in the 2.5-3x range to NDX. Yes the Beta is high, but Tesla isn't like any other similar sized company. Yahoo Finance puts Tesla's 5 Year monthly Beta at 2.04. That's probably around Tesla's average but Tesla seems to outperform this on big up days. Tesla's Beta should settle down in future years, especially after we reach Investment Grade ratings. But for today it looks like we have to settle for a Beta that's under 1, thanks to the shorts and I suspect Elon selling another tranche.

Today is the sort of day we used to see big 10% corrections but there's too much headwind at the moment for that. We're down nearly 10% from this time last week and the NASDAQ has nearly made back all of that.

 

[StealthP3D]

wow? really?
I think I am seeing some protective mommies, or butt hurt daddies from elon's failures to communicate in the past. She had no political agenda or desire to damage Elon. Period. Typically Journalists will Take a popular quote from their leader, and then ask the interviewee why they would be in opposition...
She just lobbed up a few pitches and let Elon send em over whatever fence he wanted.
And now I am done...
Mod Away!!!!!

I don't think she has any personal animosity or desire to harm Tesla. That said, her primary job as a professional is to follow the guidance of management, her superiors. That's how you advance your career. Watch her body language as she walks off the stage at the end of the interview. To me, it clearly communicates that she failed to properly carry out guidance from superiors.

This shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the corporation's coverage of Elon and Tesla. Remember, they own Barrons, Investor's Business Daily, the WSJ. Have you even read the ridiculous articles they publish? Hello?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Ha.. looks like they're doing the same thing Google is rumored to be doing - spin off your dead end self driving unit and hopefully recover a bit of your investment while the market is still blind to the fact that this is structurally going to be another monopoly market like Search or Social, where one player dominates. Only on a much bigger scale.

But is Mobileye doing badly? Last I checked, they were in a lot of cars?

 

[Drax7]

In other news, my wife tells me that Intel is making Mobile Eye public - as in IPO. Intel, really? Is an IPO the only way to show strength in Self-driving or EVs? Or do they need all cash for Intel's CapX needs for this new FAB push and Mobile eye is a cost burden with no clear horizon?

Spinning off mobile eye may give us a rough market value of Tesla’s fsd,
even though they are not comparable.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Wow Mobileye could be worth 1/4 of Intel. That’s a lot.

Intel plans to take self-driving car unit public in the U.S. in mid-2022

Intel has announced that it plans to list Mobileye, the Israeli autonomous driving firm it acquired for $15.3 billion in 2017.

www.cnbc.com

 

[UncaNed]

CPCA numbers are out tomorrow at 4 pm. Wouldn’t be surprised if we get a leak today or tonight though

YAY! I can't wait to hear how the Canadian Parachute Club Association is doing!

 

[StealthP3D]

Power restored to parts of Honolulu after record rainfall causes flooding | CNN

Power has been restored to parts of downtown Honolulu after heavy rain flooded the area, but many residents and businesses will remain without power through Tuesday, according to a statement from Hawaii Electric.

edition.cnn.com

I remember Hawaii has at least one Tesla utility installation:

Tesla 565 MWh Megapack Project in Hawaii Is Celebrated with Groundbreaking Ceremony

158 Tesla Megapacks will be installed for the 565 MWh project on O'ahu, Hawaii to enable the shutdown of fossil-fueled power plants in 2022. The groundbreaking ceremony marked the beginning of the island's transition to a carbon-free grid by 2045, according to state policy.

www.tesmanian.com

Can't find any reports on Twitter as of yet, but anyone here have any purview into how well its handling the severe weather there right now?

Solar and storage is not particularly susceptible to severe weather, so I imagine it's doing fine. No doubt it's considered critical infrastructure, same as facilities like power generating plants and electrical sub-stations, so they are not located in hazardous areas subject to things like flooding and landslides. But a big enough disaster could impact any utility installation.

The idea that renewable facilities are more susceptible to severe weather is simply FUD spread in a lame attempt to protect fossil fuel generation.

 

[generalenthu]

But is Mobileye doing badly? Last I checked, they were in a lot of cars?

It is all relative. I believe Intel bought them for their ability to deploy self driving cars. But that requires a data engine like Tesla has where there is a continuous feedback loop from many people driving -> data goes to mothership -> new model gets trained -> OTA to cars -> cycle repeats. Absent that, its a dead end.

There are just too many problems in Mobileye's business model if they want to get to the above, one of the biggest being the OEMs reluctance to share any data their car produces once customers start using it. Waymo ran into same issue IMO.

So if you paid for a chance to grab a portion of the the self driving TAM, and a ton of cars have it pretty much for some glorified version of lane keeping, which is a dead-end, what are your options?

 

[Nocturnal]

Ha.. looks like they're doing the same thing Google is rumored to be doing - spin off your dead end self driving unit and hopefully recover a bit of your investment while the market is still blind to the fact that this is structurally going to be another monopoly market like Search or Social, where one player dominates. Only on a much bigger scale.

That's probably correct. If it was obvious that they were about to crack L5 then private money would flood in.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

It's simply not true that high EV prices are slowing the mission. The proof is that at current prices all manufacturers are selling all they can make. The mission would not be hastened by lower prices because there are no more EV's to sell. Looking forward, Tesla already has enviable profit margins on their EV's and those margins are growing with the natural cost curve declines for EV technology coupled with Tesla's manufacturing innovations. That means Tesla already has plenty of room to cut prices should it be necessary to goose sales in the future, and margin is growing, not shrinking.

You live in the US but perhaps you are not aware that the average price paid for a new car in the US has recently passed $45K for the first time ever. With EV's only making up less than 3% of all sales, we can't blame much of that on high EV prices. So, that $45K average price primarily represents vehicles that require gas, oil changes, etc. for the rest of their life and have a higher after-purchase cost to own.

EV's are being adopted in record numbers for many reasons but one of them is the lower total cost of ownership when compared to equivalent ICE cars (as if it were possible for there to be any direct equivalents). The EV ownership experience is superior, we just need more of them. As usual, it really is all about the batteries. If the government wants to accelerate the adoption of EV over ICE all they need to do is subsidize the manufacture of batteries. I think subsidies often have unintended negative consequences so I'm not recommending this, but a direct subsidy to battery production equipment/factories would be better than a vehicle purchase subsidy. This would increase battery production and therefore EV production and would actually speed the mission in a much less wasteful manner.

Tesla is in essence accumulating margin from legacy manufacturers, and will deploy it as Elon sees fit. Probably keep accumulating another 2-3 years then start getting creative with their margin "chips"(poker, not electronic) as cell production scales.

I see most future creativity happening on the Energy side(perhaps incorporated with charging, V2G, etc) and am placing my TSLA "bets" accordingly. Insane margins for a couple more quarters, then a relative dip as new factories scale, then an unimaginable liftoff from 2023 onward.

 

[goinfraftw]

Solar and storage is not particularly susceptible to severe weather, so I imagine it's doing fine. No doubt it's considered critical infrastructure, same as facilities like power generating plants and electrical sub-stations, so they are not located in hazardous are subject to things like flooding and landslides. But a big enough disaster could impact any utility installation.

The idea that renewable facilities are more susceptible to severe weather is simply FUD spread in a lame attempt to protect fossil fuel generation.

Cool and did not know that! Also, I was wondering if there were blackouts on the island and how well people's lights are on through catastrophic flooding right now (with solar/storage) compared to previous disasters (with no solar/storage).

 

[Krugerrand]

OK I will say it again. I am not talking about short term. 100% correct that high EV prices are not slowing the mission NOW. If a lower price of entry isnt needed then Tesla should scrap the plans for the $25K EV. You dont need to tell me about the EV experience. I have/had 4 with a 5th being delivered soon. That isnt the case for most people in the US. The massive demand for Tesla's in the US right now even at $60K is nothing compared to what the demand will need to be to combat climate change rapidly. I mean what does that represent in the US total new car market?

Simply put high EV prices are not slowing the mission, but high prices will slow the mission in the future.

That makes no sense unless you think Tesla isn’t ever going to produce the 25k version. I did pretty good at math in school and so I believe 25k<45k<60k.

So your ‘future’ doesn’t even exist if Tesla simply continues their path forward.

The world is not static. EV pricing isn’t static. What people will or will not be able to afford in the future is not static. Do not apply today to tomorrow; that would lead you to incorrect conclusions.

 

[Gigapress]

2003 was precisely the right year for founding Tesla and the development of modern EVs.

Actually if the government had just let capitalism take it's course and not subsidies big oil we would have had EVs 30 years ago or more because fuel prices would have rocketed up and people would not have be able to afford fueling an ICE.

Fuel prices would've been more expensive without big oil subsidies but we would not have had good EVs until the 21st century. Inflation-adjusted oil prices today are nearly double what they were 30 years ago, yet a billion people are still driving ICE. Had the subsidies been removed in the 90s we probably still would've had all ICE until recently. Also, prices were extremely high from 1974-1986 and 2007-2014, yet everyone was still driving ICE.

An ICE-competitive EV experience relies on several technologies that weren't available 30 years ago, especially:

1. High performance microelectronics for the battery management systems, inverters, and various sensors
2. Lithium ion batteries

See, nothing in science has changed. Chemistry did not suddenly switch properties and poof batteries suddenly could happen. What happened is someone (one of those evil capitalist /s) finally spent the money to setup a battery form for mass production. That process could have started in the 70's or 80's. If I recall correctly serious lithium research started in the 70's.

Although the laws of physics appear to be consistent across all of spacetime, it took humanity a very long time to discover and codify those laws, and even after that it's not like we can just jump straight from Maxwell's equations to 4680s and Plaid motors. Engineering is hard and it takes time.

Research into batteries began over 200 years ago--a century before oil became a practical energy source for transport. Battery research has been tightly coupled to fundamental research in electrochemistry since the beginning.
Still, the basic research into ion intercalation didn't happen until the 1960s. The invention of a practical lithium ion battery design literally required Nobel prize-winning work by multiple researchers starting 40 years ago with chemist Dr. M. Stanley Whittingham developing the first lithium ion cell (which was a lab prototype design that was complete garbage for several reasons), and more recently, decades of major contributions by the almighty Dr. Jeff Dahn. As with all significant advances in modern technology, Li-ion batteries started with fundamental research mainly in universities with capitalist commercialization coming after the tech matured enough for market viability.

GM had a road map for mass producing batteries (not lithium) and a factory in 2000.

The "not lithium" portion of this was a fatal flaw and they rightfully cancelled that project. Mass production of Ni-Cad batteries or whatever else they had planned would have been a spectacular example of optimizing something that shouldn't even exist.

History of the lithium-ion battery
History of oil prices
History of electrochemistry

 

[MXWing]

Spinning off mobile eye may give us a rough market value of Tesla’s fsd,
even though they are not comparable.

The comps do not matter anymore in 2021.

It did however in 2017. I believe my justification that Tesla had AT LEAST 15.3 billion worth of value in a takeover bid just because that's how much INTC bought MBLY for.

Tesla market cap was 52 billion in 2017. 15.3 billion of intrinsic value out of 52 billion just on AP1 functionality is pretty good.

 

[StealthP3D]

Simply put high EV prices are not slowing the mission, but high prices will slow the mission in the future.

Maybe you are unaware of the declining curve of the cost to manufacture an EV and where that will put us in 3 years and in 6 years, etc. Wright's Law does not apply only to Tesla, other manufacturers will see declining costs with every doubling of production. This is a well understood principle, it's a lot cheaper to produce, the higher volumes go. It could be argued that one highly competent manufacturer like Tesla, supplying the market with EV's in huge numbers, could reduce costs further than having 10 or 15 corporations all replicating the development efforts of each other. All with their own supply chains, part numbers, retail outlets, software systems, advertising budgets, etc. I'm not advocating encouraging this with a subsidy to the most efficient manufacturer, but it would have a much lower environmental footprint and be far more efficient.

Wright's Law will work in reverse on ICE cars. Every percent of market share lost to EV's will incrementally push up the price to produce an ICE car.

Tesla is transforming auto manufacturing with a number of innovations that are already dramatically lowering the cost to produce cars in general and EV's specifically. It's unclear why you think a rapid shift to EV's requires government subsidies.

 

[ZeApelido]

I just get the feeling that Linette just isn't that smart.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1468265704851869696

 

[The Accountant]

Deliveries where? I thought all of Fremont production was staying here in the US or North America, and doesnt make sense shipping them over the panama canal. Unless we're talking S / X here. And I am not sure they're shipping those over to Europe / China yet.

In Q3 and this Q4, Tesla sent out 2 ships each qtr from SFO port to Asia Pacific (Taiwan and Korea I believe).
They may be sending ship(s) now for a Q1/Q2 2022 delivery.

 

[BornToFly]

Tesla is doomed. Doomed!!! Ford plans to make 200,000 F-150 Lightenings... over 3 years!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1468233037766963202

 

[madodel]

Wow Mobileye could be worth 1/4 of Intel. That’s a lot.

Intel plans to take self-driving car unit public in the U.S. in mid-2022

Intel has announced that it plans to list Mobileye, the Israeli autonomous driving firm it acquired for $15.3 billion in 2017.

www.cnbc.com

Stellantis Software Event today claims that software (automated driving and UI) will account for $20B of value for Stellantis by 2030. They even showed a mock up of a car with a landscape oriented big center screen with almost no buttons/knobs in the cockpit. I tell you this is the future.

 

[thesmokingman]

Stellantis Software Event today claims that software (automated driving and UI) will account for $20B of value for Stellantis by 2030. They even showed a mock up of a car with a landscape oriented big center screen with almost no buttons/knobs in the cockpit. I tell you this is the future.

Their CEO was just on CNBC. He was spewing vaporware on the level of Mary Bara, it was hilarity.