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

[woodisgood]

These last few years have been wild, shocking, sometimes disturbing, and triumphant. So privileged to have spent a good portion of them amongst your company - some of the brightest, most interesting folks I’ve been around at one time. Here’s wishing for good health & happiness for all of you in the coming year and continued success for the mission.

 

[Singuy]

Dr. Know It All has a very good explanation about counting protons. Even though I summarized how getting rid of post processing allows for 13ms of latency decrease, the main takeaway from what Elons said should be that allowing protons to be processed by NN directly should allow super human vision that can see through rough weather conditions and darkness.

 

[thesmokingman]

True that, plus it's fun!

I was literally pitching FSD Beta at midnight (sober) in the rain (part of my job description). No other cars around... Point being, 3 of us entered the vehicle in 2021, let it drive around on voice command, then exited the vehicle in 2022. A time machine indeed! Doc, was that you?

View attachment 750827

We were so into it, we completely missed the countdown at midnight, lol. Arrived back to the party at 12:07 AM. Will never forget that ride. We saw some big fireworks on the drive, but still none of use caught on. The family went on to argue Model Y or Model 3 for their 19 year old (kids were insisting on a 3).

Nah, get them a used BMW i3 so they can't kill themselves at least w/o trying real hard.

 

[ggr]

Mod: Great start to the new year, thanks. Bees, or wheels? If only we knew the price of spare wheels for beekeepers...

For the relative newbies (post 2014!) there is actually an entire thread on TMC relating to beekeeping: Beekeeping
I kept the original video because it was interesting, and a couple of funny comments, but no more here please.

So killed two topics with one blow.
--ggr

 

[Mengy]

These last few years have been wild, shocking, sometimes disturbing, and triumphant. So privileged to have spent a good portion of them amongst your company - some of the brightest, most interesting folks I’ve been around at one time. Here’s wishing for good health & happiness for all of you in the coming year and continued success for the mission.

I agree, this forum and thread have been invaluable. I started investing in TSLA many years ago but I only discovered TMC in the past year or two. I always had faith TSLA would be going up over time but I never fathomed it would be going so far up so quickly.

It's been quite a ride so far but something tells me this is only the beginning, and that my initial expectations for TSAL were far too conservative.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I have low expectations for TSAL, STLA…
High for the similar one. Can’t wait for this year to play out. Will be super super super exciting I think.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

New Wuwa video shows Model 3s coming out of Shanghai every 45.5 seconds. So today's videos showed:

Model Y every 36.1 seconds
Model 3 every 45.5 seconds

I was one of a few that did try, in the youtube comments, to get Wu Wa to do this many months ago. He never really responded, that I saw at least, or did it so I kinda gave up. Glad he's doing it now.

Anyone good enough with math to know how many times it would take to get a decently accurate number? For say a month. Let's say he did this a few minutes twice a week on different times of day. Would that be enough to make some reasonable conclusions?

 

[Artful Dodger]

I was one of a few that did try, in the youtube comments, to get Wu Wa to do this many months ago. He never really responded, that I saw at least, or did it so I kinda gave up. Glad he's doing it now.

Anyone good enough with math to know how many times it would take to get a decently accurate number? For say a month. Let's say he did this a few minutes twice a week on different times of day. Would that be enough to make some reasonable conclusions?

Almost completely meaningless. Final assembly is NOT the bottleneck. It is parts supply (especially battery packs) which you will NEVER see in a Wu Wa video.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I agree, this forum and thread have been invaluable. I started investing in TSLA many years ago but I only discovered TMC in the past year or two. I always had faith TSLA would be going up over time but I never fathomed it would be going so far up so quickly.

It's been quite a ride so far but something tells me this is only the beginning, and that my initial expectations for TSAL were far too conservative.

Tesla's execution when it came to operating the business from a financial and efficiency point of view, absolutely blew away everyone this year. Even big TSLA bulls, including myself, were blown away by the gross/operating margins Tesla was putting up on relatively small increases in volume quarter over quarter, on falling ASP quarter over quarter and with EV credits dropping quarter over quarter. Just absolutely unreal execution

Back at the beginning of 2021, I would have thought Tesla would have needed to hit quarterly volumes of GREATER than 250k to hit the gross and operating margins that they hit in Q1/Q2. The fact that they did it with S/X not helping (and actually hurting margins in Q1/Q2) is something I still find myself amazed by.

There's no doubt in my mind that Wall St was trying for and hoping for a much larger fall and consolidation for TSLA this year. But Zach/Drew/and everyone responsible for efficiency within the operations absolutely killed it in 2021. Now we're set up to where even if TSLA stays around this 1,100 level, it will be a value play by Q2 2022 earnings.

There's so much runway for the stock in 2022 if Tesla continues to be masterful in their operations of the company and I see no reason to think they're suddenly going to falter now.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Almost completely meaningless. Final assembly is NOT the bottleneck. It is parts supply (especially battery packs) which you will NEVER see in a Wu Wa video.

Well, meaningless in one way, very important in others. We get a sense of what the maximum can be when supply parts and logistics allow it.

 

[mars_or_bust]

Dr. Know It All has a very good explanation about counting protons. Even though I summarized how getting rid of post processing allows for 13ms of latency decrease, the main takeaway from what Elons said should be that allowing protons to be processed by NN directly should allow super human vision that can see through rough weather conditions and darkness.

photons, not protons. Very different beasts.

 

[Oveeus]

Happy new year to all my fellow TSLA investors.

Just wanted to comment a few things.

First, as it's finally 1/1/2022 and some of the limit expired for my source after she/he left the job so it no longer held her/him back.

His/her job involved being a major supplier to Tesla and the production figures Tesla originally provided them for 2021/22/23 were 1.1/2/4M respectively.
This was before the whole supply-chain-disruption and all the shenanigans going on with Giga Austin/Berlin as well as before my source left for other job. Thus, take it with a grain of salt and adjustments. But assuming it's true, it gives a glimpse about the internal confidence that Tesla as far as production goes. At 4M capacity in 23, it'd either mean more Giga coming online or each factory can do 1M car. This is amazing if they can somehow achieve this level of production rate.

Second, there's a new reply from Elon to Dave's original tweet of forming X, bringing all entities under the same umbrella.
The way I think about the reasoning behind is, beyond the cross-collab opportunities among all the entities (neuralink-controlled TeslaBot? SpaceX/Starlink equipped Tesla car/bot? so much more), is to attract talents by allowing (existing/potential) employees at all these entities to be financially compensated. Yes, Elon could take those firms public somehow, but their value or IPO potential would be severely limited given how early-stage are some of these entities. And high-caliber talents, who would like their talent to be equally compensated financially might end up taking the wrong or less optimistic role simply because of stock options. This eliminates that and creates a more attractive environment for talents now that TSLA is in the 1T club.

By creating a conglomerate such as Alphabet did with Google and many of its purchases/ventures, Elon and Zach can more effectively allocate resources (more than anything $$$). Think it this way... TSLA is on the way to have a 20B+ warchest. A new Giga is roughly 5B a pop and the main reason that TSLA isn't building any more (yet) is because there simply isn't enough supply to cells that can satisfy another new Giga. And keeping that much liquidity in an growth entity such as TSLA is quite a waste of resources. In growth stage, investor want firms to burn money as long as it meant a potential for big returns down the road. By keeping so much cash, TSLA might be attracting a different and less desirable investor pool that might in a way or another affects the way it derives its decisions.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

His/her job involved being a major supplier to Tesla and the production figures Tesla originally provided them for 2021/22/23 were 1.1/2/4M respectively.

There was also that company wide all hands back in Q1 where Elon told the employees they were shooting for over 1 million in 2021.

It has always seemed to clear to me that Elon's supply issue rants on the earnings calls had everything to do with him wanting to do 1 million for the year. Some people took it as a Tesla wouldn't grow much for the year or at all.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Tesla's execution when it came to operating the business from a financial and efficiency point of view, absolutely blew away everyone this year. Even big TSLA bulls, including myself, were blown away by the gross/operating margins Tesla was putting up on relatively small increases in volume quarter over quarter, on falling ASP quarter over quarter and with EV credits dropping quarter over quarter. Just absolutely unreal execution

Back at the beginning of 2021, I would have thought Tesla would have needed to hit quarterly volumes of GREATER than 250k to hit the gross and operating margins that they hit in Q1/Q2. The fact that they did it with S/X not helping (and actually hurting margins in Q1/Q2) is something I still find myself amazed by.

There's no doubt in my mind that Wall St was trying for and hoping for a much larger fall and consolidation for TSLA this year. But Zach/Drew/and everyone responsible for efficiency within the operations absolutely killed it in 2021. Now we're set up to where even if TSLA stays around this 1,100 level, it will be a value play by Q2 2022 earnings.

There's so much runway for the stock in 2022 if Tesla continues to be masterful in their operations of the company and I see no reason to think they're suddenly going to falter now.

Most of the price increases over the last year also haven't yet filtered into the quarterly results due to order backlog timing. Zach also mentioned that the price increases are due to demand management and not COGS increases - so all else being equal there is further margin expansion already baked into the next couple of quarters. This might be one of the key drivers of Zach's statements that the Berlin/Austin ramp won't hurt company level margins.

 

[Unpilot]

Next week is going to be SO awesome!

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Most of the price increases over the last year also haven't yet filtered into the quarterly results due to order backlog timing. Zach also mentioned that the price increases are due to demand management and not COGS increases - so all else being equal there is further margin expansion already baked into the next couple of quarters. This might be one of the key drivers of Zach's statements that the Berlin/Austin ramp won't hurt company level margins.

That's pretty much my thought process on margins for 2022. The price hikes throughout 2021 will support margins in the face of low production out of Berlin/Austin. Gross margins will stagnate or only slightly improve in Q1/Q2 though I think operating margin will continue to expand, just a slower pace than what it did from Q1 to Q2 to Q3. Then both gross and operational margins will start growing materially again in Q3/Q4. Q4 especially could quite a big jump in both margins.

Wild cards are S/X. If S/X production is only say 15k in Q4, then there's still more margin upside in Q1 if they get the production back to 25k. There's also price hikes for the S/X that happened in 2021 that haven't taken full effect yet. So another bit of further margin help there. Another margin upside is Megapack expansion which also had price hikes of it's own in 2021. A combination of Megapack expansion + the price hikes could result in meaningful margin expansion all throughout 2022 for Energy.

Lastly of course, there's FSD. I'm not talking about Robotaxi, just FSD getting far enough to allow to go to wide release. Which btw still doesn't have to be hands free. Just as long as the functionality is all there, Tesla can start to recognize the additional revenue. The moment FSD goes to wide release, margin will explode.

 

[heltok]

We can probably expect some demand in China to be pulled forward from 2023 to 2022.

Beijing (AFP) – China will end subsidies for electric and hybrid cars at the end of the year, authorities have announced, saying the strength of sales in the sector meant state support was no longer needed.


In a statement published Friday, the Ministry of Finance said purchase subsidies would be reduced by 30 percent from the beginning of 2022 before being scrapped completely by the end of the year.
"Given the growth of the industry for vehicles with new energy, the sales trends and the smooth transition of manufacturers, the subsidies... will end on December 31," the ministry said.
"Vehicles registered after December 31, 2022 will not be subsidised."

China to scrap subsidies for electric vehicles

China will end subsidies for electric and hybrid cars at the end of the year, authorities have announced, saying the strength of sales in the sector meant state support was no longer needed.

www.france24.com

 

[Singuy]

We can probably expect some demand in China to be pulled forward from 2023 to 2022.

Beijing (AFP) – China will end subsidies for electric and hybrid cars at the end of the year, authorities have announced, saying the strength of sales in the sector meant state support was no longer needed.


In a statement published Friday, the Ministry of Finance said purchase subsidies would be reduced by 30 percent from the beginning of 2022 before being scrapped completely by the end of the year.
"Given the growth of the industry for vehicles with new energy, the sales trends and the smooth transition of manufacturers, the subsidies... will end on December 31," the ministry said.
"Vehicles registered after December 31, 2022 will not be subsidised."

China to scrap subsidies for electric vehicles

China will end subsidies for electric and hybrid cars at the end of the year, authorities have announced, saying the strength of sales in the sector meant state support was no longer needed.

www.france24.com

Incase people are wondering what are the subsidies today out of China. So a 30% reduction starting 2022 is a $850 USD reduction, and the rest of the ~2000 US dollars will be phased out by 2022. So not entirely a game changer or anything but you know, it may pull something forward.

 

[Jack6591]

I feel as though the stars are aligning…

Futures Rise To Kick Off 2022; Tesla Signals Breakout

China EV makers also climbed on strong year-end deliveries.

www.investors.com

 

[JustMe]

I feel as though the stars are aligning…

Futures Rise To Kick Off 2022; Tesla Signals Breakout

China EV makers also climbed on strong year-end deliveries.

www.investors.com

While it’s nice that technical indicators are trending towards a buy TSLA signal, I snickered at the following:

“….shares pulled back modestly in tight fashion, ending the week just below the 50-day line. On a weekly chart, it now has handle, giving it a 1,119.10 buy point with a double-bottom base.”

I mean, it seems like $1,060 is a better buy point?