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

[EVNow]

Month 1 of the quarter will be really bad due to overseas shipments. Month 2 will have the same issue. In month 3 all the shipments finally hit their targets along with domestic deliveries. Talk about fodder...

That is exactly what they need to show & explain. Release monthly figures going back a couple of years and to show the seasonal variation.

They could also talk about how many cars are in transit to customers and possibly how many orders they received in the month.

"Demand issues" is a repeating theme. If they want to better serve the investors, they need to squash the rumors. Reports of "Tesla dropped 5% today" does affect general news that affects brand perception which is so important for sales, ultimately.

 

[Singer3000]

I wonder how many hours collectively we’ve spent on Vin counting, ship tracking, spreadsheet monitoring, Reddit trawling, Musk translating, anecdote sharing etc... and still none of us have any real clue what Q1 production and deliveries will be!

I’ve never been to Fremont. How hard would it be to setup a webcams outside the gate and just count the damn cars as they get moved out? Pay some local kid to change the batteries once a day. Would save us all a lot of time.

 

[EVNow]

Did you mean they might be hurting TSLA not Tesla?

They are related. EM has talked about how the SP affects the mood of the employees, for eg. It also affects the brand perception and narrative - which ultimately affects sales.

 

[anthonyj]

So, a thread that wasn't started until early March with less than a dozen people waiting and within a couple of weeks they started getting their cars is evidence of a suitable large number of complaints that points to high demand for LR Model 3?

Really? We've seen a drop-off of over 19K cars per month!

Look, I've been driving Teslas, owning Tesla stock, and participating on TMC longer than most here today. I'm not a short - I still have shares I purchased in 2011. I never worried about Model S steady state demand previously. But, I am now worried about Model 3 LR (including Perf) demand in the US.

If we look at Q4's deliveries (all US), and then look at Jan/Feb, there's a big falloff. And Feb was less than Jan! If the Jan/Feb sales are not indicative of the steady state demand for Model 3 LR variants because of pull forward demand, then Q4 is also not indicative on the other side. Somewhere between 25K cars/month and 6K cars/month (Dec and Feb) is probably the number. What steady state number would you pick? Pick a number and then it's easy to calculate the pull-forward and payback.

And to be clear, I'm NOT worried about Model 3 SR demand anywhere. But, if almost all the demand is for SR variants, then Tesla is in for a bunch of short term pain as that's not a profitable enough car for them to making right now when they need cash to fund things like Model Y factories.

InsideEVs numbers aren’t accurate. They are taking the guidance number and adjusting for seasonality and EU/China orders. Nothing more than a guess.

 

[RobStark]

I was going to say...why would they suddenly stop at October of 2018? Hmmm....

Because those are the numbers they feel have been properly verified and audited?

Model 3 isn't past 400k vehicles.

Nissan Leaf crosses 400,000 cumulative global sales

 

[EVNow]

I’ve never been to Fremont. How hard would it be to setup a webcams outside the gate and just count the damn cars as they get moved out? Pay some local kid to change the batteries once a day. Would save us all a lot of time.

Just need to get some real estate in front of the factory (or wherever the cars are taken out from). Have a few of them setup for redundancy …

 

[Papafox]

I remember the days when there was a campaign to ban program trading. It's not really possible to ban program trading (how can you tell whether it's a program or a human?) but they really should have banned a few things:
-- high speed trading should be illegal; this can be enforced by a tax on each trade, which would simply make it impossible to make a profit doing high speed trading
-- algorithms trading on newsreading should be illegal; they've caused at least five flash crashes already and are so dumb that they're pretty easy to spot.

As long as we're suggesting reasonable changes to trading laws, don't forget to include a permanent implementation of the alternate uptick rule so that short sellers cannot use their orders to push a stock lower. Investors could still short a stock, but their ability to manipulate the price of that stock down would be weakened, as we have seen on days when the uptick rule is in effect for TSLA.

 

[neroden]

Actually no, AI is pretty smart and getting smarter as time goes on. It’s called machine learning for a reason.

Newsreader AI in particular is still really dumb and easy to manipulate. It's a hard problem, and I explained it before: the problem is that it's a competitive game: the defense, trying to comprehend and analyze articles, is way behind the *offense*, which is creating manipulative articles and is really quite good at it now. :-(

Smart humans can still spot AI-written propaganda and manipulative trick articles a lot of the time (average humans are another matter and are pretty bad at it), but we haven't figured out exactly how we're spotting it, and the AIs can't spot it. It may take a long time. I think we're spotting it with the boogeyman of AI development, "general knowledge", which is something which AIs are not going to get within my lifetime.

I can't count the number of times I've spotted that an article is suspicious, phony, or manipulative because something about it which was *outside the topic domain of the article* rang up in my head as wrong. You can train a newsreader AI to read the dates on the articles (this would have stopped most of the early flash crashes caused by old articles being pushed through news feeds), but training them to spot subtler signs of fakeness? Hard.

 

[neroden]

British Model 3 Review

That's actually a *really good review*. Thorough. I learned a lot from it. This is the review I'd recommend to people considering buying the car without a test drive.

 

[EVNow]

As long as we're suggesting reasonable changes to trading laws, don't forget to include a permanent implementation of the alternate uptick rule so that short sellers cannot use their orders to push a stock lower. Investors could still short a stock, but their ability to manipulate the price of that stock down would be weakened, as we have seen on days when the uptick rule is in effect for TSLA.

What is the benefit to shorting at all ? That we don't have stock market bubbles … ? Obviously we do ...

The fact is - Wall St needs much stricter regulation. Which means things like shorting should be illegal.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I’ve never been to Fremont. How hard would it be to setup a webcams outside the gate and just count the damn cars as they get moved out?

One of the analysts did that in Q2/Q3 last year. They had to guess somewhat as Tesla was moving cars out of the factory gates in dry vans to staging lots in various places (Lathrop, Burbank Airport, random office parking lots). Their numbers were never nearly as accurate as those leaked to Skabooshka and later to Fred.

 

[neroden]

If we look at Q4's deliveries (all US), and then look at Jan/Feb, there's a big falloff. And Feb was less than Jan! If the Jan/Feb sales are not indicative of the steady state demand for Model 3 LR variants because of pull forward demand, then Q4 is also not indicative on the other side. Somewhere between 25K cars/month and 6K cars/month (Dec and Feb) is probably the number. What steady state number would you pick?

Sure. I pick 12000/month (3000/week). (Notice that this makes the numbers work; I got to roughly this number by two different computation methods.)

I do think it will go up as "Model 3 awareness" increases, since that happened with Model S.

If I'm right, then here's the interesting thing: with international demand total being a little bit more than US demand, the world demand for LR variants would then be 6000/week, or as it turns out, most of Fremont's capacity.

Pick a number and then it's easy to calculate the pull-forward and payback.

And to be clear, I'm NOT worried about Model 3 SR demand anywhere. But, if almost all the demand is for SR variants, then Tesla is in for a bunch of short term pain as that's not a profitable enough car for them to making right now when they need cash to fund things like Model Y factories.

 

[Antares Nebula]

View attachment 390330

Nice try Cheryl@SEC - Now, how are you going to introduce "new" evidence without an evidentiary hearing




Thanks. This provides a nice segue - why is Elon not raising fresh capital?

My theory is that his "throwing egg on the face of Wall st" strategy is still active - he wants to avoid paying fees to Wall St banks, especially Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs until it is absolutely necessary. Note how Adam Jonas became bearish and almost obsessive about a cap raise as soon as he realised a cap raise was not forthcoming.

Any other theories?

From my understanding of the most recent letter to the SEC, the SEC has asked the court to not consider pre-settlement (ie, negotiation) evidence, and if the court does, then SEC wants to submit further evidence.

A) Can the SEC even make such a demand of the court?

B) If so, how does this evidence get submitted without an evidential hearing (something both parties have now chosen to forgo)? Via another reply brief? How many more rounds of reply briefs are we going to get? And if new evidence is introduced, then isn't there a possibility that one or both sides may want an evidential hearing after all?

C) If A and NOT B, then will the court simply dismiss Musk's negotiation evidence?

...this is confusing for us non-legal experts. I wish the judge would just throw out this farce of a case and make everybody's lives easier!

 

[Papafox]

What is the benefit to shorting at all ? That we don't have stock market bubbles … ? Obviously we do ...

The fact is - Wall St needs much stricter regulation. Which means things like shorting should be illegal.

In theory, shorting makes the market "more efficient" because when negative developments at a company are spotted, the stock price can begin to adjust downward, rather than waiting for a big news story and then there's a rush by investors to sell. As we all know, however, short-selling can be abused, especially when combined with FUD.

I would rather campaign to remove the most negative feature of shorting than try to remove it entirely, because there are too many experts who will testify how shorting is good for the markets. For example, a lot of short-term shorting is carried out to expedite transactions by brokerage houses.

 

[neroden]

From my understanding of the most recent letter to the SEC, the SEC has asked the court to not consider pre-settlement (ie, negotiation) evidence, and if the court does, then SEC wants to submit further evidence.

A) Can the SEC even make such a demand of the court

B) If so, how does this evidence get submitted without an evidential hearing (something both parties have now chosen to forgo)? Via another reply brief? How many more rounds of reply briefs are we going to get?

C) If A and NOT B, then will the court simply dismiss Musk's negotiation evidence?

...this is confusing for us non-legal experts.

Not a legal expert, but as I understand it.
(A) No. The SEC can request and the court can go along with them or ignore them, though.
(B) They can't. I guess they could get another reply brief but they didn't ask for one. The judge could invite them to do so anyway. The judge has lots of options!
(C) It's up to the court. The court can accept Musk's negotiation evidence, refuse to allow the SEC to add any further evidence (on the grounds that they've had three bites of the apple and declined an evidentiary hearing), and rule based on Musk's evidence. I believe the SEC would be in a very poor position if it tried to appeal this. The court can of course also ignore Musk's evidence, because the court can in fact ignore *anything*, but if it did, it would leave Musk with grounds to appeal...

 

[Curt Renz]

The author is a known FUDster, as well.

The author @Niedermeyer is a TMC member who has never posted.

 

[Big Blue 1011]

No better, no worse than paying to reserve an aisle seat, or “would you like fries with that”. The upsell is standard business practice.

So long as they do actually have hamburgers without fries if such is on the menu.

If the article is accurate, the customers were given confirmed delivery dates and were required to post additional deposits to secure the delivery. Not estimates. Very specific dates. Less than a week before they were due to receive their cars, the deliveries were postponed by email notification, without explanation and without providing any sense of the new delivery date. Then the customers received phone calls offering them the opportunity to purchase a more expensive version of the Model 3 than the one they ordered.

Some buyers are p’d off about that. I get it. I’m not sure why many others don’t, or feel compelled to spin this behavior as a positive for the company.

I think this is an extraordinary company that may very well change the world. In real time, right before our eyes. My one fear is that it has not focused enough on customer service. Early adopters and Tesla loyalists can be very forgiving. The everyday retail customer, not so much. My hope for Tesla is that it makes excellence in customer service as much of a priority as excellence in design and manufacturing.
Soon.

 

[shrspeedblade]

I wonder how many hours collectively we’ve spent on Vin counting, ship tracking, spreadsheet monitoring, Reddit trawling, Musk translating, anecdote sharing etc... and still none of us have any real clue what Q1 production and deliveries will be!

I’ve never been to Fremont. How hard would it be to setup a webcams outside the gate and just count the damn cars as they get moved out? Pay some local kid to change the batteries once a day. Would save us all a lot of time.

Just need to get some real estate in front of the factory (or wherever the cars are taken out from). Have a few of them setup for redundancy …

The Real Estate in front of the factory is the 880 Freeway, unfortunately.

For the right price I'll quit my job and get put up in an upper story NE facing room at the Marriott across the freeway, looks like it would have a great view of the parking lot!

(Area was abuzz on Sunday (24th) with loaded trucks leaving, trucks loading, and empty trucks on Kato road nearby waiting to load. It makes sense based on Tesla's past history that the media ignores, ship overseas, then cross-country with lots of rail, then to California and nearby states where car haulers make the most sense for speed near the end of quarter. Even the Richmond rail yard that has been used heavily for shipment/storage in the past was empty of Teslas right now from what I could tell yesterday. I'm probably more informative when I engage in less snark! I'm just kind of tired of all the FUD B.S. as are we all!)

 

[Antares Nebula]

If the article is accurate, the customers were given confirmed delivery dates and were required to post additional deposits to secure the delivery. Not estimates. Very specific dates. Less than a week before they were due to receive their cars, the deliveries were postponed by email notification, without explanation and without providing any sense of the new delivery date. Then the customers received phone calls offering them the opportunity to purchase a more expensive version of the Model 3 than the one they ordered.

Some buyers are p’d off about that. I get it. I’m not sure why many others don’t, or feel compelled to spin this behavior as a positive for the company.

I think this is an extraordinary company that may very well change the world. In real time, right before our eyes. My one fear is that it has not focused enough on customer service. Early adopters and Tesla loyalists can be very forgiving. The everyday retail customer, not so much. My hope for Tesla is that it makes excellence in customer service as much of a priority as excellence in design and manufacturing.
Soon.

I'm really curious what the percentage of SR orders are. Seems SR+ would attract more customers. A no brainer to upgrade.

 

[neroden]

If the article is accurate, the customers were given confirmed delivery dates and were required to post additional deposits to secure the delivery. Not estimates. Very specific dates. Less than a week before they were due to receive their cars, the deliveries were postponed by email notification, without explanation and without providing any sense of the new delivery date. Then the customers received phone calls offering them the opportunity to purchase a more expensive version of the Model 3 than the one they ordered.

Some buyers are p’d off about that. I get it. I’m not sure why many others don’t, or feel compelled to spin this behavior as a positive for the company.

Unfortunately Tesla has been doing this (reneging on delivery dates with absolutely no good excuse) for most of its history.

I think this is an extraordinary company that may very well change the world. In real time, right before our eyes. My one fear is that it has not focused enough on customer service. Early adopters and Tesla loyalists can be very forgiving. The everyday retail customer, not so much. My hope for Tesla is that it makes excellence in customer service as much of a priority as excellence in design and manufacturing.
Soon.

I agree 100%. I'm not expecting it at this point; they've had a decade, and they've failed repeatedly. I think we just have to price that in as one of the things Tesla is always going to be substandard at.