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

[jerry33]

Wishing them well. We hope to own a LR model 3 someday but our particular needs require it to be able to access either Chademo or CCS. Superchargers are scarce in the areas we travel.

The CHAdeMO adaptor is in the Tesla store, but it's under chargers, not under each model.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I was under the impression existing S/X can not be upgraded for V3 support due to their significantly lower battery cooling capability. Is that an incorrect assumption?

The small gauge wiring is the big issue. Replace a few HV leads and you enable the 250 KW burst rate. I'd be shocked if this hasn't ALREADY been changed, its so straight forward. Now the roll back curve may occur earlier due to cooling, but keep in mind its a 100 Kwhr pack, so for any given charging power it will see half the C-rate of the SR pack, which we know will be V3 capable.

Finally, most people take > 45 min to stretch, eat, and use the toilet, so v3 is going to be more about bragging rights for them.

V3 superchargers will be standard going forward, and If I’m buying a new car today (especially a $100k+ vehicle) I for sure want to buy one that can use V3.

Always a tail chase here. When 'Maxcells' start shipping with 2x the max charge speed, the V3 Supercharger session won't start to ramp down until the bty pack is about 80% SOC. Many, many current Model 3 LR owners will go insane with charge-envy...

Bottom line:

1. Evaluate your needs for specs
2. Buy the car that does that job
   
3. Don't covete thy neighbors charge rate
4. He'll soon be outdone and outdated
5. Enjoy what you have, live well, do good

 

[Cobbler]

View attachment 393606 View attachment 393605
Let's keep our heads cool. Nothing unusual this time of year.

 

[KarenRei]

The small gauge wiring is the big issue. Replace a few HV leads and you enable the 250 KW burst rate. I'd be shocked if this hasn't ALREADY been changed, its so straight forward. Now the roll back curve may occur earlier due to cooling, but keep in mind its a 100 Kwhr pack, so for any given charging power it will see half the C-rate of the SR pack, which we know will be V3 capable.

Don't be tricked by the higher gauge on the Model 3's charge wiring. S and X use copper, Model 3 uses alumium.

 

[WarpedOne]

I have a buy order at 265 ... the moment I put it in, the price shot from 261 to 270, no way it is going to make me happy ... y'all are safe ...

 

[Johann Koeber]

They guided slight loss before the delays. So it is safe to assume the negative impact is on top of a slight loss.

So 10k of cars worth of net loss. 500 mil.

Tesla is nice when it beats. But when it misses. It misses in the worst way possible... And then some.

10k cars less means the profit on 10k cars is missing. $500million less revenue but also lower costs. If we assume 10% margin it is more like $50million.

Now we can discuss fixed costs and variable costs.

 

[SO16]

Makes sense then as supporting unpaid large inventory is not good. Better to match sales to demand than over produce.

The local Chevy dealer still has 15 bolts sitting on his lot. We wanted to take one for a drive last year and the salesman told us he could put our name on a list. He said they alloted a few a year and they were all spoken for until 2019. We’ll here we are. 15 on the lot as there now seems to be lots of inventory available. They haven’t sold one in a few weeks. Our sales guy was good enough to call us to let us know they had them so we went to see them. I asked him what kind of deal we could get on a white premium and he said the price was the price. I mentioned the base model 3 was about the same and his only defense was that “yah, but Tesla will be gone in a year so who are you going to see for service”. We thanked him for his time. We may eventually not be buying a Tesla but strictly for charging compatibility reasons. Probably a Leaf E-Plus. But we have driven them all and the Tesla model 3 trumps them all. I have confidence that there are enough people that will see that and Tesla will ok.

You should have asked him, “how many years have you been saying that now?”

 

[schonelucht]

V3 superchargers will be standard going forward

New superchargers going in today in Europe are not V3. How about the US?

 

[SO16]

I would wait 3 days before buying a dip. That’s been the typical pattern. Let the tutes sell, let the shorts sell, let the FOMOs sell. Buy the cheapies at $200-$240. Those S/X numbers are scary... they were giving them away. If there isn’t at least an interior refresh within April then something is wrong with this company

Why is cancelling the cheapest and most popular Model S 75 surprising that the production numbers would be less for the Model S?

 

[Anstandswauwau]

I fully feel what you're feeling. That said, you need to clarify the word "public" here. Wall Street? Sure. But the general public doesn't give a rat's arse about - nor will they ever see - a delivery report. They see "that cool electric car that X friend/family member/coworker has".

Sure, but how many people outside of our Tesla bubble do watch these videos? Even if people did, there are probably ten fake Tesla horror stories for every positive actual one – and as you certainly know the narratives that are repeated most are the ones that stick in the end. Not necessarily the ones that are positive or true. It's very unfortunate but that's how our brain works.

And in the grand scheme of things, how many do know a Tesla owner, first-degree? Yes, the number is rapidly increasing, but we should not fool ourselves: EVs are still quite niche-y. It's dumbfoundedly easy to come up with fake myths and stories and that's exactly what they do.

Sadly those diffuse, negative feelings towards Tesla won't suddenly vanish the first time they get to sit in one:

"It's an amazing car, but I won't buy a car from a near-bankruptcy company run by a lunatic."

FUD does cause long-time and often irreversible damage to a brand.

You don't have to look far for an example in the automotive industry: Opel.

It's a well-known fact that VW's massive FUD campaign in the 80s and 90s, together with EU-wide help of media – most notably the German car magazine "Auto Bild" and its sister magazines – positioned the formerly well-respected Opel brand in such a way that they became toxic to most. Actually, Opel is still the laughingstock in the German automotive scene. They have yet to recover from this smear campaign.

 

[Crowded Mind]

To everyone panicking about demand and demanding ads: look at in-transit numbers. 10,600 vehicles in transit. That means, of the Model 3’s produced during the quarter, a total of between 1,450 and 3,500 weren’t spoken for by EOQ. And S/X was 0-2,050(and, of course, if you assume either of those was on the high end of the range, it means the other was just as far on the low end).

To put that in context, at absolute most, ~72% of *one day’s* production of Model 3s were left over.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: the story this quarter is weak production and lots of in-transit cars.

What? Tesla said they have two weeks of inventory in the US. That’s more than a day of production.

 

[Pras]

Sure, but how many people outside of our Tesla bubble do watch these videos? Even if people did, there are probably ten fake Tesla horror stories for every positive actual one – and as you certainly know the narratives that are repeated most are the ones that stick in the end. Not necessarily the ones that are positive or true. It's very unfortunate but that's how our brain works.

And in the grand scheme of things, how many do know a Tesla owner, first-degree? Yes, the number is rapidly increasing, but we should not fool ourselves: EVs are still quite niche-y. It's dumbfoundedly easy to come up with fake myths and stories and that's exactly what they do.

Sadly those diffuse, negative feelings towards Tesla won't suddenly vanish the first time they get to sit in one:



FUD does cause long-time and often irreversible damage to a brand.

You don't have to look far for an example in the automotive industry: Opel.

It's a well-known fact that VW's massive FUD campaign in the 80s and 90s, together with EU-wide help of media – most notably the German car magazine "Auto Bild" and its sister magazines – positioned the formerly well-respected Opel brand in such a way that they became toxic to most. Actually, Opel is still the laughingstock in the German automotive scene. They have yet to recover from this smear campaign.

I do agree the point that Tesla should try to neutralize FUD and it is trying. As much as Elon’s tweet can be blamed, he helped remove FUDs all the time. Just yesterday he used his twitter presence to neutralize the FUD spread using Sheryl Crows’ tweet. Also remember the RAM truck guy? Then Joe Rogan. Just recent examples.

I earlier posted a McKinsey report which suggests that perception for electric car has to be clarified with customers...it is not a Tesla specific issue but Tesla gets affected the most. Elon has to cut back on his other antics on twitter but otherwise he has done well to cross the FUD.

 

[ZachF]

Unfortunately, in the near term I think this means that Tesla continues downward in the wedge pattern it has been stuck in...

If there is nothing to break it out of it, you could see $220 by June-July.

 

[Solar Aussie]

Result was close to Bloomberg’s so called optimistic report. How do the FUDsters keep dissing Tesla. Deliveries which take about 3 weeks to Europe and longer to China are obviously going to impact deliveries. Production looks good at almost 6000 a week.

 

[carterm2]

YOY


from Walter McVane on Twitter

 

[carterm2]

Another one

 

[sdtslafan]

This will likely be a slow multi day drop as people tiptoe out the door. Things are much worse than I had imagined. Model S demand seems to have collapsed, cannibalized by the 3.

 

[elasalle]

Down -9.08 ... hoping it hits -10%

 

[Solar Aussie]

Let’s tackled the FUD with dangers posed to our children outside schools where parents wait with diesel and gas/petrol engines fuming the children’s lungs. Only electric cars should be allowed to wait in school zones. We all need to be talking about this and showing how responsible parents need electric cars - it’s akin to not smoking near children
See BBC Report

 

[Solar Aussie]

This will be a slow multi day drop as people tiptoe out the door. Things are much worse than I had imagined. Model S demand seems to have collapsed, cannibalized by the 3.

I thought they cut S production to concentrate on 3s