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

[Curt Renz]

I would disagree with this. Azaz was specifically referring to brand marketing. It is of long-term strategic value to cultivate and defend the Tesla brand. Not all advertising is about short term demand response, but if we look at the ebb and flow of demand over the whole year, there are definitely times like Q1 Model S/X deliveries when a little advertising pulse to boost net order rates would be beneficial.

Indeed, particularly since at any one moment most people are not in the market for a new car. They wait until problems develop or the odometer reading becomes excessive. So even if production is not yet quite ready to handle a demand boost, it still would be worthwhile through occasional advertising to plant seeds in the minds of those people who in time will become car buying prospects.

 

[EVNow]

The biggest use case is heavy rain and wind or no umbrella.

ANd
- people with difficulty walking
- small kids

 

[Fact Checking]

"Judge Nathan is asking Crumpton on what Musk is allowed to tweet, going through different hypotheticals, such as repeating earlier guidance."

"Judge Nathan asks whether Musk would need to get pre-approval for tweets that repeated information that had already been disclosed."

"Crumpton says that depends on whether the particular tweet was determined by the court to be material, and a statement could be considered as such if it shows the company is still on track."​

These are very good questions that I don't think the SEC can answer without defining content based "prior restraint" on Elon's speech, which is universally rejected by U.S. courts as a violation of the First Amendment.

I don't think the SEC wanted to be confronted with such probing questions.

 

[jerry33]

Yeah, well, uhhh, I heard some Teslas had panel gaps!

I'm pretty sure I recall a post or three showing panel gaps in other luxury cars

 

[Causalien]

Depends. Folks in Vancouver, BC pay a lot more for gas. But lot more EVs are sold 100 miles south in Seattle.

The charging infrastructure in the city is both expensive and full for the city living SR owners. I concluded myself that I need an actual detached house before I can own more EVs.

 

[jerry33]

Depends. Folks in Vancouver, BC pay a lot more for gas. But lot more EVs are sold 100 miles south in Seattle.

In general, folks in Vancouver have a lot shorter distance to drive due to the geography (at least to and from work).

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I figure ~5k were 37.5k SR+

You’re thinking 10% of Model 3 deliveries this quarter were SR+ in black with no options?

 

[Intl Professor]

Ha, ha. Did you know I used to work in quantitative marketing? I actually have a very favorable of view of market research, brand marketing, CRM and smart media buys. My area of focus was CRM and direct response marketing.

Go Google, "Disney vacation." Visit the website. Now watch what ads follow you as you move about on the internet. You will see little spots for Disney vacations for months. Disney pays for these ads because they there is a high probability that you are in the market for a vacation and have an interest in Disney. So it is super cost effective to try to keep Disney vacations at the top of your mind. We are talking about pennies of online ad spend to reel in a vacation booking worth several thousands of revenue dollars to Disney.

Now Google, "Tesla Model S." Visit the site. How many Tesla Model S ads follow you the rest of the day? How many ads for other cars follow you around the internet? If Tesla is buying your personal ad space, every competitor is buying it at a lower cost, and Tesla runs the risk that you will forget about your little Model S fantasy and fill your mind with some other noise.

If Tesla really wants to be an online only marketer of cars, they really need to step up their online marketing game. Following up on web searches is really basic Internet Marketing 101. The cool thing is that it can be highly targeted to persons "in-market" and the intensity of the media buy can be dialed up and down depending on net order rates without sending huge messages to investors. Disney does an awesome job keeping their resorts and them parks packed at all times through a lot of direct marketing touches. It's a lot more discrete than Tesla announcing a price cut to cars one day, only to bump it back up a month later.

Even though these ideas have been turned to hateful purposes in politics, and I hate it, the greed in me likes this for Tesla. Elon is beyond greed, along with Yoga instructors, so I still love you both.

 

[ZeApelido]

Now Google, "Tesla Model S." Visit the site. How many Tesla Model S ads follow you the rest of the day? How many ads for other cars follow you around the internet? If Tesla is buying your personal ad space, every competitor is buying it at a lower cost, and Tesla runs the risk that you will forget about your little Model S fantasy and fill your mind with some other noise.

I don't know what you mean. Everytime I open a web browser there is this stupid TMC following me around...

 

[ruralectric]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2019-04-03/elon-musk-judge-hears-arguments-in-sec-contempt-fight?srnd=premium

FYI: These links are to a live blog coming from the hearing. The page is loading rather slowly for me (seems stalled at the moment), but giving a good summary of current testimony and questions from the judge.

 

[anthonyj]

Wish Elon rolled up in a refreshed S. Saw a Model 3 and S but it wasn’t refreshed :/

 

[eisa01]

Ok, I will comment.

I said the most pessimistic sceamrio I could come up with was over 50K model 3. I was right.

My "tax credit hangover" model is validated; add it to seasonal effects and I get the right ballpark for S/X deliveries. The catch is that I don't have regional breakdowns for S/X deliveries in any quarter, but I was projecting S/X deliveries in US to be down by 2/3 year over year, which may actually have been a bit worse than happened; there may have been an overseas drop I didn't see (did I miss overseas tax changes?).

Probably cannibalization of Model S by Model 3, and the elimination of the cheap S&X contributed in overseas markets (e.g. Norway)

 

[W84M3]

Probably reading too much into this as I'm biased but this is an instawin?

 

[BioSehnsucht]

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

It would have been highly unlikely that they managed to time the reveal event such that they already had all in-progress deployments using v3 hardware but hadn't finished any of them yet, so expecting every new opening after that day to be v3 is unreasonable.

They wouldn't have been able to change all the in-progress deployments without redoing the permits, planning, etc. So it will realistically be quite a few months between the "going forward" statement and actually seeing v3 Superchargers. That's without even factoring in Elon time, or delays / limits in hardware availability, etc.

 

[Fact Checking]

"Judge Nathan is asking Crumpton on what Musk is allowed to tweet, going through different hypotheticals, such as repeating earlier guidance."

"Judge Nathan asks whether Musk would need to get pre-approval for tweets that repeated information that had already been disclosed."

"Crumpton says that depends on whether the particular tweet was determined by the court to be material, and a statement could be considered as such if it shows the company is still on track."​

These are very good questions that I don't think the SEC can answer without defining content based "prior restraint" on Elon's speech, which is universally rejected by U.S. courts as a violation of the First Amendment.

I don't think the SEC wanted to be confronted with such probing questions.

Update:

"Nathan continues to question Crumpton over whether Musk would require pre-approval if he was repeating information that is already disclosed."

"We’re not saying always yes or always no to that," Crumpton replies, adding that such a tweet could contain information that is material to Tesla or its shareholders. "`It depends' is the answer."​

Really good probing questions from the judge, and Crumpton is not giving good answers IMO: Elon's team cited case law that already public information is immaterial by definition...

 

[Causalien]

Ha, ha. Did you know I used to work in quantitative marketing? I actually have a very favorable of view of market research, brand marketing, CRM and smart media buys. My area of focus was CRM and direct response marketing.

Go Google, "Disney vacation." Visit the website. Now watch what ads follow you as you move about on the internet. You will see little spots for Disney vacations for months. Disney pays for these ads because they there is a high probability that you are in the market for a vacation and have an interest in Disney. So it is super cost effective to try to keep Disney vacations at the top of your mind. We are talking about pennies of online ad spend to reel in a vacation booking worth several thousands of revenue dollars to Disney.

Now Google, "Tesla Model S." Visit the site. How many Tesla Model S ads follow you the rest of the day? How many ads for other cars follow you around the internet? If Tesla is buying your personal ad space, every competitor is buying it at a lower cost, and Tesla runs the risk that you will forget about your little Model S fantasy and fill your mind with some other noise.

If Tesla really wants to be an online only marketer of cars, they really need to step up their online marketing game. Following up on web searches is really basic Internet Marketing 101. The cool thing is that it can be highly targeted to persons "in-market" and the intensity of the media buy can be dialed up and down depending on net order rates without sending huge messages to investors. Disney does an awesome job keeping their resorts and them parks packed at all times through a lot of direct marketing touches. It's a lot more discrete than Tesla announcing a price cut to cars one day, only to bump it back up a month later.

I've been saying we need to start advertising for so long. It is good to see the forum's sentiment turning around.

 

[RobStark]

Texas lawmakers adjust bill Tesla owners feared would prevent them from servicing vehicles | Autos | Dallas News

Texas lawmakers met Thursday morning to discuss a proposed bill Tesla owners feared would prevent them from servicing and maintaining their vehicles which contained revised language that the company says no longer puts their service centers at risk.

 

[Fact Checking]

Update:

"Nathan continues to question Crumpton over whether Musk would require pre-approval if he was repeating information that is already disclosed."

"We’re not saying always yes or always no to that," Crumpton replies, adding that such a tweet could contain information that is material to Tesla or its shareholders. "`It depends' is the answer."​

Really good probing questions from the judge, and Crumpton is not giving good answers IMO: Elon's team cited case law that already public information is immaterial by definition...

"He violated the order because he was wrong" that the production numbers he tweeted had already been released, Crumpton says. "It doesn’t require a willful violation for him to be found in civil contempt."​

Two mistakes by Crumpton:

• Doesn't address the evidence presented by Elon's team that "around 500k" production was mention in the January 30 call.
• "No willfullness required" is the wrong legal standard.

 

[shrspeedblade]

Don't disagree with you, but reach and message are two different things. Social media has arguably provided more ways of engaging buyers, but you still need something useful to say. "Just do it" or "Think different" or "The ultimate driving machine" are iconic because they succinctly capture and communicate what the company is about.

How about, “Leading the World’s transition to sustainable transport!”

 

[JRP3]

Nathan continues to question Crumpton over whether Musk would require pre-approval if he was repeating information that is already disclosed.

"We’re not saying always yes or always no to that," Crumpton replies, adding that such a tweet could contain information that is material to Tesla or its shareholders. "`It depends' is the answer."

Clear as mud.