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

[wtlloyd]

The margin gods giveth and the margin gods taketh away.
I just got a Covid booster, I'll be feeling fine in a couple days. Today, not so much.

Seems like two identical events.

 

[Todd Burch]

Just yesterday GM got downgraded because demand for cars is going down.... so what to do with over abundance of fire-proof batteries than to start energy business.

Meanwhile Lathrop is still invisible to MSM

I'm hoping it won't be anymore after the Q3 conference call. I think Q3 is the quarter where energy will *start* to break out.

 

[elasalle]

The only reason we are having that buy back discussion is because the SP has been plundging because of Elon dumping shares in the open market. Buyback won’t accelerate the world to sustainable energy, acquiring Twitter won’t do so too. It might accelerate the world for more open communication but as for now Twitter is a dumpster fire and I have deleted my account.

If Tesla
.has a good cash cushion,
. thinks the stock is over sold
. is going to pull back/delay on new GFs due to possibility of economy going into recession
.is gonna to continue be cash flow positive in the upcoming quarters
. want's to act before the new tax laws(1% taxes on share buy-back
. want's to play the wall-street game of getting a better rating by getting debt issued so that their ratings are pushed higher

then what is the harm in doing a buyback. At worst nothing happens to SP, the shares bought back will get diluted/used again for upcoming quarterly options/grants.
At best, it greases the wheels in wall street, they get better ratings , it provides buying pressure to the SP.

A higher SP likely improves employee morale and that my friends will accelerate the world to sustainable energy. cheers!!

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Was thinking exactly the same. Those are brownfields.

Yes, BUT brownfields can usually be purchased for far, far less than they would otherwise cost. Combine that with Tesla's Boring Co. expertise and I see some options here . . . .

 

[Artful Dodger]

then what is the harm in doing a buyback. At worst nothing happens to SP, the shares bought back will get diluted again for upcoming quarterly options/grants.

Yes, this is another clue as to Telsa's future intentions. As we recently heard, Tesla has changed the default payout option for employee incentives from stock options to cash. This tells us two things:

1. Tesla doesn't want further dilution of shares, and
2. Tesla has lots of cash.

Tesla Makes Cash, Not Stock, the Default for Many Employees’ Compensation Awards | (Sep 30, 2022)

Tesla Makes Cash, Not Stock, the Default for Many Employees’ Compensation Awards

Tesla will start giving its employees cash grants as their default incentive to stick with the company, rather than the equity awards it has traditionally handed out, according to internal documents viewed by The Information. The electric car maker’s employees will still be able to receive stock ...

www.theinformation.com

Cheers!

 

[Runarbt]

I agree the numbers are suspect. Carsonight seems to be a former trucker so he should be aware of the efficiencies of existing trucks.

Don’t forget regen. Tesla Semi get back 70% of the energy spent up hills on the way back down.. ICE semis do not regenerate fuel.

 

[Discoducky]

Don’t forget regen. Tesla Semi get back 70% of the energy spent up hills on the way back down.. ICE semis do not regenerate fuel.

Clearly you've never heard of the amazing Toyota self-charging battery! /s

Yes, this is a live website: Do Hybrid cars need to be charged? | Ask Hybrid Toyota Motor Europe.

And yes the ad was banned: Toyota’s Self-Charging Hybrid Ads Deemed Misleading, Banned In Norway

 

[Gigapress]

. is going to pull back/delay on new GFs due to possibility of economy going into recession

Share buyback or not, this one is extremely unlikely. That is directly against the mission, with Tesla’s margins they could simply cut prices temporarily if needed, and the 2020 economic turmoil certainly didn’t result in Tesla slowing down their plans for expanding Giga Shanghai and building the two largest car factories in the world.

 

[juanmedina]

Share buyback or not, this one is extremely unlikely. That is directly against the mission, with Tesla’s margins they could simply cut prices temporarily if needed, and the 2020 economic turmoil certainly didn’t result in Tesla slowing down their plans for expanding Giga Shanghai and building the two largest car factories in the world.

a way better decision than when they bought Bitcoin.

 

[Nocturnal]

More flat-ish action on a decently red macro day.

 

[slacker775]

Share buyback or not, this one is extremely unlikely. That is directly against the mission, with Tesla’s margins they could simply cut prices temporarily if needed, and the 2020 economic turmoil certainly didn’t result in Tesla slowing down their plans for expanding Giga Shanghai and building the two largest car factories in the world.

I agree. It would seem foolish to delay new GF projects in this type of environment. They have cash on hand to fund this expansion, and while rates have risen, they arent THAT high to prevent a bit of borrowing if it were to make sense. And if there is a bit of a recession, by the time the GF is complete, we'd likely be on the upswing and you may get some advantages in labor or material costs during.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

More flat-ish action on a decently red macro day.

It’s options related, nothing more

 

[SO16]

a way better decision than when they bought Bitcoin.

That was purchased as an “inflation hedge” (or so they thought). Turned out to be not the case. At least they mainly broke even on that.

 

[thx1139]

Just watched Tesla Daily from yesterday. He recorded it before the China numbers came out that were broken out by local and export. Interesting to see when he looked at the numbers that came out over weekend he calculated exports at 10K-20K, not the 5K actuals. Will be very interesting to see tonight how he thinks after that information came out.

 

[UncaNed]

The power consumption of the Semi is mostly the load of the actual work being done to overcome frictional forces, so there's minimal opportunity for improvement beyond Tesla's stated specs in 2017. The range of uncertainty is only like 5-10%.

I've calculated an estimated 1.1 kWh per mile of air drag power consumption at 75 mph using Tesla's 0.36 stated drag coefficient and 0.8 kWh per mile from rolling resistance.

Tesla can only do so much to make a big box with a 10 square meter cross-sectional area actually aerodynamic. Most of the design win was already achieved in 2017's design simply by making the front of the truck smooth, sloped and bullet-shaped.

It's also extremely unlikely that Tesla has found a way to revolutionize rolling resistance, and meanwhile their 82k lb fully loaded weight is more than the 80k lb legal limit for Class 8 diesel trucks, which increases the rolling resistance by 82/80-1 = 2.5%, all else being equal. The energy loss from rolling is due to vibrations, the material properties of rubber, and the road surface. Tesla may have squeezed out some tiny gain in this area but there's not much room for improvement.

The only way Tesla could get a major improvement in these areas is with platooning, such that one truck lowers its wind load by drafting behind the truck in front of it.

In the longer run, the only possibility for terrestrial freight transport at these speeds to require significantly lower energy loads is to do the platooning in a tube that contains the airflow and has either rails or smooth, clean pavement. One of these from Boring Co could do the job:
View attachment 862272

No, won't the tunnel limit how air flows past the truck? Almost like a Venturi effect; or all the air the truck displaces now has only that little room between the truck and the tunnel sides to squeeze through so it has to go through faster making more wind resistance, not less.

 

[FireMedic]

It’s options related, nothing more

Is that good, or bad?

asking for a friend/not financial advice.

 

[hacer]

I am delighted, entranced and supremely enthusiastic about the CT's exoskeleton and I fully believe it will be a game changer. At the same time, I also understand it has absolutely zero ramifications on how well or how poorly a suspension will perform.

Sure, because there are no relationships between different parts of a car or truck /s.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Is that good, or bad?

asking for a friend/not financial advice.

It just means there's at least some incentive for MM's to prop up the stock paying out all the Put Walls. Doesn't mean they actually will defend the stock. There's been plenty of examples where MM's don't defend Put Walls nearly as much as they do Call Walls.

As you can see, as the macro's have recovered, TSLA doesn't follow suit. Which clearly spells out that TSLA's overperformance when the macro's were much lower was simply MM's protecting the Put Walls. There was no genuine strength in TSLA stock today

 

[insaneoctane]

The competition is coming...

GM created a new energy business to sell batteries and solar panels in bid to dethrone Tesla

GM Energy is a direct shot at Tesla.

www.theverge.com

/s

I foresee another "Mary, you led" speech in our future...

 

[dhanson865]

No, won't the tunnel limit how air flows past the truck? Almost like a Venturi effect; or all the air the truck displaces now has only that little room between the truck and the tunnel sides to squeeze through so it has to go through faster making more wind resistance, not less.

Head winds are better aero wise than cross winds. In a tunnel there are no cross winds.

If you need a visual look at the truck head on it's narrow. Look at it rotated 90 degrees and it's got a super long trailer catching air.

Head on the trailers length doesn't matter much (longer is better), cross winds it's a huge factor (wider is worse, what used to be length in the other view became width as your frame of reference changed).