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

[Papafox]

So this suggests it's in the $220m-$335m range:



Still a very nice source of income, and likely recurring.

After reading your helpful comments, the Financial Times article, and Patrick McGee's tweets, I understand the current agreement is for the year 2019. The standard becomes tighter in 2021 and that's the year Jeffries expected FCA to owe over $2B Euros in fines for non-compliance. “Once you’ve set up a pool, it is valid for several years, ” according to Julia Poliscanova.

I'm assuming the "low triple digit million figure" that McGee mentioned in the tweet is for 2019. One would assume that Tesla would negotiate a payment in either Q1 or Q2 for 2019 in order to receive this money when it is most needed, but, of course, this is speculation.

So much of what Tesla needs to do is achieve a cumulative profit in 4 consecutive quarters by the end of Q2 so that we don't lose that really excellent profit of Q3 18. Q2 would need to be a profitable quarter, as well. Between improvements in autopilot (including the new hardware) and this payment, the likelihood of achieving S&P 500 qualifications by the end of Q2 19 has recently improved quite noticeably, IMO, provided the payment is contained mostly in Q1 or Q2.

 

[EVNow]

If you look at the pdf that was shared some posts ago (https://www.vcd.org/fileadmin/user_...CO2_emissions_cars_The_facts_report_final.pdf) Toyota is OK. Most likely because a large part of their cars are hybrids.
Ford is slightly better than the other brands you mention, and in the same group as BMW.

Yes - they need to tighten the regulations.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I did not know that EM had some kind of honorary citizenship in China!

China offered Elon a 'green card', but its not clear if he accepted it. Since you can only vote for one party in Chinese elections, its also unclear if there would be additional benefits to holding citizenship.

Tesla Boss Elon Musk Offered Permanent Citizenship In China

 

[EVNow]

It's pretty clear that the largest Board members are getting out as fast as they can, though.... So there's that....

Many of them sell because ...
- You have to pay taxes
- For some of them it is the source of most income (bonus etc would be given as stock)

If you look at Microsoft, for eg., you will see all the board members, presidents, EVPs, CVPs, VPs selling … so bnkrptwy soon ?

 

[Yuri_G]

Okay, last post of the day... *Smokey hear's a collective ~FINALLY!!~ from the crowd* ;-)

Anyway, lots of thoughts here as to the news of the FCA / Tesla agreement earlier today, with some pretty decent numbers thrown out there... And we all agree any money coming in IS a good thing (we can agree on that, at least, right?) *tough crowd* :-O

Anyway, my man "Fly" on Twitter put together a pretty good summary as to his thoughts on the matter....
Summary: Good news.....but not ~quite~ as good of news as some of the thoughts here...
Anyway, agree or disagree, well worth the time to read through....

fly4dat on Twitter

That whole analysis relies on the fact that 62% of their cars were in the 95-120 g/km CO2 range in 2017, so it should be easy to get that percentage under 95 g/km in 4 years. There's a reason they entered into the pool with Tesla... because there's no way they'd reach those numbers.

If that's the kind of in depth analysis you're risking your hard earned cash on, you deserve to lose it.

 

[Artful Dodger]

So this FCA deal - does this mean Teslas now gain emissions (on paper)?

Ironically, the Shortie AirFarce is already using electric motors in their vast fleet of drones, powered by lithium ion batteries.

Because, you know, irony.

Cheers!

 

[Prunesquallor]

That whole analysis relies on the fact that 62% of their cars where in the 95-120 g/km CO2 range in 2017, so it should be easy to get that percentage under 95 g/km in 4 years. There's a reason they entered into the pool with Tesla... because there's no way they'd reach those numbers.

If that's the kind of in depth analysis you're risking your hard earned cash on, you deserve to lose it.

I read the same thread and had the same question. If it’s going to be so easy for them to get there, why engage Tesla at all, much less to the tune €M100s? It made no sense to me.

 

[EVNow]

Mark makes some funny jokes......and Mark makes some bad (and cringe-worthy) jokes....
And I can appreciate that he can rub some people the wrong way...
I'll leave it at that...

homophobic jokes about federal judges = "can rub some people the wrong way"

This tells as much about Mark as it does about you.

What's next - Roger Stone type "joke" about judges ? Mark & Roger Stone I'm sure share a lot of political ideology.

 

[ggr]

To be fair, it's more that "steady-state" demand is such that they lose money, rather than "no demand"....
And as such, they eventually run out of money...
When that actual point is, is much the debate.... I have no answer to that one myself...

It's pretty clear that the largest Board members are getting out as fast as they can, though.... So there's that....

View attachment 394719

OK, now that you've posted the table that figure seems to be based on, I will point out that it's totally misleading. You claim that they're "getting out as fast as they can", implying that the rising curve shows that they are panicking. But the labeling on the graph is misleading, because it appears that the columns are individual sales, while they're actually cumulative. That is, the column on a particular date is the sum of that month's sale plus all the previous sales for that individual. In fact, using JB as an example, he's been selling a constant number of shares each month, and with relatively little fluctuation in stock price over that period, it boils down to about $4.5m/month.

And here is where the "red" estimates lie. Again, using JB as the example, at 3/26 his balance is about $55M according to the scale on the right. But I'll just re-post the image from your later post:

Hmmm suspiciously, JB has a total of $21M, not $55M as your other graph seems to say.

And another lie: you can see in the table on the right that JB is pretty constant at a bit more than $4m/month, even in the estimates. But in the original graph you posted, the column for JB on 4/24 shows about $70M according to the scale on the right. That's an extra $15M over the previous month. Where did that sudden non-linear rise in the graph come from? It isn't justified by the table.

Oh, another trick in the table just above. The estimates suddenly add ".00" at the end, so the numbers visually appear larger, even though they're actually exactly the same.

We frown on people who traffic in bovine excrement here.

Mod: wish granted. --ggr.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Another point about the FCA deal. I’m pretty sure before closing this deal FCA made sure that Tesla is not going bankwupt anytime now ... I mean this should be standard when making a multi million dollar deal with an other company. No? So the shorts should have it on good authority now.

And for FCA buying Tesla shares, wouldn’t it be a good ‘hedge against the fine’ it has to pay to Tesla?

And one more thing. If FCA is late to the BEV game, wouldn’t a Model 3 SR skateboard (battery, controller, motor) make a nice base for a future FCA vehicle? I mean, with ICE they do it all the time.

Mind farts.

More to the point, does FCA have any un/under-used Factories in Europe that could be repurposed as GF4?

 

[Prunesquallor]

OK, now that you've posted the table that figure seems to be based on, I will point out that it's totally misleading. You claim that they're "getting out as fast as they can", implying that the rising curve shows that they are panicking. But the labeling on the graph is misleading, because it appears that the columns are individual sales, while they're actually cumulative. That is, the column on a particular date is the sum of that month's sale plus all the previous sales for that individual. In fact, using JB as an example, he's been selling a constant number of shares each month, and with relatively little fluctuation in stock price over that period, it boils down to about $4.5m/month.

And here is where the "red" estimates lie. Again, using JB as the example, at 3/26 his balance is about $55M according to the scale on the right. But I'll just re-post the image from your later post:

Hmmm suspiciously, JB has a total of $21M, not $55M as your other graph seems to say.

And another lie: you can see in the table on the right that JB is pretty constant at a bit more than $4m/month, even in the estimates. But in the original graph you posted, the column for JB on 4/24 shows about $70M according to the scale on the right. That's an extra $15M over the previous month. Where did that sudden non-linear rise in the graph come from? It isn't justified by the table.

Oh, another trick in the table just above. The estimates suddenly add ".00" at the end, so the numbers visually appear larger, even though they're actually exactly the same.

We frown on people who traffic in bovine excrement here.

Mod: wish granted. --ggr.

Excellent job. That first chart was concerning me, and I’m usually pretty good at looking at scales and legends, but they were so small I passed them by for later examination. Thanks.

 

[ZachF]

Elon reposted this video link of a M3P beating a Ferrari 458 in a drag race:

Tesla Model 3 Performance with OTA power boost humbles $200K+ Ferrari 458

I really can't wait until the Roadster 2.0 gets out in the wild, and we can see videos of it totally humiliating other cars...

 

[oneday]

This is such old news. And it wasn’t just XOM. Pretty much anyone who was paying attention had figured it out by the mid 80s. Haven’t we done a great job?

Speaking of old news, how about this clip from the 1912 edition of Popular Mechanics connecting burning coal to adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

 

[Creekstalker]

Okay, last post of the day... *Smokey hear's a collective ~FINALLY!!~ from the crowd* ;-)

Anyway, lots of thoughts here as to the news of the FCA / Tesla agreement earlier today, with some pretty decent numbers thrown out there... And we all agree any money coming in IS a good thing (we can agree on that, at least, right?) *tough crowd* :-O

Anyway, my man "Fly" on Twitter put together a pretty good summary as to his thoughts on the matter....
Summary: Good news.....but not ~quite~ as good of news as some of the thoughts here...
Anyway, agree or disagree, well worth the time to read through....

fly4dat on Twitter

That analysis is worth a read, tempered by the fact that every single one of that dude's threads supports the short thesis. That crew would be way more credible if anyone could ever recognize that Elon and Tesla have achieved some pretty amazing things. Those folks have left such a years-long trail of being mostly wrong in their wake. It'd make them way more credible if they weren't such strident ideologues.

Some (including me, today) have criticized this place for being cult-like. TSLAQ drinks nothing but KoolAid.

 

[Open Interest]

Weekend OT - Climate Change

Russia’s Massive New Gas Plant on the Arctic Coast

See Russia’s massive new gas plant on the Arctic coast

I found this really interesting, especially that China and France are partners.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Rather than conspiracy I am inclined to believe the Commission and staff jump to the tune of the masters, GS, MS etc.

con·spir·a·cy
/kənˈspirəsē/
noun:

1. a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
   "a conspiracy to destroy the government"
   synonyms: plot, scheme, stratagem, plan, machination, cabal, intrigue, palace intrigue; More
   deception, ploy, trick, ruse, dodge, subterfuge, sharp practice;
   informalframe-up, fit-up, racket, put-up job;
   rarecomplot, covin
   "the company was involved in a conspiracy with bookmakers to manipulate starting prices"
   • the action of plotting or conspiring.
     "they were cleared of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice"
     synonyms: plotting, collusion, intrigue, connivance, machination, collaboration;
     treason
     "he was due to stand trial for conspiracy to murder"

 

[mongo]

Yeah, and that's still with HW 2.5: imagine the leap the FSD computer is going to enable, with much larger networks and 20x performance ...

Minor point: chip is 10x the processing power, but there are two for redundacy.

(Aside: everyone, please tame your expectations. TSLA will not gap up dramatically until we know how much & when, for all we know this will really only hit in 2020; we are best served not to collectively lose our heads now. Also, there will be a loss in Q1. Tesla guided for it, it will be there.).

They guided for a loss before the FCA agreement. P&D only said it would negatively impact Q1 net income.

Current agreement with FCA is for 2019, 2021 would be a bigger Tesla payout (if the still pool then) due to stricter emission standards. So they could get cash from FCA as soon as Q1. However, holding off the FCA monies till Q2 might be better to ensure a positive quarter to meet S&P guidelines (not that I expect a non profitable Q2 without it).

 

[Artful Dodger]

I will say this if I were the General Counsel for the SEC I would be highly embarrassed at this contempt motion and the argument made to the court.

I would say this if I were the General Counsel for Tesla: How about the SEC investigates certain suspicious options activity worth 10s of millions of dollars on the day before the announcement of certain SEC actions against Tesla.

Show that there were no leaks from the SEC, and that this overnight winfall wasn't the result of Insider trading based on tips from inside the SEC.

That's the real harm being done to Investors. And it has happened repeatedly.

 

[Causalien]

From Twitter....
Maybe the matrix below will be more complete and helpful...


View attachment 394722

Man... you shorts need to pay me to teach these things to you.

GO to yahoo finance and go to Holders, Insider Transactions.
Check the details.
For each sail, there were an option exercise beforehand. These were stock options at $20 that came due. There's no choice but to exercise. However, since the stock option grant dwarf their salary or asset, they have no other option but to sell. But even if you have half a mil cash lying around to exercise, it is still prudent to sell and diversify from your work. You do not want your assets to be invested into your company's shares.

 

[Mobius484]

Speaking of old news, how about this clip from the 1912 edition of Popular Mechanics connecting burning coal to adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Grew up reading my grandfather and fathers pop mechanics. Gives great perspective to a young student...

Nice FUD slaying here today. @ggr