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

[Krugerrand]

Correct Karen. Sun warms up the planet, CO2 levels rise after that. You've got it.
And thanks EVNOW for going straight to Ad Hominem. Classy.

I really enjoy this particular thread and learn a lot from Karen, Fact Checking, and others.
But the true believers here do turn off lots of "deniers" like myself. Who BTW, we want and need as TSLA customers.
If you want to convert people to Tesla customers, calling half the target audience Deniers, Morons, Hand over the ears idiots, etc, is not a good way to accomplish your goals.

The goal will be reached with or without your feelings intact. Or we’ll all be dead.

I don’t bother wasting my time or energy being offended by comments from total strangers on the Internet. Bigger fish to fry, more important things in life, etc., etc.

Is an advice.

 

[Pras]

On advertisement, I have never seen a Hyundai Kona in my life (supposedly 2019 suv of the year), but I did see its ad today on the giant time square screen. I have never seen a Tesla ad but I bought one. Go figure.

Another data point. Tesla news gets published in the remotest of the corners of the world. I have multiple examples. However, I have never seen a newspaper in a remote town in Asia talk about BMW or GM or Toyota, who cares? But Elon musk and Tesla are regularly in news. People know Tesla and what it is. We don’t need ad for it.

Last point, just had a beer with a few colleagues in midtown NYC. They were talking of buying Tesla, vs. not needing a car at all. It was not about which car to buy, that part was given.

My point, Tesla is in a league of its own in terms of brand awareness. Tesla just has to manage the messaging by avoiding mistakes like 420 tweet.

 

[carterm2]

IF Honda introduced two new models, a Civic hatchback ICE and a Civic Hatchback EV...with no accompanying advertising, AND the prices were the same.... which car would sell better? Let's pretend that there is a charging network for Honda.

 

[tslagreen]

You’re being intellectually dishonest. Unless you want us to believe your IQ is a lot lower than it is?

You darn well know that OEM cars sit on lots for months and months. Sometimes an entire year.

You also know that Tesla’s price reductions are for very different reasons than OEM dealership price reductions. Don’t make me spell it out for you.

Elon has shown flexibility to change his mind when he’s been wrong. And he’s also been abundantly clear demand is not an issue.

Dude, you have to chill. Despite your self-imposed role as defender of Tesla and TSLA, you are a bully. Claiming people have low IQ (when the opposite is quite apparent) is reminiscent of a certain occupant of the White House. I don't post much, but I do view this thread daily as a Model S owner since 2015 and stock owner since 2013. Your act is getting a little tired. Have more respect for the many great contributors on this forum.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

This has been touched on before, but it's bothering me. When you add up all of the model 3 production and subtract the deliveries and the in transit sales from Q1 2019, you get a current inventory of 11,400. That's a lot of model 3 inventory. Any thoughts on why and when Tesla will reduce that number? I'd like to think they can cut that in half, but that would probably require deliveries of over 70,000 in Q2 along with only mildly increased production over Q1. I'm not personally expecting record deliveries in Q2 but I hope I'm wrong. I can't imagine Tesla would want inventory at that high of a level right now, particularly with how tight cash is again.

Model 3 Production
Q3 2017: 260
Q4 2017: 2425
Q1 2018: 9766
Q2 2018: 28578
Q3 2018: 53239
Q4 2018: 61394
Q1 2019: 62950
Total: 218,612

Model 3 Deliveries
Q3 2017: 222
Q4 2017: 1542
Q1 2018: 8182
Q2 2018: 18449
Q3 2018: 56065
Q4 2018: 63359
Q1 2019: 50900
Total: 198,719

In transit sales from Q1 2019: 8480

Total Deliveries + in transit sales from Q1 2019 = 207,199

“A lot” is a relative term. That’s ~2 weeks worth of production(also, where did you get in transit M3 volumes? Are you assuming 100% of all S/X produced were ordered?).

 

[Krugerrand]

Should we conclude that Elon’s tweet answer of “it’s better” to Bonnie mean that although end product will mean more efficient and/or lower costs but.....will take longer to ramp up?

Let’s not.
Say we did.
And just wait and see what happens. That way we can all go for a poo, shave and shower and not come back to 42 pages of discussion not actually covered by a 3-word tweet reply.

 

[UrsS]

What was that spike down to 270 a moment ago?

Not seeing any news or anything with the index etfs. Strange. Fat finger or something more?

Perhaps this: It was broadcast on NPR at noon today - at least here in the Sacramento (CA) area (KXJZ).
Inside Tesla’s factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers
I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Definitely a hit piece on Tesla smelling of UAW and Fossil Fuel FUD. On the other hand NPR's Reveal normally does honest reporting as far as I can tell. This makes Tesla and Musk look really bad.
There are two more:
California officials grill Tesla on safety problems exposed in Reveal investigation
Tesla says its factory is safer. But it left injuries off the books
Does anybody have any real information about this?
Tesla needs to address this either as FUD or facts and demand equal air time.

 

[carterm2]

I was figuring on meaningful production out of Shanghai starting in Q1 2020. Perhaps we will see a month or two of some decent production in 2019. That would be phenomenal and desperately needed to boost production.

Right, given Q1 production, without GF3, Model3 production will be well short of 360,000 - 400,000. Unless, Q1 production was an anomaly, held back, or there is some information that I don't understand... Given Q1 low production, I am having great difficulty understanding the facts behind EM's SEC tweet (implying 10K/WK) and the reiteration of the numbers in the P+D letter, 90,000 cars a quarter, more now that Q1 was short.

I expect that someone, a financial analyst will be asking these questions soon...

 

[Singer3000]

And what is it about Elon’s repeated statements that demand is not a problem, the continued comments we’re not even trying (to sell cars) etc... that you can’t just take at face value? Especially considering Tesla still continues to sell every car they make.

Why is the first thing you and others assume (yes, you’re making an assumption and we all know about those) is that there is a demand issue requiring an advertising campaign?

It’s like you have no imagination of what other types of issues could be going on to restrict production or deliveries. I certainly can think of hundreds.

This whole advertising blah, blah, blah is akin to the other group yelling bankruptcy any day now for the last seven years. It’s nauseating. It’s like you can’t wrap your brain around anything that’s new and not 100 years of status quo. It’s like you’ve no idea how Tesla got to today. And now it’s even sounding like Tesla is no longer growing, that they aren’t constructing GF3 at breakneck speed to cover the Asian market.

*rolls eyes and yawns*

Yes, Tesla clearly too stupid to understand that now that they can’t sell their cars, that advertising will save the day.

Musk has said they spend zero time thinking about demand. And if you believe this I’ve got a bridge to show you...

The incessant messing about with pricing last quarter was for what other reason exactly? The Y event that spent almost the entire event showcasing existing products? The massive drops in sales for S&X?

Out in the real world where I occasionally venture, Tesla is either not known at all or is known as being a company always in trouble with the SEC and with quality and production problems. Or as some have said to me, a joke of a company.

Others here have spoken eloquently about the need for Tesla to own the narrative. With the existing poisoned public narrative, it will not be as easy as you think for Tesla to go from selling to green loving early adopters to the mass market. And what we’re all here for is for Tesla to sell millions of units a year and surpass Toyoyat’s valuation, are we not?

If this nauseates you, makes you think I have a small brain or bores you to sleep, well I’m glad you’re not the one running this company.

 

[Krugerrand]

IF Honda introduced two new models, a Civic hatchback ICE and a Civic Hatchback EV...with no accompanying advertising, AND the prices were the same.... which car would sell better? Let's pretend that there is a charging network for Honda.

That’s a trick question, right? Everybody here is buying the Tesla even if it doesn’t come with cupholders.

 

[mongo]

Perhaps this: It was broadcast on NPR at noon today - at least here in the Sacramento (CA) area (KXJZ).
Inside Tesla’s factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers
I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Definitely a hit piece on Tesla smelling of UAW and Fossil Fuel FUD. On the other hand NPR's Reveal normally does honest reporting as far as I can tell. This makes Tesla and Musk look really bad.
There are two more:
California officials grill Tesla on safety problems exposed in Reveal investigation
Tesla says its factory is safer. But it left injuries off the books
Does anybody have any real information about this?
Tesla needs to address this either as FUD or facts and demand equal air time.

Reveal has a history with Tesla...
Remember the Elon hates yellow, so there are no safety markings episode?
Tesla's defense of workers' safety triggers fiery Twitter rebuttal from Reveal

 

[X Fan]

Let’s not.
Say we did.
And just wait and see what happens. That way we can all go for a poo, shave and shower and not come back to 42 pages of discussion not actually covered by a 3-word tweet reply.

Huh, not relevant to you perhaps but does worry me. You’re a little edgy tonight. Have a nice bottle of Merlot and chill.

 

[Pras]

IF Honda introduced two new models, a Civic hatchback ICE and a Civic Hatchback EV...with no accompanying advertising, AND the prices were the same.... which car would sell better? Let's pretend that there is a charging network for Honda.

Similar question to you. If Tesla sells an ice and a EV, which one will sell more?

 

[kbM3]

Guidance is for production this year. If there’s a leaning curve, the guidance suggests it’s not steep. i.e. evolutionary not revolutionary changes.

Elon’s latest statement on this topic was that the Y will be a manufacturing revolution.

He said this AFTER he talked about his execs reeling him back from the brink of insanity.

Edit: It will be interesting to see how much they change in the manufacturing and how many of those changes make their way to the 3.

 

[Prunesquallor]

I posted this in the quarterly thread, but that's not well trafficked.

Can someone link to a source with details for EU non compliance fines for CO2 emissions, for 2019. All I could find was for 2020 (with the ability to exclude 5% of the highest emitting vehicles) and 2021 (where they've to count all).

Its here, Article 9 Paragraph 2b:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:140:0001:0015:EN:PDF

The established targets are here, Table 3-1:
https://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_Pocketbook_2018_Final_20181205.pdf

Edit: there's quite a bit of info here on how the CO2 targets are computed. I don’t see anything like that 5% exclusion you mentioned. Where did you see it?
https://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EU-LCV-CO2-2030_ICCTupdate_20190123.pdf

 

[carterm2]

MarketBeat

"Tesla saw a significant growth in short interest during the month of March. As of March 29th, there was short interest totalling 32,740,424 shares, a growth of 9.6% from the March 15th total of 29,872,310 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 8,278,953 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.0 days. Approximately 27.7% of the shares of the company are sold short."

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Perhaps this: It was broadcast on NPR at noon today - at least here in the Sacramento (CA) area (KXJZ).
Inside Tesla’s factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers
I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Definitely a hit piece on Tesla smelling of UAW and Fossil Fuel FUD. On the other hand NPR's Reveal normally does honest reporting as far as I can tell. This makes Tesla and Musk look really bad.
There are two more:
California officials grill Tesla on safety problems exposed in Reveal investigation
Tesla says its factory is safer. But it left injuries off the books
Does anybody have any real information about this?
Tesla needs to address this either as FUD or facts and demand equal air time.

Cal OSHA investigated Tesla after Reveal’s claims. They came back with a small fine for a misplaced power cord and nothing else. Reveal’s past claims have been debunked.

 

[Krugerrand]

Huh, not relevant to you perhaps but does worry me. You’re a little edgy tonight. Have a nice bottle of Merlot and chill.

I said nothing about it being relevant to me or not. You made a huge leap (yes you did) between the question asked and the 3-word reply that’s going to send us all down another 52 page rabbit hole.

Go if you wish. I’ll keep track of the thread complaints and plot it into the graph I’m constructing of the various speculations, the extra reading time per, and how off base the discussion was based on a scale of 1 to 11. So far we have a 9 rating for the Calgary Service Center discussion, so room for improvement.

Yes, I’m edgy. People are being absolutely bananas and not in a good way. You’d think they’d be used to the volatility of the stock, the media blitz against, the information held tightly to Tesla’s chest et al...but nope. Short memories. What have you done for me lately. Sky falling.

If there was 10 pages of it...no biggie. But there’s hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. Can nobody see that?!

Fine. I’ll go grab a bottle of Jack and pet my cat.

 

[Singer3000]

Please note I don't seem myself as being in the "pro advertising" group, I was trying to make two points:

1) I think there is an argument for brand advertising

2) waiting until it is obvious can be costly

however, I think Tesla does advertise (as I think someone just pointed out). In addition to twitter presence there's Joe Rogan. And with ARK. What they don't do is traditional advertising.

Should they? Certainly not for demand, but maybe for brand. I'm unconvinced, but really I'm not the person who would need to be convinced: that would be the decision makers at Tesla.

How many people outside of North America do you think have even heard of Joe Rogan?

How many of Elon’s 25million Twitter followers can afford a car costing $35k to +$100k?

 

[Electroman]

How many people watching Lexus ad during Super Bowl, can afford to buy one?

It is all about getting mind share.. sales will follow