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

[JRP3]

On March 1 Investor Day, maybe we will hear of a EV motorcoach riding on the same extended chassis to compete with MCI, Volvo, Prevost and Van Hool.

Tesla can't even come close to meeting existing Semi orders, I don't see them announcing a new product anytime soon.

 

[Prunesquallor]

I noticed a tidbit of information on the earnings call that I haven't heard anyone pick up on. Drew Baglino said:
"Our fleet is starting to mature, the 3, Y fleet. And we're gathering a lot of data out of that fleet to understand how we can sort of bring some margin that we didn't know we had out of the product. So over the course of 2023 on the powertrain side, we're actually going to go after sort of some materials where we're paying for more performance than we need, or we have more content than we need, without impacting reliability at all. And that will actually add up to a pretty significant cost reduction on the powertrain side over the course of 2023. So we're not just sort of relying on supply. We're also doing design actions to bring cost out."

I assume he is alluding to going down in material specs where fleet data indicates over engineering, but also that the the 3/Y non P cars have largely the same drivetrain as the P and are as such unnecessarily costly. If so, it means that they would separate P from non P hardware specifications more. An interesting balance act between saving on material vs increased production complexity and logistics costs.

If 3/YP will be replaced by the speculated carbon wrapped rotor Plaid 3/Y they will be separated anyway.

This is classic behavior in aerospace (especially rocket) companies. If you are building cutting edge stuff, designers have to put in lots of performance margin. This margin can get compounded from subsystems to systems to vehicle. If designed correctly, unneeded margin (discovered through operational experience) can be recovered through increased performance, i.e., more range, payload, etc. and through more efficient future designs.

 

[Max Plaid]

This is either sarcasm or stupidity.

I think you'll find it's "wilful ignorance" - Gordo isn't stupid, but he's paid to mislead and obfuscate, and he's good at it - 99% of the general population reading that tweet would think it's factual, it's just folks like us, the minority, that know it's lies and deception...

 

[GOVA]

Right, but those center modules seem to be close to double-wide (6 "ribs" on top, as opposed to 3), so I'im wondering if we are seeing the exterior enclosures the modules are in, and the center "can" holds 2 internal cell modules...?

Otherwise, it seems odd to have one module larger than the other two in each row.

The other thing is that it appears there's some metal framing in "front" of the forward-most visible module on the left side of the vehicle:

View attachment 900312

That looks angled "inwards" and looks like it would preclude a full row there...

Mr. Munro - are you listening? We need a teardown ASAP to make our forum happy.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Just listen to the beginning. No idiot would say what's being said. To me, all of it has been a transformation that I did not expect.

Meh, 6-mths later AJ was still writing in a note to MorganStanley clients that Tesla was overvalued on fundamentals and undervalued strategically, or something that rhymes with that...

I think AJ majored in volleyball in college.

 

[GOVA]

Tesla can't even come close to meeting existing Semi orders, I don't see them announcing a new product anytime soon.

Wow @JRP3

Can we come back to this on March 2nd?

 

[MP3Mike]

Mr. Munro - are you listening? We need a teardown ASAP to make our forum happy.

Sandy is raising money so they can buy/tear-down a Semi. But even if they raise the money I doubt Tesla would sell them one for a long time. (There are a lot of orders in front of them.)

The best chance for a tear down would be if someone wrecks one and they could buy it from auction. (But I suspect Tesla would probably wrangle things to take the wrecked Semi themselves.)

 

[traxila]

Tesla can't even come close to meeting existing Semi orders, I don't see them announcing a new product anytime soon.

The inability to meet Semi demand does not stem from battery shortage anymore. It is assembly line itself that needs to exist and ramp.

More batteries mean more products possible.

 

[Captkerosene]

Two ways to value a company like Tesla: feet on the ground or head in the clouds. You can look at the financials (Gary Black), estimate "earnings," put multiples on them, adjust for regression to the mean and come up with fair value estimates ... or, you can suspend your disbelief and imagine all the fantastic products (with juicy margins) that Elon is baking up right now in Tesla's skunk works (Me). I think the TSLA valuation model is shifting a little from the former back to the latter over the last month. The announcement of the Semi/4680 factory, CT line construction, RT platform progress, intervention free FSD drives and other unknown wonders have us all dreaming of Everlasting Gobstoppers again. At least that's my take on why the stock is moving up.

Edit: add Megapack riches to the list.

 

[TN Mtn Man]

Got an observation about the price cuts. I'm seeing a lot of commentary about how people that bought a few months ago are "screwed" and are upside down on their car's value. OK, that's undoubtable true. But...virtually every other car company has had "market adjustments" over the last 2-3 years, often as high or higher than Tesla's price cuts (following their price increases to throttle demand/lead time). Those buyers that paid a market adjustment and put the money in the dealer's pockets are in exactly the same situation as Tesla buyers. Much like buying and selling stocks-if you feel the need to buy at a time of artificially high pricing...you can expect to be "upside down" when prices settle to "normal" (ok, poor analogy), rather it's via manufacturer price cuts or rebates/lack of MA. So why all the demonizing of Tesla over this, yet none over other auto companies, where customers are experiencing the same thing? I do feel for those that buy at times of high prices (I'm one such buyer BTW, though not of a Tesla at this time) and am in a similar situation. Knew it was a bad time to buy, but our previous vehicle was becoming unreliable (JGC diesel) and we needed a reliable vehicle in the family so bit the bullet. Upside down, but not whining about it.

 

[Big Time]

So it’s settled then….AJ will FOREVER be entombed and not forgiven inside the “Hall of Extrodernary Meritless Bone-Head dofusburger clownshoe idiots”

To @GOVA point: No. you don’t get to be that cataclysmically wrong and hateful on a subject and get a free pass.

Each time he says ANYTHING that could even be construed as negative about Tesla he should end with “Having said that, I have no idea what I’m talking about and did a disservice to every stockholder for a decade”

 

[Cosmacelf]

I noticed a tidbit of information on the earnings call that I haven't heard anyone pick up on. Drew Baglino said:
"Our fleet is starting to mature, the 3, Y fleet. And we're gathering a lot of data out of that fleet to understand how we can sort of bring some margin that we didn't know we had out of the product. So over the course of 2023 on the powertrain side, we're actually going to go after sort of some materials where we're paying for more performance than we need, or we have more content than we need, without impacting reliability at all. And that will actually add up to a pretty significant cost reduction on the powertrain side over the course of 2023. So we're not just sort of relying on supply. We're also doing design actions to bring cost out."

I assume he is alluding to going down in material specs where fleet data indicates over engineering, but also that the the 3/Y non P cars have largely the same drivetrain as the P and are as such unnecessarily costly. If so, it means that they would separate P from non P hardware specifications more. An interesting balance act between saving on material vs increased production complexity and logistics costs.

If 3/YP will be replaced by the speculated carbon wrapped rotor Plaid 3/Y they will be separated anyway. Plaid 3/Y Seems more likely now that Semi is scaling up with the same motors which thus need to become super reliable and cheap.

Yeah I caught that and it makes sense. My latest X purchase was the non P since I felt it was more than enough power for me. And I don’t even use anywhere near all the power the non P X has available. They could remove 100 hp or whatever and I wouldn’t notice. Same goes for the non P Model Y we have. Too much power that most people just don’t use.

So, yeah lots of opportunity there to scale back the power, and save a lot of margin.

 

[Artful Dodger]

This is classic behavior in aerospace (especially rocket) companies. If you are building cutting edge stuff, designers have to put in lots of performance margin. This margin can get compounded from subsystems to systems to vehicle. If designed correctly, unneeded margin (discovered through operational experience) can be recovered through increased performance, i.e., more range, payload, etc. and through more efficient future designs.

OT: Is that why Falcon9 / Starlink Mission 5-2 launched 56 satellites on Thu a.m. (up from the usual 54), with it's heaviest payload to orbit yet of 17,600 kg? Relentless improvement is in that companies DNA, and it's fraternal twin company, Tesla!

Cheers to the relentless dreamers!

 

[jerry33]

NASDAQ Realtime showded this pre-Market pattern too: (very odd, never seen it before, haha)

View attachment 900324

FSD doing the selling?

 

[bkp_duke]

OT: Is that why Falcon9 / Starlink Mission 5-2 launched 56 satellites on Thu a.m. (up from the usual 54), with it's heaviest payload to orbit yet of 17,600 kg? Relentless improvement is in that companies DNA, and it's fraternal twin company, Tesla!

View attachment 900352

Cheers to the relentless dreamers!

I would have to check the exact orbital plane that these sats were going into, but payload capacity varies by orbital plane. Some planes require more thrust to get to from the launch site. Those that require less, you can add a few more sats to the payload.

EDIT - orbital plane and flight details here:

SpaceX launches heaviest payload on Falcon 9 rocket – Spaceflight Now

The article does reference some efficiency improvements, and also an orbital plane of 53.x degrees.

 

[2daMoon]

Two ways to value a company like Tesla: feet on the ground or head in the clouds. You can look at the financials (Gary Black), estimate "earnings," put multiples on them, adjust for regression to the mean and come up with fair value estimates ... or, you can suspend your disbelief and imagine all the fantastic products (with juicy margins) that Elon is baking up right now in Tesla's skunk works (Me). I think the TSLA valuation model is shifting a little from the former back to the latter over the last month. The announcement of the Semi/4680 factory, CT line construction, RT platform progress, intervention free FSD drives and other unknown wonders have us all dreaming of Everlasting Gobstoppers again. At least that's my take on why the stock is moving up.

Well, all that, plus the confidence to knock the prices down and qualify more vehicles for the tax credit, which is interpreted by many as a catalyst leading to exponential sales growth on those product lines.

This combo punch of the subtleties you list, which most of the market is oblivious to, and, this in-your-face move with pricing have raised awareness to the brand on multiple levels simultaneously. This has resulted in significant expansion of interested shoppers for both the Tesla and TSLA.

HODL

 

[wtlloyd]

A price cut like that avoids the "are they going to cut prices further" question from consumers. Large drop seals the deal for people sitting on the fence for a purchase, vs. the slow trickle approach and making people "guess the bottom."

Agree 100%, and I believe the recent $500 price increase was pre-planned to reinforce the idea there would not be further cuts - for at least the first half of this year.

 

[lafrisbee]

A price cut like that avoids the "are they going to cut prices further" question from consumers. Large drop seals the deal for people sitting on the fence for a purchase, vs. the slow trickle approach and making people "guess the bottom."

...also eliminates or dramatically reduces the FUD for us... if the price drops appeared in drips bears would have more occasions to distort the drops.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Some Twitter users have access to threads from our favorite TeslaQ buddies. I won’t link to it because of profanity, but let's just say there is no joy.

From our VERY favorite, and I quote "These $TSLA price cuts have (in my opinion) completely de-risked the fundamental bear case. I actually just added significantly to our short position @ 116.99 … as I think this confirms another 90% downside for the stock".

 

[Cosmacelf]

BYD has started buying car carrier ships. I wonder if that is too much vertical integration.

BYD orders 2 vehicle carriers from local shipbuilder Guangzhou Shipyard International

The order is BYD's first for car carriers, each capable of carrying up to 7,000 vehicles.

cnevpost.com

Does BYD have a European factory? Tesla’s solution is to build local factories, and thus their shipping needs are in flux right now.