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

[Navin]

Boys. Think next week we go up. Watch out for random hit pieces by the likes of Dana, lora, and perhaps a Goldman downgrade but hard to piss against the wind.

 

[DaveT]

FSD price increase on May 1 makes as much sense to me as did closing almost all stores immediately.

 

[Snerruc]

Actually, Bedford usually attacked when outnumbered- which was most of the time.

 

[anthonyj]

Interesting. I currently own 4 Teslas, and have bought 5 total since 2013. I haven't had any of those problems. Quality has been excellent. Makes it a little hard to believe your story....

Lol. I’ve had so many problems with my P85D. Just today my driver handle stopped popping out. I don’t care though because nothing is better than a Tesla. And service is good, they usually give me an even better car as a loaner

 

[HG Wells]

Tesla could raise money by selling certificates good for a future FSD upgrade.

 

[anthonyj]

FSD price increase on May 1 makes as much sense to me as did closing almost all stores immediately.

He’s trying to hype and get more people to buy FSD now. It makes sense. If April 22nd shows us that level 5 is possible soon, then the feature should cost $20+k. Otherwise it is more profitable for Tesla to build the cars for themselves and have them drive people and keep 100% of profit. “Demand problem” solved too. This of course assuming that FSD exists, big assumption and I have my expectations very low

 

[KarenRei]

How do we think the markets would respond to a capital raise, if that were to happen? A SP drop because of dilution? Or neutral / positive because of the elimination of cash fears?

 

[Khamul]

I know what you mean, but IMHO SpaceX is more impressive than NASA was. NASA in the 60s had essentially an unlimited budget, SpaceX operates under the huge constraint of continually having to make money. SpaceX is truly in a class all its own.

Oh I agree 100%. Though, what NASA HSF did in the 60s was extremely impressing. There were so many things that they had to do from a blank slate, whereas SpaceX could build on that knowledge. When that is said however, NASA HSF today (and the last 50 or so years) is so depressingly slow, expensive and bureaucratic. It drives me crazy. SpaceX is the exact opposite of that. Instead of presenting a powerpoint to NASA with plans for some aerospace rocket or lander that'll only cost 3 billion dollars (before delays *wink* *wink*), they just do the thing, and they do it vastly cheaper than anyone else, while improving it and just doing the impossible.

 

[ClimateOptimst]

Isn't this essentially bad news? I read it as pretty serious constraints on growth in the short term. Potentially even constraints on Tesla Energy when you have to buy from outside suppliers.

I wonder if this is why Tesla has to source Chinese production locally versus making batteries at GF3.

Maybe Tesla should cut out Panasonic entirely at some point and build their own batteries.

seem to recall that late in 2018, CarsofNight was saying the 3 new Panasonic battery lines were scheduled to be fully installed by the end of March, 2019. if they hit that timeline, they should be in the process now of spinning up & optimizing the new lines and previous production bottlenecks are being opened up as we type. we'll know more soon...

 

[jerry33]

Oh I agree 100%. Though, what NASA HSF did in the 60s was extremely impressing. There were so many things that they had to do from a blank slate, whereas SpaceX could build on that knowledge. When that is said however, NASA HSF today (and the last 50 or so years) is so depressingly slow, expensive and bureaucratic. It drives me crazy. SpaceX is the exact opposite of that. Instead of presenting a powerpoint to NASA with plans for some aerospace rocket or lander that'll only cost 3 billion dollars (before delays *wink* *wink*), they just do the thing, and they do it vastly cheaper than anyone else, while improving it and just doing the impossible.

When bureaucrats and politicians replace engineers, the outcome is obvious.

 

[anthonyj]

How do we think the markets would respond to a capital raise, if that were to happen? A SP drop because of dilution? Or neutral / positive because of the elimination of cash fears?

Market only cares about deliveries, production, market share and revenue. If a capital raise alleviates those concerns then it is net bullish. Also if real FSD is shown on the 22nd and Tesla Network seems like a possibility, then a capital raise is warranted and super duper bullish. Like the most bullish bull you’ve ever seen. Tesla Network kills every bear argument that ever existed. No more demand problem, no more cash concerns due to cap raise, etc.

I’ll believe FSD and Tesla Network when I see it though. One thing keeping me hopeful is that they are hosting autonomy day as close to 4/20 as possible. Almost as if it was planned to smoke some bears. I don’t think Elon wants bears to be happy on national Tesla day 4/20

 

[Cosmacelf]

How do we think the markets would respond to a capital raise, if that were to happen? A SP drop because of dilution? Or neutral / positive because of the elimination of cash fears?

I think it would be a positive in the short run.

If Tesla could raise enough money to accelerate something else like Model Y or semi it would be very positive.

Btw, I guess we now know why Tesla isn’t bringing semi to market. Not enough cell volume from Panasonic. And that’s also why they are looking for local cell supply in China.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I expect the shorts and their media army to respond to the April 22nd event by pushing the "if it isn't pure and complete level 5 autonomy" then it's yet another miss/lie by Elon and Tesla. Set them up for failure by making a statement they know they can't hit. Kind of like raising their delivery estimates right before quarterly sales figures come out to accentuate and guarantee their "miss".

Oh, and who will be the first talking head to goat the SEC into taking action against Elon for his tweet regarding FSD pricing? I almost guarantee it will come from someone.

I don't see the stock moving much either way until the 22nd. The snakes are to good at hissing. God I hope I'm wrong.

Dan

 

[Fred42]

I think it would be a positive in the short run.

If Tesla could raise enough money to accelerate something else like Model Y or semi it would be very positive.

Btw, I guess we now know why Tesla isn’t bringing semi to market. Not enough cell volume from Panasonic. And that’s also why they are looking for local cell supply in China.

If cell constraint was causing semi delay, I would think we'd still see a small fleet of pre-mass production semis at work between Sparks and Fremont to work out bugs.

 

[Unpilot]

That is EXACTLY why I purchased FSD from the start. They will be able to charge whatever they want and people will line up for it.

Dan

Yep me too. I think it was a wise decision.

 

[AndyH]

Yeah the real money maker in FSD is in commercial vehciles. Tesla Semi's running tesla fsd software....i could see Tesla charging 5k......annually

I read a Swedish study a while ago. It calculated the yearly cost for a EU trucking company keeping one semi running. Distance used was 130000km which required 1,5 full time drivers.

Cost for a year including everything from salaries, fuel and semi was around 100k usd. 50% was fuel and maintenance. 22% was salaries. An electric self driving semi cuts at least 60% of cost and likely a lot more since it can be kept running non stop.

 

[Unpilot]

Elon really ratcheting up the hype for this thing. Openly saying the FSD price will go up on May 1st...…..one could say what he's going to demo on the 22nd is going to substantially increase the value of it and he's giving everyone a week to buy it before they charge fair value(or what they think is a far value).

Hopefully what they're going to show is as impressive as his confidence right now

Well he did use the word exponential to describe progress with HW3.

 

[elasalle]

How do we think the markets would respond to a capital raise, if that were to happen? A SP drop because of dilution? Or neutral / positive because of the elimination of cash fears?

FSD being software definitely should not need $$, esp. if HW3 is already being shipped.

If they do cap raise, better to explain what it is for. If cap raise fast tracks MY, Semi that would definitely be a net positive.

 

[EVNow]

Sorry, I still don’t get it. Today I take my phone, walk up to the closest DriveNow or GreenMobility car which is parked anywhere on the street. If it is dirty, I could reject it in the app and chose another one (never happened).

In future I summon a car and sit in the backseat instead of driving myself.

Aside from the autonomy thingy - how are these scenarios different?

One thing different would be when you summon the car for a drive - it comes to your home and it is no good. Then you have to wait for may be 15 minutes more to get the next car …

 

[Causalien]

How do we think the markets would respond to a capital raise, if that were to happen? A SP drop because of dilution? Or neutral / positive because of the elimination of cash fears?

Not very good. Q2, is better if the delivery and ER is good. The best excuse is European Giga. Macro should be better as well.