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

[Nakata]

Top gear Track battle - Model 3 vs BMW M3.

 

[JRP3]

Finally caught up on that thread.. what an ordeal.
To save time for everybody, how about shutting this thread down for the weekends and bank holidays plus some hours for after hours / pre market chit chat ? Maybe some would have time to get their lives back, or would be obliged to post in the dedicated threads ?

Or you could just skip a bunch of pages. I understand the drive to read everything but sometimes it's easier to just jump ahead.

 

[lascavarian]

I think what was confusing was Elon's statement of a run rate of 500k by the end of 2019. That was for all vehicles rather than just model 3, which still does look achievable even with just a small contribution from Shanghai.

I take this to mean if in one week in say December, they produce 9,615 units across all model production then then they have achieved a run rate of 500,000 annualized. After that, it is just a matter of working out the distribution and supplier scaling issues, assuming that wave production has been converted in the intervening time.

 

[tivoboy]

So Q1 was obviously worse than they expected, and Panasonic is ramping up slower than expected, and I suspect the 500k figure for 2019 wasn't revised to not complicate the SEC lawsuit - but once the judge signs off on the new settlement I'd not be surprised to see 2019 guidance lowered, in light of Q2 or Q3 production perhaps.

But these are pretty uncertain numbers to begin with - nobody in their right mind can actually correctly predict how quickly Shanghai might ramp up. They might ramp up in a couple of months - or some key machinery doesn't perform as well as expected, choking production.

We don't know and won't know until much later in 2019.

Good point. How much of this do you think is already factored into current share price or is another adjustment down implied once / if any company forward looking production or delivery adjustment restatement occurs.

 

[neroden]

OT
Just curios @neroden if you stay in the area your in for a specific reason. I am kinda "stuck" in the Midwest because of my partner's daughter needs to finish HS. After that it is off to warmer sunnier climates.

Family

 

[Cobbler]

...

Thanks.

Accts Receivable, net: +$98M Q1 over Q4
Inventory: +$723.4M Q1 vs Q4​

So there it is, isn't it?

ELI5 please

 

[TheTalkingMule]

This Uber conversation on CNBC is absolutely moronic. So easy to forget that no one really knows what they're talking about.

 

[neroden]

He won't stand for monitoring(this has been proven) nor will he refrain from tweeting inappropriately. He is the face of TESLA. He just retweeted a porn site for chrissakes.

And what is your problem with porn sites? It's documented that over 80% of the US population visits porn sites. Anyone who's concerned about that is a flat-out idiot who hasn't noticed what culture they're living in. If you have some problem with the *specific* porn site he retweeted (maybe it's run by crooks or fascists), that would be different.

 

[defc0n]

They have millions of instances of left turns

You lost me on this one, I don't believe this is true.

edit: sorry, a somewhat low number of millions, sure

this isn't a corner case with airborne cars that you need a huge fleet to capture

Agree it isn't a corner case, disagree that you don't need millions of instances to feed into the NN.

The neural network doesn't make these driving decisions, so their chip doesn't help.

You've REALLY lost me here. The NN will obviously be the main calculation behind all driving decisions. How much they've let it be utilized in various scenarios in the past isn't representative of where things are headed.

Tesla has no data advantage here. Waymo knows the location, speed and (almost certainly) classification of every object, so why hadn't it been "trivial" for them?

I sincerely doubt Waymo has been able to feed a NN with several millions of instances of unprotected left hand turns, or several millions of instances of any driving scenario. Where would they get all of this training data? Is there an available video+physical real world object repository of 360 degree real world data that their lidar and other sensors can be trained on? You believe their current fleet is large enough to have fed in that much data?

Maybe all of Google's smart people are solving Go and StarCraft and winning ImageNet every other year. All that's left to work on the trillion dollar self-driving opportunity are interns?

​

The StarCraft training was actually somewhat similar to autonomous driving. They had thousands of prior matches to feed the NN with, and ****** the player inputs ******* of those matches. The problem when comparing StarCraft to driving is the lack of variation in the world. There are a limited number of maps/"worlds" in StarCraft, and essential no dynamic variations in those worlds (day/night transition (shadows..), weather, etc.)

 

[neroden]

I suspect they are adding GHG to get to 20%. It creates a more plausible ASP and seems to make the modelling more consistent. This is a relatively big negative in regard to margin picture on the car, particularly given the increasing shipments international which don't have GHG.

As we know, there are similar rules in Europe (which manifest as the FCA deal) and in China.

 

[neroden]

Yah no. Not at all. Just every single day from everybody I know considering an EV...which is a lot in a province where gas is 1.50 a litre.

Chinese car hailing company demands compensation from Tesla in Times Square, NYC - Global Times

These guys are screaming it to the world on three New York Times billboards, and Tesla’s response will be...nothin.

Just sayin.

Tesla needs to get its customer service act together. It is really a disaster and has been for years.

But think about this carefully: if this company had an alternative car to buy, they wouldn't be putting out advertising to try to get Tesla's attention. They'd just sue and buy some BYD cars or something. They're spending money on advertising because they don't have a reasonable alternative to Teslas for their fleet.

 

[EVMeister]

And what is your problem with porn sites? It's documented that over 80% of the US population visits porn sites. Anyone who's concerned about that is a flat-out idiot who hasn't noticed what culture they're living in. If you have some problem with the *specific* porn site he retweeted (maybe it's run by crooks or fascists), that would be different.

Don't mind the hot lobster, he was cooking for too long. He's been served on a plate now (banned).

 

[JBRR]

If the focus of this thread right now isnt reading and interpreting the 10-Q I dont know what to tell you.

 

[neroden]

read 'the advertised mind'. its a great book. It explains how decent advertising is entirely subconscious. it works on you. definitely. 100%.

Yep, it makes me not buy the product which is advertised. Even if the product is actually good.

There are two ways to respond to subconscious suggestion. I happen to be what they sometimes call "oppositional-defiant", which is relatively uncommon.

So most advertising flat-out backfires on me: the more you advertise, the less likely I am to buy your product.

Unfortunately, I'm in a tiny minority of humans.

 

[JBRR]

"Automotive Regulatory Credits

We recognize revenue on the sale of regulatory credits at the time control of the regulatory credits is transferred to the purchasing party as automotive revenue in the consolidated statement of operations. Deferred revenue related to sales of automotive regulatory credits was $140.0 million and $0 as of March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively. We expect to recognize the deferred revenue as of March 31, 2019 over the next 2 to 3 years."

Is this FCA? As I'm reading this it's a one time payment of 140m$, but that doesn't square up for me at all.

 

[jerry33]

Over the past three days, I've been at EarthX Dallas showing my car with the Tesla Owners Club of North Texas. There were approximately 175K visitors to this event. Here are some observations based on my interaction with visitors:
Number of people/groups that knew nothing about Tesla: 1 (They did know about SpaceX)
Number of people/groups that mentioned Tesla stock: 0
Number of people/groups that mentioned any kind of FUD: 0
Number of people/groups that mentioned the referral program: 0
Number of people/groups who were really impressed with my 2013: Didn't count, but practically everyone.
Number of people/groups who were concerned about range: Didn't count, but practically everyone.
Number of people/groups who asked about service: Didn't count, but about 75%.
Number of people/groups who appeared to be serious about actually getting a Tesla: ~15
Number of people/groups who sat in the car for a demonstration: ~100
Number of people/groups who conversed without getting in the car: ~300
Non-club members who owned a Tesla: 6

 

[Boomer19]

"Automotive Regulatory Credits

We recognize revenue on the sale of regulatory credits at the time control of the regulatory credits is transferred to the purchasing party as automotive revenue in the consolidated statement of operations. Deferred revenue related to sales of automotive regulatory credits was $140.0 million and $0 as of March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively. We expect to recognize the deferred revenue as of March 31, 2019 over the next 2 to 3 years."

Is this FCA? As I'm reading this it's a one time payment of 140m$, but that doesn't square up for me at all.

i was looking at that too. isn’t it the zev credits they’ve accumulated and not to do with FCA yet? i thought FCA was speculated to be a 200-300mm anyway. yes more than the 140 but not so much that the company depends on it ??

 

[neroden]

Please don't feel I'm picking on you, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. Amir Efrati (the anti-Waymo version of Anton Wahlman) once said Waymo struggled with unprotected left hand turns. This somehow morphed into "Waymo can't make left turns" here on TMC. Then a clip shows up with Tesla following a lane line on a protected left turn, and suddenly Tesla is "ahead" of Waymo.

It's pure wishful thinking. Tesla does not even attempt unprotected left turns yet.

Meanwhile, Waymo vans perform unprotected lefts every day. They are cautious when doing so. Perhaps too cautious. Last year Andrew J. Hawkins of The Verge rode in a Waymo van. It made several unprotected left turns, but he talks about one in particular that took a bit longer than he wanted:
Waymo Unprotected Left Turn

Is excess caution a problem? It is if it causes angry drivers behind you to riot. But insufficient caution is an even worse problem. You have to strike a balance, while also provide a smooth, non-jerky ride that doesn't scare your robotaxi customers. Waymo has worked on this and similar problems for years. They have better sensors than Tesla. They have more smart people than Tesla. Can someone tell me why it won't also take Telsa years to solve problems like unprotected left turns?

Sure, it'll take Tesla a long time.

Waymo, however, isn't anywhere: they're still relying on unscaleable LIDAR, and on maps. What works in Chandler doesn't work anywhere else. This is why I don't think Waymo is relevant to anything. They have a fundamentally failed architecture. I suppose they might totally change it, but then where are they going to get the fleet data to retrain it?

 

[KarenRei]

i was looking at that too. isn’t it the zev credits they’ve accumulated and not to do with FCA yet? i thought FCA was speculated to be a 200-300mm anyway. yes more than the 140 but not so much that the company depends on it ??

We have no idea. Tesla sells non-ZEV regulatory credits regularly. This is not new - just more than typical.

You can read anything into it you want. Heck, we don't even know if it's cash or a receivable item.

 

[neroden]

Thanks to all who recommended the "ignore" feature. I had forgotten about that. And thanks to the mods for banning the "Elon shouldn't tweet" member.

Back on topic, kind of... there is apparently now a new Tesla Service Center in Albany NY (in the suburb of Latham actually). Only 160 miles from @neroden! Latham - 326 Old Niskayuna Road | Tesla. 5 miles from me

!!!!!!!

That's... a good start! Still farther than I want to drive, but it's doable, and it'll save Tesla a ton of money on flatbedding