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

[EVCollies]

attributed to Churchill: "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else".

Or Abba Eban

 

[elasalle]

Breaking News! Announcing the Winners of Stephen Hawking Medal « STARMUS Festival
Elon Musk for his astounding accomplishments in space travel and for humanity

 

[canoemore]

Or Abba Eban

Ha. Seems to be the case for a lot of what he's supposed to have said. Edited to "oft-attributed to..."

 

[Prunesquallor]

SPOT ON.

Real solution is mileage-based charge, and this is absolutely a ludicrously obvious Dealership Mafia-inspired scam to save their butts for a little while, with false hopes that it will just make EVs go away.

I will forward this info to my Chicago friends. Even thought none have Teslas that I am aware of, I suspect all will be outraged. NOTE Rivian factory is in Illinois and CEO RJ has already commented.

James Chen from Rivian testified during the Texas House hearings on the bill that imperiled our Service Centers, and from the representatives' comments it sounds like he was pretty effective. I’m sure Rivian is engaged.

 

[Curt Renz]

In addition to the proposed outrageous annual flat annual registration fee for electric cars being unfair to retirees and other low mileage drivers, consideration has not been given that the added electricity costs for EV owners are taxed. Meanwhile the state incurs substantial expenses for emissions testing stations which EVs do not visit. Once EVs become ubiquitous, those stations can be closed.

For now the state needs to encourage a more rapid transition to EVs to greatly reduce air pollution and global warming. Other states still allow income tax credits to encourage the purchase of EVs. Illinois ended its similar program, and it needs to be revived.

The annual car registration fees should be based on mileage driven for each car. Modern cars including EVs provide over-the-air data including mileage to their manufacturers. This can be shared with the state. Meanwhile, the state records odometer readings during emissions tests. If that is considered insufficient, transponders can be attached to odometers as is done for tollway trips.

The proposed $1000 annual fee for EVs appears to be inspired by auto dealership groups that fund Sen. Sandoval’s campaigns. Dealers hope to stave off the adoption of EV’s because they are low maintenance, while dealers depend primarily upon parts and service for their profits. In particular they hope to damage EV maker Tesla due to its direct to consumer sales and service methods. The veiled motive for the proposed $1000 fee would be to choke off demand for EVs. That is contrary to the intent of the treasured American free competitive enterprise system. Would you not agree that is un-American?

Fellow Illinois residents please write your legislators, governor and local newspapers. I did.

SPOT ON.

Real solution is mileage-based charge, and this is absolutely a ludicrously obvious Dealership Mafia-inspired scam to save their butts for a little while, with false hopes that it will just make EVs go away.

I will forward this info to my Chicago friends. Even thought none have Teslas that I am aware of, I suspect all will be outraged. NOTE Rivian factory is in Illinois and CEO RJ has already commented.

Interestingly the two responses I have received so far from state officials were not from my district legislators or the governor. One was the former army general to whom I lost a state representative election in 2012, and is now the director of the Illinois Department of Revenue. We have since become friends. The other is a state senator outside of my district, who is now running for Congress in my district. He was a guest of mine on my old TV show due to his owning a stock brokerage. They were both generally sympathetic, but did express the need to collect at least moderate fees from electric car owners to help fund road repairs.

I tweeted about this matter a few hours ago, and have been pleasantly surprised by the many positive reactions: Curt Renz on Twitter

 

[MarcusMaximus]

They have created rumors about Tesla abandoning even model 3 several years ago. Nothing new.

Actually, I think you’re on to something... every time Twitter starts going into overdrive thinking Tesla has abandoned some program, a big release(actually shipping, officially announcing, starting preorders, etc) usually comes shortly after.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

SPOT ON.

Real solution is mileage-based charge, and this is absolutely a ludicrously obvious Dealership Mafia-inspired scam to save their butts for a little while, with false hopes that it will just make EVs go away.

I will forward this info to my Chicago friends. Even thought none have Teslas that I am aware of, I suspect all will be outraged. NOTE Rivian factory is in Illinois and CEO RJ has already commented.

I’d also be ok with a flat fee for every car, gas, electric, or otherwise, if the “big brother” concerns are too big. Gas taxes then transition to solely covering climate change-related costs.

Sure, it means that people who drive more aren’t being charged more, but taxes on most other things aren’t structured to make people only pay for what they use. Why do so for roads?

 

[Carl Raymond]

Manage what risk - how ?

Basically, if & when FSD starts working and Tesla can actually run a robotaxi service - every robotaxi is worth > $100k. So, why would they sell one for <$30k ? In the first year Tesla can completely recover the cost of the car after all expenses at $0.67 a mile (compared to over $3 a mile for taxis).

Example. Two FSD fatalities in one area in one week. Proves nothing. Could be a statistical outlier, nevertheless regulatory bodies get nervous and ban all FSD operation pending full review which could take months.

That kind of risk is why I want Tesla to remain profitable from selling cars, based on pre-robotaxi margins.

 

[Intl Professor]

I think this is an excellent point, and it mirrors my own rationale for holding TSLA long term. I do have some hope that the United States won't be too much of a laggard, especially once the narrative changes. There's the old saying oft-attributed to Churchill: "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else". I have a MUCH less comprehensive understanding of the details than a lot of people here, but it does seem like Chinese leadership in some of these areas might not be as insurmountable as it seems - the tiger might not be made of paper, but perhaps wood? Maybe even a softwood, like pine, rather than ironwood or ebony.

I don't think this hope is entirely fanciful. There seems to be some evidence that China's largess with renewable energy investments doesn't always translate into efficient outcomes. Extensive problems with grid connections, for example, have left large amounts of Chinese wind assets under-utilized. Meanwhile, in Texas - not exactly a bastion of environmentally-friendly lawmaking - smart, market-oriented policy in the early 2000's set the stage for high grid-penetration by renewables. Furthermore despite electric vehicles being an apparent cornerstone of Chinese economic policy and receiving commensurate state investment, the highest quality, most innovative E.V.'s still seem to be made by a little(can we say that anymore?) American company. Maybe all the trials and travails that Tesla has waded through in the relatively policy-hostile United States will leave it more trim and fit when the narrative finally does change dramatically like you suggest, making it that much more competitive against Chinese (and other) rivals that didn't have to survive such hard times.

I think you're very right to bring this up as a macro issue to keep in mind. When the narrative switches, there's a hell of a lot of old infrastructure to replace, and Tesla is well-positioned to supply a lot of it, especially on the consumer-facing side. Not losing sight of the forest for the trees and whatnot.

My distinguished economic colleague, now 85 and still publishing, has sometimes over the years since 1965, marveled at the resilience of the U.S. economy. Complex adaptive systems theorists, not his shtick, suggest size is a factor which permits diversity and thus adaptability. For too long we have not addressed the weakness of US business leadership at some top corporations who have only finance, accounting, and legal backgrounds, as opposed to those with engineering, science, or production experience and expertise. The 1980s article of Harvard Business Review, "Managing our Way to Decline" is still apropos. Then they spoke of different mixes in Europe, I would ad now in China as well.

Silicon Valley types are challenging that now, wherever they are located. The remarkable successes of Bezos and Musk are standout examples. Our political leadership across the board and at many levels suffers from some of the same problems.

Another systemic weakness we have compared to the Chinese is education. We have some of the finest research universities and I'm a graduate of one or two of them, but the teaching quality at MIT in the fifties was abysmal. I encountered only one teacher out of all, including my thesis advisor, who paid any personal attention to me. As a result I became a star in that field—unlike others because my principal major was Wellesley women and student politics. (Very educational too, broadly speaking, pun unintended.) Munro's remark about the super talented Chinese engineers he has met is very instructive.

The same mix of backgrounds for elected officials applies here. I read somewhere that Peter Drucker said he was able to teach Japanese leaders to treat people as a resource. I can't imagine your typical politician here thinking it a shame we consider people an expense item to be reduced, rather than a resource to be nourished. The Green New Deal might change that, but look at who criticizes it.

National planning is ok for governments elsewhere, but only corporations do it comprehensively here.

 

[Curt Renz]

I’d also be ok with a flat fee for every car, gas, electric, or otherwise, if the “big brother” concerns are too big. Gas taxes then transition to solely covering climate change-related costs.

Sure, it means that people who drive more aren’t being charged more, but taxes on most other things aren’t structured to make people only pay for what they use. Why do so for roads?

The annual registration fee for ICE cars in Illinois is currently flat with no consideration for mileage at $101. For EVs it is $35 total for the first two years. The proposal is to raise the annual fee for ICE cars to $148 and for EVs to $1000. As a retiree I drive 2000 miles per year and would not be happy with a $1000 annual fee. I had intended to buy a Tesla later this year, but will not if this proposal becomes law. Many would likely feel the same way. The veiled motive behind the $1000 fee would be to suppress demand for EVs, as hoped by the dealerships that fund the proposer Sen. Sandoval.

 

[RobStark]

 

[bdy0627]

22% dual motor (i.e. LR & Perf).

They need about 3K in added options, + 50% take on the 6k FSD to get to around 50k ASP. Assuming 10% LR and 10% Perf.

Take this with a grain of salt since they may be continually replenishing the inventory, but I've been checking on the Chicago model 3 inventory almost every other day since April 24th. There is no way to know the sales for sure, but it looks to me like the cheaper trim SR+ and AWD LR are moving pretty rapidly. There were 31 total on 4/26k, including 19 SR+ and 12 LR AWD. Those were pretty much gone within about 2 weeks. They started showing 7 performance variants on 5/4. They are down to 3 performance as of today with 1 SR+ (different than the ones there before.) They only have those 4 in stock right now. That's the lowest it has been since I started following it. S has dropped only slightly over that time from 28 to 25. X is down from 26 to 13. These S and X are not the new variants.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Hadn't thought about it, but probably. As it is now the more expensive the car the more the insurance premiums are. The more mileage the more the premiums are.

So yea...for sure. But there is a big BUT in this case. If the FSD as stated needs to be many times safer than human drivers, then that should help keep rates lower than they would be otherwise.

I wonder if this is why Tesla is getting into insurance? They see the same issues with cars on the Tesla Network and insurance as you do.

We've seen this MO before. Tesla discovers inefficiencies and if it cant be fixed then they do it themselves. From seats to manufacuring methods, inhouse is typically devoid of corruption, incompetance, general solution, and red tape. I don't think Tesla sets out on these side missions intentionally. They just keep coming up.
Insurance is just another example, plus it's part of the total cost of ownwership. That's how you get to a ride cost of 18 cents per mile.
I wish there were someway to address healthcare as part of the mission. AMA needs a makeover focused on cure IMO. (Ya OT, but wouldn't it be great? Naturapathic ways here... cancer, heart problems, and alzeimers are not diseases, just symptoms that allow drug sales to be legal. Then they brainwash and hook you, so ins premiums are hyper inflated to cover the addictions created.)

 

[Carl Raymond]

Sure - but the price should not be sub 30k. It should be above $270k.

ps : I guess less 30%, that Tesla will take. So around $190k.

Going for more than 100% markup is asking for govt intervention to break up the monopoly.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

The annual registration fee for ICE cars in Illinois is currently flat with no consideration for mileage at $101. For EVs it is $35 total for the first two years. The proposal is to raise the annual fee for ICE cars to $148 and for EVs to $1000. As a retiree I drive 2000 miles per year and would not be happy with a $1000 annual fee. I had intended to buy a Tesla later this year, but will not if this proposal becomes law. Many would likely feel the same way. The veiled motive behind the $1000 fee would be to suppress demand for EVs, as hoped by the dealerships that fund the proposer Sen. Sandoval.

Oh, I agree with all of that. I’d say just eliminate the gas tax(or, better, convert to covering climate-related costs) and set the registration fee to something like $200-$250 for everyone regardless of car type.

$1k is plainly a stupid attempt to strike at EV’s on behalf of auto dealers. Tesla, for obvious reasons, but even other manufacturers EV’s since the dealers can’t make as much off of them.

 

[Carl Raymond]

When the weather was whiplashing between extreme cold and hot, it was hard to tell if it was warming or cooling.

However, this year, everyone in Canada agrees that climate change is real. 100 year floods 2 out of 3 years. Temp 7 degree above historic norm.

The average temp is up and the extremes are worst.

Ignore the weather. Understand the enhanced greenhouse effect. Know when the industrial revolution started and when we started burning coal in earnest. Look at the Keeling Curve and draw your own conclusions.

 

[goinfraftw]

CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415 parts per million for the first time in human history – TechCrunch

Speaking of Mother's Day...Mother Nature has something to say, I guess. Things need to start moving very quickly.

More Links:
Hate to sound like a broken record, but we just set a scary new CO2 record
Eric Holthaus on Twitter

 

[Navin]

Take this with a grain of salt since they may be continually replenishing the inventory, but I've been checking on the Chicago model 3 inventory almost every other day since April 24th. There is no way to know the sales for sure, but it looks to me like the cheaper trim SR+ and AWD LR are moving pretty rapidly. There were 31 total on 4/26k, including 19 SR+ and 12 LR AWD. Those were pretty much gone within about 2 weeks. They started showing 7 performance variants on 5/4. They are down to 3 performance as of today with 1 SR+ (different than the ones there before.) They only have those 4 in stock right now. That's the lowest it has been since I started following it. S has dropped only slightly over that time from 28 to 25. X is down from 26 to 13. These S and X are not the new variants.

Hi. Can we get an update on Tesla downturn stats and statistically what we can expect based on history?

 

[anthonyj]

I’m really glad that Illinois is increasing EV registration to $1,000 a year, but I fear it isn’t enough. Why not $10,000 a year? As EV owners, we should be able to show that EV is the way, no matter what registration costs!

Also, TSLA should be .01 per share, so anyone can afford it

 

[Words of HABIT]

Just shows us how far we have to grow. from 2% to 100% exponentially. It will take time, but it is happening. Is this timeframe realistic?.
2013 - 0.5% EV
2019 - 2.0% EV (4X increase over previous six years)
2025 - 8.0% EV (4X increase over previous six years)
2031 - 16.0% EV (4X increase over previous six years)
2037 - 32.0% EV (4X increase over previous six years)
2043 - 64.0% EV (4X increase over previous six years)
2044 - 100% EV