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

[dc_h]

Those two in the Glovis fleet each have a 6,070 car capacity (in the weeds: "Automotive Equivalent Units". Disregard and call it cars).
For the data of each of the 60 (!!!) ships in Hyundai's "Glovis" fleet, go here: HYUNDAI GLOVIS

Cool, so based on some Googling, it looks like Clovis Symphony will be in SFO on January 22nd. Symphony appears to also have capacity for about 600 more cars than Glovis Captain or Cosmos. Interesting if they are really shipping ~6000 each load and how long them can maintain that pace. There should be shipments to China coming up soon as well.

 

[dc_h]

All capacity is not allocated to Tesla. Nor would you want to fill it due to the receiving end logistics. Fremont can fill the Port 80 lots faster than Europe can empty the offload port. With batch building European cars, Fremont us most efficient, the transports fill the lot, and the ships move them at the rate they can be delivered. US auto exports from the west coast are lacking in general, I think, so no capacity issues with cars waiting to leave.

Or something like that....

I would guess it depends on what port they are going to. Amsterdam should have capacity to handle much more than SFO. Obviously i'm not an export expert.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Odd but true, one of the most encouraging points for me was actually made by the BEAR! If they truly haven’t cut deeply into the reservation list despite good numbers in Q4 that’s significant. I’ve always been concerned about demand levels once the reservation backlog was exhausted.

Toyota would never survive on base level Corollas, clearly Ford wouldn’t have a prayer on the base level Focus! Why do these “experts” suddenly throw out all knowledge of how the auto industry actually functions and expect Tesla to survive on a black, non premium package, non EAP, aero wheel Model 3? That’s willful ignorance firmly in the realm of intellectual dishonesty.

I also think there is some confusion around the preorder number and how many are waiting for the 35k car.

In the Q3 2018 letter they said, that out of the original 450k reservations, less than 20% has been cancelled. Even if it was 20%, that's 360k left.

In the recent update they said, that in Q4 75% of the orders came from new customers. We can't just assume, that this is true for all the previous quarters. In fact, up until sometime late July 2018 the configurator wasn't even open to all.

With S/X 55-60% of the orders is US. As mid size sedans are more popular in the rest of the world than in the US, it is reasonable to assume that only about 50% of the 360k reservations is from the US - may in fact be less.

So back of the napkin math: we have 180k non-cancelled US reservations as a start.

Q2 2017 - Q2 2018 only reservation holders got deliveries as the configurator was closed to the public. That's 28,403 deliveries.
Q3 2018 we don't know how many buyers were new, but considering ordering for the general public only started in mid July and it took a few weeks to get the car, it could not have been more than 50%. So that's 28,032 deliveries to res holders.
Q4 2018 was 25% for reservation holders. That's 15,787 deliveries.

Altogether that means somewhere around 100-110k US reservations left. May be less, definitely not more. But that still does not mean 100k people are waiting for base SR in the US. Right now AWD and PuP are both mandatory adding about 10k to the car's cost. Some may want a non-PuP RWD LR as they want max range from the budget they have. Others may like the MR, but would want AWD... or non-PuP to save cost. None of these options is available yet.

Having said that, even if "only" ~40% (70-80k people) of the US reservation holders went for the high end models, that's a really good number. How many 340 xDrives and M3s does BMW sell out of their total 3 series volumes?

 

[Electroman]

If Tesla actually implements this:

Elon Musk on Twitter

... then people could start having their cars at the start of February rather than the end!

How is this possible? Cars need to be cleaned and prepped before customer can take delivery. And also what about license plates ?

 

[ReflexFunds]

I also think there is some confusion around the preorder number and how many are waiting for the 35k car.

In the Q3 2018 letter they said, that out of the original 450k reservations, less than 20% has been cancelled. Even if it was 20%, that's 360k left.

In the recent update they said, that in Q4 75% of the orders came from new customers. We can't just assume, that this is true for all the previous quarters. In fact, up until sometime late July 2018 the configurator wasn't even open to all.

With S/X 55-60% of the orders is US. As mid size sedans are more popular in the rest of the world than in the US, it is reasonable to assume that only about 50% of the 360k reservations is from the US - may in fact be less.

So back of the napkin math: we have 180k non-cancelled US reservations as a start.

Q2 2017 - Q2 2018 only reservation holders got deliveries as the configurator was closed to the public. That's 28,403 deliveries.
Q3 2018 we don't know how many buyers were new, but considering ordering for the general public only started in mid July and it took a few weeks to get the car, it could not have been more than 50%. So that's 28,032 deliveries to res holders.
Q4 2018 was 25% for reservation holders. That's 15,787 deliveries.

Altogether that means somewhere around 100-110k US reservations left. May be less, definitely not more. But that still does not mean 100k people are waiting for base SR in the US. Right now AWD and PuP are both mandatory adding about 10k to the car's cost. Some may want a non-PuP RWD LR as they want max range from the budget they have. Others may like the MR, but would want AWD... or non-PuP to save cost. None of these options is available yet.

Having said that, even if "only" ~40% (70-80k people) of the US reservation holders went for the high end models, that's a really good number. How many 340 xDrives and M3s does BMW sell out of their total 3 series volumes?

On my numbers Tesla finished Q4 with 348k reservations and still has 143k in the US.

Remaining US reservations are likely mostly waiting for non premium interior, short range and lease options. There are also likely some waiting for their current leases to finish/get finances together to purchase currently available 3 options.

On these numbers: 597k total gross reservations, 79k deliveries to non reservation holders, 68k deliveries to reservation holders, 180k total cancellations.
In the US this is: 285k gross reservations, 75k deliveries to non reservation holders, 65k deliveries to reservation holders, 117k total cancellations.
This means c.70% of non cancelled US reservation holders are still waiting to order.

Key information used:

• 455k net and 518k gross at the start of August 2017.
• Q4 and Q1 net reservation count broadly stable QoQ. Q1 count >450k.
• Q2 net reservation count c.420k.
• As of 24-Oct-18, <20% of the 455k Aug-17 reservations had cancelled.
• >75% of Q4 Model 3 orders came from non reservation holders

Key assumptions used:

• At Aug-17 c.55% of reservations were from the US. (Broadly in-line with 2016 and 2017 volume mix)
• c.59% of Q3 deliveries and c.73% of Q4 deliveries were to non reservation holders. This is using Troy's model 3 tracker survey data, with a different sample rate for reservation vs non reservation holders. This method predicted Tesla's >75% Q4 orders disclosure, so I think these are reasonable assumptions.
• 5% of deliveries have been to Canada
• c.20% increase in US cancellation rate QoQ in Q4 with max tax credit missed for lower priced options. (This number could be higher, but I'd have thought most people would have known this already and cancelled before Oct-24)

 

[KarenRei]

Cool, so based on some Googling, it looks like Clovis Symphony will be in SFO on January 22nd. Symphony appears to also have capacity for about 600 more cars than Glovis Captain or Cosmos. Interesting if they are really shipping ~6000 each load and how long them can maintain that pace. There should be shipments to China coming up soon as well.

See the post above yours. They're not shipping 6000 vehicles per ship. Glovis Captain, for example, was confirmed by a crewmember to have about 2k M3s on it.

 

[skitown]

How is this possible? Cars need to be cleaned and prepped before customer can take delivery. And also what about license plates ?

Not sure about the licensing, but I do wonder if there’s a market for skipping the cleaning and prep. Either on monetary economics or simply getting your car faster. Personally the cleaning and prep doesn’t mean too much to me and would consider foregoing it for the right incentives,

 

[Fact Checking]

The port of Zeebrugge expects the Glovis Captain to arrive there on 2019-02-02, corresponding to 19 days from San Francisco (via Panama),

Compare daily satellite images of Tesla production locations

The same page indicates that a Tesla shipment from Pier 80 to Tianjin, China last year took 15 days.

(The above link was posted in this thread very recently, but I can no longer find that helpful post).

Interesting, that's significantly faster than I expected - container shipping to China is significantly slower, around 30 days. It's also much faster than the 40+ days Model S/X delivery times. The advantage of the Model 3 not being disassembled and reassembled in the EU. (The disadvantage is a 10% import tax for cars I believe.)

If it's really ~20 days then Tesla could keep making high end trim cars for the European and Chinese markets for all of February. If the last ship leaves March 1-ish then they'll still have 10 days to distribute the cars.

I.e. in Q1 they'll have to rely less on the seasonally weaker January/February/March U.S. demand.

 

[mrdoubleb]

All capacity is not allocated to Tesla. Nor would you want to fill it due to the receiving end logistics. Fremont can fill the Port 80 lots faster than Europe can empty the offload port. With batch building European cars, Fremont us most efficient, the transports fill the lot, and the ships move them at the rate they can be delivered. US auto exports from the west coast are lacking in general, I think, so no capacity issues with cars waiting to leave.

Or something like that....

An article about the receiving port/logistics partner sometime late last year said they have set up for a 3k/week capacity. So I think that's our theoretical upper limit for Europe right now.

 

[KarenRei]

How is this possible? Cars need to be cleaned and prepped before customer can take delivery. And also what about license plates ?

My assumption would be "prep them in the lot".

 

[mongo]

I would guess it depends on what port they are going to. Amsterdam should have capacity to handle much more than SFO. Obviously i'm not an export expert.

Sure. I'm hypothesizing US west coast outbound vehicle shipping is much lower demand than Amsterdam inbound. If Tesla can only move 3k a week on that end, better to leave them parked at an underused port than take up space at the busy one. So twice as many ships with half as many Teslas to reduce demand charges.

 

[printf42]

Those two in the Glovis fleet each have a 6,070 car capacity (in the weeds: "Automotive Equivalent Units". Disregard and call it cars).
For the data of each of the 60 (!!!) ships in Hyundai's "Glovis" fleet, go here: HYUNDAI GLOVIS

Is the ship done loading? I just saw a truck full of Europe spec(wide plate holders)Model 3 on 101 North heading to SF. I thought they would have all the cars on the port waiting for the ship, maybe that’s not the case.

 

[Electroman]

Are you suspecting these cars missed the boat ?

 

[EVNow]

I bought 150 shares at an avg of $309 Friday, but I think we will see $270 before ER. We slammed $300 three times in the past 30 days

This time I'm more afraid of the SP running up before I can buy the calls than of it going below $300. We have just 7 trading days before ER. Why would anyone want to sell the stock below $300 at this point - even shorts ?

 

[Intl Professor]

Trump to offer shutdown-ending immigration deal, still wants wall money - source

So, protection for Dreamers in exchange for $5.9B for wall.

Funny thing is 2 years back, Dems offered $29B for border security in exchange for DACA - that Trump rejected. The great deal maker that he is - he is now making a counter offer of DACA for $5.9B.

Would be interesting whether Dems will take it. I think this deal would have large support among Dem base.

Has he a connection to the contractor?

 

[dc_h]

See the post above yours. They're not shipping 6000 vehicles per ship. Glovis Captain, for example, was confirmed by a crewmember to have about 2k M3s on it.

Do they have other cars on the ship already? It wouldn't make sense to send a half full ship and then load another half full ship 5 days later, and have another ship coming in 3 days after that. I don't know the answer, but if they are not ride sharing with another mfr, they should be shipping more than 2000 cars.

 

[gora321]

#Tesla registered 144 new #Model3 VINs. ~100% estimated to be dual motor. ~45% estimated to be International. Highest VIN is 251059.
Model 3 VINs on Twitter

QTD (1/1 - 3/31)
57,503
..in January only!

 

[KarenRei]

Do they have other cars on the ship already?

Almost certainly. Cars get moved all over the world, from all manufacturers - and not just new ones. The Glovis Captain's previous stops were in Canada and Oregon.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

How is this possible? Cars need to be cleaned and prepped before customer can take delivery. And also what about license plates ?

I have an idea. Free cruise to Europe for 10 lucky people. Must be willing to detail ten Teslas per day.

 

[shrspeedblade]

Has he a connection to the contractor?

On the not-so-funny side do a search for a steel co. a Russian oligarch with ties to Trump owns a large stake in. It already has benefited from the Keystone XL reversal.