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

[MP3Mike]

This will not work. Have you ever heard that shorts could sell more shares than the total float? I know it's illegal,

No it isn't illegal. A single share can be borrowed, sold, and then borrowed and sold again an unlimited number of times.

 

[Singuy]

Absolutely, and I wouldn't mind at all if the Tesla twitter account were to congratulate the team on achieving a 7k/week model 3 production rate with orders continuing to outpace production even at that rate.

Elon can't tweet that..it's material information and needs preapproval.

 

[GeoX750]

Tesla Vancouver Store Is Reportedly Taking In ~800 Model 3 Orders Per Week | CleanTechnica

Clearly a demand problem at that particular store.

Nice, but these orders are a product of Canadian subsidies and incentives like Q4 in the US.

Is there anyplace Tesla sales have been on fire without subsidies? Is there any chance of more tax subsidies in the US? That might be what it takes to get Tesla sales and the stock going again.

 

[Prunesquallor]

ARK Invest - this afternoon: Tesla Valuation Model: Are Investors Stuck in Reverse?

EDIT: I've now learned that that discussion for this article has a thread of its own: ARK's open-source valuation model for TSLA

I love reading this. Very professional and all assumptions are well defended. What s breath of fresh air.

 

[bdy0627]

Elon can't tweet that..it's material information and needs preapproval.

Not Elon, the Tesla twitter account.

 

[uselesslogin]

Absolutely, and I wouldn't mind at all if the Tesla twitter account were to congratulate the team on achieving a 7k/week model 3 production rate with orders continuing to outpace production even at that rate.

But they are only selling 800 a week.

*In Vancouver.

 

[LJS22]

It’s a bit comical hearing these investors calling the Tesla growth story over. Until they deliver less vehicles than the previous year then it’s growing. What are we looking at a 50-70% increase in sales year over year? If they do more than that it’s considered a production problem, if they do less it’s a demand problem.
I understand that the model 3 isn’t feeling like the juggernaut that investors thought it would be, but there’s a ton of them out there and the consumer is overwhelmingly loving it.
The bottom line is there is growing concern over the debt but as our investor friends have said the debt is fine if there is growth. Everyone needs to sit back and let it grow, it’s still early.

 

[KSilver2000]

It's pretty safe to say that Tesla is doing everything right about every aspect of an electric car while other companies are doing it semi wrong or way wrong.

1. Since there's no engine, maximize space/storage: Check
2. Charging infrastructure: Check
3. Control over the drive train, especially battery production so you don't have to rely on a very competitive landscape: Check
4. OTA update: Check
5. State of the art battery management system: Check
6. Make the cars appealing to look at: Check
7. Give the cars some personality: Check(I mean it farts or play cow bells..and now MORE cow bells)


JB literally said "Just COPY US!"

For sure. No denying Tesla has an envious and technologically advanced product. They are doing everything right about the electric car.

Not sure whether "copy" is the right word, but the WebOS features also eventually ended up in making iOS and Android better. The downfall of Palm and WebOS was management. Great Marketing and Sales firms/organizations/departments exist for a reason.

 

[TheMrX]

Elon can't tweet that..it's material information and needs preapproval.

So he could tweet it if it gets approved

At this point I prefer shorts to pile on. This sword has two edges : Elon can't suggest shorts to tiptoe to the exit without approval either.

 

[Jayjs20]

So, who's going to downgrade tomorrow? There is no bottom to this thing.

Another 12 dollars or so and we'll be back to where TT007 liquidated his position a few years back.

 

[Ratanpara]

I guess there is no true analysis on wall street anymore, no body does fact checking just their opinions out of thin air.

Tesla Vancouver Store Is Reportedly Taking In ~800 Model 3 Orders Per Week | CleanTechnica

 

[Pras]

Here is my modified version changing some of the ARK's assumptions, using ARk's model. Bull case, 1600 by 2023, and bear is 670 by 2023.

 

[Navin]

The same people yelling Tesla is doomed today were saying Tesla would never build a factory so quickly in China. Well
Chao Zhou on Twitter

 

[Prunesquallor]

Here is my modified version changing some of the ARK's assumptions, using ARk's model. Bull case, 1600 by 2023, and bear is 670 by 2023.

View attachment 410839

What assumptions did you change? Do you have their numbers vs yours?

Edit: OK, blue inputs are your. Can you show theirs? Thanks for doing this.

 

[Singuy]

The same people yelling Tesla is doomed today were saying Tesla would never build a factory so quickly in China. Well
Chao Zhou on Twitter

About China, I am really hoping for a reversal of what is going on with Huawei. The Chinese are extremely nationalistic and most still remember time when they were conquered by westerns during the opium war. My dad is flipping tables here and is about to smash his iPhone. The last thing we want is an anti-US sentiment. Trump is really pushing it with his cocky attitude with disregards that the Chinese is a huge consumer of goods and can really F a lot of US companies if the government and the Chinese people tell the U.S to go F themselves. The Chinese are not afraid of closing their borders..we shall not forget that they are still communist.

 

[BornToFly]

Along with the financial pain, this drop has caused me to get grief from others. My dad told me to stay away from Tesla when we were still in the 250 range. Just today my brother asked what I was doing with my Tesla stock. People at work are also asking. I'm sure I'm going to get it tomorrow from two other stock holders I haven't seen in a while who don't hold as much as I do. It sucks trying to explain to them that the stock price is no indication of the health and progress of the company. Still growing around 50%/year with no end in site for a few years.... Sigh..

 

[defc0n]

How do disabled people drive when they can't wash their own car windows? There's rules for that. If safe, they drive slowly to a place where they can get help. If they can't drive safely, then they pull over and call for help. How do elderly people with night vision limitations keep their licenses? They drive during daylight hours:

IF DARK

DON'T DRIVE​

ELSE

CONTINUE​

It's not that complicated. You don't need to be Bobby Rahal to hold a basic driver's licence. There are grades of driver skills just like driver licences. The reasonable thing to do is put 'learner' type restrictions on early self-driving cars, and let them go out and learn. No night driving at first for example. No rain or winter conditions. There's still a huge swath of utility in that type of limited driving skill. But it won't get better without real-world miles.

Tesla's winning advantage will be the digital record of all driving events, especially the actions of other parties, during any accident investigation. They will have REAL evidence based learning opportunities, not the missed opporunities that most human drivers repeat now in court (at least the lucky ones). And their's is just individual trial and error learning. One person learned something.

Tesla FSD has FLEET LEARNING, and they have it right now.

Do you understand how exponential that makes the learning curve when a single event recorded by just one car in a fleet of millions can be rapidly distributed throughout the entire fleet?

FSD skill will grow exponentially with Fleet Learning. The SAE Self-Driving Levels themselves are insufficiently granular, and already form an obsolete rating system. Time to apply some more sensible, human-like categories and restrictions for FSD, so we can work on lifting those restrictions one by one. It's also time to get out on the road and get on with it.

Cheers!

Oddly enough, you can find Bobby Rahal calling out Elon Musk on his Twitter. Rahal owns car dealerships...

 

[Pras]

What assumptions did you change? Do you have their numbers vs yours?

Many changes. But thematically, I reduced the sales volume and fleet size but increased gross margin and EV/Ebitda multiple. These have offsetting impacts.

On volume, in next 4 years I don’t expect them to turn up the volume by more than 5 times. So I kept the bear case to 1million. Still impressive 3 fold growth in three years.

Robotaxi fleet size of 1 million is optimistic even in the bull case for me. These are not cars, but taxi in service.

I increased the gross margin, because of two factors, increasing volume and China production. I also increased EV/Ebitda multiple in bear case because the market leader in EV will have a whole lot to grow, and autonomy while not revenue generating will still carry promise. Lastly market will value TE.

 

[Pras]

Along with the financial pain, this drop has caused me to get grief from others. My dad told me to stay away from Tesla when we were still in the 250 range. Just today my brother asked what I was doing with my Tesla stock. People at work are also asking. I'm sure I'm going to get it tomorrow from two other stock holders I haven't seen in a while who don't hold as much as I do. It sucks trying to explain to them that the stock price is no indication of the health and progress of the company. Still growing around 50%/year with no end in site for a few years.... Sigh..

Same here. Try hiding out or avoid people.. that is what I do these days.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Many changes. But thematically, I reduced the sales volume and fleet size but increased gross margin and EV/Ebitda multiple. These have offsetting impacts.

On volume, in next 4 years I don’t expect them to turn up the volume by more than 5 times. So I kept the bear case to 1million. Still impressive 3 fold growth in three years.

Robotaxi fleet size of 1 million is optimistic even in the bull case for me. These are not cars, but taxi in service.

I increased the gross margin, because of two factors, increasing volume and China production. I also increased EV/Ebitda multiple in bear case because the market leader in EV will have a whole lot to grow, and autonomy while not revenue generating will still carry promise. Lastly market will value TE.

Thank you sir.

Edit: That’s what I love about quantitative analysis, even if some of the internal model workings are opaque. Different input, different results. Do they make sense?

Editx2. How straightforward for ARK to make their model available. Absolutely transparent. Every ”analyst” out there should be asked about the model they are using, and if it available to the public.