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

[schonelucht]

Actually, the numbers so far for Europe and the US are not bad at all.

I continue to have reservations for the EU numbers. Look at this graph

It does look like that they are running behind deliveries to me. We know that Q1 early deliveries were difficult with rework to be done in Zeebrugge and Elon flying over to make hard decisions about pulling that work to the local service centers instead of doing it at the ICS pier as originally plan. And still, they couldn't keep up in May. On the 4th of March, Tesla Norway delivered 97 Model 3's (and it only went up from there). Today, Tesla Norway delivered 53 Model 3's. Sure, the data is sparse, but I still think EU is disappointing. And true, the last month is so important that they could easily make up for it. But based on what we know today, I would have expected them to be way ahead.

The issue is that Tesla needs to reach grow across the board. In China, in the US and in Europa. If the growth in the US is merely because Tesla focused on the US due to the tax cliff and sends less cars the the EU that's bad. Because that means whatever is holding back mass production is still not resolved. Remember : anything that does not point to +25% Q-o-Q is a miss.

 

[Nocturnal]

Only really dumb people currently insist they aren't realistic vehicles. So I don't see that changing things much. On the other hand, most people are like lemmings, not everyone is an early adopter. And, yes, people buying EV's today are still "early adopters". As they continue to become more visible, the "lemming people" which comprise 70% of the population will take notice and start to act like lemmings. This will be a rare example of "lemming behavior" being a good thing.

You can't get away with insisting EV's are not realistic vehicles on a Tesla forum so some people use a modifier to make it sound almost reasonable. People here insist EV's are not realistic for every "use case" which is technically true but only describes an extremely small percentage of all new car buyers.

50% of all people are dumber than the average person.

Netflix reduced the money studios were making. For the price of buying one DVD, I could watch dozens of movies, whenever I wanted.

The comparison would be if Tesla were selling cars for $5k.

Netflix started as an online dvd rental business. Blockbuster after a while started competing in that market. That is the stage we are in right now. People are still mostly renting from Blockbuster.

Streaming would be equivalent to robotaxis. A complete shift in technology / paradigm.

Yes, and Netflix utilized their tech savvy customer base to transition away from physically mailing DVDs to just offering them the ability to stream movies. Sound familiar?

 

[ZachF]

Car dealers & gasoline car manufacturers & gas stations. All entrenched, people hate at least 2 of the three, at least 2 of the 3 are slow to adapt and inefficient.


True of electric cars in general. Of Tesla in particular, they seem to be staying ahead of all the electric competitors.


I know people who own a Tesla and a Bolt and a Leaf.

At some point when ICE cars are entirely gone -- 2030 -- it will be a zero sum game. But right now *it's not*. Every EV sale displaces an ICE sale.


And I only have Netflix -- I'm not spending on half a dozen streaming services. At some point it becomes a zero-sum game as people's entertainment budget is maxed out.


And the whole point is to escape gasmobiles...


This is sort of happening, but Tesla's growth is keeping up with the EV market growth. It's not a zero-sum game for EV sellers until ICEs are displaced, i.e. 2030.


That's a difference. They do hate current car dealers though.


I think the parallel is actually very close. Thanks for laying out the details which make it clear how close the parallel is.

Two benchmarks to look for during this transition:
1.Peak ICE sales- this has likely already happened in the US, Europe, and China. ICE vehicle sales will never be higher than they where in 2015-2017.
2.Peak total ICE vehicles- This will occur in the US when EV sales hit roughly 2 million per year, as that is roughly how much the total fleet is growing in size per year. When this happens many things tied to ICE will decline forever.

 

[urarthur]

Annual shareholders meeting is next week, I bet Elon will talk up the stock. Smart shorters know this and will cover.

 

[Tslynk67]

I wonder if he still has any credibility left or at least a bit of self respect. What kind of Jokers MS hires who change their tunes with Atlantic winds? Can't believe people pay to hear this sh**

He's just following orders...

 

[ZachF]

50% of all people are dumber than the average person.

*Median person...

 

[neroden]

@FactChecking, thanks for digging this back up.... let me review...

FYI the model is for every 5% price discount from an expiring tax credit or increasing tarriff or whatever -- (calculated as (projected post expiration price - pre expiration price) / projected post expiration price)1.8 months demand is pulled forward.... very roughly (1 digit of accuracy, not 2)

Q3 in the US should look awful as I expect 2 months of pullforward on SR and SR+. July should be extra awful due to pullforward on S/X/LR. Send nearly all production overseas in early Q3.

Expect 1.7 months of pullforward on the SR+, 1.4 on the LR, 1.1 on the P, so basically no US demand in July, low non-P demand and a rich mix in August, back to normal in September.
For S & X, the pullforward should be under a month but should still have a big impact on July.

So expect a big burst of pulled-forward US sales in June (and as a result no wave unwinding).

And July production should be sent abroad -- the result will be nearly no deliveries in July, since there will be few US deliveries and the Euro/China deliveries will be on ships.

August should start returning to normal.

The final tax credit expiration in December should have a similar effect. So I don't think the wave will be properly unwound until next year. And Jan 2020 will have *apparently* poor deliveries due to the tax credit timing. Then this all ends.

 

[-=buzz=-]

Our best tech acts like hodor 'go straight. follow line. No hit things.

Why isn't that a valid strategy?

Perception:
- Find the drivable space
- Surround all known and unknown objects with boxes 10" bigger on all sides.
- Assign vectors to the boxes

Driving:
- Keep on the road.
- Follow the traffic laws.
- Don't hit the boxes.

Such a 'primitive' rule-set should provide a good fallback to any unexpected situation.

 

[EVMeister]

*Median person...

Better than a mean person.

 

[Nocturnal]

*Median person...

Well, if we want to be technical, for there to be any difference between mean and median then you would have to prove that that intelligent distribution is not a standard bell curve.

Why isn't that a valid strategy?

Perception:
- Find the drivable space
- Surround all known an unknown objects with boxes 10" bigger on all sides.
- Assign vectors to the boxes

Driving:
- Keep on the road.
- Follow the traffic laws.
- Don't hit the boxes.

Such a 'primitive' rule-set should provide a good fallback to any unexpected situation.

Basically how video game AI has worked for decades. If we replaced all cars tomorrow with FSD vehicles it would probably be super easy to implement. It's the pesky human factor that makes it hard.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I wonder if he still has any credibility left or at least a bit of self respect. What kind of Jokers MS hires who change their tunes with Atlantic winds? Can't believe people pay to hear this sh**

I wonder where all the people are who were here claiming nobody talked down wall street when they talk up the stock.

 

[Zaxxon]

It looks to me like this is a multi-day rally. It had been on a long downward trajectory so I think there is still a good amount of pent-up buying pressure (that was just waiting for the right signal). The shorts want to take it back down but will have to absorb some of this buy pressure to be effective.

Who knows. But for me, this CNBC ridiculousness was a sign that we've got to be near the bottom. The entirety of the diatribe by this 'analyst' was totally nuts. We've moved on from the pile-on having even a remote, tangential relation to reality. This guy didn't even deliver his remarks well.

 

[Fact Checking]

The issue is that Tesla needs to reach grow across the board. In China, in the US and in Europa. If the growth in the US is merely because Tesla focused on the US due to the tax cliff and sends less cars the the EU that's bad. Because that means whatever is holding back mass production is still not resolved.

Mostly agreed, with the following exception: if U.S. demand is so strong for the SR+ and Raven to use up all available supply of the 7k/week Model 3 and ~2k/week (?) S/X supply then Tesla will obviously satisfy that demand first, due to the (much) lower delivery times.

They might fill a ship destined for EU in the final week or so.

Another wildcard for June is any supply disruption caused by the Model Y expansion: especially the changes to the S/X lines look extensive.

Edit: see @neroden's comment on this same page.

 

[neroden]

Exactly. They made the last Volt in February. Now three months later they still have unsold Volts. That is a demand problem.

I'm not actually sure it's a demand problem, because dealerships. There are dealerships which want to sell Volts and there are ones which don't want to sell Volts. GM was aggressively sending Volts to the wrong dealerships, not to the ones who wanted to sell them. (Which blows my mind, but it was definitely happening, it's documented.)

It will take a while for the dealerships which actually want to sell Volts to buy them off the other dealerships and move them across the country and then sell them.

(It was obvious they timed discontinuing it to line up with the step down in their federal tax credit, but they didn't manage to sell them all before the tax credit was lopped in half which makes it even harder to sell the remaining Volts.)

Evidence, IMO, for why Tesla needed to have direct sales and avoid traditional dealerships.

 

[neroden]

OT

Netflix is in fact a net negative for content creators (they earn less), Netflix managed to attract top content creators by granting them unprecedented artistic freedom.

I would quibble with your use of the phrase "net negative". Unprecedented artistic freedom is a net positive which far outweighs any paltry monetary difference.

How much would YOU pay for unprecedented artistic freedom? Many artists in other countries pay with prison terms -- paying by getting slightly lower salaries is a dream come true.

 

[Electroman]

The dump has run it’s course. . So the pump has started. And the cycle repeats

Most analysts are CHEATS. Jonas is no exception. The bigger and more influential your firm is, the bigger scumbag you are.

I wouldn't be too far if said 'all' analysts, but I would say 'most' in the hope there are a few that are honest. There is not even an attempt to be subtle in their pump&dump schemes. They are so blatant, they just don't care.

 

[Fact Checking]

OT: Netflix and Tesla business/growth model comparison

I would quibble with your use of the phrase "net negative". Unprecedented artistic freedom is a net positive which far outweighs any paltry monetary difference.

Yeah, net financial negative to established content creators (studios, directors, actors) in the original 'zero sum game' sense that was offered as an argument - i.e. creative destruction and monopoly busting. Also obviously a better platform for good artists to prove themselves and grow.

Big overall win for content creators, streaming users and humanity. (As long as Netflix doesn't become a monopoly with a content agenda.)

I still think the better comparison is not necessarily Netflix vs. Tesla, but Amazon vs. Tesla and Apple vs. Tesla - a lot of parallels there, including very high inherent profit margins on high value purchases.

 

[Christine69420]

So happy I bought some at $181 this morning.

50% of all people are dumber than the average person.

*Median person...

True, but if I say "50% of all people are dumber than the median person." half of the people will just stare at me not understanding what I'm saying.

 

[StealthP3D]

I wouldn't be too far if said 'all' analysts, but I would say 'most' in the hope there are a few that are honest.

The shorts have told us that our hopes are unrealistic. In this case, I think they have a point.

 

[urarthur]

Who knows. But for me, this CNBC ridiculousness was a sign that we've got to be near the bottom. The entirety of the diatribe by this 'analyst' was totally nuts. We've moved on from the pile-on having even a remote, tangential relation to reality. This guy didn't even deliver his remarks well.

Did he just say the only times Tesla made a quarterly profit is because they didn't pay their account payables to Panasonic? I was expecting ZEV credits blabla, but accounts payable? what an idiot.