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

[shrspeedblade]

Tales of the Rideshare Monkey Vol.2

So, a little over a month back I gave some impressions of my experiences driving Uber/Lyft with my Model 3 since last July. Now, with a slightly snappier title, I figure I'd continue giving some of my impressions from out in the field since while it is anecdotal, for the most part it does give some (hopefully) good information about what I'm encountering over hundreds of interactions.

I'd like to focus specifically on perceptions of Tesla as a company and its products as it tends to be seen by different generations. This post was largely inspired by two different interactions, one just the other day and one several weeks ago. The more recent one was a high school senior who had never been in a Tesla before and was quite excited (this is pretty normal, even in N. Cal where they rival fleas on a stray dog now) to get to ride in one. With no prompting on my part, she started telling me that Teslas are the "gotta have it" car of their generation. Actually experiencing the car a little seemed to do nothing to dim that desire.

The second is an older gentleman who came dangerously close to being the first person I've ever kicked out of my car on a ride. You can disagree with me. You can even say I'm full of bullshit, but if you do that in my house or my car you're probably going to be invited to depart and take your opinions with you. In his case it was over whether my power provider, Marin Clean Energy, truly was supplying 100% renewable power as the rate plan indicates but rather that it was largely supplied by coal. There being only one coal fired plant left way down in Southern California (for the moment, I looked) I politely disagreed but seeing the futility said I wasn't going to argue about it. I'm not naive enough to think every watt of power I use comes from a windmill or solar cell, but I don't gripe at my bank for not giving me the same bills out of the ATM I put in the month before, either. Fortunately this type of person is a slim minority, but I have seen other instances of this "arrogant ignorance" as I call it and I don't much care for it. Certainty by and large seems to be the province of the pridefully foolish, and this isn't exclusive to any certain group.

As in my previous post, I see to a limited but troubling degree that the FUD is working, to a point. Elon is crazy, Tesla is nearly bankwupt, the cars are full of problems, how often do you have to replace the battery, etc. are still all reoccurring themes. I've altered my response, making it shorter and hopefully more effective than just spewing facts back at them moving forward: How is a company that is disrupting or at odds with big oil, big auto, dealerships, energy companies, Wall street, the Russian space program (Elon), and not advertising going to get anything close to a fair and honest portrayal in our media? I leave them with a big grain of salt, distilled out of a solution of critical thinking, that I hope they'll make a little use of moving forward.

On a completely different topic, I've read others make the comment and completely agree that it would be a significantly advantageous move to have the Tesla Network be available prior to FSD and let people who are interested take part. There is no doubt it would speed adoption because people are going to want to have multiple trips in an Autopilot equipped car with a human in the driver's seat (it's easy to forget how surreal this is when you live with it every day) before they'll jump into a TeslaNetwork robotaxi with the driver's seat vacant. Going even a step further and expanding the Tesla app to have sections for car management, ride requests, and ordering new vehicles would seem to have all sorts of business advantages! (I'm considering bringing this up at the investors meeting on Tuesday, but don't know if I'll be able to work up the courage.)

 

[Intl Professor]

This is false - "the world", down to our average budget constrained consumers, very much cares about pollution: air pollution, water pollution, radioactive pollution, sound pollution and even ordinary litter on streets are hot topics people care about - because those can be directly experienced first hand. There's even an acronym for the phenomenon and its negative effects on industrial expansion: NIMBY, Not In My Back Yard.

The problem with CO₂ is that it is an odorless and colorless gas that is damaging even in very small concentrations, and that the damage is delayed. So the 'back yard' is our atmosphere, and this delayed effect makes it easy to lie about CO₂ in an effort to sell CO₂ polluting products for profits without paying for the inevitable damage clean-up down the road...



There's no binary 'tipping point' - our only planet's climate is an incredibly complex machinery that is only partly understood. But one thing we know for sure: doubling the size of its planetary scale natural heat mirror in the last 200 years (CO₂ levels going from 200 ppm to 400+ ppm today) has already warmed up the planet and will cause more warming.

That thickening the planet's heat mirror would warm it was already obvious and clear 100+ years ago, to quote a 1912 newspaper article:

There's no argument about this in the scientific community, and every single 'skeptical' argument you've seen trying to cast doubt on the fact that a double size heat mirror is warming the planet is a lie.

To quote a secret, recently acquired and published Exxon Mobil chart from 1982, 37 years ago their scientists predicted rising CO₂ levels to about 415 ppm and raise temperatures by about +0.9°C in 2019:

Tom Randall on Twitter​

This year we crossed both milestones - remarkably accurate prediction by the oil industry, hidden from the public.

But we don't know exactly how it's going to go down from now on, there's wide error bars, high levels of uncertainty, and the levels of degree of our "global scorching" of our only habitable planet matter: 2°C or 3°C makes a huge economic difference, 3°C or 7°C makes a catastrophic difference.

CO₂ pollution is also largely reversible if we ignore acidification of the oceans and the probably inevitable melting of all ice: about ~2.5% of atmospheric CO₂ is absorbed by the oceans every year. I.e. absent human emissions the natural rate of CO₂ reduction would be an about 10 ppm reduction every year, until it gets closer to the long term historic equilibrium of ~200 ppm.

Put differently: human industry emits about +12 ppm worth of CO₂ every year, while natural processes are reducing it by about -10 ppm. If only we reduce emissions (very broadly) to below 10 ppm we'll have stopped and even reversed the build-up of the planetary scale heat mirror.

So yes, it's not too late, yes, every little bit helps, and yes, the sooner we fix CO₂ emissions the lower the body count gets: 1 billion deaths or only 100 million deaths from global warming, it makes a big difference to 900 million people and the rest of the planet who cares about them ...

And what about methane emissions particularly as it melts in permafrost and the oceans?

 

[Zaxxon]

@Zaxxon
All lithium batteries have a BMS for balancing and over/under charge protection.
The computer systems in the Tesla that provides walk up unlock, internet access, and sentry mode is the big difference.
Teslas do hsve a deeper sleep mode which is not normally entered into on a day to day basis, so long term drain is not easily extrapolated from short term.

Be careful to respond to what I actually wrote. I said the Leaf doesn't have a BMS as a source of significant drain, not that it doesn't have a BMS. The Leaf's is not nearly as active as Tesla's. But we're agreeing: it's the neato computing stuff that is the major source of drain.

Also, OT...

 

[Singuy]

Proof that Tesla is ranked #2 as the most desirable place to work for engineers. When the best of the best works for you, results speak for itself. Shorts are betting on the best engineers on the planet to fail....good luck with that.

 

[EVNow]

The average sober driver or average driver overall? I don't think it's fair to compare overall, should be average sober driver.

I think the reported 4.2 crashes/MM is actually under-reported. This would mean an average driver has a crash after 250,000 miles or no more than one crash in 10 years ! That doesn't look like a drunken driver. Infact I bet an average person has more crashes - but they don't get reported - neither to police, nor to insurance. Minor crashes probably don't get reported - only crashes resulting in significant damage get reported.

 

[bhtooefr]

I'm gonna go back to the whole battery lease thing.

Really, the only place where it really makes sense is when you're battery swapping (so subscribing to battery access is what you're doing, not just the actual battery in your car). Battery swapping really doesn't work in cars, in practice, though.

...interestingly, I can see some models where it could work in semis using trailer-mounted batteries (but the Tesla Semi has enough range and fast enough charging that, with federal driving time limits, it's simply not needed), but the models where it seems to be at its best are things like Gogoro's battery swap network, which is for vehicles that are efficient enough that the batteries can be carried, and in urban areas where plugging in is impractical. (Annoyingly, though, they don't let you buy the batteries and charge them at home, instead you subscribe to a certain number of kilometers of usage per month.)

 

[EVNow]

Autopilot can be disengaged by lifting the drive stock to either the first or second detent (N or R). Holding on the first detent for one second will engage neutral. Lifting to the second detent below 5 MPH will engage reverse. Lifting to the second detent above 5 MPH does nothing if Autopilot is not engaged.

I never mess around with this. I just brake. Anyway during normal AP driving I've my foot lightly on the brake, just have to press it lightly to disengage (which I normally do when I have to turn or or stop at traffic light).

 

[StealthP3D]

Lifting to the second detent above 5 MPH does nothing if Autopilot is not engaged.

Lifting to the first or second detent will also disengage Traffic Aware Cruise Control if it's engaged. But it's good to get in the habit of only lifting to the first detent unless shifting to Reverse.

 

[mrmage]

Proof that Tesla is ranked #2 as the most desirable place to work for engineers. When the best of the best works for you, results speak for itself. Shorts are betting on the best engineers on the planet to fail....good luck with that.

This is an important point, especially for people not in tech who may not understand that engineering talent is both scarce and non-fungible. A top dev doesn't only get more done, but also create the features and products that no number of average devs can. Innovation and creativity are hard to scale so this is a huge advantage.

 

[TradingInvest]

I'm gonna go back to the whole battery lease thing.

Really, the only place where it really makes sense is when you're battery swapping (so subscribing to battery access is what you're doing, not just the actual battery in your car). Battery swapping really doesn't work in cars, in practice, though.

...interestingly, I can see some models where it could work in semis using trailer-mounted batteries (but the Tesla Semi has enough range and fast enough charging that, with federal driving time limits, it's simply not needed), but the models where it seems to be at its best are things like Gogoro's battery swap network, which is for vehicles that are efficient enough that the batteries can be carried, and in urban areas where plugging in is impractical. (Annoyingly, though, they don't let you buy the batteries and charge them at home, instead you subscribe to a certain number of kilometers of usage per month.)

A lot of people mistakenly think EVs are much more expensive than gasoline cars. If the upfront payment is less than a gasoline car, and the monthly battery rental cost is equivalent to monthly gasoline cost, they will be able to see EV indeed is a better deal. This way it's easier to convince the spouse to buy a Model 3 instead of a BMW, Audi, Camry, or Honda.

I know people on this forum generally don't worry about demand. It doesn't hurt to prepare a few demand levers.

 

[bhtooefr]

The problem is that in some parts of the country (not many, and ones with messed up utilities at that), electricity is higher than monthly gasoline cost for an efficient vehicle (which the people cross-shopping on cost are probably comparing to). Which would make a battery lease even more expensive...

Here in Ohio, for what it's worth... if you cross-shop against a Prius...

A Model 3 SR+ is 254 Wh/mi, I pay ~$0.13/kWh (and I could pay less if I weren't on a 100% renewable plan), so it'd be 3.3 cents per mile in a SR+.

A Prius gets ~52 MPG, gas was $2.50/gal today, so it'd be 4.8 cents per mile in a Prius.

At 1000 miles per month, that would only support a $15/mo battery lease.

 

[capster]

I haven’t seen the deleted messages but the effects of a possible European US tariff war are among the most important for TSLA right now.

Nah. I think Armageddon has already been priced in.

 

[Thekiwi]

Good summary. The difference between interest and theta here is that interest compounds but allows you to keep the position option; theta doesn't compound but your position goes to zero at the end.

To clarify, the only part of a call option that always “goes to zero” on expiration day, beyond caused by equivalent stock price movement, is the premium paid for time.

The amount of the call value that this premium accounts for changes drastically depending on what the call strike price is vs the current stock price. For instance for any strike price above the current stock price - its 100% premium currently. However for strike prices below the current stock price, the premium reduces the further below you get.

For example for a call expiring in over 7 months time (Jan 2020), a strike price roughly 50% below the current Tesla stock price, a $100 call strike, includes only a 5% premium (currently trading roughly $5.50 above stock price). Going even further down to a $50 call strike (25% of current stock price), there is almost zero premium (~$1 over current stock price)

Should be noted that for those that use deep in the money calls as an alternative to long term common stock ownership, calls are not usually held until expiration day - they are usually traded for calls that are dated much further out before expiration day arrives.

(Note: I don’t use the Greeks naming conventions when talking to those who may not be familiar with them, as it means they switch off most of the time)

 

[Singuy]

The problem is that in some parts of the country (not many, and ones with messed up utilities at that), electricity is higher than monthly gasoline cost for an efficient vehicle (which the people cross-shopping on cost are probably comparing to). Which would make a battery lease even more expensive...

Here in Ohio, for what it's worth... if you cross-shop against a Prius...

A Model 3 SR+ is 254 Wh/mi, I pay ~$0.13/kWh (and I could pay less if I weren't on a 100% renewable plan), so it'd be 3.3 cents per mile in a SR+.

A Prius gets ~52 MPG, gas was $2.50/gal today, so it'd be 4.8 cents per mile in a Prius.

At 1000 miles per month, that would only support a $15/mo battery lease.

I think a Model 3 SR+ can achieve <200wh/mi if they tone it down and make it as slow as a Prius. The fact that there are zero 5 second cars that can achieve 52 mpg.

 

[mickificki]

Tales of the Rideshare Monkey Vol.2

So, a little over a month back I gave some impressions of my experiences driving Uber/Lyft with my Model 3 since last July. Now, with a slightly snappier title, I figure I'd continue giving some of my impressions from out in the field since while it is anecdotal, for the most part it does give some (hopefully) good information about what I'm encountering over hundreds of interactions.

I'd like to focus specifically on perceptions of Tesla as a company and its products as it tends to be seen by different generations. This post was largely inspired by two different interactions, one just the other day and one several weeks ago. The more recent one was a high school senior who had never been in a Tesla before and was quite excited (this is pretty normal, even in N. Cal where they rival fleas on a stray dog now) to get to ride in one. With no prompting on my part, she started telling me that Teslas are the "gotta have it" car of their generation. Actually experiencing the car a little seemed to do nothing to dim that desire.

The second is an older gentleman who came dangerously close to being the first person I've ever kicked out of my car on a ride. You can disagree with me. You can even say I'm full of bullshit, but if you do that in my house or my car you're probably going to be invited to depart and take your opinions with you. In his case it was over whether my power provider, Marin Clean Energy, truly was supplying 100% renewable power as the rate plan indicates but rather that it was largely supplied by coal. There being only one coal fired plant left way down in Southern California (for the moment, I looked) I politely disagreed but seeing the futility said I wasn't going to argue about it. I'm not naive enough to think every watt of power I use comes from a windmill or solar cell, but I don't gripe at my bank for not giving me the same bills out of the ATM I put in the month before, either. Fortunately this type of person is a slim minority, but I have seen other instances of this "arrogant ignorance" as I call it and I don't much care for it. Certainty by and large seems to be the province of the pridefully foolish, and this isn't exclusive to any certain group.

As in my previous post, I see to a limited but troubling degree that the FUD is working, to a point. Elon is crazy, Tesla is nearly bankwupt, the cars are full of problems, how often do you have to replace the battery, etc. are still all reoccurring themes. I've altered my response, making it shorter and hopefully more effective than just spewing facts back at them moving forward: How is a company that is disrupting or at odds with big oil, big auto, dealerships, energy companies, Wall street, the Russian space program (Elon), and not advertising going to get anything close to a fair and honest portrayal in our media? I leave them with a big grain of salt, distilled out of a solution of critical thinking, that I hope they'll make a little use of moving forward.

On a completely different topic, I've read others make the comment and completely agree that it would be a significantly advantageous move to have the Tesla Network be available prior to FSD and let people who are interested take part. There is no doubt it would speed adoption because people are going to want to have multiple trips in an Autopilot equipped car with a human in the driver's seat (it's easy to forget how surreal this is when you live with it every day) before they'll jump into a TeslaNetwork robotaxi with the driver's seat vacant. Going even a step further and expanding the Tesla app to have sections for car management, ride requests, and ordering new vehicles would seem to have all sorts of business advantages! (I'm considering bringing this up at the investors meeting on Tuesday, but don't know if I'll be able to work up the courage.)

Minor correction I highly doubt there's any coal fired plant in So Cal area.

 

[Thekiwi]

Super roughly, it predicts a really bad July in the US. The only people buying Teslas in July in the US will be people who weren't paying attention to the tax credit.
There will be a weak August in the US for Model 3 but S & X should be back to normal by then. Everything should be back to normal by September.

I think the EU and RHD deliveries could offset all of it for Q3 wince the backlog is so long, but many of those deliveries may well arrive in August.

How about leasing sales? I was under the understanding (perhaps incorrect) that people who lease a model 3 in the US don’t get a federal tax credit? If that is true then maybe we see more publicity for the model 3 lease program in July.

 

[EVNow]

How about leasing sales? I was under the understanding (perhaps incorrect) that people who lease a model 3 in the US don’t get a federal tax credit? If that is true then maybe we see more publicity for the model 3 lease program in July.

People who lease don't get federal tax credit - but the company leasing the car gets it. So, if Tesla out a 3, it gets 3.75k federal tax credit.

 

[Thekiwi]

People who lease don't get federal tax credit - but the company leasing the car gets it. So, if Tesla out a 3, it gets 3.75k federal tax credit.

Thanks for confirming.

My point being demand for model 3 leases shouldn’t be affected by the tax credit reduction on July 1st, since those customers wouldn’t see any change in price.

 

[EVNow]

Thanks for confirming.

My point being demand for model 3 leases shouldn’t be affected by the tax credit reduction on July 1st, since those customers wouldn’t see any change in price.

Thats correct - unless loss of tax credit makes Tesla increase the lease price.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Jack's back.