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

[neroden]

SA just deleted this comment. Censoring bulls as usual!

I've noticed that any mention of Russia or Russian trolls in connection with an anti-Tesla smear campaign is immediately deleted off SA, which leads me to suspect that there is in fact some kind of connection. Seems a bit conspiracy theorist, but then again so does the Russian interference in Brexit and the 2016 US elections.

Seeking Alpha is run out of Israel, of all places; founded by David Jackson, now run by Eli Hoffman. Glassdoor has complaints of racism in both hiring and article publication. (Perhaps unsurprising when it's run out of one of the most racist countries on Earth by owners who seem to be totally OK with their government's racism.) And it seems to be absolutely clear from Seeking Alpha employee reviews that Seeking Alpha is not an open forum, but a heavily edited site which is specifically pushing the views of its editors.

I do wonder why its Israeli owners & editors hate Tesla; the best I can come up with is Israel's alliance with Saudi Arabia, but that seems like a stretch. Neither of them appears to have Russian connections.

 

[Nocturnal]

Seeking Alpha is run out of Israel, of all places; founded by David Jackson, now run by Eli Hoffman. Glassdoor has complaints of racism in both hiring and article publication. (Perhaps unsurprising when it's run out of one of the most racist countries on Earth by owners who seem to be totally OK with their government's racism.) And it seems to be absolutely clear from Seeking Alpha employee reviews that Seeking Alpha is not an open forum, but a heavily edited site which is specifically pushing the views of its editors.

I do wonder why its Israeli owners & editors hate Tesla; the best I can come up with is Israel's alliance with Saudi Arabia, but that seems like a stretch. Neither of them appears to have Russian connections.

I can't see how weakening the Islamic oil states wouldn't have a big benefit to Israel. Perhaps it's more of a general conservative type attitude?

 

[Boomer19]

So, I was thinking about this. It's a *good* move to make white the standard color and make black cost the same as silver or blue.

Black and White are the two most popular paint colors.

For a long time Tesla has had standard black, and "multi coat pearl white" at a huge premium. There are probably a lot of people who wanted white but weren't willing to shell out a lot extra for it. (I know I was one!) Some would settle for other colors. Some really insist on a light color -- but Tesla offers zero light colors other than white. So, this actually will lead to a demand increase as the people waiting for a reasonably priced *light-colored* Tesla buy the car.

For people who want weird car colors, white is by far the easiest background to wrap or paint over. This is also a help to demand.

Black is somewhat more finicky and prone to showing paint defects (dust etc.) than white as well, so it may require more care in production, which would justify it costing extra.

But I'm thinking this is actually about something else. The "multi coat" paint jobs (pearl white and red) use an excess amount of time in the paint shop -- they result in lower throughput than the other paint colors. (This is according to statements from Tesla.) They may be the limiting factor on production rates.

This can be tolerated for red, which has fairly small demand (10% US, 5-7% worldwide) and for which customers are prepared to pay a premium. It cannot be tolerated for white, which is the most popular car color according to some surveys (though others say black), and is in any case around 22-24% of demand worldwide.

I expect the multi-coat pearl white to be removed from production when the new white is introduced. Then I expect the throughput rate of the paint shop to go up. Given that the paint shop has been one of the recurring production bottlenecks, if I'm correct that this increases the production rate of the factory, this is the sensible thing to do.

yep, also why they removed silver metallic some time ago.

 

[Boomer19]

Seeking Alpha is run out of Israel, of all places; founded by David Jackson, now run by Eli Hoffman. Glassdoor has complaints of racism in both hiring and article publication. (Perhaps unsurprising when it's run out of one of the most racist countries on Earth by owners who seem to be totally OK with their government's racism.) And it seems to be absolutely clear from Seeking Alpha employee reviews that Seeking Alpha is not an open forum, but a heavily edited site which is specifically pushing the views of its editors.

I do wonder why its Israeli owners & editors hate Tesla; the best I can come up with is Israel's alliance with Saudi Arabia, but that seems like a stretch. Neither of them appears to have Russian connections.

I can't see how weakening the Islamic oil states wouldn't have a big benefit to Israel. Perhaps it's more of a general conservative type attitude?

not sure either.
it can’t all be because of burning the mobileye bridge. surely there must be more to it.

 

[neroden]

90%+ of their trolling is low quality SMH trope,

I would expect poorly paid Russian trolls who are doing it for the money and don't really believe in it to do low-quality trolling. I am always surprised when homegrown American trolls who are devoted to the cause and are not being paid do such low-quality trolling, but I guess some people are just not competent enough to do high-quality trolling.

 

[LJS22]

I just wonder if the analyst lowering their evaluation on Tesla are ultimately setting Tesla up for a huge rebound. If EM has the numbers and production right and they finish above 90,000 deliveries then you’d have to believe that the evaluations get raised thus creating another quarter of positive news and investor support.

But I think that’s obvious as GS is covering their positions.

 

[neroden]

Oil price jumps after Iran shoots down US drone

per BBC, confirmed a US drone by US. oil up 2.9%

The US needs to stop sending US military drones over Iranian airspace, which isn't legal under international law anyway.

This is Iran making a statement that it can and will defend its borders. Notice that Iran stated that they *did* shoot down the drone.

To me this is further evidence that, as Iran said, Iran had nothing to do with the attacks on the oil tankers (which were probably a Saudi false flag operation, but maybe US or Israel or someone else).

 

[Navin]

Somewhere in midtown - there is a hedge fund guy ordering a pizza for tamberino

 

[Christine69420]

I do wonder why its Israeli owners & editors hate Tesla; the best I can come up with is Israel's alliance with Saudi Arabia, but that seems like a stretch. Neither of them appears to have Russian connections.

Well - Israel got 0 superchargers while Jordan got 4. That's gotta hurt.

 

[EVNow]

171k dumped to push below 220.

 

[EVNow]

I do wonder why its Israeli owners & editors hate Tesla; the best I can come up with is Israel's alliance with Saudi Arabia, but that seems like a stretch. Neither of them appears to have Russian connections.

Because Tesla dumped MobilEye ?

 

[uselesslogin]

Because Tesla dumped MobilEye ?

Unless Seeking Alpha changed owners I'm pretty sure they hated Tesla before Tesla even signed up with MobilEye.

 

[AlexS]

GS - Tesla sells less that 1m cars in 2025, what should I say - buy the dip

 

[powertoold]

What a load of *sugar*; I can't believe these people. Imagine the level of anguish Elon has to deal with living in a world with these deceptive misinformation scumbags.

 

[viridi]

So, this guy Tamberino, who is not even a highly ranked analyst, comes out with ANOTHER downgrade (he seems to issue one every couple or few weeks like clockwork (magically every time the stock gets upward momentum)) with a new narrative (because the old one proved false), and the market somehow gives his views credence because he is from GS - just makes no sense that the lemmings on Wall Street do not get that this guys has an agenda. I guess the good thing is he has given a wonderful buying opportunity. The SEC really does need to look into these analysts (and the media). They are basically given carte blanche to write anything they want without any real oversight. I admire Elon and the Tesla team more-and-more each day knowing all they are achieving in spite of the constant barrage of negativity from so many fronts.

 

[Nocturnal]

The drum beat of a war with Iran is steadily growing. So what happens to TSLA when this happens? Oil/gas prices would skyrocket. The economy would definitely head into a recession, but if gas doubles in price domestically that makes EVs far more valuable than they are currently.

I would expect poorly paid Russian trolls who are doing it for the money and don't really believe in it to do low-quality trolling. I am always surprised when homegrown American trolls who are devoted to the cause and are not being paid do such low-quality trolling, but I guess some people are just not competent enough to do high-quality trolling.

Truly intelligent people have better things to do than troll things they don't like. ​

 

[Spacemanspliff]

Just for context, April was 3,000 units:

View attachment 421181

The very round 3,000 and 2,000 numbers suggest that there's significant uncertainty regarding this data, right?

Anyway, if June simply repeats May then that's 7k Model 3 deliveries alone in Q2. If Tesla China follows the pattern of past quarters then June would be double the deliveries of May, which would increase Model 3 deliveries to 9k perhaps?

They probably have the inventory, otherwise they wouldn't have pulled the various demand levers to move inventory.

Anyway, even with 7k this would suggest a record quarter if NA manages 66k deliveries and Europe manages 20k: 66k+20k+7k=93k.

I don't particularly like using them for China, for multiple reasons, their March to April data doesn't make sense even by their own numbers when you check the YTD totals.

March 5300 YTD 5300
April 3000 YTD 6737
May 2000 YTD 7392

But also if you do some rough calculations with the other data we have in Europe and NA

19824 Q1 3's delivered in Europe + 22425 Q1 3's delivered in NA = 42,249 3's Europe+NA combined

Per Q1 P and D letter 50,900 3's delivered worldwide - 42,249 means roughly 8600 3's sold elsewhere. Given that the P&D report, insideevs, and euro registrations can be +/- a few; estimates I've seen that have 3 sales around 8000 units in China for March make more sense, not the 5300 this site used for March.

That being said I would not be surprised if the 3 was around 2-2.5k sales for May in China.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I don't think Elon sits around worrying about day-to-day SP moves. The shorts are playing with fire, they'll get burned this week, or the next, or the next....

Personally, I don't see them getting through tomorrow below 220. We shall see!

 

[Spacemanspliff]

Anyway, even with 7k this would suggest a record quarter if NA manages 66k deliveries and Europe manages 20k: 66k+20k+7k=93k.

That 7k number you are using lacks a S&X component for China and your full calculation lacks a car carrier that went to Japan early in Q2. So I think its reasonable to assume 63k for NA puts us in the range of 92k if Europe cracks 20k.

 

[Artful Dodger]

not sure either.
it can’t all be because of burning the mobileye bridge. surely there must be more to it.

Does it need to be? Establish a connection between ownership of Mobileye and Seeking Alpha and you've made the case.