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

[Pezpunk]

something's wrong with my tracking app. the stock price is displaying in this weird yellowish-blueish color.

 

[schonelucht]

BTW., they probably removed the graveyard shift, which is the least productive shift usually. So the effective capacity reduction is probably less than 30%.

OTOH we don't know whether the remaining two shifts are 100% utilized: chances are that they are not, if the 75D was ~50% of demand.

Here's the seasonal data for Model S sales in the U.S.:

You can't use variations in monthly regional deliveries (from an unreliable source no less) to support an argument about production line utilization. It's well known that Tesla batches up regional production. January being a slow month for US deliveries says nothing about January being a slow month for production.

 

[gringotuanis]

I'm a long time lurker but I keep seeing requests for these numbers so I thought I'd help contribute.

I have access to First Call, which is an equivalent of FactSet, just run by Nasdaq. They might differ marginally due to who they include and don't include in their consensus, but with a company like Tesla the differences should be negligible.I can also see all of the estimates listed individually and the ones that are included in consensus vs. not are marked as well. If anyone wants a deeper look I can totally do that.

For TSLA Q4 from First Call:
Revenue: 7,082.2
EPS: 2.25
Free Cash Flow: 405.6

Do you have an update on these numbers? Have they changed?

 

[neroden]

Since TSLA has always gone back up after these dips, I'm always curious why people sell here.
Why not just wait for the inevitable climb back up?

"Buy high, sell low". This behavior by retail investors is a classic reason why most people get fleeced.

Maybe this will be it, and Tesla will never go higher than this again. The only scenario I see for that is if their service problems go unfixed and get worse.

That said, my last service call was a lot better than than the previous several in terms of *communication* (even though in the middle of it I got ticked enough to tweet at Elon, that was mostly from *cumulative* annoyance from previous hassles). At the end of my 35-minute call, my car was being picked up and my loaner was on its way, because three Tesla departments and an outside contractor had *coordinated* with both me *and* the guy at the place my car was stranded -- which is actually far better than has ever happened before. Arranging all that stuff in 35 minutes isn't actually half bad.

So at the moment I'm optimistic.

 

[Nocturnal]

I know it's foolish to bemoan the irrationality of the market, but this article really highlights the issue.
One chart suggests Tesla could have trouble breaking higher
TSLA was trading at the same level in 2014. If we assume that expected growth etc. was priced into the SP at the time, what kind of growth was expected? Looking at the past 4 years it's hard to imagine a scenario where Tesla could have really done that much better.

"Buy high, sell low". This behavior by retail investors is a classic reason why most people get fleeced.

Maybe this will be it, and Tesla will never go higher than this again. The only scenario I see for that is if their service problems go unfixed and get worse.

That said, my last service call was a lot better than than the previous several in terms of *communication* (even though in the middle of it I got ticked enough to tweet at Elon, that was mostly from *cumulative* annoyance from previous hassles). At the end of my 35-minute call, my car was being picked up and my loaner was on its way, because three Tesla departments and an outside contractor had *coordinated* with both me *and* the guy at the place my car was stranded -- which is actually far better than has ever happened before. Arranging all that stuff in 35 minutes isn't actually half bad.

So at the moment I'm optimistic.

They have work to do but I've always had near perfect service at my local SC. My beef is with corporate communications. I've been trying to get my perf package refund for like 3 months now. emails take weeks to be answered etc.

 

[neroden]

Actual demand for any particular variant is not our guess at a percentage.

In fact, the only number we can tell *for sure* is whether *this quarter's* demand for a *currently produced variant* in a country where it is *currently being delivered* is *higher than this quarter's production rate* or *not*. Everything else is extrapolation or interpolation or speculation.

I personally have some speculations which I think have been pretty accurate; Tesla really *does* need to get the standard-range car out ASAP; but this is a reminder that we have a pretty small number of real data points.

 

[neroden]

They have work to do but I've always had near perfect service at my local SC. My beef is with corporate communications. I've been trying to get my perf package refund for like 3 months now. emails take weeks to be answered etc.

My point is that I actually got results out of someone from the Nevada call center! They managed to communicate with everyone necessary. This... is new.

 

[cricketman]

Anybody noticed that the first Tesla Model 3s have been registered today in Norway!?
Tesla Registration Stats

 

[neroden]

I feel like this thread is beginning to resemble a daily avalanche mainly going over my head.
Is it too forward to wish for an information-only watering hole devoid of all discussion?

There is now a thread for that.

Moderators' Choice: Posts of Particular Merit

 

[SOULPEDL]

I am concerned though about confused longs as they are the ones selling and bringing the SP down. Shorts can only create the impression of a drifting SP for a short period of time and rely on weak longs to sell before they start to cover again.

I'm not at all confused here... just like eating my brussel sprouts and can't wait for my cake!

 

[Car4CivilizedAge]

Anybody noticed that the first Tesla Model 3s have been registered today in Norway!?
Tesla Registration Stats

Yeah 17 Model 3’s that will serve as test drive vehicles starting tomorrow. Received an invitation today. By the way Norway now has about 5 k model 3 orders: would be awesome if they’re delivered in Q1

 

[McMountain]

Expect major drop in share price right now, I just bought 50 share.

 

[neroden]

Elon adding Ellison to the board all because he’s personal friends with him is so lame

He was added because he owns a billion dollars of Tesla stock not because of "personal friendship".

 

[neroden]

There's some great data on the website, thanks for sharing. VIN counting still in my view involves a bit of witchcraft but is potentially useful within wide error margins. Of particular interest is what the data might indicate for margin, once you pull it around a bit.

This shows why Q4 is going to be "less profitable" than Q3, due to undoubtedly lower ASPs:
View attachment 371081

Now perhaps debate of Elon's employee letter is a tired subject. But this data does seem very at odds with the pessimistic forecast of "tiny profit with a lot of luck" for Q1, given the high proportion of VINs allocated to AWD/LR.
.....
There's not a lot in this that worries me too much about the next quarter or so and I still expect Q1 to exceed Q4 (notwithstanding the $2k cut to prices in the US), given high ASP International sales. From Q2/Q3 onwards is where SR margins come into play (the May timeframe mentioned in Elon's letter feels right).

...But *unless* Tesla does the crazy "switch all production back to California deliveries on March 1st, quick" fiddle, Q1 should have a one-time hit due to loading up the ship pipeline to Europe (min. 19 days) and China (min. 15 days). That's basically adding an average o f 17 days in transit; equivalent to losing 18.6% of your sales for the quarter.

We'll find out if they're still doing the "Europe early in quarter, US late in quarter" thing by early March. It's a *bad idea* if they do because it means you end up overstaffing both the US and Europe just for *appearances*; it is better to steady-state both locations and take the one-tmie hit.

 

[neroden]

What's particularly off about this, unless something has changed in the past couple of years, Seeking Alpha is a blog site, not a news outlet. When I became a contributor (I have no background in journalism), their website indicated both that, ~50% of people seeking to be contributors are approved, and most importantly, that their explicit policy is to not fact check the blogs they "publish" from the "contributors." I once even discussed this with Tesla's VP of IR at the time, and he left me with the impression that Tesla's attorneys had looked at the Seeking Alpha phenomena, and had thoughts that the "no editorial review" policy was a device to side step legal responsibility for the ...uh, stuff... we see flowing out of SA in high volume.

Why do Seeking Alpha blogs (again, if nothing has changed in what they "publish") even show up in anything remotely resembling a newsfeed on Google or anywhere?

Ding ding ding. This is a loophole which stock manipulators are driving a truck through. Take a "blog site" which explicitly *refuses* to fact-check *anything* even when verifiably false statements are reported to them. Manage to get anything published on it shoved into the Google/Yahoo/Fidelity/etc. newsfeeds. A gang of stock manipulators can then do whatever they want highly effectively.

 

[mrdoubleb]

So about the EAP/FSD being included on MS/MX in the price... I`m not sure I like that idea from a profit point of view. Obviously the cost is not zero on these due to the development costs of the AP software (the HW cost is split among all cars), but we usually refer to these as 90%+ profits.

Why give that up as long as people are willing to pay for it? Sure, can make it cheaper as a demand lever, do like a Black Friday sales, etc. But simply including it to base, while keeping the price flat would really eats into the margins, don`t you think?

 

[KarenRei]

Stock today looks like a heart rate monitor.

BEEP!.... BEEP!.... BEEP!.... BEEP!....

 

[tivoboy]

Ford Posts Quarterly Loss Amid Struggles in Europe, China

Ford Motor Co. reported its first quarterly loss in three years due to a pension accounting charge and poor performances in Europe and China


https://www.usnews.com/news/busines...quarterly-loss-amid-struggles-in-europe-china

They really buried the lead on this one. Revenues BEAT by nearly 2 Billion.

Still destined to be six feet under (or nearly) at some point in our history. (small position from 7.75$ - just couldn't say no, it was 7.75$ and it was paying 7.75%)..

 

[HG Wells]

Stock today looks like a heart rate monitor.

View attachment 371398

Headline: Shortsville Times
Respected stock wizard says "Tesla looks like it's on a heart monitor." Will it live till tomorrow ?

To Boss Short:
Notice how I cleverly ended that miss quote before adding the sting ?

Your Partner in Crime
Chief Editor
Shortsville Times

 

[DurandalAI]

So about the EAP/FSD being included on MS/MX in the price... I`m not sure I like that idea from a profit point of view. Obviously the cost is not zero on these due to the development costs of the AP software (the HW cost is split among all cars), but we usually refer to these as 90%+ profits.

Why give that up as long as people are willing to pay for it? Sure, can make it cheaper as a demand lever, do like a Black Friday sales, etc. But simply including it to base, while keeping the price flat would really eats into the margins, don`t you think?

Honestly, I think it's a matter of expectations. I don't expect to drop $94,000 on a car and have to pay extra for leather seats, and jus t the same I don't expect to pay extra for what will soon be the equivalent of adaptive cruise control, or navigation, etc, etc. It adds virtually nothing to the cost, adds perceived value to the vehicle, and also increases the adoption of Autopilot which is good from an optics POV.