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

[Fred42]

Read Get the Report — RethinkX and ponder what % of those 1 million car owners will choose to leave their car "rotting in the garage" rather than out there earning $30k per year - and returning all cleaned and shiny at the end of each day.

And with an illegal substance put somewhere that someone else finds at a later date, or a cut seat or other vandalism that isn't attributed to a specific passenger.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Quick reminder, seems our planet is cooking, and faster. Paris agreement goal was by year 2100 maintain ave temp "well below 2 degrees C." Seems we're on track to dump enough CO2 as early as 2035 that would yield the full 1.5 degrees. Wow, just 16 yrs away. So seems the Paris goal isn't good enough, need a new one perhaps. Alaskan's swimming in record heatwave caught my attention this week. This is getting real and fast.

People will want BEVs even more when this becomes clear. The consumer is in the driver's seat here.
CO2 emissions are on track to take us beyond 1.5 degrees of global warming

The American media is controlled by corporations and they have been keeping quiet about this. I think the only place I've even seen an article reporting about this is on BBC and that's unhelpful to Americans who never consume foreign media.

 

[azaz]

Here we go with the FSD nonsense.

Kinda insane how confident he remains about FSD when enhanced summon alone has turned out to be a much harder problem to solve than he assumed

 

[Electroman]

Lex Fridman (MIT) tweeted that Tesla has over 528,000 HW2+ to date, and 692,000 total Teslas in the wild.

When Elon says he'll have 1 million robotaxi capable cars delivered by sometime next year, it is shocking how real that is when these numbers are truly appreciated.

Literally, Tesla will have a million cars on the road sometime in Q1 next year. From a few thousand in 2012, to now 1 million eight years later, it'ss truly mind blowing and should really be a major news story when it happens.

And the 1 million robotaxi capable fleet will be the next massive story right on its heels. When the over the air update turns on the network it will be unbelievable moment for sure.

Amazing time to be alive.

Be prepared for MSM to totally ignore this huge milestone, but instead harp on some minor tactical delay or hiccup in GF3

 

[Electroman]

Here we go with the FSD nonsense.

Kinda insane how confident he remains about FSD when enhanced summon alone has turned out to be a much harder problem to solve than he assumed

Agree.. every time I hear Robotaxis or FSD - I say, my foot !

 

[RobStark]

Read Get the Report — RethinkX and ponder what % of those 1 million car owners will choose to leave their car "rotting in the garage" rather than out there earning $30k per year - and returning all cleaned and shiny at the end of each day.

Under this scenario how much is the mobility customer paying per mile, how much is Tesla's cut and how much are they paying to clean and shine the car, and what is the balance going to the owner per mile? And what is the depreciation per mile? And how many miles are we figuring to get to and from fares? Getting total miles per year?

 

[EVNow]

It's exciting, but Im starting to wonder what % of those 1 million cars owners will actually turn on taxi mode?

Same % as home owners who hop on airbnb.

 

[mrmage]

Here we go with the FSD nonsense.

Kinda insane how confident he remains about FSD when enhanced summon alone has turned out to be a much harder problem to solve than he assumed

A sufficiently advanced summon is indistinguishable from FSD.

 

[FrankSG]

Does anybody know why the debt in Tesla's 10-Q and 10-K filings are slightly off from the debt in their quarterly earnings reports?

For example, Q1'19 Recourse debt in 10-Q filing is 6,782,303, whereas it is listed as 6,517,022 in their Q1'19 Earnings Report:

Latest 10-Q (Q1'19):
https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/6c1d8708-1f9e-4cf9-b31a-a7c106d03a2c (Page 21)

Recourse: 6,782,303
Non-recouse: 3,543,208

Latest Earnings Letter (Q1'19):
https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/b2218d34-fbee-4f1f-ac95-050eb29dd42f (Page 8)

Recourse: 6,517,022
Non-recourse: 3,485,597

 

[BLSmith2112]

Here we go with the FSD nonsense.

Kinda insane how confident he remains about FSD when enhanced summon alone has turned out to be a much harder problem to solve than he assumed

Many sideroad features are included in parking-lots such as curbs, road markings, signs, various pedestrian situations, navigating densely packed urban situations, right of way etc. If i had to guess, advanced summon includes probably nearly 70% of all similar situations you’d see on a sideroad. I find parking lots incredibly more stressful than driving on sideroads, and if advanced summon can master parking lots, the rest should be a cakewalk.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

We are NOT going to repeat the same old tug of war about FSD being realistic or not. Nothing has changed since the last time.

Mod

 

[Green Pete]

Same % as home owners who hop on airbnb.

That’s a very low %. Most Airbnb’s are the result of people buying a house to put on Airbnb. Musk’s latest tweet suggests they are going to quickly raise prices to cut that type of speculation out.

 

[LN1_Casey]

To change the topic from RoboTaxi's;

How does the thread feel that the Tesla Pickup will affect the stock price? The pickup industry, in the US at least, is a huge market. However, Overlord Elon Musk himself has said that the truck will be "Cyberpunk" and "not for everyone." which, considering his (often hilarious) preference for a lot of things, lends credit that the truck may be a bit of a flop to the general truck market--at least, for the initial release.

Or, alternatively, such a unique unveil may make Tesla even more well known, since it'd be a very talked about topic, especially if it's out of the usual. And if it meets Overlord Musk's statements of being better than the F-150, and quicker than the 911, and something else I can't remember at this time.

Supposedly the details are set to be released "Summer 2019" but I am skeptical of that time. Probably closer to winter than summer, me thinks.

 

[CorneliusXX]

"Do consumers have limited time left to buy a Tesla car, since prices would have to go up severalfold to balance supply & demand once you solve FSD?"

Elon Musk:

"Yes"

It's been mentioned many times around here that the current economic model of Tesla (build and sell vehicles to customers) is suboptimal in the world of FSD. The price to the customer will be just too high and the fleet will have a lower utilisation rate than if all vehicles are pressed into the transportation service.

It is interesting to see that Elon appears to think the same. My guess is that Tesla will take out gigantic funding lines secured against the vehicles while they generate taxi income. The initial payoff for each vehicle should only be a couple of years.

It's just difficult to tell how the transition will go. Does it start some time next year with a partial retention of production or is there another 5 or 10 years before the change. And in the interim what happens to the cost of the FSD option for customers who purchase the vehicle?

 

[RobStark]

How does the thread feel that the Tesla Pickup will affect the stock pri

Supposedly the details are set to be released "Summer 2019" but I am skeptical of that time. Probably closer to winter than summer, me thinks.

1) As long as Tesla remains cell constrained it is not very relevant how much new demand is generated by the pickup. Maybe that is why it will have limited appeal on purpose. There is not enough cell supply to sell 500k Tesla trucks per year. I guess it could increase ASP if Tesla redirects cells from $40k Model 3s to $60k pickups.

2) I think it is rather simple to do show a prototype, list specifications, and do a show. Meeting Job1 deadline is much more difficult.

BTW Full size market is quite huge in all of North America, including Canada and Mexico. IMO the reason Australians buy compact-midsize Utes with 2.0L diesels is because the cost of fuel. Middle Class Australians with solar panels (of which the number is large and growing) may find a Tesla pickup very compelling. Australians import about 2k full size American pickups per year and drive them as is or convert them to RHD despite the great expense to import and fuel them.

 

[Dutchie]

We are NOT going to repeat the same old tug of war about FSD being realistic or not. Nothing has changed since the last time.

Mod

But when Elon starts again with yet another claim/timeline we should be able to call it out

 

[Dutchie]

It's been mentioned many times around here that the current economic model of Tesla (build and sell vehicles to customers) is suboptimal in the world of FSD. The price to the customer will be just too high and the fleet will have a lower utilisation rate than if all vehicles are pressed into the transportation service.

It is interesting to see that Elon appears to think the same. My guess is that Tesla will take out gigantic funding lines secured against the vehicles while they generate taxi income. The initial payoff for each vehicle should only be a couple of years.

It's just difficult to tell how the transition will go. Does it start some time next year with a partial retention of production or is there another 5 or 10 years before the change. And in the interim what happens to the cost of the FSD option for customers who purchase the vehicle?

Limited time to buy a Tesla?? When new products are still in the works. I don't see for instance the Roadster being utilized as a Robotaxi. Surely that one can still be purchased.

 

[Artful Dodger]

How does the thread feel that the Tesla Pickup will affect the stock price? The pickup industry, in the US at least, is a huge market.

Tesla does not yet possess the bty cell supply it requires to produce the Pickup (cyberpunk or otherwise) in volume to compete with the F-150.

The top of the line Tesla pickup will likely have a 300 KWh pack. The smallest will likely be at least 100. So WAG ~1 MWh/4 trucks. Tesla needs to build capacity for 400K trucks/yr. That's 100 GWh/yr right there. And don't ignore bty needs for Semi.

That's why Elon's not too worried about releasing the BMW i3 of trucks (c.f. ugly butling). The big production numbers HAVE to wait. It can not be done yet at scale.

That is why Tesla is focusing on bty cell production right now. Looking forward to potentially seeing the roadmap during 'Bty+Pwrtrn Investor Day' this year. When the Grohmann/Maxcell/MegaCube starts pumping out cells, then its 'well howdy'.

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Limited time to buy a Tesla?? When new products are still in the works. I don't see for instance the Roadster being utilized as a Robotaxi. Surely that one can still be purchased.

Congratulations. You've set the price for 'RoboTaxi': $200K

 

[KSilver2000]

Same % as home owners who hop on airbnb.

Interesting way to look at it.

From a simple search online, there’s about 660,000 Airbnb listings (many are investment properties) in the US and about 100 million housing units. So, that would make it less than 1%. Sounds about right. I, personally, don’t know of anyone in my network that lists their main residence on Airbnb.
I would never list my personal house on Airbnb, nor would I with a daily car either on the TN. Just don’t want random strangers’ bottoms in my stuff.

If I was certain that having a spare Tesla on the TN would net me a very high IRR, then sure. But, supply and demand will eventually cross, and the TN will not be much (if any) profitable after time.