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

[neroden]

I’m more and more convinced that Tesla will move S/X production to the new Lathrop building. Here are 2 more evidence:

1. Quote from today’s CNBC article from one of the former engineers: But Tesla has long debated whether or not it should "sunset" either the Model S or X, or move production of these vehicles out of the crowded Fremont factory, this person added..
   
   
2. I was looking for more job offers in Lathrop and I found 2 that were not active but google archived them:

Production Associate, CNC and Extrusions | Tesla - here they explicitly say: He/she will lead the development, implementation and application of Tesla’s Production System for the production of the Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X.

Production Associate, Castings | Tesla - and here they just confirms it.

I mean my english is not the best, so I might be getting it wrong, but it seems too obvious to me.

Doesn't tell us anything. There's *another* building in Lathrop which Tesla has been using for castings for *years*, and these are clearly at *that* building.

 

[printf42]

Yes... *that said*, I have calculated that two more "5%" investors would leave TSLA with "shares sold short >= shares held by short-term traders". Once this was noticed, this would have the result of a short squeeze, followed by killing of real volume.

Heart attack secured

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Is there any proof of "shadow mode" and "data transmission back to the mothership"?

8 video feeds is a lot of raw and uncompressed data... That's a lot of data to both store and transmit, and definitely too much data to be sent over cellular networks.

I'm curious if anyone has actually looked at the data Tesla cars send over WiFi? Opened up the packets?

Yes, @verygreen has seen and reported on this. My understanding is that the car has a set of trigger conditions that cause it to record the camera/sensor data for a short period, and these are uploaded when the car is parked(typically over Wifi). I don’t believe there’s any current evidence of shadow mode actually running on the car, itself.

You can see some of this, yourself, if your router allows you to(basically a large upload from the car with little download activity), though some of that can also be crash/error logs.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

ohhh.... also, for those talking about switching S & X to 21-70s. If this happens it will definitely be with the NEW battery pack assembly technology, so don't expect it to happen until that tech is (a) in Model 3 and (b) road-tested. I.e. they won't make that switch until late this year at the earliest.

Makes more sense to implement new technology on M/S first if you want it road-tested, yet not company-sinking-volumes.
But in general I would expect this be the case ONLY if new design is easily reconfigured btw S/X and 3.
Otherwise, opportunity is larger in M3, and that's where efforts should be spent

 

[neroden]

I'd like to see a doubling or tripling of density not just of the size of many SC locations (ex: Austin, TX's supercharger is tiny, hard to get in and out of) but the number of locations along interstates, and add coverage to highly traveled non-interstate highways.

I'd like there to be a day in the future where you can simply skip a SC stop if you don't feel like stopping yet, because you know there'll be another one in 30-60 miles, rather than 130 miles...

OK. So fill in ND and then double. Still, my point is that there is arguably a *logical finish point* to Supercharger construction. It's not an unending expansion.

 

[neroden]

Speaking as someone who took his 3 into the charging desert of North Dakota, allow me to vehemently agree. The E-W I-94 route desperately needs to be filled in, and US 85 needs one between Spearfish and Medora/Dickinson to allow that route to be used in non-summer weather. This is virtually the only major missing route remaining in the US, and Tesla could fill it for the cost of 10 or so 4- or 6-stall Supercharger locations--a pittance. These stations, by the way, were on the 2016 Supercharger projection map. Three of them have had permits for ~300 days. I'm not sure what the hold-up is.

The hold-up right now is winter.
However, the hold-ups in 2018 really have no excuse.

 

[neroden]

For some reason Bank of Montreal sold nearly 3 million shares in 4Q18--nearly 91% of what it held at the end of 3Q18.

So they're the institution who's dumping. Interesting. I really don't know much about their investment managers.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Has anyone gone through the process of considering what other plausible bad news could come out of the earnings report / call that isn't yet priced in at this point subsequent to the Elon letter and CNBC report on production changes with regard to S/X? That is to say, not worst-case scenarios, but news for which there is some evidence and that could be reasonably anticipated?

I will try to come up with a list over the next day or so, but am not nearly as plugged in as some others here, so my contributions will not be as valuable. If I just succeed in getting the ball rolling I'll be happy.

Apologies if I've missed something like this over the course of the last few days -- haven't been able to stay on top of this thread as much lately.

 

[anthonyj]

Anyone think this pinning action is so that the big boys can sell puts at massive premium to dumb retail? Saw the same action at $348 last week.

 

[neroden]

Back in Nov I posted:

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

This of course resulted in "disagree x 4" and the expected block:

Oh, I agreed with that one, I just thought it added no new information.

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

This post predictably resulted in "Like x 13." (Paracelsus SpaceCash EinSV sundaymorning Fact Checking EVMeister CorneliusXX Lycanthrope shrspeedblade neroden InDaClub saniflash JoaoD )

Contrary to your implication, it wasn't that innocuous post which caused me to agree that you were unhelpful and uninformative. Look at some of the other junk you posted.

 

[KarenRei]

The hold-up right now is winter.
However, the hold-ups in 2018 really have no excuse.

Sure they do:

Money.

Everyone here seems to want Tesla to conjure money from a bottomless pit. And not to have been effected by the major delays in Model 3 production.

 

[dc_h]

Commerce Sec Wilbur Ross: The US is still 'miles and miles' from a trade deal with China

and there goes macros for today, only to be amplified for Tsla

and federal employees should quit complaining and just get some bridge loans.

 

[neroden]

No they don’t. People who live off the beaten path or in the middle of nowhere do. The vast population that lives in dense populations areas, absolutely do not. I can speak to this given I’ve lived in both types of areas and those in between.

Sorry about your luck on the control arm. Poo happens. This is what my spouse and I do when we live in the middle of nowhere - we maintain an extra vehicle, so that should something unexpected happen, we still have a means of transport. Usually it’s used, inexpensive to insure and just sits, but peace of mind and being prepared just in case is how we deal with living away from the conveniences of a city.

Get a CLUE!

I live in a metropolitan statistical area, dude. We have the conveniences of a city.

You can live in Buffalo, the 50th-largest MSA in the US, and have the same problem. Because Tesla has serious deficiences in geographic coverage of service centers, something Musk has noted on Twitter and called IIRC a "dumb oversight".

If Tesla had a service center within 120 miles of every MSA (some are close to one another), there would be no issue.

 

[Unpilot]

Anyone think this pinning action is so that the big boys can sell puts at massive premium to dumb retail? Saw the same action at $348 last week.

Aah yes those golden good old days when we were around 350....that was so long ago...

 

[neroden]

Sure they do:

Money.

Everyone here seems to want Tesla to conjure money from a bottomless pit. And not to have been effected by the major delays in Model 3 production.

That's not an excuse. They needed, like, five stations to finish North Dakota. That's what, $5 million? Maybe $10 million?

They have that much cash in hand, Karen.

That sort of decision has a name. "Penny wise, pound foolish"

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

For anyone playing with options and leverage, I want to share my experience.

These kind of slides I used to find gut wrenching. I tried to keep brave face, and I probably didn't comment much, trusting it will recover (as it did. So I'm not sure how visible my state of mind was even to regular, long-term members of this forum.

I find this last move inconsequential and irrelevant, even-though I'm close to 100% TSLA invested.

Difference is that I don't have leverage, and small ones I'm considering would be well under 10% of my portfolio.

 

[pnungesser]

OK. So fill in ND and then double. Still, my point is that there is arguably a *logical finish point* to Supercharger construction. It's not an unending expansion.

Am I the only one who remembers that the I-40 corridor is also not complete. On more SC near Fort Smith would do the trick.

 

[Buckminster]

However likely introduction of Model Y would be direct competitor to lower end MX. Also, not sure why the market is so worried about tsla, removing lower end products, making fewer higher end higher margin products, and reducing work force, for most normal companies is a win on the street. Of course in opposite world, tesla gets the hammer for making normal moves which companies due to ensure profitability.

Great point regarding the MY competing with the S/X 75Ds. I hadn't considered this before but makes perfect sense and if correct is bullish on MY unveil in March. Tesla preparing the way ahead. Arguably it is 2 years ahead of where it needs to be but it is probably part of Tesla's thinking and will increase reservations. MY is likely to be a big step forwards for a number of reasons. People buying the S over the M3 due to size will be fine with MY in most cases.

 

[tivoboy]

@tivoboy I'm trying to sell put short, strike $300 for March that would trigger around $277 (price $39.5)
Do you think there is still chance we dive deep? Today's trading makes me think we may have turned a corner, so maybe I should just pull a trigger at current prices...

yes, I still think there is a chance we dive deeper (we MIGHT get under 250$ from a technical standpoint). Layoffs and changes to production happened THIS year, so any of the positive effects of that won't be seen in the Q4 numbers. And, well why did they do them? Because they realized they were way over burdened in various areas. Therefore, I think the Q4 has a more than decent chance of being sort of ugly, AND the forecasts could be equally ugly.

 

[EVNow]

Someone just bought 149k. Wonder if some news is coming ...