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

[AlMc]

This would be huge -- but I won't hold my breath with the price tag that's being put on the bill. I expect it to die quietly in Appropriations. I hope I'm wrong.

the bill's sponsor is chairman of the budget committee IIRC and Cali has a nice budget surplus. Come on Cali TMcers..get behind it!

 

[Stars aligned]

Can someone please explain to the newb?

The call options can be used 1) as a long leveraged play 2) to hedge a short position 3) to cover a short position when exersiced 4) to build up a long position when exercised.

3) and 4) have the advantage that the SP is not moved that much as with a direct buy. The impact on the SP comes when the exercising happens. For this strategy it makes sense to use near term and close to the money options.

 

[neroden]

I was using the NY taxicab factbook (potentially slightly outdated) and then assuming that robotaxis without drivers that need to sleep/have a life outside of work can drive more often than a normal 12-hr taxi shift:

Thanks for the updated data from NYC. NYC has the absolute highest taxi miles-per-year in the entire world, last I checked, so the NYC 64.6K miles/year should be considered a maximum. Other cities will have lower miles per year.

Robotaxis, if and when they arrive a decade from now, won't go any more miles per year than that. Most New York City taxis are owned by fleets, and the fleets put a different driver on each shift in the same taxi to get maximum utilitization, already. Utilization is demand-limited by the rush hour phenomenon, not supply-limited.

Geez. This is the inverse error to all the people who worry about whether Tesla has demand for their cars (no, Tesla has a supply shortage). In the case of taxi services, they're demand-limited most hours of the day; there's plenty of supply. Hours utilized per day won't go up.

Bringing the price down may increase demand in rush hour, but at midnight? Not so much.

The fact is that most people actually don't make a lot of joyride trips. Even private cars are predominantly used for commuting. The only way to get increased hours-per-day utilization is to replace non-commuting miles, but there just aren't that many non-commuting miles in the fleet as a whole.

 

[Tim S]

May be he is getting ideas from Troy

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These numbers aren't that unreasonable. Q3 could be lower than Q2.

I'd like these to be the analyst consensus estimates. Upto Tesla to beat them.


I think the margins in Q2 will be lower (because of pre-raven discounted S/X) and higher number of SR+ in the mix. He is setting them up for a revenue miss.


Because he thinks Tesla will be selling less than 1M cars even 3/5 years from now.

I am disagreeing with the bolded statement. These numbers are completely unreasonable. There is zero chance that Q3 deliveries will be lower than Q2. DEMAND IS NOT AN ISSUE. An $1875 drop in the US federal tax credit will have almost no effect. As battery cell production increases, production and deliveries will increase.

To me, Troy now has similar credibility to Jonas, which is none.

 

[jerry33]

Robotaxis, if and when they arrive a decade from now, won't go any more miles per year than that. Most New York City taxis are owned by fleets, and the fleets put a different driver on each shift in the same taxi to get maximum utilitization, already. Utilization is demand-limited by the rush hour phenomenon, not supply-limited.

This is the number one problem for non-retired Tesla owners on the Tesla network. They will want to use their cars at the same time that the demand is there.

 

[AlMc]

This is the number one problem for non-retired Tesla owners on the Tesla network. They will want to use their cars at the same time that the demand is there.

If Tesla robotaxis become that profitable then I will keep one for personal use and 'rent out' the other one. Should pay for both teslas.

 

[urarthur]

I don't think put/call parity is useful indicator if it's only based on volume (as in barchart.com) and not value-weighted.

As you can see below, someone purchased 60k July'19 put options on the $50 strike. These are very cheap and sold for 1-2 cent per contract. Someone buying only 100 ATM call contracts would spend almost as much $$. This would result into a 60k/100 put/call ratio. Very skewed towards puts, while same amount of $$ is at stake.

 

[EVNow]

There is zero chance that Q3 deliveries will be lower than Q2.

Really zero ? Willing to bet your house on it ?

This is exactly how we got burnt in Q1. Besides, I prefer to have lower analyst consensus and for Tesla to beat than have high consensus which Tesla misses.

 

[Dutchie]

May be he is getting ideas from Troy

View attachment 427549


These numbers aren't that unreasonable. Q3 could be lower than Q2.

I'd like these to be the analyst consensus estimates. Upto Tesla to beat them.


I think the margins in Q2 will be lower (because of pre-raven discounted S/X) and higher number of SR+ in the mix. He is setting them up for a revenue miss.


Because he thinks Tesla will be selling less than 1M cars even 3/5 years from now.

I doubt the effect of the tax credit will be that big or even measurable. Yes it is $1,875 but it is roughly the price of a nice colour for your car. The drop on January 1 was more significant.

 

[EVNow]

So to think that in the not-so-distant future Tesla will be exclusively producing these engineering masterpieces -- including the Faberge egg of cars -- solely as robo-taxis is ridiculous!
At some point they might consider producing a different type of vehicle, build specifically to ferry passengers at relatively low speeds in an urban environment as comfortably as possible. But at the moment we don't have that. So the X, S and 3 will always be produced to be sold to customers.

You are almost there !

The logical conclusion is, if and when robotaxi is available, Tesla will prioritize making robotaxis. Not X, S, 3, Y, R, Pickup or Semi

 

[urarthur]

Can someone please explain to the newb?

more call option volume (bullish) vs. put option volume (bearish) is bought.

 

[neroden]

I don't think put/call parity is useful indicator if it's only based on volume (as in barchart.com) and not value-weighted.

As you can see below, someone purchased 60k July'19 put options on the $50 strike. These are very cheap and sold for 1-2 cent per contract. Someone buying only 100 ATM call contracts would spend almost as much $$. This would result into a 60k/100 put/call ratio. Very skewed towards puts, while same amount of $$ is at stake.


View attachment 427558

FWIW, I now believe that those $50 strike puts are probably mostly part of bull put spreads, designed to reduce margin requirements.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Ideally there won't be that much deadheading. Drive to passengers destination, park somewhere near, wait for next passenger. It's not like the car would have to go home after each trip.

Taxis and Ubers don't return home after each trip, yet have close to 50% deadhead miles.

I think Elon used 90k miles/year and 40% deadhead in the Autonomy Day presentation, but don't quote me on that. I've seen Tony Seba fantasy numbers that assume 0% deadhead.

 

[EVNow]

I doubt the effect of the tax credit will be that big or even measurable. Yes it is $1,875 but it is roughly the price of a nice colour for your car. The drop on January 1 was more significant.

So, expect much lesser pull forward compared to Q1 over Q4, which was 20%. We can expect a small reduction (5% to 10%) - solely based on pull forward. The question is will organic growth and seasonality overcome this reduction or not.

 

[Dutchie]

Adam Jonas is always on the Investors calls? Why is he there when he doesn't listen to what is being said and he does is own thing anyway.
Hope Elon will put him on the spot next time, like saying "Oh here is Mr. $10, what is your question?"

 

[neroden]

Taxis and Ubers don't return home after each trip, yet have close to 50% deadhead miles.

I think Elon used 90k miles/year and 40% deadhead in the Autonomy Day presentation, but don't quote me on that. I've seen Tony Seba fantasy numbers that assume 0% deadhead.

Evidence of fantasizing on Elon's part. (40% deadhead is OK, but 90k miles would depend on massive non-rush-hour travel increases; it makes no sense.)

 

[EVNow]

Taxis and Ubers don't return home after each trip, yet have close to 50% deadhead miles.

I think Elon used 90k miles/year and 40% deadhead in the Autonomy Day presentation, but don't quote me on that. I've seen Tony Seba fantasy numbers that assume 0% deadhead.

Ark uses 219k total miles with 53% utilization.

 

[Garlands]

Adam Jonas is always on the Investors calls? Why is he there when he doesn't listen to what is being said and he does is own thing anyway.
Hope Elon will put him on the spot next time, like saying "Oh here is Mr. $10, what is your question?"

I always wish companies would give a brief introduction to each of the analysts before they ask their questions, maybe include their current price target/predictions/tiprank.

 

[jerry33]

Taxis and Ubers don't return home after each trip, yet have close to 50% deadhead miles.

True, but the assumption is that FSD will be a lot more popular because it's way cheaper, which means there should be much less deadheading. Of course if it's not a lot more popular, then there won't be any difference.

 

[neroden]

Adam Jonas is on the calls because Tesla needs to remain polite to Goldman Sachs, who runs various bond offerings and similar stuff. He shouldn't be on the calls because he's worthless as an analyst and asks nothing but stupid questions. But I think Tesla would have to switch all its business away from GS before they could snub him.

Stupid ego stuff by GS but there it is.