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

[MarcusMaximus]

Critical but pretty fair article by USA Today um, today, about Tesla not appealing as much to women. Reading through it, sounds like it’s still mostly misconceptions about life with an EV(mainly assumptions that they’ll have to constantly deal with charging it for hours or not be able to get to things), with men just going ahead anyway and women being more cautious. Still lots of work to clear that stuff up.

On that note, I’ve found USA Today to pretty consistently be good in their coverage of Tesla. Not always positive, but their negative articles are usually fair and well researched(this one includes quotes from a woman who owns a Model S and talked about charging at home). Pretty refreshing vs the nonsense we get from NYT/LAT/WaPo/etc.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

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.

Ummm, did you mean Morgan Stanley?

 

[Tim S]

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.

OK how about this: zero chance Q3 deliveries are less than Q2, barring an earthquake or other unforeseen event that affects production or delivery. Demand is not an issue.

I understand it will be better for Tesla to beat lower estimates, but these numbers from Jonas and Troy are ridiculous.

My TSLA stock is already worth more than my house; no need to double down again.

 

[EVNow]

OT :

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.

I've talked to Uber/Lyft drivers who do almost as many. NYC is a small geographical area. In Silicon valley and other places with urban sprawl the # of miles and utilization increases.

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.

Eventually, yes. But initially, definitely they will be supply constrained.

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

Uber & Lyft have increased the total # of miles driven by "taxis". Better price & more convenient. We should expect the same with AVs. I'd expect most younger and older folks to stop driving cars. Only middle aged dead-enders will drive cars

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.

But "commuting" time bands have now increased. Earlier only if I left home at 8 AM the traffic was bad. Now the traffic is bad from 7 AM to 10 AM (again from 3 PM to 6 PM). People are naturally shifting their time to avoid rush hour traffic.

 

[Stars aligned]

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

Actually I like the volume and open interest in calls for next Friday and even more a week later. Looks like institutional positioning after the strong delivery report and in anticipation of a strong financial report.





Edit - same can be said for 2nd August

 

[UncaNed]

The internal profit from using the Semis for Tesla Inc. is so huge that they really have to go forward with the Semi, and they have to do it as fast as possible. Unlike selling vehicles to the outside, using Semis internally Tesla takes both the manufacturer/dealer profit, *and* the cost savings which normally accrue to the consumer who switches from gas to EV. It will be a huge source of profit, which is needed for expanding battery production. Plus, the marketing value of "eating your own dogfood" is huge.

Also a great way to test new types of batteries, with a spare pack or two on board for backup.

 

[ZeApelido]

Let's make one thing super-clear right now, so we don't need to revisit it: all current Tesla vehicles are waaay over-engineered to be used exclusively as taxis. They are driving machines first and foremost, and they have the level of interior finishing that would be completely lost on occasional passengers that pay a very low amount for a quick ride. Would you put fine Italian leather seats on a city bus? Exactly!
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.

U cray Z.

Imagine if FSD / L4/5 capability is achieved this year. Of the 3/S/X being sold, Tesla has a few options:

1) Sell them as is. Up the cost of the FSD option to make lots of profit. To match the expected net profit each vehicle could produce as a taxi, they could up this to as much as what, maybe $100k?

2) Sell them with the FSD option required.

3) Don't sell them, but keep them and start own robotaxi network.

#1 is stupid, because they would be leaving so much money on the table for the % of buyers who don't add the FSD option. This would only make sense if there wasn't enough demand for FSD usage.

#2 and #3 both will maximize profits and miles commuted using an EV. They vary in terms of cash flows, risk diversification, and such details I know nothing about, but they both will be massively profitable.

Every single car Tesla produces right now could be sold with a $50k FSD option included if it could work as a robotaxi. That would be 20 billion in additional profit this year (assuming 400k / year production rate). Stock valuation would basically have to increase 10x.

Investors would riot if option 1 was chosen.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Very interesting re Russian interference at Seeking Alpha:

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3476247-morgan-stanley-trims-revenue-forecast-tesla#comment-82250637

 

[UncaNed]

But it only takes $2,500 or so for a new MCU and screen. Also I kept the first new vehicle I bought for twenty years

I kept my last new car for 240k miles and over 20 years. Hope to keep my model X for as long too.

 

[UncaNed]

Very interesting re Russian interference at Seeking Alpha:

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3476247-morgan-stanley-trims-revenue-forecast-tesla#comment-82250637

TL;DR...
But it's not like the Russians could sabotage it... how could they make SA any worse?

 

[StealthP3D]

How is that? Tongue weight is the biggest factor, and weight distributing hitches are not usually compatible with unibody.

Putting a fifth wheel or goose neck on a unibody would be impressive.

Well, this is not the place to discuss towing capabilities of the Tesla Pickup but I will just point out that people use weight distribution hitches all the time on uni-body vehicles. If the chassis is designed for it it's a great combination.

 

[RobStark]

That assumes that Rivian will not experience their own version of production hell. They also will not have Model S and X sales to help with the cash flow needed to solve it.

Rivian has way more cash on hand than Tesla did during Model S launch.

Rivian has way less overhead than Tesla does. Rivan is paying much lower labor rates. Rural IL vs Fremont,Ca. Headquarters in Plymouth MI vs Palo Alto Ca.

Rivian isn't attempting Dreadnought 1.

 

[Curt Renz]

Benzinga - 15 minutes ago:

Industry Shift: With Four Departures This Year, Who Is The Longest-Tenured Automotive CEO? (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Answer: Elon Musk

 

[TheTalkingMule]

My fresh IRA funds should be available EOD tomorrow, so expect a 40% bump around noon.

 

[RobStark]

You’re just thinking about the plumber/electrician and their every day boring work trucks. There is a pretty decent segment of truck buyers who will be head over heels for a cyberpunk-bladerunner truck; for instance those who like to fancy up their trucks, compete or go mudding etc...

And that’s not even taking into account functionality, performance or TCO metrics of this cyberpunk-bladerunner truck that can hit a point for professionals who decide the looks aren’t the most important.

Or, if I was a professional who used my pickup everyday for work, had that truck covered in my business name and phone number, I might actually think a cyberpunk-bladerunner truck would get more eyeballs on my moving billboard and thus more customers!

I’m getting one of these futuristic trucks and I don’t fit in any of those above groups. I’ll never be a customer of a Rivian even if I couldn’t tell the difference between one of their trucks and a F150. There’s nothing appealing about it to me.

Be careful how you perceive everyone else’s reality. Be careful how you perceive the future sales of a product you’ve never seen nor been available for anyone to purchase, ever.

When my dad sees a contractor with a $70k pickup with signage on the side he always says " I want to pay for the work done on my house, not that urban cowboy pickup."

 

[anthonyj]

Very interesting re Russian interference at Seeking Alpha:

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3476247-morgan-stanley-trims-revenue-forecast-tesla#comment-82250637

Lol this is too much. Why is everything blamed on Russia. It’s the hedge funds that profit off of the volatility of the stock, they hire the troll farms

 

[UncaNed]

Seriously. Since they merged the threads this forum has become nearly unbearable. I check in occasionally out of habit. But the new norm seems to be 10 pages of nonsense based on feeling and assumptions followed by one thoughtful or well researched post.

Feel free to rain down dislikes followed by “why don’t you stop complaining and contribute.” Regardless, I can’t help but miss the TMC of years past. Thoughtful investor posts, intelligently written involving numbers.. ah those were the days.

Isn't there a way to start another, more serious one, but more strictly moderated so it reads like the Tesla Charts thread?

 

[urarthur]

Benzinga - 15 minutes ago:

Industry Shift: With Four Departures This Year, Who Is The Longest-Tenured Automotive CEO? (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Answer: Elon Musk

Someone is reading TMC

 

[RobStark]

As to the "limited time to buy a Tesla", this doesn't jive with me at all and seems to go against the Mission, also the idea of selling them for $200k all of a sudden, doesn't make sense.

IF full self drive actually happens it is 1000% aligned with the Mission.

Having each Tesla in use 95% of the time vs 5% of the time greatly reduces C02. Borrow money to put Tesla vehicles in the fleet then use profits from Tesla Network to grow faster than ever. Reducing CO2 even faster. Don't give anyone the option of underusing a Tesla by only operating it 5-10% of the time.

Big IF.

 

[RobStark]

Most people, certainly older folks, want their own car. The population as a whole isn't yet ready for ride-sharing.

Tesla doesn't need 100% market share.

If it can put each marginal vehicle into the Tesla Network at ~95% usage it reduces CO2 by a greater amount than selling to private owners, particularly older folks who don't drive much.