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

[Drumheller]

Soon, Tesla will take note, and it'll become Cat mode instead of Dog mode!

Cat mode would have a screen message some would find offensive, such as, "@#$% off, nosy human"

Best to keep it dog mode.

 

[Cherry Wine]

The last time TSLA was at $240 was May 10th.

 

[Stars aligned]

Has anyone noticed a correlation between the stock price and the increasing number of cat avatars on this thread?

No, not at all...

 

[Nocturnal]

The last time TSLA was at $240 was May 10th.

I couldn't resist a couple of super cheap calls at $420 for September 2019. You never know with this crazy stock.

 

[capster]

And now for something completely different...

Neuralink on Twitter
View attachment 428463

Many thanks!

 

[Sparky4life]

The funny thing is that Elon's production estimates have steadily become more realistic. Fremont Model 3 production at 7k a week by the end of 2019 or Model Y production for Late 2020. Yet his FSD estimates are still wildly optimistic.

I would say this is progress at least since he loses way more credibility if he can't deliver on production/delivery guidance. That's largely the basis for the current share price.

Elon doesn't care about his credibility from Wall streets perspective. These aggressive timelines are not for them, they are for his employees. He does the same thing at SpaceX. He says "3 months" when he knows that it will probably take 6 months, but he also knows that if he says 6 months it will take longer. It's all about getting things done as quickly as possible and encouraging people to find the shortest path. For better or for worse, external opinions are low on his priority list.

 

[Stars aligned]

If I had to make a wild guess for production for Q3, I'd assume they are running all their lines at 95% capacity, which would be about 6500/wk 3s and 2K/wk S+X, so let's say 8500/wk for 13 weeks, which would be about 100K. I picked 95% because I figure there will be brief lulls due to repairs, upgrades, and other tweaks on the line from time to time.

That seems to be the starting point now. But there will be further optimisations and we heard a new line will take up production soon. I expect numbers will be significantly higher in 2 months, and then again higher in Q4 with GF in Shanghai, obviously. There are also stories from suppliers, increasing deliveries from August onwards.

So production might be well, say, in the 11k/w area by the end of Q3. Total for Q3 production might be then 120k for example.

 

[wipster]

Green

As Scotty said so eloquently, "It's green."

 

[Curt Renz]

ARK Invest will conduct its Quarterly Report webinar today at 4:15 pm EDT. This is separate from its monthly webinar presented Tuesday. I'd expect that this time CEO Cathie Wood will be present and commenting.

Tesla is the overall top holding in their ETFs. It is usually discussed in either their main presentations or the Q&A portion during which we can submit questions.

Registration: https://register.gotowebinar.com/re...07812d4d|44847b4b-fa34-400d-bbbd-47fb18c0637e

 

[bhzmark]

These aggressive timelines are not for them, they are for his employees. He does the same thing at SpaceX. He says "3 months" when he knows that it will probably take 6 months, but he also knows that if he says 6 months it will take longer. It's all about getting things done as quickly as possible and encouraging people to find the shortest path.

This seems so obvious to me. Too bad people cannot, or refuse to understand it -- and admittedly there is a little tension with securities laws but is easily solvable if done right under fwd looking disclaimers.

 

[humbaba]

No, not at all...

I dunno, I recently retired my cat avatar...

 

[Wooloomooloo]

Elon doesn't care about his credibility from Wall streets perspective. These aggressive timelines are not for them, they are for his employees. He does the same thing at SpaceX. He says "3 months" when he knows that it will probably take 6 months, but he also knows that if he says 6 months it will take longer. It's all about getting things done as quickly as possible and encouraging people to find the shortest path. For better or for worse, external opinions are low on his priority list.

This isn't exactly a great way to manage people, and when you're designing autonomous systems and putting expensive things or people into space (as they will be), the "shortest path" shouldn't be a strategic objective. The best possible outcome should be.

Managing to unrealistic timelines is detrimental for three reasons. The obvious one is mismanagement of expectations and while Musk doesn't care about Wall St, he does care about his customers. A less obvious one is that it's demoralizing for teams to always feel like they're missing deadlines and thus under-performing, unless they're in on the joke. If they are, then the aggressive statements are worthless anyway.

The third one is that it's actually a myth that setting unrealistic deadlines makes things happen more quickly, because making a series of short-term decisions based on continuously looming and expired deadlines, often results in mistakes and rework. Rework is expensive time-wise, getting it right first time even when taking a little longer initially, is preferred. Jack Welch figured that out 30 years ago.

 

[Curt Renz]

MarketWatch - 20 minutes ago: Tesla picks up two ‘car of the year’ awards

 

[EVNow]

Teh third one is that it's actually a myth that setting unrealistic deadlines makes things happen more quickly,

I've a lot of personal examples to say this is not always correct.

I've also lots of examples where we thought the target was realistic but we still missed them.

Problem is when the team doesn't even try - because everyone thinks the target is unrealistic.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Per Opricot, max pain tomorrow is $230. However, there are a lot of $240 strike call options set to expire tomorrow, which leads me to think that may act as the stronger attractor (notwithstanding the fact that it's also a psychological barrier for the stock right now).

 

[tschmidty]

Change avatar to picture of my cat, stock goes over $240

240.38 USD +1.46 (0.61%)

Cat avatar == sp rise confirmed.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Last three Q2 earnings call announcements / dates:

2016 Q2: Announced 7/19 / Held 8/3 (EPS: -2.09)
2017 Q2: Announced 7/11 / Held 8/2 (EPS: -2.04)
2018 Q2: Announced 7/19 / Held 8/1 (EPS: -4.22)

EDIT:

Change avatar to picture of my cat, stock goes over $240

240.38 USD +1.46 (0.61%)

Cat avatar == sp rise confirmed.

My lab vehemently disagrees. ;-)

 

[Curt Renz]

Electrek; 50 minutes ago: Tesla supplier hints at massive increase in Model 3 production - Electrek

 

[jerry33]

The third one is that it's actually a myth that setting unrealistic deadlines makes things happen more quickly, because making a series of short-term decisions based on continuously looming and expired deadlines, often results in mistakes and rework. Rework is expensive time-wise, getting it right first time even when taking a little longer initially, is preferred. Jack Welch figured that out 30 years ago.

You're correct, but I have yet to work for a company that cared about anything other than the timeline. Tesla isn't unique in this, but perhaps they are more vocal.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

I've a lot of personal examples to say this is not always correct.

I've also lots of examples where we thought the target was realistic but we still missed them.

Problem is when the team doesn't even try - because everyone thinks the target is unrealistic.

Very fair, yes. Of course targets can be missed even if they were realistic, and of course occasionally moon-shot efforts do work. But often when you push for a 3 month delivery when you know it should take 6 months, it ends up taking 9 months. I've seen that time and again in different organizations.