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

[Fact Checking]

There's only one way to resolve this impasse. Next earnings call we ask Elon if he's a dog person or a cat person.

Elon has both:

Elon Musk on Twitter

"We have a big dog called Gatsby, a little dog called Marvin the Martian & a cat named Schrödinger"​

Having both dogs and a cat is the real-life equivalent of the wave-particle duality: one of the great oddities and mysteries of physics.

 

[mariaaa]

Tesla-Autos werden nur langsam zugelassen – Musks Reaktion ist erstaunlich
Elon Musk called Hamburg Mayor - and even France's President Macron

Haha damn - I like that guy - he is a finisher!

 

[FrankSG]

Totally agree with you, but I think the very short term calls are just the tip of the iceberg. I suspect that even bigger money is being made by hedge funds selling calls for further out expirations.

While sellers of these calls don’t need the SP to close at a particular price Friday, it’s critically important for them to continuously maintain what I would call “SP price control.” Their big fear is an uncontrolled runup. Not necessarily a full-blown short squeeze. But for example, it was critically important to them yesterday to knock down the price below 240. If the SP kept going to, say 243, it might have zoomed to 250, which would signal to everyone that the call sellers have lost control of the SP. When that signal is sent, the SP is vulnerable to a quick rise to 300 and beyond. The smart hedge funds will take their losses quickly and live to play the game all over again when the SP settles. They will let the SP run. The less smart “pilers on” to the call selling game will lose their shirts, but they are not driving things st all, they will just be roadkill.

When do the call writers lose control of the SP? With the SP still 150 points below ATH, and improving fundamentals, just about any positive news of any kind could be the catalyst.

But let’s not get overconfident. The SP now is also 60 points above recent lows, and negative news can have the opposite effect. And regardless of the news, the call writers are going to continue to fight hard not to lose SP price control.

Can I ask what you base these kinds of theories on? Obviously there's a lot of shares sold short, that's hard data. But what makes you think there's a ton of call option sellers trying to control SP, and how do they profit?

 

[Mike Smith]

Volkswagen to inject $2.6 billion into Ford unit Argo AI: source - Reuters

Argo AI now valued at $7 billion..

 

[neroden]

From official investor relation communications by Tesla. Produced minus delivered. So no, I am not wrong.

Oh, you are referring to cars sold and in transit to customers. From context, I thought you were using the normal meaning of inventory, namely inventory available for sale. But you were not. So you were quoting an irrelevant number. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[jerry33]

Despite which I know someone who ran her Model X down to zero and needed a tow because she was being an idiot.

The universe is way ahead of the game in creating bigger idiots.

 

[schonelucht]

Oh, you are referring to cars sold and in transit to customers.

Not even. Model 3s in transit were around 5k (Tesla does not break down transit per model so feel free to haggle over a few hunderd each way), leaving at least 10k Model 3s in pure inventory. And many of those 5k are in transit because the customer couldn't take delivery before 30/6. When that happens, the car becomes 'for sale' again. A new order coming in that matches that car will get it.

 

[urarthur]

So what exactly did Jerome's email imply. Is it just higher production rate? what's so secret about that that he wouldn't be able to say in the email and that employees would be so excited?

We know it's not:

• S/X refresh. Not going to happen.
• Model Y/Semi/Pickup). Way too soon for that.
• S/X production rate increase. That's really not something employees would be excited about.
• 5%-10% increase in Model 3 production rate. Can't see how the email would justify that.

What it could be:

• Significant increase in Model 3 SR+ production rate with new tooling coming from Grohmann 20%-25%.
• Highly automated Model 3 SR assembly line (Alien dreadnought v2) that's not going to affect SR+ and LR production rate.

My bet is on the last one. We know Panasonic upgraded the battery lines in June. There is an infinite demand for lower priced normal range EV's around the world. Even if gross margin is 0%-10% on these, Tesla would capture sizeable market share, have customers for life, spread the Tesla love (mouth to mouth free advertising) and most importantly Supercharger network/Servicing/Robotaxi income.

 

[Tslynk67]

there was a blip on NPR this morning, "morning edition" around 1/4 after the hour, about NASA, Saturn 5, how Saturn 5 was most powerful rocket ever, and it's offspring is being built to 'return to the moon'
In the middle of the blip, it was commented "oh, it's a jobs program", it will cost well over $1 Billion per launch, it may launch in late 2020, maybe, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is $100 million per launch (1/10th the cost)
So, private company, lands rockets at 10% the cost of NASA.
race to the moon, "part deux"
Musk vs NASA vs Branson vs Bezos?
Good press for Tesla/SpaceX, eh?
good press = higher SP hopefully

I read that an Arianne rocket was lost the other day, some kind of military satellite for a Middle-East country in the sea = no big loss there at all.

However, I was thinking whilst reading the article about why anyone would choose any other payload delivery company than Space-X. I guess it must be down to existing contracts and availability, more and more business will go Space-X's way over time I think.

 

[KarenRei]

I read that an Arianne rocket was lost the other day, some kind of military satellite for a Middle-East country in the sea = no big loss there at all.

However, I was thinking whilst reading the article about why anyone would choose any other payload delivery company than Space-X. I guess it must be down to existing contracts and availability, more and more business will go Space-X's way over time I think.

I assume the satellite was insured as well. The big loss is for Arianne, who is already way behind SpaceX when it comes to affordable access to space, having their Vega rocket lose its perfect launch record. 1 failure in 15 launches isn't terrible when it comes to rocketry, but it certainly doesn't have the ring of "perfect launch record". Now they're going to be delayed by having to identify and fix the problem.

Meanwhile, while Arianne just has a Falcon 9 knockoff clone on the drawing board, SpaceX is getting ready for their first untethered hop test of Starship, which makes Falcon 9 look like an expensive dead-end boondoggle by comparison

 

[CorneliusXX]

Volkswagen to inject $2.6 billion into Ford unit Argo AI: source - Reuters

Argo AI now valued at $7 billion..

That's a lot of cash to poach Tesla coders. I wonder how much it costs to buy one Karpathy.

Also, I quite enjoyed Karpathy's aptronym.

 

[dc_h]

So what exactly did Jerome's email imply. Is it just higher production rate? what's so secret about that that he wouldn't be able to say in the email and that employees would be so excited?

We know it's not:

• S/X refresh. Not going to happen.
• Model Y/Semi/Pickup). Way too soon for that.
• S/X production rate increase. That's really not something employees would be excited about.
• 5%-10% increase in Model 3 production rate. Can't see how the email would justify that.

What it could be:

• Significant increase in Model 3 SR+ production rate with new tooling coming from Grohmann 20%-25%.
• Highly automated Model 3 SR assembly line (Alien dreadnought v2) that's not going to affect SR+ and LR production rate.

My bet is on the last one. We know Panasonic upgraded the battery lines in June. There is an infinite demand for lower priced normal range EV's around the world. Even if gross margin is 0%-10% on these, Tesla would capture sizeable market share, have customers for life, spread the Tesla love (mouth to mouth free advertising) and most importantly Supercharger network/Servicing/Robotaxi income.

I’m not sure employees would be excited about their jobs being automated and replaced.

 

[dc_h]

There's a driver, hard to see but he's there.

Not in the drivers seat, but apparently in the back.

 

[urarthur]

It's been 2 weeks since the last price cut by the master manipulators at the major investment banks.

Even though I expect some pushback from them in the next few days, I think the worst is behind us, and they possible can't cut the prices lower than this. Average price target (excl. DB) is $183.

Funny how the major Investment banks are at ~$183 and the others (e.g. Jeffries, Bird etc) are at ~$300-$400.

 

[Tslynk67]

That's a lot of cash to poach Tesla coders. I wonder how much it costs to buy one Karpathy.

Also, I quite enjoyed Karpathy's aptronym.

As I had to Google it, for the rest of you:

aptronym
/ˈaptrənɪm/

noun
noun: aptronym; plural noun: aptronyms; noun: aptonym; plural noun: aptonyms

1. a person's name that is regarded as amusingly appropriate to their occupation.
   "he began collecting aptronyms when he saw an ad for a flower shop operated by Flora Gardner"

 

[KarenRei]

Also, I quite enjoyed Karpathy's aptronym.

I had to read this post about 10 times before I got the joke.

 

[Tslynk67]

It's been 2 weeks since the last price cut by the master manipulators at the major investment banks.

Even though I expect some pushback from them in the next few days, I think the worst is behind us, and they possible can't cut the prices lower than this. Average price target (excl. DB) is $183.

Funny how the major Investment banks are at ~$183 and the others (e.g. Jeffries, Bird etc) are at ~$300-$400.

View attachment 428805

Haven't heard anything from Vertical's Gordon Johnson for a while - $54 still to play with there

 

[Navin]

Haven't heard anything from Vertical's Gordon Johnson for a while - $54 still to play with there

View attachment 428810

His a bit deeper in Chanos’ bullpen. Probably waiting to get on CNBC somehow.

 

[mrdoubleb]

That's a lot of cash to poach Tesla coders. I wonder how much it costs to buy one Karpathy.

Also, I quite enjoyed Karpathy's aptronym.

Not to kill your punch line, but his family name is probably more related to geography, given he is from Slovakia a country almost completely built on the Carpathian Mountains.

 

[mrdoubleb]

I’m not sure employees would be excited about their jobs being automated and replaced.

Given that Tesla has several products coming online, more automation simply means less hiring - staff freed up would be reassigned to Y, or Roadster, Truck, or Semi or any other stealth program we are unaware of.