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

[DragonWatch]

Only about 16% of pick up truck owners are women.
Pickup Truck Owner Demographics: F150, Silverado, Sierra, Ram, Tundra

Most pick up owners never tow or go off road. The facts are that for the vast majority of owners it's just a cultural signifier, a living country music song. I don't see EV trucks changing that much myself, especially as Tesla owners skew heavily male as well.

Side note, that Ford commercial is a joke. World record for a single man pulling train cars is almost half of what the truck pulled.

As with all statistics, I fly under the radar

Our current Tacoma was my wife's idea. I have been relegated to driver of the Tacoma; she claims the Model X as her's. Our claim to fame is that we are top notch Do It yourself'rs (DIY'rs). On any particular project, my wife will be quoted as saying, "oh, you need that tool ~ right." The reason for the Tacoma was based on our moving/selling our primary home (May & June 19) and we would save on moving costs. Yeah ~ right. Just $1,800 for the mover of the cabinets (walnut one I made) and my stones/sculptures (expensive rocks for a sculptor) ~ and a $40K truck loan:-(

First, I cannot stand Country & Western music. My mother was a music teacher and classical was the way to go, though she did like the "Beach Boys." Me, "In My Room." First stationed in Bindlach, Germany in September 1969 ~ home of Richard Wager (pronounced ~ Vogner).

I do not like hauling trailers ever since my young stupid driving experience in Nuremberg, Germany in 1971. Darn near jack knifed my jeep and trailer trying to out run a Mercedes; thank my god the German driver had more sense than me, otherwise my wife would have married someone else.

As I have said, probably too many times, I and my wife want the Model T (Tesla Truck); okay maybe the Model TT

 

[Cherry Wine]

Looks like short sellers are selling:

$TSLA short int is $10.17 bn; 39.10 mm shs shorted; 29.69% of float; 0.90% borrow fee. Shs shorted are down -1.7 mm, -4.10%, over the past week as stock price rose +3.09%. We saw 2.4 mm shs of short covering yesterday. Shorts are down -$1.50 bn in mark-to-market losses in July

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter

That is a substantial amount of covering if accurate.

Anyone with a Barron's subscription care to give us the highlights from this piece?

A Tesla Bear’s Guide to Getting Bullish on Its Stock After Earnings

 

[Nocturnal]

Wondering if my lonely 7/26 $310 call will wind up making me any money. There is a chance I suppose, but mostly I'm just dipping my toes in with options and seeing how things go.

 

[Cherry Wine]

I might sell some deep ITM put credit spreads (and call credit spreads, for that matter) for August expiry before close today. I find that approach more appealing than buying long options since I'm not paying such a high premium due to volatility, though I'm unsure if the drop in IV will also affect relative spread prices between strikes (I expect it may have a small impact).

The downside, of course, is risk of early exercise, but any loss will be very limited in that instance by virtue of the spreads being so deep in the money.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Wondering if my lonely 7/26 $310 call will wind up making me any money. There is a chance I suppose, but mostly I'm just dipping my toes in with options and seeing how things go.

My experience with options

 

[Vines]

Seeing the SP rise over the last week and the news here, I decided to buy todays MMD at 259. I am now riding long through the earnings call, lets hope for that record quarter ON EVERY LEVEL!

 

[Mike Smith]

Looks like short sellers are selling:

$TSLA short int is $10.17 bn; 39.10 mm shs shorted; 29.69% of float; 0.90% borrow fee. Shs shorted are down -1.7 mm, -4.10%, over the past week as stock price rose +3.09%. We saw 2.4 mm shs of short covering yesterday. Shorts are down -$1.50 bn in mark-to-market losses in July

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter

If there were 2.4m shares net covered yesterday the share price would have moved a lot higher. Total volume traded was only 5m shares.

 

[mblakele]

Nice theory, I too think this casting machine is in place and will soon be operational. However, I think the new wiring will be in place for the Y. It was rumored that the Y would have less wiring than the 3.

Many state the Lathrop facility is just a big logistics center, and point to the building permits that state so. However, I am thinking more than just warehousing will be going on there.

That was already confirmed in the latest impact report:

With 431K sq ft of manufacturing space, Tesla’s Lathrop facility in California hosts computer numerical control (CNC) operations, machining and castings manufacturing.​

 

[Nocturnal]

My experience with options
View attachment 433620

I'm planning on the same.

 

[MartinAustin]

$262 looking very confident pre-ER.

 

[ReflexFunds]

I found the linked video article mildly interesting and curiously at odds with its title.

According to it, a basic model 3 only costs Tesla $28,000 to manufacture which gives a 25% gross profit margin at $35k sale price. Further, the battery supposedly costs $6k which with a 55 kWh battery (what I remember seeing cited, I'd be happy to be corrected) amounts to a pack cost of $110/kWh. Not too shabby, and certainly much better than competitors are able to achieve.

Naturally, they point out that the battery is a single component with high cost compared to the normal automative battery while failing to mention the relative cost of the motors. You'd think that a Tesla would necessarily cost $6k more than an equivalent gasoline car and maybe that was the point. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't compare the battery to the gas tank -- a serious comparison would do power train vs power train instead of cherry picking components.

They then claim without source that Tesla has $97/kWh cell cost with rest of industry $127/kWh, so a 30% advantage to Tesla.

Finally, they conclude with EV prices will keep dropping and specifically show their "lowest price" $40k dropping to ~$36k. Which doesn't gel with the title of "cost you at least $40,000".

Some sort of sourcing for Tesla's costs would be nice. If Tesla is really clearing 25% margin on a $35k M3SR that is huge. If their margin on the least profitable vehicle is that high maybe they really could pull out a profit this quarter, but I remain skeptical.

Here's why the cheapest Tesla will probably cost you at least $40,000

The $28k manufacturing cost will just be taken from the German teardown report in early 2018.
Tesla's SR+ costs clearly aren't at this level currently given Q1 gross margins. We might get a better idea where costs are when we see Q2 gross margins now SR+ is in production with the new module/pack design and if the accounts are cleaner with less one offs etc.
Elon has previously noted a $30k target cost for the $35k base SR car, but the SR+ equivalent target would be higher given larger battery, glass roof etc.
Whether it's possible for Tesla to continue to push the SR+ cost towards the initial target (probably equivalent to $31/32k) without design changes i don't know.

It looks like the $97/kwh cell cost is from Benchmark - if so they are a credible source, but It does seems low. The way it was phrased (I almost mistyped this as phased which I'm sure would have caused @neroden concern) suggested $97/kwh was a manufacturing cost of GF1 cells, and not the price paid by Tesla to Panasonic. Perhaps Tesla actually pays closer to $120/kwh for cells.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Bought a few more today, couldnt resist. Looking forward to earnings, and to the farcical bullshit people dream up to spin the result, regardless of what it is, as a sign of imminent bankruptcy.
Meanwhile Nissan are shedding jobs in the UK, and volvo are in the middle of a mass recall...

 

[mrmage]

Wondering if my lonely 7/26 $310 call will wind up making me any money. There is a chance I suppose, but mostly I'm just dipping my toes in with options and seeing how things go.

With utmost sincerity, I hope you make out like a bandit tomorrow.

Seeing the SP rise over the last week and the news here, I decided to buy todays MMD at 259. I am now riding long through the earnings call, lets hope for that record quarter ON EVERY LEVEL!

May you do well, too.

You and me. I bought the Aug16 300 calls in the week before delivery results came out @ 1.89. Currently @ 2.42.

As you, too.

+1 to another Aug 16 300 Call

And you.

My experience with options
View attachment 433620

Mine too, excluding LEAPs. So statistically we're due for a change.

 

[copyhacker]

In case anyone forgot, Elon from the shareholder meeting:

"So, we’re actually doing well, and we have a decent shot at a record quarter on every level. If not, it’s going to be very close."

We will see what "every level" means this afternoon.

Username checks out.

 

[Doggydogworld]

There's all kinds of wrong with that. First, they are using CNBCs twisting of what Musk said. What he actually said was that there would be around a million Tesla's with the hardware capability of being robotaxis by the end of 2020.

That's not all he said.

Not that there would be robotaxis. In fact, that is so disingenuous given that he clearly stated there would not be robotaxis until after 2020 that it can only be interpreted as a deliberate lie.

Perhaps you watched a video feed from an alternate universe?

We expect to be feature complete in self driving this year. We expect to be confident enough from our standpoint to say that we think people don't need to touch the wheel or look out the window somewhere probably around second quarter of next year. And we expect to get regulatory approval, at least in some jurisdictions, toward the end of next year.​

We expect to have the first RoboTaxis operating next year, with no-one in them.​

I feel very confident in predicting autonomous RoboTaxis from Tesla next year.​

From our standpoint, if you fast forward a year, maybe a year and three months, but next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over the air update; that’s all it takes.​

 

[EVNow]

Non-GAAP EPS of -$0.35 is roughly -$1.4 GAAP EPS, or about -$252m GAAP loss if we count with ~180m diluted shares, right?

At ~176M shares, its about ~265M gaap loss. Non-Gaap loss of ~60M.

That is why Tesla can get a non-gaap profit by booking 60M Zev sales or some other item. But ofcourse, if the ASP and margin are lower, it can easily go the other way and book non-gaap loss of 100M or more. Infact 50M in either direction would be a good forecast - but SP movement will exaggerate what is essentially an inconsequential detail.

 

[Causalien]

Only about 16% of pick up truck owners are women.
Pickup Truck Owner Demographics: F150, Silverado, Sierra, Ram, Tundra

Most pick up owners never tow or go off road. The facts are that for the vast majority of owners it's just a cultural signifier, a living country music song. I don't see EV trucks changing that much myself, especially as Tesla owners skew heavily male as well.

Side note, that Ford commercial is a joke. World record for a single man pulling train cars is almost half of what the truck pulled.

What is with this inequality?!?! We need to get more women into pickup trucks. ASAP!!!

 

[anthonyj]

Short interest is still amazingly high. Could pop like Q2 last year, $50 day. Last year Q2 wasn’t even that great either. Margin calls for shorts tomorrow

 

[Vines]

With utmost sincerity, I hope you make out like a bandit tomorrow.



May you do well, too.



As you, too.



And you.



Mine too, excluding LEAPs. So statistically we're due for a change.

May all the bulls do well, there's bound to be some bear pressure, but I'm holding fast through it. I'm hoping to see 300 in our near future

 

[Moon Buggy]

I just need $268 to get back above even. I'm not even going to pretend to know what's going to happen tonight but it will only matter until Q3 results, and then that will only matter until Q4 results.