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

[Prunesquallor]

Perhaps they are planning to license/sell their batteries to other companies.

Wasted if no one buys the cars. I suspect these all go to grid storage. This completes the economic collapse of coal and natural gas.

 

[RobStark]

How is no one discussing Tesla's 2TWh battery cell manufacturing plan?

This is so much more significant than anything else in the report or the call. A cell supply plan of this scale is enough to solve global warming.

2TWH is really, really insane. Tesla have to have made some massive breakthroughs in cell design and manufacturing in their R&D lab.

I highly doubt Tesla is aiming to sell 30-40 million cars alone. Most likely they aim for huge volumes of stationary storage and to open up their battery and powertrain platform to all takers.

We will see on battery investment day but I doubt 2TWH by 2020 or 2021.

It will scale with with production. Semis and Pickups. With huge batteries. Semis in Europe and China too.

Even an Escalade type EV with 250 kWh pack can be made easily on the pickup platform without starving Model 4 standard range.And hopefully without bitching by the most efficiency jihadists among us.

No more 3 year waits on powerwalls and powerpacks. Good amount of storage at most Superchargers to bring down demand charges. Etc.

 

[Opus BC fan]

As I see it, TSLA turbulence continues into the near horizon.
This is a well-executed disruptive company, working on a future that I want my children to see.

 

[Artful Dodger]

No Jonas?!

OT? At least there's no Terminators in our immediate future.

Is that an increase in signal/noise or a decrease? Jonas knows... its noisy by fundamentals, and quiet strategically.

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hummm, a failure to communicate...

Dang, I knew that was a thing...

 

[tschmidty]

I actually just got back from a long mountain bike ride and literally said "Yes!" seeing the stock drop. Means I can pick up more shares cheaper. Timelines may slip and the street may be unhappy but this report is fine for anyone looking long term. Will also be pretty scary Q1-2 next year it sounds like, but again long is good.

But if they can ramp battery production to TW levels, that is 100% not for cars (or magic robotaxis, not at all convinced of revenue on that, ie see Uber) but utility scale storage which will make renewable solar/wind energy even more competitive. Now it may also mean volume Semi/Pickup where TCO is what sells, not paint choices. Replacing a ton of semis/pickups/coal power plants with sustainable energy is in line with Elon's stated goals.

Think about Amazon; their SP is not about selling widgets but all about Amazon Web Services. Car manufacturing is a means to an end; when they can help put coal plants out of business, along with taking over land based shipping via semi/pickup fleets? Yeah, that's why I am long, not magical unicorn taxis. Not the great all at once disruption some of you predict with SkyNet coming online, but hugely more impactful from the point of view of moving towards a sustainable future.

 

[Singuy]

Actually, Q1 was specifically called out as being a possible exception. He never said every quarter, he applied a caveat.

That said, Q1 was definitely worse than anticipated and Q2 was not anticipated by that statement. And now Q3 is being revised to neutral.

So, yes, there is some goalpost moving going on. But, no, it is not quite what you are saying.

I am beginning to think Elon's projections are like how he manufacturing cars, they are constantly changing for the sake of the mission. His tune is now changing, from trying to hit profitability, to break even, to FCF+ is probably being shaped by the ultimate goal he just spilled today about having 2twh as a reality. Whatever this secret thing he is doing with Maxwell and other tech, it has seemingly changed his projections and going balls to the walls.

 

[Singuy]

Incase people are wondering why Tesla is going for 2twh, Elon said as part of Tesla's main goal is to supply POWERTRAIN to other car companies.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

But maybe 10% of profits.

That is why VW still makes A8s and 911s.

On top of the halo effect it has on Jettas,A1s, and Macans.

I don’t believe he said he would stop making S/X. And, of course, they have already planned the introduction of an even *higher* end car.

 

[Remus]

Q1 they were pushing for bankruptcy in 10 months. We have to remember what really pushed the stock down. Elon's leaked email plus the negative FCF gave shorts the narrative of bankruptcy on the table. I remember people were talking about the amount of cash Tesla will end have having to be considered insolvent.

This ER completely destroyed the bankruptcy in 10 months narrative. Even you are relaxed about the company, so why are you selling? You'll be surprised and see how SP will go exactly opposite of your expectations because shorts really ran out of ammo. I said it before and I'm going to say it again, time is short's worst enemy. Today's report bought Tesla a massive amount of time for future product rollouts and FSD to become mature. We all know that Tesla needs to die a quick death, or survive long enough to disrupt. The shorts were really hoping that Tesla bleeds massive amount of money until they run out of investors. This positive cash flow thing from this point forward except quarters right before product roll out is devastating news for them.

Totally agree, as a very large amount of shorts are initialized in Q2 based on the hope of bankruptcy. It appears that most of those have not covered yet.


However, if you look at the posts in the last week we have lots of disappointed longs too. Given the sentiment I still think the shorts will be able to push down price for some time, and some longs will take profits and some will give up.

And it's not like I am selling all. I over extended my limit buying shares recently, just selling a small portion, harvesting loss for tax reasons. We have evidence that Tesla will continue to grow, albeit slower than we would like to. But I also have faith in the shorts ability to give me cheaper shares later.

 

[LJS22]

Incase people are wondering why Tesla is going for 2twh, Elon said as part of Tesla's main goal is to supply POWERTRAIN to other car companies.

That would be a big mover. If Tesla can be the supplier to other companies then it’s game over. That accelerates EV’s to mass market, and once charging stations are sorted out then it’s the ultimate sucker punch to the doubters. I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, but this is exciting for the ultimate mission of Tesla.

 

[Green Pete]

Incase people are wondering why Tesla is going for 2twh, Elon said as part of Tesla's main goal is to supply POWERTRAIN to other car companies.

That was in 2012, long before boring company or the ability for tesla to have robotaxis even crossed his mind. 2tw capacity would only go to other companies powertrains now if they also put tesla software on their car i bet.

 

[SpaceCash]

That would be a big mover. If Tesla can be the supplier to other companies then it’s game over. That accelerates EV’s to mass market, and once charging stations are sorted out then it’s the ultimate sucker punch to the doubters. I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, but this is exciting for the ultimate mission of Tesla.

I have always foreseen it going this way. Pretty obvious outcome imo

 

[StealthP3D]

Bulls have very little evidence that they are brilliant investors for choosing Tesla right now. Maybe call him a moron when the SP doubled what it is today.

What? My brokerage account shows otherwise. Over $5,000 in realized gains and sitting on a position that has unrealized gains of over $25,000. I didn't buy my first shares until the middle of last year. You can make almost any stock look good or bad by cherry-picking the buy/sell points. If you assume the current fair value of Tesla is $240/share, it has appreciated over 14 times since they went public a mere 9 years ago. That means a $100,000 investment is today worth over $1.4 million dollars in only 9 years.

There is a reason stocks are considered a long-term investment, not somewhere you "park" money that you will need in a couple of years. Sometimes it seems like there are a lot of newbie investors around here who don't understand the game. I was a seller last year at $330/share, not a buyer. TSLA ran up too fast and even Musk admitted they didn't deserve such a high valuation. Tesla doesn't control the share price, investors do. Looking forward 5 years, Tesla is a screaming buy right now at $240. I was not saying the same thing when it was trading at $265 five years ago. It was over-valued. I kept looking but didn't buy a single share until last year and then sold my first shares at a profit. Now I have built a position at a fair price for the next stage of growth.

I considered buying at the IPO (and almost did) but it seemed like the job was too tall and Musk didn't have enough manufacturing experience. It looked like a stock that had a really good chance of going to zero. Instead, Musk made it work against all odds. Look at the other EV start-ups. Only Musk had what it took to begin disrupting an entire industry. Now Musk has more automaking experience than the CEO's of the top 5 automakers combined! He's been CEO of Tesla for 11 straight years, the others only 1-5 years.

 

[Singuy]

That was in 2012, long before boring company or the ability for tesla to have robotaxis even crossed his mind. 2tw capacity would only go to other companies powertrains now if they also put tesla software on their car i bet.

Elon thinks about what is possible 20-50 years from today. Trust me, everything crossed his mind.

 

[Singuy]

What? My brokerage account shows otherwise. Over $5,000 in realized gains and sitting on a position that has unrealized gains of over $25,000. I didn't buy my first shares until the middle of last year. You can make almost any stock look good or bad by cherry-picking the buy/sell points. If you assume the current fair value of Tesla is $240/share, it has appreciated over 14 times since they went public a mere 9 years ago. That means a $100,000 investment is today worth over $1.4 million dollars in only 9 years.

There is a reason stocks are considered a long-term investment, not somewhere you "park" money that you will need in a couple of years. Sometimes it seems like there are a lot of newbie investors around here who don't understand the game. I was a seller last year at $330/share, not a buyer. TSLA ran up too fast and even Musk admitted they didn't deserve such a high valuation. Tesla doesn't control the share price, investors do. Looking forward 5 years, Tesla is a screaming buy right now at $240. I was not saying the same thing when it was trading at $265 five years ago. It was over-valued. I kept looking but didn't buy a single share until last year and then sold my first shares at a profit. Now I have built a position at a fair price for the next stage of growth.

I considered buying at the IPO (and almost did) but it seemed like the job was too tall and Musk didn't have enough manufacturing experience. It looked like a stock that had a really good chance of going to zero. Instead, Musk made it work against all odds. Look at the other EV start-ups. Only Musk had what it took to begin disrupting an entire industry. Now Musk has more automaking experience than the CEO's of the top 5 automakers combined! He's been CEO of Tesla for 11 straight years, the others only 1-5 years.

The friend was bearish at probably 300+ which in hindsight is correct. Remember there were people who bought in at 370/share hoping that it'll hit 500 in 3-5 years..those bulls were wrong.

 

[M3Rider]

-$1k standard pearl white paint == its a wash after July stepdown of tax credit

I just repeated what Elon said. I assume he thinks about people who can afford a bare minimum and would not pay $2k extra for white paint anyway.

 

[Singuy]

What's amazing is that we'll hear irrelevant negativity about the wrong thing... while the company goes down the tubes because you can't get anyone on the phone. Tragicomedy.

If you want to find people having terrible customer service and long wait times for their Tesla troubles, there are a dime a dozen on youtube. TFL make weekly episode about how Tesla's service sucks and ridiculous. You also find it over reddit too, and 20% of the conference call was about service. So I don't know what kind of secret problem you stumbled upon that no one else knows about.

 

[Artful Dodger]

2TWH is really, really insane. Tesla have to have made some massive breakthroughs in cell design and manufacturing in their R&D lab.

I highly doubt Tesla is aiming to sell 30-40 million cars alone.

Rerun your numbers with every new transport truck produced each year needing between 600KWh and 1MWh of batteries. Then add in a million EV pickup trucks with 200-400 KWh. Then after 2024, Model 2 (small Euro-style hatchback) might need only 25KWh each, but Tesla may need to build 2M of them per year.

Finally, remember when Elon said 'eventually, storage will be a bigger market than automotive'? And that's the 2nd terawatt hr spent...

I think you'll see that Tesla needs all that battery production, and already has plans to use it.

Cheers!

 

[StealthP3D]

The friend was bearish at probably 300+ which in hindsight is correct. Remember there were people who bought in at 370/share hoping that it'll hit 500 in 3-5 years..those bulls were wrong.

You are making zero sense. TSLA didn't hit $370/share until June of 2017, only 2 years ago. How could those bulls be judged wrong until 5 years have passed? That would be 2022 for the buyers who bought the first time it hit $370.

I would be bullish at this point in time even if TSLA was trading at $300 due to their sizeable lead in EV technology and their ever-increasing production efficiency and scale. This is something they simply didn't have in 2017. Also, Musk said the warranty costs on their more recent production are steadily declining qtr over qtr. This shows their product is improving as they ramp volumes. A very good sign.