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Hard to say what the demand in other countries will be but I predict that this two contries should have a demand at least as high.
Belgium is at 616 invoices, while in 2018 about 800 Model S/X have been sold. I consider that very good, and should go a lot higher as cheaper Model 3 variants become available.
 
Not worth the stress. :Þ And it's not going to end with the ER. Regardless of the results I'm going to have to be reevaluating my position daily to decide when to roll (since market reaction to the ER won't be over just in one day), and how. It's always been my plan to get out of shorter-term calls after Q4, and this just reinforces it. Too much heartburn.

So I used to and still to a degree do daily evaluation of position and actions.
My experience is that subtle changes in the mood/emotions lead to somewhat inconsistent evaluation of the risk, and what actions are appropriate. It's hard to spot when the change is due to real increased/decreased risk, and when is part of emotional state change.
 
You'd stick with a higher strike but lower theta?

edit : You have to balance theta and delta.

The way I figure these out is to use the Black Scholes spreadsheet to estimate where I'd get better ROI. You can estimate option price for various possible future SPs at any given future date. You will have to make assumptions about IV, of course.

This is what 2/22 C350 and 2/15 C350 look like on 2/11. So depending on where you think the price will be on 2/11 - you can decide which one is better.

350340.PNG


But, why would you even want to roll soon ? I'm planning to sell all my 2/15 (5%) and 3/15 (95%) calls within days after ER and then wait for the inevitable dip to "roll".

After Q3 I got sucked into thinking there is actually a "squeeze" possibility that I didn't want to miss out on - so invested some of my profits from the sale of Q3 calls on stock + Leaps + 3/15 calls (at "low" SP of 353). All these are heavily under water now. I now think the possibility of a squeeze are so low as to make that comparable with the possibility of a major SP crash. It is more likely that - just like other stock - Tesla will trade in a band, with the band moving up as we see ERs confirm Tesla profitability.

<NotAnAdvice>
Essentially swing trade on calls, instead of stock. Since the timing is uncertain, to reduce downside, buy calls that are 2 or 3 months out - instead of weeklies on dips and sell when SP comes up.
</NotAnAdvice>
 
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Germany's #1 car influencer - and Tesla sympathizer - "JP" trashed the Model3 on the telly ("GRIP", Germany's wannabe Top Gear):

  • Borrowed a M3 LR (non-P) to drive from LA to Las Vegas.
  • Likes the quality and finish of the interior.
  • Impressed by range, charging speed and acceleration.
  • Didn't dig the look of it ("transport capsule").
  • Indifferent about AP.
  • (Off-commentary) "Volume of the trunk is pathetic".
  • Couldn't manage to open the frunk.
  • Disliked and spread fake-news about the breaking. You know what I'm talking about.
  • "Not revolutionary." / "Failed."
Ugh.

He has quite a following and is a true thought-leader among the young car enthusiasts in Germany. Not good.

Edit: Lots of criticism towards JP and GRIP in the comments.
 
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Took a day trip and tried out auto steer on navigate again and on this stretch of interstate it performed better, but still had significant problems. At least it didn't try to swerve down the center line at 75mph...

What I found worked quite well (though not 100%) was using the lane change feature rather than the passing feature. Passing is, simply put, erratic. Often, it simply won't trigger. Or it'll forget that it was passing and needs to return to the right lane. The distance at which it will suggest changing lanes varies considerably from 100 yards back to 10 yards off the bumper. Sometimes it never does.

Not that the lane change is without issues: twice it aborted and swerved back toward the original lane forcing me to override it. But that is a much better experience than the auto pass feature.

This stretch of interstate has "better" markings so it lost the lane less frequently, but it still did. Much of the time entrance or exit ramps that did not use dashed lines to demarcate lanes but had an asphalt seam in the right place was sufficient to enable lane detection, though it still failed twice in that situation. At two places the highway changed to what looks like three lanes, even though it was really just an exit lane on the right. Autopilot was confused and, despite a lack of any traffic around me, insisted on moving from the right hand lane (which it took to now be the middle lane) to the left lane. I have no idea what triggered its driving need for a lane change and, in contrast, autopilot didn't skip a beat when the interstate did actually expand to three (and four) lanes.

I think my favorite from this trip was the semi-tractor trailer the display showed paralleling me down the median. I have no idea what tricked the computer vision into thinking there was a vehicle there. It was just a fleeting ghost, but amusing nonetheless.

This reinforces prior experience that "auto steer on navigate (beta)" is very much beta, but shows quite a bit of promise. But to be acceptable for FSD it would not only need to do all of the foregoing correctly, but also understand that the smashed up vehicles off the right side of the road and all the emergency vehicles meant "go to left lane and reduce speed". This is not something that can be resolved by simply improving computer vision.

I realize that this is still v9 autopilot, but more miles driven on it gives a better sense of how it works. I like it and it made the drive much easier. I'm very much looking forward to the next iteration of autopilot.

Although I don't have actual experience with the Leaf equivalent of autopilot, as far as I can tell it is still pretty much in the realm of helping with stop-and-go traffic -- which is great, but from what I understand there is nothing like auto steer. And the Bolt apparently doesn't have any form of autopilot (which makes me feel for the acquaintance who just purchased one, though it seems they are happy with it).

[edit to add: in particular, the Bolt pricing is nearly that of an M3 as it starts at $37k. A theoretical M3SR with EAP would be $40k -- a mere $3k above with equivalent range, better performance, better safety and EAP. A no brainer, IMO. And even the MR -- currently available -- doesn't bump the price that much and gives better range.]
 
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Germany's #1 car influencer - and Tesla sympathizer - "JP" trashed the Model3 on the telly ("GRIP", Germany's wannabe Top Gear):

  • Borrowed a M3 LR (non-P) to drive from LA to Las Vegas.
  • Likes the quality and finish of the interior.
  • Impressed by range, charging speed and acceleration.
  • Didn't dig the look of it ("transport capsule").
  • Indifferent about AP.
  • (Off-commentary) "Volume of the trunk is pathetic".
  • Couldn't manage to open the frunk.
  • Disliked and spread fake-news about the breaking. You know what I'm talking about.
  • "Not revolutionary." / "Failed."
Ugh.

He has quite a following and is a true thought-leader among the young car enthusiasts in Germany. Not good.

Edit: Lots of criticism towards JP and GRIP in the comments.

He loved the Model S back in the day. But then he sold out big time - he was gushing about the Mercedes EQC (didn't drive it one meter) - watch this video, remember who pays him big bucks and then you will understand that there won't be any good press for Tesla left...

(warning: Mercedes ad)

The Model 3 still has a chance in Germany. But I implore everyone to not think this will be a slam dunk. The home team will do everything to discredit the Model 3 and I personally expect Germany to be one of the toughest markets for the coming 2-3 years...
 
He loved the Model S back in the day. But then he sold out big time - he was gushing about the Mercedes EQC (didn't drive it one meter) - watch this video, remember who pays him big bucks and then you will understand that there won't be any good press for Tesla left...

(warning: Mercedes ad)

The Model 3 still has a chance in Germany. But I implore everyone to not think this will be a slam dunk. The home team will do everything to discredit the Model 3 and I personally expect Germany to be one of the toughest markets for the coming 2-3 years...

Jeeez, that's embarrassing.

Thanks, I did not know that.
 
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People are wondering why application for the German EV subsidy has exploded this year.

Well, I assume the main driver ist the change in taxation which went into effect Jan 1st. Until then Evs were not competitive as company cars, now they are. The tax to be paid by the employee driving a company car has been slashed by 50 %.

My company will not purchase another ICE going forward. We reserved 2 M3 (but have not applied for the BAFA subsidy yet).
 
I am still not quite sure.

A few days ago while I visited a Tesla store in Shanghai, the sales rep said Model 3s coming out of Giga 3 can’t avoid tariff because Giga 3 is 100% percent foreign venture. Also no subsidies. But I need to hear the official wording on these.

Come to think of it, Tesla actually did not mention tariff and subsidies regarding Giga 3 at all.
Probably already addressed but tariffs are allied to imports, it’s a definition of tariff. So tariffs can’t apply. They could have some alternative VAT, but that seems counter to China’s desire to get Tesla in China. The long play is they seem to want the Chinese company Lishen making cells for Tesla. Battery chemistry is a key tech the Chinese want and Tesla has the lead. Will Tesla use their best chemistry in China or use a somewhat less
optimal chemistry? Not sure if that would make sense, but chemistry IP transfer is one of
Many risks.
I think the brand and leadership will allow them to sell what they build in China for years to come. FSD is the true long term value of Tesla, especially in dense countries like China.
 
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Since the BAFA incentive is officially approved about 10,800 applications have been filled. Using mine as the last one a minute ago and the first one we know about right after it went public.Thats about a week BTW.

I agree that within that 10,800 EVs there will be other BEVs but realistically the adoption here in Germany of EV is constantly low and there is no other new BEV in the showrooms than the 3. Its unlikely that the BMW i3 or Leaf or S and X did get a big share out of the 10800 within that few days where you could apply.

To be fair its clearly pent up or cumulated demand over the period of 2 years and no one should extrapolate those numbers and believe thats annual demand above 100k for Germany alone but I assume that 95% of those 10,800 are at least Model 3s which make it 10200 units. Call it 9k to be conservative and its still a large number.

All of those just with the LR D and P LR D which are premium and high margin models as we all know. All of those 10k reservation holders and new orders supposed to be delivered in February and March given the communication with Tesla.

Its now all about how fast Tesla can deliver in Germany those cars in order to bring about +10k 3s in for Germany alone in for Q1.

Adding high EV adoption countries like Norway and Netherlands and large economies like France I predict they can in Q1 and Q2 easily deliver 50k units to Europe if they are able to produce, ship and deliver them.

Many risks in the supply chain may hinder that supply though and I am not yet convinced that all infrastructure and resources are in place to make that happen. Thats to be honest a good problem to have though.
A closer examination of the BAFA application numbers strongly support your notion of the majority being model 3 sales. It's not just that ~11k applications have shown up since model 3 was added to eligible car list. The fact is that the number of applications spiked by over 6000 within the first 36 hours after model 3 was added. And this was during the middle of the business week. So either there was some kind of mid-week Kona/Leaf bonanza or model 3 floodgates opened.
 
A question to @ReflexFunds, @luvb2b and other modeling experts, I was reading through Elon's Q4 announcement email again, and noticed the following:

"In Q3 last year, we were able to make a 4% profit. While small by most standards, I would still consider this our first meaningful profit in the 15 years since we created Tesla."​

I don't see where the 4% figure comes from:
  • Q3 GAAP profit was $311.5m, on $6,824.4m of revenue, which is 4.64% profit. All the other, non-GAAP profit metrics are much larger percentages.
  • Using EPS would be sloppy as the stock price wasn't constant - but if we use the ~$350 stock price when he wrote the email and the lowest EPS figure ($1.75 GAAP EPS per diluted share), then we get a return of 5.0%.
Any ideas? Did he just round down the 4.64% to 4%?
BTW., just curious - is there any data and break-down available on how much money ICE dealerships earn on their various business fields: sales of new cars, maintenance plans, body shops, warranty and recall repairs, etc.?
99%

Sarcastic a bit, but I think mist dealer profits are from service. Sales barely cover overhead.
 
He loved the Model S back in the day. But then he sold out big time - he was gushing about the Mercedes EQC (didn't drive it one meter) - watch this video, remember who pays him big bucks and then you will understand that there won't be any good press for Tesla left...

(warning: Mercedes ad)

The Model 3 still has a chance in Germany. But I implore everyone to not think this will be a slam dunk. The home team will do everything to discredit the Model 3 and I personally expect Germany to be one of the toughest markets for the coming 2-3 years...

The Chinese market will be so much larger than Germany that it wouldn’t matter. The Model S is already the best selling flagship Model in Europe, beating the Mercedes S550 & BMW 7 series. I expect the Model 3 to be a best seller in Europe whether Germany thrashes the car or not.

Americans here will trash Germany for the emissions defeat devices for decades.