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

[STARR X]

Well I mind wasting my time reading your extremely repetitive and incorrect posts. I will ignore you now.

Your loss...

 

[CorneliusXX]

Significant Performance Model 3 price increase in the UK, by +$3,700:

Model 3 Performance Price Increase in the UK (+£3,000 / $3,700) : teslamotors​

This suggests that UK demand is fine.

I think it's more a reflection of the drop in the £.

The £ price went up by c.5% and the fx rate has dropped c.5% since May

 

[UncaNed]

.

I want to see tesla plaid mode rollercoaster doing a vertical loop.
Now that'd be great publicity.

With thrusters it could drive on an upside down road.

At least for a while.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Edit: you are right, indeed the GBP weakened since May by ~4%.

Also, if they were adjusting for the exchange rate they'd touch the pricing of all the models, not just the Model 3 Performance with the lowest take rate, right?

Which to me suggests that the order book for the wrong-hand-driven Performance units is strong.

I agree order books are likely to be strong. My gut feel is that the UK will probably be the largest market in Europe (not EU, lol). For the M3. Combating climate change appears to be increasing swiftly in people's minds.

 

[Pras]

Two thoughts.

1) the ultimate Tesla response should be beating track times on Autopilot/FSD. not worth it for now but imagine if they did!

2) while I agree that the cost associated with Nürburgring testing is part of R&D expense, this feels part marketing expense.

 

[jeewee3000]

It could also just show that the British Pound is weak and they're starting to make adjustments

It's about to get a lot weaker in the very nearby future

 

[Drax7]

Here’s the flaw in your thinking:
‘Well this [genius or subject matter expert] has made mistakes before” (TRUE)
“Therefore I [who am neither genius nor a subject matter expert] can judge that this will be a mistake” (FALSE)



Agree except for the motivation is a lust for blood part. I think we should believe him when he says that he’s out to save the planet (even if it means Tesla has to destroy whole industries). Everything Tesla does seems perfectly aligned with this motivation.

Emotions play a part in decision making, this non rational component can lead to mistakes.
Yes Elon is human, yes emotions may cloud his judgement.
Though he quickly acknowledges and goes back to the forcing function.

 

[Fred42]

This article on the Frankfurt auto show includes four takes on the Taycan that complain about its price vs. the Model S; approve of the styling; predict it will be a hit because it will thrill even though it has no tach; complain about the turbo moniker; and quote: "vastly superior fit and finish and promise to offer full performance until the batteries are drained—Teslas go into limp-home mode quickly when pressed to the limit."

Separately Ford is blasted for lack of product freshness and technical innovation.

2019 Frankfurt Motor Show: Hits, Misses, Revelations

 

[Antares Nebula]

I think it's better for Tesla to bite the bullet and commit to a more official refresh schedule, and take whatever Osborning there might happen - which would happen anyway due to rampant "refresh is around the corner" speculation. This way they can at least reap the PR benefits.

But you made the opposite claim a few months ago and was highly critical of Fred/Electrek for the upgrade rumors and how it was osborning S,X sales. But now that Elon/Tesla has let the cat out of the bag, it is okay? That is a bit inconsistent.

Also, I note that Elon has actually managed to somewhat squash those refresh rumors recently via the conference call and his tweets, and most people (including myself) were of the new opinion that a major refresh was not going to happen (at least not anytime soon). The "rampant "refresh is around the corner" speculation", as you claim, was actually dying down. And S,X sales were actually moving up on the Raven upgrade. My prediction was that S,X sales will continue to ramp going forward. But now a complete 180? With yesterday's announcement, those sales are going to take a hit (likely still ramp, albeit slower, due to tax credit expiry and strong seasonality). Taycan, at 150k base, considerably less range, and no charger network, etc., was not a threat to Tesla. There was no need to release the info about forthcoming S,X models.

 

[humbaba]

So 39.74m TSLA shares shorted was the 8/30 figure, and Ihor Dusaniwsky's closest short interest figure was 39.90m TSLA shares shorted one day before that, on 8/29:

View attachment 454041​

That's pretty impressively accurate, given that the NASDAQ figures update once a month, so whatever algorithm Ihor is using has the highest inaccuracy right before the official report. I did point out in the past when Ihor's short interest guesses were off, and I regularly double check the track record of his methodology.

I'd also like to note that if Ihor had anything to hide about his firm's methodology, he'd likely avoid reporting his guesses right before the official report's settlement date, which makes it easy to double check and falsify.

So if Ihor says that the last two weeks wasn't short covering that's probably an honest opinion based on data, and let's not attack the messenger over that ...

BTW., this also means that most of the shorts missed the dip from ~$250 levels to $180 levels and squandered ~$2.8b profits by not covering, waiting for TSLA to hit $0 I suppose?

There's basically no way that @ihors3 is in cahoots with #TSLAQ and it doesn't really make any sense. He does have a good track record, though recently (June, IIRC) it was significantly wrong. But just because -- based on the data he had -- his algorithm produced wrong results doesn't mean he was supporting the shorts. In fact, being wrong like that makes him look bad. I don't think the effect is high, but the data service his company sells is worth more the more reliable it is.

And I think that is why he posts timed to official release dates because it allows folks to double check him and go, "wow! he was close." Then they want to pay to see that for whatever stocks they are interested in.

From my perspective it was very obvious he was wrong on the level of shorting. Not from algorithms or a good slice of objective data, but from simply looking at the stock movement and volume. It was clear to me (and others here) that shorting was being used to cap the rise. And we were right. But if I'd had to guess the actual number of shares shorted I doubt I could've done better, and in the general case would always be more wrong than he is.

While I don't short or play with options and, in general, have bad timing for buys, I still appreciate having @ihors3's data to provide insight into the stock. As @neroden pointed out, the only way to come out ahead in stocks is to have an insight better than the rest of the market. Profit/loss is about information imbalance. Which is why I have a hard time investing in anything other than $TSLA -- its the only one I have a feel for (if my trades in $TSLA are bad... I've gotten lucky a couple of times, but that is all it was. Once was simply selling off so that I could put it into $TSLA at the sub $200 bargain prices, and the coincidental timing saved me from reduced profit on the other stock.)

Well, I've been trying to keep my posts short and to the point. This one doesn't feel that way, but I'm going to go ahead and let it fly. I think my intention when I started was to elaborate agreement on @ihors3 data and point out that the one occasion I know of where it was wrong it was clear that it would be, and why, so that could be accounted for.

 

[mongo]

But you made the opposite claim a few months ago and was highly critical of Fred/Electrek for the upgrade rumors and how it was osborning S,X sales. But now that Elon/Tesla has let the cat out of the bag, it is okay? That is a bit inconsistent.

Also, I note that Elon has actually managed to somewhat squash those refresh rumors recently via the conference call and his tweets, and most people (including myself) were of the new opinion that a major refresh was not going to happen (at least not anytime soon). The "rampant "refresh is around the corner" speculation", as you claim, was acutally dying down. And S,X sales were actually moving up on the Raven upgrade. My prediction was that S,X sales will continue to ramp going forward. But now because of yesterday's announcement, they are going to take a hit (likely still ramp, albeit slower, due to tax credit expiry and strong seasonality). Taycan, at 150k base, less range, and no charger network, etc., was not a threat to Tesla. There was no need to release that info

A new highest cost version is not at all the same thing as a refresh of the current available models.

I need to append my earlier chassis update statement also. The current vehicles need traction control to avoid tire slip at launch. Therefore, the current frame is sufficient to handle the maximum possible torque. the only increase could come from stickier tires. So the suspension setup is likely different, but the vehicle as a whole does not need to change to support plaid. If they tweaked the geometry, that may require different mount points, but still nothing the non-plaid purchasers care about.
Maybe commonize the higher capacity cooling, but that likely reduces range.

 

[JRP3]

Tesla obviously planned this for a while, people would have seen the modified S on the Ring anyway. Antares is freaking out needlesly. This is great press and marketing for Tesla to be in a public battle with one of the greatest performance brands of all time.

 

[HG Wells]

As with all things human, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

 

[jhm]

97% of all statisics found in discussions on the internet are fictitious.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/ed/02/f0ed023af7a0d21fd5da18c06eab8db3.gif

How did you control for selection bias?

 

[jerry33]

How did you control for selection bias?

The 3% was removed.

 

[humbaba]

Just to dampen enthusiasm a bit: the Taycan's two-speed gearbox trick will help them most in achieving higher speeds in the fast straights, and this video is of a relatively slow corner. So this video is inconclusive, it at best is showing that the Raven has a chance to measure up to the Taycan.

But to be honest I'd be shocked if one of Porsche's tear-down engineering firms didn't carefully benchmark and run a simulated Nürburgring run with the Raven (yes, there are software tools for that), before deciding to make Nürburgring track performance the cornerstone of their marketing strategy.

So my baseline expectation for Raven Model S Nürburgring track performance would be a lap time somewhere between the Taycan's 7:42 and 7:59.

If it's 8:xx or 9:xx then I doubt Tesla is going to post the result, but might post a Plaid result instead.

In general I think your assessment is correct, but I doubt that they simulated a run with Raven. There's just been too much evidence of not acknowledging the advances that Tesla has made. One being their surprise when the got the results of the M3 tear down and realized that they were farther behind than they thought. Maybe that incident woke them up, but I doubt it. There has been essentially no buzz about the raven and it should specifically lead to higher track performance as the front motor was replaced and that is the one used more at high speed.

I'm not trying to argue that a raven would beat the Taycan time (heck, I don't know) just the extent of Porsche's awareness of it and any compensation they may have made. I think they chose Nürburgring primarily because it is a famous German track. All of your arguments about its selection to maximize Tesla's handicap make sense, but I'm pretty sure they could've found another track that does that as well. That they deliberately designed the Taycan for the Nürburgring -- you've made an excellent case for that, no argument there.

By the same token, I believe Tesla chose Nürburgring primarily because it is a German track and they are having some difficulty cracking the German market. Using a famous German track for PR to Germans makes sense to me.

In short, I think both chose the Nürburgring for the same basic reason (German PR).

The Laguna Seca lapt time is coincidental, it was not an attempt to set a record, it was just a shake down of the new drive train that happened to beat the best four door time and so why not use the good PR from it? But Tesla chose to ship cars for running on the Nürburgring specifically to set lap records. Even if not the first time, at least to collect data and do so later.

 

[jhm]

The 3% was removed.

Wait, if you remove the 3% which on virtue of being factual are outliers, then would that not get to 100% are fictitious?

 

[jerry33]

Wait, if you remove the 3% which on virtue of being factual are outliers, then would that not get to 100% are fictitious?

No more calls, we have a winner.

 

[KarenRei]

Man, Bjørn Nyland's review of the Taycan's interior isn't exactly flattering.

My favourite part is where he notes that just from people getting in and out of the front seat of the (brand new) demo car, it's already getting blue jean stains on it.

Basic summary: small. Smaller than the Model 3 inside. Some neat "gimmicks", though, like the finger-swipe charge port.

 

[KarenRei]

No more calls, we have a winner.

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