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

[KarenRei]

Remember when I said that a milestone I was looking for that production would be starting soon would be trucks docking at GF3's docks?

A still from the recent drone vid:

The machine is starting to be fed.

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Number of twitter followers for various car companies. (If a company has a global and a USA account, I used the one with more followers):
Tesla 4.2 million
Audi 2 million
BMW 1.9 million
Porsche 1.8 million
Lamborghini 1.8 million
Jaguar 1.1 million
Ford 1.1 million
Chevrolet 1 million
Jeep 998k
Honda 993k
Dodge 894k
Toyota USA 772k
VW USA 581k
Ferrari 556k
Subaru USA 443k
Hyundai USA 374k
Kia USA 328k
Mitsubishi 258k
Volvo 201k
Rivian 32k
Nio 26k (Edit, not 26)

Strange that you would omit Mercedes with 3.4 million....

 

[gene]

On topic observation: I’m at Santa Barbara Tesla volunteering with deliveries. The past two quarters were mostly model 3 SR+ being delivered. Today I am seeing better ratio of S and X being delivered than last 2 quarters. So far I think all the Model 3’s being delivered are Long Range and Performance. I realize this is a small sample but if it reflects worldwide it would be evidence for higher average selling price per vehicle than quarters passed. Oh yeah, one more thing I noticed is more female buyers than usual. The new low speed sound effect is annoying as hell.

 

[HG Wells]

On topic observation: I’m at Santa Barbara Tesla volunteering with deliveries. The past two quarters were mostly model 3 SR+ being delivered. Today I am seeing better ratio of S and X being delivered than last 2 quarters. So far I think all the Model 3’s being delivered are Long Range and Performance. I realize this is a small sample but if it reflects worldwide it would be evidence for higher average selling price per vehicle than quarters passed.

More LR means more batteries and fewer cars.
Or they are making more batteries.
Wonder which it is.

EDIT:
PS: Thank you for helping with deliveries !!!

 

[Steve m]

I had a neighbor that someone was regularily stealing their gas from out of their suv.

How easy is it to syphon the gas out of a Tesla?

 

[EVNow]

On topic observation: I’m at Santa Barbara Tesla volunteering with deliveries. The past two quarters were mostly model 3 SR+ being delivered. Today I am seeing better ratio of S and X being delivered than last 2 quarters. So far I think all the Model 3’s being delivered are Long Range and Performance. I realize this is a small sample but if it reflects worldwide it would be evidence for higher average selling price per vehicle than quarters passed. Oh yeah, one more thing I noticed is more female buyers than usual. The new low speed sound effect is annoying as hell.

That's nice - but I'd say there is probably higher mix of SR+ in Q3 than Q2 - because they started delivering SR+ in large numbers in EU only in this quarter.

 

[EVNow]

Last quarter the industry reported sales numbers on July 2nd.

Tesla reported P&D on July 2nd around 1:15 PM. PST.

This quarter, the industry reports on Oct 2nd, Wednesday. So, I'd expect Tesla to report P&D on Oct 2nd, after the market closes at 1:00 pm PST.

September Auto Sales to Tumble Due to Calendar Quirk

 

[StealthP3D]

More LR means more batteries and fewer cars.
Or they are making more batteries.
Wonder which it is.

I don't wonder. All indications point to increased battery supply. There would be no reason to make fewer cars unless they had an accidental shortage of a certain part for a number of days or a machine broke or some such thing. Personally, I think bad news like that would have leaked. So more cars at higher ASP's and with higher profit margins.

Gee, I wonder how the short-sellers are feeling right about now?

 

[StealthP3D]

September Auto Sales to Tumble Due to Calendar Quirk

Well, you found a scary article title but Tesla doesn't report monthly numbers, they report quarterly. And what wasn't sold in August will fall to September (so absolutely zero effect on Tesla's quarterly numbers). Nada, zilch. Irrelevant.

 

[KarenRei]

On topic observation: I’m at Santa Barbara Tesla volunteering with deliveries. The past two quarters were mostly model 3 SR+ being delivered. Today I am seeing better ratio of S and X being delivered than last 2 quarters. So far I think all the Model 3’s being delivered are Long Range and Performance. I realize this is a small sample but if it reflects worldwide it would be evidence for higher average selling price per vehicle than quarters passed. Oh yeah, one more thing I noticed is more female buyers than usual. The new low speed sound effect is annoying as hell.

A readily remedied problem:

 

[StealthP3D]

I had a neighbor that someone was regularily stealing their gas from out of their suv.

How easy is it to syphon the gas out of a Tesla?

Well, you would need a way to turn "Fart Mode" on first. And if you don't have the credentials, it's not going to be easy!

 

[KarenRei]

That's nice - but I'd say there is probably higher mix of SR+ in Q3 than Q2 - because they started delivering SR+ in large numbers in EU only in this quarter.

SR+ surged in August, but in September - when most deliveries have been - LR AWD took over again (e.g. the SR+ backlog seems to have been filled).

The EU SR+ share will fall (slightly) even more by the end of the quarter at the end of the day on Monday. Probably about 35-40% for Q3 as a whole in Europe, vs. ~8% for Q2. M3P deliveries are up by a couple percent.

Also, remember that the number of US Model 3 sales in Q2 was 2 1/2 times more than EU Model 3 Q2 sales, so a change in the US SR/LR ratio matters more. The difference is closer this quarter than last, but the US is still a significantly bigger market. If US SR+'s ratio is down only ~15%, that would more than offset the change in EU mix.

Also to factor in:

• The change in pricing
• The change in COGS
• Non-US/EU sales (last quarter = 10%; more this quarter)
  • One can expect new markets to be prioritized towards M3P / AWD deliveries, as Tesla always does this with new markets.
  • New markets probably represent about 1/8th of total deliveries this quarter.

I'd be up for trying to compute the net picture, but I don't have a good sense for Q2/Q3 US trim mixes, as I haven't been trying to track them (I've only been coming across lots of reports like the one above suggesting that the US ratio of SR+ has significantly dropped in Q3).

 

[wipster]

I had a neighbor that someone was regularily stealing their gas from out of their suv.

How easy is it to syphon the gas out of a Tesla?

About as easy as it is to put it in!

 

[SpaceCash]

Elon was interviewed by CNN Business yesterday, about Starship:

[CNN Interview] Elon Musk: Starship could take people to orbit within a year : spacex​

He's in a really good mood, and his answers were perfect. No strain visible. The answer to Bridenstine's tweet was golden, yet not overly confrontational. CNN didn't try to insert any FUD and the cut wasn't manipulative.

I'm really glad the stressful time period of 2018 has passed without lasting battle marks, and that the mainstem business media is swinging back a bit from their Elon hate.

Does this bode well for Q3 deliveries?

I think it does. First thing I told the guy who facilitated my test drive yesterday was that I probably wasn't going to buy anything and didn't want to mess with their end-of-quarter push, he laughed it off and said they were not in a rush at all. They are killing it.

 

[SO16]

Btw, anybody concerned about streaming working off of LTE connection?

Elon previously said they can't afford massive volumes of data going across cell connections and will make this work only off of Wi-fi.

But now everybody is streaming without Wi-fi.
I realize it has a huge ad potential, but if this stays in place forever, the costs will add up too.

In the v10 release notes, LTE support for movies is temporary. Probably until they get wifi at more supercharger locations.

 

[Prunesquallor]

A readily remedied problem:

LOL. Tesla couldn’t have made it too much easier.

 

[KarenRei]

LOL. Tesla couldn’t have made it too much easier.

It's almost like they were deliberately trying to make it easy. I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[SO16]

LOL. Tesla couldn’t have made it too much easier.

It’s possible a future software update could detect if unplugged. But there would be a work around for that too.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

So if one were to come across some resources that were to be available on the 1st, would one try to buy in before official deliveries were announced or sit on it for a few days? It seems people think they will make the announcement on the 2nd?

Dan

 

[Prunesquallor]

It’s possible a future software update could detect if unplugged. But there would be a work around for that too.

Makes me want to market a cable cap with an appropriate resistor. Parts: $0.10. Retail: $19.99 plus shipping. Retirement secured.