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

[gora321]

Man gotta do what man gotta do..sometimes to send same info twice

Model 3 VINs

 

[GregRF]

Musk, with his "first principles" approach would not want to shoehorn that into an existing design, but have the design team work out what an ideal chauffeur vehicle would be.

Back in '15 they did try out "executive" rear seats for this use. Not sure how long that lasted.

 

[mongo]

Technically it is very unlikely that the numbers from the Google Doc is wrong. The down payment has an increasing bill number (per country) and every order has a down payment. So the maximum number of orders is the highest bill number (or less if they skip numbers or people cancel the order).

Reading the German forum the delivery hell is starting, but there's not a single known case of an order with a bill number outside of this sequence numbering. So the number of orders is about 16k.

However, it could be possible that large orders of institutions receive a different bill outside this numbering schema, but I guess there are not that many orders of that type (I know of one - "nextmove" ordered 25 M3s).

I read that bulk orders are only one number, so a company getting 10 company cars is only one invoice...
But I read that on TMC, so who knows...

 

[brian45011]

Actual:

TESLA CFO RETIRES
(And will stay on as advisor)

Aka: a barnacle?

 

[Buckminster]

That number has to be false. 330m x $38k = $12.5 trillion... that's China's entire GDP, and wages as a share of GDP are smaller in China than the US or Europe.

The number of Chinese who make over $38k is probably well under 100m. According to Credit Suisse, only 81m Chinese have a net worth over $100k compared with 99m in the US.

You have to be careful throwing out "middle class" numbers because they often mean different things in different countries.

1.6m Millionaires in China. Affordability not a problemo.
The 18 countries with the most millionaires

 

[CuriousSunbird]

Also: "Income attributable to non-controlling interests impacted our income statement negatively by $71 million in Q4. The asset backed securitization (ABS) of auto leases completed in Q4 resulted in a change of ownership structure of those leased vehicles. This required a non-cash charge of $54 million attributable to non-controlling interests"

That's interesting. I wonder if that's related to the adoption of the new lease accounting standard and you treat the sale as effectively an impairment of the lease receivable.

 

[ZachF]

1.6m Millionaires in China. Affordability not a problemo.
The 18 countries with the most millionaires

I'm not saying China doesn't have a market (far from it), just disputing that China has a middle class of $38k a year nearly as large as Western Europe's entire population whilst having a smaller economy and higher income disparity...

China has more than that now too:

https://www.credit-suisse.com/media.../publications/global-wealth-databook-2018.pdf

China has 3,480,000 millionaires as of last year, number two after the USA which has 17,350,000 millionaires. (pg 119)

 

[AlexS]

So the spike to 315 was MMD reversal for Friday expiration. And we seems to finish with marketmakers win at around 310 MaxPain

 

[CorneliusXX]

Mar 28, 2018, 55 days away, will mark 1 year since Moody’s Tesla credit rating downgrade:

“We continue to expect that Tesla will need to raise new capital approximating $2 billion - in the form of equity, convertible notes or debt - in order cover a cash burn during 2018, and to refund a total of $1.3 billion of convertible debt that matures in late 2018 and early 2019.”
— Bruce Clark - Senior Vice President
— Moody’s Investors Service’s, Inc.​

Will they ever upgrade Tesla? It’s been obvious since q3 they were wrong. Possible Q1 SP catalyst? Maybe they’ll upgrade at 1 year anniversary?

I don't think enough people know that Moody's criteria has a judgement element in their ratings. Sadly this means that the rating is beholden to the whims of the committee (in ratings agency parlance) when it comes to ratings change. If Bruce likes Tesla the upgrade will be sooner, if not, later.

 

[CuriousSunbird]

TESLA DELIVERED EST. 6,500 MODEL 3 IN U.S. IN JAN: INSIDEEVS

Well, that's more than a week's production accounted for.

 

[AudubonB]

Electric Peugeot 208, VW I.D. Crozz spotted during cold weather testing
Crozz looks like an even more boring Golf

FAKE NEWS!

That's just not possible!

 

[RobStark]

S & X better than last January. Model 3 sales IMHO surprisingly strong given the huge December rush and the end of the tax credit. Maybe people who didn't feel that they'd get the full benefit of the tax credit but benefitted from the $2k price reduction?

There is also the X number of people promised delivery by Dec 31 but Tesla did not make it put promised to make up the difference in Fed Tax Credit.

 

[Fact Checking]

Aka: a barnacle?

I have never seen you troll before, why start now?

It was clear from the conference call that Deepak wanted to retire long ago and that he judged this moment, when two robust quarters have demonstrated that Tesla is printing gobs of money, the "least bad" moment to announce his (second...) retirement.

If you've read the 8K you'll also see that he hasn't departed yet - my guess is he wants to oversee and sign the 10K.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Pretty happy with the stability in the stock yesterday and today. It's fading from its morning highs but at this point I'd be happy with it setting a floor at 300-315/share.....that would be higher than the 250-280/share floor in the past couple of quarters.

As for Moody's the longer they go without issuing an upgrade, the more apparent the whole scheme of wall st is and how Moody's fit in. We already know that the debt rating agencies have questionable motives in the past so it's not surprising. I would expect the Moody's upgrade to happen when the short interest drops to the 10-12% range. At that point, most of their clients would have covered/exited their positions and then ride the wave higher by the announcement...…..Wall Street

 

[CorneliusXX]

Does that presume the residual values in the underlying leases will be greater than FMV at lease expiration?

The seller of the assets (Tesla) has to purchase the lowest tranches of the deal to meet risk requirements legislation. This is sized at a minimum of 5%. (Exceptions apply). This is to make sure that the seller loses money before investors. If the leases don't lose any money (Exceptions apply) then Tesla get the money back they used to purchase the lowest tranches.

 

[RobStark]

Exactly - but that won't meet the Chinese requirement which I think is more to do with Limo style space in front of you - a feeling of spaciousness.

A higher roof with a higher seat giving you better sight lines gives you a better feeling of spaciousness.

 

[eloder]

When down is 5x the closest competitor, you're still doing good....
When down is within 55 units of the next 7 vehicles combined, you're Crackerjack!

I'm actually pretty surprised at the sales, too.

Keep in mind there's an even bigger price gap between the Model 3 and Bolt now, since the Bolt's tax credit is still at $7500 and we still don't have a short range Model 3. It's insane that US deliveries are still 10x that of the Bolt given this increased gap, and I think it bodes really well for continued demand as the tax credit continues declining.

 

[UncaNed]

OT - Comic Relief

Uh-oh! Have the Somali pirates relocated to the Azores? Or have the short-shorts established a piracy branch?

OT...

I was unaware they even had a team... They must be the European league or something then, right? I think that's GREAT that the Somali Pirates ordered model 3's.

 

[CorneliusXX]

That's interesting. I wonder if that's related to the adoption of the new lease accounting standard and you treat the sale as effectively an impairment of the lease receivable.

Unlikely. Think it's just the purchase of the seller notes

 

[RobStark]

Normal sedan design allocates more space for the front seats than the back seats, its just the way it is. Tall people are generally restricted to front seat riding because of this. But if you are rich and want to be driven around by someone else, you want the back to be spacious. I get that. But it is not normal design, and the entire premise is luxury which suggests to me that if Tesla were to introduce a long wheel base version the model S would be the logical choice to start with.

And, in the meantime, Musk's suggestion of a model S (as opposed to the 3) seems appropriate to me.

Like Americans, a lot of middle class Chinese want a big cheap car.

Model X space at Model 3 prices.