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

[mongo]

A GVWR of over 6,000 puts it into the range which allows 100% business deduction the first year. Section 168(k), if tax laws stay the same. Same as X

Tax Geek Tuesday: Changes To Depreciation In The New Tax Law

Old thread: Time running out for Model X 2017 *massive* business-use tax deduction

 

[jerry33]

I don't see form following function with the cybertruck. It would have been more helpful to Tesla's mission to address the real truck market. The truck market was not asking for 500 mile range and porsche like handling.

Pretty much 100% incorrect. 500 mile is the range that almost all the people I've talked to in the past seven years have indicated they are waiting for before buying a BEV. The Porsche like handling is just what happens with a properly designed BEV, it's also a byproduct of the towing and load capacity that truck people want.

 

[KarenRei]

I had a read. To me it is clear that it is easier and cheaper to manufacture with straight panels in stainless steel with no paint or stamping.

Well, you captured one part of what was being discussed. Not all of it.

The truck is structured like a cantilever bridge. The rear diagonals bear the stress in the back. The structural skin plays the role of internal trusses in a cantilever bridge.

The structural skin - which provides the extreme abuse resistance far beyond any non-military vehicle on the market - cannot realistically be produced by stamping. How easy do you think it is to stamp something that can withstand being shot or take hard blows with a sledgehammer? Good luck with that. If you want to use such a skin, you need to fold it.

What they're offering is something that's basically unheard of: a truck that you don't have to take care with when driving. Tree branches hanging down on the path ahead? Meh, go ahead and let them scratch up against you. What are they going to do, scratch your paint? Dent your bodywork?

On cost it's about the same as an F150.

Perhaps you missed the part where not only are its capabilities significantly greater than a F150, up to the point of being literally bulletproof, but it's also an electric vehicle with a massive battery pack (read: something that should make it much more expensive), and despite that has a F150-like sticker price, with a vastly lower TCO?

Who here was expecting the base price to come in at under $40k? Anyone? Heck, before Elon tweeted under $50k, I think most people were expecting it to be somewhere in the ballpark of Model S pricing.

From here I hope they listen to some designers

Well, we certainly have enough back seat designers here.

Don't get me wrong, I think some more creases to function as style lines would be good. But I'm not in the mood to let some random individuals personal aesthetic dictates override the engineering considerations that gave us these spectacular price and functionality stats, when a large chunk of the population is also liking the aesthetics, and ordering the vehicle.

 

[bhtooefr]

OK, so, let's take things in a different direction:

Balancing weight against manufacturing cost against aerodynamics is a mind-bending, three-dimensional puzzle. Does the origami's manufacturing and capital savings outweigh the additional material and air drag? If this calculation pencils out, will all of Tesla's next-generation cars go origami? Or maybe a there's narrower sweet spot for lower-speed, urban EVs, where aero's less impactful?

Hmm.

Shrink the wheel wells, lower it 15" to 60" high (this may also require reconfiguring the cabin to be lower-slung, because there's not enough ground clearance to just drop it that much), narrow it by 9" or so, bring the rear wheels forward a lot such that the back seat is just ahead of them, and cut off the shape not long after the rear wheels, and you could have a Cyberhatch?

 

[floydboy]

Sorry if I missed it here, but has anyone seen the frunk?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

The shorts are really pouring it on in the premarket, but I'm seeing -1.5% to -2.5% at close today.

Kanye certainly ordered one, and 70% of NFL/NBA players. Hopefully a design moderation is already in the works

 

[KarenRei]

Did anyone else buy one to run over shorts

I know you were joking, but you know shorts would love to misinterpret that as a threat.

 

[PhatCat]

How many 4 x 8 plywoods and 16' 4 x 4's have your kids ever loaded?

The same number as every other pickup in my upscale 'hood.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Looking at it again this morning I definetly like it. I would not normally be a truck buyer buy this one would interest me. My wife loves it.

 

[2virgule5]

I've spent the last couple hours looking through the images of F-150, Ram, Silverado, Tundra, etc... and this dang CyberBeast is growing on me, it's growing on me. The existing bunch just starting to look dated, seriously dated...

Which I think is exactly the point: despite being weird to many, everything else instantly became from ‘from the last century’. I mean, what about those who are taking delivery of their brand new Ram or F-150 as of TODAY, are they still excited?

 

[Don TLR]

Well the truck certainly isn't for the masses and glad I don't follow those trends.. Once they said 500 miles I was sold, not going to have to worry about scratching this one.. Doing my part to forward the mission, I ordered solar and they won't install on a flat roof but they still haven't taken it off my account.

 

[anthonyj]

I know you were joking, but you know shorts would love to misinterpret that as a threat.

Shorts are inanimate objects

 

[Mike Smith]

Wall Street analysts say Tesla's pickup is 'really weird' and Ford can 'breathe a sigh of relief'

The analysts hate it, surprise, surprise.

 

[anthonyj]

This will be the only truck on the market in 2022 so you’d better like it. Every other automobile company will be bankrupt by the time this releases.

 

[jerry33]

This is why I desperately want to see a toned down final product. If they can keep the engineering and battery gains while only slightly moderating what is a very polarizing design then I believe it really is game, set, and match. I feel they are sooo close here to hitting this out the park, but have gone a little too far.

The design is why they have the gains. From the edits people have made, modifying the design (at least in those ways) reduces the gains.

 

[avoigt]

What we are witnessing here is Game, Set and Match for Tesla vs ICE.

I don't care how cringeworthy the presentation was, or how strange the design might come across for some. The elephant in the room is IMO the drastic reduction of costs and longer range at the same time. We have seen the disappointing specs (rangewise) of the Mach E, Taycant, e-Tron etc. Compare the numbers, it's just mind boggling. Let's just compare the cost per mile of range, the Cybertruck (USD/mi) will cost around 17% less as compared to the LongRange M3 !
Compare this to the so called competition and ist gets worse, much worse.
The much cheaper production cost combined with even longer range means that the Maxwell battery breakthrough is real.

From here on Teslas are not only far better cars than any other ICE or BEV's, they are also cheaper. Let this sink in...
With this technology it's just a question of time that we will (hopefully) see a Micro City Tesla , a Sprinter like Tesla Van, a Light Truck with a crane etc. etc.

That said, I couldn't care less about SP fluctuations from this point on. I have reached my max. % of investment in TSLA, and will just lean back and enjoy.


I will go now and try to find a remote piece of land with lots of trees, a little cabin to have an excuse to buy this amazing piece of industrial history of the 22nd century ; )

Elon delivered on what he has promised, a truck that will polarize in design but convince in specs.

Agree to your points and as many I was kind of asking myself what the market will be for this Sci-Fic truck born to reality but over time watching different social media realized more people like it than I thought and after getting more used to the form language and the indeed all but traditional design we come to the essentials what is below the hood and that is simply amazing.

This technology is a first glimpse what we can expect to be delivered in future Teslas for mainstream and having said that the gap as predicted between a Tesla BEV and all other is widening dramatically. Looking at a price point no one can achieve, we likely have a double range with a Tesla versus all others in the market which makes it for them even more hard to compete.

Once the new battery and drive train (can't wait for that event to happen - I will be there) is delivered the difference is getting dramatically obvious for everybody.

Some said all incumbent ICE or BEV truck manufacturers had a moment of relieve last night but I am not sure if those realize that drastic design changes like we had for instance with Bauhaus at first have been heavily polarized but over time its been the only logic and best choice and today its considered a new area begun.

While I personally do not want to drive a truck (not having a use case) and not want one with such a futuristic design the key point is that we now know that the improvement of the drive train is further ahead than most thought. An that for costs no one could have imagined ever. I believe Tesla has provided sales prices they calculated they will be profitable with and at that point in time its hard to imagine how all other companies will compete in the next 5-10 years.

As I said right after presentation many will look at it with different eyes the next day and if you get the full picture regardless of if that Cybertruck will be a best seller or niche product. The key point is that Tesla has challenges everybody else with range and price and this will move into all other models over time and is something consumers are very sensitive about.

 

[jerry33]

I really liked the Rivian:

The headlights on the Rivian make it look like an Edsel.

 

[NakedLong]

They are not. They are at the expense of what you believe to be the one and only acceptable norm of aesthetics.

Straight panels, glass, metal and straight angles are perfectly aesthetic for the most expensive consumer product you can buy, homes:

Why shouldn't it be fine for the second most expensive consumer product, cars?

Imagine a world where you could only buy round homes:

There's plenty of space for both styles.

You just have get used to it.

There is always time to warm up to a design, and honestly I warmed up to the Model 3. But I did not gag on my food when I saw the Model 3 like I did with the CyberTruck.

I don't believe in a norm of aesthetics. There are lots of different styles in design. If you take one particular area of design, you might have good and bad examples of it. To use the architecture analogy, the CyberTruck is a modern take on Brutalism. Brutalism is ugly to most people. Personally I like it, but I still find it ugly... I like that it is interesting and different. I like the dark, moody atmosphere it brings. Brutalistic buildings look like they belong in a zombie apocalypse. But Brutalism is a long way down the list in terms of my favourite architecture styles. Brutalism is deliberately cold, harsh, brutal... in this way it is deliberately ugly.

As someone else said here - its a pickup - its meant to be ugly.

They are right - its meant to be ugly in the same way as Brutalism. The design is objectively ugly (not just subjectively ugly to me). Elon set out to create something divisive as he warned, but I think a good measure of success is how many people like or dislike the design. I'm guessing in the wider public 1 out of 20 will like it. It's probably enough to sell quite a few of them still, but not enough to challenge the pickup market in any serious way. To me it's a wasted chance to put out something more generally likeable and really accelerate the EV transition. Such a niche design.

 

[Off Shore]

Just a brief reminder that today's stock action will reflect manipulators' amplification of any downturns as much as it reflects sentiment about the truck's design.

 

[tslagreen]

Wall Street analysts say Tesla's pickup is 'really weird' and Ford can 'breathe a sigh of relief'

The analysts hate it, surprise, surprise.

Yes, very predictable. I expect a dip this morning with a recovery later, but probably close red for the day.