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

[Singuy]

She knew they would interrupt any long paragraph. Given the hostile atmosphere, I think she did pretty good.

Just wish she will say something new and is more prepared if she was invited to talk about the cybertruck and bear case. Good she brought up Cybertruck interest in the Midwest. But more importantly she did not talk about how Tesla must have a break through in battery tech because the pricing of the cybertruck is insane! Then she can talk about how Teslas will be high margin products in an auto industry where margins are struggling hence the low multiples.

They bring up Toyotas market cap, she should counter with Ferraris market cap and put that *sugar* to rest. Margins determine multiples and on wallstreet it's all that matters.

 

[Drax7]

So Market Watch has their usual line up of headlines where they are trying to make hay about "the dog ate my homework" accident. So I appreciated this one's title:

Self-driving Tesla slams into a cop car — and the driver blames his dog

Naturally, the article itself leads with a lie (an oft-repeated one about Musk promising full self driving by the end of this year) but I like the headline.

Self-driving Tesla slams into a cop car — and the driver blames his dog

And the dog was eating his homework, it’s a classic

 

[Electroman]

She knew they would interrupt any long paragraph

I noticed how when she listed 2 of the 4 moats, and was rudely interrupted by that dick head. If I were Cathy I would say, "let me finish answering that point I was asked", continue and finish my thoughts, and then turn to the next question.

 

[Artful Dodger]

TSLA bucking macro headwinds over the lunch hour:

 

[Tslynk67]

Yeah, this smells like co-ordinated FUD. 'He-who-shall-not-be-named' published his 6 am EST article this morning with the title:

"Tesla driver cited with ‘reckless driving’ after crashing into police car while on Autopilot".
​

Notice how he waited a full day to publish this "news", but did so just as the pre-market session opens in New York? A full day+ since our resident 'concerned' netizen began his multi-dozen series of comments on the accident.

It feels like these two are reading the same FUD feed...

Ha! That's nothing, CNBC waited until markets had been open an hour before reporting it in the $TSLA page and then have been touching it regularly to keep it as the top story

Meanwhile, they do seem to be hedging their bets on AP - take your pick:

 

[StealthP3D]

I think Tesla will still be losing money on this at $10/mo.

That's doubtful. A regular wireless provider has to account for a lot of expenses that Tesla can ignore (or consider a normal part of business):

Advertising
Customer Acquisition
Customer Retention
Billing

By buying wholesale and doling it out to individual cars I expect it to be somewhere between revenue-neutral and slightly profitable. And it's something that Tesla is free to change the price on in the future.

Wall Street would normally go gaga over a company that had the kind of customer growth Tesla has when every customer has a Tesla account for recurring billing, a direct portal to their phone and a large touch-screen in their car that can be used as a point of sale terminal. Tesla is currently choosing to not monetize this in any significant manner at this point in time but I suspect it is what will drive revenues to be able to rapidly expand production capacity (batteries, cars, trucks and solar) and enter new markets in the future. The disruption that is upon us will be shocking in terms of how quickly things change. Having revenue levers that are easy to pull will be a key component in leading the disruption. Demand will be essentially unlimited so being able to quickly build new production and delivery facilities will be key.

I don't expect huge profits for years, I do expect unbelievably fast growth.

 

[Zaxxon]

in Europe, they need to do 20k this month to keep on par with Q3, and perhaps more if they need to get to 105k for this quarter.

Feasible?

See my earlier post this morning. At present, NL+NO+SP alone are on pace for a bit over 20k.

 

[HG Wells]

So Wednesday morning might be beautiful, like this

View attachment 486466

From memory about 5km north of Grimsvotn on the Vatnajokull (apologies for the spelling/lack of accents) a long time ago...

WHAT the hell peed on the tent ?
An ICE GIANT ?

 

[Tslynk67]

I don't see any mirrors here:

I'm fully expecting the Trimotor Cybertruck I take deliver of ASAP will have mirrors (and they will look angular and badass) and it will also have appropriate cameras so I can remove the mirrors when they are no longer mandated!

Are there ANY other car manufacturers that take their prototypes out into the wild, never mind to a restaurant? I can imagine most prototypes don't even drive.

 

[PeterJA]

For whatever it's worth, I too don't like to see members here accused of being shorts or FUDsters because they predict the short-term stock movement will be down or flat. If you disagree, fine; you don't need to malign anyone's motives, despite the temptation to lump all TSLA concerns with the Spiegels and Antons.

Unlike TSLAQ, I welcome all opinions and info about Tesla, including from shorts like the very polite gentleman who posted here months ago. Divergent (even ignorant) opinions can stimulate discussion that makes me more informed and confident about my investment.

 

[kengchang]

@PBRStreetGang7
I didn't know about the intermodal in Birmingham. Can anyone provide more information about that. Are cars being transported by rail to that location? In the past three weeks I seen trucks loaded with Teslas on I-85 going north from Atlanta. That didn't make sense to me then, but now it does if east coast deliveries go through Alabama.

Tesla started using rail again in Q3 2019 I believe

Zachary Kirkhorn -- Chief Financial Officer Q3 2019
We realized improvements in labor hours per vehicle as well as other costs such as warehousing, logistics, delivery and import related items. We are also making continued progress reducing material costs, including commercial negotiations with suppliers.

 

[Mike Smith]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

'There’s no indication at this time that the NTSB’s Office of Highway Safety intends to investigate the latest crash, a spokesman for the agency said in an email.'

 

[kengchang]

Are there ANY other car manufacturers that take their prototypes out into the wild, never mind to a restaurant? I can imagine most prototypes don't even drive.

I have seen camo Karma driving around in SoCal, quite normal depending on where the car manufacturer is

 

[ggies07]

Got to say this is one of the weaker Kathy interviews. You can't try to explain your bear case that Tesla will only sell cars but then end with Tesla has other moats like energy and AI. She should have explained more about vertical integration, high margins, no dealers, etc etc to show them why Tesla can have a market cap higher than Toyota EVEN though Tesla will move less cars than Toyota. Hell the fact that Tesla will own all the "gas stations" that Toyota doesn't is another revenue generator(even though Tesla said it's not going to be but whatever, they can change their minds).

She was doing just fine until that jackass decided to basically bully her...but she did a great job with a smile on. I guess she needs to go on this type of platform for her business and funds, because I would have looked at them a long time ago and said "Cut the bullshit out Todd".....

 

[Unpilot]

A Tesla on Autopilot rear-ended a parked police car, renewing safety concerns

Except that with Fidelity, if you have a 401K, you only have a few relatively poor choices.

My 401k is with Fidelity and I use their Brokeragelink portal to self direct my funds.
3 guess's as to what direction that is....and the first two don't count.

 

[M3Rider]

I know we didn't expect any coverage, but did anyone see any major news outlets reporting on the deliveries starting from GF3?

I don't think they started. They may need few days to move cars to service centers.

If you want to hear the moment first delivery happens, follow
Vincent (@vincent13031925) on Twitter
Or
Jay in Shanghai (@JayinShanghai) on Twitter
On twitter.

 

[ZsoZso]

EVs having a 15% marketshare in 2025?

Interesting. By my math Tesla’s marketshare in 2025, taking the midpoint of their 50%-100% growth target:

= 400,000 cars / year * 1.75^6 = 11.5M cars / year.
11.5M / 80M = 14.4%, so he’s predicting a 0.6% marketshare for all other manufacturer’s EVs combined

Of course that’s assuming Tesla’s Robo-Taxi efforts have completely failed and not started to displace gasoline car sales on a 5 to 1 basis!

The part I highlighted sounds about right.
The Spiegel-like thesis about incumbents waiting for the market to be ripe, then sweeping in by producing EVs in 1-2 year time frame that out-compete Tesla has been proven dead wrong over-and-over again with every single attempt the incumbents have made and reached actual production to market: Chevy Bolt, Jaguar Ipace, Audi étron, Mercedes EQC (did I leave out any other that actually made to market -- not counting limited compliance plays?).

Everyone agrees auto market's future is electric (time-frame opinions differ), yet no analyst or MM-talking head makes the extrapolation that those who have 0% market-share in EVs have no future, period! (looking at you Toyota)

They can't just wake up and leapfrog the companies that put in the R&D and battery manufacturing investment needed for decades already.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Now @ new Intraday high: 341.88

 

[StealthP3D]

For whatever it's worth, I too don't like to see members here accused of being shorts or FUDsters because they predict the short-term stock movement will be down or flat.

Three points to that:

1) It wasn't the perspective that made me call it FUD, it was that he repeatedly defended that news of a single car crash was going to prevent a significant rally. It became FUD when he tried to move an insignificant event into front and center stage with over 10 posts insisting this was a big deal. It's not.

2) I will always call it out when I see fear, uncertainty and doubt being spread.

3) I didn't accuse anyone of being short.

 

[pnungesser]

Tesla started using rail again in Q3 2019 I believe

Zachary Kirkhorn -- Chief Financial Officer Q3 2019
We realized improvements in labor hours per vehicle as well as other costs such as warehousing, logistics, delivery and import related items. We are also making continued progress reducing material costs, including commercial negotiations with suppliers.

I guess I didn't read anything in that statement that would indicate using rail to supply the east coast. Rail was discussed on this forum in the past and the consensus was that it was too slow and unreliable. That was maybe in the context of shipping to the east coast to load ships and avoid the time (and expense?) necessary to go through the canal.