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

[Words of HABIT]

Feds charge Volkswagen with violating environment law for faking emissions tests

"The affected cars in Canada included 3.0-litre and 2.0-litre diesel engine vehicles sold under Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche brands. A 2016 Health Canada study estimated 320 Canadians died prematurely in 2015 because of illnesses related to inhaling diesel exhaust from on-road vehicles...Nitrous oxide, ozone and small particulate matter are the main causes of cancers, and respiratory illnesses bronchitis and asthma."

Shame on Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche. Yet this will receive zero attention from Mass Media. Instead Elon haters will give more attention to Elon running over a rubber pylon cone in his Cybertruck. Bought another 120 shares in TSLA today. I'm betting on humanity.

 

[Thekiwi]

I don't think that's suitable space for the Model Y general assembly line: it's not nearly long enough, and this is the side of the stamping press.

Here's the planned GF3 layout, from about a month ago:

View attachment 486078​

I believe the Model Y GA line is right next to and parallel to the Model 3 GA line, within the existing building.

I.e. Model Y capacity can probably be added reasonably quickly, without much extra construction.

Wouldn't that screw up the whole "loading docks delivering parts directly to the assembly line workstations" layout? Unless they have loading docks on both sides of the building?

 

[nativewolf]

The point is that if someone hits a Tesla, that would be included in Tesla's crash rate, regardless of fault. So without @ReflexFunds proposed adjustment, it may not be apples-to-apples.

Example:
Driver Ford drives 198k miles
Driver Tesla drives 300k miles

Driver Ford hits Driver Tesla. 498k total miles driven with 1 crash, but two cars. Tesla would report 300k miles driven per crash even if not at fault. NHTSA would report (I think) 498k miles per crash. This makes Tesla look worse than the total population (of 2, here), when in reality it went more miles without crashing on a per car basis. If NHTSA number is adjusted for per car, it makes more sense. Miles driven per car per crash is 249k miles in this case, so Tesla's 300k accurately reflects as superior.

I appreciate everyone discussing but this is not quite right. You'd take teslas out of the equation and look at all other manufactures, not the general fleet with tesla. So say in your example you had 11 cars of all sorts and all but 1 had on average 198k miles 1 of those being a tesla at 300k, you would compare to the 10 car fleet without the tesla. So the avg fleet would be at 198k and Tesla's at 300k. Etc etc. We are comparing all the other cars in the fleet to Tesla. You remove tesla from the analysis. I am not looking at all that data as I feel it is something in such early infancy that it is an academic (but still interesting) question whose answer is surely pre-ordained. Tesla's are going to be safer. People are bad drivers, they txt.

NH folks also don't want you to be able to compare a honda fit vs a F350. Some cars are just safer but all cars are safer than we were 10 years again, and much safer than 20 years ago, and much much safer than 40 years ago. Progress!!! We can all celebrate that.

Now wait for the cybertruck numbers, they are potentially going to blow people away.

 

[mongo]

The point is that if someone hits a Tesla, that would be included in Tesla's crash rate, regardless of fault. So without @ReflexFunds proposed adjustment, it may not be apples-to-apples.

Example:
Driver Ford drives 198k miles
Driver Tesla drives 300k miles

Driver Ford hits Driver Tesla. 498k total miles driven with 1 crash, but two cars. Tesla would report 300k miles driven per crash even if not at fault. NHTSA would report (I think) 498k miles per crash. This makes Tesla look worse than the total population (of 2, here), when in reality it went more miles without crashing on a per car basis. If NHTSA number is adjusted for per car, it makes more sense. Miles driven per car per crash is 249k miles in this case, so Tesla's 300k accurately reflects as superior.

Yeah, @ReflexFunds and I took it off-line. We both DMed each other.

The difference is that I think the Tesla reported numbers should be adjusted (improved) by the cars per accident number to improve them (though by how much is difficult to say since it depends on the at-faultness) instead of adjusting the NHTSA number by the cars per accident.

The math works out the same, but my issue is
the resulting intermediate value bugs me. A driver hitting multiple cars vs putting themselves in the ditch should not impact the rate of drivers causing accidents.

Be nice to have better Tesla data granularity. I'm due internally they are adding to the data set what they can from each event. Some things are unavoidable though.

 

[gerebgraus]

A question for you investment experts that know all about this stuff... (and related to Tesla honest!)
Because I see tesla as pretty much unbeatable, I also made a few investments in a few tangential stocks which I think the growth in EVs and batteries would generate linked growth in. Two of them have done badly and I just *do not understand why*.

Here they are:
Kuka (robotics) stock ticker KU2:
KUKA AG (KU2.DE) Income Statement - Yahoo Finance
(I get that their profit has fallen but....how the hell? surely a robotics company is a license to print money right now?)

Sociedad Quimica Y Minera De Chile:Stock ticker: SQM
(Lithium producer... seriously surely another money license?)

The Global X Funds Lithium & battery tech ETF. (stock ticker: LIT)
This is getting silly...how can this be DOWN so much? surely everyone is investing in batteries and lithium?

Am I just super-unlucky and picking the worst stock in every category. Normally I'd sell Kuka as I am so down but part of me thinks Tesla, or somebody like Tesla will just buy them at some point. Market cap 1.5billion...

Kuka sells mostly to car manufacturers. Car sales and new investments in robots are down. BTW. I bet that Tesla will start to make sooner or later their own robots.
Lithium prices are down. BEV sales in China declined. There is a surplus on the market. This might not be beneficial for Tesla long term. This will postpone development of new lithium mining projects, so it might lead to shortages later. Musk hinted already that Tesla might get into lithium mining. These type of hints from Musk are usually followed by actions.

 

[StealthP3D]

There appears to be a cadre of persons who are turned off by Elon Musk, his personality, fame, abilities and success. This emotionalism too often seems to become twisted into disdain for Tesla, Inc. and its stock shares, leading to dubious claims and bad bets.

There are always people who are turned off by anyone achieving extreme success, even when that success was achieved by innovation, long, hard work and at great financial risk (their own). It makes them feel dirty and inadequate. These are some of the only people I avoid associating with. They are bad news (even though they may appear reasonable on the outside).

I'm suggesting many of the people who claim to be turned off by Musk personally are mostly responding to his extreme success. There is another class of people who will also claim to be turned off by Musk. The ones whose financial interests are threatened by the transition to clean energy and away from ICE vehicles. Oilmen, auto dealers, auto workers, old-world money, etc. There is one smaller class of people who claim to be turned off by Musk. These are a narrow slice of fundamental Christians. How dare he dream of leaving the planet God gave us and exploring Mars (as if he thinks he knows more than God himself)! How arrogant!

But when it comes to investing, the world has a way of punishing people who are irrational. The markets may not seem to be too rational, and they are not in the short-term, but, in the long-run, they have a way of rewarding intelligent pragmatism and punishing ignorance.

 

[dc_h]

Wouldn't that screw up the whole "loading docks delivering parts directly to the assembly line workstations" layout? Unless they have loading docks on both sides of the building?

That explains the diagonal loading doc on the far side of building one.

 

[Singuy]

There are always people who are turned off by anyone achieving extreme success, even when that success was achieved by innovation, long, hard work and at great financial risk (their own). It makes them feel dirty and inadequate. These are some of the only people I avoid associating with. They are bad news (even though they may appear reasonable on the outside).

I'm suggesting many of the people who claim to be turned off by Musk personally are mostly responding to his extreme success. There is another class of people who will also claim to be turned off by Musk. The ones whose financial interests are threatened by the transition to clean energy and away from ICE vehicles. Oilmen, auto dealers, auto workers, old-world money, etc. There is one smaller class of people who claim to be turned off by Musk. These are a narrow slice of fundamental Christians. How dare he dream of leaving the planet God gave us and exploring Mars (as if he thinks he knows more than God himself)! How arrogant!

But when it comes to investing, the world has a way of punishing people who are irrational. The markets may not seem to be too rational, and they are not in the short-term, but, in the long-run, they have a way of rewarding intelligent pragmatism and punishing ignorance.

I would say that Musk would give some people less fire power to hate him if he practiced more under promise/over deliever. I know he is really excited about what he is doing and likes show his excitement but having certain things not come to fruition at the specific time line he has given really turns off some people.

For example, city street driving/sign/stop light response are advertised as "coming later this year.." when we have about 20 days left. When Elon haters point to this as false advertisement, there's really nothing I can counter with. Just changing the text to "coming soon" vs giving a specific time frame goes a long way to restore credibility of his promises.

 

[Unpilot]

There are always people who are turned off by anyone achieving extreme success, even when that success was achieved by innovation, long, hard work and at great financial risk (their own). It makes them feel dirty and inadequate. These are some of the only people I avoid associating with. They are bad news (even though they may appear reasonable on the outside).

I'm suggesting many of the people who claim to be turned off by Musk personally are mostly responding to his extreme success. There is another class of people who will also claim to be turned off by Musk. The ones whose financial interests are threatened by the transition to clean energy and away from ICE vehicles. Oilmen, auto dealers, auto workers, old-world money, etc. There is one smaller class of people who claim to be turned off by Musk. These are a narrow slice of fundamental Christians. How dare he dream of leaving the planet God gave us and exploring Mars (as if he thinks he knows more than God himself)! How arrogant!

But when it comes to investing, the world has a way of punishing people who are irrational. The markets may not seem to be too rational, and they are not in the short-term, but, in the long-run, they have a way of rewarding intelligent pragmatism and punishing ignorance.

I agree and you get a real sense of it whenever CNBC has a Tesla bull on.

The dripping sarcasm and disdain is palatable.
On one extreme you have toothbrush boy. Then you have the more slick ones like many on CNBC.

The lack of understanding about what is so apparent to most of us is hard for me to get my mind around.

I'm 64 and never in my life have I seen a more clear example of a company truly focused on saving us from ourselves. While at the same time being vilified by the fools on the sidelines.

 

[davepsilon]

I can't say if the rest of the industry can keep up, but Battery Day is supposed to show a path to 2TW of battery production per year. Even with EM-time, 48 months seems like a long way out for Musk, but let's assume it's the time frame for the plan. 37 million cars with a ~75KW pack is 2.775 TW of batteries.

Tesla may own 72% of the market?

That's 2 TWh split between energy and auto - which for Elon are about the same scale. 48 months doesn't make any sense for a timeline to me - we know the product pipeline and factory footprint for the near term - it's not on a track that leads to a TWh of auto production in 4 years.

 

[StealthP3D]

Now wait for the cybertruck numbers, they are potentially going to blow people away.

I'll be the contrarian here and say that I think Tesla might have a tough time getting to 5 stars in every category with the Cybertruck due to the fact that it will be more difficult to manage crumple zones as easily with the exoskeleton vs traditional unibody vehicles. And the body of crash testing data will not be as relevant. They essentially have to re-invent crash safety for the new style of the vehicle structure. They will get there eventually, but probably not the first iteration. It will be a relatively heavy vehicle so there is a lot of potential crash energy to manage in the tests involving impact with a non-moveable object.

I'm buying a Cybertruck regardless because I'm a motorcyclist who grew up also driving death traps, which simply means any car manufactured in the 1960's and 1970's, regardless of size and weight. Cybertruck crash safety will blow those cars away. The motorcycles have no crash safety, once you are no longer in controlled riding, your trajectory is your trajectory! I've been lucky, my only injuries have been a sprained ankle and a scraped palm (never land on your hands, even if you have good gloves on).

 

[Darkfox021]

That's 2 TWh split between energy and auto - which for Elon are about the same scale. 48 months doesn't make any sense for a timeline to me - we know the product pipeline and factory footprint for the near term - it's not on track for a TWh of auto production in 4 years.

The question was about battery availability for 37 million vehicles industry-wide. My post was not intended to be a prediction of the future, but rather to show the scale that Tesla is talking about achieving and how that translates into auto industry numbers. Tesla will not control production of 72% of battery production in 4 years, which means that if they hit this goal, total battery availability would be even larger. Yes, they will dedicate them to different markets.

But, Tesla also does not need to build the vehicle for every battery they dedicate to the auto market.

 

[StealthP3D]

I would say that Musk would give some people less fire power to hate him if he practiced more under promise/over deliever.

In case you haven't noticed, it looks like Musk has taken actual steps in the last year to under-promise and over-deliver. And he has mostly over-delivered in terms of product specs, it's only the timeline that tends to slip. But now he has moved the Model Y timeline up once and early signs are he might beat even that optimistic timeline. For a lot of reasons, I give him a "10" already on delivering a product better than promised and hopefully, his estimated timelines are more realistic now.

For example, city street driving/sign/stop light response are advertised as "coming later this year.." when we have about 20 days left. When Elon haters point to this as false advertisement, there's really nothing I can counter with. Just changing the text to "coming soon" vs giving a specific time frame goes a long way to restore credibility of his promises.

You have a basic misunderstanding of the difference between an estimated timeframe and a "promise". No rational person thinks an estimated availability date is a "promise" (other than a promise to try to achieve the estimated date). And I have no doubt he has given it his best to meet all estimated dates. So, he is very good on his promises, it's his estimated dates that were overly optimistic. But reality happens. And adjustments are made. I do think with experience in mass production of automobiles comes wisdom. You have to remember, Musk started Tesla with zero experience mass-producing automobiles and didn't gain any true mass-production experience until the Model 3!

I think it's actually impressive how accurate his previous timeline estimations have been for someone lacking that experience! But the press jumps all over him and writes negative articles even if he was a little wrong. It's comedic and sad at the same time!

 

[StealthP3D]

Musk hinted already that Tesla might get into lithium mining. These type of hints from Musk are usually followed by actions.

Do you have a source for that? I don't recall Musk ever hinting at getting into the mining of lithium! Not even once. Lithium is not much of a potential price or supply bottleneck.

Also, a surplus of lithium raw product is a good thing. Mining company managements are not stupid, they know why there is currently a surplus of supply and want to make money as much as anyone when demand starts growing again.

 

[RFernatt]

Do you have a source for that? I don't recall Musk ever hinting at getting into the mining of lithium! Not even once. Lithium is not much of a potential price or supply bottleneck.

Also, a surplus of lithium raw product is a good thing. Mining company managements are not stupid, they know why there is currently a surplus of supply and want to make money as much as anyone when demand starts growing again.

It was mentioned during the annual meeting.

Tesla might get into the mining business to secure minerals for electric batteries – TechCrunch

 

[Singuy]

In case you haven't noticed, it looks like Musk has taken actual steps in the last year to under-promise and over-deliver. And he has mostly over-delivered in terms of product specs, it's only the timeline that tends to slip. But now he has moved the Model Y timeline up once and early signs are he might beat even that optimistic timeline. For a lot of reasons, I give him a "10" already on delivering a product better than promised and hopefully, his estimated timelines are more realistic now.



You have a basic misunderstanding of the difference between an estimated timeframe and a "promise". No rational person thinks an estimated availability date is a "promise" (other than a promise to try to achieve the estimated date). And I have no doubt he has given it his best to meet all estimated dates. So, he is very good on his promises, it's his estimated dates that were overly optimistic. But reality happens. And adjustments are made. I do think with experience in mass production of automobiles comes wisdom. You have to remember, Musk started Tesla with zero experience mass-producing automobiles and didn't gain any true mass-production experience until the Model 3!

I think it's actually impressive how accurate his previous timeline estimations have been for someone lacking that experience! But the press jumps all over him and writes negative articles even if he was a little wrong. It's comedic and sad at the same time!

"Coming later this year"

The estimated time frame is the when in "this year". No one knows what later means so that's the estimated time frame you were referring to.

The promise however is "this year". It's not an estimate for which year, only which day in the year.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I am starting to think Woods' number of 37M BEVs produced globally in 2024 sounds too optimistic.

ARK just extrapolates 60% CAGR, with no apparent analysis. Global EV growth will be single digits this year. Europe will be way up, but US will be down and China roughly flat.

2020 could be negative, though Europe may grow enough to offset declines in China. US should grow also, but isn't big enough to move the global needle.

Growing from ~2 million in 2020 to ARK's 37m in 2024 is 100%+ CAGR. Cathi needs to cut back on the self-medication.

 

[StealthP3D]

"Coming later this year"

The estimated time frame is the when in "this year". No one knows what later means so that's the estimated time frame you were referring to.

The promise however is "this year". It's not an estimate for which year, only which day in the year.

You are not making good sense. The obvious meaning is "before the end of the year". So, what is your point?

 

[StealthP3D]

It was mentioned during the annual meeting.

Tesla might get into the mining business to secure minerals for electric batteries – TechCrunch

He didn't mention lithium and there was no reason to believe he meant lithium. The claim I was responding to was that he hinted at getting into lithium mining. I don't see that happening for numerous reasons. If Tesla enters the mining business it will be for more strategic minerals than lithium.

 

[scaesare]

One other way to think of this is, in order for Tesla to reach 17% share of the global auto market, their auto sales will have to double five times over.

2019 Tesla 360k/WW total 77,000k ~0.5%

It’s conceivable, but it will mean going very heavily into new market segments like ~$20-25k, broader range of models, and widespread deployment of charging options that dwarf the supercharger network. (By someone)

Terafactory, here we come!