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

[AlMc]

With my Model S from early 2013, I am pretty sure I sold more people on buying Tesla's than during all the Referral Program years.

I 'second this' with my experience. My 2013 P85+ and I sold many Ss before there ever was a referral program. Who knows how many of those people sold more Teslas.

 

[EVNow]

If SR+PUP is going to be a $39-$40k vehicle - One has to think that the current MR+PUP at $41,900 is likely going to be the best price vs features model 3 offered for quite some time, and I dont think the offer will stick around once the SR+PUP arrives.

I would think the advice for anyone waiting for a SR+PUP, is to instead get the current MR+PUP while it’s available for jsut $2-$3k extra - the deal is just too good for the extra 40-50 miles of range.

Yes - I think they will adjust the MR price upward once SR is available.

MR+PUP at $42k is great - esp given the tax credits may go down by the time SR is available.

 

[TradingInvest]

It will be great once March 1st has passed and we stop hearing these morons on tv concern-freaking about the debt payment.

After the March 1st bond is paid with cash, bashers will talk about the $500m due later this year. This is good so investors can slowly add more shares at good levels. The more I think about it, the way shorts misunderstood Tesla is a gift for the longs. Just don't mess it up with careless speculation.

While lots of shorts are dumb, some of the shorts are not that stupid, they take large position at certain point and hit hard to create free fall, they profit from those actions. Overly leveraged longs tend to suffer at the lower price (margin calls).

For those who has to use leverage, I think buy deep in the money calls with longest expiration dates, then roll them out when 2022 options are available. The big part of the investment should be cash paid shares. The LEAP part will likely to incur tax from time to time, so maybe better for a small portion of an IRA account.

 

[EVNow]

Or we've simply seen too many shorts in disguise making garbage claims over and over and over again and have little tolerance for more. Long or short, new posters probably shouldn't assume they suddenly have some unique perspective we haven't considered before. Of course it's possible, just unlikely.

@AudubonB Is it possible to make a rule in this sub-forum to not let newbies post for a certain # of days (and only after posting certain # of times in other sub-forums) ? This will reduce the noise.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

I am not short, I just reply with some spiciness. Literally DaveT makes a similar point, but of course he is very diplomatic so there's no issue. I think some longs are just waaaaay too sensitive and can't take a joke, or pointed criticism.

I need to make sure my investment thesis is stable, that requires poking and prodding, not blind faith.

If you are an investor, then why did you choose a name that sounds exactly, and I mean exactly, like the name of #1 shorter Mark Spiegel? You have to admit that looks bad.

 

[EVNow]

I am not short, I just reply with some spiciness. Literally DaveT makes a similar point, but of course he is very diplomatic so there's no issue. I think some longs are just waaaaay too sensitive and can't take a joke, or pointed criticism.

DaveT has been around here for a long time. You have been here from last Friday ? Almost every post of yours is "spicy".

I need to make sure my investment thesis is stable, that requires poking and prodding, not blind faith.

If you need to make blind faith statements like "its going to zero" to poke and prod, you are doing it the wrong way. I suggest going to the finance projection thread and check those or may be hang around with the "TESLAQ" crowd to see if their arguments make sense.

 

[Fact Checking]

When EM talked about demand, he did not tie it up with their current production capacity, like "ok, the min demand is 500k and we can do that and if it's good times and demand is 700-800k, then we can do that too"

The number of 50% growth is tied to the average for 2018 and we know profitability in Q1-Q2 2018 was not the best.

So, if we compare guided numbers to Q4, then there's not much growth in production and potential costs improvements compared to Q4 ER that stem from "economies of scale". I guess they'll come from other improvements.

It is probably a good approach to set the bar low and "beat", rather than "miss" guidance.

On the other hand, we may see it right in Q1 - if they beat 90k by a large number, then the guidance was too pessimistic and probably shoud not be relied on for the rest of the year.

However, if they are close to the guidance number, then they may have other reasons for containing the growth - whether that's related to costs cutting and not being ready to scale until that is done or being constrained by some bottleneck(s).

Another reason for moderation is a pretty firm statement that they target 7k/week for the EOY.
If they did 7k average for the year, that'd be 336k 3s. With S/X having larger batteries and being cell constrained prob some 70k max. So, very close to 400k total.

If you expect them to beat that and have a lot of upside, they need to be at 7k+/week average.
But then how do you explain this from the letter?


If we assume less than 7k average, for example 6k average, then we get 360k.

So, to me the guidance looks like they'll be doing 6k/week for the most of the year and then do a EOY rush reaching/exceeding 7k.

I guess another variable is GF3. It may be able to add few 10s of Ks by EOY.

There's no contradiction with what I wrote: their FY2019 guidance is simply conservative and self-consistent - both the annual target and the production rate path. But there's no penalty in giving low guidance and then beating it.

If you want to believe that while in 2018 they scaled up from 2k/week to 6k/week within about 6 months, and they successfully stress-tested 7k/week in December 2018 already, but for some reason they will only be able to reach this in a sustained fashion by the end of 2019, some 12 months later, then you are free to do so and there's no evidence I can provide that would contradict it.

But my impression is simply what Elon explained on the conference call and what I outlined in my comment: they are conservatively assuming and guiding for the worst (global recession), and are sizing their Model 3 production capacity for 2019 accordingly. If there's no recession and demand increases by 40-60% they'll be able to reach 7k/week much sooner - but even in the worst-case scenario they'll be able to invest some impressive capex based on self-funding alone.

 

[Curt Renz]

Money manager Tepper started a new anti-Tesla Twitter thread and won't relent: Mark Tepper on Twitter

Mark Tepper was on CNBC Fast Money on Monday and Tuesday but not today. He deleted the thread linked in the quote above in which he had boasted about advising on CNBC Monday to sell TSLA due to a year-over-year drop in Model S & X test drives. On CNBC he made no mention of Tesla now discouraging test drives, nor his source, nor whether he had a position in TSLA. Tuesday on CNBC he recommended buying car parts company ORLY and implied that was a dig at the notion that EVs would become dominant. Afterward he emphasized that and its relation to TSLA on Twitter: Mark Tepper on Twitter

He ignored in his now deleted Twitter thread several requests to name his source about the test drives, and whether he had realized the information was taken out of context. Eventually in that deleted thread he conceded directly to his source it was "correct" that he was his source.

Complaint from his source about lack of attribution: Jay Van Sciver on Twitter
More from source regarding lack of context: Jay Van Sciver on Twitter

 

[gene]

Republican senators push new bill to kill electric vehicle tax credit completely and add new EV tax

Sure, this will more likely help Tesla, but it will, if passed be a negative impact on EV adoption in general. If it does pass, people have 30 days to buy a car and receive federal incentives.

I'm ok cancelling EV incentives if ICE cars pay an additional tax to offset health risks to all breathing beings on earth.

 

[abasile]

Much of the general public is ignorant as to the specifics of Tesla vehicles, and EVs in general, but they are well aware of the Tesla brand, particularly younger people. We interact with people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, and we find that Tesla vehicles come up in conversation pretty regularly.

In general, people seem to light up when they realize that a Tesla could easily meet their needs, and it doesn’t take much to help people understand this. But the majority still feel that Tesla vehicles are beyond their price range. This is changing, thankfully, and I am grateful for Tesla’s continued efforts to lower costs.

Just today, for example, I was chatting with a neighbor who drives a basic Subaru on a lease that’s about to end. He’d like a Tesla for his medium/long commute, but a Model 3 with AWD would still be out of his price range. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, Tesla will be able to sell a basic SR with AWD for about $39k before incentives. If that were the case today, my neighbor would most likely be a buyer.

This assumes that lowering price expands the market. There's also the possibility that lowering the price doesn't expand the market, especially in scenarios where most people don't know much about your product. Example, if Tiffany's lowers their prices on their products by 5%, would it really expand their market?

 

[KarenRei]

Republican senators push new bill to kill electric vehicle tax credit completely and add new EV tax

Sure, this will more likely help Tesla, but it will, if passed be a negative impact on EV adoption in general. If it does pass, people have 30 days to buy a car and receive federal incentives.

I'm ok cancelling EV incentives if ICE cars pay an additional tax to offset health risks to all breathing beings on earth.

I see the bright side in this. Nobody likes the status quo. Nobody in the US wants the US government subsidizing foreign competition to the detriment of US manufacturers, which is what the credit is becoming. Which leads to the obvious path:

• EV haters put forth bills/amendments to kill the credit
• EV proponents put forth bills/amendments to create a renewed, enhanced credit
• Both end up compromising on a bill that restores a level playing field, but has an expiry date for all manufacturers
• Both sides claim victory.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Not an American don’t pretend to understand the tax credit but if it’s 3750 for Tesla right now when does it drop to half of that.

 

[KarenRei]

Not an American don’t pretend to understand the tax credit but if it’s 3750 for Tesla right now when does it drop to half of that.

Tesla's credit was halved at the start of this year, and halves again at the middle of this year, then goes away at the end of this year. Meanwhile GM's tax credit phaseout follows Tesla's with a 3-month delay. Nobody else has triggered the start of their phaseouts yet.

 

[M3Rider]

There's no contradiction with what I wrote: their FY2019 guidance is simply conservative and self-consistent - both the annual target and the production rate path. But there's no penalty in giving low guidance and then beating it.

If you want to believe that while in 2018 they scaled up from 2k/week to 6k/week within about 6 months, and they successfully stress-tested 7k/week in December 2018 already, but for some reason they will only be able to reach this in a sustained fashion by the end of 2019, some 12 months later, then you are free to do so and there's no evidence I can provide that would contradict it.

But my impression is simply what Elon explained on the conference call and what I outlined in my comment: they are conservatively assuming and guiding for the worst (global recession), and are sizing their Model 3 production capacity for 2019 accordingly. If there's no recession and demand increases by 40-60% they'll be able to reach 7k/week much sooner - but even in the worst-case scenario they'll be able to invest some impressive capex based on self-funding alone.

It's not about what I want to believe. It's about what I read in the letter.

Imagine a question during Q1 ER call:
"Elon, Tesla guided for 7k by EOY 2019, but your Q1 average was 8k. Or even 7k. Were you not aware that your production capacity was already capable of this rate?"
I think Elon would be in an awkward position trying to explain this.

So, I think there is some truth to it and they could beat the number in H2 and explain that things went better than they expected, but H1 will likely indeed not show a better number than 6k.

If you look at Jan 2019, we had 6,500 U.S deliveries and 5 ships, right?
Each ship is 2 or 3k based on different commenters.
So, max of 3*5+6.5=21.5k
That's less than 6k/week. But lets wait and see.
I do think that we won't see 7k in Q1 per the letter.

 

[Curt Renz]

Republican senators push new bill to kill electric vehicle tax credit completely and add new EV tax

Sure, this will more likely help Tesla, but it will, if passed be a negative impact on EV adoption in general. If it does pass, people have 30 days to buy a car and receive federal incentives.

I'm ok cancelling EV incentives if ICE cars pay an additional tax to offset health risks to all breathing beings on earth.

I'm retired and drive about 2,000 miles a year. Gasoline taxes are proportionate to the number of gallons consumed. The senator's bill proposes that all electric car owners pay a tax based on the the average number of miles driven for their vehicle type, and not the actual number for one's own vehicle. Tesla obtains over-the-air records of how many miles a particular car is driven. That is what should be considered, and not some average for vehicle type.

 

[EVNow]

Republican senators push new bill to kill electric vehicle tax credit completely and add new EV tax

Chances of this getting 60 votes in the senate or getting majority in the House are almost zero.

If "pushing a bill" was enough to make it pass, we'd have had Medicare 4 All by now.

ps : Scrap that. … chances of "being considered in the House" are almost zero.

 

[TradingInvest]

Republican senators push new bill to kill electric vehicle tax credit completely and add new EV tax

Sure, this will more likely help Tesla, but it will, if passed be a negative impact on EV adoption in general. If it does pass, people have 30 days to buy a car and receive federal incentives.

I'm ok cancelling EV incentives if ICE cars pay an additional tax to offset health risks to all breathing beings on earth.

The right thing to do is to vote this kind of senators out.

 

[jpterpsfan]

Does anyone

Yes - I think they will adjust the MR price upward once SR is available.

MR+PUP at $42k is great - esp given the tax credits may go down by the time SR is available.

Once SR + PUP is introduced, I think they cut the premium of the LR to $7-8k and just get rid of the MR entirely. I think they want only 2 battery configurations for manufacturing ease, and for each of those to have significant range differences. Just guesses, though.

 

[EVNow]

Once SR + PUP is introduced, I think they cut the premium of the LR to $7-8k and just get rid of the MR entirely. I think they want only 2 battery configurations for manufacturing ease, and for each of those to have significant range differences. Just guesses, though.

They may still have only 2 configurations and sell MR in the middle, by software limiting the battery size until the volume justifies the 3rd battery configuration.

To sell a lot of 3s, they need to cover from $35k to $75k. After that S/X cover the price range. You don't leave gaps in the middle for competitors to fill in.

 

[Krugerrand]

BS. You don't need to reduce the price now. You can delay that and achieve the same result. Because if they are still production limited, those people will be waiting to buy an EV either way.

Like I said, you don’t get it.