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

[Nocturnal]

a fair amount of profit-taking is expected, but it's not gonna change which way the wind is blowing.

personally, i'm not even thinking about trying to dodge and weave these dips. they're inconsequential in the long term.

Too risky for me. With the exception of a few options that are expiring this and next week, I'm sitting tight.

BTW., macros were dropping due to the NFP report missing significantly - but I think those fears are overblown: a weaker U.S. labor market helps earnings and keeps the Fed off the rate-rise button. After a bit of digestion macros might end the day in the green. (Or not. )

We are below the natural rate of unemployment so slowing growth is a good sign to me. If things stay hot then the FED might be forced to take action. ​

 

[woodisgood]

a fair amount of profit-taking is expected, but it's not gonna change which way the wind is blowing.

personally, i'm not even thinking about trying to dodge and weave these dips. they're inconsequential in the long term.

Not to mention short-term vs long-term tax implications. Many folks began or significantly added to positions only a half year ago...

 

[KarenRei]

Oh, that isn't fair: you set the speed to 150 kmph and left the "slower if needed" box unchecked. Now, rerun with fair settings and I think you will find that it gets across on a single charge.

You're confusing max speed and reference speed Max speed means "don't exceed". Reference speed means "go at this speed relative to the speed limit". Reference speed is 100%. E.g. I should have mentioned... the Porsche isn't allowed to speed, either, in that simulation. Ever.

("Slower if needed" means "drop below the reference speed if you can't make it". Maybe I should have checked it, to make the Porsche try to limp all the way there at speeds significantly below the speed limit )

 

[humbaba]

You're confusing max speed and reference speed Max speed means "don't exceed". Reference speed means "go at this speed relative to the speed limit". Reference speed is 100%. E.g. I should have mentioned... the Porsche isn't allowed to speed, either, in that simulation. Ever.

("Slower if needed" means "drop below the reference speed if you can't make it")

I obviously need to work on my joke skills

I was able to get the highest efficiency Taycan to use your route without stops at ~72kmph as the limit. Even setting arrival of 1% wasn't persuasive (that resulted in a 12% arrival charge, raising the speed incurred a stop).

Sigh. Now this has devolved into an actual discussion of Taycan range. My apologies to all. I tried a joke and obviously misfired.

 

[Todd Burch]

Not to mention short-term vs long-term tax implications. Many folks began or significantly added to positions only a half year ago...

That is a very good point and one reason why I don't expect significant profit-taking right now. As woodisgood said (and yes, wood is indeed good), since we hit such significant lows just 6 months ago, many investors bought within the last year and will hold through any temporary drops due to not wanting to pay short-term capital gains tax.

 

[ninpb]

Awesome!

DId you perchance see a Model 3 being driven onto the ship while being followed by a string of unmanned Model 3s also driving on board? (I mean this has to start at some point and with Smart Summon, it seems a small step).

This sounds like something the longshoreman union would be very against.

 

[Tim S]

Notes:

• 567,704 put options are at or below $300 and will likely expire worthless. I'm sure that an almost unanimous portion of TMC readership will be delighted to learn that a (formerly) significant short position of Mark BS. Spiegel's 2020 bankwuptcy puts will possibly expire among them. Good riddance.
  
• The 'near the money' portion of the open interest is actually smaller than this week's.
• There's a very high number of calls expiring in the money: 128k contracts if the price stays above $450. Deep in the money contracts are often exercised, because deep in the money options contracts are relatively illiquid in the market (higher spreads), and the delta hedging and options excercise inventory of these contracts is significant, and the dynamic delta hedging effect is significant as well, should there be bigger price swings.
• "Max effective pain" looks to be around $500, so I'd expect defenses of that line, should the price break above $490.
  
• There's 40k "short squeeze bet" calls at and above $600, I'd expect market makers to defend that level if given the opportunity, should $500 fall. Last Friday I believe it was them who successfully defended the ~$445 level, so it's possible if not much else is going on in the markets.

I have 2 deep in the money calls expiring next Friday that I will allow to be exercised, to avoid paying short term capital gains tax on the gains. I will then hold the shares for over a year so I have long term capital gains, taxed at 15% in the US.

This is another reason why there will be many calls exercised next week.

 

[mongo]

The Taycan is a Porsche, isn't it? So speed below 150 km/h on highways is only a hypothetical possibility.

Close, you're thinking of the Porsche Tachyon.

@humbaba , I got it

 

[JRP3]

Washington Post letting us know how far ahead Tesla is in their own way
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/10/tesla-battery-range/
Said Tesla is taking more risk and being too liberal with their battery tech which may or may not be in correlation to the dozen of fire from Tesla batteries. Other auto makers are essentially doing the right thing by doing it the “right way”. Some mention of Tesla downgrading batteries through software and using less cobalt which may be cause of more fires.
But if you can read between the lines then the article says Tesla is miles ahead of competition

sorry if this doesn’t belong in here. Just doing some light reading before markets open. Maybe give some confidence to our investors that it is 2020 and journalist still don’t understand Tesla.

Bahaha, I'm sure the article is written by a reporter who is an expert on Li-Ion battery technology.

The author actually did a good job at getting accurate information from his sources. It's no secret that NCA is more energy dense but more volatile and shorter lived than some other lithium chemistries. We are also seeing Tesla reaching out and limiting older cars from utilizing the original pack capacity and lowering charge and regen rates. So far it's a relatively small number of vehicles but the list is growing.

 

[Artful Dodger]

In a leaked letter from the Tesla Semi team they talk about achieved GAAP profitability.

Its not 'true', its 'chinglish'. The poorly worded sentence didn't specify a time frame to which it applies. The author of the tweet is a member here, and appeared briefly to clarify that he meant to say 2019Q3 GAAP profitability.

I caution all members, native-english speakers and otherwise, to allow for differences in language skills, and to read any news with a critical eye. Euphoria colors GF3 related news right now, while even the reality is far beyond expectations from 1 year ago.

Cheers!

 

[humbaba]

Close, you're thinking of the Porsche Tachyon.

@humbaba , I got it

I like the way you think. Dang, if I'd thought of that and worked it in maybe my joke would've worked better.

Porsche: making road trips at 45 mph gives you a better view of the scenery.

 

[KarenRei]

The author actually did a good job at getting accurate information from his sources. It's no secret that NCA is more energy dense but more volatile and shorter lived than some other lithium chemistries. We are also seeing Tesla reaching out and limiting older cars from utilizing the original pack capacity and lowering charge and regen rates. So far it's a relatively small number of vehicles but the list is growing.

It's worth noting that Tesla's determination that they needed to modify the BMS on some older pack models has little to no implication on the longevity of Tesla's current cells. Indeed, Tesla is now much more confident in the longevity of its current cells, as they now include a pack capacity warranty.

A lot has changed since those packs that were affected by the BMS update were made.

 

[JRP3]

It's an interesting theory - I really don't know. The simple fact is, we don't know what motor combination they plan to use. The current Model 3 / Raven design gets an efficiency bonus in cruising because you can fully deenergize an induction motor and it just freewheels (still wastes more energy than not having to spin the motor at all, but less than having to spin a PM). They'd lose that if the two rear motors were PM.

I'm not putting any wagers on what the exact motor combination for Plaid will be until it's publicly disclosed

I'm expecting two PMSRMs in the rear and an induction in the front. That's how I'd build it if I wanted a performance vehicle with the ability to idle one motor. If I were going for all out performance and didn't care about extra efficiency then I'd go with three PMSRMs. The superior running efficiency of the PMSRMs might largely nullify the benefit of idling one motor anyway.

 

[JRP3]

It's worth noting that Tesla's determination that they needed to modify the BMS on some older pack models has little to no implication on the longevity of Tesla's current cells. Indeed, Tesla is now much more confident in the longevity of its current cells, as they now include a pack capacity warranty.

A lot has changed since those packs that were affected by the BMS update were made.

Agree, I think longevity is one of the reasons the Model 3 cells did not reflect any energy density improvement.

 

[tinm]

Awesome!

DId you perchance see a Model 3 being driven onto the ship while being followed by a string of unmanned Model 3s also driving on board? (I mean this has to start at some point and with Smart Summon, it seems a small step).

I talked to them about that... asked ‘em if they saw the day coming where the cars would drive themselves off the trucks, park themselves, wait, and then form a line and drive themselves over to the ship, up the ramp, and onwards to a designated spot on some deck of the ship. Maybe with on-board mobile robots (think: Boston Dynamics “dog” bots... creepy) to do the final lashing to strap down the cars for the voyage. My host laughed, acknowledged it had come up in conversations about the future, but the feeling is, “very unlikely.” A LOT can and will go wrong during this work. And I agree with the workers on this. There are a lot of little decisions to make, and it takes an experienced, coordinated crew to keep the operations moving at a crisp pace. Often something comes up suddenly requiring moving cars around after they’ve been put in place on a deck, etc. Complex operation. Hey anything is possible in the future but I think at least for a long time to come this kind of work will best be left to humans to do and not timid, hesitant robo-cars.

 

[KarenRei]

I'm expecting two PMSRMs in the rear and an induction in the front. That's how I'd build it if I wanted a performance vehicle with the ability to idle one motor. If I were going for all out performance and didn't care about extra efficiency then I'd go with three PMSRMs. The superior running efficiency of the PMSRMs might largely nullify the benefit of idling one motor anyway.

They don't. The power needed to propel the vehicle at cruising speeds is a small fraction of the capacity of a single PMSRM. Everything else is ideally freewheeled (or better, outright disconnected from the drivetrain... although that increases the part count).

That said, if Plaid is dual PMSRM rear, and non-Plaid is single PMSRM rear, and both are induction front, then non-Plaid isn't hurt by the change. It's already to be expected that Plaid will be less efficient than non-Plaid.

 

[The Accountant]

As per @The Accountant, because Tesla did not deliver a single GF3 vehicle in Q4, they are probably not going to include any substantial CoGs or other GF3 expenses in their Q4 financials. Only the capex and inventory cash hit should be there, on the cash flow sheet.

I thought they did deliver the 15 employee cars, but the costs follow the car, so the impact is minimal.

You both have it right....but here's a short Accounting 101 refresher:
- Cost to produce the vehicles at GF3 are assigned to each car (let's say $40k per car)
- the 15 Cars that were delivered in Dec 2019 would result in $600k in COGS (15 cars x $40k) in our example.
- If there are another 1,000 cars produced but not delivered, they sit in Inventory not COGS (on the balance sheet not P&L) at $40m (1,000 cars x $40K)
- Some costs may go directly to COGS such as training costs (not capitalized to vehicles) but I assume that is no more than a $2-$3m hit to COGS

We may be able to understand this better once the 10K is published

 

[Artful Dodger]

A sincere thank you @Fact Checking - Your reading of the tea leaves for expiry for both this week and for next week is very helpful.

Well the hedge funds are winning. MMs might put their thumbs on the scales if they see an opportunity in the last hour of the day, but for the most part they're hedged against the current SP so not motivated to expend ammunition to force the issue.

Hedgies/Shortzes on the other hand...

Motivated.

 

[Nocturnal]

Dropped off my 3 to remove the Cybertruck glass mod that I added yesterday.

Very happy with getting an appointment the next day for a windshield replacement as my last windshield took 2-3 weeks (yes, it's my 2nd windshield). Service and availability of parts is definitely improving.

Chatted with the guys about inventory at the end of Q4. Confirmed all other reports that they basically had nothing left. I think they just have one X and maybe a couple S cars. He said they had a few people looking for cars that they were unable to help out. "Don't you guys usually have discounts and cars available at the end of the year?" "Not this time."

 

[mongo]

I talked to them about that... asked ‘em if they saw the day coming where the cars would drive themselves off the trucks, park themselves, wait, and then form a line and drive themselves over to the ship, up the ramp, and onwards to a designated spot on some deck of the ship. Maybe with on-board mobile robots (think: Boston Dynamics “dog” bots... creepy) to do the final lashing to strap down the cars for the voyage. My host laughed, acknowledged it had come up in conversations about the future, but the feeling is, “very unlikely.” A LOT can and will go wrong during this work. And I agree with the workers on this. There are a lot of little decisions to make, and it takes an experienced, coordinated crew to keep the operations moving at a crisp pace. Often something comes up suddenly requiring moving cars around after they’ve been put in place on a deck, etc. Complex operation. Hey anything is possible in the future but I think at least for a long time to come this kind of work will best be left to humans to do and not timid, hesitant robo-cars.

They can still get a labor efficiency boost by having the car(s)/pod(s) picking up the drivers and returning them to the ship (or vice versa) be automated