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

[Sparky4life]

Saw this headline so I bought 200 more shares:

Tesla stock’s ‘meteoric’ rally comes to a halt

 

[JRP3]

Speaking from experience (almost a decade worked at a company that operates ROROs), it should be noted that there is far more involved with loading a vessel than simply driving cars on and parking them. There are important calculations made about when and where to park vehicles, which is dependent on other cargo loaded and the sequence of future loading/unloading destinations, and the loading process itself carefully manages weight distribution of the ship alongside ballast adjustments depending on location and tides.

So something an AI could do easily if given all the parameters?

 

[Artful Dodger]

That's true for the Plaid S, what about the regular S? Doubt Tesla will have two body for the Plaid and Dual S

I don't crow about this often (Osborne's being who they are and all...) but that's precisely what I predicted in May 2019. I look for a new S/X subframe with the dual drive unit for all S/X to simplfy production. Also note that SRPMs are cheaper and easier to produce than AC motors, esp. the P versions. This may end up as a net cost SAVINGS for S/X.

Finally, the $2K Performance Boost upgrade for AWD Models 3 recently became available. Estentially, Tesla just uses a software unlock to restore full performance of the rear SRPM to what the RWD single motor Model 3 always had.

Tesla will be about to offer the same profitable OTA upsell to base model S/X owners at any time in the future they want (ie: to pad a quarter with CA$H).

Cheers!

 

[Nocturnal]

Maybe I'm just drinking the koolaid but given the robotaxi plan just don't think that is true. Whatever the timescale I think Tesla will stop selling vehicles to average consumers long before 20 million annual production. They will only sell to fleet operators and keep the rest for in-house use. Fleet operators will likely be average people at first who bought a few more Tesla than they were going to personally drive anticipating this and use the robotaxi revenue to purchase more Teslas to grow the fleet. Their business then becomes cleaning and inspecting the vechiles. It doesn't make any sense for Tesla to sell cars for less than 30k when a software package they can add at no cost to Tesla can make that vehicle produce 30k ARR

We will probably get in trouble for this being off topic but I agree. It doesn't make any sense for them to sell cars if robotaxis are so profitable. Some disagree, but they can't explain why.

 

[Krugerrand]

Looks like they are trying for 470.

The market turned red. We just got the TSLA multiplier.

 

[NicoV]

Saw this headline so I bought 200 more shares:

Tesla stock’s ‘meteoric’ rally comes to a halt

I thought meteors go down, not up, when they hit earth.

 

[StealthP3D]

Looks like they are trying for 470.

I doubt they can hold $470. Support is really strong (so far) in the $475 range. This chart looks bullish AF to me.

 

[Artful Dodger]

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.

Furthermore, we now know that only about 30% of the content of these production cars is sourced from China. I think that means that only a similar 0.3 portion of GF3 CapEx will need to be expensed for these individual cars sold in 2019Q4.

There will be a similar accounting benefit wrt expensing CapEx for cars produced in 2020 as the MIC portion increases to ~50% midyear, and finally 100% by year's end.

I think the 2019 deliveries were largely symbolic, and part of the overall marketing strategy for Tesla in China.

Cheers!

 

[jerry33]

We will probably get in trouble for this being off topic but I agree. It doesn't make any sense for them to sell cars if robotaxis are so profitable. Some disagree, but they can't explain why.

You don't want them to get caught like Checker, so they need to be in both markets.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Don't be concerned about this price action; only 7.7m shares traded as of Noon.

This is mostly hedge funds swapping shorted shares amongst themselves. The hardcore Longs will not sell at this price, and the 'momentum' surfers from earlier this week have long since cleared out, not that they had any lock on those shares either.

Cheers!

 

[Aeon]

So something an AI could do easily if given all the parameters?

You don't even need an AI for that, just the same algos and equations the people now use with pen and paper. And they probably don't so just let the computer you are already using tell the cars the same thing you are currently telling your longshoremen.
A bit of an "AI" might be useful to optimize positioning based on learning from prior movement-speeds.

 

[KarenRei]

We will probably get in trouble for this being off topic but I agree. It doesn't make any sense for them to sell cars if robotaxis are so profitable. Some disagree, but they can't explain why.

Huh? I disagree, and I've repeatedly explained why.

Because a huge chunk of the world's population wants to own their own car, and will pay you money to do so, even if that car is prevented from operating as a robotaxi to earn them money on the side, which many of them don't even want (they don't want other people in their car... they just want their car). And production rates simply won't be limiting. The rate in which FSD systems become globally approved, and in which the public comes to accept them, and use them in mass quantities, means that the deployment will get dragged out over half a decade or more from when you've first demonstrated what you think to be "good enough". Meanwhile, if you've actually demonstrated something "good enough", mobs of bankers and investors will knock down your door with a battering ram to throw money at you to build more factories.

 

[adiggs]

True, but it should be possible to have the cars drive themselves from where parked to the ship ramp where a driver could hop in. It would save a lot of time if a driver didn't have to be taken to each car.

Just 3 minutes per car for 3000 cars on one ship is 150 work hours saved.

That might sound good in theory; I don't know if it'll work in practice. There are videos on youtube of how ro-ro's get loaded. At this level of detail, from what I could tell, the process is that 8-10ish drivers hop in a car and drive them into the ship in a reasonably short parade, with a van following them in. At some point in the ship, the van stops and gets itself turned around. Meanwhile the cars get lined up and parked, with their drivers walking (jogging, running) back to the van while a team in the ship straps each car down. The van fills up, and drives back out of the ship to take the driving team back to the cars where they hop in and drive the next batch in.

The point being that having the cars at the ramp ready to go in might not be much of a time savings at all - it would save the incremental driving time of the van from the bottom of the ramp to where the next batch of cars are parked and that's about it. It would not save the time for drivers to walk out of the ship and out to the cars, as they don't do that.

 

[Artful Dodger]

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.

Now why would Tesla take the SRPM out of the front of the current Raven and replace it with a less efficient AC motor? Then need to continue to produce 2 separate motors?

Not going to happen.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

No, a discussion about cars driving themselves on roro ships does not belong in this thread, and this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Basta! The same goes for a technical discussion about AC induction motors.

 

[KarenRei]

When they hit the earth they are no longer a meteor but a meteorite. TSLA share price is not falling to earth, it's only skipping off the upper atmosphere. Yes, meteors can "skip" much like a flat stone.

That's a misnomer. A (lift neutral) object entering the atmosphere always curves inward toward the planet from aerodynamic drag. What people refer (erroneously) to as "skipping" is when it has enough velocity to escape on a pass, despite aerodynamic drag. There's no "bouncing off" effect from the atmosphere, no upwards-pointing force vector.

That said, it's possible, in a spaceplane, to dive to accumulate speed, then pull up and bounce back out, then repeat the steps a number of times, and thus "skip" directly across the atmosphere much like a stone across a lake. Armstrong did this in the X-15. But that's a special case and requires active aerodynamic control.

Shorts think TSLA is like an incoming meteor. It's actually like a rocket. It's just staging at the moment.

 

[adiggs]

Maybe I'm just drinking the koolaid but given the robotaxi plan just don't think that is true. Whatever the timescale I think Tesla will stop selling vehicles to average consumers long before 20 million annual production. They will only sell to fleet operators and keep the rest for in-house use. Fleet operators will likely be average people at first who bought a few more Tesla than they were going to personally drive anticipating this and use the robotaxi revenue to purchase more Teslas to grow the fleet. Their business then becomes cleaning and inspecting the vechiles. It doesn't make any sense for Tesla to sell cars for less than 30k when a software package they can add at no cost to Tesla can make that vehicle produce 30k ARR

A simple, but common reason, why people will want their own car.
Family with child(ren) in car seats - do you want to be mounting and dismounting the car seat anytime you go somewhere in a robotaxi, or do you want your own car you can leave the seats installed in along with other child stuff?
- corollary: does Tesla want to stop selling to this audience? My thinking is that Tesla wants to continue serving this audience. You're thinking that the demand for robotaxis and their financial results will be so good that Tesla will be willing to sacrifice this audience.

 

[Aeon]

This (8:44 .. grr. forum replaces auto-start-timecode....) is what the beginning of producing and storing 20,000 cars you don't have software for looks like..

 

[Navin]

Not much today, early talk of two downgrades and a new investigation into a Tesla crash, then we waited on 500...then fell below 490 then the thread was shut down for 10 minutes allegedly then as we dropped below 480 people considered the best strategy for trading half their shares, then as it hit 475 people considered this a buying opportunity then a couple pages of people complaining about people taking profit, then the rationale hit that we are at 480 which is double what Tesla sold the additional shares for 5 months ago.
Now we realize we’re fine and the best is yet to come.

Boom. Let me know where to sign up for daily ESPN highlights from you going fwd

 

[mrdoubleb]

I believe @Prunesquallor and @mrdoubleb might be able to provide a more accurate assessment, but I had the impression that PSA has an even poorer EV program than FCA.

If FCA-PSA gobbles up all supercredits with highly subsidized compliance EVs in the small car segment, then the Tesla per unit bounty drops to around ~$6,000 IIRC - with flat 30k deliveries in the next 4 years that's still $180m per quarter.

We also don't know anything about the structure of the pooling agreement, other than that it exists, and that FCA provided their cost of the pooling agreement under the assumption that they'll be able to raise EV sales this year, and that they'll be able to 100% avoid Tesla's ZEV credits starting in 2021 (which I consider highly unlikely).

I don't know, I would have thought FCA was in the worse situation. Not too familiar with what the American arm has right now, other than some hybrids, but Fiat only had the Maserati BEV platform in development for the past years, which was always going to be for the high end brand and was never intended for their mainstream. The Fiat 500e was, of course, always a limited run compliance car for certain markets only.

As for PSA, at least they have now introduced their new BEV platform for the Peugeot 208 and 2008 which are their best selling cars. Opel also gets the platform for the Corsa-e, which is good for them as GM left them without anything but the imported and rebadged Volt and Bolt, sold with a huge loss and cancelled almost immediately by PSA. I actually like their strategy in bringing out their 3 best sellers with a good price/performance electric version offered alongside the gasoline and diesel options. Exact same body, 3 fuel options - making BEVs a much more "normal" choice for mainstream customers. I've heard they were caught off guard by the demand for the electric 208 which went as high as 25% of orders. Internally they were expecting 10%.