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

[KarenRei]

Sorry, this is getting ridiculous. This is what you wrote and which I disagreed with:



No, neither of those cars has a "mostly vertical opening starting at near the peak roof-line of the vehicle", and certainly not the Citroën 11CV, unless you consider 65° "mostly vertical".

The Honda Civic example you cited is particularly ridiculous:

Yes, it has a vertical part as pretty much any vehicle that has a rear, and no, it's nowhere near a mostly vertical opening starting at the "peak roofline" of the vehicle - half of it is angled, half of it mostly vertical.

Nor do 99.9% of people who use the term 'liftback' know what 'flow detachment means', let alone are able to tell where it occurs. They use the poorly defined term "liftback" for a modern hatchback that doesn't look too boxy in the rear. Over 95% of modern hatchbacks are such.

Manufacturers started using the "liftback" term mostly for marketing purposes, to deassociate modern, more streamlined hatchbacks from old hatchbacks that look ugly.

It's not a technical term. If you search for "hatchback vs. liftback" one of the top hits is going to be this:

Difference between a liftback and hatchback

"They are one of the same 'Liftback' was the USA/Far East name for the 'hatchback' (European name) basically."​

Which is what I was trying to stress from the very beginning: it's semantics and cultural. It doesn't matter, and nobody uses the flow detachment definition in any case ...

I do agree that whatever hatchback/liftback Tesla is going to design, it will have an excellent Cd with minimal flow detachment.

Sounds like your problem is with the words "near vertical". Sorry, but I had to find a word for hatchbacks (e.g. not liftbacks) which didn't involve using the word hatchback. Because normally just saying "hatchback" is good enough to exclude liftbacks. But since this conversation is you trying to include liftbacks as "hatchbacks", I had to pick different wording. I chose that to distinguish vs. "near horizontal" rear "hatches" (aka liftbacks).

If you don't like that wording to describe hatchbacks, forget it. Choose whatever wording you want. They're still very distinct from liftbacks, whatever wording you use.

But thanks for offering a reference to a definitive source, "marti5 on torquecars.com".

Note that Tesla Model S is a liftback. Tesla refers to it as a sedan. Not a hatchback. Indeed, it's very common for liftbacks to just be called sedans.

Ask a designer to draw a hatchback. 99 times out of 100 it'll end up looking like in the "top 10 hatchbacks" link of yours. Because that's what the word "hatchback" invokes.

 

[Tslynk67]

Hardball: for those tired of losing

P.S. Watch thru the video for the cat-fight between the 2 'Squelch Box' hosts (starts with the 'carbon' trigger word at about 8:45): "DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" -- that's not a Talking head, that's a Cement-head. And that's somebody who's panicking as they slowly come to realize they picked the losing side. I friggin' luv'd it!

Well there’s a new word: antistipate

Edit: wow, this is really worth watching. Fink’s interview is good, but the discussion between the hosts is profound. I guess the old geezer with the blue tie has oil stocks, he’s an embodiment of climate denial!

Good stuff, thanks for sharing!!

 

[StapleGun]

So using a term from SpaceX (and other space fairing entities), when the SP hits the trigger price we can say that Elon gets his compensation NET that-day-plus-6-months (NET: No Earlier Than).

I don't think it's quite that simple. The metric is a 6-month and 30-day trailing average, so if the market cap shot to $500B tomorrow then those averages would occur much sooner than if it went to $101B and stayed there. Interestingly it could even happen that the award is triggered at a time when the market cap is under $100B (eg. if the 6-month average is $99.99B and the current market cap is $90B, but the day exactly 6 months ago that is removed from the average had a market cap of $50B. Once one more day passes the average will go above $100B even though the current value is under that).

Here is the exact wording from the proxy statement:

Sustained market capitalization is required for each Market Capitalization Milestone to be met, other than in a change in control situation. Specifically, there are two prongs that must be met to achieve a given Market Capitalization Milestone:

• Six calendar month trailing average (based on trading days); and
• 30 calendar day trailing average (based on trading days).

 

[Fact Checking]

Until I get my Model 3, I'm still stuck driving my Gen1 Honda Insight, a liftback. I've never in the entire time I've owned it heard anyone refer to it as a hatchback.

Yet "hatchback" is far more often used even in the ZE1 context, at least according to this search:

Anyway, I didn't object to your use of "liftback", and I find aerodynamic design fascinating.

 

[Vad42]

I do agree that whatever hatchback/liftback Tesla is going to design, it will have an excellent Cd with minimal flow detachment.

Here’s a funny thing. On at least 2 occasions, when people saw my S with trunk open, they came up to me and said “oh I didn’t realize Tesla made a hatchback”.

My impression is that some people think hatchback is a sedan with trunk door that includes the back window.

 

[Silentk]

Yet "hatchback" is far more often used in the ZE1 context, at least according to this search:

View attachment 500407View attachment 500408​

Consider orange for these posts?

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Regarding small form factor teslas:

As a UK driver, I can see theoretical enormous appeal for such a car. our roads are super narrow, our car parking spaces are tiny, and we aren't a nation of people towing boats around after us. a small car, even a 2 door tesla, would be theoretically very popular here.

HOWEVER

There are likely big technical challenges in making a smaller car, because people generally don't spend a LOT of money on a small car. My old lexus CT200h was £25,000 and thats a luxury car (think maybe $31k).

CT200h dimensions:
4,350 mm L x 1,765 mm W x 1,445 mm H

I can't see people spending more than $35k top on a CT200h sized tesla, and thats a luxury interior 4 door car, even given autopilot and so on.
...which means as an investor, i think there is a LOT of mileage in sticking with the S,X,3,Y lineup for quite a while. Tesla already sell every car they make, and thats without even including the Y. There are a LOT of jaguars and Mercedes and Aston Martins that should be replaced by the model S or X. There are a stupid number of audit and BMWs that should be replaced by the 3 or Y.

I would love to see a small form factor 'budget' tesla. I just think that without absolutely INSANE expansion, they are not going to hit the limits of S,3,X,Y sales for a long time, certainly a good few years.
It probably makes sense to really crunch the performance of batteries for a few more years before trying to make small form factor anyway. Plus more infrastructure in terms of charging points will be available then.

 

[Fred42]

I think if enough start doing it, it might become the norm.

Now to decide what's OT and what's OT...

I think this is OT...

The orange is hard to read at least for me. Maybe blue?

 

[Silentk]

The orange is hard to read at least for me. Maybe blue?

Blue works for me. Anything to help skim through the (interesting) noise

 

[Fact Checking]

My impression is that some people think hatchback is a sedan with trunk door that includes the back window.

Yes, that's IMHO the common-sense functional definition that most of Europe is using for hatchbacks (i.e. the whole rear section opens and is accessible, and there's shared air/volume between the trunk and passengers), and in that sense I believe the new Tesla city vehicle designed in China will have such a rear hatch as well, for basic form factor and vehicle length functional reasons.

 

[Fact Checking]

Back on topic, pre-market trading of TSLA is much lower volume than yesterday, but still not entirely low volume, and after 7am ET there's been a nice recovery (partly led by improving macros which were down for most of the day):

I believe today is going to be the signing ceremony for the interim deal between China and the U.S., and if there's anything unexpected around that then macros could be nervous. Yesterday we saw such a mini-drop already (followed by recovery), when an anonymous leak from the White House rattled investors.

Tesla should be immune to most trade war shenanigans in the minor or medium escalation category (but is sensitive to any "major" escalation or uncertainty in the trade war), but TSLA isn't immune to overall market sentiment.

 

[KarenRei]

Yet "hatchback" is far more often used in the ZE1 context, at least according to this search:

View attachment 500407View attachment 500408​

That's because most people simply refer to it as a coupe:

(Also my experience with actually owning the car)

Wikipedia calls it a liftback - the proper technical term:

This whole conversation is pointless, though. We need to have a term to distinguish the two classes of vehicle, which are very different from each other, particularly with respect to efficiency. Attempting to shoehorn them together is at the very least not useful.

* If you say "hatchback", people don't generally picture a liftback
* If you show a picture of a liftback to someone, they'll generally refer to it as a coupe or a sedan
* We need to be able to distinguish between the two

 

[KarenRei]

Back on topic, pre-market trading of TSLA is much lower volume than yesterday, but still not entirely low volume, and after 7am ET there's been a nice recovery (partly led by improving macros which were down for most of the day):

View attachment 500412​

I believe today is going to be the signing ceremony for the interim deal between China and the U.S., and if there's anything unexpected around that then macros could be nervous. Yesterday we saw such a mini-drop already (followed by recovery), when an anonymous leak from the White House rattled investors.

Tesla should be immune to most trade war shenanigans in the minor or medium escalation category (but is sensitive to any "major" escalation or uncertainty in the trade war), but TSLA isn't immune to overall market sentiment.

Markets seem not to be very happy with the trade deal regardless.

 

[Fact Checking]

Markets seem not to be very happy with the trade deal regardless.

It's unclear to me what's going on with macro right now:

• The markets had a good bull run with Nasdaq and other index ATH's, so some profit taking and top calling shenanigans would be natural.
• There's some nervousness about the liquidity the Fed is injecting into the repo market. I don't think it's fundamental, but nobody can tell for sure, so it has FUD potential.
• The China trade deal has been taken as a given, and there doesn't appear to be disagreement between the parties, which IMHO is the main feature of it. Any details, such as whether there are tariffs, are secondary - tariffs will be paid by consumers anyway, what matters here is IMO primarily the certainty of the non-escalation until the November elections.
• U.S. growth parameters are so-so OK but not super overheated OK, which means the Fed rate increase danger is perceived to be comparatively low.

Yesterday there was clearly nervousness about disagreements between China and the U.S. - I don't think those materialized, but with the Trump administration nothing is certain, so ...

In terms of TSLA, I think, absent major news, eventually the Q4 earnings call and the expected announcement of the January 29 date later today or tomorrow is going to define sentiment. There will be upgrades and downgrades and the usual pre-earnings noise.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

All posts referencing a color that post should be should be turquoise.

 

[jerry33]

Sometimes I think this world is going to be so much better off when the older generations are dead and gone. Unfortunately, that means me too, but the younger human beings on the planet have so much repair work to do, and are faced with obstacles presented by those who created the problems in the first place.

End of rant.

We thought that in the sixties as well, but all that happened was the names changed, The obstacles and the problems stayed the same.

 

[fdutra1]

Yeah, I think the impact of this BlackRock announcement on TSLA is actually quite significant. I heard on CNBC that there is some sort of sustainability conference next week? They said all the investors will be talking about this BlackRock announcement there next week.

TSLA is literally the ultimate sustainable future stock. It's been a large catalyst in moving the world to a more sustainable future, clearly in transportation, and thus far to a lesser degree in energy generation/storage.

If this BlackRock announcement catches on in the wealth management circles, TSLA could become the must own stock, and there's a very limited amount of shares left:

• ~20% is in the hands of Elon
• 7.5% is in the hands of Baillie Gifford
• Another ~5% is possibly in the hands of big accumulators that have caused the recent run up
• BlackRock is holding 3.5% as of Sep 29. They could've increased their position by a few % prior to this letter.
• Larry Ellison has like 2-3%?
• ARK is holding almost 1%.
• Probably a few % is in the hands of retail investors that are not selling the majority of their holdings for 5-10 years until TSLA achieves more of its potential
• I believe somebody mentioned a while back that Capital World Investors who are holding 6.5% are also in it for the long haul?

That could be almost 50% of the available number of shares in the hands of longs that are not going to sell any time soon, or simply not at any price (Elon).

Assuming a large new buyer accumulating a 5% stake was the biggest catalyst for the huge 67% run up from $330 to $550, and that still close to 15% of all shares are short, creating the illusion of 65% of 180M shares still available for purchase when in fact only 50% of 180M are still available for people who want to go long. I wonder what kind of price action we will see if another big fund decides they want a 5% stake, or when S&P 500 inclusion leads to the forced purchase of perhaps as much as 15-20M shares as @ReflexFunds has theorized or 10% of all shares.

Bad Q4 earnings could put a damper on everything, and valuation is going to look crazier and crazier to people who don't have an accurate picture of where Tesla is going in 5 and 10 years. However, with the available number of shares for people wanting to get in on TSLA long term shrinking, still no confirmed reduction in the number of shares sold short, and the option delta hedging feedback loop, TSLA upward momentum could increase going forward.

Not investment advice, and I don't have much confidence in my ability to predict short term stock movements, but I'm sure as hell excited to watch the next few weeks and months unfold.

Then there's another 5% going to Elon over the next 5 years once TSLA cracks the 100 billion market cap ceiling,
which is less than 10 % away at around $575/share.

 

[KarenRei]

In other news, Pennsylvania's government is a shambles (multiple top government officials making fun of Musk on Twitter).

Pennsylvania Treasury. on Twitter
John Fetterman on Twitter

 

[ZachF]

Wow. This is a MUST WATCH fragment.

I’ve always believed that capitalism would be part of the problem until the moment it was part of the solution. This day, with Larry Fink publicly stating that he (or his financial firepower) wants to be part of the solution (because it makes financially sense to be part of the solution, not because of some dogmatic world view), may well be the tipping point that changes our future from a doomsday Mad Max/Waterworld situation to something where we actually have a decent environment that may be as good as the one my grand-grandparents lived in.

Collectively, we always seem think that were we want to be in the future is not possible because the necessary infrastructure is not there, forgetting that on the way to that future, that infrastructure will be built out because it makes financial sense to invest in that future. As an example, when the Flemish government announced their ‘man-on-the-moon’ kind of project to switch the unidirectional cable network to a bidirectional internet enabled cable network allowing such things like video-on-demand, we all laughed at that, making back-of-the-envelope calculations showing a ridiculous amount of transatlantic bandwidth that would be needed. We all know how that ended (Netflix/youtube anyone?).
It only takes a sufficiently large party (in this case BlackRock) saying ‘Let’s do this!’ to also change the narrative and mindset of the other big investors. Untill yesterday, they probably discussed environmental issues at coctail parties, concluding with that one lone soul investing in sustainable projects with ‘Yeah, but you’re an idealist, we just want to make money’. From today on, the discussion will be about how investing in sustainable projects will make them money just like Larry Fink.
Remember, in a group of lemmings there’s always the one in front that determines the direction.

For a lot of people who might be on the fence of the issue, seeing an entire continent on fire might be opening their eyes to the problem being more than just some scientific abstraction.

 

[jerry33]

This just in: Tesla China has asked publicly for input from China designers and non-designers to design a "made in China" Tesla model with Chinese design elements

​

Note that I've edited my original comment from "Model 4" to "Model 1": four is an unlucky number in Chinese culture.

Alternatively they might also name it "Model 7" - or not use any numbering at all.

Seven is not lucky either for the same reason.