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

[CaptainKirk]

Y launch...

I think it could be argued that high margin 3 orders declining and that Y being used to maintain margins. It would be really nice to see 3 sales stay consistent or improve in coming quarters.

Of course can keep rolling out new high margin vehicles...

I’m hoping battery production increasing volume

In Canada at least, new orders are now 7-10 weeks out, whereas when I ordered last week of December 2019, it was 5-8 weeks. In the middle of a snow storm yesterday in the Greater Toronto area, I was passed on the 401 by a car carrier full of Model 3's heading to Lawrence Delivery centre I presume. To me that was odd, because I was under the impression not to expect my car until March by my SA.

 

[gerebgraus]

And that is why I never get out of bed and accomplish anything. Likewise, it would be crazy to invest real money in the stock market. Because the best way to avoid a loss is to not invest. /s

The song "Free Will" by Rush contemplates doing nothing: "If you choose to not decide, you still have made a choice"

Fear of failure will prevent you from achieving anything worthwhile. The Tesla we have today was created by people who did not let the fear of failure incapacitate them.

I have never imagined that anybody would take this part of my post as anything else than it was: A joke.

 

[ggr]

Or trade in her Tesla for a car with more sedate acceleration.

Like an E-tron.

I know you meant that as a joke, but anyway... it doesn't help. When pedal confusion hits, people just push harder on the pedal. Even a slow car is still going to plow through the wall or sign or barrier or whatever.

 

[CorneliusXX]

The issue here is the price for convenience. Will robotaxi be able to arrive in a timely manner every single time (it will only take a couple of long waits or no shows to sour people on robotaxi vs owned car). If you keep your tools, samples, etc. in the car, will you want to drag them in and out every time you get a robotaxi and perhaps forget an important item? There are a number of other scenarios that come to mind where a robotaxi will be less than ideal. Now I don't doubt that there will be a larger market for robotaxi than for Uber and similar services because there are significant advantages over those services, and robotaxi will pretty much eliminate regular taxi services. But I don't believe it will have the dramatic effect on individual ownership that's envisioned.

There will be an immediate market equal to what Uber/taxis/other ride-sharing methods currently address. That's a pretty fantastic market in stage 1.

Should there be a big enough market for any of the other segments then Tesla could build modified vehicles to cover this. If I was to blue sky some of the issues you suggest:

• Timely arrival - Initially while the fleet is scaling there may be some issues, however this wil be resolved as markets get saturated. They can control demand via price during the ramp - earning excess profits while the fleet scales.
• Timely arrival - customers with bad experience - some may be turned off, however with demand controled above this should be limited, then as they see the price improving and their friends using the network more they'd likely give it another go before purchasing the next replacement vehicle.
• Tools (many) - Tesla could design a waterproof lockable toolbox that fits in the cybertruck. They could also place a winch or small electric crane in the back. Then you could pack your tools in the toolbox, the ridesharing cybertruck swings by, the crane loads the toolbox in the back, you hop in the front and off you go.
• Tools (few) - same as above with manual loading. You're no more likely to forget a tool/sample if you're always loading into a box than into a vehicle.

 

[T@oo]

Well, the announcement was a blunder either way. If there is a gaap profitability that is absolutely not the way to announce it.
Tesla is a great company but they do a lot of things fast and as a consequence, they make a lot of mistakes. Overall, of course, their success overwhelms their mistakes. We should not try to explain when they do dumb things that they were brilliant. I can list a large number of dumb things that they have done. Hey, Elon likes to do that too.

But the most important advice as a geezer in advanced stage of Alzheimer's I can give to you youngsters: The best way to avoid dumb mistakes like this announcement etc., in not do anything. When you do not do anything, you do not make mistakes. This should be the guiding principle of your life.

This is the dumbest thing I‘ve read in a long time.

Edit: So, only a joke then. Well, hope so.

 

[MABMAB]

Post-flight media conference in five minutes. Elon will be there. Expect him to be happy.

Running on Elon time....

 

[Off Shore]

I have never imagined that anybody would take this part of my post as anything else than it was: A joke.

Around here a /s goes a long way.

 

[ggr]

In the US we use 1,500.00
In most of the rest of the world, it is 1.500,00

The international standard (that 6 103 425 772 people don't comply with) says that you use spaces for thousand separation, and either period or comma for the decimal separator.

 

[DragonWatch]

Interesting ~ no Model 3s availed within 200 mile radius of Olympia, WA; just sayin’

Please note that in my humble, no facts, only opinion ~ sales of X & 3 may slow as buyers of desired Model Y drool in anticipation of their release into the wild. I kinda envy them.

 

[jerry33]

The international standard (that 6 103 425 772 people don't comply with) says that you use spaces for thousand separation, and either period or comma for the decimal separator.

Of course people don't comply with it. In many contexts it's difficult to figure out if it's four independent number, or some combination of less than four. Commas and periods are more sensible. Ambiguity never makes for a good standard.

 

[JustSaying]

This is fascinating, thanks so much for sharing!

It also looks like part of the tax benefits are due to SolarCity losses, and these appear to be subject to approval?

Unless something has changed (I retired from bean counting about 10 years ago)the benefits related to acquired NOL's need to utilized by the entity that generated them.

 

[ggr]

When was the 60K call purchase disclosed? I do not see any rules in your link relating disclosure. Tesla has clearly disclosed it. Was in Q-10 or earlier?

It was in the prospectus for the bonds., or maybe in the finalization document for the bonds... actually probably the latter thinking about it. The process is that they announce an intention to raise money via a bond issue, and send out a prospectus. People then respond with an intent to participate, and how many they want to buy. The broker then apportions the bonds to the subscribers (all Tesla bond offerings have been oversubscribed), and the money changes hands and documents get signed and all that.

 

[ggr]

Of course people don't comply with it. In many contexts it's difficult to figure out if it's four independent number, or some combination of less than four. Commas and periods are more sensible. Ambiguity never makes for a good standard.

Hey, I never said it was a good standard.

 

[StealthP3D]

I have never imagined that anybody would take this part of my post as anything else than it was: A joke.

I guess it was hard to hear the sarcastic inflection in your voice so I just took it at face value. Maybe I missed the "winky" face (along with the four other people who disagreed with your post). Oh, I just checked - there was nothing to indicate you were being sarcastic.

 

[JustSaying]

All on boats, at the pier or on trucks heading there...

I saw trailer full of new Teslas (2 3's, 2 D's and a X)i Friday in the Palm Springs area east bound on the 10. I assume headed for Cathedral City.

 

[ggr]

Is this assuming that 19Q4 will be profitable?

I see you just woke up. A few things have happened...

 

[hobbes]

GF4 land purchase contract signed by Tesla: #Gf4 #Gigafactory4 on Twitter

EDIT: One of the newspapers updated their article to say that Tesla "approved" it instead of "signed" it. Supposedly the purchase price is still preliminary.. But one step closer it sounds.

 

[printf42]

OT

I am with you there - my TMX will not be a robotaxi. But then I also know people who rent their cars on car share networks like Nabobil.no - Private car rental in your neighbourhood including Tesla owners - so some people are OK with this.

More important are people who really can't afford a car suddenly realizing they can afford a Tesla if they share it as a robotaxi. And their friends will hear about their genious way of financing a really nice new car.

And then I would change my mind about my TMX being on the robotaxi network if I could use the profits to buy a Roadster that only I would drive.

The moment Robotaxis Network opens, eligible Teslas will worth 200-300k overnight, if a owner does not want put their personal car in the network. There will be people approaching them with 200k cash plus a not eligible Tesla asking for exchange of the car. I guess most won’t resist.

Also the network would open city by city. Cars from other part of the country will flood in.

Can we settle this TN “no car supply” discussion once and for all?
TN will have many obstacles, supply of cars is not one of them.

 

[FastCompany]

That you so much for taking the time to explain these numbers.

It would be the ultimate irony if the trigger of the short squeeze of the century would be exactly the thing that the short sellers have derided for years, namely Tesla's consistent lack of an annual profit...

]

Fate loves irony!

 

[jbcarioca]

I'm automatically highly skeptical of any energy-related forecast that shows only a shallow change over multi-decadal timecales. It reminds me of the terrible IEA wind and solar forecasts:

The world is expected to need nearly $50T in new energy investment by 2035. The notion that storage isn't going to be a major part of this is frankly nonsense.

The biggest problem is that most forecasters have repeatedly failed to understand how fast storage will drop in price - to the point that they even get it wrong in realtime. The notion that Tesla could do the Hornsdale battery for $387/kWh installed was laughed at by many supposed experts. Yet they did so, and without blowing their margins. Yet this is still very early in terms of large-scale storage products for Tesla. Tesla is at ~$100/kWh at the cell level, and 5 years from now I wouldn't be surprised to see them pushing ~$50/kWh cell cost (assuming mining tech cooperates in terms of supply pricing). Certainly well under $100/kWh at the very least. And meanwhile, manufacturing improvements will continue to push the total hardware cost down closer to the cell cost . This will radically alter the economic picture for mass storage projects.

Indeed, even the demand for mass storage is thrown off by the continual failure to predict how quickly wind and solar production would grow. They're now getting to the point where the cost of building new wind and solar projects is lower than the cost of just keeping existing coal plants running.

Storage, even with major price drops, won't entirely eliminate the need for backup power. But there's no shortage of plants that will be driven out of the baseload market that can transition to a peaking / load-following / backup role... so long as they're given sufficient time to ramp. And in terms of rapid-response peaking, nothing competes with battery storage - even today.

Additionally, once you start getting grid-scale storage costs low enough, you're no longer just looking at just a market for rapid-response peaking (and voltage/frequency maintenance on remote lines); you're now starting to make overnight battery storage practical in increasingly large markets.

I quote this completely because no matter how much evidence there is, no matter how quickly the evidence accelerates in quantity and quality, no matter! most peopel cannot begin to understand how profound the change has already been.

Just imagine that there are still Australian national politicians who refuse to believe what Hornsdale has been doing, much less the more recent distributed phases. Frankly I am astounded! Then US politicians insisting wind power causes cancer and high pollution, 'clean coal' is so much better. Denial is so powerful that otherwise intelligent people do not realize that Tesla Energy is soon to be more consequential than is the automotive business. It does not compute if people willfully refuse to see the evidence.

We should begin to make the TE contribution estimates and forecasts just as soon as we have 2019 results.