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

[kyzhk]

Government shutdown are good for the economy. Just keep it shutdown, no one cares. Probably better for the market anyway haha. Disclosure long lots and lots of TSLA calls.

How so?

I also have stocks + long term calls mix at the moment. They can ride out the volatility just fine, but short term out of the money puts as lottery ticket might boost profit.

 

[KarenRei]

OT



That's actually essentially how my parents' geothermal was installed. The hole-drilling stuff is not that different from the stuff used to drill for oil wells, but smaller. The major problem is that the hole-drilling equipment is expensive and finicky. If it breaks, you have a lot of workers getting paid to wait while the repairman comes. There's a large fixed cost to bringing the equipment *on site at all*, so it doesn't make sense if you only need to drill like, one or two holes; it's only worth it if you're drilling a lot of holes.

I wasn't thinking of anything nearly so elaborate. I was thinking about getting a gas-powered handheld auger (at the time there were no good electric options that I found) and using a long bit with an extension (about 2m total), so that I could use the top ~1 1/2 meters of the ground as my greenhouse's day/night heat store. I had been using water barrels previously but they just weren't enough.

For a home it'd be a bit different of course. You'd want to go deeper (because the surface would get cold, unlike the ground under a greenhouse) and you'd need to either insulate where the plumbing is near the surface, or have the top of the repeating "V"s be somewhat underground (there's a couple ways you could do that).

But we're really getting off-topic here.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Government shutdown are good for the economy. Just keep it shutdown, no one cares. Probably better for the market anyway haha. Disclosure long lots and lots of TSLA calls.

OT:

Pretty sure the employees, particularly those still required to work for no pay, care quite a bit. Eventually, we're bound to see increasing attrition from places like TSA and border patrol, as people go longer and longer without pay. Won't it be fun trying to fly when there's only a single TSA agent left trying to handle everything by themselves.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Yes please, let’s not get into an geothermal hole drilling conversation

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Yes please, let’s not get into an geothermal hole drilling conversation

Actually, I wonder if Tesla could use some Boring Co. expertise to expand their renewables offerings to geothermal for markets where that’s more viable than solar...

 

[JRP3]

Doesn’t matter if we believe in afterlife or not, it exists or doesn’t exist regardless of our personal beliefs. But even if life is a big computer simulation, I don’t know one where you don’t get additional lives.

You’re under the assumption that they should be punished by losing the money they’ve wrongly acquired. Like I said, punishment, rectification et al comes in many forms. They might leave this earth with a pocket full of ill gotten gains, but they’ll have paid for it in some other way.

Adding: ‘living with their actions’ can itself be a form of punishment and isn’t an indication they’ve gotten away with it.

This reads very much like trying to impose your own morality onto the universe, and I'm quite sure the universe doesn't care.

 

[jbcarioca]

Here are my guesses:

• India is problematic due to very high import tariffs and comparably low disposable income which makes it a luxury car market equivalent to a larger European country. There's growth potential no doubt, but only an Indian Gigafactory will solve the import tax problem I believe.
• Eastern Europe is probably the next step - the recent announcement that SuperCharger network will cover all of Europe by the end of 2019 suggests that Tesla has all of Europe in mind.
• Brazil, Turkey and Egypt are marred by political instabilities.
• Israel, Argentina and Thailand are comparable small markets or have low disposable income.
• Iceland: Sorry @KarenRei, there are 56 cities in the U.S. alone with more than ~330k residents, and they are a market 100 times larger than Iceland. Iceland is about 0.1%-0.2% of the automotive market of the U.S. So Iceland is probably not at the top of Elon's capex TO-DO list!
  
• Russia already has a Tesla Store? announced plans for Russia expansion in 2017 - probably delayed due to the capex stop.
  
• South Africa might open a Tesla Store, if nothing but for sentimental reasons, and to have a beachhead to Africa.

Given your name I thought you’d maybe do more factual,checking before this post. A few countries you mention are open for reservations and have delivery estimates still expected this year.

Brazil has rather less political,instability than the US, UK and France at the moment. Further BEV of BYD, Nissan, Jaguar and Porsche also are being delivered now or are accepting reservations. I have no idea how many Tesla reservations there are in Brazil; I know of three in my block alone, not counting mine. A colleague who sells solar nstallations claims there are >10000 2016 reservations. The BEV near exemption from road tax in SP and RJ saves 6-7% of purchase price every year. Pretty major incentive, actually.

South Africa is a smaller market but also already announced and expected to follow quickly after other RHD markets.

I suspect most of us think that the Baltics, Iceland, and most Southern Europe countries will come in late 2019 early 2020.just as with most other luxury mfrs, Tesla will serve them all.

Russia informally is selling Tesla now through Moscow Tesla Club, and Tesla will certainlynenter formallynas soon as sanctions permit.

Of course we’ll also see Gulf States and Saudi Arabia coming with the next two years.

As for political instability as an impediment; anybody who’s ever lived in unstable places knows vehicles still sell and frequently very well. I’ve lived in >12 countries including such places as Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, Thailand...luxury and exotic cars sell in all those places. Eventually Tesla will be there too.

Tesla will certainly adopt some unusual practices in a number of these countries, by Tesla standa de, but they’ll be in most of them for vehicles and energy products.

 

[X Fan]

OT



That's actually essentially how my parents' geothermal was installed. The hole-drilling stuff is not that different from the stuff used to drill for oil wells, but smaller. The major problem is that the hole-drilling equipment is expensive and finicky. If it breaks, you have a lot of workers getting paid to wait while the repairman comes. There's a large fixed cost to bringing the equipment *on site at all*, so it doesn't make sense if you only need to drill like, one or two holes; it's only worth it if you're drilling a lot of holes.

OT—

Assuming since you’re posting that you’ve turned the corner health wise.

Welcome back

 

[lklundin]

Honestly, I'm not complaining too much (although I do want them to open up, so I did tweet to Tesla). So long as I get mine by early summer so I can do summer road trips with it, I'll be fine. As much as I'd love to have it sooner, getting it later opens up the possibility of new features (tow hitch, air suspension?), price reductions, and general improvements. Also lets me keep more money in the stock for longer.

I have been waiting for my Model 3 for close to three years, so I can wait a couple months more - say 19Q2.
I am hoping for smaller things, like a 230V outlet and also winter package (with a good way to heat up the battery with external power (or regenerative power, e.g. while driving down from a mountain after a week of skiing).

But the tow hitch is really what I need and hope for.

Perfect timing would allow me to take delivery within H1 (to get the German subsidy) and after TSLA's inclusion in the S & P 500 index...

 

[JRP3]

like a 230V outlet

That won't be happening.

 

[lklundin]

Or hate the macros. Few are doing well in this macro environment.

A couple of months ago I sold what I had of index tracking funds, realising a loss and I sold some TSLA for a net zero capital gain. A bit later I bought TSLA for everything.

While this was mostly luck, I could have done a lot worse if I had not accepted to sell my ETFs at a loss (and running the risk of not being able to get back in with the TSLA I sold).

 

[lklundin]

That won't be happening.

It certainly will - right after I take delivery.

 

[JRP3]

It certainly will - right after I take delivery.

Warranty voided?

 

[defc0n]

Agree. Unless wall street is completely incompetent, these deliveries mostly tell the story for Q4. As of this moment though it looks like it may end up considered a beat:

TSLA - Tesla Inc. Crowdsourced Earnings Estimates - Estimize

Obviously the goal posts could be raised higher up until the report, though.

Aaaand I think it’s already been raised substantially since the last time I checked?

 

[printf42]

And MY theory is that the new "cheaper" pack design will be used for SR, MR, and LR. Probably SR first, but then they'll shut down and replace the other lines one by one, first the MR lines, then the LR lines. This will probably come with range tweaks to all three versions (much like the constant range tweaks to Model S and X).

Instead of range tweaks, they could be doing cell count tweaks to further save cost while keep the same range.

It’s doable because they are vastly under rating(software limiting) the system power output, so slightly lower cell count or even voltage won’t impact performance ratings.

This might’ve been the reason they stopped naming the trims with battery capacity.

 

[Artful Dodger]

There is even a thread here about Switched Reluctance motors .

Weekend OT:

Okay, its done. Continuing the SRM discussion over in the SRM thread (post #31).

Cheers!

P.S. The Forum's "Search" function is broken when selecting the "Search titles only" checkbox. It'd be great to get that fixed, making it so much easier to find the appropriate thread to post in by finding a well-chosen keyword in the thread Title, ie: "reluctance".

Thanks!

 

[lklundin]

Question: do flux capacitors have anything to do with ultra capacitors?

In 1985 they were both science fiction ?

 

[JRP3]

Instead of range tweaks, they could be doing cell count tweaks to further save cost while keep the same range.

It’s doable because they are vastly under rating(software limiting) the system power output, so slightly lower cell count or even voltage won’t impact performance ratings.

Lower cell count would effect range, unless you are suggesting they now have higher capacity cells.

 

[neroden]

I am sure the fine people of San Marino can visit the Bologna store without much trouble.

The 56 American cities with greater than 330k residents also, by and large, are not in isolation. In other words, you don't need 56 stores to service them.

Yeah, but you still need one in Syracuse.

 

[RiverCard]

Not likely to happen anytime soon since the S&X aren't current supply/production constrained, it wouldn't matter if they only charged $0.01 they couldn't sell any more of them. Then of course there is the issue that they weren't designed for mass production. Tesla is going too be busy with the Y, Pickup, Semi, and Roadster to worry about increasing production of the S&X.

So why drop S & X prices by $2k? Why not even raise S & X prices? Scarcer = More Desirable (plus it might indirectly stimulate M3 demand by making those version appear to be a better value for "stretch" buyers.)