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

[hobbes]

Does anyone foresee any other permit (other than for clearing out cardboard forest) issues for Giga Berlin like building permits, roads etc etc. ? Would be best if Tesla/Authorities work it out in advance. ...

Here is the court´s ruling to temporarily stop the tree cutting and GF4: Alexander Fröhlich on Twitter

Context:

• Tesla does not yet have a final building permit. That is (among other things) dependent on residents being able to voice concerns until March 5 (voicing concern does obviously not autmatically mean everybody can just stop the permit, but those concerns will be judicially checked).
• However, Tesla does have a preliminary permit (which has now been suspended by the court) to start ahead of the final permit, which is dependent on

1. High likelihood the final permit will be granted
2. A public interest or justified interest of Tesla to start ahead of time
3. Tesla pledging that it will make up for all damage caused during preliminary work and to restore everything to the previous state in case they don´t get the final permit

So the main thing the court questions is whether he high likelihood of the final permit can be upheld while the public participation period is not over yet:

"Es wird von dem Senat zu würdigen sein, ob eine positive Prognose der Erfolgsaussichten des Genehmigungsantrages durch die Genehmigungsbehörde auch schon dann getroffen werden kann, wenn, wie hier, in einem Verfahren mit Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung die Einwendungsfrist (...) noch läuft."

"It will be appreciated by the Senate whether the approval authority can already make a positive prognosis of the prospects of success of the approval application if, as here, the objection period (...) is still running in a procedure with public participation." (surprisingly good google translation)

IIRC the objection period ends on March 5. Even if they would suspend the permit for tree cutting until then, there is still a chance to get another 2 weeks in March (usually tree cutting must end by end of Feb as vegetation period starts).

 

[Artful Dodger]

the ~30 days shipping time from Nevada to Shanghai probably creates about ~20-30% vampire drain on the battery pack that must be recharged before delivery.

No, you're confusing vampire drain with self-discharge.

Vampire drain is the parked hotel load of the car, which includes an active LTE connection, certain CPU demand, and any other 'house-keeping' energy use of the car.

Self-discharge of the bty pack would be a tiny amount for internal resistance within the cells themself (perhaps -1% per year for a bare cells at 50% SOC), and any BMS needs, which should also be minimal in a sleeping pack.

The Superchargers are probably used to bring the SOC of the pack from the 'as-shipped' level of around 50% to a level preferred for delivery to the Customer, perhaps 80% SOC.

Cheers!

 

[Off Shore]

Can we please add a rating button for “Outstanding Vocabulary”?

I used to get that a lot in second and third grade. Only later did I realize it wasn't a compliment.

 

[Fact Checking]

The water supply did concern me but the official approval has been given for the first phase therefore no one can ask the court to stop it as its official.

Do you have any link to the approval, or a link to an article reporting the approval of the water usage of the factory?

Another issue that would be a major blow is if they find anything that is of historic and archeological interest. That you never know but would be a strange coincidence.

I presume Tesla already surveyed the area with ground radar, as part of the mine-sweeping operations. While it's possible that older archeological remains of organic compounds not showing up on radar remained undetected, I think buildings and similar are mostly filtered out already. The ground is mostly sand, so should be easy to survey. From the topology of the area, I'd guess that prehistoric remains would rather be closer to fresh water sources and would be on hilltops.

But anything could happen - this is a risk of construction projects all across Europe.

 

[S3XY]

You’ll rarely find me defending the Taycan, but in all fairness, I’ve played the “musical stalls” game at superchargers plenty of times.

Most recently, a family member borrowed the car and had to stop at one, and was getting 23kW at the bottom of the battery. I saw that and suggested he move, and he did so, to get... 23kW at the new charger. After thinking it must be something with the car, I called Tesla and they suggested moving to *yet another* stall. That one finally went up to the expected 70kW(this was one of the “urban superchargers”, which also means none of the stalls are paired).

TLDR: this happens regardless of the charging network.

The difference is that they just had to move the car a few feet to try the other stalls. The Taycan had to drive to other locations and (cue the range anxiety) wasn't sure if he could make it to the third location.

 

[InDaClub]

I've been doing some research on Blackrock's oil and gas holdings. I'm not so sure BlackRock is divesting from oil as was recently announced. I see increases in oil and gas holdings as recently as 12/31/2019. Some here may have access to more recent data for Blackrock's holdings.

I own a BlackRock fund through my 401K and as a result, unfortunately, many of the oil and gas stocks listed below. I wonder how many TMC members, like me, own oil and gas stocks through their 401Ks. I'm considering taking a 10% hit for early withdrawal so that I can divest 100% from oil.

I see a lot more XOM than I do TSLA.

 

[KarenRei]

MODERATOR:

There was ONE nigh-instantaneous response and appropriate answer to an unfortunately-timed post.

That a pile-on donnybrook resulted was itself risible in that effectively ALL such posts repeated the existential error of the first one.

Pretty sorry showing of yourselves.

Just so long as we're not censoring negative viewpoints here. I don't want this to be that kind of forum.

As long as that's not what happened, it's all good

 

[KarenRei]

I presume Tesla already surveyed the area with ground radar, as part of the mine-sweeping operations. While it's possible that older archeological remains of organic compounds not showing up on radar remained undetected, I think buildings and similar are mostly filtered out already. The ground is mostly sand, so should be easy to survey. From the topology of the area, I'd guess that prehistoric remains would rather be closer to fresh water sources and would be on hilltops.

But anything could happen - this is a risk of construction projects all across Europe.

One thing I've mentioned before is that even if they do, it's not the end of the world. Like the hotel construction project here which found the remains of a viking longhouse while excavating. They just modified the plans to include a basement, so that excavation of the archaeological site could continue at its leisure while they built above. The area underneath eventually opened as an in-situ museum.

 

[EV forever]

That is false. I've sold puts in my Roth IRA account. So long as the account has the cash (plus proceeds of sale) to cover the exercise it is completely fine. Selling such a put for the purpose of acquiring stock is often superior (and less risky) to a buy limit order.

But it appears to require a lot of cash. Yesterday I was trying out various scenarios- building trade tickets for selling puts with $600 strike. The online system let me build up to selling 3 puts- anything more and it would return an error saying that the trade leaves a large uncovered position. There is 300k of cash and another 100k of non-Tesla stocks. That is too much cash to leave just to sell puts. My intent is not to actually buy the stock

 

[gtrplyr1]

So frustrating of unfair reporting... First Bloomberg now Reuters making this seem like the end of the world for tesla

And this shocks you? It's par for the course when investing in Tesla.

Most news stories that come out about Tesla focus on the short term .... and by short we are talking delays of a week cause a major uproar .... don't sweat any of it as it's just NOISE.

Focus on the long term .... the factory in German will get built somewhere, if it's not the original planned site they will find another site. Sometimes it's much better to avoid clicking on nonsense and stressing yourself out. I encouraged my mother-in-law to invest in Tesla about 18 months ago .... just the other day, she told me she had some money moved out of her portfolio to pay for some upcoming expenses to which I asked "did you notice your tesla holdings?" .... she said NO. She's smarter than me as that's the right answer ... if I was that smart I'd check in on it sometime in 2023 to see how I'm doing.

Long .... don't sell a share. Tesla is going to reinvent the auto market across the globe .... traditional automakers are in big trouble and only the smartest of them will survive ... it should be fun to watch it unfold just as I did with the cell phone makers while holding Apple for the last 18 years.

Cheers to the longs ....

 

[StealthP3D]

One thing I've mentioned before is that even if they do, it's not the end of the world. Like the hotel construction project here which found the remains of a viking longhouse while excavating. They just modified the plans to include a basement, so that excavation of the archaeological site could continue at its leisure while they built above. The area underneath eventually opened as an in-situ museum.

If I get your drift, if excavations uncover a mastodon or dinosaur, museum entrance fees could represent a lucrative new source of revenue?

 

[oldTAVguy]

This is a link to the news article, in German, that describes the court decisions. A Google translation of the 2 most relevant sentences is "The background is that two nature conservation associations want to stop the clearing on the site of the planned factory. In a first attempt, the “Green League” Brandenburg and the “Association for Landscape Management and Species Protection in Bavaria” (VLAB) failed on Friday with their urgent applications to the Administrative Court in Frankfurt (Oder). In contrast, the “Green League” appealed to the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) Berlin-Brandenburg - with success."

Are there resources to find out who is paying the "Green League" bills for this blockage?

 

[StealthP3D]

How good of an indicator is tesla trading on German exchange tommorow to how tesla will open on NYSE Tuesday.

Better than a coin toss, but not by much. Even the first few minutes of TSLA trading on the NASDAQ often fails to uncover the trend of the rest of the day.

 

[gtrplyr1]

Am definitely a long I just graduated and bought 20 tesla shares to hold from my last paychecks but also put a small amount into weekly options to try and build capital to buy more shares hence the nervousness

Well I wish you the best of luck .... options and TSLA make for a pretty volatile combination as I'm sure you have seen in the last few months .

 

[mongo]

That looks very much like a beam meant for a crane - like a crane to open up die sets.

Given the location (on edge outside foundation footprint), could it be for unloading heavy shipments from semis?

 

[kbM3]

A middle-of-the-road approach would be $1,250 2-year LEAPs for around $110 which assume appreciation to $1,360 as a break-even point - this is a 35% annual upside which is more or less consistent with a bull thesis and allows the harvesting of any explosive appreciation.

There's significant downside risks compared to just using the cash to buy stock, and the leverage isn't all that great, a few days after a big run-up is usually not a good moment to buy bullish options.

Not advice.

I like to compare options to my baseline position of owning shares. So in my mind, the $1250 Leap for an $11k outlay should be compared to the less risky alternative of owning $11k / $800 per share = 13.75 shares.

If the stock price rises to $1360 you can now re-purchase 8 shares for a net loss of 5.75 shares. So while it is technically break-even in the sense that you recover the cost of the option, the reality would be that you lost 40% of your shares.

If the stock goes to $1470 (doubling the option value), that $22k would allow you to purchase almost 15 shares, basically enabling you to “manufacture” 1.25 new shares by risking the original 13.75 shares.

I’m sure you and the other advanced options traders already know this, but as it was a misconception I just recently had in my 1st options purchase, I thought I would point this out to other “rookies”

 

[Fobble]

Am definitely a long I just graduated and bought 20 tesla shares to hold from my last paychecks but also put a small amount into weekly options to try and build capital to buy more shares hence the nervousness

And don't be blind-sided by the bulls here. Take all the opinions with a huge grain of salt, and apply your own research/thesis. But but, I personally think TSLA has a longer way to go .... UP

 

[hobbes]

Here is the court´s ruling to temporarily stop the tree cutting and GF4: Alexander Fröhlich on Twitter

Context:

• Tesla does not yet have a final building permit. That is (among other things) dependent on residents being able to voice concerns until March 5 (voicing concern does obviously not autmatically mean everybody can just stop the permit, but those concerns will be judicially checked).
• However, Tesla does have a preliminary permit (which has now been suspended by the court) to start ahead of the final permit, which is dependent on

1. High likelihood the final permit will be granted
2. A public interest or justified interest of Tesla to start ahead of time
3. Tesla pledging that it will make up for all damage caused during preliminary work and to restore everything to the previous state in case they don´t get the final permit

So the main thing the court questions is whether he high likelihood of the final permit can be upheld while the public participation period is not over yet:

"Es wird von dem Senat zu würdigen sein, ob eine positive Prognose der Erfolgsaussichten des Genehmigungsantrages durch die Genehmigungsbehörde auch schon dann getroffen werden kann, wenn, wie hier, in einem Verfahren mit Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung die Einwendungsfrist (...) noch läuft."

"It will be appreciated by the Senate whether the approval authority can already make a positive prognosis of the prospects of success of the approval application if, as here, the objection period (...) is still running in a procedure with public participation." (surprisingly good google translation)

IIRC the objection period ends on March 5. Even if they would suspend the permit for tree cutting until then, there is still a chance to get another 2 weeks in March (usually tree cutting must end by end of Feb as vegetation period starts).

This article bei Zeit explains it quite well: Grünheide: Oberverwaltungsgericht stoppt Rodungsarbeiten für Tesla-Gelände

My assumption that they could still cut the rest of the trees if they have to wait until the public participation process is over in my post above was wrong: After submission ends on March 5, there is a two-week period during which the public input is considered. If I understand correctly, after mit March they would not be able to cut the remaining trees and would have to wait for fall.

 

[SO16]

The person who knows nothing about EV also knows nothing about MKBHD. I guarantee you more people know what a Tesla is than MKBHD on the street.

True. But more people will watch because they know who Gates is regardless of who else is in the room with him. And if MKBHD could have “confronted” Gates, people would notice.

 

[KarenRei]

Work continued on the Giga Berlin site this weekend - just not forestry. New access roads, utility work, etc.

Among the pictures, I found this one particularly amusing:

@GF4Tesla..️️.build #GigaBerlin. on Twitter

Yes, they built a fence around an anthill to protect it