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

[Rammstein]

You should enjoy your celebratory drinks and stop posting tonight. 95% of COVID deaths are people over 80? That's ridiculous and not close to accurate. That does not help your argument.

I don think I’m too far off to be honest. Mind you I’m in Canada and things are a little different here.

 

[Green Pete]

She was one of a handful of contributors that left recently due to a disagreement with moderators. She was incredibly well informed and measured in her comments. Her depth of knowledge on battery tech was deep enough for her to likely have made a name for herself as a Tesla upper echelon employee, however she clearly opted to be a trader which I think most would assume has served her well. She was a deeply appreciated member of this forum who also appeared to have a very thoughtful soul given her frequent mentions of her efforts to reforest island.

@KarenRei we miss you here

@factchecking you too, despite you calling me a fear monger inreference to my alarmist covid comments you were always someone whose contributions I deeply appreciated and am saddened by your departure.

 

[wipster]

After reading 300 posts lamenting/debating Elon's stupidity/justification and the terrible media reaction to his freedom rant, I'm left with the question: What does it matter? Media reactions have been terrible for years, on countless Elon/Tesla issues, but look at the car sales and the stock. Car buyers and stock buyers don't seem to care about media reactions. They care about the products and the company's potential.

Please don't respond with another 300 posts. I don't care either. I'd like to direct the forum's brainpower to a different question: When will the shorts give up?

View attachment 537353

This is an ER graphic that should soil the shorts of shorts, if they have any sense. Some don't, of course. But they can't all be Spiegel-class hysterics. The latest Nasdaq report (for mid-April) was 20M shares short, or 11% of shares outstanding.

Looking at that graph, is there any doubt the Model Y bar will exceed the one below it in a year or two? And that's just for the US. By then, two more factories should be cranking out Model Y, not to mention all the other ramping or forthcoming products and the robotaxi wildcard.

If I recall correctly, someone estimated that S&P 500 inclusion could raise the share price 20-50%, and there's been lots of thinking about when inclusion will happen. What about short capitulation? If short interest drops to 1% of shares outstanding, like for AMZN, how much will this raise the share price? Will the short interest go that low, or will it stay higher due to delta hedgers and people betting on volatility?

What do you think?

I personally like boxers...

 

[feigen66]

The science California is using is substantially better than the science Georgia, Florida, and a whole of other places are refusing to use.

No question in mind that pandemic response should be guided by science.

I believe Elon's frustration coming from inconsistent standard of "essential" between Federal, State and Local authority.
Elon firmly believed that Tesla were essential under DHS, then it was immediately overruled by Alameda County yielded to "public pressure". Alameda County changed their stances multiple times during the course.

If I were Elon, I would also be insanely pissed and being targeted, since Tesla doesn't just produce cars but also energy products. Both sectors were essential per DHS guidelines.

While oil refinery being listed essential in Alameda County order -- at the mean time no place to store excessive oil.

 

[Mo City]

Not surprisingly, TL0 roars from the gate at EUR800.00 on a volume of 2198 shares, which is extremely high.

 

[EV forever]

This thread is amazing. After months of not paying attention to Covid19, not noticing all of Musk's inaccurate tweets, etc... Musk tweets about it yesterday and suddenly everyone has a strong opinion! Amazing coincidence

Whether or not Fremont should open is a good question, but I certainly don't trust Musk to analyze the situation correctly considering how wrong he has been on the issue. Like not even debatable.

Think for yourself. Go follow the depressing coronavirus thread, where the educated are noting how long this will go on, and the ignorant say 'everyone is going to die eventually anyways'.

You may find out that America is different from China, China can reopen their factory after 2 months because they can clamp down on virus spread way more than the U.S. can. Infection rate in the Bay Area is currently way higher than it was in Shanghai when they reopened.

The reported number of daily new cases in the Bay Area is currently about the same as it was when Fremont shut down in late March.

There is no way testing is in place to open up everything and prevent a massive spread to start right away.

You can certainly argue there might be ways to allow the Fremont factory specifically to open up, if enough testing and protocols are available. But is there enough testing for all of manufacturing? I don't know.

All I know is, anyone who thinks the Bay Area / California is in a condition where it is obvious it should open up (right now!) is mistaken.

It is not obvious.

No idea where you are getting your numbers, but to me it appears that the bay area counties have already done a remarkable job of flattening the curve. Also, no one is saying open everything - even Elon is very clear that it should be done in phases with adequate precautions and social distancing guidelines in place. The rationale behind the shelter in place orders was never to keep everyone isolated till every person could be tested or the disease is eradicated - it was only to ensure that spread of disease was slowed down sufficiently to prevent overwhelming of medical resources. Now it is time to allow businesses who show capability of following strict guidelines and protecting their employees appropriately to open up.

So far, CA has done a great job of control and the approval ratings have been high for these politicians. They need to make sure they don't take it too far, and keep restrictions too long.

 

[kengchang]

Bay area counties are doing great compare to SoCal region. I would say end of May the latest, mid May possible.

 

[StealthP3D]

This has everything to do with Tesla. They can’t open their factory because some assholes in the Bay Area are not being reasonable. I for one am glad Elon is standing up to these self righteous pricks. He’s trying to influence public opinion to get the economy going again. This makes sense to me because a depression will cause way more deaths than covid19.

That's exactly right.

I'm sure the people making the draconian rules think they are doing the right thing by being extra-cautious but the world is not black and white and simply extending the full lockdown is not sustainable nor is it the safest way to proceed. I'm in favor of prohibiting the highest risk activities like large gatherings, movies, drinking and dining out, etc. until we see lower infection rates but what really determines the effectiveness of any strategy to limit the spread of CV are individual decisions made 100's of times per day by every individual. Once you lose the respect of those individuals (because you have made them feel powerless) they are no longer on board and infection rates will climb.

Governments should be empowering individuals by educating them about techniques and behaviors to limit the spread while simultaneously protecting them by prohibiting the riskiest events and large gatherings and regulating other lower-risk activities by ensuring best practices are being followed.

In this forum, I have seen a lot of people who are obviously not as smart as Elon dumping on him as if they know better. I would suggest they have no clue how real change happens (while Elon is a master on this subject). He is not the most skilled public speaker but he does have intimate knowledge about how the world works, political power structures (both inside companies and in governments) and how to effectively implement change.

As much as I dislike Trump, I will say that I'm also coming to see how he builds and wields power. What makes all this work is how stupid most people are, even well-educated, thoughtful government administrators. People like Trump, and even more so, like Elon, can manipulate them like puppets. It takes a couple of weeks and it makes both Trump and Musk look a bit foolish to people who don't understand their end-game, but they don't care as long as it affects the change they want. This is not a weakness as it is being portrayed here by some very blind and short-sighted people - it is very much a strength and a major reason why both Tesla and SpaceX are wildly successful (and all of Elon's previous ventures). If you can't see that, it's not my problem. Here's my challenge to all you naysayers:

If Fremont is not open and churning out cars by the bucketload in two weeks (two weeks before the latest Bay Area lock-down ends), I'll eat my words. Trust me, Elon knows EXACTLY what he's doing and he's a master at it. Watch and see.

 

[Green Pete]

That's exactly right.

I'm sure the people making the draconian rules think they are doing the right thing by being extra-cautious but the world is not black and white and simply extending the full lockdown is not sustainable nor is it the safest way to proceed. I'm in favor of prohibiting the highest risk activities like large gatherings, movies, drinking and dining out, etc. until we see lower infection rates but what really determines the effectiveness of any strategy to limit the spread of CV are individual decisions made 100's of times per day by every individual. Once you lose the respect of those individuals (because you have made them feel powerless) they are no longer on board and infection rates will climb.

Governments should be empowering individuals by educating them about techniques and behaviors to limit the spread while simultaneously protecting them by prohibiting the riskiest events and large gatherings and regulating other lower-risk activities by ensuring best practices are being followed.

In this forum, I have seen a lot of people who are obviously not as smart as Elon dumping on him as if they know better. I would suggest they have no clue how real change happens (while Elon is a master on this subject). He is not the most skilled public speaker but he does have intimate knowledge about how the world works, political power structures (both inside companies and in governments) and how to effectively implement change.

As much as I dislike Trump, I will say that I'm coming to see how he builds and wields power. What makes all this work is how stupid most people are, even well-educated, thoughtful government administrators. People like Trump, and even more so, like Elon, can manipulate them like puppets. It takes a couple of weeks and it makes both Trump and Musk look a bit foolish to people who don't understand their end-game, but they don't care as long as it affects the change they want. Here's my challenge to all you naysayers:

If Fremont is not open and churning out cars by the bucketload in two weeks (two weeks before the latest Bay Area lock-down ends), I'll eat my words. Trust me, Elon knows EXACTLY what he's doing and he's a master at it. Watch and see.

I've always felt this way about trump. He's not dumb, hes just playing at a different level with a different set of morals.

It's not coincidence to me that trump has talk about musk as a genius and that we protect geniuses and now musk seems to be singing a familiar tune.

 

[Artful Dodger]

If they use it as a sound bite tomorrow it will resonate with more people than not

CNBC was tossing and turning, restless, couldn't sleep, so they got out of their shared death beds to post this 5 hrs ago (5.6K views already)

A pox on their house.

 

[EV forever]

Alameda county does not provide their test data like Santa Clara county. It's really a mess.
Santa Clara county has been trending down the positive rate from 14.3% to 0.7%.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Data Dashboard - Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) - County of Santa Clara

Santa Clara County has the highest cases for all counties due to San Jose.
I do not expect Alameda doing any worse than SJ.

This is the best site I have found to look at data trends by county. Hover over the line for each county to get the number of cases and the time for doubling of cases.
California coronavirus cases: Tracking the outbreak

 

[wtlloyd]

Today's reminder that Alameda County couldn't get a stadium built for the Oakland Raiders after decades of trying so the Raiders moved to Las Vegas. If I was Alameda County, losing businesses because I can't break through my own internal gridlock is par for course. It happens all the time.

There's nothing unique or unusual about Tesla, if one day Fremont has to close because the costs became unsustainable, well, where do you think Fremont came from in the first place? It was the closed NUMMI factory, which was closed because....GM and Toyota found the costs had become unsustainable! California is a notoriously costly state for businesses to operate, after all.

And now it's because of California that Tesla can't resume manufacturing cars in Fremont. I mean if I were Elon I would suddenly be understanding why most of the European and Japanese automakers locate their big American production facilities in the South, where regulations are lighter and taxes are lower and unions are nonexistent.

World's 6th largest economy. Guess they don't have to apologise to the likes of you for their business practices. Auto manufacturers moved from the west coast and Detroit to the south because they could pay 1/3 of the wages they were paying in a state where "right to work" ie anti-union laws were in practice. Those states gave away the farm to entice low wage manufacturing jobs, which will never pay back in taxes what it cost to secure them.
This Randian bluster that's repeatedly spouted here is so obviously not fact based and is a real disappointment. Wish I could just read about stock dynamics, which is why I come here.

 

[Artful Dodger]

There really needs to be an eye-roll emoji

 

[StealthP3D]

This thread is amazing. After months of not paying attention to Covid19, not noticing all of Musk's inaccurate tweets, etc... Musk tweets about it yesterday and suddenly everyone has a strong opinion! Amazing coincidence

What makes you think that? It's not that this thread is amazing, nor is it a coincidence - I'll let you in on a little secret:

Musk made that happen!

 

[Artful Dodger]

You’re not a mod.

Ben, you obviously miss a lot of content in this thread.

We are ALL mods now: self-MOD-ing c.f. @Right_Said_Fred

And this isn't the 1st time you've wasted space here complaining about the new policy which IMHO has saved this Forum from near ruin since the high profile departures of several members.

 

[Pras]

Is it likely that cybertruck factory will need no paint shop? Maybe some chemical treatment for underbody and none steel parts.

If so, then no stamping and no paint shop?!

 

[FrankSG]

Are we talking specifically for China or global?

Most likely global, which means it's likely heavily influenced by China yes. Non-China backlog could've very well decreased due to seasonality and COVID-19.

 

[StealthP3D]

Gigafactory Shanghai - Battery Module & Pack Production Line ( from Q1 2020 Earnings Letter)

View attachment 537341
Cheers!

Yep, every worker has a mask on in a spotless facility. You can bet they took each worker's temperature before they entered too. The employees would probably be LESS safe hanging out at home with their family.

 

[dqd88]

@factchecking you too, despite you calling me a fear monger inreference to my alarmist covid comments you were always someone whose contributions I deeply appreciated and am saddened by your departure.

What happened to factchecking?

 

[Green Pete]

What happened to factchecking?

In solidarity with Karen he also opted to stop contributing. And while neither he nor Karen were always right they were both far better informed and right far more often than the majority of the forum