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

[KarenRei]

Ah, PETA....

 

[KarenRei]

Seriously... premarket is down to only +0,25%? *facepalm*

ED: Okay, back up to +1,24%? Weird. Maybe just a low-volume hiccup.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Agreed, having said that, there is a chance we`ll see this nonsense across a "breaking news" banner on CNBC or Bloomberg before the end of the day.

Where are the times when Breaking News was really breaking news? Like cruise missiles being fired at Baghdad for the first time in 1991. Now there’s Breaking News every five minutes. And for every bit of Tesla FUD.

 

[KarenRei]

Buffet on CNBC, talking about electric vehicles:

• Thinks EVs are very much America's future, and much sooner than autonomous driving.
• Supports Chinese governmental efforts to subsidize EVs, but doesn't think they're needed in the US for EVs to take over.
• Thinks the US auto industry is putting forward a really aggressive effort on EVs on their own.

 

[dw4ngg]

Buffet on CNBC, talking about electric vehicles:

• Thinks EVs are very much America's future, and much sooner than autonomous driving.
• Supports Chinese governmental efforts to subsidize EVs, but doesn't think they're needed in the US for EVs to take over.
• Thinks the US auto industry is putting forward a really aggressive effort on EVs on their own.

Thx in large part to Tesla!

 

[HG Wells]

Buffet on CNBC, talking about electric vehicles:

• Thinks EVs are very much America's future, and much sooner than autonomous driving.
• Supports Chinese governmental efforts to subsidize EVs, but doesn't think they're needed in the US for EVs to take over.
• Thinks the US auto industry is putting forward a really aggressive effort on EVs on their own.

NOTE: Buffet owns a significant amount of BYD.

 

[EVMeister]

And given what he said on CNBC, he should own a significant amount of Tesla...

 

[KarenRei]

Violet Ace at Pier 80. 12th ship so far this quarter:

VIOLET ACE Current position (Vehicles Carrier, IMO 9395630) - VesselFinder

 

[scaesare]

Discovered something on the weekend about another set of players in the lithium battery space. Power tools.

DeWalt (Black and Decker), Ryobi, Milwaulkee (Techtronic Industries) have all done quite nicely over the past four years (recent dip excepted).

Prior to lithium cell packs, they had to compete on every tool, because they all plugged into the same outlets. Now, each brand has its own proprietary battery pack. Even Aldi has one. Once you choose a brand, you're pretty much stuck with it unless you want to be lumbered with carrying two sets of batteries.

So they've all discovered the same strategy - sell a cheap starter pack with a few basic tools plus one or two cheap small batteries, then put the higher markups on replacement batteries, bigger batteries and the more specialised tools, where they know you can't shop around.

Seems to me they're all riding the lithium cell learning curve, as the cells get cheaper the margins on the bigger packs just get more attractive - they have no reason to drop the price.

Interestingly, I was musing about the technical side of the new breed of Li-ion tool packs HERE

 

[scaesare]

Gascars can turn into FAE warheads when the fuel tank gets damaged:

While no doubt you were speaking colloquially, I'll point out that the nature of a warhead explosion as compared to the breach of vehicle fuel tanks (even violent ones) are different.

A warhead detonates, and is the resulting pressure wave that causes the vast majority of the destruction. A breached automotive tank typically deflagrates which, while dangerous, is not on the same level as a "warhead".

The typical exceptions would be pressurized fuel tanks like propane or H2, which would typically "BLEVE"[1], which is also a different type of detonation.

[1] Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion

 

[anthonyj]

Can lack of tariff increase cause a guidance upgrade?

 

[KarenRei]

"Free" autopilot in China ends at the end of February:

https://twitter.com/vincent13031925/status/1100041368225759232

 

[Fact Checking]

"Free" autopilot in China ends at the end of February:

https://twitter.com/vincent13031925/status/1100041368225759232

IMHO it's clearly an attempt to pull forward as many Chinese deliveries into Q1 as possible. If the ~20 days ship transit times can be maintained then all cars ordered in February can still be delivered in March.

Since AutoPilot has no opex costs, this doesn't actually cost Tesla much: margins are probably already healthy even without AutoPilot, and there's only an opportunity cost of making another $5k off the same customer, but that's probably limited in China already.

 

[Fact Checking]

New Can lack of tariff increase cause a guidance upgrade?

Unlikely IMO - there's still uncertainties such as a hard BRExit or perhaps Trump will start a European tariff war, so why upgrade guidance, only to miss again?

Since there's no more equity raises planned Tesla management doesn't care as deeply about short term stock price anymore I think, and offering conservative guidance is by far the safest bet.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

10 OMG, a bad headline, Tesla is doomed, sell!
20 Wait, Tesla is selling a ton of cars and has a huge lead in technology and infrastructure, buy!
30 GOTO 10

 

[lascavarian]

The Consumer Reports downgrade turned out to be contradicted by CR's own data ... the effect on the stock price was fading on Friday already.

If not referenced before, the Tesla Daily podcast has a very interesting analysis of the CR report.

Listen to Tesla Daily: Tesla News & Analysis on TuneIn

It seems they make some shifts for new models, it is confusing. There may have been 2 surveys, they may have mixed in data from other Tesla models and they are being predictive to some extent. I hope he gets the interview he has requested to help explain some of this.

 

[Unpilot]

Jinx time....something...something...bullish....something...as...something

 

[printf42]

IMHO it's clearly an attempt to pull forward as many Chinese deliveries into Q1 as possible. If the ~20 days ship transit times can be maintained then all cars ordered in February can still be delivered in March.

Since AutoPilot has no opex costs, this doesn't actually cost Tesla much: margins are probably already healthy even without AutoPilot, and there's only an opportunity cost of making another $5k off the same customer, but that's probably limited in China already.

My view is, this is trying to put bigger FSD learning fleet on Chinese road.

• Chinese driving conditions are vastly different than US, not to the point of as chaotic as in India, but similar.
• AFAIK most efficiency way of capturing learning opportunities is collecting EAD disengagement.
• Tesla needs a critical mass of EAD fleet size to speed up learning process, waiting for natural adoption by Chinese might not be fast enough, hence pricing it in the first batch is a good move.

 

[anthonyj]

We’re due for a 10-11:30am dumping. Have to fill that gap because it’s Tesla. I refuse to sell my swing shares at these levels though

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Would it help if 400k people stop using gasoline this year?