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

[Tslynk67]

This is what you get on the SF peninsula. Look at this shitake. 1000 sq ft home in East Palo Alto. You know, Dangerous Minds place. The more I make on TSLA, I actually less want to buy a house here, and instead take it go buy something near the beach in San Diego.

I guess this is where all the jobs are? That's the benefit of being into $TSLA, your richer when you go somewhere else!

 

[Singuy]

A price drop is tactical and can be done in a few minutes. The SC/SC infrastructure is a longer term prospect.

Correct, but as people pointed out Tesla has fallen under their self imposed goals, but in my opinion has accelerated their goals for price reduction. Everyone thought the SR+ came way sooner than expected. The SX price drops are substantial throughout the past 2 years.

 

[joh01652]

Cars, a cocktail and a celebrity: South Koreans succumb to Tesla fever

Nice write up in Reuters; here's one main point: "The U.S. electric car maker had its best month for South Korea in June, selling 2,827 vehicles and bouncing back from weak sales in April and May which were hit by U.S. production disruptions due to the coronavirus. The Model 3 is now the country’s No.2 imported vehicle, ahead of the BMW 5 series and the Audi A6, and just behind the Mercedes E-Class."

 

[Causalien]

Prepared for what? If we're talking about socking some money away in good times in case something unexpected happens like a job loss, an illness, etc... well, yes of course. That's just smart. Or some other unexpected expense; new roof, new furnace, new car...also yes.

Prepared for everything.
Some ppl wing it, believing in their invincibility, some tries to prepare for all eventuality.

 

[joh01652]

I'm behind on reading these posts, and not sure if it's been discussed here, but the U.S. House passed the Moving Forward Act. Yeah I know it's not likely to be passed, but details of the bill are worth pointing out: From Plug In America:U.S. House passes Moving Forward Act

• Sec. 90431 – Federal EV tax credit: Increases the cap on the Section 30D federal EV tax credit to a total of 600,000 credits per auto manufacturer (versus the current 200,000 credits) – essentially, this will let the tax credit work for more drivers for a longer period of time.
• Sec. 90432 – Used EV tax credit: Creates a new tax credit for buyers of used EVs, providing more options to consumers who are low-income. The credit is capped at the lesser of $2,500 credit or 30% of the sale price.
• Sec. 33333 – Expanding Access to EVs in Underserved Communities: Requires that the Department of Energy conduct an assessment of the barriers and opportunities for deployment of EV charging stations in underserved communities and disadvantaged communities.
• Sec. 33332 – EV Charging Station rebate program: Creates a new rebate program for installing EV charging stations at multi-unit dwellings, workplaces or commercial locations that are open to the public for at least 12 hours a day.
• Sec. 1211: Accessibility, Rest Areas and Signage: Requires that EV charging stations that are funded through the Highway Trust Fund (and all other areas under title 23) to be usable by the majority of EV drivers. Also allows for EV charging stations at Interstate rest areas or park & ride locations. And, calls for the Department of Transportation to update the EV signage manuals in order to provide uniform signage to locate EV charging stations.
• Sec. 50002 – U.S. Postal Service to go electric: Requires at least 75% of any new vehicles purchased by the U.S. Postal Service to be EVs. And, each post office location open to the public must have at least 1 charging station by 2026. The fleet of medium and heavy-duty trucks must also be at least 30% electric by 2030.
• Sec. 33340 – U.S. Federal fleet to go electric: Requires that beginning in FY 2025, at least 50% of the vehicles purchased for the federal fleet must be EVs (and the other 50% must be alternative fueled vehicles).
• Sec. 33338 – Funding for State Transportation Electrification Plans: Calls for funding for State Energy Transportation Plans, which must include plans to deploy a network of EV charging stations, reduce fossil fuels and improve air quality by transportation electrification.
• Sec. 33337 – Utilities and Transportation Electrification: Requires states to consider allowing for measures to encourage deployment of EV charging stations by utilities, including letting the utility recover investments in the EV charging stations.

 

[Big Time]

It would be nice if the Dow didn’t just take a big crap today.....

 

[UkNorthampton]

Speaking of terraced streets. If i were thinking about what the best solution would be for quality of life living on these streets it would be for a ubiquitous robotaxi fleet that you could reliably get in less than 5 minutes. You could then just remove parking and have a much more pleasant street to live on. This would be far better than the congested nightmare Many of them are today. Many are so narrow that they're really only one way by the time cars are parked on both sides.

The additional room could be used for wider footpaths or green space.

Green the towns and cities, priority to pedestrians - geofenced speed limts (4mph/6kmh), small EVs, robotaxis and boring tunnels as Zac and Jesse / Now You Know did on their 6 video Boring Company series + Paxster video. It really would change everything. Kids playing in the street, fresh air.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

He said it during autonomy investors day.

But I think he was not giving any kind of firm statement. He was referring to how an over the air update can enable FSD on the million cars on the road which then can be potential autonomous taxis referring to this year. I don't remember him using any words of certainly but overzealous Musk may have. You can go back and watch it for reference.

Thanks. Yah I agree. I hear or read occasionally where people say “he promissed” blah blah. I don’t recall it that way. As well I seem to remember him mentioning something about he wasn’t good at predicting time lines. I definetly don’t remember the word promise being used.

People are funny.

Cheers.

 

[Nocturnal]

Yes, but I don't believe that'll move the needle because that just gives the narrative (again) that Tesla doesn't have the cash to do that, or they'll need to go into more debt, or some version. It's a rinse and repeat story.

I'm trying to remember if GigaBerlin moved the needle. I'm pretty sure GigaChina didn't move the needle. Not until the Gigas are up and running and pumping out cars does the needle start to move.

I don't think it did at the time. I'm wondering if the fact that Shanghai was built and ramped so quickly might make some take notice this time around.

 

[MP3Mike]

I cann't find the exact quote but according to me he said that all features would be downloaded in two to four months.

You can't find it because it doesn't exist. The closest Elon ever said is that he hoped to be feature complete by the end of the year. (Still almost 6 months away.) But given the delays they have been through so far I doubt that is the goal anymore.

 

[Big Time]

Saddle up and ride

 

[Nocturnal]

Donated anonymously.

Just an FYI for anyone who has donated previously. You can add a comment and edit your name after the fact through your emailed receipt.

 

[Knightshade]

I really shouldn't be responding to this, but it seems you're not satisfied with everyone else's answer.

Mostly because the majority were ignoring what I actually wrote and making up strawmen to knock down.

Thanks to you (and the several others) who actually gave a response based on my actual words- I appreciate it.... consolidated replies to several such folks below

Bet-Tesla said it best, "They know exactly what stresses on the existing infrastructure they are seeing."

Tesla stopped providing supercharger deployment goals after 2018. Not because they didn't want to be wrong again, but because they've solved the congestion issues (except for holidays in california) by implementing idle charges and not giving free supercharges for life. With those changes alone, the existing superchargers were able to service many more travelers per station. There was no longer a need to double the number of supercharger sites in a year.

COMPLETELY fair point- again thanks.

They do still have a few issues that doesn't solve.... but it certainly can factor into not needing quite as MUCH catchup spending as it would otherwise suggest....

The not-solved stuff off top of head would be:

A lot of existing locations don't support a tesla with a trailer- which will already be a bit of an issue with Y, and a much larger one with Cybertruck.

Tesla said publicly they plan to build Cybertruck-friendly pull-through chargers.... (and likely many will need to be in more rural locations trucks are more popular but other Teslas haven't been)

Ditto for the currently non-existent Megachargers for Semi

And lastly moving into new regions with no chargers, like India or much of eastern europe/most of Asia.... I'd imagine this is lowest priority of the 3 concerns though until supply exceeds demand on vehicles....the other 2 seem more significant.

Parts shortages isn't a service center issue, but a supplier/logistics issue.

Agreed with the caveat the service center folks took until my third cancelled appointment to tell me they had decided to actually order a part specifically for my VIN- instead of what they apparently had been doing up to then of....I dunno- just hanging around hoping one randomly showed up I guess?

As I say- my experiences with the ACTUAL service techs has always been excellent... the parts/scheduling folks? Not so much.

That's really outside scope of the core point/financial issues though.

Battery Day should solve the battery problem, some sites need Supercharger V3, Batteries, and ideally some solar..

I know folks have a lot of expectations on battery day.

But autonomy day didn't "solve" autonomy, so I don't expect battery day to solve batteries.

I expect it to show the next-gen stuff they only can make in small #s for Plaid S and X.

I expect it to discuss how they plan to scale that up eventually but not today and most likely first going into Semi and Cybertruck- with 3/Y likely getting it last as supply allows.

And that's all before they've got lots of spares to put in things other than cars.

So long-term solve? Well, long term vast improvement anyway... but short term I still expect batteries to be constraining for a while yet.

I do hear your concerns but they are based on quite a few premises that probably should be tested harder.

1. Missing self imposed roll-out targets: While this is true, it may well be that the targets were wrong in the first place

1. 
   
   
   Entirely possible. Though the fact they kept increasing them year over and yet widely missing them year over year is a bit odd.
   
   Most likely explanation is it was lip service to calm down the range anxiety folks who worried there weren't enough- and they KNEW they weren't ever really gonna hit any of those goals in remotely that time period.
   
   See also Elons repeated comments before and during the 3 ramp about.... guess what? Logistics and service goals being way behind schedule and they were "fixing" them when the $ and location #s show they really didn't change much at all in that scaling.
   
   Again NOT spending that money at that time was likely the best decision to make- but it's not like it's credible that partway through the rollout they just SUDDENLY realized stuff like "Huh maybe we should've had some delivery trucks to move all these cars around" or "Huh, maybe we should have more service centers"
   
   So either they're entirely incompetent at planning anything- which I obviously don't believe- or they were pretty intentionally avoiding investing in expanding this stuff as long as possible for business viability reasons while giving lip service otherwise.
   
   
   

   [*]How many service centers / superchargers do Tesla need: This again is hard to quantify but it is likely to peak at a relatively low level if the robotaxi fleet comes to life, and if not the requirement is still not likely to be linear with fleet growth.

   
   Wouldn't supercharger needs be higher with a robotaxi fleet?

Today people mostly just charge at home overnight because they only really drive the car maybe an hour or two a day. No need for a supercharger except long trips.

A Robotaxi could be running 24/7 to make money for the owner- and would need to supercharge multiple times every day

(Hey- remember when Tesla promised the cars would be able to charge themselves without a human doing is? Add to list of things they didn't end up investing any $ in I guess!)

If Tesla need to expand rapidly, will the cost break the bank:

Not a thing I ever actually said.

What I actually said was I was curious what the cost of catching up for a few years of neglecting higher funding on this stuff looks like dollar wise, and what, if any, impact it'd have on things like cash flow and profits.

At no point did I ever suggest it'd be some knee-capping, crippling, cost.

Just that it's $ they'd eventually need to spend that I hadn't seen really any mention of.

Not sure if the following were considered.
Introducing V3 Supercharging
V3 Supercharging will ultimately cut the amount of time customers spend charging by an average of 50%, as modeled on our fleet data.

Not really.

For one, rollout of V3 itself has been relatively slow... for another it presents it's OWN added costs.

Up to now- Tesla has mainly added charging stations in the most likely to need them areas.

And mostly those are V2.

So either you just do V3s going forward in less important places.

Or you do V3 upgrades in the important ones (with attendent cost)

Or you do BOTH and your costs are even higher than only doing one of them.


The only thing V3 really gets you- and only for new installs (because for old ones V3 means you're paid for a station twice essentially) is you need somewhat fewer total stalls in that location than with V2- and even then it's maybe only 1/3rd fewer

N
Another factor is the past quarters where Telsa had to go on spending freezes to meet their overall objectives.

Not only did I consider that- it was kind of fundamental to my point.... (AND a decision I've repeatedly said was probably a good idea- but one they couldn't continue forever and would eventually need to catch up on)

 

[Krugerrand]

Just to dumb this whole concept down a little, am I right in thinking that the only reason to expect an outsized move in Tesla is because so much of Tesla's float is held by high conviction longs and insiders that only a small % of the float is available.? Or is it because it has grown so much already before being included in the S&P500

At a super simple level. if there are $X Trillion of index tracking funds and the total S&P500 has a market cap of $Y Trillion, shouldn't any stock in the index be owned the same amount of X/Y% by the index tracking funds?

To continue the thought and to use an extreme example. If the index committee decided to include a company with a market cap of $100, wouldn't the trackers still have to purchase the same X/Y% of the company?

Let me dumb it down further and ‘prepare’ you;

1) S&P does NOT have to accept TSLA into the index; there is NO must add rule, people get to decide, people are notorious for being vindictive, selfish, stupid etc...
2) There is NO guarantee TSLA will even budge a bloody CENT when or if it enters the S&P
3) All this hype talk about inclusion and SP hitting the roof is just that — hypothetical talk
4) See 1 thru 3

The more certain people jabber on about how freaking awesome the event is going to be, the more certain I become that I’m about to find poo in my Corn Flakes.

And that’s me being positive.

 

[Nocturnal]

I am quite curious how pre-orders for the Cybertruck in China will go. Obviously it's not like the US truck market, but it's still quite large. Consumers there don't like Murican style pickups but perhaps the CT will grow the market. Especially if Tesla winds up making a smaller version in China (and for export?).

The more certain people jabber on about how freaking awesome the event is going to be, the more certain I become that I’m about to find poo in my Corn Flakes.

And that’s me being positive.

Well the FDA does allow certain levels of rodent droppings in commercial grains and foods and...oh you meant that metaphorically.

 

[Tslynk67]

Aren't these the clowns that have a $295 PT on $TSLA?

JPMorgan upgraded Nikola to overweight from neutral
JPMorgan upgraded the hybrid truck manufacturing company and said the stock is “starting to look attractive” for long-term investors.

“The stock has fallen 40% in July month-to-date (S&P 500 up 1.5%), and could fall some more in the near term when the special purpose acquisition company shares are freely tradable (and can be sold short), but NKLA stock is now trading below our $45.00 price target and starting to look attractive for long-term investors in view of a number of potential positive catalysts in coming weeks and months. In our view NKLA is currently a story-stock, but we are on board as long as the company executes to plan, and providing the stock offers a favorable risk-reward trade-off.”

Read more about this call here.

 

[Tim S]

You can't find it because it doesn't exist. The closet Elon ever said is that he hoped to be feature complete by the end of the year. (Still almost 6 months away.) But given the delays they have been through so far I doubt that is the goal anymore.

Last week he tweeted about an Autopilot rewrite being 2-4 months away...
Elon Musk talks Tesla Autopilot rewrite, says 'a lot of new functionality in 2-4 months' - Electrek

"Now Musk commented on Twitter last night with an update about the Autopilot rewrite:

Going well. Team is kicking ass and it’s an honor to work with them. Pretty much everything had to be rewritten, including our labeling software, so that it’s fundamentally ‘3D’ at every step from training through inference.

In another tweet, the CEO said that he believes the update is two to four months away:

A lot of functionality will happen all at once when we transition to the new software stack. Most likely, it will be releasable in 2 to 4 months. Then it’s a question of what functionality is proven safe enough to enable for owners."

Edit: This is to clear up @Dutchie 's confusion about the 2-4 months quote. I'm not disagreeing with @MP3Mike .

 

[MikeAtkinson]

You can't find it because it doesn't exist. The closet Elon ever said is that he hoped to be feature complete by the end of the year. (Still almost 6 months away.) But given the delays they have been through so far I doubt that is the goal anymore.

Dutchie was probably thinking of this, tweet:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1278539278356791298

A lot of functionality will happen all at once when we transition to the new software stack. Most likely, it will be releasable in 2 to 4 months. Then it’s a question of what functionality is proven safe enough to enable for owners.

in reply to a question about reverse summon.

[I see I was beaten to it]

 

[Tslynk67]

Where do you see Sep'21 $2,000s? I only see them going up to $1,880.

TSLA - Tesla Stock Options Prices - Barchart.com

Up to $2850 on my broker - and current bid is $30

 

[Krugerrand]

My initial post stands. His post stated facts, and his feelings. Your post superimposes your feelings and experiences onto someone else.

for instance, I have had ranger service. Yet I need to take a half day off work so the car could be there. Just because they come to you does not mean it’s magic. Unless of course you work from home. Just saying it came across as a put down on character and how you “see things is” better. I see the likes and loves etc, so know I am in minority opinion, yet prefer when we shy away from the personal stuff.

No need for me to go back and point out what were in fact NOT facts in his many posts of recent and past; an intelligent person can read for themselves.