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

[ReflexFunds]

Ciunter-counter point: the Netherlands had EV incentives end in 2018 as well, with reportedly high Tesla sales. European EV markets are also growing 10-20% QoQ, which would be 1-3k additional sales.

Plus the $7.5k U.S. incentives decreased in 2018 as well, which were easier for high earners (i.e. prospective S/X buyers) to take advantage of.

I.e. those might have absorbed the China drop completely, and then some.

Also note that there were zero last minute S/X leasing levers used - which suggests the whole S/X inventory was sold.

Record S/X deliveries are in the cards I think: 30% chance I'd say. We'll know more soon.

True, and yes we will soon see.

My point on S/X in China isn't that Tesla couldn't meet their latest Q4 target, but that they didn't want to.
Every 1k S/X that arrives in port in China today rather than yesterday is worth c.$25m in extra profit. Some of that will be given back to customers to match the latest lower pricing, but some will go to higher profit for Tesla.

 

[Heimdallr]

(...)
So I'd not be surprised to see 7b+ in total Q4 revenue.

With $6.82B revenue reported in Q3, this definitely wouldn't be surprising. I got the feeling you meant $8.0B+ for Q4, which is in the ballpark and would be fantastic. Let's see when we get the delivery numbers.

 

[Artful Dodger]

2019 Q1 Tesla Vehicle Production Estimates*:

• 75,000 Model 3s
• 25,000 Model S/X

Total Est'd Q1 Production: 100,000 units

*Based on 75 production days** for Model 3 during Q1 @ 1K/Day; and steady-state S/X production (con't)

** Production days est'd is 89 calendar day, less 4 Stat. holidays, with 10 days planned*** shutdown/maintenance/upgrade days during Q1.

***Note that Planned shutdown days could be squeezed if required to achieve Quarterly production goals.

Cheers!

 

[Krugerrand]

OT

No cats nor dogs on site. New year, new image. Drawn from memory by six year old of great grandpa for Christmas card 2018. Obviously she is influenced by Picasso in all his phases. Or was he influenced by all six year olds?

A colleague once told a story about Picasso. His dealer asked if a work was genuine, "No, it's a fake." Later he shared a picture he knew to be genuine. "No it's a fake." "But Maestro, I know this is yours." "I paint many fakes."

With that story in mind I was privileged to see at least 400 of Picasso's paintings on exhibit in the Palace of the Popes at Avignon. All but three or four were fakes.

If Picasso can make mistakes, what about Elon?

Grinch Cat says: “Nice man-boobs. And I ain’t going nowhere until I’m good and ready.”

 

[reddit_tl]

New to here though I have been reading up the posts.

Anyone can point me to the method Troy uses to model the P&D estimates? I am just really curious why his numbers were very accurate and is relatively low compared to other estimates this quarter.

 

[lklundin]

Remember, behind the journalists are the editors. They call the shots, and they determine what gets in or not in, in the corporate media. So apply the question to editors.

Furthermore (I learned), editors actually decide the headline under which a given piece will appear - often modifying a headline after publication to bait more clicks.

 

[MissAutobahn]

BEV Sales in the Netherlands have been exploding in december as the percentage of total sales ist ~32%.
And they even don't have Model 3 already!
Reijer Kok on Twitter

 

[Reciprocity]

Canadian deliveries are, but home deliveries are not. There could be material upside here.

Inside EVs does not track all NA. They used to which is why their 200k number was off. When they switched to US only, they forget to back out Canada.

 

[Reciprocity]

They could get a deal of a lifetime from Tesla now though:

• In 2019 Tesla could start refusing to sell ZEV credits: "ICE makers should either pay the full price or make more EVs".
• Right now Tesla is only selling them because they need the cash. That is going to change in the next two quarters.
• California might win in court and a Democratic EPA would restore them in two years anyway. ZEV credits can be stockpiled indefinitely.

I.e. there is a real cost and risk of not buying them as well.

Good point, the value is low today but guess up a lot as the percent of seems zevs ratchets up. But I've thing to remember, some companies have to buy them, Tesla can still sell them at a high price and retain most. All it takes is one.

 

[Reciprocity]

InsideEVs has S/X at 16k just in the US. If past trends continue, that would imply > 30k worldwide. They need just over 28k to hit their 2018 guidance of 100k, if all my math is correct. So yes, pretty decent chance of beating S/X guidance for the year by a couple thousand units.

I wish. 33k - 8500 is 24,500. You miss read the article. 8500 is both s/x combined, which is almost the same as Dec 2017.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Counter-counter point: the Netherlands had EV incentives end in 2018 as well, with reportedly high Tesla sales in December. European EV markets are also growing 10-20% QoQ, which could be 1-3k additional sales.

Plus the $7.5k U.S. incentives decreased in 2018 as well, which were easier for high earners (i.e. prospective S/X buyers) to take advantage of.

I.e. those might have absorbed the China drop completely, and then some.

Also note that there were zero last minute S/X leasing levers used - which suggests the whole S/X inventory was sold.

Record S/X deliveries are in the cards I think: 30% chance I'd say. We'll know more soon.

I think you are right. It looks like around 1800-1900 Model S and X were sold in The Netherlands in December (after 348 in October and 746 in November). That is a calculation based on the registration database. It does not show yet how many registered cars were actually sold, that information comes out in a few days time. The Dutch Tesla site however shows 65 available cars, so it looks like most were sold. The total of about 3000 for Q4 would be an absolute record.

Fun fact: the total number of Teslas in The Netherlands nearly doubled this year, to almost 18,000.

 

[Zaxxon]

I wish. 33k - 8500 is 24,500. You miss read the article. 8500 is both s/x combined, which is almost the same as Dec 2017.

I did not misread the article. You're talking monthly, I'm talking quarterly.

 

[tsunamiofhurt]

New to here though I have been reading up the posts.

Anyone can point me to the method Troy uses to model the P&D estimates? I am just really curious why his numbers were very accurate and is relatively low compared to other estimates this quarter.

Methodology is based on absolute VIN numbers reported by buyers. A line is fit to data points.

I would attribute previous accuracy to the fact that prior quarters were much simpler to estimate than Q4. Estimates were typically in a pretty tight range.

 

[srius]

Exactly: if deliveries are good then calculating a robust lower bound for cash flow and profits is going to be literally 4th grade math.
...

Not easy. There are other unknowns to estimate M3 gross profit even if you have the delivery #. You still need AWD%, MR%, and more guesstimates on M3 ASP & gross margin.

 

[Fact Checking]

With $6.82B revenue reported in Q3, this definitely wouldn't be surprising. I got the feeling you meant $8.0B+ for Q4, which is in the ballpark and would be fantastic. Let's see when we get the delivery numbers.

I meant $7b.

There's a number of headwinds in Q4:

• Lower ASP due to MR
• Lower ASP due to PM3 price reduction
• Extra expenses due to the "Fred whining tax"
• China tariffs increase parts costs,
• Seasonally slower solar/storage sales,
• Seasonally slower sales in Europe

$7b would be a nice result and would falsify the "Q3 was a one time quarter" thesis nicely.

 

[DaveT]

Sorry if this has been covered but I haven't read everything. What in the world is "Investment World" in "Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World"? Does that mean this thread can talk about anything in the "investment world"?

A thread that is less than one day old and a veteran member can't bring himself to reading its opening post?

 

[PhaseWhite]

Based on this, here are my Q418 delivery and revenue forecasts. I will obviously update after Tesla's delivery report this week.

View attachment 365247

I'd be really surprised if Total S&X deliveries end up lower than Q3. The halving of the $7500 tax credit should be pulling a lot of ordering demand forward from Q1. Thoughts @ReflexFunds?

 

[JRP3]

Sorry if this has been covered but I haven't read everything. What in the world is "Investment World" in "Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World"? Does that mean this thread can talk about anything in the "investment world"?

I'd assume anything which would relate to or affect our investment in Tesla/TSLA.

 

[DaveT]

@AudubonB Please consider renaming this thread, "2019 TSLA Investors Roundtable".

 

[srius]

And also my profit forecasts:

View attachment 365249

Good work. But your M3 gross profit margin might be too optimistic. We know AWD% has fallen off a cliff since the end of Oct. The ASP will go down, probably over 10%, with the high percentage of MR/RWD sold. The better production process and more M3s produced will help the margin. The net effect is that the gross profit margin probably won't increase.