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

[SOULPEDL]

I was curios to hear that Elon's biggest concern right now is, that their cars are too expensive. Do you think long term they could be aiming at lowering the Model 3's price to $30,000 and Model Y to something like $35,000? Would make Model 3 steal even more sales from the Toyota Corolla

I think this could almost double Model 3 demand to 600-700k a year from currently 300-400k year.
Model Y demand could probably grow from currently 700k to 1M+.

No class of auto manufacturer should feel secure about their future survival.

 

[Highway2Heel]

Elon Ca$h...the man in (the) black!

 

[willow_hiller]

Really amusing EPS beat percentage reported by Google Finance:

 

[Prunesquallor]

They are going to need to double planned production if this SP keeps acting like this. Not joking.

Cheese and Crackers. Members of THIS THREAD will consume Roadster II production for years.

 

[Curt Renz]

Interesting... so industry margins don't include operating expenses? What's the purpose of that indicator, hype sales?

Essentially, the margin is the selling price minus the added cost to the company for producing one additional car. General fixed costs to operate the entire company must eventually be included in considering the overall profit.

 

[Fred42]

I doubt we will hear anything until next year. TX legislature reconvenes in Feb. The back room deals will be done by then and an amendment to the dealership laws will pass, exempting either Tesla specifically or Texas manufactures generally.

Maybe. Elon wanted Austin, and they got the local tax breaks. The dealer lobby is still in place, and Tesla is now past the location decision point. We'll see whether Tesla gets anything more.

 

[FrankSG]

They did get 5 questions via Say.com as well as the ones asked live. So they still got lots more than the 4 questions from the retail investors.

Those 5 questions are not from analysts, but from institutional investors. The people actually holding millions of TSLA shares.

The Alien Dreadnought question for example was only upvoted by 1 institutional investor with >10M shares. Most likely this was Baillie Gifford, perhaps Capital World Investors.

 

[Krugerrand]

To the people who disagreed with my comment here.

Even Jim Cramer, the CNBC personality who has hyped Tesla stock plenty in the past, is astounded. Asked about Tesla stock on Twitter on Monday, he wrote: “I don’t even know if it is a stock. it is something else entirely, like a new species discovered in the wild.”

Tesla's insane stock price makes sense in a market gone mad

I will accept TSLA shares in return for my forgiveness.

You’ll notice that poster disagreed with almost every post for three pages. Don’t take it personal. His problem, not yours.

 

[Krugerrand]

I doubt we will hear anything until next year. TX legislature reconvenes in Feb. The back room deals will be done by then and an amendment to the dealership laws will pass, exempting either Tesla specifically or Texas manufactures generally.

Elon can be very persuasive as we’ve seen, like in China. But this is Texas. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[Dwdnjck]

I personally would like to thank all the people who joined in the world-wide conspiracy to buy Tesla products, that they didn’t need, at the end of the quarter, to help Tesla come through with a profit.

 

[Off Shore]

From the call at 6:30 "I think that product [solar] is really coming together, and it's only going to get better later this year. Very excited about the business potential."

Teasing...

 

[kalefranz]

Maybe. Elon wanted Austin, and they got the local tax breaks. The dealer lobby is still in place, and Tesla is now past the location decision point. We'll see whether Tesla gets anything more.

I live in Austin, and there are *a lot* of Teslas driving around the city right now. You can buy Teslas when you live in Texas, and there are service centers here. You just have to put the order in on the website rather than at the Tesla showroom.

To be clear I think the law will absolutely be changed once Tesla has thousands of employees represented by state legislators, but this whole thing is really a non-issue as a practical matter.

 

[Krugerrand]

Cheese and Crackers. Members of THIS THREAD will consume Roadster II production for years.

Roadster wasn’t on my shopping list as it serves no practical purpose in my life. I’m seriously thinking of redefining the meaning of practicality as it relates to my life so that I can justify buying one. Think of me as the S&P500; I make up the rules as I go along and even sometimes just to be whimsical.

 

[Highway2Heel]

From the call at 6:30 "I think that product [solar] is really coming together, and it's only going to get better later this year. Very excited about the business potential."

Teasing...

TESLA Solar is coming....and hell’s coming with it, you hear!!!

 

[SMAlset]

Giga factory announced in Texas, outside of Austin on Colorado River

I'd be surprised if this Austin announcement was news to anyone who has been following Tesla. Recall someone on here reporting that they had purchased land already before Tulsa's last ditch effort and then there was the school tax issue resolved. I know Austin is prone to flooding and hope the property is on high ground. Seem to recall a number of Austin Model S/X owners posting a while back that they were parking their cars in a high rise garage to avoid being flooded during that particular time frame. Anyone know the elevation of the 2000 acres? The GigaChina factory is near water too.

 

[FrankSG]

Q2'20 ER's biggest takeaways for me:

1. Tesla Energy. Triple the solar roof installations and a massive increase in energy storage QoQ. I'm absolutely stunned that this happened in the middle of a global pandemic.
2. High regulatory credits, but also $100M in extra OPEX due to the CEO compensation package. Without that expense, Tesla would've still been profitable even with much lower regulatory credits.
3. I'm continuously more and more impressed with Tesla's management team. Obviously Elon is Elon and Elon is a unique badass, but I also love Drew, Zach, and Jerome. Even without Elon, I feel like Tesla would do tremendously well with this management team.
4. Based on Elon's comments, I continue to be fairly optimistic about FSD in the near term. I'm not saying Elon's deadlines will be spot on, but overall I'm pretty optimistic that full FSD will be here within a few years, rather than 5 or 10 years.
5. I'm not too surprised by only a 'modest' SP jump in AH. Although the results are good, I don't expect large long term shareholders to add onto their TSLA positions significantly at the current valuation based on these numbers. However, with S&P 500 eligibility now being official, I do expect significant buying pressure and SP appreciation due to S&P front-runners and benchmarked funds starting to position themselves. In the near term, SP is all about S&P 500 inclusion.

 

[SMAlset]

LOL, Elon again puts his head on the chopping block about FSD happening later this year.

He doesn't say it will be granted approval (or as far as I know ever said it would) just that the software will be there and then the question of to what Nth degree will people/regulators be willing to commit to being "road approved".

 

[MC3OZ]

One very interesting part of the call was on Insurance, I understand the plan they have and it is good.

The premium is going to relate to how good and safe a driver is, they will give the driver tips to improve their driving and reduce their premium, or the driver can ignore these tips and pay more.. What will happen is safe drivers get rewarded by Tesla, risk taking drivers might find Tesla premiums expensive and insure elsewhere...

Elon is right, individual data is much better than aggregated population data. Customers can think of this as not paying for the poor driving of others...

But even better, Tesla consider the cost of crash repairs, and redesign the cars to lower repair costs.. What they are after is perfect synergy, cheaper and easier to build, cheaper and easier to repair... that is possible...

So starting with car insurance where data gives them an edge, and they can lower repair costs, makes perfect sense...

Sentry mode an a few other car security features probably reduce the risk of car theft...

It is unlikely other insurers can take proper account of the features in a Tesla that reduce risk. Their aggregate data across many car brands will always lag reality. And they may find the Tesla drivers they do insure are not safe drivers...

 

[Mo City]

He doesn't say it will be granted approval (or as far as I know ever said it would) just that the software will be there and then the question of to what Nth degree will people/regulators be willing to commit to being "road approved".

I'll wait on the written transcript to verify, but he said it would be released, not approved by regulators, this year. I'm good with that.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Roadster wasn’t on my shopping list as it serves no practical purpose in my life. I’m seriously thinking of redefining the meaning of practicality as it relates to my life so that I can justify buying one. Think of me as the S&P500; I make up the rules as I go along and even sometimes just to be whimsical.

“Serves no practical purpose”
That’s so cute. The celebratory margarita I’m sipping on serves no practical purpose either, but it sure makes me feel good.