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

[Cosmacelf]

The standard range is 220
The standard range plus is 240
The mid range is 264

Is the 220 a software limited 240 or is the 240 a software limited mid range ?

My WAG is that the battery packs contain the same number of cells, but the 220 mile version has cells that aren’t 100% to spec. There are manufacturing variances and during the cell testing process, they find cells that are lower spec. Tesla already does this for motors.

 

[neroden]

Solar may not be the only solution, as (in my region) we’d need 10 times the capacity in the winter versus summer. I used to be pro (uranium and plutionium) nuclear, but since Fukushima I agree that the risks are too great (mind you, I live only 2K km from Tsjernobyl, but you could say ‘that were the Russians’). Besides, plutonium and uranium are not a long term solution as we’d run out in a couple of hundred years. But thorium based nuclear seems to be safe with virtually limitless supply.

Messy messy waste from thorium reactors. Heard of uranium-233? Nobody knows what the hell to do with the U-233 already produced. The salt and sodium reactors are worse.

Wind seems valuable as a complement to solar; so do transmission lines; so does hydro; and I think they finally got wave power working in Scotland.

 

[Mars ☰mperor]

Elon says the pricing is not going to drop

 

[neroden]

What is people's opinion on Q1 prod and delivery estimates? I can't square Elon's warning email about lower or no profit and implied demand issues with recent data (see below). Seems this quarter should be phenomenal.

Massively larger number of cars in transit than last quarter, basically. Due to international deliveries which take more than 18 days. A one-time hit to profit (the profit ends up in the next quarter) and cash flow (the revenue ends up in the next quarter). Demand will be fine, but *quarterly profit* won't be.

 

[MP3Mike]

Is the CC that Elon had today available anywhere to listen to? If not is there a transcript? If not, where can I find the best reporting on it?

 

[M3Rider]

Btw, with most of the previous year SR production estimate pointing towards Jan 2019, Tesla did pretty good delaying the estimate just by 2 months. I think SR line waiters should be pretty happy. $3,750 credit is still an option if they act fast.

 

[ggies07]

So where does one do test drives.

Anywhere you can find an owner! I do them at home, work, the mall, kids sporting events, adult sporting events, before plays, before concerts......

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

I don't think this bodes well for the stock short term. No Q1 profit and mums the word on the $35,000's profit margin. I'll start buying back in at $290, but based on past experience I'll panic buy in at $390 just before another infamous Elon tweet.

 

[Cosmacelf]

A short while ago I phoned two Chicagoland Tesla sales agents, one in Westmont and one in Highland Park. They only know a little more than we do. They are certain their service centers will remain open, and likely also the stores but with reduced personnel. They expect to keep giving pre-purchase test drives, but those would cancel the 7-day return policy. They said that the popular configurations of all Tesla Models are now kept in inventory for next day deliveries. At least that is true in Chicagoland.

I should stress that these people did not want to be considered authoritative, but expressed likelihoods when I pressed them.

EDIT: I corrected the information about inventory cars to indicate that that applies to all Tesla models, not just Model 3's.

This does bring up a good point. How do people purchase inventory models if there are no local sales people and no local inventory?

 

[neroden]

My understanding is that options contracts have provisions built in for buyouts. But again, this is not my field, hence the reason I'm wanting to make sure that my understanding is correct

//// normally //// options work exactly the way you'd expect for buyouts and mergers.

The nasty catch is that the liquidity on options can disappear during a merger. If you're ready to execute the option, no problem, it all works great.

But suppose you have a long in-the-money call option which expires *before* the merger finalizes and you *don't* have the money to exercise it. You may be unable to sell it at a fair price because the liquidity may have dried up -- the bid-ask spread may blow out and the market makers may refuse to trade at all. (Similar problems can happen on puts and on short puts and short calls.) If you don't find the cash / borrowing capacity to exercise, you may be SOL.

 

[RobStark]

Michigan has mobile service.

Tesla Direct Sales Map (US)

This is the Map maintained by TMC Staff.

Has something changed since Aug 19,2018.

Or is Tesla just servicing cars until they get arrested?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Am I the only one who sees a mountain of slightly used Model 3's from people with no intention of keeping the car?

I’m not worried about regular people returning their slightly used Model 3s but I am worried about fraudsters doing this. Hopefully Tesla has a good anti fraud program in place...

 

[neroden]

So Elon's considering ways for retail investors participate in SpaceX? Interesting! He R-E-A-L-L-Y needs to talk with @neroden who knows those ropes very well...

*cough* not an expert, I've just researched some of the weirder corners of corporate law

 

[S3XY]

I can attest that Turo works, but be prepared to pay 5x what the Turo contract says you must pay, since Turo is basically a scam service.

Who needs Turo to rent a Tesla? I can get a free one week, 1,000 mile "rental" directly from Tesla.

 

[neroden]

We Heard a Tesla Burnt To a Crisp, Leaving Its Charred Husk on a Vermont Lake. So We Walked Out There and Found It. — Popular Mechanics

The timing is so suspicious. Can’t imagine driving over a rock and this fire and story. I read that another Tesla fire in the past was found to have a bullet in the pack suggesting fraud. I’d put my money on the ultimate explanation for this fire some sort of fraud. We may never know....

Honestly, this seems to me like a stunt done by some very rich person or company who bought a Model X and set it on fire (in what they thought was a "safe" location). Can't imagine why, but people have done stranger things. K Foundation Burn a Million Quid - Wikipedia

 

[Antares Nebula]

Aren't we saying this for ... like 3 years now ?

It's different this time!

 

[MP3Mike]

I think SR line waiters should be pretty happy. $3,750 credit is still an option if they act fast.

I'm not sure they really have to act "fast". They have 4 months to take delivery. Tesla could be making ~100k during that time frame, so there is a limit...

 

[Cosmacelf]

Cuts 6% off the price of the car, and most Teslas are sold through word of mouth (aka a person tries the car of a friend/family member/coworker/etc and decides they want one). I can very much see the logic.

It's also a 6% off that no established manufacturer can touch.

Yes, this is key. Why is Amazon so successful? Partly because they don’t have bricks and mortor real estate to pay for. IF Tesla can sell completely online, it will end up being yet another moat. Even if Elon hates moats, he sure is building a lot of them

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Tesla Direct Sales Map (US)

This is the Map maintained by TMC Staff.

Has something changed since Aug 19,2018.

Or is Tesla just servicing cars until they get arrested?

Washington? No way. Where'd you get this?

 

[Antares Nebula]

Tesla claims that the second tweet 'clarified' the first tweet. It's the SEC's narrative that it was a correction of an unapproved tweet that published material non-public information.

The SEC's argument is that the first tweet was 'not accurate material non-public information', which is false.

Tesla's argument is very likely going to be that the first tweet was using already public, non-material information which information was released on January 30 (the ER call), which information was already approved and published and didn't need a second approval.

The second tweet was clarifying the broad ranges in the guidance out there, and it was approved.

Yes, I can see that now. Thank you! Also this SA author seems to offer another similar explanation:

"The above claims that the first sentence of the second tweet "acknowledged" that the earlier tweet was not accurate. This is one way to interpret the words.

The other way is to take the words at face value. He had meant to state that the annualized production rate at the end of 2019 would probably be around 500k. He did not mean to state that there would be 500k Model 3 cars built in 2019. However, the second tweet does not state that his original tweet was considered by Musk to be inaccurate, as is claimed by the SEC.

In fact, if we bother to review Tesla guidance, it was accurate. Musk was apparently just clarifying what he had intended to state and was not correcting a mistake as the SEC claims. In other words, Musk intended to say something different, but what he did say also is true."

Tesla: SEC Latest Action Unfounded, Short Squeeze Possible - Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha