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

[Zaxxon]

Side note: while the board was crapped out this morning, I bought back in some trading shares @ $294 that I had sold earlier this week at $312 (that I had bought even earlier this week at $288). Yay, volatility... A bit more ammo lined up if we hit $285.

Core shares, as always, untouched.

 

[KarenRei]

InsideEV numbers out, probably driving the price back down:

Monthly Plug-In EV Sales Scorecard

US sales 5750 (was 6500 in January). X up to 1100 (was 950). S down to 800 (was 875)

 

[neroden]

Start at: What are the holding periods applicable to the sale of Rule 144A and other restricted securities?

http://media.mofo.com/docs/pdf/FAQRule144A.pdf

Maybe Dwdnjck has $100 million in investments held through a special-purpose one-owner corporation created to make these investments, but that seems like the only legal way to buy these Rule 144a securities.

 

[CaliBear1]

This is spot on.

I can understand being upset where the delta is huge, but otherwise, c'mon! Even if you didn't understand that buying a Tesla is more akin to buying a computer than a car, you should still appreciate the extraordinary fact that your car continues to improve even after you take possession of it. And even this announcement brought magic to current Tesla owners, such as increased power and/or range! Hell, I'm thousands of miles away from California and my car visiting NYC and I learned that in a few days I'll have a 6% power upgrade to my P3D, making it the fastest (for now) car in the Tesla lineup at 162 MPH. That assuages any pain I might have felt about missing out on a price drop or some other upgrade not possible via OTA. Thank you EM!!!

Agreed. In fact, it's a win/win.
FYI, many here bought w/o a test drive already. I was fine with that flow.
Plus, he's had that offer going for some time now so it's not a mystery on the cost to Tesla.
Meanwhile, the upside is powerful in flipping some % of initial non-buyers, and as advertising where friends and family test drive it too.

Being an early adapter is expensive. If Tesla is successful it means the car you bought is in short order better and cheaper.
But YOUR car get's better as well.

So while some gnash teeth and clutch pearls over "loosing" out on the latest change. I celebrate the mission moving forward AND MY car keeps getting better!

 

[AlexS]

Is this post a joke?

Yeah, I REALLY love the personal connection I develop with a car salesman as he tries to scam me for a rustproof undercoating I don’t need.

Not that sales guy, but sales guy who educates you and teaches about the product.

I really don't understand how is it possible to sell expensive products without any sales personnel. This is not possible. Please explain who will sell these cars after first crowd who are big fans got them. Sales people makes the gears spin, without it is impossible to sell. What is the sales strategy now? just the website?

 

[Remus]

This statement as the justification for the decision to close retail locations has me concerned. To increase sales beyond the existing early adopters it would seem that having MORE physical presence is needed not less. There are tons of people who will not buy a car online without talking to someone and seeing it in person first. To sell more cars they need to branch outside of the earlier adopters to regular people and physical locations are important for this outreach. My mother is one of these people. She's an older, conservative car buyer. She likes my Tesla and can afford it but there is not a single Tesla service center or retail store in her whole state and she won't buy one until there is.

It's possible this decision turns out to be correct, but I would have been happier if before making a decision like this, Tesla spent time trying to test the hypothesis first and prove that it works allowing them to make an informed decision before rushing in like this. This is not a small change that Tesla will be able to rollback in a month if the hypothesis they have doesn't hold. (Like they have arguable done several times recently with pricing and configuration tweaks)

I welcome thoughtful replies debunking these arguments.

What about shopping for clothes? shoes? Wouldn't people want to try them on before buying? They are sold online with large volume too. Jcpenny is struggling because of that.

Service centers are important. And the plan is to expand them, not shutting them down.

 

[UncaNed]

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter

"long shareholders selling is the overwhelming reason behind today's price dump."

Makes no sense. Why would they sell at a low?

 

[Chocochip]

I used to think the comparison between the model 3 and the iphone was a good one, where they would be satisfied with taking the lions share of the profits without huge market share. However, now, with all of the price drops, im thinking they are going for the amazon/Facebook model, they want as much marketshare as possible, at the expense of profits, and afterwards make their money off of Tesla Network/Services.

Apple (product desirability) + Amazon (market share) = Tesla!

 

[Zaxxon]

Not that sales guy, but sales guy who educates you and teaches about the product.

OK, so not a car sales person. Glad we've established that your comments are not relevant to Tesla.

 

[electrichapp]

ordered the SR+
car will be delivered to our house
all documents submitted online.
very easy.

probably a lot more other original reservations waiting for SR did the same thing.
assuming maybe 100k did the same, that's $250m of cash from the 2.5k paid to order

hoping they make surprise .01 profit in q1

 

[MarcusMaximus]

The primary problem with Tesla's approach is that "try it and return it if you don't like it" doesn't work well with people trading in.

Not sure why it wouldn’t. Hold onto their car for 7 days and give it back if they return the Tesla. Bonus: you don’t have to give them a ride home.

 

[wipster]

Morning all, afternoon to some (I slept in this snowy cold morning). Haven't seen any discussion on payment of the $920M... when and/or will that occur? Think that will move the sticks much?

 

[jhm]

Snagged a few more shares at $294. I like buying after positive announcements like this. It seems there is always a discount on good news.

Next good news discount could come at the Model Y unveiling. No matter how awesome it is, the news will spin it as a negative for the company and the price will drop.

But for now, I am pleased with the Model 3 line up. Tesla is truly going mass market. Online sales is mass market these days. Dealerships are boutique from a bygone era. Scraping a few thousand off the price is a total mass market play. So the $35k version is available. No more excuses, no more stalling.

Shut up, and get your Tesla.

 

[Nocturnal]

So, now we get to see all the reservation holders for the 35k car that have been yelling for 2 years will actually put their money where their mouths are.

I've read this a dozen times now on this board. So I think they just sold a 100K FSD packages for $3K each (when full Summons is released especially). That's $300M in earnings for doing nothing. This is the software side of the new auto industry 2.0 - virtually untapped until Tesla. He'll get more out of the $35K customers too. It's like buying the $99 printer, then continue paying for ink.

This business model relies on software sales too. No competition without that (and charging network, and safety, and performance, and production efficiencies, battery costs, volume sales, and now online for $35K). They are screwed!

Hey shorts, look over there!

Totally. I'm going to be ordering FSD as soon as I get a chance. One quibble though, that 3k does have the cost of the new computer baked into it so it's not all profit.

 

[EVNow]

InsideEV numbers out, probably driving the price back down:

Monthly Plug-In EV Sales Scorecard

US sales 5750 (was 6500 in January). X up to 1100 (was 950). S down to 800 (was 875)

How was Insideevs compared to what Tesla published in Q4 ?

 

[jerry33]

Not that sales guy, but sales guy who educates you and teaches about the product

So maybe you get lucky and hook up with the one in a thousand sales person that's like that. Your odds of success are really poor. It's different when you're talking industrial equipment where the sales person is really more of a technician because he or she has to talk to engineers and other technical people. Car salespersons don't even come close--if they did they would be selling something that pays better.

 

[KarenRei]

How was Insideevs compared to what Tesla published in Q4 ?

You mean in terms of accuracy? I don't know off the topic of my head, but they're usually pretty accurate. But remember that it's US-only.

 

[Vitold]

This statement as the justification for the decision to close retail locations has me concerned. To increase sales beyond the existing early adopters it would seem that having MORE physical presence is needed not less. There are tons of people who will not buy a car online without talking to someone and seeing it in person first. To sell more cars they need to branch outside of the earlier adopters to regular people and physical locations are important for this outreach. My mother is one of these people. She's an older, conservative car buyer. She likes my Tesla and can afford it but there is not a single Tesla service center or retail store in her whole state and she won't buy one until there is.

It's possible this decision turns out to be correct, but I would have been happier if before making a decision like this, Tesla spent time trying to test the hypothesis first and prove that it works allowing them to make an informed decision before rushing in like this. This is not a small change that Tesla will be able to rollback in a month if the hypothesis they have doesn't hold. (Like they have arguable done several times recently with pricing and configuration tweaks)

I welcome thoughtful replies debunking these arguments.

When you are ready to buy, or thinking of buying, you make a trip to Tesla gallery to sit in one, adjust mirrors play with console check out the trunk. Once you buy, you have 7 days or 1000 miles to confirm that you made the right decision.

In my mind this is an upgrade from ICE dealer buying experience.

 

[EVNow]

probably a lot more other original reservations waiting for SR did the same thing.
assuming maybe 100k did the same, that's $250m of cash from the 2.5k paid to order

hoping they make surprise .01 profit in q1

You are not saying profit because of that $250k deposit, right. That is not a P&L figure.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Totally. I'm going to be ordering FSD as soon as I get a chance. One quibble though, that 3k does have the cost of the new computer baked into it so it's not all profit.

Oh crap. Unless the plan was to upgrade them all anyway at some point (they need safety data and report it quarterly which is how we eventually get FSD). Plus, I can't see it costing that much to do - it's plug and play install while boards are cheap to make.