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

[secondstage]

Could that be because TESLA is switching to HW3 and won't be paying much to NVDA ?

No, automotive revenue from NVDA is less then 10%. Because the crypto hype is over the graphic card sale price decreased. This hurts

 

[1101011]

No,OEMs favor pouch cells because they are run by mechanical engineers.
Mechanical engineers have a bias toward the least number of parts.
They see 250 pouch cells or 7000 cylinder cells, they will choose the 250 part option.
Lowering the number of parts in a car has been key to cost reductions.

Those same mechanical engineers must just go wild running from ICE to EV. Why wait?

 

[avoigt]

Well, that's the thing.. I totally want to believe the awesome German demand and all the arguments presented are very convincing. But at 18k deliveries in Q1 and 10k of them going to Germany, how could I still be able to order the car anywhere in Europe and get promised a March delivery? Are we missing some ships?

Agree. Numbers do not add up or maybe we jump to wrong conclusion/assumptions.

To answer your question, yes we definitely did miss some ships because Tesla did deliver 3s to Europe a few days ago mainly for test drives and showrooms which did not arrive with the Glovis ships some here are tracking. I do not believe that they have been flying them in, thats expensive and they likely did have planned it well ahead.

A share of 10k from the potential 18k arriving to go to Germany would not make sense for me either. Germany has never been prioritized in the past likely because of weak demand for the S and X versus e.g. Norway.

The only option I see is that the hours produced reduction and eliminating one shift for the S and X base model resulted in more capacity for the 3 production which would go along with the huge amount of VIN registrations we have seen. We obviously know about the Glovis ships but we do not have full overview and maybe much more is shipped and produced than anticipated.

Thats the optimist in me talking.....

 

[traxila]

One thing I don't often see discussed on self driving cars is the enormous value of a 1-2 year first mover advantage.

The first 1-3 million self driving cars on the road are still going to be massively outnumbered by the 30 million+ global taxi fleet. This means there is no incentive to charge less than Uber/Lyft per mile until the global taxi fleet is saturated with self driving cars and competition begins to drive the cost of cars down. In fact many customers would be willing to pay a premium over Uber/Lyft for the novelty, increased safety, and premium Tesla passenger experience.
If Tesla switches on 1 million self driving cars and is first to market, each of those cars could potentially generate over $200k cash flow per year (after electricity, service, cleaning costs etc) until the market starts to get saturated with 3 million+ self driving cars. Even when other companies deliver self driving technology, it is going to take a long time to get a global fleet of enough numbers to put the entire global taxi industry out of business. Almost all Tesla owners will be persuaded to send their $40-60k cars to work for Tesla's fleet for $30-50k annual profit. It doesn't make business sense for Tesla to give its customers a larger share of the profit than it needs to to persuade everyone to send their cars to work. So I can see Tesla keeping $150k cash flow per car and its 1 million self driving car fleet making Tesla $150bn cash flow in year one.

I have FSD on my Model 3. Purchased it happily. I know at some point it will be worth it. My car still will not drive itself.
Kind of tired of everyone talking about it honestly.

I am now of the opinion that autonomous driving is at least ten years away. Let us hope that does not become a nuclear fusion like target, which has been twenty years away since 1950.

 

[JRP3]

Looks ugly for the market in general this morning.

 

[Krugerrand]

China Gigafactory building site flyover. That's at least the third Tesla related video from this channel with only 126 subscriptions... Subscribed!

See! Potemkin Village!!! Moving dirt and building not a crop circles, planting flags, dropping down some empty cardboard boxes with fake window and door openings, guys in dark uniforms standing around kicking at dirt. Tesla spending fake Chinese money from their made up Chinese bank loan on nothing more than theatrics moving at a snails pace. Double down amigos!

 

[Starno]

Looks ugly for the market in general this morning.

I think this year is going to be a very volatile year (more than usual..). So be prepared to experience tons of good days/bad days without a good understanding of what's really happening.
Global economical growth is going to slow down, investors are going to be wary.

But I also expect a historical high this year as well (for US markets at least).

 

[Starno]

I can already see the headlines after ER on Wednesday :

" Tesla profits fall by X% on Q4" ...

 

[Chickenlittle]

I have FSD on my Model 3. Purchased it happily. I know at some point it will be worth it. My car still will not drive itself.
Kind of tired of everyone talking about it honestly.

I am now of the opinion that autonomous driving is at least ten years away. Let us hope that does not become a nuclear fusion like target, which has been twenty years away since 1950.

It’s not all or nothing. Not an on or off toggle. It will be a gradual transition. Even when achieved there will be continued improvements so assigning 10 yr deadline not realistic.

 

[humbaba]

I doubt any major company is 5+ years ahead of any other with regards to solid state.

Battery scientist move around and talk to each other. No one is that far ahead without word leaking out.

Toyota said in 2018 they are about 5 years away from commercialization of solid state batteries.If they give an update this year I am willing to bet they say they will likely start production in 2024. And next year in 2025.

Last fall I did some research into solid state battery technology and discovered that although there were definitely interesting things being discovered the fundamental issues with solid state remained. I also ran into Toyota's statement where, in response to a question about progress, they stonewalled, only saying "its a ten year plan." I expect on year 9 of the 10 year plan they will still insist on it being "a ten year plan" in response to any question about progress.

In short, Toyota is betting their EV future on solid state and are keeping the poker face to the bitter end. I don't think anyone seriously believes that if they did get a break through they wouldn't start the engineering work to get it into production and start leveraging it. Consider that they brag about any other advance as soon as it becomes feasible to produce. In other words, the only reason to wait for the end of the "ten year plan" is if you don't have anything to show (yet) for your efforts.

Barring an unexpected solid state break through, Toyota will no longer be king of cars in 2025.

 

[EVNow]

On Friday support at 290 was strong. Will it hold today ?

 

[humbaba]

Me - data point of 1 - for example: I have a flat roof. No offer from TE for that

Tesla's roof is not only not offered in my area, but is also prohibitively expensive. In the meantime, my utility is trying to convince homeowners to allow them to install solar for the utility's profit. It of course isn't quite couched in those terms, but the only thing they are really offering is no up front cost for solar and a slight rate decrease. I believe they are trying to get ahead of people becoming fairly independent from the utility.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Looks ugly for the market in general this morning.

Like almost every earnings report lots of volatility and large drops pre report. Would I trade on that—no but will set up to buy shares if it drops enough. Don’t bother asking me what is enough. Short term options too expensive for my tastes and even with some reports I considered great (like 2018 q3) market manipulation can be unpredictable

 

[Dan Detweiler]

See! Potemkin Village!!! Moving dirt and building not a crop circles, planting flags, dropping down some empty cardboard boxes with fake window and door openings, guys in dark uniforms standing around kicking at dirt. Tesla spending fake Chinese money from their made up Chinese bank loan on nothing more than theatrics moving at a snails pace. Double down amigos!

Wait isn't that Faraday's MO?

Dan

 

[avoigt]

From what I remember the 3k were FTEs and not contractors.

For @MP3Mike who disagreed to my above message.

This is a quote from Elons letter: "As a result of the above, we unfortunately have no choice but to reduce full-time employee headcount by approximately 7% (we grew by 30% last year, which is more than we can support) and retain only the most critical temps and contractors."

7% FTE reduction is slightly above 3k FTEs and yes they are going only to hold most critical contractors but thats a continuous policy from the past.

Company Update

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

I cant believe that investors are so dumb. The most innovative car company on earth, after numerous, constant predictions that they would go bankrupt, is certain to report its second consecutive quarterly profit THIS WEEK, and people are... *selling*.
Its amazing how dumb the market can be.

 

[Krugerrand]

I can already see the headlines after ER on Wednesday :

" Tesla profits fall by X% on Q4" ...

The truth is always funny.

 

[anthonyj]

I cant believe that investors are so dumb. The most innovative car company on earth, after numerous, constant predictions that they would go bankrupt, is certain to report its second consecutive quarterly profit THIS WEEK, and people are... *selling*.
Its amazing how dumb the market can be.

A lot of people are waiting for $250 to jump back in. I don’t see it happening but who knows

 

[humbaba]

I have FSD on my Model 3. Purchased it happily. I know at some point it will be worth it. My car still will not drive itself.
Kind of tired of everyone talking about it honestly.

I am now of the opinion that autonomous driving is at least ten years away. Let us hope that does not become a nuclear fusion like target, which has been twenty years away since 1950.

I'm with you on the "indefinite point in the future" part, but I'm not tired of discussions about it (other than flogging of dead horses).

You had to buy EAP to get FSD so you have access to the beta features there. I've only had two occasions so far to take advantage of them, but it has been helpful (even as beta) and I'm starting to regret not buying FSD so as to qualify for the HW3 upgrade: I expect improvements in computer vision to be beneficial there. Tesla says "not required", not "won't help."

But even if true autonomy is like chasing a rainbow I think autonomous Interstate is feasible in the near future, especially if limited to "near autonomous." Meaning, the car could drive autonomously with complete safety, but would require intervention for non-safety reasons having small occurance.

 

[Krugerrand]

Wait isn't that Faraday's MO?

Dan

Tesla learning from the best.