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

[ajax]

Because being CFO of a 50B+ public company requires experience and expertise. It's a job that's equal to the CEO.

This guy was promoted to VP of Finance two months ago.

He has less than 10 years of work experience.

He's 31 years-old.

While I strongly disagree with your premise that his age is an issue, he's actually ~34 years old according to his marriage announcement last year in the New York Times.

I think his already long tenure gives him deep insight into Tesla's operations and is a huge asset that an external hire wouldn't have.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Service improvements done via App and automatically service is called when a fault in the car is detected.
Parts distribution will be better: SCs will have all common parts. Idea to have service done in 20 minutes....

He's chasing Red Herring. Communication is broken, and Elon keeps talking about his unrelated pet ideas that mostly already work well. Enhancing them will help on the margin, but it won't fix massive communication issues that are prevalent today. And it's not only service: all touch points are compromised (CS, Sales). When you get to people they're usually great, but system is poorly setup, black holes of missed communication, lost tickets, delayed answers, lack of info about status of the car, poor processes etc...

They actually have no clue why they have a problem, and are not listening. This is a symptom, like just recently realizing that they don't have good geographic coverage for US, of which @neroden has complained for years. It's very unfortunate that I recognize this sort of blindness from my own experience and I know it's not easy for Teska execs. While it may look trivial to us, sometimes it's much, much harder understanding the problem from the inside of the company, because of the avalanche of data one is exposed to.

We see anecdotes, and while usually unhelpful, they sometimes may the the right tool to communicate nature of the problem to executives. For example, no one is returning my call in order to sell me the car. No app is gonna help with that. If anyone has ear of the Tesla management (@bonnie), it's important we tell them what Elon described is not a solution. Someone needs to answer phones, and be able to follow up, and it seems that people in Tesla are in their own quagmire of poor process/systems implementation.

I'm gravely concerned: Seriously thinking about going down to only 50% TSLA. This is first time I've thought like this since early 2015
@tinm has similar post, just two posts above:
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable

 

[Singuy]

He's chasing Red Herring. Communication is broken, and Elon keeps talking about his unrelated pet ideas that mostly already work well. Enhancing them will help on the margin, but it won't fix massive communication issues that are prevalent today. And it's not only service: all touch points are compromised (CS, Sales). When you get to people they're usually great, but system is poorly setup, black holes of missed communication, lost tickets, delayed answers, lack of info about status of the car, poor processes etc...

They actually have no clue why they have a problem, and are not listening. This is a symptom, like just recently realizing that they don't have good geographic coverage for US, of which @neroden has complained for years. It's very unfortunate that I recognize this sort of blindness from my own experience and I know it's not easy for Teska execs. While it may look trivial to us, sometimes it's much, much harder understanding the problem from the inside of the company, because of the avalanche of data one is exposed to.

We see anecdotes, and while usually unhelpful, they sometimes may the the right tool to communicate nature of the problem to executives. For example, no one is returning my call in order to sell me the car. No app is gonna help with that. If anyone has ear of the Tesla management (@bonnie), it's important we tell them what Elon described is not a solution. Someone needs to answer phones, and be able to follow up, and it seems that people in Tesla are in their own quagmire of poor process/systems implementation.

I'm gravely concerned: Seriously thinking about going down to only 50% TSLA. This is first time I've thought like this since early 2015

You sure this is not specific service center related issue that just require adequate staffing/training? My service center in Central FL has been great. Picks up phone calls every time, contacted me with updates, and addressed all my issues in a similar fashion as the Jaguar dealer I used to go to and the Infiniti dealer.

 

[SpudLime]

Don't fall for it. I haven't even been on here a year and its been the same for each ER. Don't get sucked in because the market is jumping due to the fed cooling off on interest rate hikes.

The FUD community has already written the articles they will release as soon as the ER is over. Most were written by last week.

Fully expect Elon and crew to announce respectable earning, maybe a couple cool updates for product status. Stock will rise and then the whiplash from the FUD articles pointing out anything they can to make the ER look bad.

So. same old same old volatility. Plan accordingly.

Et tu brute?

 

[VValleyEV]

Third bassist here. In fact my amp and case are in the car right now. Just came from practice. Live gig on Sunday.

 

[EVNow]

The big difference in profit seems to be "Net income (loss) attributable to noncontrolling interests and redeemable noncontrolling interests"

What is that?


View attachment 373287

Some kind of subsidiary/JV that Tesla doesn't have a controlling interest in ?

 

[sundaymorning]

TamBOOOrino.

TamBONErino.

 

[Bobfitz1]

He talks about improving mobile service; they already work well; problems are that there are black holes in Tesla's internal communication systems, incidents being dropped, calls not being returned, no one knows where cars is or what status is or how to work the process. Once you get to work with people, they're usually very good, that doesn't need improvements...
He's solving for the wrong problem. AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHAHNAHAHAH TRULLLY ANNNNOOYYYEEDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really? Tesla is going to give Improving service #1 priority and NOT improve the lousy communications at the root of most of the complaints?

 

[sundaymorning]

Foolish for him to laugh.

Waymo is operating an autonomous taxi service in 3 US cities right now. They're launching their first EU city in February.

Why does the "million cars with data" advantage matter if Waymo already has enough data to operate?

Reminder: Waymo is a Alphabet/Google company. Tesla is competing with the #1 AI company in the world, who has things like:

• The world's first AI to win at Go
• Recaptcha for object recognition training (ever see an image and asked "identify the cross walks"?)
• Google Maps for navigation data
• Android for location and real-time traffic data
• Ridiculous access to capital

Geofence is easier to launch in a smaller city, take it out of its geographic map and the car is blind as a bat. Good luck making billions in a small city.

Waymo has spent billions trying to produce autonomous with little to show except ability to drive in a pre-mapped area. Multiply that with 100,000 cities means Waymo needs $100 trillion to make it work in every city.

At this rate, Waymo would BK before reaching 1,000 cities.

 

[humbaba]

Really? Tesla is going to give Improving service #1 priority and NOT improve the lousy communications at the root of most of the complaints?

I think the biggest issue is that the question people wanted to ask was about "plans for improving communication", but the question they actually asked was "plans for improving customer service." Which @KarenRei already noted, but has been lost in the sands of time.

Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer.

Honestly, I thought the shareholder questions were embarrassing. Then the analysts opened their mouths. I listened to the last earnings call as well so I should not have been surprised, but d*mn!

Most of the questions were indirect: what they really wanted was to say, "since demand is gone, you're going bankwupt." They didn't like the answers they got either. Probably even less than the folks here liked the answer to the customer service question. My favorites being the ones where the answer was, "We will not answer that." Yeah, I'd like to know their cost for the cells and packs, too. But is anyone asking Audi about their battery pricing for the e-Tron? And, if they got such a question, would they answer?

 

[humbaba]

Geofence is easier to launch in a smaller city, take it out of its geographic map and the car is blind as a bat. Good luck making billions in a small city.

Waymo has spent billions trying to produce autonomous with little to show except ability to almost drive in a pre-mapped area. Multiply that with 100,000 cities means Waymo needs $100 trillion to make it work in every city.

At this rate, Waymo would BK before reaching 1,000 cities.

FTFY. Waymo is a joke -- it isn't just that it is geofenced. It isn't just that within the geofence it is restricted to a couple of predefined routes. It isn't just that the routes only allow a few, predefined stops. It isn't just that the routes are worked out so no left turns are attempted. It isn't just that they randomly brake for no reason. It isn't just that they sometimes refuse to move when they should.

Even with all of that they still have disengagements requiring intervention from the "safety driver"!

 

[farzyness]

Mystery of slow repair parts problem solved: they were warehousing parts regionally and not in service centers, with an apparently slow transit from warehouse to service centers. I assumed they had a mix of that already, but I presume this announcement that they're going to now stock in service centers means that logistics on that is improving. I bet there was a saboteur who took control of that position for a long time; Tesla finally excising that error will be a windfall in repair satisfaction.

Also, Audi e-Tron and Jaguar i-Pace (awful names! I'm guessing the next car is going to be the a-Yam or something) have interior ride quality (comfort of seats, materials, sound insulation, softer ride) which some of the market will prefer, which I'm hoping will spur Tesla into not staying in the rough and uncomfortable niche during redesigns for Model S & X, which should have a positive effect in several years.

I'm disappointed by the Energy division not developing streamlined high profit margin high volume sales much more than they have. I've known of ways to improve some aspects of that for years, yet I don't even see them doing that yet. Anyway, they are plodding along in that business, improving it as they go.

No sabotage - just incompetence.

 

[BornToFly]

Tesla could recruit any CFO in the world. Why did they choose this guy?

Probably because he is a million times smarter than you....

 

[kyzhk]

Probably because he is a million times smarter than you....

Let's not pretend that the shorts would be quiet had Tesla chosen any other person.

It doesn't really matter to them, they always question the choice no matter who is chosen.

 

[TNEVol]

I'm

No. How about something like "We're going to use ZenDesk" to manage customer communications? Or "we're building an internal system to make sure customer communications are streamlined?

I can only assume you have 0 experiences interacting with Tesla customer communications. Because pretty much everyone who ever has understands the problem.

I haven't had any communication problems in over 5 years and 2 cars. Is there a possibility that there is a bias toward reporting problems. I guess I would also be POed if i had some of the communication issues some of you have had. I did have to wait a couple of months for a door damaged in an accident and they wouldn't sell me a simple brake part to do my own repairs for $50 versus $500 but not communications for me.

 

[lascavarian]

Elon: "Current [parts] system is pretty boneheaded." "It's gonna get way better."

Service parts are hard to do well and can be very expensive. Parts problems tend to be symptomatic of management problems.

There needs to be a name attached to fixing service if there is to be confidence of a real fix as I see it. This person would be nice to hear from on the next quarterly call.

Further, if you have parts problems then there is usually a communications problem in the sense of a lack of feedback. A good survey of recent service events where parts were used would be revealing.

 

[sparcs]

Didn't all the shorts say that Q3 was a one time profit?

game over

 

[BioSehnsucht]

This is really bizarre. 80% of buyers lease an EV. Tesla just said S and X leases only account for low 20%. That's a huge difference, especially on such a high priced car where leases are more desirable. I guess the residue value of the S and X holds so strong that it makes them terrible lease cars?

Most EV Drivers Choose To Lease Instead Of Buy | CleanTechnica

I would interpret that as being most non-Tesla buyers realize the non-Tesla EV they're buying is kinda garbage and they don't want to be stuck with it in 3 years. Look at all those Leafs with terrible battery degradation for example.

 

[ZachShahan]

You on the call today Zach?

Sorry for the delay.
No.

... except to be introduced as the new CFO.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

This is really bizarre. 80% of buyers lease an EV. Tesla just said S and X leases only account for low 20%. That's a huge difference, especially on such a high priced car where leases are more desirable. I guess the residue value of the S and X holds so strong that it makes them terrible lease cars?

Most EV Drivers Choose To Lease Instead Of Buy | CleanTechnica

Can’t speak for others, but I leased my old LEAF back in 2012 and bought my S outright. I leased the LEAF because I saw glaring problems with it(still worked for me then but...) so I didn’t want to tie myself to the car. With the S, there was no such worry. I was happy with the car as-is and sure I would remain so.