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

[Buckminster]

The Model 3 is not fungible, not a commodity, it's a unique product with no substitute.

At the moment that is true. However, one of the many reasons that I like about Tesla is that it is leading the commoditisation of transport rather than waiting to be disrupted by cheap Chinese autos. The Model 3 is an almost perfect taxi. Tesla have stripped out all necessary luxuries that a BMW buyer would pay handsomely for. You are left with the place that you want to be for a 20 minute journey somewhere - nothing more, nothing less. It's becoming unbeatable in this arena and all of the decisions around Tesla seem to stem from it.

 

[sweter]

Their staff at Zeebrugge probably shouldn't have updated the car with a brand new firmware version right before delivery - but they were already delayed and wanted to cut corners to rush things I guess.

Should they have left that to customers and let them immobilize their brand new cars?

 

[lklundin]

I can't tell if this guy is just parodying a moron (Mark Spiegel) or...

The pressure of having lost so much from his already tiny investment fund could have made Mark BS schizophrenic so what we are seeing here is the conflicted part of him that wishes he was long.

 

[schonelucht]

Belgian media is reporting that Elon Musk was scheduled to visit the first deliveries of Model 3 in Belgium but that the visit was cancelled at the last minute. Possibly a new chance tonight in nearby Tilburg. Anyone has a premium filght tracking account to verify his jet?

 

[Mark's Beagle]

• By all means Tesla is a supplier of a unique product with no equivalent substitute product available on the market. Their main competitors are Tesla's own products. Regular supply/demand economics do NOT apply. For Tesla price reduction/increases are primarily not tools to manage demand in terms of finding demand for supply while trying to stay competitive with competitors, but to extract either the maximum amount of profit margin, or to drive the highest revenue - whichever their goal is currently.

Oh good grief.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Belgian media is reporting that Elon Musk was scheduled to visit the first deliveries of Model 3 in Belgium but that the visit was cancelled at the last minute. Possibly a new chance tonight in nearby Tilburg. Anyone has a premium filght tracking account to verify his jet?

Just look for the guy in a red suit flying in a sleigh with nine reindeer out front.

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Oh good grief.

Well...tell me then. What other vehicle is providing electric drive train with similar range, autopilot like functions, similar performance, etc. with sales numbers that are even close?

Dan

 

[lklundin]

OT

Tusk has today broken a perfectly set up finale to the Brexit debacle. We were going to play chicken with one another, but everything was probably going to be okay. Now....

The right:
Tusk's 'Brexiteers can go to hell' comment just proves why we need to leave

In order to fairly debate this, it's required to know what Tusk actually tweeted:

"I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely."

Donald Tusk on Twitter

(Trust "The Sun" to mislead the public about the EU and the Brexit).

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Belgian media is reporting that Elon Musk was scheduled to visit the first deliveries of Model 3 in Belgium but that the visit was cancelled at the last minute. Possibly a new chance tonight in nearby Tilburg. Anyone has a premium filght tracking account to verify his jet?

His jet was scheduled to fly home from San Jose a few hours ago. I think he’s probably at home.

 

[KarenRei]

Glovis Courage arrived at SFO earlier today - drifting around offshore waiting for a chance to dock.

GLOVIS COURAGE Current position (Vehicles Carrier, IMO 9651101) - VesselFinder

As I wrote previously... hopefully this one will be going to China. This will be their last chance (along with the Glovis Symphony and Morning Cindy, already en route) to get cars to China before the end of the pause in the trade war, if no solution is reached.

 

[Mark's Beagle]

Well...tell me then. What other vehicle is providing electric drive train with similar range, autopilot like functions, similar performance, etc. with sales numbers that are even close?

Dan

Like everyone days, Tesla's competition is ICE cars.

In any case, regular economics indeed do apply to Tesla.

 

[WarpedOne]

Like everyone days, Tesla's competition is ICE cars.

Exactly, no competition really, only matter of time because transition is one way only ICE => EV

 

[UncaNed]

Most won’t care, but if talking to a nerd add “helps scale up the battery industry, which brings down the cost of storage and makes coal uncompetitive against renewables”. Sustainable transportation and sustainable energy have a ying yang thing going.

THAT was my motivator for buying a car an order of magnitude costlier than I ever planned to.

 

[Toumal]

Like everyone days, Tesla's competition is ICE cars.

In any case, regular economics indeed do apply to Tesla.

That did not answer his question. And while it is true that ICE cars were once competing with horse carriages, that was not really a competition but a transition. We're in the midst of a transition away from ICE, so the actual competition isn't other ICE vehicles.

Regular economics do indeed apply. But if you have half a million customers lining up to reserve a product sight unseen, and 20.000 european customers signing the deal without having driven the car they're purchasing, that's an iPhone moment to me. And we all know what happened to the Blackberrys and Nokias of the world. Regular economics did apply. Their market simply ceased to exist.

 

[Fact Checking]

Like everyone days, Tesla's competition is ICE cars.

Tesla is in a special type of market scenario:

• Tesla is cannibalizing ICE markets - which are mostly commodity markets were ICE cars are easy substitutes for each other, even in the luxury segment.
• But you will not be able to cite a single example of an ICE car model that is attracting former Tesla buyers in any meaningful percentage.
• Tesla customer retention rates are very high - pretty much the main scenario when Tesla owners go back to ICE cars is when their circumstances change and they aren't able to afford to have a Tesla anymore.

Which results in a one-way cannibalization of ICE sales by Tesla and in this kind of growth:

In any case, regular economics indeed do apply to Tesla.

Of course, the regular economics of products without substitutes applied to Apple's iPhone for about 10 years, and it applies to Tesla cars as well.

The overwhelming majority of ICE cars are not such products though (they are commodity products), which is where your confusion originates from.

 

[Baumisch]

Is the news about Daimler talking to Tesla about e Sprinter already picked up in US media?
CEO Zetsche confirmed the talks with Tesla in today.

 

[bhtooefr]

...tbh that graph separating the Prius PHV from the Prime is awkward, as the Prime is just the second-gen PHV in other markets. But that ultimately doesn't diminish from the point about Model 3 growth.

 

[AlMc]

No neroden for the past week - hope he is okay.

Agree that I hope he is OK...BUT, it will take him at least another week to read through all the posts. Most, including this one, just create a higher N/S ratio unfortunately. This thread is getting almost unreadable.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Like everyone days, Tesla's competition is ICE cars.

In any case, regular economics indeed do apply to Tesla.

OK, just for giggles, please name the cars you feel competes with the Model 3. Even the ICE cars are falling to it's sales numbers. So, let's hear 'em.

Dan

 

[colettimj]

So much pontificating, typing forever over a price drop of $1100. The guy literally just said in the earnings call that he wants the price to be more affordable to everyone.

It’s his main mission. To get everyone off fossil fuels. To do that everyone needs to be able to afford an EV. So many folks want to tell him how to run his business. Every fiber of the guy is to reduce the price. Keeping the company going is secondary.

How is that simple plan not acceptable to so many folks?

It seems that almost everyone keeps viewing Tesla through the same lens as they do 'traditional' car manufacturers. I don't follow the car industry but I'm guessing that GM dropping the price of a line of cars, in the middle of a "model year" would not be a good sign (?). Time (i.e. the next few earnings reports) will tell if Tesla is able to maintain margins with the US price drop.