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

[Smokey4141]

"Volunteer" within a company typically means they're voluntarily taking on responsibilities in a section they don't usually work in, not that they're unpaid. I've had time periods where "volunteers" were requested in that capacity at every company I've worked for since graduating college.

Your claim about closing stores is assuming the most bearish of assumptions is correct and then trying to square that with what the company is now saying. If the conclusion doesn't make sense, that implies (at least) one of those is incorrect.

Fair point.. I read voluntary as un-paid, but I can see how it could certainly be the way you described it...

But I didn't "claim" they closed stores, it happened....And then it was quickly reversed - although a few locations were actually closed and others are in the process of closing... Pretty sure those are facts, not "claims"...

But agree with you on ONE of those things not making sense and is probably incorrect... I'm guessing we have different things that we think are not correct, but agree with your statement... ONE of those is wrong...

 

[jerry33]

"Volunteer" within a company typically means they're voluntarily taking on responsibilities in a section they don't usually work in, not that they're unpaid. I've had time periods where "volunteers" were requested in that capacity at every company I've worked for since graduating college.

With the exception of charity work. No pay for that kind of volunteering.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Fair point.. I read voluntary as un-paid, but I can see how it could certainly be the way you described it...

But I didn't "claim" they closed stores, it happened....And then it was quickly reversed - although a few locations were actually closed and others are in the process of closing... Pretty sure those are facts, not "claims"...

But agree with you on ONE of those things not making sense and is probably incorrect... I'm guessing we have different things that we think are not correct, but agree with your statement... ONE of those is wrong...

The claim I was referring to was the reason you gave for them closing stores(slowing sales), not that they were closing stores.

 

[Artful Dodger]

they are still shipping overseas so in that regard they don't seem to care about having "too many" vehicles in transit,

I think you're misinterpreting this. Today's report on shipping was of a car carrier arriving in Zeebruge. No shipments have left San Francisco since about Mar 3rd I think (@KarenRei and others track the shipments in detail).

Tesla is clearly managing inventory each quarter with Int'l production at the beginning and delivery before the end of that quarter. Today's BI story that Telsa has a goal of 30K additional USA deliveries before the end of Q1 further reinforces that pattern.

Cheers!

 

[Electroman]

As before, refers to a Snippified post - Mod

You are either trolling, or think that people in this forum are stupid.

No wonder most of what you post gets a cold reception here.

 

[pnungesser]

This should be useful for some good data mining on VIN assignment to Production date:

Model 3 VINs‏ Mar 6
#Tesla registered 6,747 new #Model3 VINs. ~32% estimated to be dual motor. ~56% estimated to be International. Highest VIN is 323380.

Ship watchers, please remind me when the last shipload of Tesla vehicles departed San Francisco? Seems they must have built about 3,478 Model 3's between those two dates. So this might tell us something about production rates as well.

Cheers!

Last ship was the Asian King, left on the 10th and scheduled to arrive in China on the 24th.

 

[EVNow]

Sounds to me like the best way to proceed is to try to make life difficult for anyone in the legislature standing against you. Approach anyone who would be running against them with the idea for attack ads decrying Republicans as communist for their support of a ban on American-made products(even without mentioning exactly what products they're talking about). And for Democrats, a mix of that and supporting fossil fuels over clean energy. Everyone has enemies; play their enemies against them.

Yes … but ...
- Most seats are simply not competitive
- Primary challengers won't have the money

Unless you can become a very powerful lobby (NRA, AIPAC etc) - its far more practical to win over rather than oppose. But in the case of dealers (or say real estate) it is even more difficult because most of the dealers would have built decades of personal relationships with politicians.

 

[lklundin]

Same... as nice as that would be that is an insane number of cars to be trying to deliver in 2 weeks. They had ~90k deliveries last quarter, so this would require them to deliver cars a bit more than twice as fast over the next two weeks as they averaged last quarter. Given ships are still arriving I have to think this is worldwide.

One anecdotal data point in support of hectic delivery pace,
Teslavangelist on Twitter

I am unsure if "Autopilot firmware intern" is good or bad, but it does sound fast and cheap.

 

[Artful Dodger]

WTF with the headlines? Why couldn’t they say “Battery Startups are Raising Millions to Enter The Huge EV Market Pionerred by Tesla”?
Battery start-ups are raising millions in the battle to crush Tesla

Of course the word “crush” appears nowhere in the article. In fact the article body talks about how difficult it will be and how long it will take to improve battery technology.

The obvious glaring mistake in that headline is the word "millions".

Wallstreet is spending "BILLIONS" (per day sometimes) just in an attempt to hold Tesla back.

Of course, it's not working because Tesla needs Wallstreet the same way a fish needs a bicycle. (shout out to @KarenRei who may be the quickest one to notice the oblique ref)

Cheers!

 

[Doggydogworld]

At least the Bloomberg tracker is showing 2018 VINs reused in 2019 production:

Tesla Model 3 tracker​

See the "Tesla spotted VINs" graph, it has low VIN dots in the 2019 interval as well.

Is the Bloomberg tracker's visualization, or my interpretation of that, wrong?

I don't know if those low VIN dots are demos/loaners or what. If anyone gets assigned a 2019 VIN with a sub-150k sequence number I'd love to hear about it.

 

[lklundin]

I'm skeptical about the 30k "more" number - unless most of these are in EU/China.

It is possible that out of 30k, 20k+ are in EU/China (including ones still on ships). A lot of those will remain undelivered. In US, where it is actually possible to have employees volunteer in large numbers, but only in CA - are they delivering SR/SR+ ? Not sure they have made so many of those.

If it is generally accepted that Tesla's does its best to deliver a car in the quarter it was produced, then we should expect them to place the cut off date for the last export shipment such that they have a reasonable expectation that this last shipment will be delivered within the quarter.

Conversely, it would make little sense if Tesla reasoned: "OK, we can be pretty certain to deliver every car shipped X days prior to the quarter's end, so let's continue shipping for e.g. 5 days after X".

So barring hold ups like the Chinese labeling mistake, I expect Tesla to end the quarter with a pretty low overseas' inventory.

PS. German ordering page still says "March delivery" for a Model 3 in various configurations, I have to wonder if Tesla can really state that in good faith...

 

[Duffer]

The obvious glaring mistake in that headline is the word "millions".

Wallstreet is spending "BILLIONS" (per day sometimes) just in an attempt to hold Tesla back.

Of course, it's not working because Tesla needs Wallstreet the same way a fish needs a bicycle. (shout out to @KarenRei who may be the quickest one to notice the oblique ref)

Cheers!

It's already been determined that @KarenRei is AI. Though based on user name presumably identifies as female. However, I don't think the reference actually applies.

 

[Cobos]

The obvious glaring mistake in that headline is the word "millions".

Wallstreet is spending "BILLIONS" (per day sometimes) just in an attempt to hold Tesla back.

Of course, it's not working because Tesla needs Wallstreet the same way a fish needs a bicycle. (shout out to @KarenRei who may be the quickest one to notice the oblique ref)

Cheers!

Another big point is if the investors are investing millions with an M they are powering up a R&D lab not a gigafactory. Millions might buy you a kilofactory if you are lucky... So yes in 15 years they might crush 2014 Tesla. Of course they will then fight 2033 Tesla which is probably a quite different deal.

 

[lklundin]

Dunno. Perhaps ask BMW how they did with 3 Series sales beginning on Apr 1, 2016?

Cheers!

Another anecdotal data point(s): Three colleagues here in greater Munich have each gotten amazing discounts on BMW ICE leases. The third one to negotiate a lease specifically asked for a quote on an i3 lease. Didn't even get an answer.

From this I am guessing that BMW resort to the highly discounted lease contracts for their ICEs because demand for these vehicles has dropped, while they are able to actually sell every i3 that they can produce.

Fire away...

 

[AndyH]

EM said in MY reveal, like GF makes half of all batteries worldwide. Add the Panasonic 2170's from Japan and maybe CATL for china and that could make it 60% of worldwide. Now this is for all products.

So just for EV's it could be even higher like 65-70%. ...

Elon was referring only to EV battery packs and that's probably excluding packs used in busses and lorries. Tesla has about 35gwh at Giga 1 and 8gwh from Japan right now. Total world production is around 150gwh now. Still mighty impressive and in a couple of years Tesla might be doing 150gwh out of Giga 1 alone.

 

[EVNow]

If it is generally accepted that Tesla's does its best to deliver a car in the quarter it was produced, then we should expect them to place the cut off date for the last export shipment such that they have a reasonable expectation that this last shipment will be delivered within the quarter.

Conversely, it would make little sense if Tesla reasoned: "OK, we can be pretty certain to deliver every car shipped X days prior to the quarter's end, so let's continue shipping for e.g. 5 days after X".

So barring hold ups like the Chinese labeling mistake, I expect Tesla to end the quarter with a pretty low overseas' inventory.

PS. German ordering page still says "March delivery" for a Model 3 in various configurations, I have to wonder if Tesla can really state that in good faith...

But Tesla said they expect large number of in-transit vehicles. Also, there are certain number of cars made with China/EU spec that need to be shipped, whether made before the cut-off date or after. Someone noted a few hundred cars are now at the pier waiting for a ship, for eg.

The reasons for difference between shipped so that it can be delivered vs what is actually delivered could be
- Delivery hell. Takes more time to deliver than expected.
- Took more time to manufacture, load & ship than planned.

Also, if Tesla thinks they can't deliver all the cars they make after the cut-off date in US, they could continue making some cars for overseas shipment.

 

[heltok]

One anecdotal data point in support of hectic delivery pace,
Teslavangelist on Twitter

I am unsure if "Autopilot firmware intern" is good or bad, but it does sound fast and cheap.

This story warms my heart!

I used to develop self driving car firmware. Sometimes I would be tasked to test drive our functionality. Not super happy to be a common driver when I wanted to be a fancy coder, especially in the winter with frequent stops to check the hardware outside. But I got to know the products better and to understand the task more than just looking at pictures and scans. Doing two weeks of deliveries to happy customers each year would not be too bad imo. And as an intern at a very attractive company this seems a small sacrifice to get goodwill and for the companyu to reinforce the mission into the workers.

From this story my own speculation is that Tesla suddenly has a surplus of SR/SR+ that needs delivery in California.

 

[VValleyEV]

Another big point is if the investors are investing millions with an M they are powering up a R&D lab not a gigafactory. Millions might buy you a kilofactory if you are lucky... So yes in 15 years they might crush 2014 Tesla. Of course they will then fight 2033 Tesla which is probably a quite different deal.

Yup the use of “millions of dollars” is kinda laughable, reminds me of an old joke from an Austin Powers movie.

To be fair, the company they highlighted just raised some more cash, bringing their total funding to $350M, which is still likely way too small for tacking EV battery design and manufacture, let alone to “crush” anyone.

 

[EVNow]

Of course, it's not working because Tesla needs Wallstreet the same way a fish needs a bicycle. (shout out to @KarenRei who may be the quickest one to notice the oblique ref)

What reference is that ?

'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle' - the meaning and origin of this phrase

Original reference apparently is an old philosophical work - "A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle"

 

[Artful Dodger]

It's already been determined that @KarenRei is AI. Though based on user name presumably identifies as female. However, I don't think the reference actually applies.

Hah, she posted her photo taken at a Tesla showroom during a recent trip to the US. Very human, with very real intelligence. Not the artificial kind.

Cheers!