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

[Prunesquallor]

I think there might be some issues in this regard...
1. Many nuclear reactors are operating at a loss and may close soon... These don't have much of a carbon footprint, but will have to be replaced by NG in the near term, which is fossil fuel and makes things worse.
2. Per @neroden , NG is a byproduct of oil extraction, so when oil consumption goes down and oil companies go bankrupt, naturally there will be less NG available & I think it is not very profitable to just extract NG on its own.
We also use NG for cooking and heating.

So, it seems NG prices will shoot up...we might be able to replace gas ranges with electric and gas heaters with electric heat pumps at home, but powerplants will need to replace NG with something else fast, considering we'll add to our electricity consumption due to less NG at home.

I have heard anecdotally that even NG is being threatened price-wise by renewables. Has anyone seen any reliable info to that effect?

 

[RyanT]

I have heard anecdotally that even NG is being threatened price-wise by renewables. Has anyone seen any reliable info to that effect?

Last time I looked (a couple of years ago) renewable power sources like wind and solar had already taken over for the majority of new power generation. They're predicting the same thing this year. 66% of new electricity coming online is from wind and solar. Planned retirements are coal, natural gas, and nuclear in that order:

New electric generating capacity in 2019 will come from renewables and natural gas - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

[Prunesquallor]

I think there might be some issues in this regard...
1. Many nuclear reactors are operating at a loss and may close soon... These don't have much of a carbon footprint, but will have to be replaced by NG in the near term, which is fossil fuel and makes things worse.
2. Per @neroden , NG is a byproduct of oil extraction, so when oil consumption goes down and oil companies go bankrupt, naturally there will be less NG available & I think it is not very profitable to just extract NG on its own.
We also use NG for cooking and heating.

So, it seems NG prices will shoot up...we might be able to replace gas ranges with electric and gas heaters with electric heat pumps at home, but powerplants will need to replace NG with something else fast, considering we'll add to our electricity consumption due to less NG at home.

There are a lot of hydrocarbons other than gasoline/diesel that are refined from crude. I’m looking for numbers.

 

[BornToFly]

GM says no cut in Chevy Bolt sticker price as U.S. tax credit for EVs drops | Reuters

GM only sold 18,000 Bolts in the entire year last year. I would be surprised if they sell 10,000 of their "Tesla Killers" this year. I have seen a Bolt a couple of times in person, and man is it Ugly and cheap looking!

 

[Dynastar]

GM only sold 18,000 Bolts in the entire year last year. I would be surprised if they sell 10,000 of their "Tesla Killers" this year. I have seen a Bolt a couple of times in person, and man is it Ugly and cheap looking!

I'm curious how cheap the Volts are going to get. My friend who can't quite afford a Tesla yet got a new 2018 Volt last weekend for $19,500 after tax credit. The credit falling off is only going to make things worse.

 

[Johnny Ma]

I think Lex Fridman's tweet about human interaction with autopilot was linked earlier but it would be good if people read the replies:

Lex Fridman on Twitter

I've followed Lex on Twitter for a while and have watched numerous video interviews with him. He says he's objective and I believe it. The tweet certainly makes it sound like there's going to be some positive news regarding autopilot use, but no matter what happens I urge others to not immediately dismiss anything negative that may be reported.

 

[Singuy]

GM only sold 18,000 Bolts in the entire year last year. I would be surprised if they sell 10,000 of their "Tesla Killers" this year. I have seen a Bolt a couple of times in person, and man is it Ugly and cheap looking!

Products like the Bolt and other EVs with massive amount of compromises just drive people who wants EV to buy a Tesla more and more. If you're the only company that takes it seriously..why would you buy from a different brand? Honestly it'll confuse your friend if you ever tell them you bought an Ipace or a Kona EV. People would be like "wtf is that?..oh it's electric, so why not buy a Tesla?".

There was a time when people would question why you didn't buy an iPhone but got a HTC slide or something. Now you can actually have an answer (hence Iphone sales are dropping).

Until you can actually answer this question when asked, Tesla will not have competition.

 

[Menifeer]

I would be surprised if they sell 10,000 of their "Tesla Killers" this year.

Just an update. I understand those charges have been dropped due to a lack of evidence...

 

[Cosmacelf]

Don't know if this has already been posted (I've been reading this thread just sporadically the last few days), but here are some numbers from a couple of bullish analyst reports that came out yesterday and today.

Jefferies and Baird both have Buy ratings and Tesla stock targets in the mid $400's.

Q1 total deliveries and Model 3 deliveries estimates from Jefferies/Baird is 72K/67K and 52K/50K.

Q1 EPS from Baird is 0.07 while Jefferies estimates a $50M EBIT loss.

Q1 revenue estimates are $5.6B/$5.2B

Jefferies estimates $3B in cash end of 1Q.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

GM only sold 18,000 Bolts in the entire year last year. I would be surprised if they sell 10,000 of their "Tesla Killers" this year. I have seen a Bolt a couple of times in person, and man is it Ugly and cheap looking!

I think it makes good sense for them to stick to their guns on price. Both the model 3 and New Leaf ePlus are far better cars. They will drive their sales to zero and have nothing to compete with. Sales are already falling on ICE vehicles and eventually they’ll just do the bankrupt thing again. They’ll go back to the taxpayers, claim that they were victim of unforeseen market forces and will need another twenty billion to fund research and new factories to become viable again. The too big to fail approach will work again and they’ll be back in business for another decade. It makes good business sense. Can’t say i blame them.

 

[mongo]

Feel free to elaborate on these delays.

The first Model 3 shipment left Pier 80 12 days into Q1 so with the transit/loading time between Fremont and the ship, the production must have switched to international variants relatively close to the start of Q1.

Tesla/ Elon said there were issues getting European parts.
First ship left with 2,500 or so cars. That would require less than 3 days to produce and could be loaded simultaneously, so the ship could have left almost a week earlier.

 

[Singuy]

I think it makes good sense for them to stick to their guns on price. Both the model 3 and New Leaf ePlus are far better cars. They will drive their sales to zero and have nothing to compete with. Sales are already falling on ICE vehicles and eventually they’ll just do the bankrupt thing again. They’ll go back to the taxpayers, claim that they were victim of unforeseen market forces and will need another twenty billion to fund research and new factories to become viable again. The too big to fail approach will work again and they’ll be back in business for another decade. It makes good business sense. Can’t say i blame them.

Trump will definitely bail them out and probably put a tariff on lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

 

[Johnny Ma]

Products like the Bolt and other EVs with massive amount of compromises just drive people who wants EV to buy a Tesla more and more. If you're the only company that takes it seriously..why would you buy from a different brand? Honestly it'll confuse your friend if you ever tell them you bought an Ipace or a Kona EV. People would be like "wtf is that?..oh it's electric, so why not buy a Tesla?".

Bolt/Leaf gateway drug to Tesla. Thanks, Nissan and GM!

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

What are the odds these are related? ~$4million in TSLA sold same day as a ~$1million MXWL buy. Could Straubel be the buyer to help tender shares? Or would that be pointless?
http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/69073f5e-55bb-4b7d-b525-5861a7bad21c

 

[ggr]

What are the odds these are related?
http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/69073f5e-55bb-4b7d-b525-5861a7bad21c
View attachment 391364

Perhaps you could be less cryptic?

 

[mongo]

Perhaps you could be less cryptic?

Today, ir had 3 posts on extending the Maxwell acquisition period to the 10th.
TSLA going up pre conversion is a negative for MXWL holders, assuming it goes through.

 

[ggr]

Today, ir had 3 posts on extending the Maxwell acquisition period to the 10th.
TSLA going up pre conversion is a negative for MXWL holders, assuming it goes through.

OK, so what does that have to do with JB's options? And I don't think you're right about it being negative (assuming it goes through at all), since the conversion is based on the previous week's TSLA average price. If the price is going up monotonically, we/they will get TSLA shares at a discount to the market value at the time. Unless the price of TSLA falls below the threshold it would be worse for MXWL holders if the price was going down.

(I'm of the opinion that the takeover will fail, at least at this price. Shareholders seem to be holding out for a better offer.)

 

[defc0n]

Max pain of $270 tomorrow on an options expiry day, and we are close to it already. If I had to guess, tomorrow will be a bit red. Lyft IPO is going to have everyone’s attention.

 

[Antares Nebula]

I'll try to keep my TA comments in the appropriate thread, but just wanted to point out:

Interestingly, this week, TSLA gapped up every day since Tuesday open. That's three gap ups in a row, at 260, 267, and 274 (today). As a result, I sold some of my calls (trading stack) and am hoping to buy back in lower.

But when/if that happens so hard to predict. For example, we can continue to go up into and after the Q1 deliveries report (next week), and be at 300-320, and then get slammed by the SEC thing later. So hard to predict! But mind the gap!!

 

[VValleyEV]

No, you should read the article that came from. And my attached comment that the figure shown was for the efficient EV's like the Model 3.
Here is a quote as to their methodology:
"To compare the climate-changing emissions from electric vehicles to gasoline-powered cars, we analyzed all of the emissions from fueling and driving both types of vehicles. For a gasoline car, that means looking at emissions from extracting crude oil from the ground, getting the oil to a refinery and making gasoline, and transporting gasoline to filling stations, in addition to combustion emissions from the tailpipe."

Oops, sorry, maybe I was half right.

The blue graphic was the one I meant to start with, the article says that is for average EV efficiency, the solid red one was for high efficiency cars like M3.

Good that they took into account emisssions from extracting/refining/transporting, my bad I missed that.

My point remains that this is the best way I have seen to sell the lowered emissions benefits of EVs, because it uses MPG and folks know MPG. Start talking kwh vs gasoline and their eyes glaze over, and they go back to “but the power companies produce just as much emissions, right?”