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

[KarenRei]

This is myopic.

I don't care about profit - I care about the mission. Tesla could be profitable right now if they decided to only sell high margin variants and forgo CapEx on new factories, etc.

Tesla is a growth company at present and will be for the foreseeable future.

I care about Tesla showing strong financials because it insures them against downturns and lets them borrow more money at cheaper rates.

 

[lklundin]

Big battle around $370 today.

Does anybody else feel any unease about all the autonomy talk when Tesla isn't even consistently turning a profit by manufacturing electric cars yet?

It's like we're focusing on B when we haven't done A yet, and A is really a prerequisite for B.

For 370$ per share today you can have all my TSLA...

 

[mekberg]

Tesla is big enough to do two things....

I argue that Tesla is big enough to do 9 things:

1. GF3
2. Introduce lower price variants of Model 3 (e.g. margin improvements)
3. S/X refresh (Raven)
4. Scale up Tesla energy
5. Model Y
6. FSD
7. Semi
8. Roadster 2020
9. Truck (WIP)

 

[Nocturnal]

Ok, so long term question

Regarding the Tesla network and ridesharing. Tesla intends to own their vehicles to do this. How does this look in 5 years? If Tesla network vehicles really are worth $1 a mile and say they last for 200k miles (low estimate), then hurray, we can all make money on our cars.

But individual owners will be competing with Tesla for those rides. If Model 3s really are worth more than their sale price due to ride sharing....wouldn't Tesla keep every vehicle for the network until it reaches the saturation point? Why sell me an SR+ for 40k and make 10k when you can place it in the network and make 170k profit? Telsa would also require a share of our revenue on the network.

On the other hand, Tesla definitely says that they see cars as software platforms, not cars so perhaps the massive revenue on ride sharing using old lease vehicles and trade ins will be sufficient and they will keep making cars for buyers.

Plausible data using today's numbers but we can scale some of these easily to project 3 years from now

• Uber has something like a million drivers in the US (number doesn't really matter here) let's say Lyft has 500k. Taxi cabs may number 300k? The data is fuzzy and I don't feel like doing the extra research. Interestingly the BLS shows 300k total for all cabbies and ride share operators, but that can't be correct.
• Say the US currently has 2 million ride share type vehicles/drivers,
• Being conservative let's say they average 30 hours a week. If autonomous ride sharing is far cheaper that goes up, and over time fewer people will bother owning cars, but that is a cycle that takes several years (5-10?) to really get going as people won't just toss their vehicles until they brake, even if they want to full robo taxi.
• Autonomous vehicles can operate 24/7 basically, but most rides happen during the workday and peak "going out hours".
• So again to be conservative let's say 2 million autonomous vehicles could absorb the current US market for taxis, with some room for growth. Tesla get's half the business.
• 200k model 3s on the road currently in the US. Maybe only half of users are interested in renting their car at all, so 100k ride share vehicles.
• Tesla can currently produce MAYBE 500k a year right now, (doubling when GF2 goes online?) If half go to the US market then even if Tesla kept every single one of those 250k cars to use for the network it would still take years to fully satisfy that demand.

Sure it's more attractive for Tesla to use an old lease car for this, but again, why sell me a car for 45k, heck, let's say FSD price goes to 15k, so why sell me a car for 60k when you can place it in service and make a few hundred grand in profit?

Sorry for the long rambling post as I'm mostly thinking out loud. I'm sure more intelligent people than I have spent a lot of time researching this but I had this epiphany last night.

I’ve been reading twitter threads flowing from tweets by Musk and Cathie Wood on this topic. Quickly concluded that what we think isn’t going to matter much. Joe Average will NOT wrap his head around the concept of an appreciating car - he will have to see it. It runs counter to all that Joe has witnessed during his life as a car owner.

Kudos to Tesla for organising the investor day. It will help. But I won’t be surprised to see FUD articles ridiculing Musk’s car that gains value. They have a ready audience of like-minded people.

I think even the most bullish/tech savvy/forward looking people have no real grasp of what this technology will look like.

If it starts looking like there is even a 50/50 chance of this actually happening in the next few years it would be a pretty good investment to start buying up used or SR Model 3s and starting a little ride share business.

 

[Krugerrand]

Machining and casting what??

Seriously!? You are familiar with S3X, no? Those are castings that hold the motors and gearing and such. Castings, like peanuts, do not grow on trees.

They need to make multiple castings per car at the current run rate of >5k/week...um, lots of machines and space required. Lots.

 

[Mo City]

Not an expert, just my opinion: if 5 years down the road Tesla Network is the only game in town, the stock probably can gain 10 fold, you gain $400k. The car probably can appreciate 20%, you gain $10k, plus the value you get by driving 5 years for free.

I've said for quite some time if Tesla "wins" the autonomy race, it will be a massacre. (For several reasons) I just don't know if the current sensor suite is robust enough, even with HW3.

 

[Krugerrand]

Perhaps. But when the Nvidia hardware started to ship the rhetoric was very clearly stated as "every car comes equipped with HW needed for FSD". They were waaaay overconfident on that.

Irrelevant. The delay is not hardware related. Never has been.

No one is arguing optimism, I simply stated the current two year delay, so many are hanging their hats on for predicting future delay, was because Tesla had to start from scratch when MobileEye decided to be a dick.

 

[Tslynk67]

Keeps banging its head on $272...

 

[Huskyf]

TSLA$ UP to 2% any news like SEC resolution ? Others ?

 

[tinm]

I hope the Apr 22 event will explain this question:

Say I buy a Model 3 and elect to "put it in the Network" so that it can make money as a ride-sharing vehicle.

Question: what happens if/when the FSD makes the 1-in-a-million mistake and does something that causes injury or property damage or worse? Who is responsible? Tesla? Me? The passengers? Say it is a really obvious case: the logs show the driverless car drove, at full speed, straight into an 18-wheeler crossing the road, the car simply didn't see the side of the trailer, and drove under it, passenger dies, etc.

Now scale it up to say 5-10 freak 1-in-a-million (heck, 1-in-a-billion) edge-cases a year, resulting in fatalities or serious injury. Is Tesla going to own this risk? Will individuals putting their car in the Network own the risk? Will Tesla indemnify such owners?

Inquiring minds, etc.

 

[VValleyEV]

I nearly always use 1 on the highway unless conditions are poor. I use 4 on rural 2 lane highways.

After many years of defensive driving, and still getting highly annoyed by tailgaters, I just can’t bring myself to move the “following” number to 1, unless I am in a line of cars in left lane slowly passing stuff on right, and don’t want a tailgater or a spot stealer.

I get it, the number is relative, not absolute, and the AP is still safe at 1 otherwise they wouldn’t offer the 1, yadayada, but I sure like that extra margin of error, especially if I have to take control away from the MuskBorg. So I am generally on 3 or 4, or on really open highways, 7 why not. Sometimes I just twiddle the number to accelerate and decelerate, let it drift back to 5 or 6 when about to pass a semi in lane to right while traffic ahead in my lane is constant speed, then goose it to 1 to rocket past the scary semi and come up closer on the car in front. Maybe just to amuse myself playing. I have had a semi drift across the line into my lane, and that can be quite scary when you have no place to go.

 

[nursebee]

Y'all B CRZY hypothesizing

B bound to b let down

 

[Drax7]

If the car is an appreciating asset, it follows the stock price will also be
An appreciating asset.

 

[RobStark]

I see it most likely as a mix of in-house parts manufacture and Grohmann-style pre-tooling - not per se a car factory itself.

Tesla has two facilities in Lathrop CA.

A Chrysler facility it took over many years ago that is a machining shop and the brand new facility it is currently building.

 

[1101011]

Returning home from the Hudson Valley, I stopped for a charger in @neroden 's backyard at the Painted Post NY supercharger. There we encountered a Model 3 driven by a former SolarCity, now Tesla, systems analyst- happy to talk about his work and the company and the Riverbend Gigafactory.

He is currently tasked with delivery and its paperwork and mostly responsible for that process which is so-o-o much more expedious than it was (even a year ago). He continues to look at ways to make it as painless as possible.

With respect to the Show-n-Tell, he made sure I was aware of the 4/22 event. Said I'd be impressed. Did not say I'd be blown away...

YMMV

 

[winfield100]

I have difficulty with all the talk of an appreciating car. It reminds me of the “think of it like an investment” talk I heard when getting estimates for solar at my house. I won’t be persuaded that way.

@tinm
How about real world example: ?
(my PV system went live on 12/11/2018)
(legal in middle January so i ""gifted"' >1,000kWh to my neighbors the first 30 daze or so)

I make an large excess, that I can use when i get my Tesla, and when i become a node in a VPP when i _finally_ get a powerwall and gateway (virtual power plant),
(note 1,284kWh produced, 291 used [with small NEV], =>March<= not a lot of sun)

i pay $21.69/month to be legal/hook up,
I will upgrade when allowed, to island (hurricanes like Irma, Maria, Michael, Jeanne, Wilma, Charlie, Hazel, Agnes, not Clem tho, i flee that one)

(price of system is ~$2.72/watt, financed zero down, ~$155/month)
(37 microinverters with _almost_ islanding capabilities

TE will be way bigger , so i'm attempting to pre-position to be ready
rolleyes:see investment related!!

(Oh, i love 90 degree plus 19,500 gallon swimming pools!)

 

[Chunky Jr.]

"Is it now? Did they actually get binoculars to see if a human was controlling the steering wheel or not? Because 99.9999% of the time I ever saw a Waymo car (actually I think 100% of the time), it was being driven by the safety driver. It's almost like they have so little faith in their technology they almost never actually let it run."

That's my experience seeing a dozen of so of these a day around my neighborhood. Makes me wonder if they are really focused on self driving, or more into generating data that they can sell to other AV companies

 

[KarenRei]

TSLA$ UP to 2% any news like SEC resolution ? Others ?

The stock is up 2% because TSLA. :Þ

 

[tinm]

@tinm
How about real world example: ?

Sure, there will be cases where things work out great. In our case in New Mexico, our monthly electric bill varies from $60 to $120 depending on how much I charge the Model S. The estimate we received was $55,000 for the solar installation, and more if I wanted a PowerWall of course, and the solar company showed how it would take 15 years to make back the "investment" and start making money. I would rather buy $55,000 more TSLA stock and told the solar company that.

 

[Nocturnal]

I hope the Apr 22 event will explain this question:

Say I buy a Model 3 and elect to "put it in the Network" so that it can make money as a ride-sharing vehicle.

Question: what happens if/when the FSD makes the 1-in-a-million mistake and does something that causes injury or property damage or worse? Who is responsible? Tesla? Me? The passengers? Say it is a really obvious case: the logs show the driverless car drove, at full speed, straight into an 18-wheeler crossing the road, the car simply didn't see the side of the trailer, and drove under it, passenger dies, etc.

Now scale it up to say 5-10 freak 1-in-a-million (heck, 1-in-a-billion) edge-cases a year, resulting in fatalities or serious injury. Is Tesla going to own this risk? Will individuals putting their car in the Network own the risk? Will Tesla indemnify such owners?

Inquiring minds, etc.

Telsa's cut of the ride share revenue will most definitely have to include insurance. I'd also say that if you do this owning the car under a corporation is also ideal for protecting yourself. Barring that a sizable umbrella policy etc. In auto accidents people tend to sue everyone remotely involved, and as the owner, you are on that list. This is especially true until legislation or case law is built up that may or may not put the blame on the software owner.