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

[Beaver]

I was given an AP2 Model S as a loaner, and was wondering what caused the cars to dance on the AP display? Is it lack of processing speed or the radar/sensors?

My 2019 SR+ will sometimes do that. They need to fix it or explain it because with “guests” in the car it looks amateurish.

When driving people are amazed at how much more you can see by quickly glancing at the screen.

 

[Beaver]

OT
Okay, after watching several great vids on YouTube of folks driving Model 3's using Autopilot from the driver's aspect this afternoon, it really made me curious as to what amount of pressure or grip it takes on the steering wheel to satisfy the hand on wheel requirement (s). Would it be possible to 3D print a gripping hand with enough weight in it that one could hang on the bottom of the wheel to make it happy?

Inquiring mind want to know...

I rest my hands on the wheel and it almost never nags me. My resting my hands on the wheel it applies enough downward force.

I have learned that resting just one hand also works. I push the limits and AP on city streets so I have both hands on the wheel so I can take over. The car does amazingly well if there is another car in front so it knows to stop for lights.

 

[TradingInvest]

I got to read this analysis by one of the investors on Autonomy Day...

http://www.hamidshojaee.com/post/184522555004/teslas-autonomy-day-the-stock-short-sellers-and

Great analysis, but entirely focused on the present with Autonomy. What if we talked about the iPhone with only 1 app?

Autonomy is by far the most important piece. If Tesla can get vision based self-driving to work as they predicted, this will enable Tesla Network to earn $300B a year in 10 years. This will also help Tesla to sell a lot of cars with high margin.

 

[Prunesquallor]

View attachment 402326

Phhht. Quantum wannabe. He is both here AND there!

 

[ZsoZso]

I think we desperately need a Spiegel-bottom V2.0 !
His twitter activity is not enough, he needs to make a new 75+ page presentation about TSLA=$0.00
That would trigger a steep and steady rise of the SP all the way to new ATH.

Could anyone troll him into making such presentation, please ?

 

[bdy0627]

Yes, S&X falling by 50% was the big reason for the huge loss. Q1 Model 3 Deliveries was actually close to Q3 M 3 deliveries (51k vs 53k). Ofcourse, there was a 5% drop in margin because of lower production.

What do you mean by lower margin due to lower production? Model 3 production in Q1 was way above Q3 and slightly above Q4. Unless you meant S/X margins?

 

[Prunesquallor]

My 2019 SR+ will sometimes do that. They need to fix it or explain it because with “guests” in the car it looks amateurish.

When driving people are amazed at how much more you can see by quickly glancing at the screen.

Worse than amateurish. A car behind me looked like it was sniffing my butt!

 

[bdy0627]

I agree it was mostly S/X that did it. It's an important to notice because most people will be focusing on model 3 which may have a moderately good sales ramp this year, but because it will also come with a decrease in per unit profitability, will not have as much of an effect on the income statement as simply getting S/X back to where it was before (if that's possible).

Very true and it seems like some here don't understand this when they talk about S/X not being important anymore. Had S/X Q1 been similar to Q1 2018 (24,700), the financials this quarter would have looked ok for the start of international deliveries. Lower deliveries of 3 hurt, but the huge drop off in S/X was an absolute killer for the quarter's financials.

 

[bdy0627]

Does anyone know what the new inventory level of S+X is ? At the end of Q1 there were 20k Model 3s in inventory. As they unwind the wave, I expect the inventory levels to go up.

Once they fill the pipeline, 30k Inventory for Model 3 seems possible - about 1 month of sales. Similarly S+X we should expect about 8k.

I don't know what the S/X inventory number is. There has been speculation that they probably won't do the full unwind in 1 quarter, so probably more realistic to expect about 20k-25k vehicles in transit or inventory at the end of Q2. Doing the entire unwind in 1 quarter might be too much.

 

[wipster]

It requires a couple ft-pounds of torque on the steering wheel(essentially as if turning the wheel/resisting turning the wheel). People have demonstrated defeating the nags by stuffing an orange in the gap on one side.

Thanks! Now I know the "oranges" of the solution...

 

[SPadival]

Teenaged institutional investor Ron Baron gets it /sarc

”Elon's genius is in remaining relevant through his Twitter commentary about his cars and being transparent about his company in dialogues with Tesla's customers and employees.”

S Padival on Twitter

 

[bdy0627]

My 2019 SR+ will sometimes do that. They need to fix it or explain it because with “guests” in the car it looks amateurish.

When driving people are amazed at how much more you can see by quickly glancing at the screen.

It's gotten a lot better with updates. The dancing cars used to be pretty extreme. Keep in mind, it's not actually what the AP is seeing, it's just the representation that we are being shown so we have an idea of what the car is processing.

 

[bdy0627]

I think we desperately need a Spiegel-bottom V2.0 !
His twitter activity is not enough, he needs to make a new 75+ page presentation about TSLA=$0.00
That would trigger a steep and steady rise of the SP all the way to new ATH.

Could anyone troll him into making such presentation, please ?

When's his next short sellers conference presentation? If it's fairly soon, I think there's a good chance he may establish the bottom a second time.

 

[K3jSe7Llp7]

So EASY! Get an original Roadster right now!. Pay the $29K for the bty upgrade.
Enjoy Vancouver Island all summer long! Tour the interior wine country in the Fall.

Cheers!

holy *sugar*!

 

[defc0n]

When's his next short sellers conference presentation? If it's fairly soon, I think there's a good chance he may establish the bottom a second time.

Oh man. Look how poorly the competition short thesis has played out. That was his core argument back then. Now in 2019 we can see just how wrong the spiegal bottom presentation was.

The best argument the shorts have right now is demand, but its still way too early for anyone to know what the actual steady state demand is. But that uncertainty has obviously killed the stock as of late.

I think a lot of shorts are still convinced that fraudulent accounting is the best argument

 

[Beaver]

I think a lot of shorts are still convinced that fraudulent accounting is the best argument

I saw this posted on Reddit multiple times today.

 

[Skryll]

d

Now I'm wondering whether people really shifted from S&X to 3. In the 4 quarters of 2018, 3 had no effect on S&X deliveries. As 3 deliveries increased, so did S&X. 3 deliveries were all in US, ofcourse. Will there be more of a shift in EU/China ? We have to wait and see - but 3 didn't seem to Osbourne S&X in the US.

I think there are two opposing shifts. One is less people overspending on an S when they can have the 3 and less overspending on an X now that Y seems close by.

At the same time the demand from people that don’t mind dropping $100k on a car and did not know how much better tesla smart cars are are over the old legacy gas feature cars will realize what they have been missing as they see more model 3 and model s and x on the roads do coworkers, family or clients letting them take theirs for a spin to share the new found experience.

Honestly I thought the second effect would have been much more wide spread as of last thanksgiving and Christmas with all the model 3 deliveries across the US and Canada. I was way overly optimistic in the surge in demand and lost quite a few option bets that I didn’t cash in while they where highly profitable.

 

[neroden]

They only missed by 700M$. If they had sold another 60k model 3's they would have hit guidance. Anyone can make that mistake.

Pretty much. Remember Musk's optimism bias. If everything went right, they should have made 91000 Model 3 and delivered about the same number, along with around 19,000 S & X. Obviously everything did not go right -- the battery cell shortage happened too (not sure what the timing was on that as opposed to the Euro parts shortage, the China customs delays, the S/X refresh delays).

 

[neroden]

Well, SP fell from 250 to ~300 after they announced job cuts and reduced Q4 profits, Q1 loss. Don't know how much T Rowe had to do with it, the 11 Million they sold over months is probably not that big a deal compared to daily volume.

Wrong. It's a big deal. Most of daily volume is noise traders and day traders who are trying to restore their positions to their starting point on a daily basis. And then there are swing traders like ARKK.

A steady, large, continuous seller -- a REAL seller, you might say -- has a substantial effect on the market. In this case, it was T Rowe.
Likewise, a steady, large, continuous buyer has a substantial effect on the market -- we watched this with both Tencent and the Saudis, though we didn't find out what was pushing the rallies until after it had happened.

 

[DaveT]

Earlier today, Paul Graham (founder of Y Combinator) shared some interesting tweets about Tesla.

Paul Graham on Twitter

Paul Graham on Twitter

Paul Graham on Twitter

I decided to share my thoughts regarding these tweets and Tesla's software advantage in the following video: