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

[neroden]

New filings cfr. Maxwell acquisition; paging someone with technical & legal knowledge - what has changed?

Thanks

The guesstimates on page 53 changed. Nothing significant. Just the estimates of how much Tesla stock Maxwell stockholders will control. Didn't find anything else on a quick skim.

 

[Zero CO2]

Full video with the Tesla part

this guy is fantastic he explained clearly why Tesla wins ... game over bought another 50 shares today at 239

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Spoke with a friend of mine today who bought a big muscle car a few years ago. He surprised me by saying he just got an AWD LR 3, and absolutely loves it and thinks it is amazing. He said that there aren't many where he lives, and everyone asks about it and wants a ride. The muscle car hasn't been driven in months. Conclusion is an exercise for the reader.

 

[neroden]

Not sure if you need to find causation as long as correlation gives enough time for car to react.

I just encountered *false* road closed signs left over from road work which was not being done any more.

Good luck automating figuring THAT one out.

 

[MABO]

For those commenting about Q2 production numbers, in the Q1 call Elon did literally say something to the effect of “we can make 5,000 Model 3s a week no problem now.” He made it sound as if 5k is easy.

If no cell constraints are in play, it sounds like they should be able to easily exceed that for Model 3s. We will see.

It seems like they will well exceed the 5K/week M3 by shifting demand to the SR+ (blending in a much higher number of lower capacity packs). This makes sense to me and I like the move, maximizing M3 units produced given the constraining variable of cell production.I think this is going to be a big plus for the quarter. But the X/S production is the big question mark for me.

 

[Krugerrand]

I think the new suspension is a bigger deal in terms of production.

Depends if the new motor required a different casting. Then there’d be a lot of work to do that was time consuming.

 

[Chenkers]

"The main course is on the table" **** yeah it is! Love this guy.

And now the video is gone! I should have watched the whole thing before posting.....damnit.

The video still plays if you click the vimeo link through Elon's twitter.

 

[neroden]

(on edit: busy writing the below whilst InDaClub was busy posting the above....)
As last night had been posited as a possibility, it appears TSLA might be receiving some attention - and buying - from the shellacking occurring this morning in GOOG/L.

2+ million shares when each is (still) >$1,100.... that's a lot of tech-cash.

You know, I sold my family's Google stock earlier this year because I realized I just wasn't reading their annual reports and couldn't be bothered to follow the stock -- and I don't believe in owning a stock you're not following.

I'm feeling good about that now.

 

[Todd Burch]

I just encountered *false* road closed signs left over from road work which was not being done any more.

Good luck automating figuring THAT one out.

So how did YOU figure out that the road wasn’t actually closed?

With enough data of examples of this, labellers can tag clues that indicate the road isn’t actually closed. AI can be trained to recognize Road Closed signs that are not applicable.

Again, nobody else has the capability to gather enough data to do this except Tesla.

This is a bit of a corner case, and it will take a little while to work all of these corner cases out, but I believe Tesla is well-positioned to be able to handle this.

 

[MABO]

OT:

Spoke with a friend of mine today who bought a big muscle car a few years ago. He surprised me by saying he just got an AWD LR 3, and absolutely loves it and thinks it is amazing. He said that there aren't many where he lives, and everyone asks about it and wants a ride. The muscle car hasn't been driven in months. Conclusion is an exercise for the reader.

This was my exact experience over 6 years ago.

Had a 911 4S bought in 2009 (yeah, I know, not a muscle car), loved it. Ordered a MS in 2011(ish). Was delivered the MS in early Jan 2013 (it is technically a 2012 since they ran it up onto a truck on 12/31 During that time, Elon claimed that the MS was as fast as the 911 0-60. I was quite proud of my 911 and didn't like that at all! I just assumed he was full of crap.

I got the MS, drove it and reality set in. I got over my pride, only drove the MS. The 911 sat most of the time. I drove it on occasion to keep it from rotting. I really only wanted to drive the MS. Then, finally sold the 911. It was sad seeing something so nice looking collecting dust in the garage. I still have that MS and other than newer Teslas, nothing else is tempting.

 

[EVNow]

The Tesla part starts at 27:00. He's extremely convincing. Elon re-tweeted this an hour ago so a lot of people are going to see it.

Edit: Someone didn't want this video to be seen..

Wow - great stuff by Chamath. BTW, just go to the browser and play the video.

 

[neroden]

I don't know if anyone replied, but my estimate for 3/31 Finished Goods Inventory is:
1050m - New S/X (14k @ 75k COGS, +2k and +150m in Q1)
900m - New Model 3 (20k @ 45k COGS, +12k and +540m in Q1)
150m - Used cars (3k @ 50k each, flat during Q1)
50m - Solar, Powerwalls, etc.
--------
2150m Total

BTW, "New" means never titled. It includes showroom cars, demos and a lot of loaners that may have miles on them. They moved some loaners to PP&E, though, so it doesn't include those.

Disagree because your estimate doesn't seem to add up right. Check the cash flow from changes in inventory -- your cash used in building up inventory is too low by over 110 million dollars.

Try again. My best guess is a major buildup in parts inventories -- we know they used to have parts shortages and now they don't, so that makes sens to me.

 

[neroden]

We are below 244 and have an air pocket down to 192-200. Tesla has used up its good news bullets to no avail. If I were short I’d be pretty happy right now.

If I were a short who had opened my position above $360 and closed my short position here I'd be pretty happy right now. But the stock has monumental buying interest below $250 and anyone shorting at this price is a full-on idiot. They're going to be punched in the head by Q2 numbers at the latest, and possibly by InsideEV delivery reports.

 

[EVNow]

Because those changes in itself should not shut down a line for any length of time. Were there changes in the line processes? I am sure the new suspension is mated to the body the same as the old one. The same can be said for the motor. New bearings, should already be packed and the wheel attached to the suspension assembling to be mated to the car.

The only reason for such a delay to such an important high margin vehicle is OEM parts were not ready. The supply chain was not filled. Maybe thats what Tesla is alluding too when stating the S/X upgrade caused the dropoff in sales.

I guess they had planned on making more than changes for just some of the parts. I also think they had difficulty with some parts and probably some problems when they restarted the assembly, slowing it down.

They just produced 14k S&X - the lowest in 2 years was 22k in Q4 '17.

 

[Remus]

I just encountered *false* road closed signs left over from road work which was not being done any more.

Good luck automating figuring THAT one out.

Big deal, the car turns around and find another route, some passengers got delayed a little, nobody gets hurt. Some passengers may even blame the city for it

 

[neroden]

The main short thesis is running out of cash and bankruptcy. If Elon and Tesla can increase cash by a couple billion then a lot of shorts will capitulate. Shorts are making a short term bet that bankruptcy is near, which is why they have such high conviction to short at the lows

Most of the short-sellers attacking Tesla are ideologues; whether they're Big Oil stooges, Legacy Auto stooges, Russian trolls, or what, I don't really care. It's become clear that they're immune to evidence. Most of them will not capitulate until one of two things happens:

(1) For stooges, if they drive the car they will realize they are stooges who have been bamboozled, and go long or get on the sidelines
(2) For the actual underlying ideological *fanatics*, they won't stop until they run out of money

Let's just accept this. It is quite possible for them to run out of money; short-selling is a really reliable way to lose lots of money most of the time.

 

[EVNow]

I have a new 3 and it does it. Not fixed.

It is a lot more solid than it used to be. Esp., when moving. The ones that wobble are the ones it can't directly figure out because they are hidden behind other cars (so, the system is guessing where it is). What firmware are you on ?

 

[neroden]

Big deal, the car turns around and find another route, some passengers got delayed a little, nobody gets hurt. Some passengers may even blame the city for it

The nearest alternative route adds 15 minutes.

Roads are a wild and wooly space. For budgetary reasons, I don't see them being standardized any time soon.

 

[neroden]

Stepping back and looking at the big picture: Tesla lost 700M$. What is Tesla's fundamental problem in getting to profitability?

They didn't manufacture enough cars.

They've got so many huge advantages yet 700M$ loss. Tesla has screwed something up along the way here.

They didn't manufacture enough cars.

This isn't complicated.

 

[neroden]

I don’t mean to sound like a bear, but I’ve read that line from many here every month/quarter since last year.

If Tesla is targeting 7k/week model 3’s by end of this year, which would include production from China,

Incorrect. They're targeting 7k/week from Fremont, and later 3k/week from China.

you can’t expect much difference from month to month. As long as Tesla doesn't regress from one month to next, it should be taken as satisfactory. I mean there hasn’t been much change from monthly numbers going back to last year. And we haven’t heard anything that indicates increased battery production (assuming Musk is telling the truth as that being the bottleneck) this month.

Correction: I have heard two rumors which do say they have increased battery production. Both secondhand.

IMO, even a monthly production total that calculates to a weekly average of over 5k would be a gigantic surprise.

I'm strongly hoping for that. It NEEDS to happen, as soon as possible, for Tesla to make lots of money. Model 3 production averaged 4842/week for Q1. It needs to be heading for 7000/week, but 5000/week would be a good start.