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

[Krugerrand]

Oh.
I thought the comment was referring to those falcon-wing ears.

So...um...my online persona is that of a falcon-wing earred human?! I didn’t realize that could be conveyed in the written word.

*looks in mirror and closely examines ears, pulls out a micrometer and measures...*

Okay, I’m alright with that persona too.

 

[AudubonB]

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.

OoooKaaaay. Here's one of my favorites from MY road. Good luck automating? Hah! Good luck HUMANS figuring out this one:

 

[neroden]

So what would be a “good” InsideEV April number?

From the "market" point of view:

The shallow Wall Streeters don't look much further than their noses. So they'll be looking at the numbers from Q1 and maybe from last year. If Tesla delivers more than 11,000 Model 3s to the US (more than March), I think they'll see it as positive. If Tesla deliver more than 18000 -- more than last October -- Wall Street will be shocked and see it as super positive.


Given that I think Tesla's doing a split which is something like 60 international / 40 US, 18000 in the US seems implausible to me. 11000 is possible, but I still think it's unlikely as IMO it would require 7000 cars/week production.

I think 8000 - 10000 would be seen as neutral? Less than March but more than January and Feburary. This seems realistic. Anything under 8000 would worry me a little (unless there was evidence they were sending a larger percentage to Europe).

It is interesting seeing just how heavily Tesla pushed Model 3 to the US during the two quarters before the tax credit expiration. We should not expect US Model 3 deliveries to get back to that level for a long time, simply because it makes more sense to meet international demand (which is full of backlog of high-end orders) instead, and production isn't ramping up THAT fast. Shallow Wall Streeters won't look at that, though, they'll be mindlessly comparing US numbers without thinking about international numbers.

Model S and X deliveries should look like a positive surprise to Wall Street, since I expect them to be up to at least "first month of a quarter normal". But they may ignore those cars entirely.

 

[neroden]

OoooKaaaay. Here's one of my favorites from MY road. Good luck automating? Hah! Good luck HUMANS figuring out this one:

View attachment 402698

According to my drivers' ed course, an orange sign means "warning", so this means "Warning, Next 4 Miles".

I'm not sure how you tell the self-driving car "Yeah, watch for trouble. No, we don't know what sort, just trouble. Watch for it." Pehaps the most sensible thing to do is to use it as an "alert the human driver" indicator.

 

[M3Edm]

Anyone know where the chamath video with the Tesla part can be found? Can’t believe CNBC edited it out. How blatantly anti-Tesla can you be. Surprised Elon hasn’t tweeted about this.

 

[defc0n]

I know inventory car numbers don't mean much in terms of overall sales but one I found interesting is 90210. I checked that postal code for fun last Friday and for the Model 3 inventory was listed as "99+". It is now in the teens. Maybe the 3 is the hot graduation gift of 2019.

In Chicago we went from 40 to 10 in the same time period. What I found interesting, and good, was that we had a decent amount of long range AWD and there is only one left.

College students here at least would have a terrible time finding ways to charge their cars. Tons of apartments with outdoor parking and hardly any chargers anywhere.

Truth be told, I couldn’t send my kid off to school here with an electric car currently it seems.

 

[neroden]

I'm basically trying to figure out production, delivery and inventory levels - now that Tesla is saying they will end the wave. The basic assumption is they want about 1 month sales in inventory.

BTW, bigger pipeline doesn't hurt the bottomline (except for interest) - but it hurts the cash position.

Anyway, this is my somewhat optimistic estimate.

View attachment 402704

Nice work. I think stable inventory levels for S/X would be about 10,000 and for 3 about 32,000. (Including cars in showrooms as well as in transit.)

 

[Causalien]

College students here at least would have a terrible time finding ways to charge their cars. Tons of apartments with outdoor parking and hardly any chargers anywhere.

Truth be told, I couldn’t send my kid off to school here with an electric car currently it seems.

Yep can confirm. Big problem here. I wish our government is like Norway, but no. We have to fight for charging spots. Once you saturate the house owning market, next tier is apartment dwelling market where parking in downtown is scarce. Parking with a charger even scarcer (2 per parking complex). Gated, security patrolled parking with charger is non existent. (Lots of break-ins to private garages).

 

[Causalien]

So what would be a “good” InsideEV April number?

Assuming all deliveries in USA 30k. Assuming 1/3 distribution between China Europe and USA: 10k.

 

[ggies07]

Anyone know where the chamath video with the Tesla part can be found? Can’t believe CNBC edited it out. How blatantly anti-Tesla can you be. Surprised Elon hasn’t tweeted about this.

Doing some research trying to connect anything and found this:

Steve Burke - CEO of NBCUniversal

hmmm.....

Burke serves on the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

 

[Beaver]

College students here at least would have a terrible time finding ways to charge their cars. Tons of apartments with outdoor parking and hardly any chargers anywhere.

Truth be told, I couldn’t send my kid off to school here with an electric car currently it seems.

I actually asked when we bought our 3 in Chicago if they had ever sold a 3 as a present to a graduate and they have, to college grads.

For kids in college, as you stated, an EV would not work. Plus it would sit all day doing nothing sitting next to a 1999 Camry and would probably get damaged. Most kids in college don't really need cars.

 

[PANN]

IMHO it's possible that Tesla gets big strategic buy-in from Sovereign Funds in this downturn, most likely Norway or even Singapore. They are the best kinds of deep-pocket long-term holding investors that Tesla need most.
1. Norway -- just look at Model 3 sales number in Norway! Plus recent report they are reducing oil-rated holding.
2. Singapore -- I know Elon said before Singapore is not pro-EV, but that's changing, just recently Singapore made a huge effort having British tech giant Dyson to open their 1st EV factory in Singapore (and also relocate Dyson's global HQ to Singapore).

NO more Saudis, I am extremely disappointed with the Saudi's silence during the 420 tweet drama that they started.

World's top-5 Sovereign Funds:

 

[Todd Burch]

(1) People were driving on it.
(2) People were parked at the roadside.
(3) The construction equipment was all parked at the roadside.
(4) No construction workers were visible.

Very, very tricky.

It's no doubt tricky. But Karpathy and team are really smart dudes.

They can already identify (1) and (2). We know this. (3) and (4) is a similar level of difficulty.

Look at some more data and identify commonalities, and now you've got a preliminary algorithm for identifying an ignorable road closed sign.

If you had asked me a few years ago if a computer would be able to look at an image of tissue and identify the tumor in it (and to also determine whether it's benign or malignant) I would have said very, very tricky too. If you had then added that the computer would do it with a better success rate than doctors, I would have added about two more "very"s to that statement.

Yet here we are. It's 2019, and it's reality.

 

[EVNow]

Nice work. I think stable inventory levels for S/X would be about 10,000 and for 3 about 32,000. (Including cars in showrooms as well as in transit.)

Yes - they would probably want a little more than 1 month for S/X because they are 2 models - and if add all the variations & colors, spread over 3 continents, its really very thin.

With 3, ideally they should have enough in inventory for people to walk in and buy & drive out the same day atleast in bigger centers. Or for people buying at home do a delivery in a couple of days.

 

[defc0n]

IMHO it's possible that Tesla gets big strategic buy-in from Sovereign Funds in this downturn, most likely Norway or even Singapore. They are the best kinds of deep-pocket long-term holding investors that Tesla need most.
1. Norway -- just look at Model 3 sales number in Norway! Plus recent report they are reducing oil-rated holding.
2. Singapore -- I know Elon said before Singapore is not pro-EV, but that's changing, just recently Singapore made a huge effort having British tech giant Dyson to open their 1st EV factory in Singapore (and also relocate Dyson's global HQ to Singapore).

NO more Saudis, I am extremely disappointed with the Saudi's silence during the 420 tweet drama that they started.

World's top-5 Sovereign Funds:
View attachment 402696

I’m more disappointed with the Saudis state-backed killing of a journalist.

 

[M3Edm]

Anyone know where the chamath video with the Tesla part can be found? Can’t believers CNBC edited it out. How blatantly anti-Tesla can you be. Surprised Elon hasn’t tweeted about this.

Found it: //vimeo.com/333424350/918783c839

 

[Donatas]

Anyone know where the chamath video with the Tesla part can be found? Can’t believe CNBC edited it out. How blatantly anti-Tesla can you be. Surprised Elon hasn’t tweeted about this.

I think it's here (remove spaces):
https:// vimeo. com/ 333424350/918783c839

 

[hacer]

Waymo has a product and needs to monetize it. If they can geofence entire LA or entire NYC and achieve 0 disengagements then they can start providing the service there. If the customer puts another destination in another city then they cannot order it. In those cities I guess 95% of the rides at least are within the same city.

Those top tier cities would be already a huge disruption to Uber. They do not need an universal solution. Covering city by city is completely fine and geofencing the areas. At least for the purpose of ridesharing service like Uber without the driver.

Yep those waymo cars driving around at 18 MPH are going to be a huge disruption to the Ubers trying to go 75 in Manhattan.

 

[Todd Burch]

Reagarding InsideEV numbers, I think they'll mostly be useless. Not because their numbers are off (they're usually in the ballpark), but because we have no idea of the North America vs Asia vs Europe split. The numbers could vary widely depending on how Tesla divided up April production.

Yes, they're "unwinding the wave" (is that our new term for this? A wave is an oscillation that does not intersect or wind around itself--therefore I find it impossible to unwind such a thing...but I digress...), but we don't know how much they've unwound yet.

 

[Beaver]

Found it:

Please post the URL without HTTP so it won't auto-link to the video.