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

[humbaba]

I don't understand how Tesla fails to comment on this: Exclusive: Tesla expects global shortage of electric vehicle battery minerals - sources - Reuters

Fairly simple "we've already secured key minerals for years"

This was just a little bit of lobbying/politicking that a Tesla representative gave a minor contribution to. If Tesla says "resources secured" that undermines the lobbying (by people who either are or want to be supplies to Tesla) and is the opposite of how to make friends.

In fact I'd wager that this particular bit of lobbying was not intended to have outside attention brought to it so the less Tesla says the happier the lobbyists will likely be.

 

[lklundin]

Towards the end around the 7:10 minute mark of the clip - Wapner actually says “we” are betting against... a little bit of a slip of the tongue.

This may be an over-interpretation. In his argument against shorting TSLA, Pailhaptiya starts talking as if _he_ was representing the shorts, saying: "We are betting against Tesla...", to which Wapner replies in kind, "No, we are betting against Tesla...".

So while it is possible that Wapner is indeed short, I think his statement in that context was not nearly as bad as when quoted out of context.

 

[Tenable]

I wonder whether Tesla allows salesmen to give some discount - but it comes out of their commission. Also note, the person posting the discount story is rather new.

Highly doubtful. I've recently purchased a P100D and helped guide 2 friends through their purchase in the last month. In my experience Tesla is doing the opposite. Store managers used to be able to make pricing adjustments. In the last couple months that power has been stripped from them. I would be shocked if anyone at the retail level had that power any longer. If they walked out with a discounted vehicle same day I would expect its an inventory car.

Disclaimer: The cars my friends and I bought recently were all S/X.

 

[KSilver2000]

Ya, extremely unlikely they’re paying more than $100mm a year(even that would seem pretty extreme) on this effort.

I’ve learned to realize nothing is extreme with Elon and Tesla, for good or worse.

Who would’ve even imagined robotaxis years ago?

And as recently as today, I thought doing an equity raise at one of the lowest valuations in past 5 years would be unreasonable.

 

[Boomer19]

Ihor says borrow rates are starting to rise

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter

yep, it started creeping the other day (the rates to borrow). still a ways away from being expensive to borrow, but that can change quickly depending on a number of factors. although we haven’t seen crazy expensive rates since maybe, SCTY vote, for this...
there may have been another time since, but not certain.

 

[azaz]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I’ve learned to realize nothing is extreme with Elon and Tesla, for good or worse.

Who would’ve even imagined robotaxis years ago?

And as recently as today, I thought doing an equity raise at one of the lowest valuations in past 5 years would be unreasonable.

Sure, but almost all the cost of the program at this point is software engineering(there's some hardware engineering going on, but that's just for the incremental next version sometime down the road. Even if you assume average pay for said software engineers is $300k/yr(which would be extremely high for this position in this area, since it wouldn't include stock grants), that's enough to pay for well over 300 said engineers on this one project. They'd be stepping all over each other constantly. Really "betting the farm" would require something like 6000+ of them.

 

[humbaba]

if you think $TSLA short interest is bad, take a gander at Health Insurance Innovations where short interest is apparently 100.01% of float.[1] Maybe that's a bad source? Marketwatch shows it at 70.91% of float.[2] Tesla is high (even the old data reported at marketwatch shows it at 28.29%), but dang![3]

One thing I don't get about @ihors3 data is that he gives the short interest on $TSLA as being 36.41 million shares, but only 28.54% of the float.[4] That doesn't jive with the marketwatch data where 33.47 million shares already accounted for 28.29% of the float. Short interest going up by ~3 million shares would take the percentage of float up ~2%, not about a quarter of a percent.

1) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5kebCJWAAIe7fl.jpg:large
2) Health Insurance Innovations Inc. Cl A
3) Tesla Inc.
4) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5kUiJLXkAsUCLi.jpg:large

 

[Bunky]

Is there any merit to the technique of putting in a way high GTC sell limit order to prevent your shares being lent out? Or is it better to just contact your broker to request that they don’t?

 

[KarenRei]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

20 Ys? OMG, grab them up now!!!

 

[MarcusMaximus]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

53 S, 0 3 and 23 X.

Notably, more than half the S's are 75D's, and the rest all pre-refresh long range. I imagine they'll have to discount any pre-refresh cars pretty heavily to get rid of them.

 

[Cobbler]

Battery material prices are dropping fast
(Dutch article)
Raw material supply increased too much while global EV growth was less than anticipated.
Meaning Tesla could produce lower priced battery packs?

I don't understand how Tesla fails to comment on this: Exclusive: Tesla expects global shortage of electric vehicle battery minerals - sources - Reuters

Fairly simple "we've already secured key minerals for years"

First Reuters says that prices dropped of raw material because EV growth isn't catching up fast enough. Mining companies invested a lot past years expecting higher demand. Now raw material supply exceeds demand required in current battery production.

Now they expect a shortage? What changed the past 24hours?

 

[humbaba]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

What, are we #TSLAQ?

Okay, I took the bait. 7 3's, 5 S's and 2 X's within 200 miles.

But I'm really not sure what significance "snapshots in time of inventory" is supposed to mean other than production to delivery isn't perfectly smooth. We knew that.

 

[KarenRei]

0 3's, 0 S's, and 0 X's within 200 miles of me. #ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney

 

[humbaba]

First Reuters says that prices dropped of raw material because EV growth isn't catching up fast enough. Mining companies invested a lot past years expecting higher demand. Now raw material supply exceeds demand required in current battery production.

Now they expect a shortage? What changed the past 24hours?

Different reporting: the most recent was on lobbyist activity on reducing regulation overhead. That's a business as usual activity and I'm not really sure why it was seen as newsworthy.

Oh, wait, I know, Tesla had a representative there.

 

[tracksyde]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

Southern California (200 miles of 92708)
89 Model S
28 Model X
11 Model 3 (there were 14 Model 3s yesterday)

 

[anthonyj]

mildly concerning for S demand that there are 25 3s, 20 Ys and oddly 100+ Ss available in NYC area.

would appreciate others listing what their zip codes say

I asked yesterday at a NJ store and he told me that there were cancels for the 370 mile S

 

[Sean Wagner]

The good thing about FSD, is that it is not capital intensive. Hardware cheaper than Nvidia, sensors, data collectors already part of the car
...
rest is all/mostly software problem

Ya, extremely unlikely they’re paying more than $100mm a year(even that would seem pretty extreme) on this effort. It’s only “bet the farm” if you expect them to otherwise always break even and take another 40 years to do it.

In a scenario where Autonomy arrives later than anticipated by Tesla's decision makers, their views might influence essential product plans. It could be a simple thing like an unconscious lack of emphasis and urgency.

The Model X breaking the barrier of 500km range, and the S going the distance LA-SF should be a big thing marketing wise. Not a big delta, but many non-cognoscenti would probably sit up and take note.

 

[RobStark]

That's all good. I really don't like the wave and all the delivery uncertainties and staff burns it caused.

I never liked the wave either, keep your eye on the ball.

 

[azaz]

I asked yesterday at a NJ store and he told me that there were cancels for the 370 mile S

that makes a lot of sense, thanks.