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

[Pras]

One month into Q1, Elon hoped for a slight profit and we know how that turned out. I think Tesla is in uncharted territory now and does not necessarily have a firm grasp on how the short term future will turn out.

Give the new CFO a chance. Also in Q1 they didn’t reiterate, they rather changed the outlook from what was mentioned in the earning call.

But I agree that your doubt is legit.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Lane Departure Avoidance and Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance. I've seen no release note about them. The control for Lane Departure Avoidance doesn't appear on my Model 3 with 2019.12.1.2 (that I can find anyway). The Tesla blog post "unveiled" the features. Tesla tweeted (Tesla on Twitter) on May 2 that these new features were "rolling out today". So what evidence is there that they are out?

Teslarati explains: Tesla rolls out driving visualizations, Sentry Mode updates, and new safety features. They're in 2019.16, "rolled out" only to early access people. Along with a bunch of other interesting stuff.

 

[winfield100]

Wasn't there a standing ban on ignore list announcements?

with names if eye recall correctly

 

[Gavyne]

Was this posted? Tesla (TSLA) is going to get up to $2 billion from Fiat-Chrysler to meet emission standards

 

[Big Blue 1011]

This one is a bit strange. No recent shipments in Norway that we know off. My working theory previously was that deliveries the last few weeks in Norway are mainly driven by cars coming out of rework and that the rate of them being delivered is indicative of service capacity to do whatever is needed to make them deliverable. Under that theory you'd expect a gradual slowing down of deliveries as the number of cars that are trivially fixable dwindle down. The only way to keep this theory going with this pop would be that these car share a 'defect' that is easily fixable but needed the arrival of spare parts from the US and that those just got there. Anyone have a better theory -> shoot.

For those not up to date, the first ship to arrive in Europe this quarter is passing the Channel and should arrive in Zeebrugge within the next 24 hours.

Now I'm really confused. If the first ship doesn't arrive until almost halfway through the quarter in the hottest EU market for Model 3s, how does Tesla avoid the problem of end of quarter fire drill to make delivery numbers?

In other words, can someone explain from a mechanical standpoint how Tesla solves the smoothing out of the waves without completely tanking deliveries for at least one quarter? I can't imagine that the company will keep shipping to Europe and China at the expense of US production this quarter, given the tax credit reduction in the US after 6/30.

I apologize if this has been covered. Been busy lately and hard to keep up.

 

[azaz]

Local inventory for my zip has dwindled to the point where only M3 Performance is left

Edit: welp, went back to check exactly how many are left (it was 5-6 last time I looked) and it’s zero now.

 

[KarenRei]

Now I'm really confused. If the first ship doesn't arrive until almost halfway through the quarter in the hottest EU market for Model 3s, how does Tesla avoid the problem of end of quarter fire drill to make delivery numbers?

In other words, can someone explain from a mechanical standpoint how Tesla solves the smoothing out of the waves without completely tanking deliveries for at least one quarter? I can't imagine that the company will keep shipping to Europe and China at the expense of US production this quarter, given the tax credit reduction in the US after 6/30.

I apologize if this has been covered. Been busy lately and hard to keep up.

Tesla cannot teleport ships to undo the lack of ships-en-route at the end of last quarter. What they can do is to not totally stop shipping during the last month of the quarter like they did in Q1.

Yes, this means one or more quarters of building up in-transit inventory. But this is guided for.

 

[VValleyEV]

Fair question from an infamous TSLA short:
What was the $70M for “Marketing, Promotional and Advertising Costs” in 2018 spent on?

https://ir.tesla.com/node/19496/html

Since it was not spent on traditional advertising, can we come up with a comparison of such “not really advertising” expenditures with that of traditional OEM vehicle manufacturers?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Elon Musk‏ @elonmusk 6 minutes ago

"New setting to receive Tesla software updates immediately"​

 

[MP3Mike]

Fair question from an infamous TSLA short:
What was the $70M for “Marketing, Promotional and Advertising Costs” in 2018 spent on?

https://ir.tesla.com/node/19496/html

Since it was not spent on traditional advertising, can we come up with a comparison of such “not really advertising” expenditures with that of traditional OEM vehicle manufacturers?

I think the main cost was the referral program. And I think a lot of the free Supercharging was charged under Marketing...

 

[copyhacker]

Fair question from an infamous TSLA short:
What was the $70M for “Marketing, Promotional and Advertising Costs” in 2018 spent on?

Definitely not this.

Edit: Elon is definitely all up in the official Tesla Twitter account, messing with the SEC.

 

[powertoold]

Fair question from an infamous TSLA short:
What was the $70M for “Marketing, Promotional and Advertising Costs” in 2018 spent on?

https://ir.tesla.com/node/19496/html

Since it was not spent on traditional advertising, can we come up with a comparison of such “not really advertising” expenditures with that of traditional OEM vehicle manufacturers?

Probably the referral program

 

[dww12]

It could be, but I don't believe that it necessarily will be. But more to the point for Tesla shareholders, I don't believe that we should want it to be a winner-take-all market.

Firstly, TN would become a regulated monopoly in many jurisdictions. Regulations would be brought to bear to limit just how far Tesla could go. Tesla could even face being broken up so that the entity that makes the vehicles cannot be the entity that owns and operates the fleet. How much Tesla could charge for fares and how much would be shared with private owners using TN could all be dictated by utility commissions. In short there is a whole pile of political problems here that we would do best not to step in, if we can avoid it.

Second, it would not be consistent with Tesla's mission. To accelerate the transition to sustainable energy and transport, We need genuine competition in this space. This has the potential to make battery packs 5 times more efficient reducing carbon emissions than their use in private auto ownership. So to get the biggest environmental impact from EVs, we need to maximize commercial fleet applications such as robotaxis. Competition will be the most effective way to speed robotaxis to market and to maximally displace less impactful private ownership. Service levels will be higher with competition and fares will be lower. This is truly the sort of thing the Tesla mission is to accelerate.

Third, competition allows there to be a much richer ecosystem, which can create lower cap, higher profit opportunities for Tesla. A lot of this emerging industry is destined to bond like rates of return on capital. But some parts of the supply chain will have much more dynamic, extraordinary returns. Already Tesla is willing to share the vehicle ownership piece with Tesla vehicle owners. Yes, that sells cars in the short run, but also in the long run Tesla owners are providing capital and earning modest rates of return on that capital. Tesla is able to grow the fleet larger and faster because it does not need to raise all that capital itself. Long-run owning a fleet of 12-year old rental vehicles is not a very exciting place to put Tesla's capital. But where Tesla could make extraordinary returns for rather low capital is in licensing the FSD software, providing FSD engineering services and manufacturing certain FSD components to other OEMs. That tech would all be optimized for the TN platform. So altogether you have a very strong ecosystem. Returning to the second point, this ecosystem can scale up much faster than Tesla can raise capital. So it can rapidly monetize the investment that Tesla is making into software, engineering and hardware (chips). Finally, the ecosystem will attract many other strong innovators to solve critical problems. For example, I love watching the Boston Dynamics videos. Maybe they could develop a robot that can service the rental cars, to vacuum, clean them and generally prep for riders. Could Tesla do this? Perhaps, but I think they've got bigger fish to fry at this point. Regardless, the sooner things like servicing the rental fleet gets optimized, the more quickly the robotaxi business can advance.

So as I've pointed out before, the robotaxi and other robofleet (i.e. semis) business is huge, potentially 25 million new vehicles per year and a fleet of 400 million vehicles. Tesla could be a nice regulated monopoly limited to operating a 10 million vehicle fleet at a 10% profit rate as a kind of public utility. Or it could be at the very center of a vast and dynamic ecosystem around a fleet of 400 million vehicles. Together that ecosystem could radically restructure the transportation and energy sectors to cut carbon emissions from oil by about 30% by 2030. So I don't want a winner-take-all market; I want full transformation.

Nah, I’m ok with Amazon like domination until ICE is dead. You really want to trust a future with VW and Exxon in charge?

 

[Big Blue 1011]

Tesla cannot teleport ships to undo the lack of ships-en-route at the end of last quarter. What they can do is to not totally stop shipping during the last month of the quarter like they did in Q1.

Yes, this means one or more quarters of building up in-transit inventory. But this is guided for.

Got it. Thanks.

 

[TheMrX]

Was this posted? Tesla (TSLA) is going to get up to $2 billion from Fiat-Chrysler to meet emission standards

On TMC, yes

On TSLA yahoo finance page news feed, no <----- That is the problem

 

[GBleck]

Fair question from an infamous TSLA short:
What was the $70M for “Marketing, Promotional and Advertising Costs” in 2018 spent on?

https://ir.tesla.com/node/19496/html

Since it was not spent on traditional advertising, can we come up with a comparison of such “not really advertising” expenditures with that of traditional OEM vehicle manufacturers?

Referral program and events like the drive in the snow thing?

 

[AMN]

I have no luck with timing when it comes to investing, but I'm gonna trade TSLA this summer to leverage these midmorning dips and obvious bear attacks.

Is there a way to take historical SP data and run it through and algo to kick out an optimal strategy? As in.....SP was up previous day, sell at open and buy at X o'clock? I really think there's a reliable pattern that's not much more complex than that.

What made you decide to trade this summer? Most algobots execute way more sophisticated strategies than you describe and can make adjustments in real time. Retail traders will not beat smart money at their own game. Holding the stock long-term will outperform any of these strategies for 95% of traders.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Teslarati explains: Tesla rolls out driving visualizations, Sentry Mode updates, and new safety features. They're in 2019.16, "rolled out" only to early access people. Along with a bunch of other interesting stuff.

And still no mention of Adv Summon. I really wish Elon would quit announcing anticipated release dates or at least be clear WHO is getting it in X weeks. Besides affecting Tesla FSD credibility, it pisses me off because I tell people something's coming and makes me the liar.

Maybe he does these to try and defend SP or teach those shorts a lesson. Or if he's like me, he's dying to tell the world how amazing he is.

Yup, it's the first time I've ever slammed Elon. He is amazing, but human like the rest of us. Maybe I'm pissed at the SP and money corruption, who knows.

... can't wait for the 2019.16 update! When is it coming?

 

[Nocturnal]

Elon Musk‏ @elonmusk 6 minutes ago

"New setting to receive Tesla software updates immediately"​

No more constant posts of "why don't I have the new update"!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Vol only 6.3 M shares so far today. Lots of room for shortnanigans.