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

[MartinAustin]

Scott Wapner on CNBC: "NTSB investigation, it says the Autopilot was on, Driver died, stock is down."

Omits that driver didn't have hands on the wheel or make any efforts to avoid the crash (which are also in that same report, right after "Autopilot was on.")

Omits that most (maybe all, not sure) Autopilot investigations result in driver being at fault.

SMH

 

[Pras]

Shorts have been emboldened because of series of bad news from Tesla. They need some concrete good news that can't be explained away to scare them into covering.

I am guessing we will see a turnaround right around end of May. The long investor would have booked their losses, the demand picture will be clearer and shorts will start to hedge a bit for the June end delivery numbers.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Scott Wapner on CNBC: "NTSB investigation, it says the Autopilot was on, Driver died, stock is down."

Omits that driver didn't have hands on the wheel or make any efforts to avoid the crash (which are also in that same report, right after "Autopilot was on.")

SMH

In all fairness, his hands weren’t detected on the wheel for ~8 seconds before the crash. As I’m sure you know, hands not being detected doesn’t mean they weren’t there.

That said, there’s two possibilities here:

1. The driver was paying attention at the time of the crash.
2. The driver was not paying attention at the time of the crash.

If #1 is true, then he also failed to see the trailer and the crash would have happened with or without Autopilot. If #2 is true(much more likely IMO), then he wasn’t using Autopilot appropriately. The second one there sounds harsh, but I don’t mean it to condemn him. We’ve all made that mistake at some points, I’m sure, just like I’m sure we’ve all done other various distracting activities that commonly lead to crashes before.

 

[AndyH]

.

Seems like the intern running the @tesla twitter handle cost the communications chief his job. You heard it here first

Has Elon been demoted to intern now? Removing his CEO title is one thing, but making him an intern, well that's too much.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Shorts have been emboldened because of series of bad news from Tesla. They need some concrete good news that can't be explained away to scare them into covering.

The problem is that they have proven to be VERY adept at explaining any sort of news as justification for predicting the end of Tresla...and worst of all, many people are buying it. It won't stop any time remotely soon.

Dan

 

[Big Blue 1011]

Tesla Registration Stats

What's going on in Norway with S/X? The last 4 days they have registered 58 S/X (combined) after registering a total of 101 for the entire month of April. Also, 15 of the registrations between yesterday and today have been 75D variant (out of 41 total)

 

[sparcs]

I'd rather TESLA not say anything and just chug along and produce results. No more predictions. Maybe just a small blurb on the Maxwell acquisition then move on.

Exactly. Wall Street wants execution today. Not proclamations of some amazing thing down the road.

Maxwell, Model Y, Pickup, and FSD aren't priced into the stock at all since they are too far off into the future (at least from Wall Street's perspective).

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Tesla Registration Stats

What's going on in Norway with S/X? The last 4 days they have registered 58 S/X (combined) after registering a total of 101 for the entire month of April. Also, 15 of the registrations between yesterday and today have been 75D variant (out of 41 total)

Huh, and they’re all XXXD’s instead of SR/LR... are these all 2018 makes, or does Norway not use the new names?

 

[Big Blue 1011]

Huh, and they’re all XXXD’s instead of SR/LR... are these all 2018 makes, or does Norway not use the new names?

Almost all are listed as 2019 builds. There have been a smattering of 2016 used vehicle registrations and only 1 listed as 2018 that I can recall, although I wasn't looking that closely. You can arrow back and see the mix for each day.

 

[Boomer19]

Scott Wapner on CNBC: "NTSB investigation, it says the Autopilot was on, Driver died, stock is down."

Omits that driver didn't have hands on the wheel or make any efforts to avoid the crash (which are also in that same report, right after "Autopilot was on.")

Omits that most (maybe all, not sure) Autopilot investigations result in driver being at fault.

SMH

scott wapner is a tsla manipulator (like fossi, lopez, et al) and should be included in any complaint to the sec that we, or anyone make. he is a liar and should be taken to task on the “facts” that he portrays on tv.

not worth the air he steals from the rest of us

 

[larmor]

Exactly. Wall Street wants execution today. Not proclamations of some amazing thing down the road.

Maxwell, Model Y, Pickup, and FSD aren't priced into the stock at all since they are too far off into the future (at least from Wall Street's perspective).

Not sure if i agree with this. Uber and Lyft are basically valued on their eventual self driving future, as is other vaporware from Cruze.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I think when it comes to Maxwell, it will be very interesting to watch Q4 2019/Q1 2020. When you actually start putting the pieces together, I actually think Tesla has been realigning all of their products for a significant battery breakthrough. Follow along:

-In the last couple of presentations Maxwell gave on their tech before the acquisition announcement was made, they mention unnamed partner multiple times that had been validating their tech for over a year.....it is 99.999999% assured now that Tesla is unnamed partner.

- Which means Tesla has for over a year now been validating their tech and getting plans ready for introduction of tech into their current batteries or in combination of other breakthroughs they've had with battery tech.

- In the past year, Tesla's future products were essentially delayed a year (Model Y launch in fall 2020 instead of the expected Q4 of 2019 or early 2020, Roadster and Semi production unofficially pushed back from 2019 to 2020, Model 3 production goals of 10k/week push to end of 2019)

- The halt of capex spending on increasing Giga 1. Wouldn't make sense to invest heavily with a battery breakthrough is on the horizon.

- Elon mentions at Autonomy day that they will do a Battery Tech Day in either Q4 of this year or early next year.

- Giga 3 schedule get's pushed up( This obviously could be only because of the tariffs and costs of importing.....but it could also be to install cell production lines using Maxwell tech as a way of proving out the production...….this is a stretch I know but who knows)

I see it as they'll show Maxwell tech along with other battery breakthroughs in Q1 2020, first products to get it will be S/X in Q2 2020, followed by 3 in Q3 2020, and then when Y, Roadster, and Semi launch in Q3/Q4 of 2020, they will include the tech. It's really the only logical explanation as to how they plan on launching 3 new products while at the same time getting 3 up to 10k/week volumes and maintaining S/X volumes of 100k/year AND continuing to ramp TE

 

[CorneliusXX]

Unfortunately AP crashes will just increase in frequency. Tesla's safety report logs 3.4 million miles per crash. Which means as of today, we should expect 2 crashes per day and 3 crashes per day coming up as miles on AP scales exponentially with now EVERY car having AP included. Even though it's way less than 800k miles/crash from actual human drivers, it doesn't stop the printing press from writing these articles. Just for scale, Waymo had more than 12 crashes from the 10 million miles it has driven. So as of today, Tesla logs 3x less accidents than Waymo BUT miles logged are different so not a true apples to apples comparison.

So yes, more fires and more AP crashes..kind of the result with having more cars on the road. So reporting every incident is going to be very annoying very quick for shareholders.

Honestly, the larger number of crashes may be a benefit in terms of news. If there are crashes every day then people will not bother to read the articles because they become common place and full.

 

[Boomer19]

What is the price in which


So only tendered shares get converted to TSLA shares? What happens to the rest - do they get cash equivalent?

i guess you could categorize this as a hostile takeover. tesla offered mxwl shareholders a premium. they have to voluntarily surrender their shares, and their rights as a mxwl shareholder, to receive tesla’s terms.

once a majority of mxwl shares are received by tesla, part 1 (they have control), and part 2 (the leftover shares) the mandatory takeover eventually commences.

 

[schonelucht]

What's going on in Norway with S/X? The last 4 days they have registered 58 S/X (combined) after registering a total of 101 for the entire month of April. Also, 15 of the registrations between yesterday and today have been 75D variant (out of 41 total)

They started the discount process for this quarter.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

To add on to what I said above......if that is all true or even close to true......then 2019 will be a forgotten year for investors and essentially Tesla is just trying to maintain what it's doing, get logistics figured out, and prepare for product launches. This means not a lot of profit and no big ramp in revenues until Q4 at the earliest. I could see the stock stagnating around 250/share for most of Q2 or Q3 because of the expected loss in Q2 and questions on if Q3 will actually turn profitable(won't know until Oct so a long ways away). Great time to be adding to your position which is what I'll be doing over the course of the year.

 

[ggies07]

Elon mentions at Autonomy day that they will do a Battery Tech Day in either Q4 of this year or early next year.

Sub point - goes along with the million mile battery Elon talked about.

 

[Fact Checking]

i guess you could categorize this as a hostile takeover. tesla offered mxwl shareholders a premium. they have to voluntarily surrender their shares, and their rights as a mxwl shareholder, to receive tesla’s terms.

I don't think that's accurate: Maxwell management sought a buyout (because they were running out of money and couldn't attract new investors apparently) and approved Tesla's buyout offer, and they tendered their shares early on.

I'm sure they were hoping for a bidding war - and I think Tesla made a really good deal if Maxwell patented key aspects of their breakthrough no-solvents manufacturing technologies.

But this wasn't a hostile takeover - Tesla was the white knight here.

BTW., while obviously Maxwell's new technologies haven't been fully productized yet, and in that sense Tesla has now risked ~$200m on the assumption that it can be turned into a real manufacturing method, I am very optimistic about this purchase and was holding my breath that none of the other li-ion manufacturers and carmakers wise up to Maxwell's true value and start a bidding war.

Maxwell is a really good match for Tesla, IMHO.

 

[M3Rider]

I think when it comes to Maxwell, it will be very interesting to watch Q4 2019/Q1 2020. When you actually start putting the pieces together, I actually think Tesla has been realigning all of their products for a significant battery breakthrough. Follow along:

-In the last couple of presentations Maxwell gave on their tech before the acquisition announcement was made, they mention unnamed partner multiple times that had been validating their tech for over a year.....it is 99.999999% assured now that Tesla is unnamed partner.

- Which means Tesla has for over a year now been validating their tech and getting plans ready for introduction of tech into their current batteries or in combination of other breakthroughs they've had with battery tech.

- In the past year, Tesla's future products were essentially delayed a year (Model Y launch in fall 2020 instead of the expected Q4 of 2019 or early 2020, Roadster and Semi production unofficially pushed back from 2019 to 2020, Model 3 production goals of 10k/week push to end of 2019)

- The halt of capex spending on increasing Giga 1. Wouldn't make sense to invest heavily with a battery breakthrough is on the horizon.

- Elon mentions at Autonomy day that they will do a Battery Tech Day in either Q4 of this year or early next year.

- Giga 3 schedule get's pushed up( This obviously could be only because of the tariffs and costs of importing.....but it could also be to install cell production lines using Maxwell tech as a way of proving out the production...….this is a stretch I know but who knows)

I see it as they'll show Maxwell tech along with other battery breakthroughs in Q1 2020, first products to get it will be S/X in Q2 2020, followed by 3 in Q3 2020, and then when Y, Roadster, and Semi launch in Q3/Q4 of 2020, they will include the tech. It's really the only logical explanation as to how they plan on launching 3 new products while at the same time getting 3 up to 10k/week volumes and maintaining S/X volumes of 100k/year AND continuing to ramp TE

1. Could Tesla really plan for it if they didn't know for sure whether the acquisition would go through?
2. How much would MXWL want to share their tech not knowing whether their partnership works out? What if they go their separate ways and Tesla still uses their tech or some parts of it? Maybe they had some legal agreement to work all of this out.
3. The China speculation is highly questionable; would they be selling SR+ with 300+mi range and U.S. consumers at the same time only having an option of buying 240mi range for the same car? Plus LR with the specs of Chinese SR? Doesn't make sense.

Overall timeline for embedding the tech seems to be Elon-time-optimistic.
But if that's true and M3 has 400mi range in 2020 that's death to ICE right there.

 

[Singuy]

Honestly, the larger number of crashes may be a benefit in terms of news. If there are crashes every day then people will not bother to read the articles because they become common place and full.

If they keep reporting only Tesla or autonomous car crashing(which they will since it's a new tech) it will get people the notion that a Tesla will kill you.

People don't care is x amount if miles driven on a Tesla is safer. You dying in the hand of a terrorist has a lower chance than dying from falling out of bed. But that doesn't stop people from being fearful.