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

[moneyburner1]

That was a good Tesla meeting, despite the opportunity lost for more good Q&A by some truly awful monologues from some of the audience. (Seriously should have stuck to quick written questions)

Highlights:

- confirming on track for record deliveries this quarter, or “very close to it.”
.

Hello,

if I would assume a average M3 produktion of 6k per week this would lead to 78k produced M3 plus roughly 20 k Model S&X I would expect 98k produced Teslas in Q2.

If Tesla is going to have a record deliveries of 91k there would be still a increase in inventory of 7k.

My understanding was that the whole production would be delivered?

Or where is my mistake?

Thanks

 

[Carl Raymond]

Hello,

if I would assume a average M3 produktion of 6k per week this would lead to 78k produced M3 plus roughly 20 k Model S&X I would expect 98k produced Teslas in Q2.

If Tesla is going to have a record deliveries of 91k there would be still a increase in inventory of 7k.

My understanding was that the whole production would be delivered?

Or where is my mistake?

Thanks

My understanding is that there is a post Raven update ramp required on the S/X lines, so expect closer to 14k than 20k there.

 

[Krugerrand]

Somehow I must have missed this. I would love to hear all about it.

Google Broder. You might even be able to find the archived threads here.

Condensed version: This Broder guy from the NYT decided to journal his experience on a long distance drive in a Model S and it ran out of battery. He included a photo of the car being flat-bedded.

Front page news, EVs no good, SP took a beating, ugliness ensued.

But then the good stuff: Tesla pulled the logs on the car. Discovered he didn’t fully charge the car at his next to last stop, but still the car made it to the last set of SuperChargers. Instead of just plugging into them, he drove several times around the parking lot until the car did run out of battery.

A week or two? later a group of Model S owners gathered and recreated the guy’s route and drove it to prove that it could easily be done.

The NYT ended up sort of publicly admonishing the guy and sort of apologizing but the damage was done. We learnt quite a time later that that stunt cost Tesla several million dollars in sales at the time. A time when Tesla was still very vulnerable and the Model S was new to the market.

 

[heltok]

Scott is not happy with Tesla, starts 9min in:

 

[Carl Raymond]

Scott is not happy with Tesla, starts 9min in:

Makes one valid point then leaps 200 miles to the “bankrupt” conclusion. Not worth watching. Ignorant audience laughs along. Longs will laugh longer.

 

[Ellec]

Nice bump pre market.

 

[Tslynk67]

I am at the shareholder meeting In the middle of the hall. If you are here and want to say hi pm me

Neglected to charge my phone though.

Always carry a small powerbank - you may not need it very often, but when you do, you'll be mightily relieved

 

[aubreymcfato]

Honest to God, if Musk just had lunch with me once a month it would probably save them from a lot of mistakes.

I'd pay GOOD MONEY to be just there listening ;-)

 

[Tslynk67]

Dramatic delay to Elon's entrance FTW.

 

[aubreymcfato]

It’s a steering wheel. A Steering Wheel.

Never mind the fact there’s a technological reason for A Steering Wheel to be covered with leather and not something else. Elon literally explained why.

If PETA would like to replace all Tesla steering wheels for the life of every car, then have at it and give me a fake leather covered steering wheel, I don’t care and neither will most everyone else on the planet. Until then, go pick a bigger fish to fry - like the President of the USA who’s in the midst of allowing a number of species to be decimated.

I’m going to stop now before I really get on a role about the infinite number of absolutely butt backwards decisions that organization has made that’s led to horrific animal suffering and cruelty.

FWIW, I'm a vegetarian, and I agree completely. There are MANY other more impactful things that PETA would and should focus on. Not a Tesla steering wheel.

 

[dqd88]

Scott is not happy with Tesla, starts 9min in:

I don't think he's unreasonable. He has some valid points. But he just doesn't get the paradigm shift that's occurring.

His points and my respective thoughts....

*Elon over promises, under delivers -- true. We/Elon know this. I don't see it affecting the company's viability.
*1 M Robotaxis next year is crazy -- Like most, Scott is twisting what Elon said. Elon said there will be 1 M cars that are equipped to be robotaxis (a fairly rational prediction). Elon has never said there will be 1 M robotaxis in operation next year.
* $420 tweet -- fair point, we know it was ill-advised. Doesn't really affect the company's future prospects.
* Sr Leadership exits -- I still don't know if there really is an unusually high turnover rate. I'd have to compare it to other companies in the valley. Scott says the quality of mgt matters; I think the mgt team is quite good.
* Weak board -- fair point. I think the board will be improving soon; several members will be replaced.
* Scott thinks a tech company buys them -- I doubt Tesla becomes imperiled to the degree it gets bought at a discounted price.

Scott does not mention anything about demand/sales/growth. Or battery efficiency, range, capacity, etc... ie - the things that matter most. Scott doesn't mention global EV growth rates or any macro pressures pushing the world to EV. He just doesn't get it.

 

[EVMeister]

Nice bump pre market.
View attachment 418370

Seems more like a fade compared to after-hours last night. As usual I don't pay too much attention to out of hours trading.

 

[dqd88]

Went back and watched the shareholder presentation again. Have a pretty good feeling that things are moving solidly in the right direction on nearly all fronts. The weak spots I feel Elon is aware of. I would be very surprised if we ever come back to these stock price levels. Been buying on the way down and a little on the way up. Might buy more tmrw. Tempted to go bigger using margin (I know, I shouldn't, prob won't). I just haven't had this much conviction in a long time. I see so many upside catalysts, and not many downside. Is it my rose colored glasses?

 

[Sean Wagner]

Went back and watched the shareholder presentation again. Have a pretty good feeling that things are moving solidly in the right direction on nearly all fronts. The weak spots I feel Elon is aware of.

Agreed that on the production and product side, Tesla looks well set up for the next two years. The exception to previously announced plans being the European GF - but incidentally, I think the new timeline is a very good de-risking [look at absolute German demand for the Model 3 for a clue to my train of thought].

A big caveat - the service side that Elon previously promised would get his full attention this year. As @neroden rightly opines, the company's future can be decided by what happens there these coming months.

I can think of a useful analogy: during all the fraught months of the Model 3 ramp up, there never once was a serious recall - and a recall on the grand scale would not only have dealt a body blow at a crucial time, but severely overtaxed the service centers. I'm very glad Tesla dodged that one. No news can be very good news.

Not too happy with the autonomy thing, but Elon has slightly toned down the hyper-optimistic proselytizing, as witnessed by his parking lot bonmot. Hope he keeps it that way and refrains from pre-announcing achievements. Talks about the R&D are enlightening and don't require a public timeline.

 

[SO16]

Is that Tesla's fault? Damn, hard to have your cake and eat it too. At least you'll know they're working towards it.

Not sure. The one in the MI upper peninsula has been there for 395 days so far. I have been hoping for it since it’s desolate up there. I’m not dissing Tesla here. Im amazed at how big the network is and growing. I’m just saying that just because you see a permit on supercharge.info doesn’t necessarily mean a supercharger will appear in the next few months.

ND Permit has been there a long time too.

 

[lascavarian]

Correction: 63% are coming from that group. SIXTY-THREE!

Is this the first specific number from the company? This is important to understand.

 

[SO16]

Correction: 63% are coming from that group. SIXTY-THREE!

I think it’s possible that others with higher end cars may be selling privately due to low trade in values. (Which is more noticeable on more expensive vehicles.)

I would like to know the number of people with no trade in....out of curiosity.

 

[Tslynk67]

After watching this morning, thoughts:
- Elon super-relaxed, like it
- JB needs to watch what he's eating
- The Drew dude is a good speaker, give him more stage-time - same way that Apple have better speakers than Tim that do the majority of the presentations
- Pickup, I'll reiterate that I think they'll reveal the whacko-mobile and the standard at the same time, or perhaps Elon is sand-bagging and there is no "cyber-punk truck", or at least not a whacko as he's pitched it
- I anticipate a huge announcement coming in 6-12 months with regards incorporating Maxwell technology
- Good that the concept of initiating the TN sooner with drivers on-board has got through
- I'm rather satisfied that the issue of FUD came up strongly
- PETA: Vegans spread FUD about meat in the same way as $TSLAQ do for Tesla, don't fall for it
- Complete nutter at the end, you could see him coming from a few questions earlier!

Very good meeting overall! As other have said, not a lot of signs of impending doom there, quite the opposite.

 

[KarenRei]

Nasty supply chain there. Hope they get some certifications to avoid making the PFOA environmental contamination problem worse. Also, since it doesn't biodegrade, battery recycling becomes very important.

While it'd be their supplier's problem, not Tesla's, my understanding is that PFOA is on the way out in PTFE manufacture. Regardless, it'd be contained within cells (rather than found in consumer goods) if present, and also I'm not even sure it'd be stable within the harsh environment of a battery cell. And yeah, nobody is throwing away used EV battery packs; there's too much of value in there to recover.

Fluorinated compounds are already in widespread use in batteries, because you need extreme chemical stability for them to last. Both in electrolytes and membranes. Some of the most common flourinated compounds in electrolytes at least, however, break down in water, ultimately to free fluorine ions (fluoride) - the base electrolyte is generally fluorinated lithium salts with organic carbonates. So for example LiPF5 becomes LiOH (Li+ OH- in water) + HF (H+ F- in water) + PF5, and the latter eventually breaks down to phosphorus oxides (e.g. fertilizer ) and more HF (H+ F-). HF is of course highly dangerous when concentrated, but at low levels, the fluoride ion is very desirable in water (for dental health), to the point that many countries add it to their water supply.

 

[Tslynk67]

Dude, wth.

I wasn’t saying I expect him to give us the rundown in detail. Maxwell integration is far out enough that I don’t care what he says about it right now. I was just responding to someone asking whether anything was mentioned about it.

if you paid attention to the banter between Elon, JB and beardy guy with regards to battery development, then they pretty-much said that they have everything in the pipeline to make the necessary innovations in longevity, energy density and cost reduction.