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

[shootformoon]

Why do you think he cherry picked the facts that look bad to tesla while ignored the good ones? I am not sure he is that blind. I'd rather suspect his motivation.

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.

 

[HG Wells]

Well NO DEMAND has run its course.

I wonder what's next?

Well, since they are losing money on each car they sell.
Tesla's problem is too much demand.

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

Does anyone know why Democrat controlled states are now seemingly anti-EV? We're basically moving from having incentives to buy an EV, to disincentives. Recently, Illinois was looking at passing a $1000 yearly tax on EVs, but instead passed a $250 per year tax - still $100 more than the average on ICE vehicles.

Are Dems either THAT desperate for revenue or just simply getting paid off by big oil, dealerships, and legacy car manufacturers - similar to what happened in all the Republican states? I agree that EV owners should pay their fair share of road taxes, but MORE than ICE vehicles? (it's about the same in Georgia).

And I often wonder about the intelligence of these elected officials. One in Illinois was touting how much money they would take in if they raised the EV tax to $1000 yearly - NO YOU WON'T - you'll just kill the sales of EVs!! Doh!!

 

[traxila]

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.

This is the standard allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I have been vegan in the past. Am vegetarian now. With all the horrible machinations of the human race regarding other animals to allow a steering wheel issue at a company like Tesla to be a focus issue for you...just makes no sense.

This would be something that would solve itself at some point, assuming Homo Sapiens are still around....

 

[ZachF]

OT

There is a SpaceX launch this morning

 

[Alphacrux]

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.

Used vroom.com for the first time. $5.5K better offer than trade in. Still lower than private sale, but quick, easy and 99% hassle-free. No affiliation with vroom.com.

 

[Krugerrand]

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

The first I’ve seen a PPP slide with three specific car classes listed and percentage of buyers coming from each class.

63% from lesser priced cars
12% from other higher priced luxury cars?
23% from same priced cars?

Yeah, I’m not positive I got the last two segments right because I got really stuck on that first one.

 

[Fact Checking]

OT

There is a SpaceX launch this morning

T minus 54 minutes:

Obligatory go-to link for space nerds:

SpaceX Time Machine​

Only 13 minutes wide launch window for a polar mapping orbit - any delay beyond that means a scrub.

 

[S3XY]

Most pertinent tidbits, imo:
Model 3 is highest sales revenue car in all of America.
Chance to have a record quarter.
Selling more cars than can make / no demand problem / no need to advertise to increase demand.
Can only rollout new products to the extent that battery supply allows.
Semi production likely to start late 2020.
Pickup unveil likely late this summer.
GF3 could possible scale as high as 1mm/yr volume long term.
Will likely be in India next year.

Probably need to take this with a grain of salt. From what I recall both JB and Drew perked up and kind of gave Elon a look when he said that. Sure, they could produce more than the originally stated 500k but 1m is likely a wishful Elon stretch.

 

[mongo]

T minus 57 minutes.

Obligatory go-to link for space nerds:

SpaceX Time Machine​

Only 13 minutes wide launch window for a polar mapping orbit - any delay beyond that means a scrub.

Due to using sub-cooled fuel and oxidizer, along with the countdown process, all SpaceX launches are instantaneous since recycle time is like 90 minutes or so...

 

[winfield100]

You’re wrong. *We* in fact have a lot of power. As an example; *We* (as in a handful of Tesla Model S owners) shamed the powerful NYT and they’ve yet to forgive us for it.

@Krugerrand
Feb 16th, 2013, snip of foto of Broder "memorial" ride where 8 Teslas recreated his ride (4 were S60's, 4 were S85's

Rockville, Maryland, Gude Drive service center. then to Delaware supercharger where the 60's bid adeiu, other 4 completed with zero problems, one tweeting (sutomaticallly) interior temps were a comfy 70+ degrees, not freezing like Broder complained.
One S85 was a young couple who joined on a lark for fun and a weekend trip, one drove down from NY to return.
(There were not a lot of superchargers back in 2013)

 

[Don TLR]

Why not send out press released debunking all the negativity.
Tesla/Elon has been knocked down by the bullies (media) and it seems to just lay there saying nothing hoping the bullies stop kicking while it's down. I never see a press release coming out of the company quoting some analyst saying his theory is complete BS . I keep hearing more advertising is needed which Elon seems to be against but how about something from the company that maybe some news outlet can use to support them.

 

[Fact Checking]

So a few weeks ago I got some pushback when I suggested 1+ million/year GF3 output:

Sorry I have to pour some cold water on this “30k per week at Giga 3” idea. I watch Giga 3 pretty closely but have never heard of anything about that 1.5 million per year number. The official figure is 500K per year.

I also remember Elon saying they were planning a max 500k capacity.

I think anything over that number is pure speculation, and likely not helpful. Unless I see any real sources of info.

This source says 250k/year in phase 1, combined Model 3+Y output:

Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory To Produce Model Y & Model 3 | CleanTechnica​

That's ~5k/week for phase 1 - it would be 20k/week or 1m/year once all four phases are completed, where expansion will be subject to total demand of China, India, etc.

This 20k/week total capacity figure is lower than 30k/week, but twice as high as the 10k/week, 500k/year figure, and does come with sourcing.

Elon provided a "maybe over 1 million per year" estimate for Shanghai capacity:

GF3 could possible scale as high as 1mm/yr volume long term.

Elon's exact wording was:

"I think like long-term that factory will probably do more than five hundred thousand so this sort of like an interim goal maybe it does a million or more long term"​

Which is, as I wrote before, IMHO a pretty straightforward extrapolation from the current "phase I" capacity, which uses only one quarter of the factory area available.

Of course Tesla will have to earn a lot more cash before they can expend the capex to grow that far, and the Chinese EV market will have to grow as well and its ability to pay $30k+ per unit will have to be measured.

 

[Todd Burch]

I expect a strong attempt at MMD at open. My theory is shorts want to try to paint news from shareholder meeting as bad.

It will fail.

 

[SO16]

Instead of advertising they could do product placement

They do. I have seen A Tesla in a TV show and Deadpool 2.

 

[S3XY]

It is reassuring that they've *finally* figured out that they have to classify not just "driveable space", but "good road space", "bad road space", "emergency off-road space", and "totally unsafe" space.

They're about to start developing self-driving! It would have been quicker if they'd hired me upfront, since I could have told them they'd need to do this upfront, but hey, better late than never.

I am not remotely impressed by them, but I think they're stumbling their way slowly to the right process to eventually develop self-driving. I think they might get it done in a decade or two. Everyone else is on the wrong path with the wrong process, so Tesla's the only one with a chance.

Do you really think they weren't aware that they needed to define these things? They needed to start with the easier tasks like recognizing most road lines and getting the car to navigate within those. Now that that has been basically resolved they can now concentrate on transitioning from manual intervention to FSD handling emergency maneuvers. I expect you'll ague that this proves your point that they just started the FSD solution but my argument is that the first step towards FSD was driving within the lines.

 

[anthonyj]

Gap filled with yesterday’s high. Just buy buy buy. Robbery under $250

 

[Don TLR]

Yes, a bolt of lightning carries about 1 Billion joules of energy, or about 278 Kwh. Given the average charging efficiency of 80%, that bolt could recharge a 200 KWh Roadster pack in about 30 microseconds.

Problem is, then you'd have to call it the 'Roaster'.

Like this quick charge

 

[Fact Checking]

They do. I have seen A Tesla in a TV show and Deadpool 2.

"Product placement" usually means the form of stealth advertising where a car company pays a major show or a blockbuster movie to put their cars on display. Such as the E-Tron displayed in the recent "Avengers: End Game" probably cost Audi a couple of million dollars.

Which is probably more than the profit they'll ever earn from E-Tron sales, they need to earn more than 2 billion euros, around 600,000 units for a break-even:

Tesla Model 3 cost surprised Porsche and Audi after reverse-engineering - Electrek​

I don't think Tesla is paying for displaying Teslas in movies or TV shows.

BTW., funniest ever product placement I saw was in the first "Jurassic Park" movie: there's at least 3 edited versions of the movie that are advertising the hardware and the OS used to control the theme park: "Silicon Graphics, Unix", "Thinking Machines, Unix" and "Microsoft, Windows NT" were all variants I've seen/heard, post-edited into the movie, as if it was an excited, authentic statement of one of the major movie characters, with the exact words depending on geographic region. (The true system used was probably Silicon Graphics/Irix, the rendering system du jour.)

 

[ZachF]

Due to using sub-cooled fuel and oxidizer, along with the countdown process, all SpaceX launches are instantaneous since recycle time is like 90 minutes or so...

Only oxidizer is subcooled

"Product placement" usually means the form of stealth advertising where a car company pays a major show or a blockbuster movie to put their cars on display. Such as the E-Tron displayed in the recent "Avengers: End Game" probably cost Audi a couple of million dollars.

Which is probably more than the profit they'll ever earn from E-Tron sales, they need to earn more than 2 billion euros, around 600,000 units for a break-even:

Tesla Model 3 cost surprised Porsche and Audi after reverse-engineering - Electrek​

I don't think Tesla is paying for displaying Teslas in movies or TV shows.

BTW., funniest ever product placement I saw was in the first "Jurassic Park" movie: there's at least 3 edited versions of the movie that are advertising the hardware and the OS used to control the theme park: "Silicon Graphics, Unix", "Thinking Machines, Unix" and "Microsoft, Windows NT" were all variants I've seen, post-edited into the movie depending on geographic region. (The true system used was probably Silicon Graphics/Irix, the rendering system du jour.)

Audi Etron with engine nosies