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

[Cherry Wine]

Nah, you're good. That is a prebuilt skid with flex conduit running to the power source. Not (yet) a permanent installation.

Another tweet indicates that it's permanent in response to the question: "Is it a temporary one?"

@tesla: "nope"

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting, @Troy is reporting that the Model 3 Performance take-rate has increased in Q3 significantly:

Troy Teslike on Twitter

"#Tesla Model 3 Performance sales are on the rise. Based on my survey, 31% of Model 3 sales in Q3 2019 are the Performance version compared to 20% in Q2 2019."

Q4 2018 9%
Q1 2019 16%
Q2 2019 20%
Q3 2019 31%​

This should explain continued Model S weakness, a lot of cannibalization by the M3P. This should also be pretty good for Q3 Model 3 margins.

I'd also guess that a M3P cash margin is probably equivalent or perhaps better than the 75 kWh Model S's margin was? So 75 kWh discontinuation and sales lost to the M3P will actually improve overall cash income. (shout-out to @EVNow)

 

[acoste]

Nothing was "faked". There was a pre-production Taycan there. It was nowhere close to stock, but obviously they're going to present it as being as close to stock as they think they can get away with (everyone does this, while trying to stick an asterisk after their competitors' vehicles). It actually achieved its time. Its time was not a track record, but they made up a new, unofficial category to present it as one.

It's hype. Just like accelerating and braking on an aircraft carrier - just designed to gin up interest.

Ok. So in summary you have no information about it. Yet you keep spreading misinformation.

 

[lascavarian]

If you listen to the end of the Joe Rogan interview, Elon states in a rather despondent tone (after a few whiskies) that the EV transition is going too slowly.

I think his decisions are focused on what gets the most EVs out to customers. If other OEMs can help then great, otherwise Tesla will do it themselves.

The idea of market share, competition, etc is kind of superseded through this lense. It's all focused on what gets the most EVs on the road.

Yes! Things are moving slowly for traditional auto manufacturers because they are hidebound and lethargic plus delusional IMO. EM is helping them make better decisions by limiting their choices. Seeing the plaid technology lets them know him a little better.

You can't drastically increase the number of EVs on the road by making $100k+ vehicles. Tesla is there so the options are severely limited. Every day the world learns more about climate problems and more about the good idea of BEVs.

Dealerships are left trying to sell products that pollute, have higher cost in use, under perform in use, have higher insurance costs and are less reliable. Well there is an easy sale - not. Squirrel, Squirrel!

The stock market will reward the one that finds the quickest way to makes the most BEVs. These will likely be around/under $30k - a guess.

Dealers will have something to sell because the dealer that has a lot of these BEVs will have a very easy time taking sales away from their ICE competitors.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Interesting, Troy reports that the Model 3 Performance take-rate is increasing rapidly:

Troy Teslike on Twitter

"#Tesla Model 3 Performance sales are on the rise. Based on my survey, 31% of Model 3 sales in Q3 2019 are the Performance version compared to 20% in Q2 2019."

Q4 2018 9%
Q1 2019 16%
Q2 2019 20%
Q3 2019 31%​

This should explain continued Model S weakness, a lot of cannibalization by the M3P. This should also be pretty good for Q3 Model 3 margins.

Tesla also just registered 16k new Vins…..72% AWD. The take rate for the higher trims in the Vin registrations and from what we're seeing in Europe is surprisingly high.

 

[ggr]

The FOMC has twelve members, right? So "7" is probably more than just a "sizeable minority" - is it a slim majority?

Interesting, you learn something every day. Normally it's 12, which are the 7 board members of the Federal Reserve plus the 5 from the regional reserve banks (Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, St. Louis). However there are currently only 5 board members of the Federal Reserve, and two vacancies. So 7 is 70%.

 

[Rb48888]

Taycant.com

lol. I love this forum.

OK, who did this? : TeslaLounge

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Porsche won't be able to change quickly because they are rather horizontal integrated than vertical. As I pointed out in my latest article at CleanTechnica it is a not fully understood huge advantage of Tesla to have a deep vertical integration and they did it because they had to not because they wanted to.

The German auto industry including Porsche has a proven Model that is almost worthless today and a burden if an agile company like Tesla comes around with a new superior technology.

The inflexibility to change quickly is a backed in disadvantage that has many reasons and can't be changed easily. It will take time to do so if they are able to at all and will cost time and a fortune.

Right now in Sindelfingen there will be a level of frustration and disbelieve that Tesla pulled the plaid out of the sleeve and simply embarrassed them. This is just the start and the plaid production vehicle will do even better and the Roadster next level.

I believe the approach to put two gears in the Taycan was another strategic mistake ignoring the experiences Tesla went through in the early days. I have 1st hand sources confirming the arrogance of Porsche engineers not listening nor learning. Its a cultural problem that leads to inflexibility and that what I call the Taycan disaster.

Premium prices are now not longer justified for the Taycan and likely not for the next BEVs of Porsche and with that their strategy is imploding. I believe Porsche has a very hard awakening in front of them.

No kidding, tell me about gears.
I had third gear failure after only 10,000km on '16 Porsche GT4. (and GT4 has only 35%-40% of Taycan's torque)

 

[ggr]

Just like the heat pump discussion the motor cooling discussion has found a new home: Motor cooling (out of main)

I love parallel processing.

 

[Stars aligned]

I continue to not believe in Ihor's numbers. The trading last week especially doesn't correlate with shares shorted decreasing. Anyone watching the stock action during last week and the heavy volume(compared to the last 2-3 weeks average volume) could see that the stock was being capped/manipulated multiple times with pretty decent sized sell blocks throughout the entire week.

To add, it makes not much sense that short position fell but borrowing rate went up from 0.7x% to 1.18%. Seems rather that longs hold on their shares, but do not buy much more before tangible figures confirm Tesla does well, and shorts try to suppress the SP taking advantage of the low volume, thus the spike of the borrowing fee.

 

[kbM3]

It should shift the demand curve up.



Only because Tesla pulled another lever to shift the demand curve up - -lowering prices aka giving more car for the same price.

It's not obvious to me that some additional marketing in the form of some more traditional advertising would not allow Tesla to support higher prices for the given supply -- thus allowing the supply and demand curves to intersect at a place yielding a higher gross margin net advertising.

But some advertising would risk yielding a lower quality customer -- some customers are more trouble than they are worth.

I wonder if the strategy to avoid traditional advertising helps Tesla to grow more organically with a more self-selecting and ultimately better, more profitable, customer base --- keeping the demand curve a little lower on price dimension, but higher on the customer quality dimension (faster and cheaper initial sale and post sale: fewer stupid questions, less burdening customer support and service, etc.).

Undoubtedly dollars spent on advertising will generate a positive rate of return. That’s not the question. The question is will they generate a higher rate of return than the investments currently being made from which they’d have to steal the money. Unless anyone can provide numbers and prove that Tesla is doing the wrong thing, I don’t see how the assertion advertising is the smart thing for them to do, can be made.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

It's true - the SpaceX package could change things in unexpected ways.

It also could turn out that it generates a rounding error worth of performance, and/or that the volume and velocity of the compressed air can't be sustained in a way that does anything more on an aggressive stretch of driving like the 5-8 minutes of driving the 'Ring fast than be extra weight and decoration.

Or it'll make a difference in performance, but the software tuning that integrates the performance into normal performance driving is twitchy enough that people mostly turn it off except for straight ahead driving.

My only point is that it's WAY out there, and we're really just guessing right now. For now, my own guess is that the SpaceX package is going to be more about looks, badging, and exclusivity (which is also what a lot of these really high end cars are about) than about significant and sustained performance change.

We can go on and on with what the SpaceX package could mean to the Roadster.


The last thing I'll say about it, is that if some of the if's people are coming up with what the SpaceX package can contribute come out as good as some of us hope, and it regenerates fast enough that it's an integral component to a 'Ring lap, or even two laps, then that sounds awfully close to a needle moving technology that will be adopted into racing technology.

It COULD be - I prefer to see it rather than assume it.

Won't be allowed in racing. 40 years ago Porsche had technology that was creating vacuum underneath the car to improve traction, like a reverse hovercraft. Porsche won few races without real challenger, and that tech was forbidden very quickly. I don't see how is this much different, except it's more powerful, and possibly multi-directional. Even more of a reason to not allow it...

 

[anthonyj]

lol. I love this forum.

OK, who did this? : TeslaLounge

LOL. Maybe I should add my referral code... nah

 

[ggr]

LOL. Maybe I should add my referral code... nah

Actually, technologically, since it is just a redirect you could redirect it to your referral URL. But then when you mention it here you'd have to sign up to be a vendor, and even then I'm not sure it isn't against TMC or Tesla rules. So forget that I said that. ;-)

 

[Cherry Wine]

ICYMI.

I bet your Model S can’t do this... Nürburgring earlier. : teslamotors

Also, another poster on Reddit made an unverified, second-hand claim that EOQ sales incentives were ended, and that the incentives were never intended to stack. Grain of salt.

End of QTR rush 'discounts/incentives' and free SC ended today : teslamotors

I've become pretty good friends with the Tesla specialist that sold me my Model 3 and I went in today to talk to her about what was going on with the end of the QTR sale incentives. My SR+ is just 30 days old, I'm sure many of you here are in this situation, so I wanted to see if I could inquire about getting any of the perks. I assumed the worst for the free upgrades, but I wanted to look into the free supercharging for 2 years and see if maybe she could make some magic happen. Spoiler: No Dice.

She explained to me they got a company wide email this week saying all of these end of the QTR incentives were to stop by 3pm PST today, 9/17. She said it was supposed to be EITHER OR (Free SC OR upgrades) but it was not communicated well to the sales staff and many customers got both when they were not supposed to. She said a lot of employees on many levels got into trouble and that all sales with these incentives had to be finalized by 3pm or they would not be approved. Even before the deadline, every sale with a discount had to be approved by a manager. I was there for a few hours while my car was being charged and saw 3-4 people get denied the incentives. One person was offered free rims and a paint upgrade while I was there though, but they started the sales process many hours before 3pm. The car was gone and sold within 15 minutes before they could make a decision (crazy). She said they have a shortage of cars because they're selling so many..which I assume is because everyone jumped on this end of QTR deal.

Anyway, I hope this info helps.

 

[lklundin]

"Enhanced Summon is designed to allow your car to drive to you (using your phone´s GPS as a target destination) or a location of your choosing...".

Cue bad people who no longer need to recruit a driver to create a VBIED...

 

[EVNow]

This should explain continued Model S weakness, a lot of cannibalization by the M3P. This should also be pretty good for Q3 Model 3 margins.

I'd also guess that a M3P cash margin is probably equivalent or perhaps better than the 75 kWh Model S's margin was? So 75 kWh discontinuation and sales lost to the M3P will actually improve overall cash income. (shout-out to @EVNow)

Reduction in P price is definitely having the intended impact.

In terms of margin, my going in assumption is - Tesla will change the prices as needed to get the right mix to achieve a particular ASP ($50k) & a margin target (20%). Ofcourse, if they get better margin, they are not going to reject that - but I'd not assume better margin based on P uptake.

Releasing FSD features remain the best option to increase margins.

 

[EVNow]

And release notes have leaked, too- interesting that it says "Enhanced Summon is designed to allow your car to drive to you (using your phone´s GPS as a target destination) or a location of your choosing...". Didn´t know you could direct it elsewhere, which at least makes a very good party trick. Imagine you leaving from a restaurant, you go out to fetch the car, your company follows a bit later and is the car drives up to pick them up - but without you in it .

Smart Summon on V10!!! Found in Facebook : teslamotors

Apparently for EAP, cars with HW3 have enh summon, but Musk says on twitter when we get to GA, it will work on all 2.0+ HW.

 

[LN1_Casey]

lol. I love this forum.

OK, who did this? : TeslaLounge

Honestly, I'd be unsurprised if Tesla had done it. Or even Overlord Musk himself. Not saying that they did, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had.

 

[JusRelax]

Interesting, @Troy is reporting that the Model 3 Performance take-rate has increased in Q3 significantly

One thing to note: The ASP has increased ~$500 over Q2 based off of Troy's estimates. Yes, I do believe that is significant, but I just want to make sure that nobody takes 'signficant' to mean that the ASP increased by like $2k+ or something.

Q3:

Q2: