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

[Artful Dodger]

SpaceX‏Verified account @SpaceX 2h2 hours ago

Starship at our launch facility in Cameron County, Texas. Watch as @elonmusk gives an update on the vehicle today at ~7:00 p.m. CDT → http://spacex.com/webcast

223 replies 1,850 retweets 9,874 likes

P.S. 7 pm CDT is 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

 

[Yuri_G]

I'm afraid we're going to see a lot of parking lot collisions, mostly the fault of human drivers, but Tesla will be blamed. Here is a near miss where the other car was going too fast but the Tesla would probably been at fault if a collision had occurred: Roddie Hasan - راضي on Twitter

Parking lots are probably one of the most dangerous areas for cars in terms of minor accidents. It's a minefield for drivers. Kind of a trial by fire for Summon...

 

[Queeg500]

But it is also hard not to notice how much it hesitates and delays, slowing down other car movements in the parking lot. This is a double edged sword. General public may end up hating Teslas operating in Smart Summon mode just as much as they hate the slow traffic-hogging Waymo cars in their public test areas.

I do agree. I also remember when I traded in AP1 for AP2, and AP2 was first released, it would only drive at max 45mph, only on motorways. But it learned, was updated, and improved. Gotta start somewhere.

 

[VValleyEV]

For those with V10 issues, I reinstalled the Tesla app on Carol’s and my phone.
It connects perfectly now, and the new buttons show up.

I got the “your car has been removed from your account” popup on my wife’s iphone for a second or two just now after updating her iphone app to 3.10, went away and then all was fine.

The iphone app did not automatically update to the new version 3.10 on my phone or my wife’s, even though we have “automatic app updates” turned on, it was still on 3.9. I manually updated mine yesterday after updating my wife’s model 3 to v10, and puzzling over new controls missing in the app, sure enough now new cool controls. Surprised this morning that her phone hadn’t already updated, so just did that manually so she can play with the windows from the app, something she likes.

I haven’t gotten v10 yet on my model S (AP 2.5 and FSD), hoping for soon. Love all the new cool stuff on her 3, got her logins all set up for spotify, Netflix, youtube, and Hulu. anxious to see it and try it all on my car. Also she is very cautious (a good thing IMHO), has only had her car for a week or so, will not try advanced summon until she is really sure it is safe and useful, and does not use AP at all yet. I wanna leave her car as her car mostly so won’t push it. Starting to get jealous, I use AP a lot, summon now and then, and am excited about trying adv Summon at Safeway, which seems to be the main use case.

 

[brian45011]

The reason I ask, we in a litigious society and I can the lawyers including Tesla in any lawsuit.

Can you imagine explaing this to the insurance adjuster," Yeah the car was driving by itself , coming towards me, when it clipped someone's bumper."

Joint and Several liability applies (aka also name the deep pocket as a Defendant).. Injured third parties are not bound by any risk allocation agreement between vehicle manufacturers and owners. If Tesla Insurance writes the coverage, it won't matter.

Not applicable in parking lot fender benders, but if a Tesla is involved in a serious accident resulting in severe bodily injuries or deaths, there will be some interesting and expensive discovery battles over all the data that Tesla had collected.

 

[dgodfrey]

I think summon will soon surpass the fart app as the feature that convinces the most people to buy a Tesla

I think V10 is a watershed release. I received a notification from Tesla via e-mail to check it out at my nearest gallery.
Unfortunately, my nearest gallery is 2 hours away.
Fortunately, I got the upgrade yesterday.
The smart summon will certainly be on the main stage but the other stuff makes a heck of an opening act.
Example; galpal stopped by last night, was in the area. Mentioned I got the smart summon upgrade and asked if she wanted to go with me to try it out. Pulled into my nearest grocery story parking lot at 8:00ish and parked off to the side lot, not many cars. Walked up to the entrance and told her to stay put. Held the come to me button and it immediately drove to within 20' of where I was standing, swerving around a curb and waiting for an approaching car to make it's move. She was impressed and amazed how the steering wheel is constantly twitching and such. I then got in and went back to the middle of mostly empty lot to show the other features. Opened Netflix and a series we had watched last year popped up with new episodes so we watched the first one. She was putty in my hands. This car will spawn a generation of nerdettes.
To avoid deletion of this post, I predict the public will be blown away by how advanced the tech in these cars are. Demand should continue it's meteoric rise. Overnight, my car jumped another 5 years ahead of anything you can buy today.

 

[Runarbt]

Just got our Model 3 yesterday.. We bought a new Model S P85 2013, sold it 3 years ago (didnt commute anymore), this is our second tesla. We invested in TSLA back in 2013 holding long.. and I read _everything_ about tesla and EVs..I live on electrek, cleantechnica, teslarati, and visit SA for fun, to poke at the shorts... so I felt I was well prepared and knew what to expect. Still, model 3 managed to surprised big time..

The car is just.. WOW.. soo good its hard to wrap my head around it. Its so refined, so complete in features.. so solid, so quick, so smooth, and sooo techy but super easy to figure out stuff, HMI is excellent. Just WOW.. and I was a super fan before..

I feel soo sorry for anyone who buy a new car without considering/test-driving this car. Have friends who have bought i-pace and waiting for e-tron, and I just feel bad for them. I have to hold my tongue around them so I don't rave on to much about how great my tesla is. Lucikly I have other 4 friends with Teslas - so I do have someone to rave on about the car with, when the others not around.. :-D

Edit: Just so I make it clear: Anyone spending between $30k to "a million bucks" on a car this size is IMHO _out of their minds_ if they buy anything else than a Model 3. ;-)

 

[jhm]

But COGS improvements are logarithmic with volume improvements: Wright's Law estimates a 15% reduction in COGS for every 200% expansion of output.

If Q3 Model 3 production has indeed expanded from 72,500 to say 85,000, a 17% expansion, then that maps to a COGS improvement of about 1.3%.

Clarifying note.

Here's my understanding of Wrights Law, or learning curve rate of 15%. It's based on doubling, so 100%, not 200%. And it's based on cumulative production volume, not volume per period. So 85/72.5 is not really based on cumulative production. However, where production growth has been exponential, then the rate of cumulative growth is the equivalent to growth in production per unit of time. So 85/72.5 may be a fair approximation of the growth in cumulative production. Assuming this, we proceed.

For a fractional doubling, we have this:

0.85^(log(85/72.5)/log(2)) - 1 = -0.0366

So COGS is reduced 3.66% (on the base of COGS, not revenue).

 

[EVNow]

That was a big deal when production went from 1k/week to 3k/week then 5k/week. When going from 6k/week to 7k/week the effect is about $360 per unit made, which is not zero but still only 0.7% of gross margin improvement at $50k ASP.

Depreciation per car goes from ~4.8k to ~4.1k if the total production is ~100k. So 600 to 700 saving, which translates to ~1% margin.

But, we should expect the ASP to drop from Q2 as more of SR+ is in the mix and we had some price cuts. So, the margin improvement could be less than 1%.

Deferred revenue recognition & regulatory credits are the unknowns. If you see the latest forecast by luvb2b based on 99k deliveries estimate - Tesla needs some $190M in these to turn gaap positive.

 

[Reinhard]

True.

But COGS improvements are logarithmic with volume improvements: Wright's Law estimates a 15% reduction in COGS for every 200% expansion of output.

If Q3 Model 3 production has indeed expanded from 72,500 to say 85,000, a 17% expansion, then that maps to a COGS improvement of about 1.3%.

Significant but certainly not as large of a volume leverage factor as in earlier phases of the Model 3 ramp-up.
ow.

I read somewhere that Wright's Law was total cumulative production. 291,143 Model 3s as of Q2. 85,000 would be 29% increase. This would be a 2.2% COGS improvement?

 

[Reinhard]

Just got our Model 3 yesterday.. I we bought a new Model S P85 2013 which we sold 3 years ago (didnt commute anymore), this is our second tesla. We invested in TSLA back in 2013 holding long.. and I read _everything_ about tesla and EVs..I live on electrek, cleantechnica, teslarati, and visit SA for fun to poke the shorts... so I felt I was well prepared and knew what to expect. Still, model 3 managed to surprised big time..

The car is just.. WOW.. soo good its hard to wrap my head around it. Its so refined, so complete in features.. so solid, so quick, so smooth, and sooo techy but super easy to figure out stuff, HMI is excellent. Just WOW.. and I was a super fan before..

I feel soo sorry for anyone who buy a new car without considering/test-driving this car. Have friends who have bought i-pace and waiting for e-tron, and I just feel bad for them. I have to hold my tongue around them so I don't rave on to much about how great my tesla is. Lucikly I have 4 friends with Teslas - so I do have someone to rave on about the car with, when the others not around.. :-D

What made you decide to go with a Model 3P instead of another Model S?

 

[Buckminster]

Bit of fun before the serious stuff in a few days:
Poll: Unusual pickup truck features

 

[brian45011]

The Lexus driver is at fault here for sure.
But, there’s a chance the accident could have been avoided had the Tesla car honked. I bet most car drivers in that situation would have honked when that Lexus was coming out. Instead the Tesla just stopped and did nothing. Stood there silently, almost waiting for it to be hit.

In negligence cases, there is an Affirmative Defense (Defendant has the burden of proof) called "Last Clear Chance" [to avoid collision/damages]

Parking lots are private property; police do not investigate nor write citations. Fertile ground for claims adjusters to practice their SOP "deny, dispute, delay."

Paraphrasing an old naval aphorism: "A collision in a parking lot can ruin your whole day"

 

[VValleyEV]

This car will spawn a generation of nerdettes.

I love this.

 

[sparcs]

In negligence cases, there is an Affirmative Defense (Defendant has the burden of proof) called "Last Clear Chance" [to avoid collision/damages]

Parking lots are private property; police do not investigate nor write citations. Fertile ground for claims adjusters to practice their SOP "deny, dispute, delay."

Paraphrasing an old naval aphorism: "A collision in a parking lot can ruin your whole day"

First rule of parking lot collisions is to take a lot of pictures from multiple angles that include direction of traffic and stop signs. Especially if you suspect the other person could try to blame it on you. Thank god for cell phones. I've bailed out a family member twice from getting wrongly blamed even when it was obvious the other person was at fault.

Tesla's camera system should definitely help document these things and deal with insurance companies.

 

[Runarbt]

What made you decide to go with a Model 3 LR AWD instead of another Model S?

Well, its actually not mine, but my wifes car. She never drove our model S as it felt to large and scary... model 3 is better. (even though I had to force her into it, by selling her old Suzuki Swift.. she had to use the buss a week as the tesla was delayed.. oups..;-) )

I drive a Nissan e-nv200 van.. refurbishing our house. Felt that car car pretty ok. Now I daydream about being done with fixing the house, and hopefully afford to swap the nissan with a model 3 LR Performance. Or win the lottery and buy a roadster 2.0 Spacex edition.

(Nissan HMI/infotainment really really sux.. navigation? pain in the behind.. range? Dont have any. ;-) But it fits my current needs)

 

[brian45011]

In Germany there is the concept of being partly guilty, and that would have applied here IMHO - is this a thing US jurisdiction, too?

Here it's called contributory and/or comparative negligence. It's application in detail varies from state to state.

 

[brian45011]

Even under ideal scaling they'd be able to take advantage of levering out more of the fixed costs of Model 3 production, which are estimated to be around $200m per quarter.)

The bigger benefit from increased volumes is OpEx leverage but the benefit might be dampened if the volume increases are partly from expanding into new geographic markets. Currency exchange rates may negatively impact GAAP Net Income.

 

[wipster]

This is illustrative of how quickly market share can be gained and lost near 50% penetration. Norway shift 10% points in 12 months. Imagine what a shift of that magnitude in the US or China would mean to the auto industry. Laggards will be crushed.

Agreed! But they have to be able to make them in sufficient quantities first and that may take another gigafactory or two. However based on the progress of all of the "Tesla killers" I think we'll have enough time to get 'er done.

 

[kbM3]

I think V10 is a watershed release. I received a notification from Tesla via e-mail to check it out at my nearest gallery.
Unfortunately, my nearest gallery is 2 hours away.
Fortunately, I got the upgrade yesterday.
The smart summon will certainly be on the main stage but the other stuff makes a heck of an opening act.
Example; galpal stopped by last night, was in the area. Mentioned I got the smart summon upgrade and asked if she wanted to go with me to try it out. Pulled into my nearest grocery story parking lot at 8:00ish and parked off to the side lot, not many cars. Walked up to the entrance and told her to stay put. Held the come to me button and it immediately drove to within 20' of where I was standing, swerving around a curb and waiting for an approaching car to make it's move. She was impressed and amazed how the steering wheel is constantly twitching and such. I then got in and went back to the middle of mostly empty lot to show the other features. Opened Netflix and a series we had watched last year popped up with new episodes so we watched the first one. She was putty in my hands. This car will spawn a generation of nerdettes.
To avoid deletion of this post, I predict the public will be blown away by how advanced the tech in these cars are. Demand should continue it's meteoric rise. Overnight, my car jumped another 5 years ahead of anything you can buy today.

The upgradeability of Teslas is so under appreciated.

Go back in time and read a review of a 2017 Honda Accord (or any non-Tesla) and you can get an exact feel for the features.

Contrarily just off the top of my head every 2017 and early 2018 review of Model 3 would miss the following features that have been subsequently added:
- Improved Performance
- Longer range
- More efficient.
- Automatic lane changes, Interchange Nav. ( Nav on Autopilot features)
- DashCam
- Enhanced Summon.
- Theater Mode
- Faster charging.
- Sentry Mode
- Dog mode.
- And many, many more

Every single 2017 Model 3 can now do all of those things and any reviews done at that time would not mention it.

Basically Tesla breaks the entire auto industry review mechanism, unless they retroactively go back and change all the old reviews.

I.e. whenever there’s a review given of any non-Tesla vehicle and it contains a list of pros and cons, there should be a giant IN BOLD CON: This vehicle is not updatable and thus will never improve. Instead, it is hardly even mentioned in Tesla reviews or comparisons including Tesla.

It is just so frustrating!