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

[Singuy]

Disagree. Tesla gets all the press. If something happens to a Chevy Bolt or BMW I3 it won't make mainstream news.

Nothing happens to those cars tho, mostly because no one bought them so every car that catches on fire at the dealer lot will be news. Didn't we hear a story recently about a car catching on fire on the lot?

I honestly stop faulting MSM running stories about Tesla. It's new and every little thing that happens to them happen in a new way. Police cars running out of gas, happens all the time. Police car running out of charge, that's new.

Car backed up to someone in a parking lot, happens every second. Car backed up to a car with no driver? That's national news!

It is what it is. It's just interesting and people want to read about new things.

 

[Curt Renz]

Business Insider - today:

 

[Foxtrotter]

Just got a follow up email from Bloomberg/Tom Randall regarding the Model 3 survey. Now they want first impressions of the v10 software release.

I just took this "Survey". All they asked about were the entertainment features and smart summon not 10 overall. Nothing about the Sentry and dash cam improvements, NOA changes, or other significant stuff. Seems pretty silly that they would select those things which have less to do with actually driving the car.

 

[204EV]

Nothing happens to those cars tho, mostly because no one bought them so every car that catches on fire at the dealer lot will be news. Didn't we hear a story recently about a car catching on fire on the lot?

I honestly stop faulting MSM running stories about Tesla. It's new and every little thing that happens to them happen in a new way. Police cars running out of gas, happens all the time. Police car running out of charge, that's new.

Car backed up to someone in a parking lot, happens every second. Car backed up to a car with no driver? That's national news!

It is what it is. It's just interesting and people want to read about new things.

What you missed here is that the police car DIDN'T run out of charge.. just got low.. but that's not what the headlines and articles said.. And when corrected zero apologies or issued retractions.. .. That's fud. They did it with an agenda. Mostly just for the clicks but sometimes there is more.

 

[NakedLong]

In general, it does bother me when activists imply that continuous economic growth is evil, as if we'd be better off with the brutish existence of our ancestors before modern technology. While Earth's resources are finite, our Solar System possesses virtually limitless supplies of key elements. Even on Earth alone, we're only tapping a very small fraction of the energy available from our gigantic nuclear fusion reactor (the Sun), and as you say, moving to a more circular economy has much potential.

Greta is young and malleable, so I hope and expect that she will appreciate her experience with the Model 3 rather than seeing all cars as evil. I hope that she sees the good that companies like Tesla and SpaceX can bring to humanity without sacrificing economic growth. And not just Greta, all of the young people who follow her as well. Even if they aren't in a position to buy an EV or install solar, they can start by buying a couple of shares of TSLA and/or shares in renewable energy companies.

> In general, it does bother me when activists imply that continuous economic growth is evil, as if we'd be better off with the brutish existence of our ancestors before modern technology

Wanting to limit economic growth is sensible especially in areas which damage the planet such as coal and gas. It doesn't mean you want to live like cavemen, quite the opposite. A lot of the industries such as farming (deforestation, livestock), oil/gas/energy, cement/buildings and of course transportation produce most of the damage, so in these areas growth needs to be limited in the form of a polluter pays tax so that the price for these products captures all environmental externalities, which can then be spent on restoration and protection of the environment.

> Greta is young and malleable

Pretty patronising...

> Even if they aren't in a position to buy an EV or install solar, they can start by buying a couple of shares of TSLA and/or shares in renewable energy companies.

This would be more compelling if green companies (including Tesla and SpaceX) were carbon neutral from cradle to grave for all their products (both of which they are not). As an individual, if you want to make a difference become an activist and lobby governments for a pollution tax.

 

[SO16]

Business Insider - today:

it’s just unfortunate that their rating system is so poor (watered down) that you can’t truly distinguish between the “good enough” and the “truly superior”.

 

[Causalien]

Anecdotal comments are worthless.

The public should be celebrating the fact that Tesla actually react to these outrageous accusations and take preemptive actions. I've actually never heard of any rusting complaints on Tesla. While living in the east coast, it is up to individual owners to rust proof their own car. I've never heard of any other manufacturers do anything about it.

Now, imaging anybody complaining about the thing they complain about Teslas, but to any of the other major manufacturers. Like VW or GM. FIRE!!!, RUST!!!, AP SWERVING!!!! $500 for automatic windows!!!!

You'd just get scoffed at and maybe if you are annoying enough, they'd slap you with a libel lawsuit. You won't get any other response unless you can prove statistically, it kills more people than average.

 

[StealthP3D]

A little perspective is perhaps in order here. Those of us that understand the benefits of EVs and realize that the future is electric are often quick to blow off or ridicule the arguments of the ICE public. I will put it this way, I was a total gearhead not too long ago. I loved the auto ownership experience. Changing my own oil, getting my hands dirty, and maintaining my own machine was truly a joyful experience. I rebuilt, from the ground up, two different ICE classics. It was tremendously gratifying to take every nut and bolt off the car and put it back better than new. There is a pride of ownership that goes into the maintenance of your own ride and many many folks see EVs as a threat to that experience. In some ways they are TOO good. TOO reliable. TOO maintenance free. They kind of cut to the core of what a great number of people feel is there joy in life. To these people, EVs are going to be a tough sell.

I think if we can keep this in mind in our dealings with the public, I think it will go a long way towards acceptance and adoption. An easier path towards adoption means Tesla stock comes around quicker.

Win/Win

Dan

I disagreed with this and will explain why.

In or around 1999 an old friend of my wife visited our house. She had been a struggling professional photographer for years. Her true love was photographic artistry but she would grind out whatever kind of assignments she got to pay the bills. I had just purchased my first digital point/shoot camera and was amazed at the ease, color saturation, etc. of digital photography. All 1.2 Megapixels of it. Or was it less? I don't remember. I understood that the resolution and light sensitivity was getting better every year. I wasn't ready to buy a DSLR because it wasn't there yet and was still too expensive.

I made an off-hand comment that in the future she would be using a DSLR. She looked at me like I had just committed a mortal sin and told me she would *never* use a DSLR, even if they improved greatly. DSLR's would *never* give the "film" look which was obviously the best look and the one every artist desired. Digital was too "digital" it would never look natural and, while it might replace film for journalism and such, it could *never* replace film for fine art photography. She went on to elaborate on how processing the film at different temperatures and different times with different developers could maximize the result and was an art/science in and of itself. When I suggested that, with enough pixels, the same thing could be done digitally she just scoffed and let me know I didn't know what I was talking about. She was an *artist* not a techy. The two could never meet in her field.

FF 10 years: I hadn't seen this woman since the last time she chewed me out for knowing nothing about art and artistic photography. She came by to visit. One of the first things I asked her was if she was still shooting film. She looked very sheepish as she admitted she had switched *entirely* to DSLR's years ago. She had a bunch of DSLR's and was more successful than ever. Even in the realm of artistic photography.

My point is, I had never met a bigger film snob, she was a film snob before digital was even a thing and the transformation happened really fast. She previously *loved* the darkroom and watching her images develop under the dim light of the darkroom. I think it will largely be the same way with cars. Yes, collectible cars will decline in value (and yet, some will still be worth millions), people will realize they didn't really enjoy being up to their elbows in oil every time they needed to refresh the oil (but there will still be a small minority that carry on the dirty, expensive tradition). Gas cars are not going away, they are just losing their luster and their following.

 

[KarenRei]

2. Are the rumors of a new gen Model S based on the 3 platform real? Would definitely yield higher efficiencies in production, higher profit margin per unit.

It's been slowly migrating there, piece by piece.

With a few minor exceptions, all Model 3 variants are now available in all markets. We'll soon have data for ongoing global demand.

Partially filled markets (surge continues in, but should be exhausted during, Q4):

• UK
• Japan
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Taiwan

Untapped markets starting in Q4:

• South Korea
• Ireland
• Several countries in eastern Europe
• ? (probably more)

Untapped markets starting in Q1:

• Iceland <= <= <= <=
• Balkans (partial)
• ? (probably more)

Some of the large markets still untapped after that:

• Saudi Arabia
• India
• Russia
• Brazil

Tons of midsized and small markets after that. Also, some markets that look like they should be small (like Ukraine) are actually surprisingly large when it comes to EVs in specific. Kazakhstan to a lesser extent.

It's funny how people declare the end of backlogged demand every quarter. I mean, maybe when you're getting down to adding countries like Mozambique, but until then... I mean, some of these untapped markets are among the largest auto markets in the world.

 

[KSilver2000]

Maybe they make more margin on a loaded 3 than a base S so they want the cannibalization. Just a thought. /Shrug

I don't believe that to be entirely the case. That would mean most SR S/X were sold without options. And how do you explain axing the SR X? Is there an alternative mini-X available, or were people cross-shopping X and 3?

 

[Doggydogworld]

It's not just cannibalization, people who used to buy 75D (weren't these 50% of S/X sales?) can no longer afford their only option of 100D and are forced into 3. It's not their choice, it is by design.

I see four or five variations of this claim. It doesn't hold water. Model S 75D base price was $76k at the start of the year. Current S100D price is 79,990, which includes the $3,000 Autopilot feature. They didn't "eliminate the affordable and most popular version of the S/X". They just added 25 kWh of batteries and force-bundled Autopilot.

The base versions are vastly better values today than a year ago, at roughly the same ASP. All else equal that would drive sales up, not down 40%.

 

[samppa]

A little perspective is perhaps in order here. Those of us that understand the benefits of EVs and realize that the future is electric are often quick to blow off or ridicule the arguments of the ICE public. I will put it this way, I was a total gearhead not too long ago. I loved the auto ownership experience. Changing my own oil, getting my hands dirty, and maintaining my own machine was truly a joyful experience. I rebuilt, from the ground up, two different ICE classics. It was tremendously gratifying to take every nut and bolt off the car and put it back better than new. There is a pride of ownership that goes into the maintenance of your own ride and many many folks see EVs as a threat to that experience. In some ways they are TOO good. TOO reliable. TOO maintenance free. They kind of cut to the core of what a great number of people feel is there joy in life. To these people, EVs are going to be a tough sell.

I think if we can keep this in mind in our dealings with the public, I think it will go a long way towards acceptance and adoption. An easier path towards adoption means Tesla stock comes around quicker.

Win/Win

Dan

Disagree from personal experience. I was never interested in cars at all. Had all maintenance done in shop, didn't know how and didn't want to get my hands dirty.
Now I do all Tesla maintenance myself, and I've spent sooo many hours adding sound proofing etc.. Tesla became a very enjoyable hobby.

 

[dha]

TSLA holding up exceptionally well against ugly macros and extremely bearish note by Adam Jonas: Morgan Stanley Predicts Q3 Deliveries Miss For Tesla, Capitulates On Company's Autonomous Timeline

He's predicting 91,346 deliveries for Q3. Looking forward to seeing how that goes for him

 

[204EV]

I don't believe that to be entirely the case. That would mean most SR S/X were sold without options. And how do you explain axing the SR X? Is there an alternative mini-X available, or were people cross-shopping X and 3?

As the standard range at the end was using a software limited battery i bet the low margin was just not worth producing a different pack.. and while the concensus is no battery/refresh i would say within a year that will be untrue. They cant cant re Roadster and semi leaving model s and x on old tech .. it would be embarrassing. Having the 10-20k model 3 sr batteries saved by not supplying china mixed with a modest 5-10%increase in 2170 could easily facilitate a switch to 2170s in S/X

 

[Unpilot]

Personal anecdotes about working on cars (full disclosure I did it and got satisfaction from the effort and result) aside....I predict a green close today. The last hour has been a steady climb up.

 

[humbaba]

Just got a follow up email from Bloomberg/Tom Randall regarding the Model 3 survey. Now they want first impressions of the v10 software release.

Did they ever publish anything based on the first survey?

 

[StealthP3D]

Not just InsideEVs, but also Troy's estimates. So two sources now. But yes, maybe I should have waited for the numbers from Tesla. Put it this way, if it comes in much higher, I will be pleasantly surprised. I have call options for the week and would love an upside surprise.

Model S numbers will never be what they were before people realized just how good the Model 3 is. What you should look at is the trend of Model X sales. Because Model 3 doesn't compete with that. I expect X sales to be strong. Model S sales will be weaker but I expect they will bounce somewhat back from their recent lows.

Neither is the future of the company. That is volume sales of models 3 and Y. This is the HUGE market. And then the Pickup.

 

[sparcs]

Buy Rating on Yahoo?!?!

Tesla stock gets buy nod from Exane BNP Paribas

The analysts set a $300 price target on the stock, a 25% upside from Wednesday's price. No other electric vehicle travels further and charges faster than a Tesla, which matters to car buyers and leaves the company well placed to compete for a market the analysts model at about 10 million vehicles. "We see Tesla volumes tripling to (one million) units by 2025,"

a few decent analyst comments and then you have Adam Jonas who laughably predicts deliveries at far lower than Elon's own internal email.

 

[acoste]

When it's used to convey something as being far worse then it statistically or factually is.

For example, news report on Tesla fires, but not any other car catching on fire. It's mean to great a perception that Tesla cars are unsafe and catch on fire all the time when it is statistically untrue. Tesla cars statistically on average catch fire less then gas cars. But those articles will never mention that point.

There is some truth to the Tesla fires regarding S and X. Model 3 seems to have no such problem.

Look at IIHS's non-crash related fire incident report:

by category:
- In the SUV category only the Jeep Renegade is worse than X and Tesla S and X are "leading" in the luxury category.

by all cars
- If we check all cars and ignore category, Tesla is just average.

BEVs only:
- S and X are "leading" again. I3, Leaf, Bolt did not even make it to the list.

https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539e05/uIu4tg/HLDI Research/Fire losses/HLDI_FireLosses_1218.pdf

 

[Tim S]

i straight up do not buy this. If it were true, they'd 1) be delivering primarily Performance models, 2) not pulling demand levers all the time and 3) selling way more S/X cars.

The mission is not to make as much money as they can. The mission is to sell as many cars as they can.