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

[BioSehnsucht]

You know I was thinking..Tesla is no longer making Panasonic solar panels at all at the Buffalo plant. For months now they most likely dedicated their solar production to solar roof only since they have outsourced their retrofit to Hanwha SolarOne.

Do we know they "outsourced" all of it? Or perhaps it's just a regional allocation thing where it may be more cost effective to use another supplier, or capacity issue?

 

[CorneliusXX]

I asked this in another thread but didn’t get any responses,

Is model 3 leasing revenue likely to snowball significantly higher?

Model 3 leasing only started in Q2. Those vehicles, directly leased from Tesla, will bring in high margin leasing revenue for the length of the lease period of up to 4 years.

Therefore, for the next several years there will be new lease vehicles sold every quarter adding to the ongoing lease revenue, with no substantial amount of leased vehicles being removed (aside from the odd early termination).

So unless I have this wrong (please tell me if I do), then even if tesla only added the same amount of model 3 lease vehicles as the last quarter for the next 10 quarters - then quarterly model 3 lease revenue would be approximately 10x higher than current quarterly amount.

You are correct. However the % of vehicles leased compared to sold for cash will likely go higher over time.

There's a tradeoff with leasing where Tesla makes much more money over time on a leased vehicle but it hits their capital heavily as they need to pay up front to build the car while only receiving the revenue over the life of the lease.

 

[brian45011]

Is model 3 leasing revenue likely to snowball significantly higher?

If production is the constraint, it's a teeter-totter: auto sales revenue[not subject to deferral] (which is fully recognized in the quarter a vehicle is delivered) goes down while auto lease revenue goes up fractionally. Leases recognize the revenue over the term of the lease.

 

[RobStark]

Every once in a while Tesla securitizes leases and sells them to investors.

Some have said previously they don't bundle leases across national boundaries or so far have only bundled US leases.

Maybe in the future they can bundle EU wide leases?

 

[brian45011]

You are correct. However the % of vehicles leased compared to sold for cash will likely go higher over time.

There's a tradeoff with leasing where Tesla makes much more money over time on a leased vehicle but it hits their capital heavily as they need to pay up front to build the car while only receiving the revenue over the life of the lease.

But, the Warehouse Agreements (WH) allow Tesla to receive most of the cash in the quarter the lease is initiated.

The higher GM% on leases may be illusory since if the residual value assumed in pricing the lease is too high, the financial hit shows up in Services & Other. In the first half of 2019, there were mark-down/write-offs to FMV on traded-in vehicles and lease/ resale guaranteed vehicles. Tesla does not disclose if WH interest is Auto Lease COGS or Interest expense.

 

[Fact Checking]

Any broker dealer (this includes many hedge funds) doesn't post ANY collateral for any specific trades. They are obligated to have large amounts of equity in holding for their exchange membership but it's unrelated to their specific trading.

May I ask for the source of that information, and can you or anyone else (shout-out to @Hock1, @Doggydogworld, @brian45011, @luvb2b) link to some sort of public document or article that shows or strongly implies that "Nasdaq Market Makers" (Nasdaq member firms - of which there are hundreds I believe), are allowed unlimited short positions within the ~5 business days stock borrowing window?

I haven't found the U.S. rules (which is weird ...), but here are the European commodities market "Nasdaq Clearing" rules for margin requirements and collateral management:

Nasdaq Clearing - Collateral Management

"Intraday Risk Monitoring
Intraday risk reports are generated every hour (starting at CET 10:00 and ending at CET 18:00) or more often if deemed necessary. Each intraday margin calculation reflects any clearing participant’s change in exposure, with updated positions and real time prices, during the clearing day. In case of a breach by a participant of the intraday risk limit, the Clearing Risk Management will issue a margin call."

"Intraday Margin Calls
Nasdaq Clearing has both the authority and the capacity to calculate and require intraday margin as a means of maintaining a desired level of margin coverage. The Rules and Regulations of Nasdaq stipulate that the new margin requirement shall enter into force immediately and be met by the member no later than 90 minutes after the clearing house notified the clearing member that a new margin requirement has been calculated."​

Pretty clear position size dependent Value-at-Risk rules for long and short sales, and margin is maintained electronically and goes up and down based on positions.

Are you suggesting that no such rules exist on the U.S. Nasdaq exchange, that any market maker or hedge fund that is member of the exchange (there's hundreds of them) is allowed a full business week of unlimited short positions, with no margin rules and no risk management whatsoever?

If true then that's incredible - and might be worth for journalists (shout-out to @ZachShahan) to follow up on.

 

[Thekiwi]

Ladies & Gentleman, I present to you the new high bar for attempting to make a bad Elon headline

Peter Thiel says Elon Musk is a 'negative role model' because he's too hard to emulate

 

[LJS22]

View attachment 471395 Ladies & Gentleman, I present to you the new high bar for attempting to make a bad Elon headline




Peter Thiel says Elon Musk is a 'negative role model' because he's too hard to emulate

He’s just a genius nerd.
Did anyone else see the tweet he liked about why the truck reveal is next month in LA
Steve Jobs Ghost’s Ghost Stars on Twitter

 

[Singer3000]

Deferred Revenue at Sept 2019 was $2.2bn. This is some $830m higher than at March 2018 and is worth 7% of Tesla's total balance sheet, so I figure deserves a closer look:

• Of the total today, about a third is accounted for by deferred revenue related to the Energy Business (rebates, fees, maintenance and monitoring obligations, VIEs), and vehicle sales made to leasing partners with a buyback option or resale value guarantee. This gets accrued to revenue over time (very slowly in the case of some of the energy components).

• The energy component has grown only very slightly in $ terms, given how curtailed this segment of Tesla's business has been (especially solar). The component related to auto sales to leasing partners has actually reduced by $140m since March 2018, as the structure of Tesla's auto sales model shifted with the arrival of Model 3.

​

So what makes up the important share and why has the amount grown so much?

• Much discussed was the $140m liability Tesla has held on its balance sheet since Q1 2019 for deferred regulatory credit revenue (to be realised within 1-3 years), which we presume is the Fiat Chrysler agreement.

• The remainder of Deferred Revenue is related to Auto Sales, which covers Tesla's future obligations for 1) supercharging, 2) internet connection of cars, 3) OTA software updates and 4) Autopilot / FSD features.

• This component has grown from 40% of the total amount in March 2018 to 60% in Sept 2019. An increase of $770m, now totalling $1.3bn.

Perhaps others have been smarter than me and been able to figure out exactly what amount of this increase relates to straightforward growth in the fleet requiring higher provisions for internet connection, lifetime supercharger access promotions etc...

But even without this information I find the disclosures very interesting. And that is because there's enough info provided to say that far from rigging its accounts to inflate its profit (TSLAQ's favourite claim this week for warranty provisions), in this area at least Tesla looks to have been quietly filling a lovely big cookie jar.

Each quarter Tesla tells us how much of the Auto Sales segment they expect to recognise as revenue in the next 12-months:

• Every quarter the amount they expect to recognise in the following 12-months has been rapidly increasing (by about 15-25%)

• But these estimates have been consistently over optimistic:

• Why are they doing this? It should be easy to forecast deferred revenue recognition for Supercharging, internet access and basic software update features, which would accrue on a straight line basis over the life of the car. But forecasting the Autopilot / FSD components, now that's lumpy and is timed according to Elon O'Clock.

• This quarter Tesla recognised a total of $64m of deferred auto sales revenues, higher than the steady state amount, with $30m being recognised from the rollout of Advanced Summon. Q2 was also a good period, coinciding with the release of Navigate on Autopilot:

• But to put this into context, if Tesla is to hit its Dec 2018 forecast for 2019, they'll need to recognise a whopping $150m of deferred revenue in Q4.

• To hit the most recent forecasts, they'd need to recognise $165m per quarter.

Now what we will likely see is another period pass in Q4 where the realised deferred revenue severely lags the forecast from a year ago. But at some point we will see convergence of these two numbers, with the benefit going straight to the bottom line.

Given that Tesla has already received the cash and this is only accounting treatment, why is this important? Well it's not just because it helps the effort to S&P 500 inclusion of getting a 12-month rolling period of GAAP profit, though that is important.

It's because there are large pools of money that won't give the benefit of the doubt to these cashflows until they are sure that they will be a) repeatable, b) Tesla's to keep. In short, they don't trust weird old Elon with his Cray-Cray Fully Self Driving progamme (just as they don't trust how capex can be below depreciation for a growth company).

So when the recognition comes, this is going to cause quite the surprise. And when it comes it will be even better than indicated above, given the FSD price is going up by another $1k this week and the ever increasing volume of deliveries to sell the feature to. Notwithstanding that this will add several percentage points to the gross margin of all future periods.

And what is the trigger for all this? To be clear, I don't think we are waiting for regulatory approved Robotaxis to claim this deferred revenue to P&L. By my estimation, what we're waiting for is "Feature Complete", with perhaps some residual amount to accrue as the interventions rate decreases (Elon's "Level 2" from this week's call) and/or to install HW3 computers. From this week's call:

Elon: There's the car being able to be autonomous, but requiring supervision and intervention at times. That's feature complete. And then, there's another level which is that we think it's -- that from a Tesla standpoint, we think the car is safe enough to be driven without supervision. Then the third level would be that regulators are also convinced that the car can be driven autonomously without supervision. Those are three different levels.​

What do we need for "Feature Complete"?

• The roll-out of "advanced summon" and "navigate on auto pilot" in some international markets.
• "Recognition of stop signs and traffic lights",
• "Automatic driving on city streets"

Elon: while it's going to be tight, it still does appear that we will be at least in limited -- in early access release of a feature-complete Full Self-Driving feature this year. So, it's not for sure, but it appears to be on track for at least an early access release of a fully functional Full Self-Driving by the end of this year.​

In short, our old friend Neroden might be perfectly right that Robotaxis won't happen for decades but this need not stop there being a spike in the share price because of the FSD programme in very short order.

Despite the run-up, I am freeing up some cash to buy more stock (and to buy a few trees as well ).

 

[ReflexFunds]

Its almost as if the big news about Panasonic deciding to not invest further in GF1 that was pooh-poohed was real news.

From Panasonic's comments it was clear that they wanted to invest further but Tesla would not give them a contract.

Panasonic's CEO: “Batteries will run out if Tesla starts to sell the Model Y and expands its business next year,” he told reporters. “What will we do then? It’s one of a few topics to discuss with Tesla, including battery [production] in China.”

This is not the comment of someone refusing to invest. This is the comment of someone uncertain why they are not being allowed to invest and trying to put pressure on Tesla to give them a new contract.

I'm sure he understands more clearly now that Tesla weren't giving Panasonic another contract because Tesla had long running plans for cell vertical integration.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Ladies & Gentleman, I present to you the new high bar for attempting to make a bad Elon headline


View attachment 471395



Peter Thiel says Elon Musk is a 'negative role model' because he's too hard to emulate

I think this headline (from International Business Times) takes the cake for taking that comment totally out of context:

Peter Thiel Slams Elon Musk: Tesla CEO A 'Negative Role Model'

(The article itself is actually positive. Perhaps the editors picked the headline.)

 

[ReflexFunds]

Deferred Revenue at Sept 2019 was $2.2bn. This is some $830m higher than at March 2018 and is worth 7% of Tesla's total balance sheet, so I figure deserves a closer look:

• Of the total today, about a third is accounted for by deferred revenue related to the Energy Business (rebates, fees, maintenance and monitoring obligations, VIEs), and vehicle sales made to leasing partners with a buyback option or resale value guarantee. This gets accrued to revenue over time (very slowly in the case of some of the energy components).

• The energy component has grown only very slightly in $ terms, given how curtailed this segment of Tesla's business has been (especially solar). The component related to auto sales to leasing partners has actually reduced by $140m since March 2018, as the structure of Tesla's auto sales model shifted with the arrival of Model 3.

​

So what makes up the important share and why has the amount grown so much?

• Much discussed was the $140m liability Tesla has held on its balance sheet since Q1 2019 for deferred regulatory credit revenue (to be realised within 1-3 years), which we presume is the Fiat Chrysler agreement.

• The remainder of Deferred Revenue is related to Auto Sales, which covers Tesla's future obligations for 1) supercharging, 2) internet connection of cars, 3) OTA software updates and 4) Autopilot / FSD features.

• This component has grown from 40% of the total amount in March 2018 to 60% in Sept 2019. An increase of $770m, now totalling $1.3bn.

Perhaps others have been smarter than me and been able to figure out exactly what amount of this increase relates to straightforward growth in the fleet requiring higher provisions for internet connection, lifetime supercharger access promotions etc...

But even without this information I find the disclosures very interesting. And that is because there's enough info provided to say that far from rigging its accounts to inflate its profit (TSLAQ's favourite claim this week for warranty provisions), in this area at least Tesla looks to have been quietly filling a lovely big cookie jar.

Each quarter Tesla tells us how much of the Auto Sales segment they expect to recognise as revenue in the next 12-months:

• Every quarter the amount they expect to recognise in the following 12-months has been rapidly increasing (by about 15-25%)

View attachment 471390​

• But these estimates have been consistently over optimistic:

View attachment 471391​

• Why are they doing this? It should be easy to forecast deferred revenue recognition for Supercharging, internet access and basic software update features, which would accrue on a straight line basis over the life of the car. But forecasting the Autopilot / FSD components, now that's lumpy and is timed according to Elon O'Clock.

• This quarter Tesla recognised a total of $64m of deferred auto sales revenues, higher than the steady state amount, with $30m being recognised from the rollout of Advanced Summon. Q2 was also a good period, coinciding with the release of Navigate on Autopilot:

View attachment 471393​

• But to put this into context, if Tesla is to hit its Dec 2018 forecast for 2019, they'll need to recognise a whopping $150m of deferred revenue in Q4.

• To hit the most recent forecasts, they'd need to recognise $165m per quarter.

Now what we will likely see is another period pass in Q4 where the realised deferred revenue severely lags the forecast from a year ago. But at some point we will see convergence of these two numbers, with the benefit going straight to the bottom line.

Given that Tesla has already received the cash and this is only accounting treatment, why is this important? Well it's not just because it helps the effort to S&P 500 inclusion of getting a 12-month rolling period of GAAP profit, though that is important.

It's because there are large pools of money that won't give the benefit of the doubt to these cashflows until they are sure that they will be a) repeatable, b) Tesla's to keep. In short, they don't trust weird old Elon with his Cray-Cray Fully Self Driving progamme (just as they don't trust how capex can be below depreciation for a growth company).

So when the recognition comes, this is going to cause quite the surprise. And when it comes it will be even better than indicated above, given the FSD price is going up by another $1k this week and the ever increasing volume of deliveries to sell the feature to. Notwithstanding that this will add several percentage points to the gross margin of all future periods.

And what is the trigger for all this? To be clear, I don't think we are waiting for regulatory approved Robotaxis to claim this deferred revenue to P&L. By my estimation, what we're waiting for is "Feature Complete", with perhaps some residual amount to accrue as the interventions rate decreases (Elon's "Level 2" from this week's call) and/or to install HW3 computers. From this week's call:

Elon: There's the car being able to be autonomous, but requiring supervision and intervention at times. That's feature complete. And then, there's another level which is that we think it's -- that from a Tesla standpoint, we think the car is safe enough to be driven without supervision. Then the third level would be that regulators are also convinced that the car can be driven autonomously without supervision. Those are three different levels.​

What do we need for "Feature Complete"?

• The roll-out of "advanced summon" and "navigate on auto pilot" in some international markets.
• "Recognition of stop signs and traffic lights",
• "Automatic driving on city streets"

Elon: while it's going to be tight, it still does appear that we will be at least in limited -- in early access release of a feature-complete Full Self-Driving feature this year. So, it's not for sure, but it appears to be on track for at least an early access release of a fully functional Full Self-Driving by the end of this year.​

In short, our old friend Neroden might be perfectly right that Robotaxis won't happen for decades but this need not stop there being a spike in the share price because of the FSD programme in very short order.

Despite the run-up, I am freeing up some cash to buy more stock (and to buy a few trees as well ).

Good work! I'll add that Tesla disclosed in the Q3 release that $500m of the $1,300m Auto Deferred revenue is the portion relating to FSD and EAP. I agree that this should nearly all be released upon feature complete (but I think some of the early FSD sales included Robotaxis in the advertising). This is looking on track to be Q1, possibly with some features in Europe still held back by regulatory approval. We should see further build of the $500m balance in Q4 (despite some further Enhanced Summon related recognition), so the Q1 profit boost could well be towards $500m.

Together with Tesla rapidly filling up its Q4 backlog, I'm tentatively preparing for Q1 to be Tesla's best profit quarter yet, despite Model Y and GF3 ramp related costs.

 

[Fact Checking]

From Panasonic's comments it was clear that they wanted to invest further but Tesla would not give them a contract.

Panasonic's CEO: “Batteries will run out if Tesla starts to sell the Model Y and expands its business next year,” he told reporters. “What will we do then? It’s one of a few topics to discuss with Tesla, including battery [production] in China.”

This is not the comment of someone refusing to invest. This is the comment of someone uncertain why they are not being allowed to invest and trying to put pressure on Tesla to give them a new contract.

I'm sure he understands more clearly now that Tesla weren't giving Panasonic another contract because Tesla had long running plans for cell vertical integration.

Correct, that was my interpretation back in April as well:

So the "Nikkei" leak last week was I think a preemptive leak by Panasonic officials, trying to put a Panasonic-positive spin on the 50 GWh decision - which had both an automatic Tesla-negative effect, but the Nikkei leak did throw Tesla under the bus: they claimed that it was due to Tesla demand, and they claimed that the Shanghai Gigafactory contract was paused as well, which was likely a lie as well.

Every new event since then IMO strengthened that interpretation: Tesla's choice of LG Chem for China, their acquisitions, their sandbagged timeline for the Model Y, the "Battery Investor Day" with TWh capacity, the mysterious "Battery Workshop" in China, etc. etc.

The Panasonic leak to "The Nikkei", and follow-up leaks through the year cresting with this month's leak to the WSJ was I believe basically Panasonic leaking unfairly, trying to apply pressure on Tesla:

Tesla and Panasonic freeze spending on $4.5bn Gigafactory
Sparks fly: Inside the strained Tesla-Panasonic relationship
Tesla Needs Its Battery Maker. A Culture Clash Threatens Their Relationship.​

Basically while Panasonic owns the lines at GF1, Tesla owns the land and Panasonic cannot expand GF1 without Tesla's permission.

I believe Panasonic wanted to install new lines for Model Y cells back in April, with capacity up to 50 GWh - but Tesla insisted on improving the efficiency of existing lines and refused to commit to 50 GWh long-term purchase obligations.

That increase in efficiency eventually happened: the Carsonight leak suggests 300 kcell/day/line capacity of existing lines was upped by Panasonic to 400 kcell/day/line capacity - the 26 GWh -> 35 GWh capacity expansion that I believe is mostly complete by now.

 

[Fact Checking]

Good work! I'll add that Tesla disclosed in the Q3 release that $500m of the $1,300m Auto Deferred revenue is the portion relating to FSD and EAP. I agree that this should nearly all be released upon feature complete (but I think some of the early FSD sales included Robotaxis in the advertising). This is looking on track to be Q1, possibly with some features in Europe still held back by regulatory approval. We should see further build of the $500m balance in Q4 (despite some further Enhanced Summon related recognition), so the Q1 profit boost could well be towards $500m.

To back this up, they disclosed this in the Q3 update letter (it's not in the 10-Q what @Singer3000 might have been using for his numbers):

"We also expect to gradually release nearly $500M of accumulated deferred revenue tied to Autopilot and Full Self Driving features."​

Note the "nearly $500M" language, which suggests the figure is somewhere between $490m-$499m.

 

[Singer3000]

Good work! I'll add that Tesla disclosed in the Q3 release that $500m of the $1,300m Auto Deferred revenue is the portion relating to FSD and EAP. I agree that this should nearly all be released upon feature complete (but I think some of the early FSD sales included Robotaxis in the advertising). This is looking on track to be Q1, possibly with some features in Europe still held back by regulatory approval. We should see further build of the $500m balance in Q4 (despite some further Enhanced Summon related recognition), so the Q1 profit boost could well be towards $500m.

Together with Tesla rapidly filling up its Q4 backlog, I'm tentatively preparing for Q1 to be Tesla's best profit quarter yet, despite Model Y and GF3 ramp related costs.

Wha! How did I miss that. I wish I had a cookie jar that big.

 

[electracity]

I'm sure he understands more clearly now that Tesla weren't giving Panasonic another contract because Tesla had long running plans for cell vertical integration.

I'm sure it is due to terms. Even with aggressive investment towards making cells themselves Tesla is likely seeking advantageous cell purchases from a number of companies.
Panasonic doesn't seem to have achieved an adequate risk/return on the GF investment.

 

[Artful Dodger]

. I don't think Tesla will ever sell $25k cars.

On July 20, 2016 in the "Master Plan - Part Deux" Elon wrote:

Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport

"With the Model 3, a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup truck, we plan to address most of the consumer market. A lower cost vehicle than the Model 3 is unlikely to be necessary, because of the third part of the plan described below." <-- ed.note: hedging autonomy​

Later on, at the June 5, 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon answered a sharehodler question on 'is there going to be a time in the next few years when Tesla will produce a compact or subcompact vehicle to fulfill the Master Plan - Part Deux mandate':

Elon: "Yeah, I think we'll do a compact car in less than 5 years."​

Then, on Sep 24, 2019 Elon tweeted that Tesla is building a major engineering team in China:

"This includes original engineering of new factory processes & cars. Great engineers will only join if original engineering is supported, not just localization."

12:55 PM - 24 Sep 2019​

Notice the "new cars" part? Focusing on the domestic market in China, that can only mean a new compact and/or subcompact car. They have a huge TAM in China, replacing the maximum number of ICE powered vehicles. That's the goal of 'Part Deux'.

So putting it all together, the answer in our game of Clue is "Model 2, coming to China in 2023, with a sledgehammer ($25K)."

Post-2024, Model 1 (the subcompact car), to follow as necessary. Can they do <$20K?

Cheers!

 

[Fact Checking]

And what is the trigger for all this? To be clear, I don't think we are waiting for regulatory approved Robotaxis to claim this deferred revenue to P&L. By my estimation, what we're waiting for is "Feature Complete", with perhaps some residual amount to accrue as the interventions rate decreases (Elon's "Level 2" from this week's call) and/or to install HW3 computers.

Fantastic post! I agree with the overall points, that's my thesis as well:

Full AutoPilot and FSD revenue recognition is another key factor that is going to increase margins. To do this Tesla only needs to reach the "feature complete" milestones for FSD, which should be possible within 2-3 quarters.

So deferred revenue might be recognized, but only when all promised FSD features are feature complete - which will likely require HW3 activation and HW3 board upgrades for all HW2 FSD owners.

I think Tesla will target Q1'2020 with HW3 activation, to improve an otherwise lousy quarter.

I'd guess less than $100m will be recognized in Q3:

• only a part of deferred revenue is FSD related,
• only a small part of the delivery milestones has been met via Smart Summon: there's still stop light recognition, traffic sign recognition, unprotected left turns, etc. - to make FSD feature complete.
• Only U.S. FSD owners are getting V10 for now, and only those who opted in.

I'd guess $50m deferred revenue recognized in Q3.

I still think the main deferred revenue recognition event is going to be Q1'2020 - but it might slip to Q2'2020 if there's unexpected problems with HW3.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Unfortunately, once again, the shorts and various media have managed to mitigate damage and drive the stock down to mitigate much of the immediate gains after the ER. Seems their pockets are unlimitedly deep. *sigh*

Dan

 

[Fact Checking]

May I ask for the source of that information, and can you or anyone else (shout-out to @Hock1, @Doggydogworld, @brian45011, @luvb2b) link to some sort of public document or article that shows or strongly implies that "Nasdaq Market Makers" (Nasdaq member firms - of which there are hundreds I believe), are allowed unlimited short positions within the ~5 business days stock borrowing window?

BTW., given that the surprise gap up in TSLA was on last Wednesday after hours trading, if this is true then the key date for market maker assisted market manipulation shorts to close out their short positions without having to come up with borrowed shares and the matching collateral according to the T+5 clearing process would be today or tomorrow?

Might explain the massive 'tree shaking' operations and flood of false articles this week?

Unfortunately, once again, the shorts and various media have managed to mitigate damage and drive the stock down to mitigate much of the immediate gains after the ER. Seems their pockets are unlimitedly deep. *sigh*

Dan

Well, in terms of opening/closing prices, the current ~$315 is a walk-back of the price from $328 ($340 if we include intraday peaks) - a drop of 4-8%. The closing price of 2019/10/23 was $254 - so the total rise was ~29-33% depending on how you measure it.

Volume was insane since last Thursday: over 90 million TSLA shares traded, and I believe a fair percentage of them is accumulation.

If the NASDAQ market maker unlimited shorting hypothesis by @hacer is correct then I'd guess that price gaps that sustain over 5 business days are probably more permanent. (All other things equal.)

Not advice though.