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

[Mich]

Do we know if Elon (or at least his plane) is still in Berlin?

 

[nativewolf]

Tesla #3 by market cap now:
Top 25 Automakers by Market Cap

What a great chart. Thanks for sharing that!

 

[woodisgood]

Would anyone like to hazard a guess on when Tesla becomes #2 most valuable "automaker?"

 

[LN1_Casey]

Do we know if Elon (or at least his plane) is still in Berlin?

I would think he'd be there for a few days, especially if Jerome is also there. Just sticking around for one award wouldn't be worth the cost of him leaving Fremont.

 

[dc_h]

That's not what the article says. The author is speculating, here is the exact quote:
"According to information obtained by the Global Times, the estimated weekly output will be 2,900 units at the phase-1 factory complex. So with six weeks left in the year, the factory could make 17,400 of the Model 3. "

I don't think anyone should expect that number. I would be very happy if Tesla reaches 1k per week at the end of December and produces somewhere between 1k and 5k Model 3s in China in 2019.

Thanks, that does sound too optimistic. If they can build 1000 a week by end of year, that would be great. My original estimate was 7000 and that is probably as good as they could possibly achieve. That would still likely be over 110,000 produced and possibly delivered in the quarter.
Auto revenue was 5.353 billion in Q3, so Model 3 should beat that, plus SX, so should beat Q4 2018, which was 6.323 billion automotive revenue.

*I'll try to keep my expectations in check, but we really seem like we are on a very good trajectory.

 

[anon]

I read it and I remember reading that part and thinking it was nothing bad. She's misrepresenting what he said. It was something along the lines of if he had know Model 3 was going to be a disaster he might have delayed the purchase of Solar City, since it delayed when they could actually focus on Solar City. He never said he regretted acquiring Solar City.

His overall argument is that the only reason Solar City struggled initially is because they needed to take away all the engineers and other resources to help with Model 3, but now they're back on track.

Thanks, that's helpful.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Personally, I think it is a mistake to evaluate Tesla as an automaker. It's like evaluating Apple as a handset manufacturer or a PC company. Tesla is in a class by itself and should be evaluated based on the sum of all their technology, not just cars. Analysts don't seem to get this.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

You do know how millionaires are made playing options, right? They start out as billionaires.

I took a large chunk of my IRA account and tried to time a takeoff in SolarCity(SCTY) from 2015 to 2016 with way out of the money LEAPs plus some shares. My plan was to be hyperagressive shooting for a 12-25x return if SCTY reached $80-100 within the year as a best case, 2x if it hit $70ish and still be alive in a worst case scenario.

My thesis was sales and all soft costs would be trimmed as they scaled. My SCTY shares converted and I'll be even on that investment chuunk when TSLA hits I believe.....$505

Now I buy shares of TSLA when they are low and I will sell when they are high.

 

[avoigt]

I have watched the award for the Model 3 in Berlin yesterday life (on my Model 3 screen charging at a SuC) and as you may know many awards have been given to ICE but also to the eTron, i-Pace and finally Model 3 in their respective category. Thats a great win for BEVs.

Beside I found it quite an embarrassing show as such all big busy from big Auto have been there and positioned to be the winner until Elon made the announcement which was a bog one and well placed.

Berlin has a ton of advantages (Alex on Twitter) and I am convinced it to be a much better choice than Lower Saxony or Northrine-Westfalia which have been in discussion too.

Its been also released that the UK was not an option because of Brexit and France IMO can't be an option too given what the Unions do in that country or just imagine 40 days annual vacations that literally no one in the US will ever understand including me. All other countries are much smaller and to get good incentives and turn the narrative around to be in the backyard of Big Auto is the best place to be.

I liked the interaction between Diess and Musk on stage which shows us they have a lot of respect to each other.

Berlin is a unique place, will attract a lot of smart people, wages are affordable, its consider a software center, OEM suppliers are around in Saxony which is near, infrastructure is kind of all new and to be near the Government will help too. Also Elon wants to benefit from the creativity of that town with a Design center which is another great news.

As a German I am very pleased and I am convinced that it will help a lot to bring sales to the levels is deserves to be. If you win Germany the effect on many other smaller countries in Western as well Eastern Europe will be significant IOW expect growing sales in Europe.

On the negative side I expect regulations and other legal complication to hinder a fast construction but those are all issues you can overcome. Berlin will love Tesla as goo paid jobs are very much needed and there has been almost no industrial development after Russia cut all relations between West Berlin and Eastern Germany (DDR). Berlin never recovered from having lost all industries around the town also not after the wall went Dorn in 1989.

Some tried to open new factories in the last 30 years sometimes even for sentimental reasons but Berlin remained a city of Politicians, Art and Sub-Culture. Like a former Mayor said "Berlin is poor but sexy". The sexy part will remain with Tesla producing but the 7,000 employees for GF4 will help to change and and an eco system of new companies will be founded.

Great news

 

[SteveG3]

Personally, I think it is a mistake to evaluate Tesla as an automaker. It's like evaluating Apple as a handset manufacturer or a PC company. Tesla is in a class by itself and should be evaluated based on the sum of all their technology, not just cars. Analysts don't seem to get this.

those that say this are most likely being paid to put out basically a red herring (more ShamWow! programming)

what matters most is growth rate, not the product.

“normally,” automakers don’t have 50% year on year kind of growth, much less sustain it for years. Tesla has, and, there’s extremely high probability it will continue to grow 10 to 20X the rest of the auto industry for many years to come.

now, to your point, driving the growth rate is the fact that Tesla is deploying a disruptive technology (a better than ICE drivetrain) to the massive existing automobile industry. that’s unprecedented. (fwiw, Ford brought disruptive technology to a very small existing automotive industry... and grew at similar rates as Tesla).

 

[Tslynk67]

Just put me on ignore then

I'm not complaining about your sentiment, rather that what you wrote is indecipherable:

1. It’s only premarital would wait for open market before expressing disappointment.
2. Wait for release of incentives to do the factory their​

OK, so I've re-read it a few times and I think you mean:

1. It's only pre-market, opening my be different, so wait on judging it
2. Wait and see what incentives the German authorities are offering

 

[ninpb]

Personally, I think it is a mistake to evaluate Tesla as an automaker. It's like evaluating Apple as a handset manufacturer or a PC company. Tesla is in a class by itself and should be evaluated based on the sum of all their technology, not just cars. Analysts don't seem to get this.

They also don't understand that Tesla is a growth stock unlike anything else before. Elon comes up with crazy ideas and actually goes for it.

 

[dww12]

Personally, I think it is a mistake to evaluate Tesla as an automaker. It's like evaluating Apple as a handset manufacturer or a PC company. Tesla is in a class by itself and should be evaluated based on the sum of all their technology, not just cars. Analysts don't seem to get this.

Yeah, watch out Tesla GM is coming. They are a tech innovator too!

GM Patents a Smart Stop/Start System to Reduce Drivers' Annoyance

 

[Mike Smith]

Thanks, that's helpful.

The main argument in the case is that Musk knew Solar City was in financial distress and didn't disclose that to Tesla shareholders. This makes no sense though - everyone knew Solar City was in financial distress which is why the stock was down 75% and Tesla was able to acquire it so cheaply.

It looks like the plaintiffs have no real evidence of wrongdoing and are just hoping for a settlement to make this go away for Tesla, which is usual in these cases.

 

[elasalle]

safe to say 350 has been conquered?

 

[ggr]

They welcome tesla like they welcomed opal and ford in 1946. Any port in a storm. Once the sky cleared...they were not such nice partners.

If you mean Opel, that was a German company acquired by GM in 1929.

 

[ggr]

That was NOT speculation. That was straight up tracking his plane, a fortuitous sighting of Elon AND Jerome in Berlin, known information about the awards show and past logical location calculations of where in Europe a Gigafactory could be placed; Poland, Germany, Spain, etc...

If you couldn’t put those pieces all together yesterday and come to a high probability of GF4’s location (at least six 9’s), then you just simply aren’t that informed about Tesla/Elon or the lights are on and nobody’s home.

Yep, 117% worth of speculation yesterday.

 

[UncaNed]

safe to say 350 has been conquered?

Looks like another battle for 360...

 

[The Blue Owl]

If you mean Opel, that was a German company acquired by GM in 1929.

I had no idea GM owned Opel for that long.

As far as I’m aware, employees at for profit programming companies have taken no more of a journalistic oath than the person taking orders at the McDonalds drive thru has taken a nutritionist’s oath.

While I do think there is such a thing as journalism, I think the notion that giant for profit companies simply referring to themselves as “news” implies anything about the presence of journalism in their programming has decayed to the point of largely being a myth. The old USSR had the word “Republic” in its name, and the current Chinese government still does. North Korea one ups them both with “People’s Democratic Republic...”

Amen. I'm on record passionately defending "mainstream media" before, but the problem is I'm not sure what that means anymore. I still subscribe to publications like the FT, for instance, but Bloomberg, as demonstrated by such journalists like Dana Hull, or CNBC, etc. are more than useless, they are pernicious. Mark Spiegel is true to himself. What or who the heck is Dana Hull true to? (And Dana is one of the better ones; go figure.)

 

[StealthP3D]

This is so bizarre, the people who do this. Never seen even the remotest hint of what the truck looks like and what features it will offer for what price, but all ready to judge its appearance, market appeal, difficulty to manufacture, etc just from a few vague tweets. What sort of person does this?

O.K. I'll take a stab at this. Someone who is still kicking themselves for having sold at $322 thinking they would buy it back for less?

And can't you just wait literally less than one week?

No. The share price will be even *higher* by then.

On a more serious note, I have noticed there are people who use this forum thinking they can affect the share price in some small way. You can identify them because they flip from bullish perspectives (obviously after they have converted to "long"), and a few weeks later everything they post has turned skeptical and bearish (obviously after they have unloaded their position in a futile attempt to identify the "top"). What kills me is they think no one will notice.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people changing their mind, I just think it's funny how they use this forum thinking it can help "turn around" their "mistake trades". So naive. So dishonest. And so transparent.