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

[JRP3]

I talk myself in and out of ordering multiple times a day.

Resistance was futile

 

[Fred42]

I think the TCO (total cost of ownership) advantages are so absurdly in favor of the Cybertruck that a great many traditional pickup buyers will learn to like the design. Who wants to leave many thousands of dollars on the table?

A Prius, on the other hand, does have TCO advantages over typical gasoline sedans, but this is peanuts compared to the advantages offered by the CT.

Today, my biggest worry as a TSLA investor is that the CT is "too good" a value. Besides being a great truck, it seems to be a better SUV than the Model Y or the Model X. One sign that Tesla is a true disruptor is that it's willing to disrupt its own products. I'm not saying that X/Y demand will drop to zero, far from it, but many potential X/Y buyers will certainly buy the CT instead. My hope is that margins on the CT, even the 2WD $40k variant, will be strong. If this proves to be the case, thanks to battery cost improvements and manufacturing innovation, then we could see the share price rocket even without major breakthroughs in FSD (full self driving).

I believe the answer is that the CT price reflects battery costs anticipated by Tesla, which suggests lower future prices for other Tesla models that will address this price imbalance. But Tesla might not be able to drop prices on current models in anticipation without losing necessary margin and might lose sales in the meantime as people wait for CT. But it will take long enough to fill the swell of demand for the Y that maybe this won't matter.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Um, I might be a little dense but what are these disadvantages?

It does take longer to go on a road trip when you have to stop and charge. For example, I regularly drive from SF area to LA and Santa Barbara, and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour longer to do that in my P85 than it did in my previous car. Not a big deal, but worth disclosing. And if you can't charge at home or work, that can be an inconvenience too, although most people can.

When they hear that and weigh against the positives, the positives win by a mile.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I've heard the stories about Mark Spiegel, but wasn't really that familiar with him, but I just saw this old video of him, and wow, he is a tool.

 

[Unpilot]

Happy Kill a bird day...#waronthanksgiving

Just wanted to say thank's to all you fine folks here...(even the birds).
Without you I would have much more free time on my hands...so thanks?

Also I would never have learned so much about so many arcane subjects.

All in all your a fine bunch of folks to spend time with and I hope to get the chance to say that to you face to face.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Today, my biggest worry as a TSLA investor is that the CT is "too good" a value. Besides being a great truck, it seems to be a better SUV than the Model Y or the Model X. One sign that Tesla is a true disruptor is that it's willing to disrupt its own products.

They disrupted the Y before it even shipped

Cyber costs less than Y, sits much higher, carries a lot more, tows a lot more, is much tougher and does everything better (except fit in a garage). I can see it taking 40-50% of US Y orders. Maybe 75% if the styling catches on.

 

[Tslynk67]

I think the TCO (total cost of ownership) advantages are so absurdly in favor of the Cybertruck that a great many traditional pickup buyers will learn to like the design. Who wants to leave many thousands of dollars on the table?

A Prius, on the other hand, does have TCO advantages over typical gasoline sedans, but this is peanuts compared to the advantages offered by the CT.

Today, my biggest worry as a TSLA investor is that the CT is "too good" a value. Besides being a great truck, it seems to be a better SUV than the Model Y or the Model X. One sign that Tesla is a true disruptor is that it's willing to disrupt its own products. I'm not saying that X/Y demand will drop to zero, far from it, but many potential X/Y buyers will certainly buy the CT instead. My hope is that margins on the CT, even the 2WD $40k variant, will be strong. If this proves to be the case, thanks to battery cost improvements and manufacturing innovation, then we could see the share price rocket even without major breakthroughs in FSD (full self driving).

I can't talk about rest of the world, but there's not a truck culture in Europe, certainly not in the cities. You do see a few around, but they're either gardeners or posers. These cars are too big to be practical here - I realise the CT is about the same width as the MX, but it's extra length will make it very difficult to park as our spaces just aren't long enough for it.

MY will sell a ton in Europe - look at the demand for M3 and double it or more. USA might be another matter, no idea.

Now I do realise that I have one on pre-order, so more fool me, but wifey will get a MY in a couple of years, so will always have that as an option and just use the CT for road tripping and cruising for action.

 

[Electroman]

I also want to share this funny story as my last post on Thanksgiving.

I am a Tesla "salesman" 24/7. I have felt from the day I bought my S that I wanted to use my car to pique people's interest, and learn about Tesla. I probably go out of my way a bit much to make people notice it - especially using old timey summons to back my car out of parking spots.

Anyway, recently, I was stopped at an old gas station that had been turned into a craft beer store. It's the only place we can get certain craft beers from some small breweries. Now, granted, the store is in a sort of sketchy area of Savannah, but not the worst in the city. After making my purchase, I came out and there was this gentlemen looking over the car. As I walked up, I got the usual questions - "this your car?", "who makes it?", "that's a good looking car", etc. So, I went into salesman mode and do what I always do and explain that it is an electric car made by an American company - and then say, "You want to see the engine?". Then I pop the frunk open and it's always the same reaction. And I have them hooked.

From there, the conversation always moves into how much range it has, how long it takes to charge, etc. I always go to great effort to explain the many advantages of charging at home vs the slight disadvantage of charging when traveling (but I also try to be honest). I always show them the supercharger map on supercharge.info and they are shocked.

This particular conversation was particularly memorable because about 15 minutes in, and about the 10th question he asked was, "so let me ask you this then......you wouldn't happen to have $10 you could spare do you?" Turns out he was homeless. It was almost like he turned the tables on me. He saw how badly I wanted to tell him about the car, and used that to get a conversation going. I normally don't give homeless people money, but I gave him $10 because you never know what the future might hold and I didn't want him to have a bad feeling about Tesla.

When I told my wife about it, she said, "It doesn't surprise me. You'd try to sell Tesla to a tree if you thought it could buy one".

Hey, you sound just like me.

 

[Mkorpal]

It does take longer to go on a road trip when you have to stop and charge. For example, I regularly drive from SF area to LA and Santa Barbara, and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour longer to do that in my P85 than it did in my previous car. Not a big deal, but worth disclosing. And if you can't charge at home or work, that can be an inconvenience too, although most people can.

When they hear that and weigh against the positives, the positives win by a mile.

I'm quite impressed with the number of new supercharger locations that are 250 kW.

 

[DFibRL8R]

They disrupted the Y before it even shipped

Cyber costs less than Y, sits much higher, carries a lot more, tows a lot more, is much tougher and does everything better (except fit in a garage). I can see it taking 40-50% of US Y orders. Maybe 75% if the styling catches on.

Speaking personally, I’m keeping both a Y and CT reservation. Both my 7yo S and 2yo 3 are RWD (drawbacks of being an early adopter), so with the Y I am looking forward to soon getting my first AWD Tesla that has factory towing and has a bit higher stance than the 3/S. I couldn't justify the higher price point of the X and the falcons are cool but just not my style. The economics of CT are compelling and the ruggedness/utility look amazing but it is big enough that a Y will be nice for use around town. Hopefully the future share price of TSLA will allow me to justify hanging on to my “old” Teslas a bit longer too!

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I'm quite impressed with the number of new supercharger locations that are 250 kW.

Unfortunately my P85 is too old to really take advantage of them, but that is a huge incentive to upgrade to a plaid S when they are available.

 

[sparcs]

They disrupted the Y before it even shipped

Cyber costs less than Y, sits much higher, carries a lot more, tows a lot more, is much tougher and does everything better (except fit in a garage). I can see it taking 40-50% of US Y orders. Maybe 75% if the styling catches on.

The market for EVs expands over time though. So maybe Cyber is additive and Model Y growth levels off a little earlier.

I could see many owning both a Y and a CyberTruck. One vehicle you can actually fit in the garage and one that sits outside.

 

[TradingInvest]

They disrupted the Y before it even shipped

Cyber costs less than Y, sits much higher, carries a lot more, tows a lot more, is much tougher and does everything better (except fit in a garage). I can see it taking 40-50% of US Y orders. Maybe 75% if the styling catches on.

Cybertruck will certainly take away some Model Y orders. At one point I was worried Cybertruck might Osborne Model Y. However, SUV/CUV market is 30 million a year. Model Y is better than any of them and can save on gasoline.

 

[kbM3]

Direct impact at that speed will certainly cause damage but it's often the case that impacts are glancing and/or at lower speeds rather than direct. Most collisions are with deer that weigh 150-250 pounds. Much rarer are collisions with elk, which are in the 400-800 pound range or moose which are similarly sized for most of their subspecies except the Yukon-Alaskan moose and Roosevelt coastal elk that do get much larger.

Animal impacts are far less relevant for Tesla. Ever increasingly sophisticated active safety systems will probably reduce occurrences by 2 orders of magnitude or more.

 

[SarahsDad]

1+

On this US Holiday, it’s worth taking the time to watch Tony Seba’s talk on the future of electric transport and AI if you missed it earlier. Definitely worth the 30 min review.

I first became aware of his predictions about 4-5 years ago and they sounded outandish at the time. But so far his forecasts have been spot on. Hard not to be bullish on Tesla after watching this!

 

[EVCollies]

I don't see the Y dropping at all because many people do not want a big vehicle and in many cities a big vehicle is just not practical. The X, yes, that will drop some. However, the falcon wing doors are a real advantage if you have to deal with child seats, so I don't imagine the drop to be all that much. The 10% or so of drops might easily be taken up by those who, after two years, still don't like the design.

I had planned on a MX in four years to replace my wife's Audi Q7 but just placed a CT reservation, timing will be perfect. I think CT will take a few MX away but a CyberSUV will replace the MX.

 

[KarenRei]

#Gf4 #Gigafactory4 on Twitter

 

[SO16]

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

View attachment 482445

I didn't do this, but I saw it on Twitter and had to share. It says "adam the creator" on it, and whoever you are Adam, kudos.

Speaking of TDay, just got back from Bob Evans. Overheard two different groups of people (party of 9 and 4) talking about the CyberTruck. A week after the reveal is pretty impressive.

 

[Snapdragon III]

When discussing CT's appeal to current truck buying crowd, I think people are dramatically underestimating how big a pain point paying for gas and diesel is for truck owners. On average truck owners live farther out in the suburbs, exurbs, or rural areas, and have much longer commutes for shopping and work. Paying for gas in a truck that gets < 20MPG is a way bigger negative impact on their finances than is appreciated. It is a much bigger advantage to these people, than the majority of current Tesla owners that are largely trading in passengers cars that get 30+ MPG, and live much closer in to urban areas.

On a personal level, I find the Cybertruck to be absolutely intoxicating, and am feeling desire and yearning to own one, to be, by far the greatest I remember experiencing since I was 10 years old and really needed a BB gun for Christmas. The part I love the most is the paint free SS bed and exterior. On every one of my last three trucks, paint issues and minor body damage has been a major annoyance. It ends up making you not want to use your expensive new truck, for utility truck tasks, because you are going to scratch and ding it up.

 

[ZsoZso]

They disrupted the Y before it even shipped

Cyber costs less than Y, sits much higher, carries a lot more, tows a lot more, is much tougher and does everything better (except fit in a garage). I can see it taking 40-50% of US Y orders. Maybe 75% if the styling catches on.

I agree. I never had a truck, never needed one, never considered buying one.
I was considering to buy a Y to replace my aging pre-AP Model S (I also have a 3).
However, after seeing the Cybrtrck specs and price I have clicked on the preorder button and will not buy a Y.

ps: Of course, I understand size limitations in Europe, but here I have a big enough garage that will accommodate the truck, and the streets and parking lots are also big enough (outside of downtown Toronto that I rarely visit).