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Since we are in the AH, I will just point to this new nugget added to my Tesla account within the last few hours:

"The Acceleration Boost upgrade requires your car have software version 2019.40.2 installed to complete."

- which sounds a lot like a pure software upgrade.

Christmas in December?

Lars Kr. Lundin on Twitter

The acceleration boost is indeed a pure software update available now in the EU for 1800 Euro,
Lars Kr. Lundin on Twitter

Merry Xmas!
 
This email just went out to all the Model 3 Long-Range Dual Motor owners in USA I am guessing. Including rest of world, I wonder how many of these are out there? Guess what the take rate will be? Could be serious > $100M rev boost to 2019 Q4. :cool:

The AWD take rate was significant. If we take @Troy's Model 3 survey:

upload_2019-12-19_9-58-13-png.489967

Then that's ~40% take-rate for non-performance AWD. There were well over 400,000 Model 3 deliveries up to today, 40% of which is 160,000 upgrades at $2k each. Looks like the option is available to European owners as well for €1,600 - so probably all customers can take advantage of this deal.

If only 10% (16,000 owners) buy this option until December 31, then that's a cool +$32m of Q4 revenue and profit alone...

At a 30%-40% take-rate of this (incredible IMO) OTA upgrade option this would boost Q4 revenue and profits by about +$100m...

This would also improve Model 3 margins by about +0.5% if 10% of owners buy this - significantly more if this revenue is recognized in Q4 as a lump sum. Profit margin on such a feature should be beyond 80%, even with increased warranty allocations.

It would be interesting if we hit a new all-time-high in pre-market trading ... :D
 
What a day ! Where to start after finally having caught up on this thread ?

The most stunning event (besides hitting all time highs) was the blatant freudian slip at CNBC of Bethany.. it reminded me of the Mick Mulvaney moment..."We do this all the time..". The onslaught of short sellers, FUD'sters etc. will continue as long as they go are not out of business IMO. Even regulators in EU and CH do their thing to try to slow down Tesla, see the mail I got from Tesla on Tuesday, announcing they have to cripple AutoPilot on my MS85D:

"Dear L,
Our latest software update includes changes to some autopilot features that affect the way your Model S works. These changes are necessary to comply with European regulations and only affect individual Model S and Model X vehicles, as most Teslas with autopilot already have this functionality. We are sobered by the requirements set by regulators, which limit the effectiveness of these features, and will continue to work to restore full functionality.
These changes represent limitations on some features you are familiar with. Therefore, we have prepared a summary of the updates to help you understand what can be expected when using the autopilot:
Automatic lane change is limited for use on divided roads with two or more lanes in both directions.
Once the automatic lane change is activated and the display is on, your vehicle waits at least one and a half seconds before initiating the lane change. Furthermore, it waits up to five seconds before it cancels the lane change if the lane change could not be started.
The limitation of steering wheel movement, while using the automatic steering system, is reduced and can affect your vehicle's ability to manoeuvre corners or stay within the lane, requiring your intervention.
To call, you must be within a radius of six metres of the vehicle.
You will be reminded to grab the steering wheel as soon as it does not recognize your hands on the steering wheel for 15 seconds."
End of mail.

Basically AP will be significantly less useful. Already the version I had until now could not handle the winding parts of our highways here in Switzerland. Slower lane changes with the density of traffic here won't help either. Thank you regulators !

On the other hand, the acceleration boost for AWD LR M3 is also available here in Switzerland, it costs CHF 2'000.- (the swiss frank now being almost on parity with USD). Since the M3 is my better half's car, I am undecided whether to update or not, since she prefers to drive in Chill Mode.. But... sometimes I am allowed to drive it...mmmh. Yes I will do it, just for the fun of throwing money at Tesla.

This update is so effing brilliant ! They just won't stop optimizing the products and start to monetize it, well done Team Elon ! When the broader public starts to realize that there this until now untapped revenue stream, TSLA stock might look like a good opportunity to make money.

As for the stock, I am more convinced than ever, that TSLA will transform from a growth "gamble" (which it was from IPO to ~2014) to a must have stock in every decent portfolio. Times are a changing, people are dumping CS, UBS and Nestle (the list is a bit longer but you guys sure know what I mean) for TSLA, Vestas etc.

Cheers to all the real longs, who will hold on to the stock through dips and rises alike. Don't sell ! > Advice
 
Sounds like December deliveries will far exceed anything Tesla has achieved before.

Leaked email reveals Tesla is asking employees to help deliver cars during the final weeks of 2019

Agreed, there's several indicators that the Q4 push in the U.S. is unprecedented - and we know it that the European push is unprecedented:

upload_2019-12-19_10-54-28.png


If Q4 China was simply at Q3 levels then Q4 will be a record quarter in many if not all metrics: record production, record deliveries, record revenue, record cash flow and possibly record profits as well. :D
 
Nvidia has announced a new automotive FSD chip, "Orin":

They claim 200 TOPS performance in a similar power envelope as Tesla's HW3 chip, which top line performance figure is higher than Tesla's FSD chip with 140 TOPS, but there's a number of key differences:
  • Nvidia bases their 200 TOPS performance not on a large real-life FSD neural network, but on a usual INT8 benchmark that likely fully fits into their cache.
  • Tesla has on-board SRAM which is directly addressable, i.e. there's no RAM traffic during inference calculations of loaded networks.
  • Nvidia's new chip on the other hand still has visible cache structures on the CPU die:
    • Orin_678x452.jpg
Note that horizontal rectangular area in the middle-left area, that looks like a shared CPU cache to me. (But I could be misreading the die.)

Tesla has a very different chip design, which visibly differs from Nvidia's:

800px-tesla_fsd_die_%28annotated%29.png

Note how the on-die SRAM areas (areas with vertical striping) are next to the NPUs, feeding a hierarchy of functional units.

I.e. I believe even Nvidia's latest chip doesn't have even close to the real-world NN inference computing performance of Tesla's HW3 chip: Tesla's chip can load very big neural networks and do one inference calculation per cycle. Nvidia's chip is a traditional design and has to fall back to DRAM for large networks and has caching overhead.

Also, much of Nvidia's speedup is probably from the 7nm process they are using, while Tesla's HW3 chip is using a 14nm fab process.

The performance advantage from a process shrink is almost quadratic for simplified designs like Tesla's NN chip - i.e. Tesla's HW3 chip, when shrunk to a 10 nm or 7 nm process, would likely have real-world NN inference computing performance well beyond Nvidia's benchmark-only 200 TOPS.

TL;DR: Tesla's HW3 advantage is IMO not endangered by Nvidia's Orin.

Also worth noting this new Nvidia chip will not be in cars until 2022.
It is struggling to compete with Tesla's NN chip that was installed at scale from early 2019. I'd be surprised if Tesla's next generation chip was not in mass production before Orin.
 
Very true.

I am "on the inside" on twitter. No worries within the chamber, the most vocal are just waiting for 420 to short more.

They expect the tesla zit to pop soon.o_O:rolleyes:

Firstly, it's nice to see that the TSLAQ crowd is so certain about TSLA hitting $420 soon, which is a further +7% upside. Finally something to agree on. ;)

Secondly, their promises of re-shorting at $420 have no basis in facts I believe. Judging by the evolution of the Tesla short interest, the TSLAQ crowd is already near the maximum of their trading power:

EL_hW-kXkAAA3Xk

Note that short interest is shrinking with every day of TSLA rise, and that the 'value at risk' is more or less constant at around $10b: i.e. shorts as a group are at the max of their trading power.

I.e. if Ihor's tracking is accurate for this phase of the 2019 Tesla short squeeze then the "I'll re-short at $420" bravado and forced happy face within the TSLAQ echo chamber doesn't have any significant additional dry powder cash position behind it.

I believe price corrections will be mostly driven by Tesla investors taking profits, not by shorts.
 
Nvidia has announced a new automotive FSD chip, "Orin":

TL;DR: Tesla's HW3 advantage is IMO not endangered by Nvidia's Orin.

Don't forget Tesla at this point should be already 2/3 done with development of their 2nd generation chip (they were ~1.5 years into development of Gen. 2 during Autonomy Investor Day).

By the time this Nvidia chip comes to market, they'll be competing against Tesla's Gen. 2 chip.
 
Sounds like December deliveries will far exceed anything Tesla has achieved before.

Leaked email reveals Tesla is asking employees to help deliver cars during the final weeks of 2019

Agreed. It is SOP for Tesla to pull-in employees from throughout the company to help with the end of Q delivery madness.

Silicon Valley Tesla Owners Club has been officially asked to supply two volunteers starting this past weekend through 12/31/2019 during all operating hours to be onsite at the Fremont Delivery Center as a resource to help new owners learn the basics of how to use their new cars. This frees-up TSLA employees to book the next sale. I signed-up for 12/31/2019 at 5-7 pm since my wife and I avoid the NYE crowds and watch the festivities on TV.

Will report the mad rush afterward!
 
Agreed, there's several indicators that the Q4 push in the U.S. is unprecedented - and we know it that the European push is unprecedented:

View attachment 489978

If Q4 China was simply at Q3 levels then Q4 will be a record quarter in many if not all metrics: record production, record deliveries, record revenue, record cash flow and possibly record profits as well. :D

I think it's highly unlikely we'll see record revenues and record profits. I have 20k S+X and 85k M3 in my model which would lead to 6.7B in revenue and 91M profit.

The previous revenue record is 7.225B revenue from Q4'18, which Tesla could break if they deliver 22k S+X and 92.5k M3.

The previous profit record is 311M from Q3'18, which Tesla would barely break if they delivered 25k S+X and 100k M3. Or perhaps with more profits from Energy division, further OPEX efficiencies, FX tailwinds, and/or tax credits. I see this as highly unlikely though.

I personally expect Q4'19 financials to be solid, but nothing extraordinary. I'd love if the stock dipped because of it so I could accumulate cheap for another few months, but positive sentiment around Giga 3/Model Y/Solar Roof and 2020 guidance could easily outweigh that.

Barring terrible macros, Q1'20 and Giga 3 should definitely send us well beyond $400 though imo, and we might never see a SP of $3xx again after it.
 
The AWD take rate was significant. If we take @Troy's Model 3 survey:

upload_2019-12-19_9-58-13-png.489967

Then that's ~40% take-rate for non-performance AWD. There were well over 400,000 Model 3 deliveries up to today, 40% of which is 160,000 upgrades at $2k each. Looks like the option is available to European owners as well for €1,600 - so probably all customers can take advantage of this deal.

If only 10% (16,000 owners) buy this option until December 31, then that's a cool +$32m of Q4 revenue and profit alone...

At a 30%-40% take-rate of this (incredible IMO) OTA upgrade option this would boost Q4 revenue and profits by about +$100m...

This would also improve Model 3 margins by about +0.5% if 10% of owners buy this - significantly more if this revenue is recognized in Q4 as a lump sum. Profit margin on such a feature should be beyond 80%, even with increased warranty allocations.

It would be interesting if we hit a new all-time-high in pre-market trading ... :D

Electrek’ s poll of 2000 AWD owners shows:
22% = yes
28% = not sure (including moi)

So that would be 36% if half of the not sures purchase.

However let’s assume 25% before Jan.1 = 160000 *0.25 * $2k = $80M xMas bonus:)
 
I am wondering if part of the TSLA action yesterday was Boeing investor money looking for a place to move while that dust settles. Looks like someone knew a bit early that the line was shutting down. At least that might be part of it.

hummm, CNBC is reporting Boeing execs met with DJT on Sunday to discuss plan to shut down the line. Maybe it did leak out.
 
Ho, so you made the leap from Zach's comment in Oct 2019:

"So I think just for now, it's safe to assume that it's roughly in line with the margins that you see coming out of the Fremont facility"

to this conclusion 2 months later?




Tesla didn't 'confirm' what you wrote. That's your spin, and likely outdated because its an ultra-safe and conservative forward looking statement.

Don't want to follow you too far down this rabbit hole, but how did you conclude 'lower costs' for MIC Model 3 lead to 'not higher margins than U.S.'? o_O

Then you've ignored the industry expert Sandy Munro's estimate that MIC Model 3 could have 30% margins (while Q3 was around 21%).

View attachment 489938

Yes. I’m assuming MIC margins roughly in line as Zach said is safe to do. You feel free to assume he’s wrong.

I SERIOUSLY hope you’re right and I am wrong!
 
Really disappointed. Not going to pay that much for 0.5s quicker 0-100km/h....

Was hoping it would be the same/much closer to performance acceleration. Oh well.

My reaction too. But some people will buy it. I guess Tesla is working hard to defend the premium people pay for Performance, in order to ensure that it remains a value proposition for its buyers.

PlainShite going bonkers over FBI investigation PlainSite on Twitter

That's hilarious. "Yes, I wrote that I'm looking for information about drug cartels and accounting fraud, but because the FBI denied my request and in their denial wrote that they were responding about drug cartels and accounting fraud, that means that there's a major investigation going on in its late stages!" ;)

The whole point of a denial letter is that they look the same regardless of whether they have any information or not. Trying to interpret the format as meaning that they do have information is an absurdity. I doubt that they even did any sort of database lookup before deciding whether the request was approved or denied.

But then again, maybe the FBI is in on the scheme ;)