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

[SW2Fiddler]

By the way, isn't it nice to be able to say; "The Twenties" instead of whatever the last 2 decades were named;
the aughts, the zeros, the 10s, the teens...?

Am I the only one who calls the zero years "The Naughties?"

 

[Doit]

Yes, its a full trading day on Dec 31, 2019:

Trading Calendar


TSLA trades on NASDAQ, not the NYSE.

Yes. But please let me know when these two have different trading days/hours TIA

 

[mickificki]

The Bull Case for Long-Term Tesla Investors | Loup Ventures

The bull case for long term Tesla investors.

 

[EVNow]

Man, annoying that I was asleep early today (I was travelling home last night). I've been deleveraging during the rise and would gladly have releveraged some at $410 :Þ $420 isn't tempting enough.

Depends on what you were planning to buy.

This week's 440 calls are cheaper now (1.90 at 415) than they were in the morning (2.50 at 410). IV has dropped from over 60 to ~ 50.

 

[EVNow]

Am I the only one who calls the zero years "The Naughties?"

I just call them the lost decades.

 

[Nocturnal]

The fact that Tesla is not willing to refund them the $1875 back and is instead saying they have the option of picking up in early Jan or cancelling their order tells me Tesla has a lot of orders on the books to take their spot. Combine this with the fact that there's been zero end of year discounting and that prices were actually raised throughout Q4, and there's pretty strong evidence that Q1 demand is going to just fine.

IIRC didn't they promise to honor the full rebate via price reduction towards the end of Q4 2018 if you ordered before a certain date?

People who don't get the credit because they waited until December to order a car can only blame themselves.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

IIRC didn't they promise to honor the full rebate via price reduction towards the end of Q4 2018 if you ordered before a certain date?

People who don't get the credit because they waited until December to order a car can only blame themselves.

Yup, Tesla honored the credit through a price reduction which was quite a bit of a margin hit on those cars at that time. I for one am super happy to see Tesla acting like more a business instead of catering too much to the consumer. Felt like throughout 2018 and early 2019, Tesla overly catered to the consumer through things like the credit price reduction match, altering their delivery logistics(which crippled service centers), etc... that made the company pretty inefficient in a lot of ways when it came to logistics, service, etc... Tesla got a lot of goodwill from those actions but it was also pretty harmful to the company.

 

[jerry33]

Yup, Tesla honored the credit through a price reduction which was quite a bit of a margin hit on those cars at that time. I for one am super happy to see Tesla acting like more a business instead of catering too much to the consumer. Felt like throughout 2018 and early 2019, Tesla overly catered to the consumer through things like the credit price reduction match, altering their delivery logistics(which crippled service centers), etc... that made the company pretty inefficient in a lot of ways when it came to logistics, service, etc... Tesla got a lot of goodwill from those actions but it was also pretty harmful to the company.

So treating the customer right is bad for business. If you say so.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

So treating the customer right is bad for business. If you say so.

I think there's a balance and Tesla was way to one side. I don't think anyone here would disagree that the effort Tesla made to scale production through the focus on regions significantly hurt Tesla efficiencies. There was nothing organic about the Model 3 ramp because they were constantly trying to ramp around the tax credit reductions. Entire regions would get blasted by a huge amount of deliveries in the space of a couple weeks for which they weren't trained properly to handle that volume, they were incredibly inefficient cost wise, lots of maintenance work on the vehicles, service center's getting completely crippled.....and then the no volume whatsoever for weeks, if not months, yet they continue paying the staff. Just inefficiencies all over the place when it came to logistics.

Edit: Also for a very long time, Tesla was doing maintenance on their cars without charging the customer and saying it was Goodwill work. I was on the receiving end of this multiple times when it was something that technically should have been something I should have paid for on my S and once on my 3. Each time, I was initially happy about them caring that much about customer experience but 10 mins later my investor side would be like "This isn't scalable".

 

[Nocturnal]

Yup, Tesla honored the credit through a price reduction which was quite a bit of a margin hit on those cars at that time. I for one am super happy to see Tesla acting like more a business instead of catering too much to the consumer. Felt like throughout 2018 and early 2019, Tesla overly catered to the consumer through things like the credit price reduction match, altering their delivery logistics(which crippled service centers), etc... that made the company pretty inefficient in a lot of ways when it came to logistics, service, etc... Tesla got a lot of goodwill from those actions but it was also pretty harmful to the company.

Maybe. I think things were different then though. Not getting a car in time in 2018 was because Tesla couldn't get their crap together, now it's "sorry, we couldn't exceed our promise".

But my bigger point was that they were trying to maximize sales then. Now they don't seem to care to do the same thing. That says something.

 

[thait84]

Tesla knows the number of cars that had to be delayed. I feel bad for people who ordered in October and November and won't be receiving their SR+. All customers should feel valued, not just high ASP orders. They should credit buyers who ordered before a certain date.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Maybe. I think things were different then though. Not getting a car in time in 2018 was because Tesla couldn't get their crap together, now it's "sorry, we couldn't exceed our promise".

But my bigger point was that they were trying to maximize sales then. Now they don't seem to care to do the same thing. That says something.

Yup speaks volumes to me about where they feel they're at right now with production and order rates.

 

[JRP3]

So gloating over and over about shorts burning when the price rockets like it has, is their MO...we can be better. We need to save the planet you know, but we also need to save humanity from the horribleness we often see on the net. If we can't set such an example who will? Up to you, but beware karma.

I don't believe in karma, so full gloat mode activated I've been battling these idiots for over a decade while they've done everything possible to kill the one company which will probably end up doing more to push civilization towards a renewable energy future than any other. People fighting against a sustainable future for their own short term gains are enemies of humanity. Would you show mercy on aliens who came to terraform this planet for their own use while making it uninhabitable for us?

 

[HG Wells]

Also I think they sold more higher end model 3's this quarter than last quarter (percentage).

 

[EVNow]

Speaking of New York data, is this it?

https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/Vehicle-Snowmobile-and-Boat-Registrations/w4pv-hbkt/data

Filtering this data for Model Year '19 and '20 (assuming these are new registrations), this is what I get for each month. So, first 2 months of this quarter are similar to first 2 quarters of last month (up 17).

1 15
2 56
3 376
4 255
5 418
6 888
7 284
8 476
9 897
10 301
11 476

 

[sparcs]

Tesla knows the number of cars that had to be delayed. I feel bad for people who ordered in October and November and won't be receiving their SR+. All customers should feel valued, not just high ASP orders. They should credit buyers who ordered before a certain date.

Tesla was pretty upfront in their emails to customers:

Tesla Warns Federal Tax Credit Expires In 5 Weeks

In less than 5 weeks, the federal tax credit will be expiring and purchases of a new Model S, Model X or Model 3 will no longer be eligible for this incentive. Order online in less than three minutes and experience the ease, convenience and safety of an all-electric design.

Place your order and take delivery by December 31, 2019 to be eligible for the federal tax credit. Orders placed near the end of the year are not guaranteed to be delivered by December 31.

Am i missing something?

 

[JustMe]

I think there's a balance and Tesla was way to one side. I don't think anyone here would disagree that the effort Tesla made to scale production through the focus on regions significantly hurt Tesla efficiencies. There was nothing organic about the Model 3 ramp because they were constantly trying to ramp around the tax credit reductions. Entire regions would get blasted by a huge amount of deliveries in the space of a couple weeks for which they weren't trained properly to handle that volume, they were incredibly inefficient cost wise, lots of maintenance work on the vehicles, service center's getting completely crippled.....and then the no volume whatsoever for weeks, if not months, yet they continue paying the staff. Just inefficiencies all over the place when it came to logistics.

I think overall Tesla has worked hard to bring the best vehicles possible as fast as possible to the most people at the lowest cost. Tesla has certainly made mistakes and it really sucks that some of their customers have suffered for it. I attribute this mostly to the difficulty of forecasting markets and timescales of manufacturing improvements and technology development, rather than malice or indifference.

I expect GF3 to measurably smooth delivery logistics and GF4 should put an end to the crazy EOQ pushes that inevitably cause problems.

As the fleet expands exponentially, Tesla will need to invest heavily in charging infrastructure, service, and communications. I hope and expect that rising profits in 2020 will allow Tesla to fully fund these efforts.

 

[Dutchie]

Wait? He only gets 46 out of 100 ratings correct; he has a 3.2% annual return....and still sits in the top 28% of investors ranked?
Wow - why would anyone listen to these analysts?

And he is getting a pay check most of us would envy.
46 out of 100 is less than a blinded guess and thinking that when sales are down the only culprit could be a slowdown of demand. Even a toddler could come to another conldusion when stores are empty and there is no inventory.

A sell off because of this nonsense? There are some people losing a lot of money because they listen to these clowns.

 

[samppa]

Stock drops 4%, but my call options are up a bit? Hmm..

 

[JustMe]

And he is getting a pay check most of us would envy.
46 out of 100 is less than a blinded guess and thinking that when sales are down the only culprit could be a slowdown of demand. Even a toddler could come to another conldusion when stores are empty and there is no inventory.

A sell off because of this nonsense? There are some people losing a lot of money because they listen to these clowns.

Selling could just be profit taking from people who don’t want to risk the market’s inevitable overreaction to a slight miss in deliveries.
People sometimes sell because they expect others to sell. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Look at what happened last Q after record deliveries were made that met official guidance but missed Elon Musks stretch goal to the troops by 3%.

But I ignore all that - I’M HODLING!