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

[Artful Dodger]

He should fix his article. It says "missteps in 2019", but there wasn't anything notable from Elon in 2019.

He probably is referring to what he sees as Q1 'head-fakes', like this one:

Tesla is closing stores, shifting all sales online

Tesla is closing stores, shifting all sales online

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday the company will be reducing headcount in sales, and closing most of its stores.
• Instead, Tesla will sell its cars online only, and give drivers up to a week to return newly purchased electric vehicles if they aren't satisfied.

Tesla kept the good parts of those changes, and amended the less desireable ones. That's the right way to manage a change.

Gasparino (and Wall St.) are not used to fast, agile Companies led by a CEO who isn't afraid to make mistakes, or admit when they're wrong and correct themselves rapidly.

They belong in the 20th Century, along with their outdated mode of thinking and leading a large organization.

Cheers!

 

[Jack6591]

Of course we’ll soon learn the facts...but I love the way this guy thinks.

Did Tesla Reach Its Guidance Of More Than 360,000 Vehicles Delivered In 2019? | CleanTechnica

 

[RobStark]

The Tesla Cybertruck: What Do Americans Think Of It? - Piplsay

 

[Bet TSLA]

aspirational goals announced internally

You seriously think that if anything like that were to be announced internally that it wouldn't leak? Tesla is not Apple.

 

[Artful Dodger]

happy I didn't need to rely on an inexperienced EV-maker (Porsche) playing nice with an inexperienced charging net provider (Ionity) - at this point in time I would happily pay an additional $5000 per car just to have access to the Tesla Supercharger Network.

Lol, or you could pay €100.000 less and HAVE access to the Tesla Supercharger Network.

 

[Artful Dodger]

in fact, I am relatively sure this is why Tesla changed their policy earlier this year. They have been manufacturing 2020 models, since October, just like the rest of the industry does.

No. Tesla did that because they wanted to amend their EPA range ratings, but the EPA will only rate vehicles once per model year. This has been discussed on this forum.

Cheers!

 

[JustMe]

I think Musk has started to separate the aspirational goals announced internally from the now much more modest publicly announced goa. So now he can beat those public goals making the market happy.

This is true - but they have accomplished some feats this year that may have seemed like crazy talk last March or so

Cars unparking and driving to their owners
Automatic stop sign and stoplight warnings
Building cars from a new factory months after breaking ground
Delivering over 360,000+ cars
Massive boost in car acceleration by OTA update
Becoming profitable & avoiding capital raise
Cybertruck - what can one say?
--> A few of these accomplishments are so outrageous that many people just don’t believe it. “Those cars are being assembled from kits”
“That’s not a real profit”
“Full self driving is decades away”

I think Elon Musk and Tesla have earned a new level of credibility by delivering amazing results and products with a bit less hype and improved timelines.

So in light of that I will be very interested to hear about Teslas next five year plan on the Q4 report!

 

[scaesare]

The bell has rung, so let me note that I believe the previous century had 'Roaring Twenties' and I am curious what those of this century will be?

(Regarding average temperatures) "The Soaring Twenties"?

 

[FreqFlyer]

Then where is the need for NHTSA to investigate anything when a human makes an error like this, which is not too uncommon?

Whats wrong with them investigating. Since many here think FSD is inevitable, you better make sure it operates correctly in all aspects.

 

[gerebgraus]

You seriously think that if anything like that were to be announced internally that it wouldn't leak? Tesla is not Apple.

Internal announcement does not mean email sent to all employees, but only to those who need it. Tesla is extremely good at keeping confidential information confidential. E.g. current speculations about P&D numbers are all over the place, and not nobody with serious money seems to have traded on it.

 

[Rashomon]

You need to read Frank's work before telling him what he needs to do. He said "transportation" not "auto/light truck market."

My Tesla Investment Thesis 2.0: Tesla's Monopoly Potential

Hey, the transportation market is huge. About $4 trillion or so, last I looked. But that very diverse market (freight, airlines, trains, cars, service, parts, etc.) is not what you should be comparing to Apple’s business if you want a meaningful comparison. The telecom market is fairly similar in scale if you also cast as broad a net. No one company will control more than a small fraction of either.

 

[scaesare]

JHC. Reading this is like drinking strychnine.

Wow... the amount of (negative) text he devotes to Tesla really indicates his unhealthy obsession...

 

[Beltsbear]

No. Tesla did that because they wanted to amend their EPA range ratings, but the EPA will only rate vehicles once per model year. This has been discussed on this forum.

Cheers!

Just because the EPA range thing, does not mean Tesla did also not consider the whole model year issue. They re-aligned the months pretty much to the ICE standard of October starting the new model year. This is probably because a significant number of customers were rejecting 2018 model year Tesla’s in January 2019. You really don’t like the whole model year thing, but it is there and it matters to some, even if it should not.

 

[SteveG3]

As Rebecca Lindland spoke throughout this interview, her credibility continued to drop with each sentence.
In the final minute, all credibility was lost once she made this statement,
"Originally they had talked about already producing 2-3 thousand model 3s – at this point they delivered 15 – they're actually not starting to really do more mass assembly until about another 6 months or so".

How in the world do these people get air time?

They deliver the message the massive media conglomerates see as good for their business and/or their social and economic cronies.


It is vastly more effective to raise awareness of this intellectually disingenuous process itself than to try to herd the cats carrying it out by taking their arguments at face value and wondering how they maintain their jobs. They are paid to misinform.

 

[SteveG3]

I agree with much of the sentiment in your post. However, I draw a slightly different conclusion.

To sum up, markets are not efficient (my uchicago economist son would be horrified to hear me say that)

However, it is this very inefficiency that allows one to purchase undervalued stocks, give them time to appreciate, and then realize the benefits of having better insight into the stock than the general market did (as reflected in the current price).

OT but it’s occurred to me over the years that Tesla is a great example for someone to publish on a basic flaw of efficient market theory... intentional misinformation, and the continuum from those who’ll treat the misinformation as information and those whose general knowledge of a company’s circumstances leads them to recognize it as misinformation and to develop the broader awareness of how much of our media is bought and paid for misinforming programming (and become even more adept at spotting misinformation more generally).

Genuinely wondering if you or anybody else here knows an economist for whom this topic would be within the scope of what they might consider analyzing and reporting on.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Becoming profitable & avoiding capital raise

Tesla did raise Capital with a $2.4B stock/bond issue on May 3, 2019 @ $238.98 (8K) but choose not to do a Cap Raise in Dec 2018 when the SP was in the mid-300's.

Some here would call that a 'miscalculation'.

Meh. I call it rolling with the punches. Elon did not know about the coming 2019 Q1 hiccups in 2018 Q4, and he felt then that Tesla did not need the cash.

Then during 2020 Q2, it became apparent that Tesla would receive immediate benefits from strengthening its cash postion. The SP bottomed out exactly 1 mth after that Cap Raise, and has gone on a +133% tear since then.

I call that real world business excellence, rather than monday morning quarterbacking.

Cheers!

 

[PeterJA]

Hey, the transportation market is huge ... No one company will control more than a small fraction of either.

I see you're still commenting without reading Frank's work, which I've linked twice.

 

[SteveG3]

Amid the wave of FUD and disinformation that's supposed to ensure filling of my optimistic limit orders, there is suddenly this Forbes article on the Model Y that completely fails to paint Tesla in a bad light (and doesn't even mention Elon Musk):

Tesla 2020: Model Y Vs Model 3 —Likeness Belies Lots Of Differences

Why are the journalists suddenly no longer dependable and what is the TSLA investment climate coming to?

Brooks has been a rare reasonable writer re Tesla for years. Sometimes his Tesla pieces make it into Forbes.

 

[vigleik]

Speaking of global warming denial

I am surprised that we don't have fellow Australian Tesla owners venting their frustration right now. The fire must've been less severe than the media portrayed.

Oh, it’s bad. I’m not too close to any fires (fingers crossed) but the air is so polluted that it smells like a campfire inside, visibility is only a few hundred meters, we’ve been warned not to go outside, and I’ve been told to work from home for the next several days. Even New Year’s Eve was cancelled. Everyone seem to agree that we’re living through the apocalypse.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Inspite of MOD disdain for 'numerology', on Tue, Dec 31, 2019 TSLA was capped most of the day at the $420 SP level: (about 7 times between 10:30 - 15:00)

P&D should break the Market out of that lethargy later this week. Hoping for a good one.

Cheers!