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

[Beltsbear]

Out of curiosity, how were you able to assess the level of solar installations? Did you drive through a lot of neighborhoods?

Land , canal and air. Not a formal survey but so few solar panels , like looking at hundreds of houses and seeing two. Also only a few Tesla’s.

 

[geometro]

I opened the mailbox to find a mailer from Audi offering me $100 to test-drive an e-Tron.

Now I need to complain to Tesla. I never got even $50 from Tesla for a test drive despite ultimately purchasing two vehicles...

“it’s so good, we are paying people to test drive them” — Audi spokesperson

 

[Chocochip]

Not sure you are talking about UAW officials or Chrysler ...

Report traces roots of FCA-UAW corruption to federal bailout of Chrysler

It’s a staggering look at the brazen illegal payoffs, kickbacks and embezzlement in the top ranks of both Fiat Chrysler and the UAW, an investigation which has so far resulted in 11 criminal convictions — three of them former FCA employees, the rest former UAW leaders — with at least seven others implicated in wrongdoing to date, including former UAW President Gary Jones, who recently resigned.​

I was thinking more of the NUMMI closure situation.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

The rights to make a film out of Consider Phlebas were acquired by (turns to Google as his old brain can't recall...), by, by, nope can't find it... Anyway, in the meantime, Amazon has now acquired the rights and are making a series out of it.

Problem is, when did you last see a film or TV adaptation that gave any justice to any book? There's nothing as grand as the imagination and the spaces between the words.

Of course you know that Elon is a huge Banks fan too, I hope...?

The Expanse works pretty well as a TV show. Of all the sci-fi options out there, it's about the most realistic you can get generally speaking. Ships have to turn about and decelerate halfway to their destination, they're built like skyscrapers and not boats (i.e., they take into consideration acceleration as artificial gravity vs magic grav plates or whatever hand waving), and so on.

 

[SMAlset]

I opened the mailbox to find a mailer from Audi offering me $100 to test-drive an e-Tron.

Now I need to complain to Tesla. I never got even $50 from Tesla for a test drive despite ultimately purchasing two vehicles...

Not as bad as going to see the Will Smith/Tom Holland Spies in Disguise and having to sit through what 15 minutes it seemed like of Audi e-tron product placement in an animated feature film. Couldn't miss it either. Felt that it totally took away from what else what happening on the screen. Would feel the same even if it was Tesla instead. I really don't want to pay to see this stuff.

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

Hmmm. I made one comment and ole Marky got his panties in a wad. All I told him was that he did a great job of identifying Tesla as one of the greatest growth stories in history. And he really did - he said in a 2014 article on SA that if Tesla sold 500,000 cars in 2020, it would be the greatest growth story in history (and ultimately impossible).

"No complex product manufacturer has ever grown that quickly from a revenue base of $3 billion or more."

Why projections for Tesla to sell 500,000 cars in 2020 are absurd

 

[elasalle]

I opened the mailbox to find a mailer from Audi offering me $100 to test-drive an e-Tron.

Now I need to complain to Tesla. I never got even $50 from Tesla for a test drive despite ultimately purchasing two vehicles...

@ the rate Tesla is growing, Audi might go bankrupt sending these flyers

 

[Navin]

What I love about this price action is that many of the paid media influencers and twitter TSLAq may soon find themselves without an employer. If their actions aren’t working - why keep paying.

 

[The Accountant]

Elon arrives in Shanghai

特拉风T☰SLA mania on Twitter

 

[Singuy]

Was this ever posted here? Electrify America Information

TLDR
-Electrify America didn't scale up 50kw D/C fast chargers because that's not the future. This is why the slow roll out.
-Volkswagen doesn't involve themselves at all with EA except the 2 billion dollar settlement given to them
-After 2 billion, EA needs to be self funding
-Just updated the ability to diagnose problems wrong with chargers and ability to fix more of the problems remotely
-Rolling out the ability to auto charge credit card using app, fixing the current credit card system
-Works closely with individual legacy companies to ensure compatibility
-Will have 800 stations in the U.S by the end of 2021, average of 6 stalls per station


Have to say, this is pretty underwhelming stuff. Without this network set up and becoming robust, legacy auto makers will have a tough time selling EVs.

 

[gerebgraus]

I heard/read 28/hr is the designed (max?) capacity. I use 12 weeks, rather than 13, because of needed maintenance, holidays etc.

I'd happy if GF3 achieves 1k/wk avg (12k) in Q1, 2k/wk (24k) in Q2 and 3k/wk (~35k) in Q3 & Q4. That's about 105k for the year. Anything more than that is a welcome upside.

Ofcourse my motivation for these estimates is to get a likely forecast. With this and a conservative 36k Mode Ys, I think they can get to ~$17 EPS for 2020. I see significant upsides and some downsides that are possible.

$17 EPS in the near future is extremely unlikely. This is not the way Musk operates. When the current operation starts to print money Tesla will use that money to start new products, features that initially will take time to become profitable. You should read the secret plan. it is not to make money as fast as possible, but to advance sustainable transportation, etc. Being profitable is important, some programs being very profitable is also important to help starting projects. This will not be a dividend play as long as Musk is the CEO.

 

[EVNow]

That's a bad title.

They didn't actually make 3k/wk. They made the rate needed for 3k/wk over a hour (or something like that, I guess). This kind of extrapolation is bad, when not correctly noted. We have seen multiple times how rate of production actually doesn't equal to production - it takes a long time going from 28/hr to 3k/wk consistently over a quarter.

 

[ZeApelido]

Hmmm. I made one comment and ole Marky got his panties in a wad. All I told him was that he did a great job of identifying Tesla as one of the greatest growth stories in history. And he really did - he said in a 2016 article on SA that if Tesla sold 500,000 cars in 2020, it would be the greatest growth story in history (and ultimately impossible).

"No complex product manufacturer has ever grown that quickly from a revenue base of $3 billion or more."

Why projections for Tesla to sell 500,000 cars in 2020 are absurd

View attachment 497284

Mark Speigal agrees, Tesla is the greatest growth story of all time!

 

[EVNow]

$17 EPS in the near future is extremely unlikely. This is not the way Musk operates. When the current operation starts to print money Tesla will use that money to start new products, features that initially will take time to become profitable. You should read the secret plan. it is not to make money as fast as possible, but to advance sustainable transportation, etc. Being profitable is important, some programs being very profitable is also important to help starting projects. This will not be a dividend play as long as Musk is the CEO.

Starting new products don't reduce profit immediately. That's just capex. Anyway, Tesla has a long list of products they are yet to get to. Why would anyone talk about dividends, anyway ?

 

[Prunesquallor]

The Expanse works pretty well as a TV show. Of all the sci-fi options out there, it's about the most realistic you can get generally speaking. Ships have to turn about and decelerate halfway to their destination, they're built like skyscrapers and not boats (i.e., they take into consideration acceleration as artificial gravity vs magic grav plates or whatever hand waving), and so on.

Even the premise of the Epstein Drive (a guy fooling around with a "normal" fusion drive and getting a huge increase in performance) isn’t THAT outlandish. Read the history of Tokamak development. Half the time the researchers really didn’t know WHY certain tweaks gave big improvements in confinement time.

 

[StealthP3D]

Hmmm. I made one comment and ole Marky got his panties in a wad. All I told him was that he did a great job of identifying Tesla as one of the greatest growth stories in history. And he really did - he said in a 2014 article on SA that if Tesla sold 500,000 cars in 2020, it would be the greatest growth story in history (and ultimately impossible).

"No complex product manufacturer has ever grown that quickly from a revenue base of $3 billion or more."

Why projections for Tesla to sell 500,000 cars in 2020 are absurd

View attachment 497284

That's funny. I can't read the article because I don't want to subscribe to SA but did anyone notice how Mark went from a relatively normal looking guy in 2014 to an ugly looking man that shouts "homeless"? It's kinda sad to see what people do to themselves.

But here's the really funny part - all those articles he wrote on SA? They didn't age well. At all. But he can't take them down because he doesn't own them anymore! It's pretty much a career-ending move if you ask me. Maybe Mom and Dad will bail out their little Markie so he doesn't become a ward of the state.

 

[gerebgraus]

Starting new products don't reduce profit immediately. That's just capex. Anyway, Tesla has a long list of products they are yet to get to. Why would anyone talk about dividends, anyway ?

New projects involve lots of none CAPEX cost including R&D, losses initially etc. As an example we do not have data, but I assume that starting seat production was initially a money-losing venture until the figured out. I guess that the self driving is still money losing.

 

[EVNow]

New projects involve lots of none CAPEX cost including R&D, losses initially etc. As an example we do not have data, but I assume that starting seat production was initially a money-losing venture until the figured out. I guess that the self driving is still money losing.

Its not clear what exactly you are saying. Can you give an example of what Tesla might do in 2020 that will reduce profitability - in 2020 ?

 

[Carl Raymond]

Starlink launch in 4 mins.

OT, but fun.

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

That's funny. I can't read the article because I don't want to subscribe to SA but did anyone notice how Mark went from a relatively normal looking guy in 2014 to an ugly looking man that shouts "homeless"? It's kinda sad to see what people do to themselves.

But here's the really funny part - all those articles he wrote on SA? They didn't age well. At all. But he can't take them down because he doesn't own them anymore! It's pretty much a career-ending move if you ask me. Maybe Mom and Dad will bail out their little Markie so he doesn't become a ward of the state.

I don't have access to read the article either, but the 3 bullet points was all I needed.

He tweeted that he stands by this assertion unless.....well, I can't remember what he said, but it was something as weak as, " unless the sun comes up". Basically, he was trying to find an excuse.

Lastly, I was looking at his tweets for several days, but finally screwed up and posted a comment - got myself banned. But, man, the guy is TOTALLY ate up. He tweets about every 10 minutes, 7 days a week, 14 to 16 hour a day. Really pathetic existence.