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

[EinSV]

What if the Michigan deal entails a GF in Detroit?
Remember the Mordor tweet?

A Tesla Gigafactory smack dab in the middle of UAW country is highly unlikely IMO

 

[Swampgator]

The POTUS comments deserve their own post. Talking about POTUS on this forum is now legitimate since he talked about Tesla/SpaceX/Elon We still have to remain apolitical if possible. My take: we can certainly breath a sigh of relief that Trump is not coming after Elon. That comes with its own giant set of problems, and Tesla already has enough enemies. Look at the headaches Trump is causing for Bezos. Not just mean tweets... it's real revenue loss (the JEDI initiative going to Microsoft, USPS costs etc.) Elon was also the first person to "leave" the CEO forums that Trump created way back at the beginning of his presidency, so that could have come back to haunt him - fortunately it didn't.

Trump is fond of industrialist, factory building and manufacturing in general, so in theory Elon and Trump were already aligned well. It's weird that Elon's overall mission is to defeat climate change, even though Trump maintains that it's not a priority (and even, not real at all) I could see a personal tour of Fremont in the future for Trump, and perhaps GF1 (but not GF2 lol, let's not take things too far) We are very lucky that Trump has not asked why all Teslas aren't being built in the USA. Elon's plan to reduce the number of atoms being moved around the world (and thus, build cars near where they are sold) is anathema to the concept of exports - which Trump appears to favour. Perhaps Trump is really only interested in reducing imports (which reduce employment inside the USA) and isn't too worried about exports. I could be way off base here, but these Elon/Tesla/SpaceX comments could be the beginning of a sneaky pivot for Trump. He could continue to criticise environmental efforts, but at the same time help Tesla thrive - in order to hedge and have a finger in both pies.

Re: the "new factory" comment - IMO this is either continued expansion of GF1 for more batteries/powertrains or Cybertruck, or an actual new factory for SpaceX for the future missions. It won't be solar energy yet since GF2 still has plenty of space. I think more likely the GF1 expansion. I don't think SpaceX is ready to start building anything new/permanent yet. They can set up shop pretty darn quick when they want to, and the Starship program is still pretty early on, in terms on needing a large/mass production facility.

Trump is kind of a market maker for corporate/celebrity sentiment. He can invent news out of thin air. If he had decided to take a negative position on Elon, it would embolden the shorts with all kinds of new hopes and dreams, populate airtime on Fox News et. al with juicy barbs, and galvanise his "base" with rejuvenated negativity towards Tesla - blocking of Supercharges, ridicule of the Cybertruck and so on. The reality is the shorts just had a major FUD option taken off the table... I'm sure they're not enjoying today. Also, Trump's "base" - i.e. those persons who feed at the trough and do what they think is right, even though they're not really considering things properly - may now be more positively predisposed to things like the Cybertruck, avoiding the blocking of Superchargers, perhaps even ordering current Tesla vehicles when they had previously ruled it out. It's a good day for Tesla - perhaps for the wrong reasons lol.

$580 BOOM!!!

Mod: This article is a perfect example of a post that will NOT be deleted by moderators. Thank you. --ggr

Why do you assume his base would be anti Tesla? Plenty of conservatives own Teslas, and TSLA. Good post.

 

[Causalien]

MOD-REMOVED POLITICAL


On-topic:

575.00 +27.80 (5.08%) in Pre-Market

I would guess that on top of yesterday's +7.19% this is a short squeeze. New shorts jumped on around $500 and now they are in full-on panic mode and few longs will sell to them since we are all along for the rocket ride!

It's scary how TSLA is taking over my retirement portfolio's highest % like an elephant with a water hose inside it, but I cannot bring myself to reduce my position since I believe so strongly in Elon, his team and their mission.

Even in my son's portfolio, his 211 shares are now 55.42% of his account! He may never have to work unless he is bored and wants to. The first purchase I made for him was 100 shares @ $30.09 on 06/13/2012. The highest price paid was $298 on 11/02/2017.

Here's a photo of him inside Fremont Factory during our first tour in October, 2011 during the "Model S Ride Event" for reservation holders and media. At that time, the robots were being programmed and tested for initial S production.

View attachment 503095

You never know life's outcome. My dad told me he lost all $10 000 of my savings I made in my childhood in the dot com crash.

Experiencing sudden loss of decades of effort shaped me into an extremely effective trader/investor.

Maybe hide this from him till he is ready to accept it.

 

[humbaba]

The POTUS comments deserve their own post. Talking about POTUS on this forum is now legitimate since he talked about Tesla/SpaceX/Elon We still have to remain apolitical if possible. My take: we can certainly breath a sigh of relief that Trump is not coming after Elon. That comes with its own giant set of problems, and Tesla already has enough enemies. Look at the headaches Trump is causing for Bezos. Not just mean tweets... it's real revenue loss (the JEDI initiative going to Microsoft, USPS costs etc.) Elon was also the first person to "leave" the CEO forums that Trump created way back at the beginning of his presidency, so that could have come back to haunt him - fortunately it didn't.

Trump is fond of industrialist, factory building and manufacturing in general, so in theory Elon and Trump were already aligned well. It's weird that Elon's overall mission is to defeat climate change, even though Trump maintains that it's not a priority (and even, not real at all) I could see a personal tour of Fremont in the future for Trump, and perhaps GF1 (but not GF2 lol, let's not take things too far) We are very lucky that Trump has not asked why all Teslas aren't being built in the USA. Elon's plan to reduce the number of atoms being moved around the world (and thus, build cars near where they are sold) is anathema to the concept of exports - which Trump appears to favour. Perhaps Trump is really only interested in reducing imports (which reduce employment inside the USA) and isn't too worried about exports. I could be way off base here, but these Elon/Tesla/SpaceX comments could be the beginning of a sneaky pivot for Trump. He could continue to criticise environmental efforts, but at the same time help Tesla thrive - in order to hedge and have a finger in both pies.

Re: the "new factory" comment - IMO this is either continued expansion of GF1 for more batteries/powertrains or Cybertruck, or an actual new factory for SpaceX for the future missions. It won't be solar energy yet since GF2 still has plenty of space. I think more likely the GF1 expansion. I don't think SpaceX is ready to start building anything new/permanent yet. They can set up shop pretty darn quick when they want to, and the Starship program is still pretty early on, in terms on needing a large/mass production facility.

Trump is kind of a market maker for corporate/celebrity sentiment. He can invent news out of thin air. If he had decided to take a negative position on Elon, it would embolden the shorts with all kinds of new hopes and dreams, populate airtime on Fox News et. al with juicy barbs, and galvanise his "base" with rejuvenated negativity towards Tesla - blocking of Supercharges, ridicule of the Cybertruck and so on. The reality is the shorts just had a major FUD option taken off the table... I'm sure they're not enjoying today. Also, Trump's "base" - i.e. those persons who feed at the trough and do what they think is right, even though they're not really considering things properly - may now be more positively predisposed to things like the Cybertruck, avoiding the blocking of Superchargers, perhaps even ordering current Tesla vehicles when they had previously ruled it out. It's a good day for Tesla - perhaps for the wrong reasons lol.

$580 BOOM!!!

Mod: This article is a perfect example of a post that will NOT be deleted by moderators. Thank you. --ggr

Please bear in mind that there is no inertia to #45 -- you say, "the shorts just had a major FUD option taken off the table." There have been repeated reversals (on a politically important topic) all in a single day and trade affecting reversals, denials and recriminations in similarly short spans of time. So I don't think anything has been taken off of the table while not denying the potential for this to alter sentiment.

In other words, "okay... for now."

 

[Ggusev]

YUSS!!
Delivery Appointment
Feb. 5, 2020 at 05:30 PM
Toronto-Lawrence Avenue

 

[Stretch2727]

Is anyone else just breaking out in bouts of spontaneous laughter, or is it just me? Maybe I skipped the euphoria stage and went straight to insanity?

Trying to stay level headed. We have definitely moved to another trading level/band but no one should think the volatility will go away. This is TSLA.

I first bought and starting following this thread in 2015. Cost basis about $200. There have been many warning about a sudden upward price movement. Just took a few more years than I thought. Holding long and steady.

 

[StealthP3D]

The indications last year were that FSD HW upgrades would be December (I think the statement was "fourth quarter" but I have no citation). And yet, here we are most of the way through January and there seem to be no meaningful number of upgrades. And, at the same time, persistent rumors about an early start for Model Y sales.

The battery constraints were, I thought, a good argument against Model Y before the official time frame and the apparent lack of assembly completion end of last year, but I have to wonder.

The way I see it is that either:

1. they are scaling the Model Y production earlier than expected and this is consuming the output once intended for upgrades, or

2. production hasn't meet targets. This can happen with poor yields and, while unlikely given the technology they chose to use, can't be ruled out

Am I missing a third option? Because as unlikely as #1 seems to me, it still seems much more probable than #2.

I think the best answer is that Tesla operates in a very fluid manner. They do not rigidly lay down a schedule for everything and stick to it at all costs. If on Wednesday morning they see a path that makes more sense than the one they saw on Monday morning, they take that new path.

We don't know why 3.0 rollout didn't meet the "soonest possible" deadline - it could simply be that there was no pressing need to push it out immediately even if it would have offered a small benefit in terms of performance. I really doubt the reason has anything to do with problems with production yields of the 3.0 hardware. More likely employee constraints (desire to shorten service wait times and give better service). And probably coupled with hiccups with optimizing the software for the new hardware such that the benefits would be immediately apparent.

They want to ensure it offers good "wow factor" upon release.

 

[waterloo42]

YUSS!!
Delivery Appointment
Feb. 5, 2020 at 05:30 PM
Toronto-Lawrence Avenue

Y?

 

[Silentk]

Is anyone else just breaking out in bouts of spontaneous laughter, or is it just me? Maybe I skipped the euphoria stage and went straight to insanity?

i think we were told skipping is inappropriate for adults

 

[thait84]

Isn't it wild that the people that bought Tesla at 420.69 are up 38% on that trade as a joke?

 

[dww12]

I think of the 5 or so people I have spoken with who reserved the cybertruck, not one is a committed buyer. That is not much better than an anecdotal sample but I think it does suggest that trivial, returnable deposits should be discounted very heavily in sales forecasts.

I like to remind people of the GM Volt. Back in the day GM asked the internet for a show of hands if they would like GM to make the Volt. History says (I am skeptical) that due to the very positive response GM brought the car to market. GM predicted up to 200k sales a year in short order, I presume based in part on the internet interest.

As we know, the Volt barely hit 20k sales a year, required large manufacturer discounts to even be a useful compliance car for GM, and was dead after two generations.

So I too take the cybertruck reservations total with a large dose of salt. I'll be delighted to be proven wrong. In fact I think we will buy the smaller version when it comes out because both my wife and I are in love with it.

So there!

As a two time Volt buyer I can say nobody was “selling” them. You had to know which dealers had them, most only had one, and you always knew more about it than anyone at the dealership. The engineers did a good job, GM needed to make it fail. I have two somewhat early CT reservations and wish I had more (my dad and brother are going to have to fight for one). The demand for that truck is going to be through the roof.

 

[Tslynk67]

So, I'm a 3-bagger now on my overall account (average cost is $191), a 4-bagger on the big purchase I did Feb 2016 during the China dip. Not selling though, thanks very much.

For my play account - options mostly, I'm up to €59k from an initial starting point of €4k

Thank you shorties!

 

[DaveT]

 

[shrspeedblade]

Toyota's strategy at the moment seems to be to concentrate on plug-in hybrids whilst they wait for a breakthrough in solid-state batteries (good luck with that!). They're coming out with the Toyota RAV4 Prime in 2021:

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

I guess they're hoping to keep selling enough of these to meet emissions targets over the next few years.

The trouble with that strategy IMO is that BEVs will continue to get better and cheaper during that time and a complicated PHEV will make less and less sense.

All the Japanese auto makers seem to have a similar strategy.

I think of the 5 or so people I have spoken with who reserved the cybertruck, not one is a committed buyer. That is not much better than an anecdotal sample but I think it does suggest that trivial, returnable deposits should be discounted very heavily in sales forecasts.

I like to remind people of the GM Volt. Back in the day GM asked the internet for a show of hands if they would like GM to make the Volt. History says (I am skeptical) that due to the very positive response GM brought the car to market. GM predicted up to 200k sales a year in short order, I presume based in part on the internet interest.

As we know, the Volt barely hit 20k sales a year, required large manufacturer discounts to even be a useful compliance car for GM, and was dead after two generations.

So I too take the cybertruck reservations total with a large dose of salt. I'll be delighted to be proven wrong. In fact I think we will buy the smaller version when it comes out because both my wife and I are in love with it.

So there!

Having owned a 2nd gen Volt, I said and still say it was a very good car, and a good "stepping stone" into EVs. I've also long held the opinion that its biggest fault was it didn't have a Toyota or Honda badge on the hood. I think that Rav4 Prime will actually be a legitimate competitor for the Model Y for a significant slice of the public (myself not included). That 39 mile range is sufficient for most daily driving, so I applaud it from that perspective as well as that it will make people "want more EV" just as the Volt did for me.

I now know range anxiety is silly, you know range anxiety is silly (at least for Teslas), but it is still a real thing for the public at large and overcoming this preconception will take time. It's not a small car (which Americans at least don't prefer anyway), it has the Toyota badge on the hood, so my hypothesis is it will do better in the market than many of us would prefer, but it will also have a long term benefit to EV adoption. This is unfortunate, we need rapid EV adoption, but at least it might get many on the path who otherwise would be reluctant to take the full plunge.

Just a counterpoint.

.....and damn, I didn't know another Falcon launch was scheduled for today!

 

[gerebgraus]

I think because Toyota and Tesla is still not in the same segment. Upon cost parity, though...
.

Cost parity is subject to change in 2 or 3 years and then they will be in the same segments as well.

 

[MikeAtkinson]

Amazon hits $200 billion mark beating Google and Apple to become world’s most valuable brand

"Tesla TSLA, +6.20% was the fastest-growing brand, jumping 65% to $12.4 billion in a year that has seen the electric car company expand into China."

 

[humbaba]

I think the best answer is that Tesla operates in a very fluid manner. They do not rigidly lay down a schedule for everything and stick to it at all costs. If on Wednesday morning they see a path that makes more sense than the one they saw on Monday morning, they take that new path.

We don't know why 3.0 rollout didn't meet the "soonest possible" deadline - it could simply be that there was no pressing need to push it out immediately even if it would have offered a small benefit in terms of performance. I really doubt the reason has anything to do with problems with production yields of the 3.0 hardware. More likely employee constraints (desire to shorten service wait times and give better service). And probably coupled with hiccups with optimizing the software for the new hardware such that the benefits would be immediately apparent.

They want to ensure it offers good "wow factor" upon release.

As I said, I don't really see #2 -- its a reach for various reasons. Mostly you see it when pushing production boundaries and HW3 is not.

But do you also reject the possibility that they are scaling Model Y production faster than planned and that is soaking up the current production?

December wouldn't have been the "earliest possible" -- it was the latest to meet the goal of fourth quarter. Sorry, still no citation, but I'm pretty sure that was indicated (not promised, of course).

I really doubt it is delayed over service concerns. While I don't want to raise the whole "service" topic the installation overhead with it being just a board swap behind the glovebox that doesn't seem like it would impact things appreciably even if there were service issues. And, perhaps more to the point, even if it was slowed down for that reason I just can't see it being reduced to the barest trickle that it apparently is.

Not bothering because the FSD features that need it just aren't ready yet? Maybe. But are they then stockpiling boards instead of installing them? That just doesn't make sense to me either.

Which is why I keep coming back to the Model Y being scaled up faster than originally planned. Or maybe GF3. Because Tesla would definitely prioritize new sales over upgrades. At any rate the only explanation that seems plausible to me is one of increased demand for the production.

 

[MikeAtkinson]

.....and damn, I didn't know another Falcon launch was scheduled for today!

Now scheduled for the 24th January at 10:54 AM EST (15:54 UTC) because of poor weather in the stage 1 and fairing recovery areas, 26 m/s winds and high seas.

 

[Krugerrand]

The mind boggles how fast everything is happening.

It’s been almost a full 8 years since the release of Model S - my mind has had plenty of time to digest what’s happening. Might I suggest more cauliflower and broccoli for your brain? They worked for me. I’m not freaking out at all now as the SP closes in rapidly on my 20 bagger. Less than 7% to go.

 

[dl003]

Thank God my 1/31 500 calls might be ITM after all.