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

[jeewee3000]

We'll probably get there (and even higher). I wouldn't necessarily sell a core long position, I'm just saying that opening a new position now is probably not the best idea from a risk / reward standpoint.

I disagree. There is less probability of the stock dropping back to below $450 at this point (30% drop from $650) than for it to climb to $845.

Both could happen soon, both could not.

Either way, in the long run I believe +$1000 is possible within two years so a 50% reward is possible when buying at $650. Sounds pretty great to me compared to most stocks.

Your statements are solely based on the emotion that we must drop sometime. We will, but it might be after reaching $700 and then seeing a 10% drop to $630. In this case, your buy at $650 is quite OK.

So my personal opinion, not advice, is:
- if you were to get in now, it is still a good time BUT;
- you might want to spread your buys (once every month/ three months) to average;
- you might want to hold some dry powder in case of a dip;
- you don't need the money for at least three years, preferably way longer (5-10y).

If you are saying I wouldn't open a short-term share position right now, that I can agree with. Better use a smaller amount of money for a call and keep the rest in case we go down.

 

[JBRR]

 

[Prunesquallor]

Wow, I think Alex Potter just called the death of the ICE industry, which is pretty brave from an analyst.
...

I don't see a way out for them. If Tesla goes internal and proprietary with the new tech batteries, the OEMs might as well throw in the towel on their own EVs. What does that leave them with? Hybrids and ICE. Dead end. Their last hope - kill Tesla - has probably slipped away from them.

 

[lascavarian]

CNBC just had analyst on saying there seems to be room on the up side.

 

[jeewee3000]

I dont see a way out for them. If Tesla goes internal and proprietary with the new tech batteries, the OEMs might as well throw in the towel on their own EVs. What does that leave them with? Hybrids and ICE. Dead end. They're last hope - kill Tesla - has probably slipped away from them.

Tesla cannot and will not be the only car manufacturer in 10/20/50 years time.

Tesla will be massive, but other companies will sell EV's, even though they are inferior. But, as Elon said in the Third Row Tesla Podcast, the next Samsung to Apple's iPhone in the EV-market still has to rise, and the surviving companies might not be the current entrenched OEM's.

From existing OEM's, I believe at least Volkswagen has a good shot of joining the EV party. (Late, but succesfully)

 

[jeewee3000]

CNBC just had analyst on saying there seems to be room on the up side.

Guess he read up on TMC after Elon's remarks . Imagine what the analysts would say if they read @FrankSG 's blog

 

[FrankSG]

We'll probably get there (and even higher). I wouldn't necessarily sell a core long position, I'm just saying that opening a new position now is probably not the best idea from a risk / reward standpoint.

I strongly disagree. If your investment horizon is 10-15 years, Tesla will still easily do 10x, if not 20x or more from this point.

Not starting to build a new position now is a bad idea from a risk / reward standpoint, because you might miss out on one hell of an investment opportunity. Assuming there will be a better buying opportunity in the near term is gambling.

@jeewee3000 's advice is solid though, about not buying all your shares at the same time and keeping a bit of dry powder behind.

 

[kaczmarczyk]

I found this article on Drudge, Tesla Racks Up Another Record Year (and Another Loss)

Does anyone what to discuss and provide their thoughts?

 

[Artful Dodger]

yeah of course, but it was weird hearing Elon say they couldn't ramp Semi up sooner because there wasn't enough battery supply, and in the next breath saying they can't spend money faster as there was nothing to spend it on (when obviously more battery supply is something they could be spending it on).

Almost seems like they are paying an opportunity cost to wait while Maxwell tech is ready (otherwise they would have invested more last year in battery lines)

Lol, you're way overthinking this. They have a plan, you just don't know what it is. They're doing exactly what they said they'd do onstage at the June 2019 AGM, while being coy to deny an advantage to competitiors. That will not change their internal timeline, nor would telling you!

Imagine a space race to a newly discovered planetary system some 10s of light years away. What is the best strategy for when best to launch your Interstellar Spaceship during a period advancing technology? The optimal strategy is NOT to launch first, or even ASAP, just to get passed by a competitor during your slow ass trip.

The best strategy is to stay home, work hard on the R&D effort until your new tech is ready, then GO BIG. You'll wave buh-bye to the others who launched too early with inferior tech, as you zoom past at HIGH IMPULSE SPEED, to arrive at your destination DECADES earlier than if you went off half-cocked.

Remember, only the DESTINATION matters.

Paging @mongo. Real engineers can tell you more about how project planning actually works on the bleeding edge of manufacturing technology. "I am but a poor, lost circus performers, looking for a nearby village..."

HTH.

Cheers!

 

[Fact Checking]

CNBC just had analyst on saying there seems to be room on the up side.

I'm pretty sure that was his last CNBC appearance.

It's like being invited to a Flat Earth Dinner Party and showing off the videos of Earth you shot when you were at the ISS. Totally unacceptable!

 

[Artful Dodger]

I reckon he was referring to Gali from Hyperchange. He's done a lot of battery research over the past few months, and Elon knows who he is, so I wouldn't be surprised if he keeps up with some of Gali's YouTube videos.

If you honestly believe Gali knows jack squat about battery chemistry or manu. tech you are on seriously shaky ground with any of your subsequent conclusions.

He's a biz student with a year of watching youtube vids and hyperventilating over his incorrect assumptions.

The only place other than TMC that has presented any good analysis is EV TV, courtesy of Jack Rickard, although we've pointed out many of his mistakes here at TMC.

Please to sit down.

 

[bhtooefr]

Hmm, I did cut my margin to zero to balance out some of my Q4 ER options risk. With robinhood you can downgrade and remove margin. You only have margin on the Gold account that costs 5 bucks a month.

Robinhood Instant accounts - the default - are also margin accounts.

Shares purchased using funds from Instant Deposits and Instant Settlement are actually margin transactions. Now, when the deposit or sell transaction settles for real, the margin is satisfied, and it's no longer on margin. But until then...

You can downgrade to a regular account, but you have to contact Robinhood to do that.

Is the range impact to Model Y AWD a little better than Tesla was stating in the shareholder letter?

It was 280 miles at launch for AWD, but the default wheels were 18". But now the default wheels for AWD are 19" and they are saying 315 miles of range.

am i reading too much into this? any sort of technology implications?

That's not the angle of the range thing that I'm personally reading too much into, but yes, that's interesting.

The angle I'm reading too much into is this:

Musk specifically said on the call that that was 4.1 mi/kWh, and the graph says EPA miles per kWh.

315 miles / 4.1 mi/kWh = 76.8 kWh. At first glance, that seems about right.

But then I take a look over at the EPA fuel economy data file - 4.1 mi/kWh is ~24.4 kWh/100 mi, which seems really low.

A Model 3 Long Range AWD P18 (which is more efficient than the regular Long Range AWD) is 27.1018 kWh/100 mi. At 332 miles range (advertised 322, but Tesla derated it to match the LR AWD), that's 90.0 kWh (the EPA measures at the plug, not the pack, so any charging losses get counted in the EPA figures).

 

[CalX]

How is the news about directors except musk settling the solar city suit going to affect the price this am?

 

[nativewolf]

Tesla cannot and will not be the only car manufacturer in 10/20/50 years time.

Tesla will be massive, but other companies will sell EV's, even though they are inferior. But, as Elon said in the Third Row Tesla Podcast, the next Samsung to Apple's iPhone in the EV-market still has to rise, and the surviving companies might not be the current entrenched OEM's.

From existing OEM's, I believe at least Volkswagen has a good shot of joining the EV party. (Late, but succesfully)

Someone will surely rise but given that VW's core mission is to employ germans it puts VW in an impossible situation for a terrible company. Kia/Hyundai team is building a better EV than VW, has lower cost, and LG makes batteries at scale (connected to Hyundai). Why do people keep giving kudu's to VW. They have been the enemy to Tesla's core mission. The antithesis of Tesla if you will.

 

[LJS22]

I guess CNBC keeps that Erwin guy from Roth in a closet somewhere for interviews on Tesla. He’s a bear and seemed flustered this morning. He usually says a bunch of things that are good for Tesla and somehow can’t connect the dots.
Squawk Box on Twitter
(some video from the segment)

They shared the Retail investors comment by Musk also

 

[jeewee3000]

Why do people keep giving kudu's to VW. They have been the enemy to Tesla's core mission. The antithesis of Tesla if you will.

I'm not a fan of VW, but they:
- have a lot of resources;
- chose to use said resources to invest massively in batteries/EV's;
- could therefore have a shot at producing EV's profitably.

VW used to be anti-Tesla, but things have changed.

EDIT: employing Germans will not only be done by VW, but also by Tesla.
Germany is a progressive country and will advance to sustainable energy sooner than you think.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

I'm currently feeling darned smug about writing this:
Cliffski's Blog | The case for buying tesla stock.
when the stock was.... 258

 

[FrankSG]

If you honestly believe Gali knows jack squat about battery chemistry or manu. tech you are on seriously shaky ground with any of your subsequent conclusions.

He's a biz student with a year of watching youtube vids and hyperventilating over his incorrect assumptions.

The only place other than TMC that has presented any good analysis is EV TV, courtesy of Jack Rickard, although we've pointed out many of his mistakes here at TMC.

Please to sit down.

I understand where you're coming from, and I don't entirely disagree, but have you seen any of his recent battery videos in the past few months? He did a couple of very well researched ones. I have to admit I didn't dig deep into the research behind them myself, so I can't say with 100% certainty that they are accurate, but the amount of research he put into those is extremely impressive.

I suggest you give some of these a watch before completely writing them off:

He also has more older videos about Maxwell that are old news at this point.

I also doubt Elon personally spends much, if any, time on TMC. If he did, we'd better stop posting this much, because with this kind of volume of posts, Elon is not going to be able to get any work done.

Maybe he might have an intern/assistant skim through it for him, and make a collection of a handful of top posts each day.

 

[nativewolf]

I'm not a fan of VW, but they:
- have a lot of resources;
- chose to use said resources to invest massively in batteries/EV's;
- could therefore have a shot at producing EV's profitably.

VW used to be anti-Tesla, but things have changed.

EDIT: employing Germans will not only be done by VW, but also by Tesla.
Germany is a progressive country and will advance to sustainable energy sooner than you think.

Nothing has changed at VW, they got caught. The mission is still the same and it is not a great mission for earth or, I believe, for germany. They are in an impossible situation. Mercedes...maybe. BMW could have. Those two rely on the middle level german companies for parts. VW does most stuff in house so the transformation will hurt them more directly. The workers council must be going nuts.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Someone reassure me that this isn't a cause for mild concern:

M3 sales up YoY: 42%
Service centers: 13%
Superchargers: 28%

Lets not forget that in the past a lot of S/X sales were to multiple car (wealthier) buyers. having to wait on service is a pain...but manageable. Also they have longer range, so superchargers are likely used less.
I would *really* like to see supercharger installs and service center locations increase at (at least!) the same rate as car production.

I accept that they dont break stores/service out, and some stores closed, but that doesn't excuse the slow supercharger roll-out.

It would be different if tesla already had an exemplary record for timely servicing, but we all know thats not true . (To be fair, here in the UK, I wrecked the front of my S and it was fixed by a 3rd party tesla-approved garage, super-close to me, fairly quickly, even over christmas).