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

[CaliBear1]

This applies to both the term "Tesla Killer" and the EQC and all the other half-hearted efforts from legacy ICE manufacturers!

The media should inter the idiotic noun "Tesla Killer". May as well hold a formal funeral. It isn't even worthy of click bait.

Seems like "iPhone Killer" would have taught people something.

 

[Mo City]

Foreign action is the solution to every one of US's domestic problems.

Nope. A tax cut solves every problem.

 

[StealthP3D]

Just to be complete:
View attachment 545807

I'm not sure how that can be considered "complete" considering it includes the shareholder argument for advertising but not the BoD's argument why additional paid advertising is not needed:

Opposing Statement of the Board

The Board has considered this proposal and has determined that it would not serve the best interests of Tesla or our stockholders. While we welcome stockholder feedback, we also believe we have an experienced management team that is best situated to determine Tesla’s day-to-day business operations, including our sales and marketing practices and expenditures.

Moreover, the proponent’s key premise is based on an apparent misunderstanding of Tesla’s retail operations. Specifically, Tesla has made clear in statements since the first quarter of 2019 that we frequently optimize our retail operations, which means both closing or downsizing locations with underperforming foot traffic or sales throughput, as well as adding locations in our target markets with high foot traffic. As a result, our net store count remained stable across 2019. Moreover, Tesla does not focus solely on online sales as the proponent asserts. Rather, whether a customer places an order from his or her home or at a Tesla store, it is transacted by accessing Tesla’s website.

The proponent also presents no evidence that Tesla has insufficient visibility with prospective customers or that paid advertising, whether at the arbitrary amount suggested by the proponent or at all, would increase such visibility in a manner favorable to the Company or its stockholders. On the contrary, among the milestones achieved in 2019 without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs, Tesla delivered a record 367,656 vehicles, or a 50% increase from the prior year, and Model 3 outsold the BMW 3-Series, Mercedes C-class, Audi A4 and Lexus IS combined in the United States. The distinctions that Tesla has achieved in the past year include Model 3 being included in Consumer Reports’ 2020 “Top Picks” List and being named the UK Car of the Year 2020 and the Midsize Car of the Year at the AUTO BILD Golden Steering Wheel Awards in Germany, and Model S being named Motor Trend’s Ultimate Car of the Year. Finally, Tesla continues to expand globally with our servicing and charging infrastructure, as well as through international manufacturing at Gigafactory Shanghai, which commenced vehicle production in 2019, and our Gigafactory Berlin, which is undergoing site preparations.

Whereas the proponent’s assertions are based in speculation, objective factors demonstrate the existing and growing public visibility and interest in Tesla and our products without the need for paid advertising. Accordingly, at this time our management believes that our customers and stockholders would be better served by forgoing such costs.

The Board recommends a vote AGAINST the stockholder proposal regarding paid advertising.

 

[Artful Dodger]

After-action Report: Thu, May 28, 2020: (Full-Day's Trading)

VWAP: $814.79
Volume: 7,294,215
Traded: $5,943,228,529.53 ($5.94 B)

Closing SP / VWAP: 98.89%
(TSLA closed BELOW today's Avg SP)​

FINRA Short/Total Volume = 41.7% (44th Percentile rank Shorting)
FINRA Volume / Total NASDAQ Vol = 50.2% (51st Percentile rank FINRA Reporting)
FINRA Short Exempt Volume was 1.52% of Short Volume (54th Percentile rank).

Comment: "Short week"

 

[Tslynk67]

The problem is that there is zero political will to put its own house in order. There is plenty of political will to provide scapegoats as a distraction from poor policy.

To be fair, this is a common tactic of all politicians.

Markets look relatively flat overnight and futures just slightly in the red.

To be sure, one thing the economy doesn't need right now is further political/trade shenanigans and we need our economies back (as in real economies, not share prices rising...)

 

[Tslynk67]

I don’t think Q matters anymore, but this kind of activity is abuse of twitter:

report > suspicious > reply spam

I tend to agree with you. Absolutely nobody takes these clowns seriously, they're a laughing stock. However, with messages like this to people thinking to buy a Tesla, they will cause a few lost sales, no doubts. There was a bot that was tracking these posts and putting up a factsheet to counter it, but I don't know if this is still active.

Maybe I'll start stalking this goon's posts and try to do the job myself.

The other things that $TSLAQ are doing is bullying some of the more active $TSLA Twitter folks. They trawl though their posting history looking for potential copyright violations and then try to get them banned.

Plus you've got that retarded Greenspan annoying everyone with his whacko legal investigations and litigation.

So yeah, they're lunatics to be laughed at, but they're causing genuine distress for some. And Twitter sport does nothing to stop it, if anything favours the $TSLAQ morons.

 

[Tslynk67]

Tesla sent 20 staffers to SpaceX, Elon Musk's other company, filing shows

The two Model Ax’s that were used to deliver the astronauts to launchpad? Just thinking aloud...

Can someone explain to me why this would merit a CNBC news story, it's of zero interest to anyone, even us.

 

[StealthP3D]

Can someone explain to me why this would merit a CNBC news story, it's of zero interest to anyone, even us.

I think it's supposed to be cutting edge journalism exposing the incestuous relationship between SpaceX and Tesla. But what it really did is to highlight in people's minds how the two coolest companies in the world can work together and mutually support each other in their two very cool, but very different, missions. A refreshing change from the fighting and backstabbing that goes on in the current political environment and that people are sick of.

 

[StealthP3D]

I had to pay the $2.99 to watch Episode #10 of Jay Leno's garage with Elon Musk when I saw it was posted on Amazon Prime. Well worth it to see the great chemistry between Jay and Elon. Overall, this was priceless promotional material for Tesla and Elon was at his best and very likable. Not up to Jay's level of course but he had a number of good moments and no awkward ones.

They had a good shot of Elon climbing on top of the Cybertruck's vault and I couldn't even see any flex out of the roll-top.

 

[AZRI11]

I had to pay the $2.99 to watch Episode #10 of Jay Leno's garage with Elon Musk when I saw it was posted on Amazon Prime. Well worth it to see the great chemistry between Jay and Elon. Overall, this was priceless promotional material for Tesla and Elon was at his best and very likable. Not up to Jay's level of course but he had a number of good moments and no awkward ones.

They had a good shot of Elon climbing on top of the Cybertruck's vault and I couldn't even see any flex out of the roll-top.

5.4 million views on YouTube in 20 hrs

 

[kengchang]

Can someone explain to me why this would merit a CNBC news story, it's of zero interest to anyone, even us.

Just Lora being Lora

 

[AZRI11]

Just Lora being Lora

Tesla employees working for SpaceX are secretly working for Tesla

 

[saniflash]

When products are priced right, there is no fear of cannibalization. Rather it's all just upsell.

Internal cannibalization is the ultimate forcing function for keeping innovation going internally which we know is the ultimate competitive advantage. is it comfortable? no. necessary if you want to outexecute everyone else? yes.

 

[JohnnyEnglish]

I politely disagree.

I've only watched cars being loaded and unloaded about a half dozen times. The width of the track is fixed, and the distance fore and aft is easily measured autonomously.

The truck driver eyes are not at a low level. He/She's only got two of them (not eight), and they are likely somewhere about a foot or two above the steering wheel . . . .

I repeat: A smart coder should be able to solve this problem.

All the truck driver would have to do is tie the vehicles down, and then deliver the trailer to an unload point.

But we are a bit OT at this point, but perhaps I'll suggest it at the Shareholders meeting. Didn't Tesla buy a manufacturer of auto transport trailers in 2018 or '19? I see all sorts of possibilities for this, especially if using their own, identical, in-house trailers . . .

I believe the cars are tested on the small test track at the side of the factory prior to loading so direct loading at the factory door would not be possible. This is visible on many of the drone fly over videos (less so now that they concentrate on the phase currently being built).

 

[RobStark]

COVID-19 Projections | US | CA | Alameda

 

[Artful Dodger]

"Tabless Electrode Patent (Deep Dive)" | The Limiting Factor (37 min ago)

 

[MartinAustin]

Looks like TSLA is stable in the $800/"low 800's" range if you take a look at the last month. Stock not really being phased by the noise moving the rest of the market up or down.

Re: Tesla employees at SpaceX... I would imagine they're at Boca Chica working on the Starship prototypes, that have a lot of Tesla batteries and motors to work actuators and stuff. Probably need custom software too.

 

[DrL90]

I’m not so sure it is really wasting any time. Shanghai produces less than 1 car per minute. It only takes 2-3 people to handle driving cars onto car carriers, and I imagine the drivers of the car carriers contributes to this effort as well (this was standard procedure when I worked for a company involved in car shipping, after we unloaded onto the wharf it was then the car carrier drivers who handled the loading of cars onto their carriers. Of course it is a different circumstance when picking up from a car factory, but I cant imagine the car carrier drivers just stand around doing nothing while watching others load cars onto their truck).

OT

I haul cars it definitely not wasting time to TSLA pilot. I can load 11 units in an hour or 1.25 hrs depending how far the units are away that I have to walk to. If the units are pulled already and parked next to my truck its no longer then 45 mins. So I suppose if the cars could line them selves up behind the truck so someone doesn't have to go find them it would save a considerable amount of time but the car driving itself on the truck? Not even close they move entirely to slow on their own for that to save any time. Not to mention each car would need to know which deck to go on and where to stop so the weight is spread out amoung the axles correctly whether to back on or pull on. Some people are very slow at it i agree tho i noted that on some of the videos posted from Shanghai showing the men strapping the vehicles

 

[Prunesquallor]

"SpaceX will pay Tesla an estimated $0.1 million."

Einhorn will ask for an audit on this if Tesla secures a Q2 profit

Tesla will hold its 2020 Annual Shareholder Meeting on July 7
Well, he can ask these guys...

A Tesla proposal to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Tesla’s independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020 (“Proposal Three”). – “FOR”

 

[Prunesquallor]

I'm not sure how that can be considered "complete" considering it includes the shareholder argument for advertising but not the BoD's argument why additional paid advertising is not needed:

Opposing Statement of the Board

The Board has considered this proposal and has determined that it would not serve the best interests of Tesla or our stockholders. While we welcome stockholder feedback, we also believe we have an experienced management team that is best situated to determine Tesla’s day-to-day business operations, including our sales and marketing practices and expenditures.

Moreover, the proponent’s key premise is based on an apparent misunderstanding of Tesla’s retail operations. Specifically, Tesla has made clear in statements since the first quarter of 2019 that we frequently optimize our retail operations, which means both closing or downsizing locations with underperforming foot traffic or sales throughput, as well as adding locations in our target markets with high foot traffic. As a result, our net store count remained stable across 2019. Moreover, Tesla does not focus solely on online sales as the proponent asserts. Rather, whether a customer places an order from his or her home or at a Tesla store, it is transacted by accessing Tesla’s website.

The proponent also presents no evidence that Tesla has insufficient visibility with prospective customers or that paid advertising, whether at the arbitrary amount suggested by the proponent or at all, would increase such visibility in a manner favorable to the Company or its stockholders. On the contrary, among the milestones achieved in 2019 without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs, Tesla delivered a record 367,656 vehicles, or a 50% increase from the prior year, and Model 3 outsold the BMW 3-Series, Mercedes C-class, Audi A4 and Lexus IS combined in the United States. The distinctions that Tesla has achieved in the past year include Model 3 being included in Consumer Reports’ 2020 “Top Picks” List and being named the UK Car of the Year 2020 and the Midsize Car of the Year at the AUTO BILD Golden Steering Wheel Awards in Germany, and Model S being named Motor Trend’s Ultimate Car of the Year. Finally, Tesla continues to expand globally with our servicing and charging infrastructure, as well as through international manufacturing at Gigafactory Shanghai, which commenced vehicle production in 2019, and our Gigafactory Berlin, which is undergoing site preparations.

Whereas the proponent’s assertions are based in speculation, objective factors demonstrate the existing and growing public visibility and interest in Tesla and our products without the need for paid advertising. Accordingly, at this time our management believes that our customers and stockholders would be better served by forgoing such costs.

The Board recommends a vote AGAINST the stockholder proposal regarding paid advertising.

Source? And, yes I should have said "here's more information" instead of "just to be complete".