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

[Curt Renz]

MarketWatch - hour ago: Tesla $10,000? This billionaire stock-market bull is banking on it

Includes video of full 25-minute interview of Ron Baron on CNBC this morning..

 

[Chocochip]

Demand Management != Demand Problem.

For sure, but that's the thing: my post wasn't meant to argue that there's definitely a demand problem, OMG, the sky is falling!!! Rather, I was suggesting that insufficient demand is one possible explanation for what we see, and we as investors should not simply shrug it away because it's inconvenient. Yes, as @cliffski mentioned, the referral program is not a huge incentive, and it may be that Tesla is trying to gauge and fine-tune demand, but at the same time by ignoring certain signals we risk missing some potentially significant move.

And I feel we're falling again into the debate of whether this thread is for those interested in accumulating relevant info to position themselves favourably for market movements, or whether it is for perma-bulls who will buy as much as they can anytime they can, never sell anything, and dismiss any hint of bad news related to TSLA as FUD.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Check your attitude, because frankly it's grating.

Your frequent uncritical repetition of clickbait articles has conditioned other's attitude toward your conclusions.

While you are free to express them here, I find them unconvincing.

 

[Chocochip]

Your frequent uncritical repetetion of clickbait articles has conditioned other's attitude toward your conclusions.

While you are free to express them here, I find them unconvincing.

Please provide examples. Alternatively, I'll expect an apology.

 

[jhm]

I don’t think that’s a concern.

We know he’s going to leave Tesla when he heads to Mars and he’s taking his money with him - that’s a few years away, but it’ll be telegraphed. And by that time there will have long since been a replacement being groomed - a son perhaps as I believe this turns into a family empire.

Regardless, Tesla will be much bigger by then. The SP more stable. It won’t be the same as now.

Try again.

He could lose interest in Tesla far sooner than that for reasons none of us may be able to comprehend at this point. Of course, everyone retires or dies. Depending on how the exit goes it could be just fine for the brand. For example, Walt Disney died of cancer. What it is harder to fathom is a difficult break up, like a divorce. "I thought we had a great marriage, until I met the younger women he was dating."

 

[keydiver]

Technically Nikola's plan is to start with a battery only Class 8 truck so good chance they just end up being a BEV truck manufacture.

I watched that video that someone posted a couple pages back, about selling Nikola stock, and it totally shocked me that their forecast pushes FCEV trucks out to 2024! That tells me that even they don't believe that the technology is ready yet. As you said, its all BEV trucks until then, and they don't own a battery factory, so I'm not sure where they are going to come up with 350 kWh per truck.

 

[CorneliusXX]

You may disagree with Fred's take on the reason behind Tesla's inclusion of the Model Y to the referral program, but your suggestion also doesn't really add up with the news from yesterday -- the leaked email from Elon.

So we have a situation where:
1. Elon informs his manufacturing team that the Model Y production needs to ramp up and the number of rectifications needs to be minimised, which indicates they're not where they want to be in terms of production rate, and
2. The Model Y is added to the referral program, indicating that the current rate of demand -- at least on the West Coast, given we're currently quite late in the quarter -- is below the production rate.

Weak demand is a reasonable conclusion. It may not be the correct one, but it is reasonable based on what we know. Again, it may simply be weak demand for the specific Model Y version (incl. wheels, body color) they're producing now, in the geography in which they have a good chance of delivering this quarter, but it's not completely unreasonable. People are just now starting to get back to work in many cases, some people may still need to figure out if there is a job waiting for them at the end of the lockdown, and so financial concerns are a major factor for many families; as such, it's possible some reservations are not transformed into orders right away.

If there was concern around Y demand Tesla would have dropped the price when they did it for the other models a couple of weeks ago.

 

[MP3Mike]

I was further researching Tesla's impact report, since people seemed to be thinking it was new, and since we're all bashing edFray (which, were I a moderator, I would be deleting) I found this helpful reference from last year, when it first came out. Now, how did edFray suddenly find it and claim that it just came out? By repackaging TMC, that's how. (April 17, 2019, if anyone cares.)

Isn't that about the 2018 impact report? The one just released is the 2019 version. It has items about the Model Y production in it, so that certainly wasn't available back in April of 2019.)

 

[jhm]

I think you are under-estimating the skill required to run a fledgling auto company. I'm not worried in the slightest about Musk losing interest in his baby.

Next FUD please!

Hey, I am discussion brand risk scenarios. This is not FUD. Please do not insult me and my contributions to TMC by characterizing it as FUD. That is a really low blow, friend.

 

[StealthP3D]

As you said, its all BEV trucks until then, and they don't own a battery factory, so I'm not sure where they are going to come up with 350 kWh per truck.

You obviously lack the creativity and imagination of NKLA's founder!

 

[ggr]

Isn't that about the 2018 impact report? The one just released is the 2019 version. It has items about the Model Y production in it, so that certainly wasn't available back in April of 2019.)

Yes, as I said above, I had searched for (and found) the 2018 report just a couple of hours before they released the 2019 one. This caused me to be confused by what people were talking about.

 

[wipster]

He could lose interest in Tesla far sooner than that for reasons none of us may be able to comprehend at this point. Of course, everyone retires or dies. Depending on how the exit goes it could be just fine for the brand. For example, Walt Disney died of cancer. What it is harder to fathom is a difficult break up, like a divorce. "I thought we had a great marriage, until I met the younger women he was dating."

Hey, there is absolutely NO REASON that Elon can't open up the first Tesla showroom on Mars! Cybertrucks, X's, and maybe Semi's would work well on the Red Planet. Matt Damon would have loved an X, could have built his own solar charger.

Maybe in the sequel...

 

[MP3Mike]

You obviously lack the creativity and imagination of NKLA's founder!

But heh, he said that they have pre-production units rolling off the IVECO manufacturing line "right now" and that he was champing at the bit to fly over and start testing them.

 

[Intl Professor]

Well, press conferences for one thing are going to be really difficult when he's living on Mars, since it can take up to 22 minutes to get a message to and from there... knowing Elon though he'll probably find a way to fix that too by then...

Having only an amateur acquaintance with nature, no. The boring company has no worm hole button, so far.

 

[Chocochip]

If there was concern around Y demand Tesla would have dropped the price when they did it for the other models a couple of weeks ago.

The whole assumption here is that the production levels are not as high for the Y as for the rest of the lineup. So they want to encourage purchases of the 3 for those on the fence between the 3 and the Y. The referral program is (as pointed out earlier) a much more modest incentive than a price cut, with a low impact on the bottom line.

My view of this is that the production rate for the Y is not where they want it to be. It's not crawling, but it's below their goal rate. That explains the leaked email. Nevertheless, current demand for the Y is also lower than expected, and they want to make sure the deliveries match the production levels. Nothing to panic about, necessarily, but something to keep in mind when we look at the P&D report in a few weeks -- even though Tesla may not break out the Y separately from the 3.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Craig Irwin did a segment debunking everything Ron

I don't think that word means what you think it means. You can't "debunk" something unless it's bunk. All Irwin did was deny what Ron Baron said. Repeating imbecile opinions is not "debunking" anything. Ever.

 

[lafrisbee]

How does it do that? This really is a math game. My wife has her doctorate in stochastics. Her opinion is that she can't develop an algorithm to predict the stock market unless she can pick and chose assumptions.
But what I can't get out of her is how does a stock performance change from one day to the next without any known position or event that would cause change to be known...
What I am saying is, Who is making all the decisions to make TSLA do what they want? It sure as hell ain't any of the people that love or hate TSLA.

 

[dc_h]

Hey, I am discussion brand risk scenarios. This is not FUD. Please do not insult me and my contributions to TMC by characterizing it as FUD. That is a really low blow, friend.

While I don't think elon is losing interest in Tesla any time soon, jhm is making a valid observation and is a very long term quality contributor and so is stealth. Not sure why people would be snippy when our stock is approaching 1000 a share and generally outperforming the rest of the economy. We should recall when we see long term posters and treat them with some historical context that considers past input.
There's enough strife out there and enough concern trolls that will show up the next time Tesla falls 10%.

Enjoy the ride up and don't sweat the rest. Nothing today is impacting Tesla's long term competitive advantage and Elon is not moving to Mars in the next 5 years. He does not think inside the same box as anyone on this thread and he could find some new passion or something he thinks is more urgent and reduce his Tesla role at some surprising point in time. I don't think Elon sees Tesla as out of intensive care until they are making 2 to 5 million cars a year, building cars on every continent and has FSD working much better than a human. I think even at that point, he will continue to push radical change to ensure they maintain an innovation edge over the industry, even after they pass the rest of the industry in revenue and profit.

 

[heltok]

I watched that video that someone posted a couple pages back, about selling Nikola stock, and it totally shocked me that their forecast pushes FCEV trucks out to 2024! That tells me that even they don't believe that the technology is ready yet. As you said, its all BEV trucks until then, and they don't own a battery factory, so I'm not sure where they are going to come up with 350 kWh per truck.

This is what is surprising to me also. FCEV might have made sense somewhere 2015-2022 if someone had pushed the technology like Tesla did with BEV. But with semi being announced in in 2017, with a likely factory announcement in 2020-2021 and likely production start in 2022, they will be 2 year behind, with megachargers out, with million mile battery, with 300+Wh/kg etc. By then the world will have adapted mentally to BEV semi trucks and FCEV will just seem silly. Whatever you save by fueling faster is lost by the extra time to get to the fuel station, performance is much worse, economy is much worse, safety is much worse. There is pretty much nothing that is gained.

Imo they should consider making fuel cell airplanes instead, for a few years there will be a market for that until batteries are 500wh/kg+ and even more for intercontinental routes.

 

[FreshPrince]

I think Fred does this to deflect criticism of being a Tesla homer.

Remember when TSLA was posted on the home page of Electrek and the only criticism Fred received was being biased in favor of Tesla? I believe he deliberately attempted to remake his image. In the process, he alienated many Tesla bulls who turned on him.

My main problem now with Fred's opinions is they are often so obviously wrong he impales himself. Sometimes he knows just enough to display ignorance. IMO, he should keep to the facts (or educate himself enough to offer more informed opinions) and only deviate when given inside scoops from Tesla insiders.

For a period of time, Electrek was a good "one stop" for all Tesla news. Those days are long gone.

Most Electrek's Tesla articles are now opinion pieces.