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

[Unpilot]

Seat belts ON!

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

macros dropping some - likely the "excuse"

Why not?

Fed officials expect that coronavirus will 'weigh heavily' on the economy, minutes show

All stocks are showing the same drop. Algos at work, daytraders following. It isn’t always about manipulation.

 

[Open Interest]

Can I just vent a little of my frustration with the Bay Area here?

First we have Covid so everyone is more or less stuck out home.

Then for the past days straight it's been reaching about 100 degrees here on the Peninsula (south of SF, north of San Jose). This area is known for having relatively mild weather historically, so much so that most of houses built mid-century have absolutely shitake for insulation and no AC. There's not even space in walls / ceilings to add AC - people either add it onto their roofs (very ugly) or during a full renovation.

But usually most people in this area don't even have it because the hot days were never that hot and too few inbetween. Now it's getting more frequent. And PG&E can't even handle the electrical demand so they are shutting off people's power again.

This is in arguably the most expensive market (outside of Manhattan) in the U.S.

Then Saturday night there was a totally freakish thunderstorm that came in (it wasn't even anywhere on forecast Saturday) and the lightening struck 2000 times in the Santa Cruz mountains, starting a whole bunch of fires.

Now that smoke is covering most of the Bay Area (trapped in by mountains) and the air quality is horrific.

So here we are, it's too effing hot with no central AC. Can't hang out outside. And portable / wall unit ACs will just pump in more of this trash air. Oh and the power might go out again.

The connection to Tesla is of course global warming, poor grid stability, and heck even not good enough options of AC systems / filtration.

Even the Bay Area needs Tesla.

I hear you! I’m over in Contra Costa County where we have had a string of 104-106 degree days. It’s like this every August now, heat and fires, poor air quality.

There is currently a Tesla Solar Roof topic in my local NextDoor feed. So maybe the seed has been planted!

 

[Curt Renz]

Barron's - 1.5 hours ago: Tesla’s Gigafactory Is Getting Bigger. What It Means for the Stock.

 

[LTC_RRR]

The more I think about this threat, the more i realize it's roots are in social media platforms. These are the ppl who think we should stop making anything, even while supporting the clean energy movement.

@KarenRei posted this on Twitter regarding Neo-Luddites.

(Credit to ZeApelido for that find)

I really miss KarenRei

 

[Artful Dodger]

Tesla's entire purpose is to improve the environment and humanity's situation. I suggest a 'Yes' vote even if it does end up costing us a little bit of money.

"Reporting" does not change the environment. This shareholder motion was cleverly designed to be drag on Tesla's resources while changing nothing, because Tesla's behavior is already exemplary.

This motion will fail.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Cramer on $TSLA today:

"If you can develop a battery that lasts for 2 thousand miles, then Tesla for the first time ever, has developed a car that is not a car. It has developed a device that gets you from A to B without carbon. And then you ask yourself Why is Tesla only worth $350 billion? Should be worth more"

Lol, did ol' Jimbo really say "2000 miles", or is that a misprint? Because Tesla batteries already last for 2000 cycles, and its next gen batteries will last for 4500 cycles (1+ million miles).

Cheers!

 

[phantasms]

Give me a 2000 mile on a charge Model 3 P or give me death.....eventually.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Lol, did ol' Jimbo really say "2000 miles", or is that a misprint? Because Tesla batteries already last for 2000 cycles, and its next gen batteries will last for 4500 cycles (1+ million miles).

Cheers!

Think Jimmy Chill was trying to say 2000 miles on a single charge....or who knows with him

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I did some "thinking" and tried to sell a few shares at $1916 late yesterday, <5% of my position. SP never clicked back up high enough to execute. I think that's gonna be it for my adventures in selling, there's just too much chance of near-term squeeze.

Will revisit between Battery Day and the election. Have a feeling that even then I'll be hesitant to miss any day-after-election bump.

 

[Tslynk67]

Been a while since posting here. Just thought I would offer some perspective. This is what TSLA has meant to me and my wife. It has enable this dream for us. Not an island...just a mountain. Now we're working on the house to go on it.

Stay calm. Stay long. Use the money when it enables dreams to come true. That's what we did anyway.

Advice.

Dan

Which tree is it that you bought?

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I did some "thinking" and tried to sell a few shares at $1916 late yesterday, <5% of my position. SP never clicked back up high enough to execute. I think that's gonna be it for my adventures in selling, there's just too much chance of near-term squeeze.

Will revisit between Battery Day and the election. Have a feeling that even then I'll be hesitant to miss any day-after-election bump.

I try to sell every day...can't figure out why no one will pay $4200.69 for my shares. In reality, i am giving them a discount (Probaby have to wait just a little longer till they figure that out)

 

[Off Shore]

Tesla's entire purpose is to improve the environment and humanity's situation. I suggest a 'Yes' vote even if it does end up costing us a little bit of money.

I also voted "Yes" on 7, knowing as @Bet TSLA says "These things never pass." I don't mind reminding the Company that as a stockholder I care very much about its actions WRT human rights.

 

[Nocturnal]

Good to see a piece like this on Tesla's manufacturing prowess: The Tesla Gigafactory Phenomenon — 101.

Business school gurus and corporate engineers continue to be in awe of the Tesla Gigafactory phenomenon. Tesla’s formidable manufacturing infrastructure and logistical configurations are continuously expanding in scale and improving in sophistication. The Tesla Gigafactory is renowned for advanced efficiency and effectiveness, reaching levels of production that few around the globe have been able to emulate.

Not enough people keyed in on Elon's comment that Tesla's competitive advantage long term will be their manufacturing expertise. That idea was somewhat forming in my head but when I heard him say that it really clicked.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Okay $TSLA...bathroom break is over....time to revisit $1900

 

[StealthP3D]

That's not what I hear. Tesla's are still too expensive.

I heard Tesla's cost $100,000 and more than that if you want one that's not slow!

 

[NicoV]

Dutch ID3 review, the reviewer manages to get the brakes to start to burn, but doesn’t make an issue of that:
Volkswagen ID.3 getest: betaalbare Tesla-killer of geteisterde trendsetter?

 

[Tslynk67]

So, yeah... As I mentioned yesterday, any calls with "weird" post-splitterino strikes could be tricky to trade. To this effect I've been trying to roll my 4x 16/10 c1820's (becomes $364) to something "normal". Given that I don't have a "roll" feature at my broker, this was a matter of trying to time a sell at a local top and rebuy soon afterwards.

Managed to offload those c1820's around $1908, then had trouble with the internet connection (rural France) and missed the next dip to buy back in on $1800, SP kept rising. Then the Fed came to my rescue and sorted it out for me, so now I have 4x 16/10 c1800's for the same premium

Now to do the same with my single 16/10 c1380 - bit of a pain doing this, TBH, and the last thing I want is to be in cash overnight, who knows what may happen after-hours...

Now she's bouncing pretty good, $1897 close anyone?

 

[charlesgres]

I really miss KarenRei

Actually, she has taken it upon her to fight desinformation and lies on Twitter, so the frequency and depth of information of her tweets these days are fenomenal.. More so I think then her posts here, because here she would be preaching to the choir.. On Twitter it's mostly morons and teslaq'rs that she's replying to.. These guys really deserve the whipping they're getting from her..

For example:
https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1295317060877266945?s=21
"1/Recently, there's been another surge of "Elon Musk is Trying to Kill Public Transit" on Twitter (thanks, @doctorow!). Pointing out that Musk *literally runs a public transit company* (@boringcompany) just brings us to the "volumes are too low, so it can't work" line.

Pop quiz:
1) Station A has 720-person subway every 180 seconds. Station B has 20-person capsules, loaded in parallel, leave every 5 seconds. Which has more capacity?

2) Station A has 3x the capacity of Station B - but passengers on trains from A average going to two intermediary...
... stations before reaching their destination (3 total), while passengers in capsules at Station B go directly to their destinations. Which has more capacity?

3) City A spends $1B on stations and connecting lines at $1B each. City B spends $1B on 1/10th capacity stations and...
connecting lines at $100M each. Which gets more capacity?

ANSWERS:

1) They're the same
2) They're the same
3) They're bloody the same

Getting the picture? Public is not about "how many people you can fit onto a train at once"; it's about how much money you have to spend...
... per unit passenger capacity (we'll set aside all issues of comfort and convenience for now). Which means that *you cannot eliminate departure rates, how direct routes are, and construction costs from the picture*; they're an integral part.

So how what about Boring Company?
First off, Boring Company is Personal Rapid Transit:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_…

While this is normally focused on for comfort and convenience, it's also about capacity: everyone goes directly to their destination; nobody heads in the wrong direction.
Secondly, it's focused on *radical* cost reductions for tunneling, particular to its design elements.

First off, the tunnels are *small*. Tunneling costs are roughly proportional to the diameter squared, so this matters a *lot*.

Secondly, the tunnels are EV-only, *including...
... in the boring stage***. There are *never* any oxygen-gulping diesel exhaust-belching devices in the tunnel - even mining equipment. This allows them to avoid having to build expensive high-capacity exhaust ventilation systems, and focus only on humans and fire suppression.
Third, the average TBM spends the vast majority of its time stationary - for disc swapping, for casing (and then relocating its thrust structure to the end of the new casing, and a while host of other things). TBC is redesigning TBMs to have near-100% uptime.
Fourth, another huge cost beyond exhaust is laying the extremely high power cabling for the TBMs. TBC is focused on using hot-swapped battery packs (e.g. charged outside the tunnel), entirely eliminating this cost.
Fifth, traditional tunneling has *massive* personnel costs. TBC is focused heavily on automating nearly everything - even the navigation of the TBMs (regardless of changes in strata). This will leave costs overwhelmingly as capital.
Sixth, TBC plans to *mass produce its standardized TBMs in a factory setting* - thus heavily slashing the capital costs.

Seventh, TBC is even focused on nearly eliminating the costs to start and stop new tunnels. While normally one has to dig deep pits and lower the TBM in, ...
TBC's latest design involves angled cradle - carried and set down by a semi truck, with the TBM in it - allowing the TBM to start boring straight from it, diving, then resurfacing at the exit (porpoising), straight onto an exit cradle.
In terms of system designs, while subways are bottlenecked by having small numbers of large lines and a linear flow pattern, TBC's Loop is structured like a highway, with onramps, offramps, lanes of different speeds, etc. The accel / decel of one vehicle does not slow others.
And, of course, having many routes allows for far more direct travel, with numerous smaller stations, far closer to the desired start and end point of the journey.

Is TBC "there" already? Of course not; it takes years to decades to radically transform any given type of...
... technology. But the simple fact is that there's been very little innovation in tunnel boring in the past decades, as there's been very little competition. I encourage anyone to read the scientific literature on the topic - the answer to any questions on "how fast could one...
do X, Y, and Z?" is always along the lines of, "Probably far faster than we do so today, but we really don't know how fast, because nobody has tried.

Well, guess what. Somebody is now.

Like *all* technologies, you start out small and simple. TBC started with Godot, a...
... bog-standard TBM. They've been steadily modifying it to test new technologies; what's now boring in Vegas is "Godot+", a heavily modified version. Their most advanced one (Prufrock) just started testing in the desert outside Adelanto. This from-scratch TBM will be the...
... prototype for mass-production of future TBMs at TBC. In much the same way, Vegas is a small, low-capacity, simplified testbed for what will eventually become a full-fledged Loop system.

Want to be dubious about TBC's prospects? By all means, go right ahead!
But what's concern-trolling BS is pretending that because you don't believe it, TBC *isn't actually working on public mass transit*. That absolutely ***IS*** their goal, and they're working to revolutionize it.

So by all means, be dubious, but don't spread BS."

 

[TexasGator]

Why not?

Fed officials expect that coronavirus will 'weigh heavily' on the economy, minutes show

All stocks are showing the same drop. Algos at work, daytraders following. It isn’t always about manipulation.

understood - at the time of the post - the Nas was down 0.07 %, and TSLA was down close to 1% - just seemed opportunistic, but we may be jaded..............