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

[heltok]

Who is the least terrible Tesla bear right now? Want to hear a decent bear thesis. No “electronic vehicles” or “couldn’t find any production goals for Tesla”.

 

[Tim S]

There is construction going on at the Electrify America chargers at our local Walmart (Albany NY). I spoke to the guy in charge of the work and he told me they are installing Tesla Powerpacks (he called them BESS - Battery Energy Storage System). The idea is to charge the Powerpacks overnight when electricity is cheap, then use them to charge EVs (mostly non-Tesla) through the Electrify America chargers. I wonder how widespread this is?

I will swing by next week to try to get pics after the Powerpacks are installed.

Update: I stopped by yesterday at the Electrify America chargers at the local Walmart. Unfortunately the guy working there had just finished hiding the Tesla logo on the batteries installed there. You can still see the Tesla red. He said they aren't "Powerpacks" but they are Tesla BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems).

He said they hide the Tesla logo because Electrify America (VW) doesn't want to publicize the fact they are using Tesla batteries. He said they are doing this "all over the place". The goal is 400 locations by year's end. I think he meant across the US.

He's from the NYC area, 150 miles from here. He was driving a Black Model S with chrome delete. I didn't get a pic.

 

[dl003]

Who is the least terrible Tesla bear right now? Want to hear a decent bear thesis. No “electronic vehicles” or “couldn’t find any production goals for Tesla”.

I might get some disagrees but AJ isn't too bad. He's proven to be just a bit slimy as opposed to clueless.

 

[AlMc]

I bought a decent chunk of $TSLA at $344 last year

Yay! I’m so happy

Wah! Why didn’t I buy moooore

How many of y’all can relate?

Answered a similar question the same way a while ago (days): Could be worse: You could have put in a deposit for a roadster instead of letting the $$ ride in TSLA..............Today, that money could get you a roadster, a CZ 3 drive, a tricked out '3' or 'Y' and still have money to donate to your favorite charity and live on in retirement for a couple years.....

 

[dl003]

I bought a decent chunk of $TSLA at $344 last year

Yay! I’m so happy

Wah! Why didn’t I buy moooore

How many of y’all can relate?

Instead of putting $200k on TSLA in 2013, I bought a nail salon and I don't even do nails.

 

[ninpb]

Update: I stopped by yesterday at the Electrify America chargers at the local Walmart. Unfortunately the guy working there had just finished hiding the Tesla logo on the batteries installed there. You can still see the Tesla red. He said they aren't "Powerpacks" but they are Tesla BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems).

He said they hide the Tesla logo because Electrify America (VW) doesn't want to publicize the fact they are using Tesla batteries. He said they are doing this "all over the place". The goal is 400 locations by year's end. I think he meant across the US.

He's from the NYC area, 150 miles from here. He was driving a Black Model S with chrome delete. I didn't get a pic.

View attachment 581443 View attachment 581444

So from a quick Google, a power pack costs 172k. Multiplied by 400 is 68m. Tastes sweeter when it's coming from VW.

 

[Mo City]

Your response is exactly what I'm talking about. That's what I'm banking on. Q2 results were outstanding...... but again Tesla's potential was masked because of Covid, which limited production from taking that next leg up. Production was largely even from Q1, Q2, Q2/Q3/Q4(2019) where production has been in this range of 90k-110k per quarter. Tesla did an amazing job continuing to leverage operations and continue efficiency gains during Q1 and Q2 this year(which is why I call Q1/Q2 earnings outstanding), but if you're just looking at the quick figures(which Wall st and investors mostly do), you're seeing a company that's making strides but not fundamentally taking a next level stage in it's growth and it's earnings potential/power.

What Q3 represents is that substantial next level step of production that will unlock that earnings potential/power. Practically every analyst, even the bullish ones, are underestimating Q3 and Q4 this year.

Battery Day I have no opinion of when it comes to stock action and what will happen.

I made the exact same point about Q3 but that was when TSLA was sitting between $1500-$1600. At over $2200, we'll see.

 

[dakh]

That's volume, not open-interest, volume being the number of trades, OI being the number of open contacts. This is the OI:

View attachment 581422

Just curious, the green spike on the far right is what, calls bought by shorts to limit losses in case of a spike-squeeze? And then what's the red spike on the far left all about? Kinda crazy to hold puts at 180 strike.

 

[mejojo]

Instead of putting $200k on TSLA in 2013, I bought a nail salon and I don't even do nails.

 

[Nocturnal]

Instead of putting $200k on TSLA in 2013, I bought a nail salon and I don't even do nails.

You just really like having yours done?

 

[Curt Renz]

Torque News - half hour ago:

 

[M|S|M MYP]

It's ok...'electronic F150' still on schedule everyone

Ford and Fiat Chrysler remain under federal investigation in union corruption probe

 

[dl003]

You just really like having yours done?

I think it's a scientific fact that some human brains are not fully developed until 25 year of age. I'm a prime example of that.

 

[MikeAtkinson]

It starts getting harder to breakout growth drivers, but this is great. If it were in Excel or Google docs, you could create bear case scenarios by site or vehicle. I’m not asking or criticizing, just noting the format. I do think there are two other growth engines, with the Semi beginning to scale up and energy likely up over 100% next year. Solar and batteries are both on track for 100% growth and GWh battery sites going up. If we do grow over 100% in 2021, the discounted value of TSLA will only need 30-35% growth to justify the current valuation. Barring COVID 2.0 or some other global disaster, I don’t see growth below 50% on average until 2027.

Great post.

I considered doing something more sophisticated, but in the end that just fools you into thinking there is more precision than is the case. However, I might try and put together a google sheet.

There is a judgement call in how fast gigafactories can start operation, how steep the ramp is and what are the factory limits to production. In the case of Berlin and Austin there is a judgement call about when subsequent phases are going to be started. There are also questions about how fast the supply chain can ramp, how fast battery production ramps and the proportion of batteries used for vehicles.

Semi and Cybertruck are also two unknowns, I suspect Elon is sandbagging his estimates, so it is not clear what production is next year.

I also think that energy (solar and batteries) is likely to grow 100% or more, solar growth is probably limited by how fast they can recruit installers, battery growth by availability of cells.

My cases were based on yearly figures, it should be possible to estimate quarterly production and from that quarterly sales. Year on year increases for Q1 and Q2 next year are likely to be very high due to the effects of COVID-19 this year, I would not be surprised to see increases over 200% in each of those quarters.

 

[ggr]

TLDR: Chanos has already lost more money than he could ever make back on shorting TSLA and he already covered most (~90%) of his shorts, so his position is rather insignificant now.

It depends on what you mean by "rather insignificant" I guess. Admittedly the dollar value of it will be smaller, as it is still a fixed percentage of a fund that had decreased in value (I think? Or did it just underperform the rest of the market?) But the psychological significance has to be weighing on him.

 

[Sofie]

Instead of putting $200k on TSLA in 2013, I bought a nail salon and I don't even do nails.

It can ALWAYS be worse, people!

 

[Thekiwi]

Who is the least terrible Tesla bear right now? Want to hear a decent bear thesis. No “electronic vehicles” or “couldn’t find any production goals for Tesla”.

I think people like Asworth Damodaran are worth paying attention too. By no means have to agree with his assumptions, but he simply uses DCF valuations to decide whether to buy or sell and releases his spreadsheet publicly for everyone to see his assumptions and makes changes if they wish (has been in and out of Tesla over last couple of years). I disagree with his margin and growth assumptions, but its always good to hear what a value investor like him thinks (and worthy to note as a "value" investor he was investing in Tesla last year - unlike most of the bears.)

 

[OrthoSurg]

Going to work tonight. Doesn't happen to often these days after Covid hit. I'll make about 1/5 of what I've made from Tesla every single day for the last year on average. Good thing I really enjoy my work.

I guess you can call that volunteering at some point!

 

[Tim S]

Just curious, the green spike on the far right is what, calls bought by shorts to limit losses in case of a spike-squeeze? And then what's the red spike on the far left all about? Kinda crazy to hold puts at 180 strike.

I learned earlier this year you can buy cheap puts (that will expire worthless) to increase your margin and prevent margin calls. That might explain some of the red spikes. I spent literally $5 on a put contract to increase my margin by about $15,000.

Maybe the inverse is true for shortsellers and the green spikes.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Just a little humor before tomorrow...enjoy y'all....oldie but goodie: