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

[AperiodicCoder]

Thanks. Got the FSD upgrade on day one. No point of a Tesla without FSD imho.

Without FSD my Tesla would still be my favorite car and I’d recommend it to everyone, so I’d say this statement takes it a bit too far. FSD just takes “best” and makes it even better.

(My wife doesn’t use Autopilot but LOVES our Tesla!)

 

[Intl Professor]

What is an “Engineer by trade”?

Pretty clear to me, "I am paid for engineering work." Are you paid for musculoskeletal system engineering work?

 

[EnzoXYZ]

All this may be true of the 60's and 70's Volvo, but their recent past is more checkered, what with their various joint ventures and probably MBA bean counters.

[OT] TLDR; specific detailed stats by model car/ year are available now, including Volvo - no Tesla ratings available yet; and how buying my topnotch used '08 Mercedes CLK350 mid 2018 made me an expert in cars, used and new, as well as EV cars. Which paid for my M Benz *and* a few TESLA s (if I wanted).


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You can't rely on Consumer Reports really for car ratings as they do not check cars beyond a few years of age. However.. one used car dealer/ auction expert (Steven Lang) has compiled statistics for most cars all the way back.
Very useful tidbits, Honda are indeed great re reliability, EXCEPT for a few model years .. Toyota is better .. as for Volvo, see for yourself
http://www.dashboard-light.com/reports/Volvo.html and Subaru is the pits which car guys knew (blown gaskets guaranteed after 80K miles, hard to reach too, sigh - tried to tell my ex not to buy one, but she liked the 4 wheel drive thing, true, it's one of the best and the financing etc. - as far as "..Tesla, no, they don't have enough chargers, and are not really a reputable company, they're not in the S&P 500.." -that was sometime last year .. triple sigh ). In case you wonder why I should care, well we do have a cool son so I'm looking for his interests indirectly ;D


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The Mercedes CLK350 story: I wasn't really looking for a car at the time, we usually just rented a car, any car for our trips to the country; but when friends of mine mentioned a nice older Benz for sale, I went and took a look. I do like well made gadgets, art, tools, well, anything well done except steaks. Oh and I've always liked Janis Joplin's song

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Anyway after test driving the CLK350, examining it and listening to the story (husband bought it for his wife, she used it for a couple years highway driving from her garage to the JFK parking garage where she worked, then car was kept mostly for weekend drives, or special occasions, to keep it in shape). The car had 28,000 miles or so, and I felt it was fine, didn't bother having it checked by a mechanic, trusting my guts - I used to take care of my Honda Prelude way back then, could tell everything was clicking nicely, knew in '08 computers were far simpler and more reliable than the newish current cpu's. Made an offer. Then started worrying a little.

Up until then all cars to me looked and felt the same .. not surprising, my experience was mostly new, well maintained rentals. After a few months of exhaustive research (yes, I can be OCD at times), found out my CLK350 was indeed tops, up to the smallest recall/ defects, and passed the Mercedes multi-point inspection no problem. Replaced the battery that was marginal and that's about all. Oh yes, also found the best mechanic around (fixes Lambos, BMW, even Teslas ... ) very reasonable and honest - after testing a few places (found them because Rich ( top car mechanic, of Rich Rebuild fame who rebuilt his own Teslas and now runs a few independent Tesla shops) went to *them* for help with some issues he couldn't figure.

Having bought the CLK350 mostly because it was a great car at a very reasonable price, I figured I'd sell it after a year or so at some profit. Turns out I found it hard to separate, especially since after looking for a replacement, I stumbled on the Tesla story, of which I was completely unaware of thanks to the FUDster press.

So I bought TSLA in Jan 2019 and then piled in all I could find after the ensuing dip. Not really enough, hah. So that's how the CLK350 paid for itself and a few other toys if I wanted to ..

The cherry on top was when I found out that 2008 was the year Mercedes essentially saved Tesla by giving them a contract for their B series EV's and invested $50M in Tesla.

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So Elon was right " Don't doubt your vibe "

And my vibe tells me this Dec 14 week will be super volatile, the next will see the SP skyrocket.

Done the MB thing twice. Reliability is POS category. The design aged super fast. Both cars was a rust bucket. Glad you had a different experience.

 

[UncaNed]

Or buy teslas for peole that cannot afford them. Get them out of ICE

Treat yourself to a new one every year or two and sell the old one at a very generous price to a deserving friend who'd not likely otherwise afford one... Yes indeed!

And I thought my first one would have to last me 20 years so I'd get my money out of it. Until TSLA... and TMC forum... -happened.

Thanks, everybody.

 

[Tslynk67]

MIC M3 registered in NO yesterday... you win't see many of these, the Norwegians prefer LR's

 

[amolina]

The new Beta software seems to have improved creeping behaviour on unprotected left turns.
According to the video, it needs a lot more work but it is clear that the Tesla team is making progress towards improving those difficult unprotected left turns.

 

[woodisgood]

I’m sure this has been discussed either here or on Twitter, but what’s the current estimate for how many shares were purchased to delta-hedge all the 12/18 and 12/24 call buying?
Paging @generalenthu and @FrankSG

 

[LTC_RRR]

But imagine the increased efficiency of the Tesla following it...

Provided the Tesla is not running in Navigate on Autopilot - that automatic "pass up the slower cars" thing will negate the performance improvement from drafting behind a box.

 

[Christine69420]

An interesting thread by the disputed Gary Black on when Yahoo was added to the S&P 500 back in 1999:

Gary says:

Parallels vs $TSLA are striking: YHOO was a new entry to S&P 500 (not a step up), institutions’ widespread skepticism to YHOO given 1,000x+ P/E, very loyal retail investor base, first internet entry to S&P.

Here is the full thread: https://twitter.com/garyblack00/status/1338145456925368324

 

[gabeincal]

Soo, about this coming week...

New 'christmas release' of Tesla software in our cars?
Wide-release beta FSD in said software?
New model S&X released on website available for Q1?

Anything else I'm not thinking of, that can be an upside surprise to the street, shareholders or even to us?

Gosh, $TSLA is never boring.

 

[jerry33]

Is there any chatter/rumors that the X will come with folding rear seats ever, like the 3, S and Y? I might splurge on an X in the future if I could car camp in it...

Huh? I camp in my X all the time. The rear seats fold down flat (5 seat version).

 

[LTC_RRR]

Sorry, I was definitely not clear enough in my initial post. My pint was that yes, Texas uses a TON of wind and solar, but that does nothing to fill the state tax revenue gap created by the end of profitable oil & gas production. Texas will definitely be the first big state to 100% wind/solar+storage, far ahead of CA.

I just think people flocking to this tax and regulation free oasis need to account for the fact that what's made that possible for the last 70 years ended some time last fall. The banks, and really everyone, are done funneling money into fracking. The decline in economic activity will be massive. The decline in tax revenue will be even more massive.

People like Abbott can spout off about low taxes only because TX is a massive source of US oil & gas. That faucet is now about to close. I don't think they can simply "adapt" with a few tweaks and keep things the same. Their public school funding is probably crap. That's fine because half the state is probably in some kind of private christian school. Are all these CA people sending their kind there or the soon to be bankrupt public system?

Can you say S T E R E O T Y P E S ?

 

[dc_h]

Read through the posts on the Model SX line shut down. Seems to be an annual thing. The Model 3 and Y have multiple assembly lines and can be updated without shutting down production, so line refreshes affect the entire assembly system. That said, a lot of new tech has been deployed in 3&Y, so a lot of updates are possible without any model refresh. Those changes could increase range close to 500 miles without a battery or major design refresh. Changes beyond line updates and refresh of internals, like the heat pump, are possible as well. They have built a second or third high pressure casting machine and that could be for the S and possible X update. If the casting machine is being used for a model refresh, that would include 4680 batteries and likely significant body updates.
The odds to me of changes are:
Line refresh: 99%. They will definitely update the assembly line and improve production processes.
Significant internals refresh: 65%. Seems likely that the heat pump, wiring harness and other improvements will be deployed. This will improve the car and reduce assembly steps and factory floor space required.
Casting and body refresh: 20%. I think it’s early, plaid listed as available late 2021, so making the plaid body refresh before the plaid spec car seems unlikely. This would be exciting news though and mean the 4680 batteries would be in use already.

 

[Drax7]

In light of the recent opinions from Michael Burry, I decided to re-watch The Big Short. It feels much different watching this movie again years later, but oddly familiar to what many of us are currently experiencing. The wonderful thing for us is that we are on the optomistic side that is looking to improve the world, as opposed to the side that was forced to root for bankruptcy and the financial ruins of the American public.

Regarding Michael Burry, he's clearly a very, very intelligent man and I'm not going to offer an opinion on him in either direction.

His thesis was based on the rate of mortgage defaults coupled with no income verification,
Combined with the low ratio of rent to property values which implied that home prices were overvalued,
The underlying mortgage securities were not accounting for those risks , while they were mostly rated triple A.

That analysis made sense, his valuation of Tesla can only be subjective.
How do you price FSD, 46/80, etc....

 

[vikings123]

An interesting thread by the disputed Gary Black on when Yahoo was added to the S&P 500 back in 1999:

View attachment 617220

Gary says:

Parallels vs $TSLA are striking: YHOO was a new entry to S&P 500 (not a step up), institutions’ widespread skepticism to YHOO given 1,000x+ P/E, very loyal retail investor base, first internet entry to S&P.

Here is the full thread: https://twitter.com/garyblack00/status/1338145456925368324

Don’t be surprised if he suddenly changes his tune by tomorrow morning. Guy sounds like TSLAQ with all these comparisons. Did Yahoo really have a loyal investor base? 17% float vs 3% float. Speculators have already bought up the required numbers of shares? Yeah no Gary let’s not reason by analogy. This is uncharted territory.

I wonder if he sold a bunch of covered calls for next week and is worried about getting exercised. It is funny to hear him justify his position with random data points.

 

[22522]

Can you say S T E R E O T Y P E S ?

...Stereo Types...

I am not an expert on government funding.
I have always thought the rate of state to local government in the two places was skewed to more state than local in California and the other way in Texas. This data is not shown here. But there is some data to get started.

On a per capita basis California government is 32% more expensive than Texas.
GDP per capita is 16% more in California.
Government employment as a percent is the same.

 

[Tslynk67]

Soo, about this coming week...

New 'christmas release' of Tesla software in our cars?
Wide-release beta FSD in said software?
New model S&X released on website available for Q1?

Anything else I'm not thinking of, that can be an upside surprise to the street, shareholders or even to us?

Gosh, $TSLA is never boring.

I don't think Wall Street is expecting Tesla to beat 500k deliveries in 2020 and the Q4 profits are going to be way higher than they think - will finally put the regulatory-credits to rest. Annual-guidance for 2021 will impress too.

 

[LTC_RRR]

Attack of the barnacles! Best line: "CNN Business reached out to Tesla for comment for this story but did not receive a response."

Hate that hackneyed phrase "reach out to ..." (which has become synonymous with "continue to pester ...")

 

[H Mak]

Hate that hackneyed phrase "reach out to ..." (which has become synonymous with "continue to pester ...")

 

[dc_h]

...Stereo Types...

I am not an expert on government funding.
I have always thought the rate of state to local government in the two places was skewed to more state than local in California and the other way in Texas. This data is not shown here. But there is some data to get started.

View attachment 617229
View attachment 617230

On a per capita basis California government is 32% more expensive than Texas.
GDP per capita is 16% more in California.
Government employment as a percent is the same.

Great data and interesting how the numbers can be so similar and the focus be so different. Texas focus on infrastructure, including schools. California more on social services and then infrastructure. California with there tech base seems like it could be much higher per capita. Fixing transportation in San Fran and LA could reduce housing costs, drive more construction and expand the economy faster. Texas is hard to criticize, they’ve minded their budget and handled downturns well. They’re also interested in building a hyper loop from Dallas to Houston, connecting the spine of the state, including Waco, Austin San Antonio. That could drive another 20% growth in the state economy.

~~~Mod Warning: It is supremely difficult, particularly for all you numbskulls, to combine the dual difficult tasks of maintaining this topical to Tesla AND to refrain from inserting your own judgmental biases to this supremely delicate subject. That being the case, do not be surprised if further comments are summarily deleted.
I don’t know where or whether it can be addressed elsewhere within the world of TMC; unfortunately, this present location might the only conceivable one. So....tread very, very lightly and with that in mind, rewrite what you’d like to say 3 or 4 times before you even contemplate hitting the “Send” button.~~~