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

[Joe F]

Tesla now has the cash to dip right down to Philadelphia and set up shop in the recently exploded and now shuttered oil refinery. We'd be happy to match their tax breaks and we're not land locked!

Infinite room to expand and massive supplies of both high-end engineering students and alcoholic line workers. Free cheesesteaks.

At what cost cleaning up the massive pollution from all of the spills, fires and foam fire suppression material that have left that site less than desirable? Hard pass, IMHO.

 

[The Accountant]

First of all, thank you for doing this. The value that you bring to this forum is huge.
Secondly, a dumb question. With deliveries up 134% and Revenue up 103% but earnings (GAAP and non-GAAP) up by way more than that, are we starting to see the effects of that Tesla operating leverage we've been hearing about? And if so, can we expect to see that divergence continue?

Yes - this is the Operating Leverage we've been hearing about. The good news is that I expect earnings growth to be so strong that Tesla can continue to invest heavily in R&D and still grow earnings faster than revenue as they continue to achieve production efficiencies and keep SG&A growth modest.

 

[-=buzz=-]

The downward and upwards wedges are about to meet, this week or early next week. Whether it goes up or down at that point, I expect it to be a strong move.

Because it's the inherent purpose of a stock price to fluctuate even without any changes in the company fundamentals.

I so hate this game. A complete waste of global resources.

• Put all stock markets on a 200ms clock, 100ms (blind) bids, 100ms matching, next round. No front-running and paying for faster access to make more money!
• 1cent transaction tax. Millions of iceberg orders and HFT will cost you money.
• Minimum holding time 10 seconds. No subsecond HFTs running wild.

Sadly it will only ever be a dream.
It's likelier that Lora Kolodny proposes to Elon.( But first, hell has to freeze over...)

 

[Skryll]

TDAmeritrade just now for the first time refused to update an order because 'the price is too far from current price'. So they get to tell me now at what price I am willing to sell ?

I made good money of defining stairs of escalating prices when we had the sudden surge last squeeze,. apparently they are trying to support shorts to my disadvantage as of today?

Without notice, too.

Do I have to take my business elsewhere?

 

[Nocturnal]

Sadly it will only ever be a dream.
It's likelier that Lora Kolodny proposes to Elon.( But first hell has to freeze over...)

I wish I could figure out people like that. Was it originally a short position gone bad? A negative interaction that caused a cycle of antagonism? Jealousy?

 

[CorneliusXX]

Because it's the inherent purpose of a stock price to fluctuate even without any changes in the company fundamentals.

I so f- ing hate this game. A complete waste of global resources.

• Put all stock markets on a 200ms clock, 100ms bids, 100ms matching, next round. No front-running and paying for faster access to make more money!
• 1cent transaction tax. Millions of iceberg orders and HFT will cost you money.
• Minimum holding time 10 seconds. No subsecond HFTs running wild.

Sadly it will only ever be a dream.
It's likelier that Lora Kolodny proposes to Elon.( But first hell has to freeze over...)

Perhaps an unfulfilled order tax of a higher amount instead of a transaction tax would work better? It should discourage quite a few of these shenanigans while not hurting good faith orders that are fulfilled.

 

[ZsoZso]

I was also thinking wouldnt Tesla have a contingency to still create Model Y at Berlin and Austin incase volumes of 4680 cells arent at high enough level. Couldn they make a structural battery pack with 2170 cells? Maybe not the same level of energy, but still could be producing and selling cars from those factories rather then have them site idle doing nothing.

The new battery tech presented on battery day consist of multiple changes, one of which is the format (4680), while others include tabless design, dry-electrode manufacturing and chemistry changes. The larger cell format itself only requires the tabless design to eliminate fundamental problems arising from the large cell (long winding of electrode films), so those 2 components together could be implemented without dry-electrode and chemistry changes. Such solution would not get all the benefits presented, but would still be better than current battery cell tech.

As far as I know, Tesla does not have any problem achieving those 2 components at volume production (4680 cell format + tabless). On the other hand, they still have some scaling problems (yield / production speed / quality) for the dry-electrodes, which they are working on. In theory, they could choose to go ahead with 4680 format (including structural battery design) using the old wet slury electrode technology. However, that would require much larger foot-print to add energy-hungry drying owens to the factories.

So, making structural packs from 2170 is not on the table, that would make no sense. If they want to compromise they would go with tabless 4680 but using wet slury electrodes. That would mean giving up some cost saving on both the CapEx for the factories as well as on the cell production (i.e. per cell cost), but still better than sticking with the current 2170 cells.

 

[jerry33]

The competition is coming? Aren't we past that fallacy by now?

"The world is coming to an end" has been foretold at every turn of the century. It hasn't stopped in over 2,000 years. "Competition is coming" is similar.

 

[jerry33]

Being a TSLA shareholder, I don't care if the first generation of Cybertruck buyers are going to be posers. But they are going to be posers.
Easy to spot:

1.) Never towed anything.
2.) Heaviest load is an IKEA bookshelf or Costco TV.
3.) Parks their CT in a garage instead of outside like every single other truck owner.

Lastly, they do not buy monstrosities like this "CyberCamper". Campers are shaped the way they are because you need to maximize utility and not aero.

Tow a travel trailer like any respectable adventurer would.

It might also be someone who just doesn't want to worry about door dings or keeping the vehicle polished--or wants to have one of those electric ATVs. There's lots of valid reasons other than towing or hauling gardening or construction materials.

 

[insaneoctane]

...
Tesla has certainly be doing about the minimum to meet requirements at Buffalo, but these clowns should be wary of pushing Elon out right as things begin to scale. Tesla now has the cash to dip right down to Philadelphia and set up shop in the recently exploded and now shuttered oil refinery. We'd be happy to match their tax breaks and we're not land locked!

Infinite room to expand and massive supplies of both high-end engineering students and alcoholic line workers. Free cheesesteaks.

I agree...California pushed Elon too hard and look how well that’s worked out for them. Wonder how much State income tax he took off the table for California...

 

[Opus BC fan]

A few more @680.69... hard for me to believe at this point in the game.

 

[FlamingPIG]

And let's not forget. The Mach-E is probably sold at a 20k or so loss.

sounds crazy, anyone have source or clues for this?

 

[dl003]

It might also be someone who just doesn't want to worry about door dings or keeping the vehicle polished--or wants to have one of those electric ATVs. There's lots of valid reasons other than towing or hauling gardening or construction materials.

Count me in as one of those people who doesn't want to deal with scratches and dings. It's also the first vehicle I feel truly safe putting my family in. I-don't-care-what's-going-on-outside safe. Maybe the world has got a little bit too strange lately.

 

[juanmedina]

Huh, most of my watchlist is deep red.

yeah everything I follow is down about the same or more. PLTR, CCIV, QS etc. It is so frustrating... I just need the SP at $750 to close some that don't want to hold much longer.

 

[insaneoctane]

Out of my depth for the specifics with this comment, but here goes anyway...

Tesla doesn’t need Wall Street anymore. They can self fund their mission going forward and adjust the growth speed as necessary. So, they technically don’t care what games the MM/shortz play. Almost. Tesla does offer their workers stock options. Tesla wants the workers happy with options to avoid the constant clawing of the unions from making any inroads. As long as the stock does well over a certain period of time, the workers are happy and the union is likely avoided. So while Tesla financially doesn’t need Wall Street, they need Wall Street to fairly value the stock- they are creating huge stockholder value. What’s “fair” though? What P/E is justified these days? If Tesla continues to be the juggernaut that it is, as long as the employees can weather any manipulation that Wall Street cooks up, and still be positive about their compensation, Tesla doesn’t need Wall Street.

I guess my point is that the employee options still ties Tesla to Wall Street a bit. Without that piece, they could totally not give a F.

 

[jerry33]

What is most likely to sway the public?
"Killer robot on wheels strikes again: Young mother and 3 kids killed by Tesla!"
OR
"Self driving cars will save 100 people a day, due to efforts spearheaded Tesla"

Yes, there will be the killer robot headlines just as there were the person dies with seatbelt fastened, or person saved because of no seatbelt. They will all disappear over time as people learn (slowly) that FSD saves lives.

 

[Artful Dodger]

On the other hand, they still have some scaling problems (yield / production speed / quality) for the dry-electrodes, which they are working on.

That's not what Drew Baglino said during the 2021 Q1 Conference Call:

"Yes, thanks. Just one thing I would add is there's been a lot of questions about yields. Actually, I noticed people asking about that. The yield progress has been really strong every day, and we were really still in commissioning phase.​

​

"We were really still in commissioning phase with most of the tools to the point where we're confident that the yield trajectory aligns with our internal cost projections. We did talk about yield also at Battery Day, which is one of the reasons why it's useful to check in on that. It takes a while, as Elon just mentioned, to go from prototype to production. And it's not just parts.​

​

"It's processes, it's equipment. But as we've matured the process equipment, we've gotten to where we need to be on the yield side."​

 

[GOVA]

I wish I could figure out people like that. Was it originally a short position gone bad? A negative interaction that caused a cycle of antagonism? Jealousy?

Family ties to big oil?

I wish there was a tool to check backgrounds of Kolodny, Gordon Johnson, Chanos, etc and find out who pays them.

 

[-=buzz=-]

Perhaps an unfulfilled order tax of a higher amount instead of a transaction tax would work better? It should discourage quite a few of these shenanigans while not hurting good faith orders that are fulfilled.

OT:
Yes preferably, but this would create massive administration overheads and regulations. (What's an order? Buy 1million shares, mark checkbox 'split 100s'.. What about partial execution?, etc...)
KISS

The new battery tech presented on battery day consist of multiple changes, one of which is the format (4680), while others include tabless design, dry-electrode manufacturing and chemistry changes. The larger cell format itself only requires the tabless design to eliminate fundamental problems arising from the large cell (long winding of electrode films), so those 2 components together could be implemented without dry-electrode and chemistry changes. Such solution would not get all the benefits presented, but would still be better than current battery cell tech.

As far as I know, Tesla does not have any problem achieving those 2 components at volume production (4680 cell format + tabless). On the other hand, they still have some scaling problems (yield / production speed) for the dry-electrodes, which they are working on. In theory, they could choose to go ahead with 4680 format (including structural battery design) using the old wet slury electrode technology. However, that would require much larger foot-print to add energy-hungry drying owens to the factories.

So, making structural packs from 2170 is not on the table, that would make no sense. If they want to compromise they would go with tabless 4680 but using wet slury electrodes. That would mean giving up some cost saving on both the CapEx for the factories as well as on the cell production (i.e. per cell cost), but still better than sticking with the current 2170 cells.

They can certainly build a structural pack using 2170s and additional steel inserts. For the structural part it's irrelevant whether it's a cell based honeycomb, or an internal steel structure.(Assuming both meet load and torsion requirements) It will certainly affect weight, cost & energy density. But that's a different issue.

Switching Roadrunner to wet-electrodes is not possible as there is no space for the liquids management and the oven.
New construction as well as conversion of supplier lines will have a long lead time too.

 

[Lessmog]

They can certainly build a structural pack using 2170s and additional steel inserts. For the structural part it's irrelevant whether it's a cell based honeycomb, or an internal steel structure.(Assuming both meet load and torsion requirements) It will certainly affect weight, cost & energy density. But that's a different issue.

Switching Roadrunner to wet-electrodes is not possible as there is no space for the liquids management and the oven.
New construction as well as conversion of supplier lines will have a long lead time too.

But the best part is no part.
KISS, as they used to say. No particular need to complicate things waiting for the soon-to-come solution, IMHO.
It's not really as if Tesla needs more money quick, is it?
Though I confess I would prefer my MIE MY sooner than later ... But a good one, please!