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

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Regarding Elon’s name change to “Elon Musk the 2nd” on Twitter, I think it’s a reference to his comment about video game sequels being better than the original, so why not start with the sequel. He went meta and changed his name to the sequel, skipping the original.

 

[Tim S]

Is that Kettleman City?

No. It's Tejon Ranch.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Maybe Elon is subtly announcing Grimes is pregnant with her second child with Elon.

 

[deshkart]

Gary Black on Twitter is so out of depth in some areas, its ridiculous. He claims that every manufacturer will have a 25K EV in couple years and when Tesla solves FSD, other manufacturers will also magically solve it overnight. This is like claiming if Usain Bolt can run 100 meters in 9 seconds, every other random guy also run 100m in 9 seconds. Also, even if Tesla solves FSD, he assigns 0 value in the share price since every other manufacturer would have solved it. This is like claiming, there is no need to include revenues from Ad business of Google in GOOGs price because every other company also shows ads to the users.

Next, he will claim that Ford will launch a search engine and compete with Google or Walmart will launch reusable rockets next year and compete with SpaceX.

Either the guy is ultra dumb or he is trying to act dumb and fooling retail with wall street friends.

 

[Oveeus]

Gary Black is gonna lose his sugar. Funny how Elon seemingly needs to arrive at these conclusions on his own. Maybe he just feels like the time has come. Maybe it’s the recent FUD tsunami.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1405027427537981442

As a TSLA shareholder, I think it's time for Elon to change the stance on no ads. I am not saying to go all out a la legacy carmakers to market their cars. Tesla cars are better than that. They don't need that. But EV sector as a whole needs that.

Tesla should make ads that EDUCATE consumers about EVs. A very simple thing like range anxiety... it's something we, Tesla or newer EV owners rarely encounter anymore because we charge at home and the car has enough range to cover most people's daily commute. Just do a funny short 15-30sec ad to target many of the misconceptions or worries of an ICE car owner about getting an EV, then end every ad with "Tesla".

By doing that, we can accelerate Tesla's mission, vastly speed up the transition from ICE cars to EV because the average consumer can understand better about it.

Ad was not feasible when TSLA had a 15B market cap and bleeding money. But with TSLA being a 700B juggernaut, it can afford to do that. Furthermore, I vote to spend every cent that Tesla makes on selling regulatory credit on EV/sustainable energy education ads. In 2020, TSLA made over 1 billion on those credits. Putting even just half that onto EV ads can make HUGE impacts on Tesla's business in the long run and probably make places like CNBC to be careful before writing FUDs because now TSLA will be an ad gorilla that spends almost 1B on ads every year. And with all that money coming from regulatory credits, it speaks volumes.

I've said about advertising two months ago. They don't have to do ads on their cars (traditional).

But Tesla, and EV as a whole can benefit greatly if we can figure out a way to educate consumers about EV facts. Too much stereotyping is going on with EVs. And for every 2 EV owner who spread their WoM to their friends, there would be another 98 of ICE owners spreading misinformation or FUD altogether.

Tesla now has the cashflow and cash reserve to fund it. Why not do it? Anything that Tesla doesn't do, but could potentially help the world reaching Tesla's mission faster, it means Tesla is not doing good enough.

From what I can see, Tesla is already spending capital expenditures as efficiently as possible. Some might argue spending 1B in ad budget can fund 1/2 of a giga somewhere. But we have to remember, it's not all about supply, we'd want to increase the demand as well. As a matter of fact, from an economic perspective, more supply drives something to worth less, while more demand drives up the price. If SP is the main concern on this thread, I'd think it's much more likely for TSLA SP to go up when Wall St. hears that there's an overwhelming demand for Tesla than Wall St. hearing that TSLA is going to double its production.

 

[dww12]

Emmet ran a 9.7 at -1:10:00

-1:24:30. It was live, the time from end changed.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Dumber that letting the options expire without executing them and having no income?



That doesn't seem to line up with these on the 6/15 filing:
View attachment 674202

It clearly says securities sold.

And this section shows that the securities to be sold were acquired the same day:

View attachment 674207

Yes, selling enough stock to cover the 52+% income tax bill from exercising your options and then selling the shares right away is absolutely dumber than letting them expire, because it means you think those are your only 2 choices (selling some of your options directly would result in lower taxes (since some of those options are long term cap gains).

Also, you're reading the form wrong. There will be a separate line item for the sale of the stocks that's separate from the options exercise. Here's a form 144 where he exercised options for 90k shares and also sold 30k shares (back in June 10th): https://sec.report/Form/144-PAPER/23530

 

[OrthoSurg]

I've said about advertising two months ago. They don't have to do ads on their cars (traditional).

But Tesla, and EV as a whole can benefit greatly if we can figure out a way to educate consumers about EV facts. Too much stereotyping is going on with EVs. And for every 2 EV owner who spread their WoM to their friends, there would be another 98 of ICE owners spreading misinformation or FUD altogether.

Tesla now has the cashflow and cash reserve to fund it. Why not do it? Anything that Tesla doesn't do, but could potentially help the world reaching Tesla's mission faster, it means Tesla is not doing good enough.

From what I can see, Tesla is already spending capital expenditures as efficiently as possible. Some might argue spending 1B in ad budget can fund 1/2 of a giga somewhere. But we have to remember, it's not all about supply, we'd want to increase the demand as well. As a matter of fact, from an economic perspective, more supply drives something to worth less, while more demand drives up the price. If SP is the main concern on this thread, I'd think it's much more likely for TSLA SP to go up when Wall St. hears that there's an overwhelming demand for Tesla than Wall St. hearing that TSLA is going to double its production.

Of the order book for Model Y is booked till September. Advertising and increasing demand would not have a positive effect. Why would you advertise for a car that a customer would have to wait 6 months to have while having no advertising budget at all gives you a 3 months full booked quarter?

 

[CorneliusXX]

The one problem I foresee with Tesla opening up their SC network is if a leaf or a bolt pulls in and starts trickle charging there, that would prevent may be 10 Teslas from charging in the same time. Very likely, Tesla has to design their SC network for peak usage around holiday travel, and even a small number of slow pokes occupying stalls could end up in Tesla needing to double up the cables present.

Not a good outcome for either the customers or Tesla.

As long as Tesla can charge an appropriate rate then I don't see too much of an issue. E.g. if the bolt takes 10x the time to charge then Tesla should be able to charge a time premium or higher rate per KWh. There's also an argument that supercharger CapEx costs are paid by Tesla vehicle sales, so other vehicles can be charged another premium on top of the above time premium. The extra cash can be rolled into expanding the supercharger network.

Most superchargers are never/rarely running at full capacity, so additional vehicles charging should increase overall network utilisation and CapEx efficiency.

Tesla could also force other vehicles to book ahead through the Tesla app so they have visibility over network usage. This could help bring others into the Tesla ecosystem and drive demand (not to mention the Tesla owners they would speak to while charging).

 

[StealthP3D]

That should be easy to do. Tesla has said to be open to sharing its plugs with other carmakers. These would have to reciprocate and share the cost of the charging network.

Shell just sent an email with the new tariff for their charging stations:

View attachment 674081
All are substantially more expensive than what Tesla charges us. DC (= fast) charging is 0.64 to 0.81 instead of the 0.37 that Tesla charges (73 % to 119 % more). At home I pay about 0.32 for electricity (if my solar panels and powerwalls are exhausted, so not very often).

And from what I hear and see - these chargers are often unreliable. I do not know how these people get away with such poor service. Tesla Supercharger is the best in

- reliability
- convenience
- price
- coverage of Europe (density)
- charging rate

Tesla is also clearly expanding the network as demand arises. Lots of new locations and additional plugs at existing locations.


View attachment 674081

When you charge at a genuine Shell station, you are getting stable, high-quality electrons, not those cheap knock-off electrons with wobbly orbits that Tesla pawns off to their cult members. Of course the high-quality Shell electrons are going to cost nearly double!

/s

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Emmet ran a 9.7 at -1:10:00

That's 4:31:50 for folks like me who don't know how to subtract.

 

[StealthP3D]

I believe the main reason why people have so many issues charging on all these chargers is that there are dozens of different EVs who try to connect to chargers from dozens of companies. And while there are technical specifications - in real life there is just too many combinations and interpretations of the specs. And this is a nightmare to debug.

Tesla owns both ends of our charging cables and have a much easier job making the car and the charger communicate.

If Tesla should allow others to use the Superchargers they could very well end up battling many of the same problems.

Sure, if Superchargers are opened up to some other brands, there will probably be a few initial bugs or kinks that will need to be worked out for each new entrant. But I also think Tesla simply has better talent when it comes to interpreting specs and writing conforming code. They have a culture that lends itself to getting the job done well.

Also, Tesla, as the owner of the network, has the right to support only a narrow range of specifications to get the job done in the most efficient manner. No doubt, brands that want their cars to be compatible with Superchargers will have to make certain accommodations. Yes, multiple standards exist, including the Supercharging standard. There is no rule that says Tesla must accommodate every standard. It will be up to other manufacturers to agree to Tesla's (probably reasonable) requirements. In other words, Tesla will accommodate when it makes sense to accommodate, and require those joining to conform when it makes sense for them to conform.

The de-facto owner of the network, Tesla, enters into these agreements from a position of strength. Having said all this, I really don't see joining the Supercharger network as compatible with legacy manufacturer's goals of selling as many ICE vehicles as possible before no one will buy them. Because it would cause them to become a new source of revenue for the building out of new DC fast-charging locations more rapidly. They would only do that once they actually intended to make a rapid switch to EV's only. Legacy makers really are between a rock and a hard place in so many ways it's not even funny. Considering that none of them have truly visionary leadership, it makes no sense that their share prices are as high as they are.

 

[Oveeus]

Of the order book for Model Y is booked till September. Advertising and increasing demand would not have a positive effect. Why would you advertise for a car that a customer would have to wait 6 months to have while having no advertising budget at all gives you a 3 months full booked quarter?

Look a bit further than just this year order. Giga Shanghai, Austin and Berlin are all 500k+ vehicles capable factories. With further optimization, gigapress and expansion, they might all do over 1M in the long run. Tesla is not exactly having issues expanding production capacity. It just takes time.

EV accounts for roughly 2% of global vehicle market. It's still very much in its infancy. The problem is not so much about how to produce enough to cover those who are converting, the problem is... as Tesla statement puts it: "accelerate the transition". That word has no defined timeline. We just want to make it happen ASAP and don't stop until we get there.

If Tesla starts doing ads because it has expanded its production too far with not enough people to buy them, imagine what would happen to the stock price?

Instead, you'd rather to be in continuos state of supply-constrained than the other way around. Being supply-constrained is good. That means that the market would continue to be willing to fund whatever expansion TSLA is going to do. But definitely not the case if TSLA is asking money to do ads because they have too much production capacity.

 

[StealthP3D]

The robo traders will look at the insane jump in EPS and trade up...perhaps a 5-10% jump as it will see it as a major beat. Then upon realizing it's just the deferred tax revenue, you'll see many AH traders taking advantage of the error and sell at a profit.

This happened with AMD 2 earnings ago as EPS came in way high and the stock jumped but lost all of it's gains once people realized it's just the tax deferred rev. I am expecting the same here for Tsla as that revenue is a one time thing and is immaterial when it comes to determining the valuation of the company through stock price.

Of course the same dynamic played out before robo-trading was a thing. There have always been investors that were less sophisticated than robo-traders.

 

[StealthP3D]

Wouldn’t the Tesla AC system design be rather incompatible with a home system? Sure the air purification would be great, but the underlying system in the cars is based on moving excess heat generated by the motors to the battery and passenger cabin as required using the octovalve (combined with some traditional A/C elements IIRC?). A home heating system doesn’t have these local sources of heat energy to redistribute into the living space, instead it would need to be entirely based on the same heat pump reverse cycle principles that are currently deployed in home heat pumps. I would love to see some innovation in the home heat pump space that improves the efficiency though and would love to see Tesla give it a try.

If Tesla enters this space I expect them to offer an interface for compatible refrigerators, water heaters and heating/cooling systems that will integrate the functioning of these appliances for maximum efficiency. The heat removed from the refrigerator will be used to increase the efficiency of the water heater, etc. There may even be a heat storage unit for taking advantage of time of use metering (in addition to battery storage). Tesla would likely work with appliance manufacturers who want to join their modular system. There could even be heat recovery on the water drained from dishwashers, washing machines and shower drains.

Huge efficiency improvements are possible which could result in running a modern, all-electric home on unbelievably small amounts of energy. Currently, the refrigerator expels waste heat into the room where, in warm climates, the A/C must work overtime to remove it. This is insane because the inefficiencies of refrigeration and air conditioning results in paying for the energy you need multiple times. And the heat of most of that water you paid so much to heat just gets dumped in the sewer or septic system.

I don't expect this for at least 7-10 years (but I hope Tesla surprises me).

 

[aswami]

Twitterverse seems to be coalescing around something happening July 2nd. Either P&D blowout or FSD button.

No, MY 2.0 or M2? Or, Roadster 2.0?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Nah, the tweeter's clearly a TSLAQ, since he blocked people who tried to correct him.

More exactly, the tweeter subscribes to the FAFLAQ (i won't say it) blocklist.

I'm surprised people here STILL do not understand how this works: when you visit a TSLA content related account on twitter for the first time, and you are already blocked, it means 2 things:

1. that Twitter acct subscribes to the blocklist
2. YOU are on the blocklist

However, I'm NOT surprised people don't know the easy way to defeat the blocklist and see the blocked content: open a "Private mode" browser window (where you're not automatically logged in to Twitter with your Username), then visit the twitter link in question. See? No blockee!

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Dumber that letting the options expire without executing them and having no income?



That doesn't seem to line up with these on the 6/15 filing:
View attachment 674202

It clearly says securities sold.

And this section shows that the securities to be sold were acquired the same day:

View attachment 674207

What did J.B. do with his options when he retired? Or Deepak? Surely this is just the normal course of 'offboarding' for a corporate officer.

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

He claims that every manufacturer will have a 25K EV in couple years

'struth! GM's got this little beauty right now for just $5K

Now tell me truly, where would you rather trust your family's safety? This lightweight marvel of SinoAmerican engineering, or in those nasty Tesla brakes? No worries!

/S

 

[Artful Dodger]

Of the order book for Model Y is booked till September. Advertising and increasing demand would not have a positive effect. Why would you advertise for a car that a customer would have to wait 6 months to have while having no advertising budget at all gives you a 3 months full booked quarter?

Agreed. The only potential positive effect for Tesla is if raising product awareness for Tesla products results in customers delaying purchased of new ICE vehicles. If Tesla thinks they can ramp production in the USA quickly, this might be reasonable. Taking total N. American supply from 0.25M cars in 2020 to 2.5M cars in 2022 is a 10-fold increase. I'm sure that'd affect the carbon budget, too.

Elon did say "advertising for informational purposes", which to me is to the make the case that unicorns and fairey dust are REAL, and you can AFFORD one, soon! This does run the risk of osborning existing products, but the message would have to be crafted to focus on osborning ICE. Plaid S smak down is just the beginning IMO:

• Faster than a Ferrari
• Safer than a Volvo
• More efficient than a Prius
• "Tesla: the Future is Electric!"
• Fade to Black as ICE melts...

Cheers!