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

[Mokuzai]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1412824371232608256

As somebody waiting on a white/white/carbon plaid I'm wondering what those red tags are on the rear quarter panel of some of the S's. If it denotes Plaid it doesn't have the spoiler but they could be installing those at/after delivery.

Choosing white seats or carbon interior pushes a new order out to September. All other interior combos I found are estimating August. My order still says July...longest July ever.

 

[insaneoctane]

I'm pretty excited about them opening it up to other EVs. They can charge a higher rate for non Teslas and use that cash to grow faster. Once the world is 100% EV, it'll be a huge source of steady earnings (especially if they reduce their costs by installing solar panels at the supercharger stations).

Some napkin math:

• ~1.5 Billion cars worldwide now, let's assume 2 Billion EVs in 2040
• Assuming 30% of them use superchargers twice a month
• Assuming $10 per charge at 50% profit margin, that is $30 per quarter
• = 18 Billion in earnings per quarter

That is 25x Q1's earnings, just for superchargers

I'm sure those numbers are way off, tons of assumptions there, but it seems promising

I’ve disappointed with everyone’s willingness to perform and accept napkin math for supercharger costs. Don’t take this personally, as everyone seems to do it. Unfortunately, I believe that SC costs are MUCH higher than most estimate. Nearly all SC are driven by the grid which means you pay what the local utility requires (and they are pirates). Supplying 250kW times N stalls during a busy time is a HUGE current/service draw with, very likely, HUGE demand fees. Also, since all these SC are not centralized, but distributed by necessity, if they were to benefit from solar and/or battery storage, it will likely be localized to each SC. And those powerwalls that we the people buy for $7.5K, they are only 14kWh each, so you’d need 5-6 of them to store the equivalent of ONE LR M3/MY. Powerpacks store ~20X that of powerwall, but cost ~20X more. Also, 1 powerpack still only discharges at 150kW max. These capital investments for solar and battery storage at SCs are HUGE.

Look, I’m NOT saying SC profit model is “broken”, rather MUCH more complicated than I’ve seen anyone estimate. Many people think that the SC model becomes similar to gas stations, but I disagree. Gas stations NEVER had to compete with what the average customer could refuel for at home. If I can pay $0.13/kWh at home (lowest TOU), I won’t pay $0.75/kWh at a SC unless I have to. I am only a SC customer, rarely, during extended travel. I was always a gas station customer. Gas stations didn’t have home competition. I think SC will never scale to the quantity or profitability of gas stations due to this, IMO.

I would like to throw the gauntlet out to the detailed data miners & analysts that read this thread (there are many )…..put together a rough analysis of these costs, including solar, battery storage and grid demand charges to guesstimate the required cost per kWh to see what margins are possible.

This is where I got some of my powerpack/powerwall specs/costs

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Nothing prevents Tesla from announcing their intention to split the shares, pending shareholder approval.

Shareholder approval is just a formality as there is no way shareholders would vote against issuing more shares if the purpose of those shares were simply to split existing shares. It's a shoe-in.

According to a 'genius' analyst...a stock split does nothing for a company..essentially you are just taking 4 slices of pizza and making them 8

 

[SOULPEDL]

I share it all sorts of people, much of what I do is sharing A LOT about TSLA and various new technologies, because it makes me excited about the future and keeps me happy.

Ditto. Here's my story on why I'm here, and a thanks to all on TMC for the enlightenment!

I bought the earliest Model 3 car for FSD and it's associated AI. Then I loved the car, in that order, out of initial concern for the missing dash gauges. I got over that in about 1 day, probably distracted by the acceleration so much that nothing mattered anymore. (Here's an example where Ford kept the dash in place for their "conventional" followers, which only adds to production costs.)

Most people are in fear of new technology... blah blah... the S curve and all, but this is advanced, advanced technology and the public is simply not aware just how much of a leap in progress this vehicle and FSD actually represents. I put it beyond MIT or Stanford brilliance, for it's execution especially. These are more like peak human creation times... my first cool (Ontario) Science Center, all over again!

The best thing about being on TMC for years is how much I've learned from everyone else. Mostly about the truths that we don't get to see on TV anymore. As a result, there were two unexpected outcomes: 1. I cared more about the planet, and 2. We were so screwed by oil and Auto, from day one of last century. I personally changed a lot of starters, alternators, and water pumps in my time, but to find out that's where their profits were, it was planned, and by doing so made in nearly impossible for ANYONE entering the Auto industry, ever. Until Tesla did it finally after what... 100 years?

This new information revealed the ongoing money battle I find myself in today. Competitors trying to slow Tesla way down financially with FUD and outright lies, to put them out of business. Luckily, I had just taken control of my 401K, freshly rolled out of Chase Bank (where they thought I was a fool of course for exiting).

You know what's really crazy? This is the only forum I've ever really used my whole life. I dabbled in a couple, but didn't understand the remarks and crazies. I literally had to relearn society within this format, and among the elites here. I suck at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. But honestly, I don't know if that would help - except I do follow Elon on twitter, and a few leakers, a couple of YouTube rising stars, and that's it. I'm more a face to face or call me person - so this has been quite the experience. So I take this moment to thank all of you sharing and exchanging ideas here. I do look forward to meeting everyone someday.

And in some ways, I even understand the FUD by recognizing the impact on economies and families that will suffer through the transition, while others come out ahead. Whether paid FUD or just comments out of fear, I hear you too. But it really doesn't justify letting up considering the storms ahead. I can only hope you understand as well, my anger is resolved in this room, every. single. day. The mission makes more sense now, gave me a sense of purpose. But not only that, I'm learning what makes a company fail and succeed. I'm a Technologist not an Accountant or Investor... or so I thought. Stick around, these are great life lessons in real-time!

And look at that, the stock returns again. Congrats to anyone picked up some chairs at the height of this fear bubble we're in right now.

 

[Hock1]

Nothing prevents Tesla from announcing their intention to split the shares, pending shareholder approval.

Shareholder approval is just a formality as there is no way shareholders would vote against issuing more shares if the purpose of those shares were simply to split existing shares. It's a shoe-in.

This is true. Whether the intention to do a stock split is conveyed in a news release or via the Preliminary Proxy, the result is the same. There will be the same date of record and date of settlement.

 

[UkNorthampton]

That is basically how the 3rd party charger networks in Europe work right now. Chargers are made with standard CCS2 plugs. And car manufacturers make their cars CCS2 compliant.

My Tesla is another CCS2 compliant car. And I often get into trouble when trying 3rd party chargers.

Teslabjørn did too in one of his recent videos where he drove a VW ID.4 - a brand new car which should have all the latest updates necessary to be CCS2 compliant.

When I can't charge my car I do not really know who is at fault - the charger or my car. But I always blame the charger. And believe Tesla would be blamed if a VW ID.4 failed to use a supercharger.

It's worth watching the Gridserve video (timestamped:

) on Autocharge - lots of car/charger errors actually something else. By registering the car/CCS id to the app it gets around a lot of problems & is far more reliable.

However, a little bit more looking at this suggests Electrify America already doing this (with seeming problems) & its only serving up a MAC address, so theoretically spoofable, even if practically difficult/pointless for a small amount of money vs risk. Gridserve are good though & might be more reliable.

Not sure which system will win out, but other options such as phone app, CCTV / number plate recognition should come in a some point to make it Tesla-easy if the network can be bothered

 

[2daMoon]

I’ve disappointed with everyone’s willingness to perform and accept napkin math for supercharger costs. Don’t take this personally, as everyone seems to do it. Unfortunately, I believe that SC costs are MUCH higher than most estimate. Nearly all SC are driven by the grid which means you pay what the local utility requires (and they are pirates). Supplying 250kW times N stalls during a busy time is a HUGE current/service draw with, very likely, HUGE demand fees. Also, since all these SC are not centralized, but distributed by necessity, if they were to benefit from solar and/or battery storage, it will likely be localized to each SC. And those powerwalls that we the people buy for $7.5K, they are only 14kWh each, so you’d need 5-6 of them to store the equivalent of ONE LR M3/MY. Powerpacks store ~20X that of powerwall, but cost ~20X more. Also, 1 powerpack still only discharges at 150kW max. These capital investments for solar and battery storage at SCs are HUGE.

Look, I’m NOT saying SC profit model is “broken”, rather MUCH more complicated than I’ve seen anyone estimate. Many people think that the SC model becomes similar to gas stations, but I disagree. Gas stations NEVER had to compete with what the average customer could refuel for at home. If I can pay $0.13/kWh at home (lowest TOU), I won’t pay $0.75/kWh at a SC unless I have to. I am only a SC customer, rarely, during extended travel. I was always a gas station customer. Gas stations didn’t have home competition. I think SC will never scale to the quantity or profitability of gas stations due to this, IMO.

I would like to throw the gauntlet out to the detailed data miners & analysts that read this thread (there are many )…..put together a rough analysis of these costs, including solar, battery storage and grid demand charges to guesstimate the required cost per kWh to see what margins are possible.

This is where I got some of my powerpack/powerwall specs/costs

An astute observation. Napkin math really isn't up to the task.

Considering how Tesla are planning cafes for some SC spots, it seems only appropriate that Bistromath is what should be employed to account for all the variables in order derive any reasonable semblance of accuracy.

 

[2daMoon]

According to a 'genius' analyst...a stock split does nothing for a company..essentially you are just taking 4 slices of pizza and making them 8

Yeah, well, that's like, his opinion, man.

I think I'm TSLA-hungry enough for 8 slices. Four just won't satisfy my appetite for, essentially, an overdue short-squeezing busted growth story.

 

[insaneoctane]

According to a 'genius' analyst...a stock split does nothing for a company..essentially you are just taking 4 slices of pizza and making them 8

I used to like splits just because I got more shares. Reducing the price for potential investors in the old school brokerage companies helped too. But, now that this forum has allowed me to see behind the curtain and all the unchallenged corruption with the MM and naked shorting, I dream of splits merely to get a brief glimpse of the real, organic, unmanipulated stock price.

 

[CHGolferJim]

I don't agree with this. Tesla has enough cash to expand already. And the supercharger network is an excellent marketing tool.

I also fear that other car brands will run into charging problems since no cars charging systems are built the same. So it might backfire. Since it would be a never ending pain in the butt for Tesla to adjust their systems to all the different car models.

My concern is Teslas being crowded out by other cars, it’s pretty crowded at certain locations already with all the wonderful 3 and Y.

 

[Unpilot]

Yeah, well, that's like, his opinion, man.

I think I'm TSLA-hungry enough for 8 slices. Four just won't satisfy my appetite for, essentially, an overdue short-squeezing busted growth story.

Since I plan on living off my portfolio AND I plan on living for a long, long time a stock split would ease the pain of selling the odd share here and there.

 

[Christine69420]

It's worth watching the Gridserve video (timestamped:

) on Autocharge - lots of car/charger errors actually something else. By registering the car/CCS id to the app it gets around a lot of problems & is far more reliable.

However, a little bit more looking at this suggests Electrify America already doing this (with seeming problems) & its only serving up a MAC address, so theoretically spoofable, even if practically difficult/pointless for a small amount of money vs risk. Gridserve are good though & might be more reliable.

Not sure which system will win out, but other options such as phone app, CCTV / number plate recognition should come in a some point to make it Tesla-easy if the network can be bothered

I have all the apps for all the chargers in Norway - and several for foreign only charging networks. And for many I also have their RFID chip which mimics the CCS ID logic. But it does not work. I still fumble a lot when charging. Perhaps a little less than without the app/RFID. But still quite a lot.

IMHO it's the number of combinations that is the problem. The number of charging providers multiplied with the number of car models. So many combinations that all has to be working perfectly. And many obviously don't.

My typical charging session take 2-3 tries before it will take. And I have to go out and in again 2-3 times to check the info on the charger screen and my Tesla screen. It gets old really quick. Especially when it's raining!

And there is no standard procedure. Some require I plug in first. On others I must not plug in until after I have started the session. And at some I must really push the cable quite firmly into the plug before it detects the car. And then you have the frequent out of service events. Which are not known until you try to charge. It's a really nice mess.

Fortunately I charge at home 90% of the time. And on 3rd party chargers only 1-2% so I'll survive.

Tesla has the lowest price per kWh - but even if it was much more expensive I would use Tesla since it's so smooth.

 

[Criscmt]

Q2 R&D, EPS: Q2 Supercharger network expansion

Is there enough data to seenif Tesla might’ve spent significantly more in Q2 for Supercharger expansion, compared to prior quaters?

@The Accountant
Was this part of your assessment of Q2 financials?

 

[M|S|M MYP]

My concern is Teslas being crowded out by other cars, it’s pretty crowded at certain locations already with all the wonderful 3 and Y.

Mine as well....some SC locations have long lines here in Southern CA....but it's all about the EV movement right?

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

I'm curious. Is there a minimum stock price required by the S&P to remain in it ?

ie, If Tesla did an (admittedly unlikely) 65:1 Split / Share Dividend at a $650 Stock price, the stock Price would be $10 post split.

Wondering if it is possible to do while still remaining in the S&P, and what would prevent Tesla from doing such a thing.

Sure would make the shorties dance.

 

[ChefBoyardee]

I’ve disappointed with everyone’s willingness to perform and accept napkin math for supercharger costs. Don’t take this personally, as everyone seems to do it. Unfortunately, I believe that SC costs are MUCH higher than most estimate. Nearly all SC are driven by the grid which means you pay what the local utility requires (and they are pirates). Supplying 250kW times N stalls during a busy time is a HUGE current/service draw with, very likely, HUGE demand fees. Also, since all these SC are not centralized, but distributed by necessity, if they were to benefit from solar and/or battery storage, it will likely be localized to each SC. And those powerwalls that we the people buy for $7.5K, they are only 14kWh each, so you’d need 5-6 of them to store the equivalent of ONE LR M3/MY. Powerpacks store ~20X that of powerwall, but cost ~20X more. Also, 1 powerpack still only discharges at 150kW max. These capital investments for solar and battery storage at SCs are HUGE.

Look, I’m NOT saying SC profit model is “broken”, rather MUCH more complicated than I’ve seen anyone estimate. Many people think that the SC model becomes similar to gas stations, but I disagree. Gas stations NEVER had to compete with what the average customer could refuel for at home. If I can pay $0.13/kWh at home (lowest TOU), I won’t pay $0.75/kWh at a SC unless I have to. I am only a SC customer, rarely, during extended travel. I was always a gas station customer. Gas stations didn’t have home competition. I think SC will never scale to the quantity or profitability of gas stations due to this, IMO.

I would like to throw the gauntlet out to the detailed data miners & analysts that read this thread (there are many )…..put together a rough analysis of these costs, including solar, battery storage and grid demand charges to guesstimate the required cost per kWh to see what margins are possible.

This is where I got some of my powerpack/powerwall specs/costs

Yeah, I agree about the complexity, but I have confidence that in 10 or 20 years Tesla will have figured out a profitable strategy for the supercharger business. They can hike prices for non-Teslas and either Tesla makes money or those customers charge more at home and there is more capacity for Tesla owners. If there is surge pricing from utilities, they can just pass that along to the customers. And as battery storage costs come down over time, the solar + storage option starts looking better and better.

I'm still mostly thinking about it as a supplemental revenue stream though - I'm sure the Auto, FSD, and Energy businesses will always be the main drivers for TSLA valuation

+1 for someone doing a detailed analysis of the costs!

 

[Nocturnal]

I’ve disappointed with everyone’s willingness to perform and accept napkin math for supercharger costs. Don’t take this personally, as everyone seems to do it. Unfortunately, I believe that SC costs are MUCH higher than most estimate. Nearly all SC are driven by the grid which means you pay what the local utility requires (and they are pirates). Supplying 250kW times N stalls during a busy time is a HUGE current/service draw with, very likely, HUGE demand fees. Also, since all these SC are not centralized, but distributed by necessity, if they were to benefit from solar and/or battery storage, it will likely be localized to each SC. And those powerwalls that we the people buy for $7.5K, they are only 14kWh each, so you’d need 5-6 of them to store the equivalent of ONE LR M3/MY. Powerpacks store ~20X that of powerwall, but cost ~20X more. Also, 1 powerpack still only discharges at 150kW max. These capital investments for solar and battery storage at SCs are HUGE.

Look, I’m NOT saying SC profit model is “broken”, rather MUCH more complicated than I’ve seen anyone estimate. Many people think that the SC model becomes similar to gas stations, but I disagree. Gas stations NEVER had to compete with what the average customer could refuel for at home. If I can pay $0.13/kWh at home (lowest TOU), I won’t pay $0.75/kWh at a SC unless I have to. I am only a SC customer, rarely, during extended travel. I was always a gas station customer. Gas stations didn’t have home competition. I think SC will never scale to the quantity or profitability of gas stations due to this, IMO.

I would like to throw the gauntlet out to the detailed data miners & analysts that read this thread (there are many )…..put together a rough analysis of these costs, including solar, battery storage and grid demand charges to guesstimate the required cost per kWh to see what margins are possible.

This is where I got some of my powerpack/powerwall specs/costs

(This may be a little OT but I think this is a critical information to understand in regards to valuing the growth/value of the network. )

Yes. I try to point this out to as much as possible. As residential customers we almost never deal with KW/demand charges. I'm only familiar with them because I work in the utility industry. If Tesla sells power to third parties then the per kWh fee needs to include an estimate for what the peak demand charge would be for that station. To your example, N chargers * 250KW * Demand Charge.

A quick example. 50 stall SC station with 250KW chargers. (this is equivalent to something like a factory). Utility rates can range from simple to maddingly complex so I'll use an easy example of a blended KW rate close to national average of $10 per KW. This is charged at the PEAK usage for that month (or even that year), so if at some point in the month all 50 stalls were occupied, that is the pricing used for all energy over that period. It doesn't matter if the station usually only has 20 stalls full or not, if you hit that peak that's what you pay. So our 50 stall station might have a monthly Demand charge of $125k (plus tax) added in to the standard kWh cost. A place with expensive energy like CA could be double or triple that amount. And then don't forget maintenance, cost to bill/collect/service customers, real estate rentals etc. and we are looking at a lot of cash.

A little birb told me that he was able to see some actual bills from some Tesla superchargers and the demand component was a significant piece of the pie. I'd be happy to help with data/questions for any such effort to estimate possible margins. My gut feeling without much research is that I do not expect superchargers to ever be a major profit driver. I would be happy if Tesla just breaks even on the whole thing.

 

[The Accountant]

Q2 R&D, EPS: Q2 Supercharger network expansion

Is there enough data to seenif Tesla might’ve spent significantly more in Q2 for Supercharger expansion, compared to prior quaters?

@The Accountant
Was this part of your assessment of Q2 financials?

I am assuming the same growth in Superchargers ("SCh") in Q2 as we saw from Q4 to Q1 - so I assume about 2,840 SCh at the end of Q2.
New SCh's are likley capitalized as a Fixed Asset on the Balance Sheet and expensed to Earnings over a period of 5-10 years. So we don't see a hit all at once.
The revenue and costs for SCh show up in the Services & Other line on the earnings statement.

 

[SOULPEDL]

It looks like they have cleared a spot and started to build forms for something. Maybe another GigaPress?

View attachment 682286

Or maybe just a structure to hold all of the excess castings they produce? It will be interesting to watch this space.

It's been my favorite area to see because honestly I can't tell an S from a 3 or a Y at 500 ft.

I often wonder why that GigaPress has that ripped blue tarp and no walls. So I suspect it's all about heat. So much heat from that press that no AC unit could keep up efficiently. So having no walls and an open roof above works a natural flowing convection process which is most effective in cooling, driven by the heat of itself - brilliant if so. The blue tarp comes up only when it rains. The slant in the roof could even help convection across the machine. So what looks like a garage project might be the best way to go... in the Tx climate anyway.

Anyone know if this is true? I'm just speculating on some possible Manufacturing jewels in plain sight.

 

[mongo]

I'm curious. Is there a minimum stock price required by the S&P to remain in it ?

ie, If Tesla did an (admittedly unlikely) 65:1 Split / Share Dividend at a $650 Stock price, the stock Price would be $10 post split.

Wondering if it is possible to do while still remaining in the S&P, and what would prevent Tesla from doing such a thing.

Sure would make the shorties dance.

Not directly, but NASDAQ requires price >=$1.00