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

[MXWing]

For new buyers here is what buying $10k FSD versus $199/month subscription looks like:

Tesla offers a 72 month plan for purchases
Current interest is 2.49%
Using a bankrate loan calculator you'll pay $775.95 in interest for a total financed cost of $10,795.95. Over six years that's $149.67/month. Then you're done paying. Plus FSD stays with the car so if you sell you should recoup some of your cost.

Of note I had a friend purchase a Tesla model Y early this year and she had FSD for free as a trial for a month or something like that. Because of the free trial she opted not to buy FSD and afterwards when she wanted to purchase FSD she discovered she could not finance it after the fact and would have to pay in full.

I really wonder why Tesla doesn't offer financing for FSD. If Apple can finance a $1200 iPhone over 3 years, Tesla can do $10,000 over 4-6 years.

Subscriptions would and should go up in value as it gets more features. The best benefit for ALL parties still is to add FSD at time of purchase and finance over the length of the loan.

10,000 RIGHT NOW is not the same as 10,000 spread out over time.

 

[Blue horseshoe]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1416512593435545604

Stanphyl capital started June 2011 and according to their Feb 2021 letter they are up 54.6% versus the sp500 up 246.2%. Teslas performance in the same was only 14,029%. (Tesla was trading around $852 in Feb. At today's price of $644 tesla is up 10,583.5% since June 2011)

If you use teslas performance since inception, a year before stanphyl, tesla has increased by 22,087% (using Feb 2021 numbers.)

Spiegel is a chronic underperformer of the market and tesla.

 

[juanmedina]

OT: Tesla sandbagging as usual the Model S Long Range is faster and probably quicker than the Model S Performance. Tesla is holding power off the line, 1.9-1.8 60' is terrible. Best trap speed 129.75mph on a 10.869sec run:

I assume there will be a performance upgrade down the road

Since I can edit my post. People the Model S Long Range has the same trap speed as the Porsche Taycan Turbo S in the 1/4th mile. It cost 85k with double the range and it charge faster without an 800V architecture and a useless two speed transmission at $100k less with the Taycan Turbo starting at $185k. It can actually seat 5 people with a tons of cargo space.

Best run was 10.869 at 129.675mph with. A crappy 1.854 60' at 85% SOC and still trapping 127.68 at 70% SOC. I hope Tesla let's the car launch harder of the line.

 

[st_lopes]

I think the next favorable move of TESLA is to SELL INSURANCE. With full time FSD, they can offer the best insurance (low) rate. At that time, no other insurance company will be able to compete with TESLA's offer.

Umm… they already do?

 

[lafrisbee]

So wait?
Think about it. Subscription of FSD is going to be the only option when l4 or l5... because it gets real murky with who is responsible for any accident?
So the deal is going to be that the subscription will be tethered with insurance...?

 

[Blue horseshoe]

Watching Dave Lee's latest episode and found this slide interesting:

Made me wonder while we are still in FSD beta would tesla be willing to provide cheaper subscription for enhanced auto pilot(EAP)? Adding a $99/month subscription should bring in an additional group of owners who didn't opt for $10k FSD, but who may be unwilling to pull the trigger on $199/month subscription right now.

 

[stealthyc]

Is this AP or FSD?

As said above, AP is lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control. It does not change lanes. I assume my 2019 Model 3 would do the same thing, but I've never tried it.

Fsd

 

[Chunky Jr.]

It will be interesting to see if Tesla releases any numbers on Monday for FSD subs .

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I think the next favorable move of TESLA is to SELL INSURANCE. With full time FSD, they can offer the best insurance (low) rate. At that time, no other insurance company will be able to compete with TESLA's offer.

Tesla already sells insurance. I assume you mean that they start really pushing it to new and existing buyers. If FSD subscription caused a significant lowering of the monthly premium, that would further incentivize people to get insurance and FSD since FSD price would be subsidized by Tesla insurance.

 

[dhanson865]

Watching Dave Lee's latest episode and found this slide interesting:
View attachment 685477
Made me wonder while we are still in FSD beta would tesla be willing to provide cheaper subscription for enhanced auto pilot(EAP)? Adding a $99/month subscription should bring in an additional group of owners who didn't opt for $10k FSD, but who may be unwilling to pull the trigger on $199/month subscription right now.

That's already been done, it's $199 for the regular non FSD and $99 for the EAP crowd.

Full Self-Driving Capability Subscriptions | Tesla Support

If you have not already purchased FSD capability and your vehicle has FSD computer 3.0 or above, you can subscribe to FSD capability from the Tesla app. Learn more about FSD capability subscription.

www.tesla.com

https://i.redd.it/7n8pdux9nrb71.png

 

[Blue horseshoe]

That's already been done, it's $199 for the regular non FSD and $99 for the EAP crowd.

View attachment 685483

Full Self-Driving Capability Subscriptions | Tesla Support

If you have not already purchased FSD capability and your vehicle has FSD computer 3.0 or above, you can subscribe to FSD capability from the Tesla app. Learn more about FSD capability subscription.

www.tesla.com

https://i.redd.it/7n8pdux9nrb71.png

Yep it's $99/month for EAP owners to upgrade to FSD. I was saying they also have the option of converting basic autopilot to EAP for $99/month. Those are two different groups of owners. Autopilot to EAP is just another tier they could target

 

[LYTRIDR]

I thought everyone here maxed out their Tesla account and did 5x orders for the CT with the FSD was only $8k? Don't tell me that I was the only 1.
View attachment 685450

Maxed out? At only 5? Why does my account let me have 21?

 

[CitizenKane]

I really wonder why Tesla doesn't offer financing for FSD. If Apple can finance a $1200 iPhone over 3 years, Tesla can do $10,000 over 4-6 years.

Subscriptions would and should go up in value as it gets more features. The best benefit for ALL parties still is to add FSD at time of purchase and finance over the length of the loan.

10,000 RIGHT NOW is not the same as 10,000 spread out over time.

I believe a better option is to buy 10 000 USD worth of Tesla stock and pay the FSD from the value increase of that holding. Riskier, but very likely better

 

[SPadival]

a tech review talking about build quality and car dynamics is kind of silly IMO. I hope he sticks to reviewing the tech of the car.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1416492287429910535

Most underrated is fit and finish: Many more magnets and clicky bits and springs and great buttons

Still want him to not talk about build quality?

 

[mrdoubleb]

Here is how I see it .. (and could hack into EM's brains via neuralink)

Steps:
1.Have Shareholder vote for Tesla to acquire X% of Starlink on IPO ($2B sounds reasonable with 20B war chest and after spending same amount for BTC )
2.Tesla purchases X% of Starlink on IPO or in some pre IPO deal
3. Provide purchased Starlink shares as divident to existing Tesla shareholders.

Pros:
..Approved by TSLA shareholders, -- no Rive brothers in Starlink
.All TSLA shareholders get Starlink shares. (+no long term holders crap)
.Dividend -- and watch TSLA SP do another short squeeze on the infinity/manufactured/thin-air shares

Reason. All TSLA cars will have remote/portable Starlink terminals. Tesla/Starlink starts harvesting the premium internet revenue with exponentially growing number of cars all around the world.

1, how many times does Elon have to say that Teslas WILL NOT have Starlink as you have to have a pizza box sized antenna mounted on the car? Every time someone brings it up he shoots it down, period.
2, stop having daydreams about getting Starlink / SpaceX shares for free. If it IPOs it will do so to get EXTRA capital into "Musk Enterprises" to fuel rapid growth, not to move $ around between his companies. He said he will try to do something for TSLA longs to get first dibs on the IPO, but never said anything about free shares.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Price Target of $1471?

Webull is showing the PT, but not Tipranks. Any idea who the analyst is?

Also, I wonder for what period those Institutional holding changes were in.


View attachment 685462

I can help you with who the $67 is .

 

[mrdoubleb]

I don't think there is anything reported by Tesla but Troy Teslike's tracker which had a sample size of about 2,000 buyers revealed a take rate at Q3 2020 of 25%. This tracker skews very much to North America so assume the actual is less than that - perhaps 15% worldwide.

View attachment 685426

Note, that Tesla raised FSD price to $10k in Q4 2020 (a quick search showed October 30), so those percentages have likely decreased even further.

Also note, as you correctly point out this tracker is NA biased, and in Europe we have EAP as an option for half the price and FSD gives very little extra over that right now (I think only traffic lights and stop signs). So FSD take rate is likely a lot lower in Europe for example.

Finally, if you look at those numbers, FSD take rate is significantly higher with S/X and was with the first batch of Y deliveries. Not surprising, as buyers of higher priced cars can afford this more often. For Model 3 where you have SR+ buyers as well, numbers are lower. I just mention this as S/X sales were minimal during H1 2021, so FSD take rate in general must have gone lower.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Retail would be one group that fall into this category who don't file 13F. But I doubt retail would account for even 20% of those 36M.

I don't think 36m is impossible for retail. I bought 300 shares in Q1 and I have a middling portfolio size compared to many on this board. It would only take 100k retail investors to do the same. 36m shares represents less than 4% of the company.

Even though it is not as popular as it once was, Tesla is still one of the most traded stocks by country in H1-21 according to Degiro. I'm assuming this is a good representation for retail traders as I would expect Insto investors to be using other platforms.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Is like asking Sandy Munro to review the build quality of an Iphone . They are different products with different manufacturing processes and different tolerance stack ups. The same goes for he reviewing anything related to the vehicle dynamics.

Marques has always be a user experience tester from what I have seen. Even with phones he doesn't tend to focus on what the hardware is (with the exception of the camera). He could still do this for vehicles - e.g. fit and finish, snappiness of the software, ease of supercharging, cool features, etc. I think this is what many buyers would care about most anyway.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I really wonder why Tesla doesn't offer financing for FSD. If Apple can finance a $1200 iPhone over 3 years, Tesla can do $10,000 over 4-6 years.

Subscriptions would and should go up in value as it gets more features. The best benefit for ALL parties still is to add FSD at time of purchase and finance over the length of the loan.

10,000 RIGHT NOW is not the same as 10,000 spread out over time.

Financing software is a tricky proposition in general. If someone selects FSD at the time they purchase the vehicle then the financier (Tesla generally doesn't finance their own vehicles) of that vehicle can reposes it if payments are missed because they have security over the physical vehicle as well as the software.

If you want to finance FSD later you would need the same financier to provide financing - for which they would need to do a new underwrite (bad customer experience). Or if they didn't do a new underwrite, would likely need to charge a higher interest rate (can't assess risk of customer so charge more).

If a different financier was going to finance the software they wouldn't have security over the vehicle (as the original financier would already have that) - so you could end up in a position where the customer defaults on the payment for the software but not on the vehicle and the software financier has nothing to collect against to recoup their losses (again needing to charge a higher interest rate to cover losses).