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

[Knightshade]

Sure they can, just look at all the unions we have now. The key is to say you're going to operate as a union.

This is simply untrue.

Please feel free to cite any examples of actual, NLRB certified, unions who "say" they're going to operate as one, then don't, and retain certification.

Anywho, all I'm say is if there's a credit, which I doubt there will be, Tesla will be getting it. Why? Because it's in everyone's interest that they qualify. That's how things work.

Also untrue.

The entire reason the "special" union credit exists is to insure only some companies get it.

If there was a simple way for anyone to get it, it wouldn't exist - and the non-union companies wouldn't be lobbying to kill it, they'd just take this "simple" method you keep thinking would work, but wouldn't, and enjoy the extra money.

 

[Spacep0d]

Strong open! Seems like it's gonna stay above 800 now but we'll see how the mid-morning dip goes.

 

[AquaY]

Could we all please begin to use our words correctly?

It's "BRAKE," not "break."

Thank you.

Looking at @Baumisch 's location he states he is located in Germany. So if he is a German I'd give him a break on the spelling issue that many English as a first language speakers accidently make.

 

[AudubonB]

Several things could do that.
1) lack of seafarers. There have been several contributors, one of which is COVID-19 related:

The global shipping crisis and labor shortages may get worse because of the slow vaccine rollout for seafarers, say experts

Seafarers aren't getting vaccinated fast enough, which is leading to outbreaks on vessels. This is likely to further exacerbate the shipping crisis.

www.businessinsider.com

2) Port congestion worldwide makes trip times much longer, reducing ship supply and raising prices. That has been exhaustively documented so I won't repeat it.
3) RoRo vessel issues, including fire, arson, attacks etc. These have been issues, especially in Suez and Indian Ocean. all of this makes insurance costs drive out weaker operators. Fires are a major risk for car carriers, less for BEV, but the majority still are ICE firebombs.

Those three issues, especially the first two have greatly restricted shipping supply, despite the OEM sales drops. Tesla needs it's characteristic ingenuity to navigate all of this.

It is bizarre that demand drop is so related to supply limits.

Some unexpected color here:
Two days ago I was trespassing on a dock, one owned by a barge company that transits between Alaska and points south.
“Why / What are you doing here?” is the normal kind of question such activity engenders. What I was presented with, though, was 100% confined to:
“Are you looking for a job?”
“Are you a deckhand?”
“Have you got your seaman’s papers?”
“Do you have your Skipper’s license?”
I honestly thought for a moment I had the chance of being shanghaied- I’ve never encountered anything like this in my entire life.
THAT is how bad the situation is in the world of marine transport.

 

[henchman24]

So far $TSLA has only climbed about 4% since production and deliveries were reported ($775 on Oct 1st, $805 as of premarket this morning). That doesn't seem like too much of a climb in anticipation of earnings to me. With only a week left before the earnings call, I wonder if we will see accelerated buying.

EPS estimates have only slightly moved... up to ~1.49-1.56 depending on source. Up about 4-6% from prior to deliveries. I think there will be some front running still to happen and we probably see ~1.60-1.64 Q3 EPS estimates by next Tuesday. Which should be putting the stock in the mid to upper 820s. IMO much more than that, there is some front running and pricing in a beat.

Now I think Q3 is going to be over $2 (non-GAAP), if ever so slightly above. That will cause a ripple of 2021 and 2022 EPS adjustments and a bit of a scramble (we've seen this through Q3 with the EPS beat). 2021 will likely have to be over $6 for the street, maybe $6.25 (currently at 5.46). 2022 and 2023 will likely be pushed much higher and where the bigger impact will be. Street is ~$7.25 for 2022 and been pricing in about a 100-110x multiple since the middle of the year (that'll decay a bit)... an EPS > 1.85 gives a good road map for 9+ EPS even on the conservative side. >2 could put 10.50+ in play for the higher estimates (I'm higher than that personally). If Tesla performs like I expect financially, I think this will be the big push through Q4 and will push the stock over 1000 up to 1100ish by year end. The financials are becoming so good, that the forward looking P/E is plummeting for a high growth company. Becoming impossible for even the most basic models to ignore. Now, on the other side, if Tesla 'disappoints' and has less than 1.40 EPS for Q3, those 2022 Estimates might move down and drag the stock down.

 

[HG Wells]

I think its going to be a down day.

 

[Skipdd]

Reuters have a story out reporting that NHTSA have written to Tesla with an additional request about their emergency light autopilot crash investigation.

U.S. asks Tesla why it did not recall Autopilot after software changes

It includes a query as to why Tesla didn't issue a recall when they updated autopilot and other requests including about NDA's etc.

It doesn't look like anything major but expect to see a bit more FUD generated off this. Always some bit of FUD just in time to save MM's bacon.

Thanks, I saw this as well. Flagged it to read in more detail later (After work..) Given NHTSA’s role and potential ability to drive cost, I’m interested to understand this a bit more deeply. Agree some will use it as FUD. Tesla has to respond by Nov 1.

 

[Unpilot]

I think its going to be a down day.

Nope...MMD is right on time.
Crystal ball says green today.

 

[ZsoZso]

This is simply untrue.

Please feel free to cite any examples of actual, NLRB certified, unions who "say" they're going to operate as one, then don't, and retain certification.

And no, the workers can't just make a not-a-union that does not actually, actively, and honestly, operate as a union.

You mean, like UAW ?

UAW Scandal Infographic - Automotive News

Federal prosecutors have revealed that millions of dollars intended to train workers was instead spent by leadership of the UAW and FCA on air travel, solid-gold pens, a swimming pool, a house and a Ferrari, among other luxuries. More than a dozen indictments and convictions have exposed fraud...

www.autonews.com

Corrupt UAW leader Pearson sentenced for racketeering scandal

Vance Pearson was sentenced for his role in an embezzlement scheme that toppled union leadership and led to prolonged government oversight of the UAW.

www.detroitnews.com

 

[22522]

I feel like I am not saying enough negative things about Tesla. This brings questions of credibility and balance.
I've been trained that for best results the ratio of positive to negative feedback should be about 7 to 1. This avoids the "I can never win" mentality as well as the "That is just mom" mentality.
...
It seems like the FSD engine is based on labeling. I am not sure Feynman would have done it this way, but people have reasons, so let's see if we can make convergence happen a little faster.

It seems like the car will not stop for a traffic or road closure sign unless it knows the exact manufacturer of the sign. If there is no QR code on it and it does not show up in the ULINE catalog, it just does not know what to do!

Elon has said that they are workmen to identify the UFOs that have landed, or crashed on the roadway and it looks as if they are building these objects up from where they touch the roadway.

What would be helpful is a generalized labeling scheme that allows actions before the object is found in the catalog. For example "Saw Horse like Signs" or "object on legs" in the path. And the car should stop based on the broad category.

So "Bird by Bird" is a good way to catalog and label all birds, but sometimes the generic "Bird" is enough to act, or not act if you are George.

So a little logic in the middle ground of partial identification could make things faster. It is a very economical calculation that could run in parallel, like a driving instructor with a student who needs too complete information before they act.

...

So a system of keys that speed the decision making process like:

Neighboring car front wheel angle with respect to dividing line and previous state (way easier to detect than distance). This is early warning that someone will drift over into your lane.

Front corner of car position with respect to lane marker on driver side (way easier than centering in lane). This is a way to trigger cautious driving, when you lose the registration of the car to the lane marker on the driver's side. I was taught to sight the lane line off the front corner of the car. Very fast sanity check.

Super detailed grind it out may win in the end, but I would stop for legged objects in the roadway today.

...

Now back to the positive. Thank you for this hat tip to balance.

 

[Knightshade]

You mean, like UAW ?

Nope.

I asked for an example of an NLRB union that doesn't do the things a union is required to do. UAW does those things.

The fact they do additional, illegal, things means they're a corrupt union, it doesn't mean they're a "fake does not actually do union things" union.

Tesla could certainly have a union other than the UAW and qualify for a "union worker" tax credit.

What it could NOT have are the 2 ideas so far suggested:

1) A fake management created union
or
2) A fake employee created doesn't-do-union-things union

 

[joh01652]

You're right! I corrected my post #295,201 upthread already.

Trieste is 26 km north of Kopor, so that's the general area. Big advantage is it saves ~6 days vs shipping time in transit to Zeebrugge, and if the cars are being delivered in Italy, Austria, or surrounding countries the road shipping costs will be less as well.

Tesla is brilliantly navigating these logistics challenges. Literally.

Cheers!

@PeterJA shipping article brought to light (at least for me) the concept of Demurrage--worth reading in its entirety:

"Demurrage: Demurrage is a charge for the use of space, with fees applied after a specified period of "free time." Demurrage was originally intended to encourage faster cargo movement so that terminals are not used for storage by shippers. Yet, this concept has been turned on its head. Typically, in a congested port, the situation arises where a shipper is ready and willing to pick up their cargo. Yet, the trucker is turned away from the terminal because, for example, the container is buried in a stack too deep to be retrieved or because of a chassis shortage at the terminal. Nevertheless, the terminal operator still charges a per diem penalty for demurrage for each day the container remains at the terminal -- even though the shipper is prevented from removing it. Once demurrage is assessed, the shipper has no choice but to pay, since the charges are due upfront on the day of pick-up. In this environment, demurrage fees are having an extraordinarily negative impact on the movement of ocean cargo. One importer reports having paid over $100,000 in demurrage charges last year compared to $10,000 in the previous year. Perversely, instead of an incentive to keep cargo moving, demurrage has become a convenient revenue stream for gridlocked terminals."

Perhaps a big part of Tesla's ability to navigate logistics challenges has more to do with its sheer size than its smarts. Tesla is now one of the biggest companies in the world and can muscle its way through challenges better than smaller companies. I can imagine Elon having an absolute meltdown if he learned how the terminals were gaming and scamming the demurrage system for profit while Tesla shipping containers sat buried, racking up additional costs. While smaller companies can't do much about locked goods sitting buried in ports, Tesla can.

Tldr: When you carry the biggest stick in the room, you call the shots

 

[Nenarek]

Perhaps a big part of Tesla's ability to navigate logistics challenges has more to do with its sheer size than its smarts. Tesla is now one of the biggest companies in the world and can muscle its way through challenges better than smaller companies. I can imagine Elon having an absolute meltdown if he learned how the terminals were gaming and scamming the demurrage system for profit while Tesla shipping containers sat buried, racking up additional costs. While smaller companies can't do much about locked goods sitting buried in ports, Tesla can.

Tldr: When you carry the biggest stick in the room, you call the shots

The stick is curved like a hockey stick but it seems to be growing exponentially

 

[loquitur]

Many moons ago (last century) I had the pleasure of porting compute intensive engineering analysis software to many of the advanced HPC architectures of the time (Cray etc). They were a mixture of SIMD (single instruction multiple data) and MIMD (multiple instruction multiple data) hardware. I rewatched the Dojo section of AI day yesterday and was 'triggered' by the slide showing the results of Dojo training miniGPT. Some extremely lucky person (people?) is most likely currently engaged on tuning the training algorithms to work efficiently on this new architecture on the 'bench' rig they currently have whilst the operational system is being built. For people in the field it just doesn't get any better than that.

I can only reiterate what James Douma said several months ago 'guys working at the leading edge will move to Tesla just to be able to work on this hardware'.

I am sure this is also true for the guys at Tesla working in vehicle design, onboard software, manufacturing, enterprise planning systems, and battery development, and this just reinforces what has been said many times on this thread about Tesla's ability to attract the best talent being their largest competitive 'moat'.

P.S. for the other 'oldies' here, who remembers the Apollo computers buzz phrase 'the network is the computer'. Dojo is this writ large.

Nice post. As a small point, the slogan was coined by John Gage of (and adopted by) Sun Microsystems.
I know because I worked there until they "augured in" to Linux running on Intel hardware, with the remaining
software stack being smothered by Larry Ellison.
See: Does the Repurposing of Sun Microsystems' Slogan Honor History, or Step on It?

 

[Jack6591]

I am a reductionist, my preference is to frame things in the bigger picture. There are many on this site with extraordinary skills, education, and background in finance, technical analysis, and wide ranging technologies from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence. To understand Tesla is a daunting endeavor. Often my guttural response is to caution that we are getting too far into the weeds, but the hard truth is that I have prospered from their advice and counsel.

All of that said, I am convinced that we are on the verge of historic disruption. My Tesla is approaching 80,000 miles — I’ve bought one set of tires. The car is a better driver than I am. Today, many are discussing the layoff of 30,000 employees at Volkswagen, however, the loss of driving jobs, auto repair jobs, and collision shop jobs, will be far greater than automotive manufacturing jobs.

Indeed, Tesla is on the precipice of fundamentally changing worldwide economies. I’m left pondering how this will effect the stock market, while advising friends and family to consider Tesla.

 

[Lessmog]

Could we all please begin to use our words correctly?

It's "BRAKE," not "break."

Thank you.

Ex-Mod: As a policy, we do not criticize spelling or grammar mistakes in postings, especially so because there are so many second or third language English speakers here. And we don't want to have a discussion about it either. --ggr

Maybe @TSLA Pilot is bacon up the wrong tree here?
Sorry, can't help myself sometimes.

 

[FS_FRA]

Absolutely! Their success might be partly the consequence of having supplier problems in the early days.
Remember too that Tesla now sells in Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Greece. Further the Mercedes shipments from there go throughout Germany, using those new rail lines mostly but also road for nearby areas.

As an aside, I knew nothing about this until two years ago when I was briefly in Kotor and saw long lines of trucks carrying cars out of the port, all smaller Mercedes models. Then I also saw a train carrying more.
I did not dawdle or learn more since my Model X wanted to be fed at the nearby Supercharger prior to indulging in the Istrian truffle season.

Koper, Slovenia!

Not Kotor, Macedonia. I can’t believe they would choose Macedonia, as it’s not in the EU and certainly not convenient to their main South Eastern markets.

 

[AMN]

So, it looks like Plaid Model S is at around 100kwh BUT the new pack is using 7,920 cells vs 8,256 in the old car. See video below.

This explains 200lbs weight reduction in the Plaid s vs the outgoing Model S Performance despite Plaid having another motor onboard.

This is some serious progress and one of the main reasons why competition is irrelevant. The pace of innovation is the only thing that matters.

 

[AudubonB]

There will be more needed than the mere 336 fewer batteries to explain the 200 lb weight reduction.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Did the last 27 times this idea was debunked not work for you?

Unions have pretty specific requirements and definitions under US law, you can't just have some employees go "Hey we have a 'union' it just doesn't do anything" and have that count.




...how would a tax credit violate anti-trust laws? That doesn't even really make sense as a sentence.

There's TONS of credits and other incentives in the tax code to favor certain actions or policies by businesses (or individuals) over other actions or policies.

Heck large parts of the tax code are specifically TO incentivize or discourage specific behaviors.



Anyway their premise is union shops offer better pay, and the conclusion they reach from that premise is the government should incentivize or subsidize better pay for workers.

That premise (that unions pay better in general than non-union shops) is factually correct IN GENERAL among auto companies.... last data I saw (from 2019) was that UAW paid about $30/hr on average while non-union shops paid in the low 20s.


Tesla is a bit of an odd duck here- they ALSO pay a decent bit lower wage than UAW shops- but they offer stock options that due to their somewhat unique position as a stock that's actually gaining significantly in value, more than make up for the wage gap.

Other non-union shops like VW, Honda, BMW, Toyota, etc....not so much.





3.5T is the entire spending bills proposed cost- not just the EV credits.

But then we already know THAT is getting slashed down to something more in the 1.5-2T range, so there's likely no way any of the current EV tax credits survive that cut in anything comparable to current proposals anyway.

Mild speculation, but depending upon when someone was hired by Tesla, it is likely that there are significant number of Tesla Millionaires working for Tesla . . . that beats a union any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

If they continue on their current trajectory, there will be MANY more Teslaires working there with each passing year.