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

[MXWing]

Futures, Asia, bitcoin, bonds… pointing to another red day tomorrow.

Possibly but not a guarantee. As know the market can start big green and end big red. It can be the other way as well.

I just feel bad when people get their shares taken away from them because they sell into fear.

Who knows if/how much we fall but I know I wouldn't want to not have shares going into Q4 earnings.

There's some put level out there we'll call Q4 P/D Put. What that number is, will be interesting to find out.

 

[mars_or_bust]

Still think holland would have been a better choice. I think it will be 2023 before things are rolling. And even then I think there will be a constant pressure by Germany to move the factory out of the country. Definitely a head shaker.

UK would have been by far the best choice, except it shot a magazine full of dum-dum bullets into both its feet by going through with Brexit. Without Brexit, I am 80% certain Tesla would have built its gigafactory in UK - it has an excellent car manufacturing tradition, has excellent engineers, is actually fundamentally business friendly and capitalistic (unlike Germany).

 

[Singuy]

Possibly but not a guarantee. As know the market can start big green and end big red. It can be the other way as well.

I just feel bad when people get their shares taken away from them because they sell into fear.

Who knows if/how much we fall but I know I wouldn't want to not have shares going into Q4 earnings.

There's some put level out there we'll call Q4 P/D Put. What that number is, will be interesting to find out.

Higher chance AH is massively red and we end green than AH massive green and we end green.

 

[Ogre]

So according to this article, Tesla deployed 18,700 tonne by building 500k cars.

Tesla consumes more lithium than four closest rivals combined

Using that calculation, it now cost $1580 in lithium today vs $300 dollars end of 2020(however lithium prices were unusually low in 2020. This is actually pretty significant and may hit gross margins. Perhaps this is why we saw the constant price increases throughout 2021.

Another possibility is that Tesla is hoarding mass tonnage of Lithium, ready for 4680 mass production and led to massive spike in lithium prices.

Tesla locked in a lot of long term pricing with bulk purchase contracts.

This also shows how smart it was for Tesla to start investing in their own lithium mining operation.

 

[hobbes]

Germany holding the Tesla Gigafactory hostage

View attachment 752432

All those "Germany is killing Giga Berlin" posts really piss me off. You are all oversimplyfying to a point where you make it sound as if there is only one central government involved that controls everything and acts completely arbitralily. Seems some can only think of Germany in terms of Hitler against the rest of the world/bad vs. good. It is more complex that that. /rant off

1) This is the State of Brandenburg government giving the permit, central government has little to do with it
2) At this point it is the State of Brandenburg making sure that there are no loopholes in the permit that would make it likely that "environmental" NGOs succeed in stopping production in court
3) The state of Brandenburg does have a strong interest in seeing Giga Berlin starting, for example jobs and taxes. Why would they have lobbied for getting Giga Berlin and then try to stop it?

Are there too many parties involved and antiquated rules that make the process more complex than it should be? Does it smell fishy that non-local environmental are able to sue that have been supported by other automakers? You bet. But this is not about a corrupt government.

 

[aubreymcfato]

They say it's a short term problem, but who knows and it may be something that can drag on(which wouldn't be too kind to their stock and the QQQ).

"Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company expects to take on “several billion dollars” of extra costs in its consumer business in the fourth quarter as a result of labor shortages, higher employee costs, global supply chain constraints and increased freight and shipping costs."

It's one thing when you work your ass off all day and pee in bottle but get a low salary.
It's quite different when you work your ass off all day and don't get a great salary but you participate of the company outstanding results, ie. at Tesla with stock options for nearly every employee.
Stock goes exponential, salary is linear. Employees should get a share of the growth like management.
One of the best moves by Elon, in my book, and absolutely underrated.

 

[Chocochip]

The official UK registration numbers came out this morning:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1479022207376494594

 

[jbcarioca]

L

I'll be pleasantly surprised if Tesla delivers more than 1 car from Giga Berlin in the first half of this year. It's at the point where the red tape is like a Monty Python sketch.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1478852971689611266

Given that they’ve produced enough already to have been doing testing ‘in the wild’ the logical expectation is that deliveries will begin soon after approvals. Six months is a long time.
Care to wager? I’ll give odds, say, 100 shares to you if I lose, 50 shares to me when I win.

 

[raffiniert]

I'm pretty sure the final permit is a matter of weeks, so January still seems possible to me. Heck, why not? It's not that they were waiting for all documents, it was basically one.

 

[jbcarioca]

Anyone should be worried including Tesla …

I disagreed because for all your erudition you forget a couple First Principle elements.
In any critical system the information sources must measure the thing they are intended to measure (the term is validity). Each source needs to deliver it’s results at the same time and each other source (one term is colinearity).

In aircraft you cleverly misused one of them classical Boring errors, single source. Checking Airbus you’ll find that of the three Sources (mandated in regulations, btw, and the MAX got away with one because it ,B737 , was certified in the 1960’s) in some cães all three are the same sensor duplicated in different places, on occasion one of them might use different sourcing. However, each delivers information at exactly the same time.

in spatial recognition in motion all sources must have identical lags.

Thus myriad sensor are necessary with identical lags. ‘Myriad‘ means ‘multiple’.
you somehow think that mixing sensor types with disparate functionality can work. It cannot.

That said there are so many unknowns that there is no known date for level 4 despite statements to the contrary, even by regulators. Eventually it will work.

On delivery Elon has blown it, not on logic.

 

[SO16]

The official UK registration numbers came out this morning:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1479022207376494594

Not to mention that the number 1 car is about half the price of the average Model 3.

 

[Question]

It's clear that dealership model is doomed. Cost structure of a car attached.

How easily can OEM's shift away from dealership model? Is there a reason why they are still stuck using it or is it just stupidity?

 

[UkNorthampton]

Not to mention that the number 1 car is about half the price of the average Model 3.

Great point, but looking at prices, even more so... Corsa bit cheaper than that... according to carwow,

Tesla Model 3 prices:-
SR+ (just known as 3 now): £42,990
LR: £49,990
P: £59,990

Corsa mix - maybe remove £1000 for sale price (according to carwow deals page), but as even Vauxhall (Stellantis) are supply constrained, maybe can't get much of a discount.

 

[Chocochip]

Not to mention that the number 1 car is about half the price of the average Model 3.

Yes, in terms of total revenue (did somebody say operating margins?) the Model 3 is at the top in the UK. As well as in several other major European markets. Tesla is getting closer to replicating in the car manufacturing business what Apple achieved in the smartphone business: raking in most of the profits even while not selling the most units.

These statistics are simultaneously a great source of excitement for the start of operations at Giga Berlin, and a probable contributor to the delay in it receiving its final permits. Legacy Auto is hurting bad!

 

[Todd Burch]

The dealerships may be the elephant in the room limiting EV sales from Tesla competitors.

We need to remember that when a Tesla competitor announces a price for a new EV, this is basically the MSRP.

We’ve seen dealerships mark up EV prices significantly so they can take an oversized cut of the profits, knowing their maintenance income from that sale will be less (or not wanting to deal with EVs). Ford’s Farley Tweeted about this just the other day. With the Tesla price, there are no additional markups.

People get excited about Ford/GM announcing some price for a new EV (which BTW usually mixes specs from the top trim with prices from the bottom trim) but forget that dealers are going to mark the price up beyond that.

I think this effect, coupled with Tesla’s additional cost advantage from vertical integration and manufacturing advances (e.g. casting) is currently underappreciated and not understood by those claiming that “competition is coming”.

 

[HG Wells]

Do you have FSD Beta? You can tell some of the decision making the car is doing and sometimes you wonder why it decide to do the wrong thing vs the right thing. What makes FSD more AI like is it's unpredictable nature because it's really hard to even reproduce a problem (like why did it decide to drive 20 mph under your set speed behind the car in front for 0.76 miles before wanting to switch lanes vs another car it wants to switch lane instantly?).

OH, I know why it did that.

You didn't notice who was driving the first car.
The Tesla AI took notice of the license plate and realised the car was registered to the local Sheriff.

Now here is the neat part.
Why did it pass after following the car for 3/4 mile ?
Simple.
The Sheriff used his cell phone.
The Tesla AI seeing that the cell tower the phone connected through was too far away finally determined that the sheriff was not in the car.

The AI now concludes, its safe to pass.

 

[nativewolf]

It’s just hard to watch a country like Germany who many thought of the best and the brightest making bad decisions. Shutting down three nukes in the prime of their low carbon life while leaving multiple coal plants running. Then giving Tesla a hard time with water while slathering 100x the volume of water for continuing coal in the same region. I know it will pay off in the end. But time now is precious, not just for Tesla but for the environment.

Yes the USA makes plenty of bad decisions but when it comes to energy management...hard to find a country worse than Germany. Just mind boggling bad and then that reverbates into geopolitics because they have to deal with the devil (putin) instead of being able to act with honor. Terrible

Then you may or may not know the coal they mine is lignite- the worst coal..the worst. Coal is not created equal and the soft german coals are the worst you could burn. An appalachian hard seam coal or powder river basin coal is so much cleaner it is not funny.

 

[jkirkwood001]

UK would have been by far the best choice, except it shot a magazine full of dum-dum bullets into both its feet by going through with Brexit. Without Brexit, I am 80% certain Tesla would have built its gigafactory in UK - it has an excellent car manufacturing tradition, has excellent engineers, is actually fundamentally business friendly and capitalistic (unlike Germany).

Hmm, three upvotes from Brits, all others voted down. Please let's stop with the geopolitical pissing matches.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Thinking on UK & other countries with high Tesla sales. A lot of Model 3 type cars are first bought as company cars - whether directly by the company or with car allowance. Often sales, middle managers etc. Often that crowd can be a bit judgemental, unsupporting.

Imagine turning up to a big meeting with a brand new ICE car. You'll get some comments, I'm sure.

There was an old UK TV programme about car psychology. It had a bit in it where a new Managing Director from an accounting background swapped out sales rep company cars for something awful like Maestro diesels (for cost reasons). The result was that sales plummeted and sales men said their confidence was shattered & their rivals were constantly laughing at them.

Therefore, more Tesla demand, sales of ICE BMW/Merc to collapse.

Edit: Not now, but if Tesla ever want to make more money directly from new car sales, add a few high trim levels (visible/badge differences) and they'll be bought as differentiators, markers of relative success. Not important for the mission though.

Edit2: Already, motorway services are used as meetup locations for road-warriors: consultants, managers/staff etc I can see Superchargers being important "water-cooler" type meeting places, both formal & informal. If you're not bumping into your peers, rivals, managers & colleagues at Superchargers, you're at an information/gossip disadvantage.

 

[nativewolf]

Austin is also like 2x larger too

There may be a contrary answer to the Berlin situation. Today Tesla is battery constrained. it is still not clear where the Berlin packs will come from. Every battery cell Tesla makes is sold. Until very very recently it was not clear, to me, how Berlin was going to operate at any scale because the battery pack for that site is very specific. At least as far as I understand, that pure 4680s. Now maybe Tesla has finally cracked that problem but until early this winter we still don't have enough packs to even launch a rudimentary Semi line. Opening Berlin without have battery capacity would be unhelpful in the extreme, from strategy to competing OEM espionage/intelligence efforts, etc. Thus no real need to rush paperwork and have an approval and twiddle thumbs.

It would explain why Tesla took forever to submit basic paperwork. Assuming it is the govt agencies in Germany might be missing the more obvious answer...that it is Tesla battery constraints. It seems to me that Tesla might not have been ready to really scale and that would imply that battery challenges remain. Clearly Tesla not submitting paperwork until December is not a mistake. That's PM 101.