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

[hitchhiker]

Great post!

Having just been in Las Vegas casinos last weekend, I can say at least that my investment brokerage doesn't hand me unlimited free alcohol and distract me bright colors and pretty women while I'm making trades. I think the overall odds are better fighting Wall Street than casinos. At least I can win with an information advantage.

Clearly you're just not enough of a high roller on Wall Street. If you were, I suspect they would provide booze and pretty women too.

 

[navguy12]

Time to add 100 miles, 200 Miles, and 300 Miles from 10% remaining charge should be required added on the sticker for every EV sold. Another useful metric, average charge rate in MPH from 0-80% state of charge.

This metric of “How much you can charge in 10 minutes” is worthless because it doesn’t include any idea of the effect of tapering or battery size.

Of course… if they are mucking with what to put on stickers I’d really like to see more useful range numbers. Highway range at 65MPH and 75MPH would be much more useful than the current numbers.

…and to finish the thought, the range at 110/120 kph should be at 20° and 0°.

 

[Ogre]

Is this true? Do you have a copy of the settlement plan? Every accounting of ownership to prove qualification for inclusion in such a distribution that I have ever seen has required, in order, number of shares acquired, date, number of shares sold, date. The purchase date has to come before the sales date. Shorts don't do it that way. This relief for short sellers, if true, is a disaster for investors.

I was just going based on what Rob Mauer said on the Podcast. (linked above).

 

[Drax7]

anybody here on the market for a super yacht ?
a little levity ……

 

[Knightshade]

Incredibly bullish numbers if the US sales numbers are correct. Honestly seems a bit too good to be true lol. Tesla would already be at a 1.4 million run rate for the year......in the first quarter of the year....before Shanghai does it's production increase in April and Berlin/Austin start contributing. It would mean 1.75-1.80 million is on the table for 2022.

Tesla told us on the Q4 earnings call they could do 50% YoY increase without berlin or austin at all this year.

That'd be just shy of 1.4 million.

So 1.75-1.80 with Berlin and Austin included doesn't seem at all out of line with what we already knew a while ago.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Man, no way someone can convince me there isn't coordination on a mass scale between hedge funds and fund managers. The combination of TSLA now being down almost 4X the macro's with super low volume is just too obvious. The volume is the key here.

I've been probably one of the more bearish posters here on TSLA in terms of its short term trading and even I'm kinda shocked that in the face of reports of Tesla weekly orders increasing 100%, price hikes combined with wait times being extended even more, and then data (though not confirmed) that Fremont production and Shanghai production are leading to a Q1 print that could be a larger beat than Q4.............Tesla can't even manage average volume or to stick to it's beta.

I was thinking it was highly likely we bottomed on Feb 23rd and that we were in a clear uptrend. Now I'm not so sure. Would need the macro's to hold up because TSLA clearly isn't going to outperform that macro's until we get the P/D number and/or Q1 earnings

Crazy

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Man, no way someone can convince me there isn't coordination on a mass scale between hedge funds and fund managers. The combination of TSLA now being down almost 4X the macro's with super low volume is just too obvious. The volume is the key here.

I've been probably one of the more bearish posters here on TSLA in terms of its short term trading and even I'm kinda shocked that in the face of reports of Tesla weekly orders increasing 100%, price hikes combined with wait times being extended even more, and then data (though not confirmed) that Fremont production and Shanghai production are leading to a Q1 print that could be a larger beat than Q4.............Tesla can't even manage average volume or to stick to it's beta.

I was thinking it was highly likely we bottomed on Feb 23rd and that we were in a clear uptrend. Now I'm not so sure. Would need the macro's to hold up because TSLA clearly isn't going to outperform that macro's until we get the P/D number and/or Q1 earnings

Crazy

Huge amount of calls expiring next week at $850/$900/$950/$1000

With the standard Fed meeting jitters on the 16th, these guys could push down to $799 if they wanted to. Buy some LEAPs Wednesday morning.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Huge amount of calls expiring next week at $850/$900/$950/$1000

With the standard Fed meeting jitters on the 16th, these guys could push down to $799 if they wanted to. Buy some LEAPs Wednesday morning.

Yeah now that I'm looking at the options chart, this is probably preparation to keep the stock under 900 for next week. There's actually more puts than calls at 850 next week so I doubt it gets pinned under 850. Seems like MM's will for sure want to keep it right under 900 for next week.

I still think that for this to work so easily, there's gotta be coordination between MM's, hedge funds, and even index funds. The buying volume is so low.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

Great post!

Having just been in Las Vegas casinos last weekend, I can say at least that my investment brokerage doesn't hand me unlimited free alcohol and distract me with bright colors and pretty women while I'm making trades. I think the overall odds are better fighting Wall Street than casinos. At least I can win with an information advantage.

Someone at Interactive Brokers is reading this and thinking Hmm, I wonder if we could...

 

[traxila]

Obviously this market is hard to trust in either direction, but technically it looks like we tested the lows again. That would be a triple bottom.

 

[deffu]

It's Taiwan and South Korea. I forget the reason, but there's a specific reason Fremont production goes to South Korea and from Shanghai

due to the treaty between SK and U.S. much lower auto tariff importing from u.s than from China. TW, its obvious due to their love hate relationship with mainlaind China.
Why tsla dropped so much today? china stock delisting/Shanghai covid breakout fear?

 

[Featsbeyond50]

I was thinking it was highly likely we bottomed on Feb 23rd and that we were in a clear uptrend. Now I'm not so sure. Would need the macro's to hold up because TSLA clearly isn't going to outperform that macro's until we get the P/D number and/or Q1 earnings

Crazy

Since November we have a clear trend of lower lows and lower highs. It would be rational to expect that to end soon but we all know the market can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

anybody here on the market for a super yacht ?
a little levity ……

TMC should get a super yacht timeshare. I wonder if we can get a discount on a captain and crew too?

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Since November we have a clear trend of lower lows and lower highs. It would be rational to expect that to end soon but we all know the market can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent.

If you follow my posts for pretty much all of Q1, I've been predicting Wall St was going to ride the downtrend down for a long as possible leading into Q1 P/D numbers. I think it's most likely capitulation moment happens the last week of March since Q1 P/D numbers will come out over that following weekend. It could come the week before around the Berlin delivery event.

I think we could see the same % move that we saw when Q4 P/D numbers were released if the beat is the same. Tesla beat Q4 expectations by about 35k. If Tesla posts 345k for Q1, similar beat.

 

[canoemore]

Obviously this market is hard to trust in either direction, but technically it looks like we tested the lows again. That would be a triple bottom.

Some people pay good money to see that many bottoms.

 

[adiggs]

they send the majority of their cars to the east coast of north america. 2nd month to middle north america and 3rd month goes to west coast/Vancouver. This is smart delivery logistics, not really a wave.

I think this is pretty much the definition of wave deliveries.

Inventory reduction rather than direct logistics expenses is the main advantage to reducing the quarterly wave. I only realized this recently.

I agree with this from the quarterly financials reporting point of view.


The problem with the wave that I see and want to see get eliminated is that the wave in deliveries is, fundamentally, to target a particular point on the calendar every 3 months when inventory gets minimized. That's at the expense of inventory going higher the rest of the time.

The other problem is that unless the delivery teams have significant and important work to do the rest of the time (not just make work but serious value add work similar to delivering cars), and heck even if they don't, the delivery wave creates a cram session. Now and then - what the heck. But having it built into the business model for 1 month out of 3 to have deliveries concentrated leading to people working overtime - that is at best inefficient.

Assuming the simplistic shipping pattern above, the east coast is probably doing the bulk of its deliveries from week 2 through 6 in the quarter. That is their cram session, and then they're done as there are few cars still coming in. However given that they have sufficient parking space to store cars prior to delivery they have some flexibility to spread that out and avoid cramming in deliveries - maybe week 2 through 10.

The middle of the country probably gets its cram session started around week 6 and goes through 10. Again like the east coast they can probably stretch that out to the end of the quarter, with only those final deliveries by the end of the quarter having a particular timeline on them.

The west coast has about 4-6 weeks (again, simplifying down to the pattern above - I don't really think its this simple) from start of cars arriving for delivery and when they need to be delivered, at least to make the end of the quarter. This is where the cram session is the worst as there's no slack for getting stuff done by end of quarter.


Tesla ends up spending extra money on overtime, stressing out employees, and worsening the delivery experience for new owners, in exchange for making the company financials look as good as possible at a specific point in time. At this point the financials are good enough to unwind the wave. Ship cars to the east coast at a steady cadence that keeps the delivery team there occuppied at a steady pace. Heck - maybe that means a smaller delivery team is needed. Or maybe service techs don't get pulled off of service calls in order to help with deliveries (I don't know one way or the other that this happens - only that that's a group of Tesla employees that will have the knowledge to assist).

The likelihood of a bad delivery experience for new customers goes down - delivery people don't need to cram each new car delivery in such a rush. I know I'd like my own delivery experience to be what it needs to be if I'm plunking down $50k (or whatever) for a new car. Feeling like I'm in an assembly line with a # of minutes to get my new car and get out of the way for the next person - not a good experience on such a large purchase. (This view on delivery is more based on what I know was going on in the past - I suspect it is much better these days only because I haven't been hearing about it for seemingly a year+).
At the very least the overtime and extra stress goes down.

And I believe, though I haven't worked out the numbers, that the actual inventory levels throughout the quarter will go down. Not just the inventory number on 4 days of the year.

 

[Nocturnal]

Great post!

Having just been in Las Vegas casinos last weekend, I can say at least that my investment brokerage doesn't hand me unlimited free alcohol and distract me with bright colors and pretty women while I'm making trades. I think the overall odds are better fighting Wall Street than casinos. At least I can win with an information advantage.

I've had to pay for my own booze this past few months while losing money though.

 

[BornToFly]

There are fears, and there are facts. Market and TSLA is down because of the fear of inflation, interest rates, and the war. But the facts are that Tesla has been raising prices for a year, orders are up 100% in a week, and they will do better than ever. TSLA should be green and not follow macros if there was any intelligent life on Wall Street.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I think this is pretty much the definition of wave deliveries.

I agree with this from the quarterly financials reporting point of view.


The problem with the wave that I see and want to see get eliminated is that the wave in deliveries is, fundamentally, to target a particular point on the calendar every 3 months when inventory gets minimized. That's at the expense of inventory going higher the rest of the time.

The other problem is that unless the delivery teams have significant and important work to do the rest of the time (not just make work but serious value add work similar to delivering cars), and heck even if they don't, the delivery wave creates a cram session. Now and then - what the heck. But having it built into the business model for 1 month out of 3 to have deliveries concentrated leading to people working overtime - that is at best inefficient.

Assuming the simplistic shipping pattern above, the east coast is probably doing the bulk of its deliveries from week 2 through 6 in the quarter. That is their cram session, and then they're done as there are few cars still coming in. However given that they have sufficient parking space to store cars prior to delivery they have some flexibility to spread that out and avoid cramming in deliveries - maybe week 2 through 10.

The middle of the country probably gets its cram session started around week 6 and goes through 10. Again like the east coast they can probably stretch that out to the end of the quarter, with only those final deliveries by the end of the quarter having a particular timeline on them.

The west coast has about 4-6 weeks (again, simplifying down to the pattern above - I don't really think its this simple) from start of cars arriving for delivery and when they need to be delivered, at least to make the end of the quarter. This is where the cram session is the worst as there's no slack for getting stuff done by end of quarter.


Tesla ends up spending extra money on overtime, stressing out employees, and worsening the delivery experience for new owners, in exchange for making the company financials look as good as possible at a specific point in time. At this point the financials are good enough to unwind the wave. Ship cars to the east coast at a steady cadence that keeps the delivery team there occuppied at a steady pace. Heck - maybe that means a smaller delivery team is needed. Or maybe service techs don't get pulled off of service calls in order to help with deliveries (I don't know one way or the other that this happens - only that that's a group of Tesla employees that will have the knowledge to assist).

The likelihood of a bad delivery experience for new customers goes down - delivery people don't need to cram each new car delivery in such a rush. I know I'd like my own delivery experience to be what it needs to be if I'm plunking down $50k (or whatever) for a new car. Feeling like I'm in an assembly line with a # of minutes to get my new car and get out of the way for the next person - not a good experience on such a large purchase. (This view on delivery is more based on what I know was going on in the past - I suspect it is much better these days only because I haven't been hearing about it for seemingly a year+).
At the very least the overtime and extra stress goes down.

And I believe, though I haven't worked out the numbers, that the actual inventory levels throughout the quarter will go down. Not just the inventory number on 4 days of the year.

I guess I view a wave as more extreme version of natural logistics where Tesla in the past with Fremont and still with Shanghai, is exporting cars where there's going to be a big gap between when produced and when delivered. Thus creating the dynamic that you mention where delivery centers are not being efficient because they're waiting on the cars.

But Tesla has been resolving this. We have plenty of evidence that plenty of deliveries are happening on the west coast in the month of Jan. It's just that Tesla is sending the majority to the east coast in the first month of the quarter. With Shanghai, we're already seeing Tesla unwinding the export wave. Local deliveries in the first two months have jumped dramatically compared to a year ago. Obviously, Berlin and Austin opening will resolve the last aspects of these logistics.

I think people greatly underestimate the cost savings for Tesla when both Berlin and Austin are cranking out a decent number of cars because of the very things you mention. Expediting orders, overtime for workers, inefficiencies in staffing at delivery centers, cost of transport, etc....

It's why I'm so bullish on Tesla's operating margin even while Berlin/Austin are ramping which may limit gross margin growth for the next 2 quarters.

 

[Mengy]

The are fears, and there are facts. Market and TSLA is down because of the fear of inflation, interest rates, and the war. But the facts are that Tesla has been raising prices for a year, orders are up 100% in a week, and they will do better than ever. TSLA should be green and not follow macros if there was any intelligent life on Wall Street.

Precisely. Tesla is going to have a great year even if these market fears persist.