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

[H Mak]

Maybe VW could get to where they are producing cars cheaper than Tesla, but they wouldn't really be "The Next Tesla" at that point would they?

The legacy automakers have a big, almost insurmountable problem getting near Tesla. Over the next 10 years they two huge challenges which will occupy the best management brains they have. The first is producing electric vehicles profitably, not easy, as demonstrated by GM, to name one obvious example. Secondly they have to manage the run down of their existing vehicle manufacturing, again, profitably if possible. Remember also they can't just switch this off because they have to continue to supply spare parts to their legacy fleet, something that will be required for decades.

And it gets worse. You hear a lot about how much capital these companies are investing in the EV business. Don't forget that the legacy business also requires capital. Even as it is running down, it ties up billions in capital, which is unavailable to be deployed elsewhere. Oh yes, and there are dividends to be paid.

Compare this to Tesla. They have already solved problem one, and never had problem two. So along with all Tesla's other competitive advantages, this is one massive worry they don't have.

Good luck to the legacy companies because they are going to need it. There really will be only one winner.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I can't find the references now, but I thought the Berlin tour article was updated to say there was a second body line going in, not a GA line. Can you shoot me a link if you have it handy?

Yes, you're right. And one of our European members also points out drone videos show that a 2nd Stamping building is under construction as well. I'm simply working on the assumption that these are all modular, and largely fungible. So a 2nd GA line would be easiest, IMO.

I'm thinking one GA line twice as long is more space and material flow efficient than 2 shorter parallel lines; but that could just be circular confirmation bias.

I don't see how this would improve work-flow, but I'm not an Engineer.

Tesla's GA lines are already the shortest in the World, with about 40 stations compared to around 100 at VW/Toyota et.al.

Cheers!

 

[ThisStockGood]

Soooo... close today over or under $1,140?

I bet over.

EDIT:

CONGRATS TO EVERYONE. Soon everybody who ever bought TSLA shares have gained value. That's nice.

 

[Ogre]

The legacy automakers have a big, almost insurmountable problem getting near Tesla. Over the next 10 years they two huge challenges which will occupy the best management brains they have. The first is producing electric vehicles profitably, not easy, as demonstrated by GM, to name one obvious example. Secondly they have to manage the run down of their existing vehicle manufacturing, again, profitably if possible. Remember also they can't just switch this off because they have to continue to supply spare parts to their legacy fleet, something that will be required for decades.

And it gets worse. You hear a lot about how much capital these companies are investing in the EV business. Don't forget that the legacy business also requires capital. Even as it is running down, it ties up billions in capital, which is unavailable to be deployed elsewhere. Oh yes, and there are dividends to be paid.

Compare this to Tesla. They have already solved problem one, and never had problem two. So along with all Tesla's other competitive advantages, this is one massive worry they don't have.

Good luck to the legacy companies because they are going to need it. There really will be only one winner.

Fully agree.

Was just pointing out that the only companies capable of attacking Tesla's manufacturing advantage are the ones who already have the scale. I mentioned VW because I see them as one of the few legacy companies that even sees the problem they need to tackle here. Perhaps a better example would have been BYD which has much of the means of battery production, and seems to have some really good battery technology and the capital to attack the production advantage Tesla has.

The big problem is one of diminishing returns. Tesla has already captured all the low hanging fruit and solved many of the toughest problems. It is going to be incredibly difficult for outsiders to catch Tesla, let alone gain a significant advantage. Particularly since Tesla is still chasing this.

 

[EVMeister]

Soooo... close today over or under $1,140?

I bet over.

Me too.

 

[wipster]

$1145.45... woo hoo!!!

 

[15Peter20]

Just made the incredibly difficult decision to bank some profits, and I truly mean difficult: selling TSLA feels like betraying a close friend or relative.

But, thanks to TSLA, Tesla and TMC I was able to choose to retire early, so I handed in my notice on 4th Jan: you know, the day before the SP tumbled and a few weeks before Russia decided to really stick the knife in.

I know how lucky I am, and that the impact of Russia’s behaviour on me was a buying opportunity accompanied by some HODLer’s nerves: so many have suffered unbelievably.

So I felt I needed a cash buffer to, at least, see me through the first year of retirement, just for my blood pressure’s sake hence tonight’s sale. Being 95% TSLA (yeah, lightweight ) is great if retirement is 6 years away, but a bit more scary if it is 6 months and counting. I guess I can now sit and watch my cash pile evaporating as inflation takes its toll . At least my remaining TSLA is likely to make 6%(or whatever it is) inflation seem trivial.

Cheers to all!

 

[ZachF]

 

[insaneoctane]

Found out why $TSLA is up over 2 Gordons today:

View attachment 789900

While GLJ is certainly a clown...did Tesla move the goal post?

 

[Artful Dodger]

With a positive Market reaction to the P&D report, TSLA beat macro's by 2.7x today:

QQQ:

TSLA:

And finally, here's the 50-Day stock chart: (look at that Upper-BB soar!)

Cheers to the Longs!

 

[Baumisch]

...
They have not used cars as participants, but have used many independent distributed power sources.
Tesla Grid Services have been a huge competitive advantage of Tesla commercial stationary storage.
The limitation, as always has been battery supply.
Several manufacturers have been and ar trying to use BEV sources for grid stabilization. Thus far it seems that has not been terribly practical, primarily because of the cost to enable vehicle- to -grid. Many are trying, and CharIN even has standards published.
Now tesla has numerous Superchargers grid connected and GF Austin is about to become the largest ever commercial deployment, if rumors are correct. I am convinced that is correct and Grüneheide might end out being next.

I know Tesla is doing GridScale Batteries for a while - but as we all know cars are more profitable.
I know that V2G on DC side is expensive because no player besides Tesla owns DC stations - Volkswagen is bringing a DC homecharger with v2g.
Tesla owns the SuC, if the cars have FSD and snake-arm-whatever-autoconnect to SUCs it's a no-brainer to utilize the fleet for peek shaving and such.

I don't think those are opposite positions - it's just not cost-effective to do V2G at home currently as AC-infra is kinda cheap but doesn provide enough power and effiency and DC-Infra at home is costly - but Tesla is the only player that owns the hole chain from car to DC-v2G-Suc Infra and doesn't need to do it at home.

 

[StealthP3D]

The legacy automakers have a big, almost insurmountable problem getting near Tesla. Over the next 10 years they two huge challenges which will occupy the best management brains they have. The first is producing electric vehicles profitably, not easy, as demonstrated by GM, to name one obvious example.

Good post in its entirety, but I want to respond just to the part quoted above.

To highlight what you are saying, it helps to know that Tesla's automotive margins are being compared to legacies margins comprised mostly of ICE manufacturing. The valuable learning here is that Tesla's margin advantage is quite a bit greater than the numbers would indicate because Tesla already has a sizeable advantage over the ICE margins of others. This is a stunning achievement, and it has happened before global sales of FSD are even a decent sized chunk of sales. Even if legacy auto manages to close Tesla's margin advantage a bit (which I think is highly doubtful), Tesla will still have this critical advantage. I say it's "critical" because this is what will allow Tesla to continue to grow EV market share when EV's are competing against EV's.

If anyone thinks legacy can close this gap, they have to explain through what mechanism(s) such a thing is even possible. My best guess is legacy will reduce the cost to manufacture EV's by trying to copy Tesla's innovations (out of sheer necessity) but that Tesla will be able to decrease cost per unit even more quickly. The gap will grow. This is going to result in cars with nicer cars with better metrics than we have today at prices that will surprise and delight auto buyers. Of course don't expect the efficiencies of manufacture to trickle down to the consumer until there are enough EV's to meet the ever increasing demand. Until that point, most of the benefit will go to the manufacturer.

note: While Mercedes has the best automotive margins in the business, they compete in a rather niche market. Their high margins are not due to efficiency of manufacture but the fact that they can charge so much more simply because the product is of superior quality and/or so desirable amongst buyers for whom the quality/brand reputation is so much more important than price. Tesla has some of this same dynamic explaining their high margins but they compete in a much bigger market. I expect to see Mercedes volumes decline over the next 3-5 year timeframe which will cause their margins to collapse. It might even be apparent within a year.

 

[Buckminster]

Found out why $TSLA is up over 2 Gordons today:

View attachment 789900

Looking forward to a target of $3.35 post a 20:1 split. Otherwise it could get very confusing on whether the target has been adjusted post split.

 

[RationalOptimist]

We all know that Elon is often over-optimistic on timelines. But I'm curious to track down the best examples of predictions he got right. For example, does anyone have chapter and verse of his earliest predictions for Tesla vehicle sales over the long term? Anything else that was surprisingly on the money?

 

[Xd85]

We all know that Elon is often over-optimistic on timelines. But I'm curious to track down the best examples of predictions he got right. For example, does anyone have chapter and verse of his earliest predictions for Tesla vehicle sales over the long term? Anything else that was surprisingly on the money?

It was pointed out before, Didn’t he predict 0.5M vehicles for 2020 in 2014?

With a 0.1% margin of error if I remember. M because M is the new baseline unit

 

[Big Time]

Congrats today to all holders, and even to you sellers too!!

 

[ZeApelido]

Elon not thinking big enough with his investments.

If he waited a few more weeks, he could have bought Russia.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Impressive! You timed today's "hedgie head-fake" to within 4 minutes of the bottom. Well done!

View attachment 789904

/S

I gotta say, my commentary on stock action over the past 2-3 weeks has been spot on contrarian-wise. I’m definitely not complaining

 

[RationalOptimist]

It was pointed out before, Didn’t he predict 0.5M vehicles for 2020 in 2014?

With a 0.1% margin of error if I remember. M because M is the new baseline unit

Ah, yes, thanks. I found the source for anyone else interested.
In September 2014, in an interview with Fox Business, he said: “I feel confident that we will be able to achieve at least half a million cars a year by 2020.”
And yes, produced fractionally more than that, and delivered fractionally less.

Does anyone have other examples of surprisingly on-time Musk predictions?

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Ah, yes, thanks. I found the source for anyone else interested.
In September 2014, in an interview with Fox Business, he said: “I feel confident that we will be able to achieve at least half a million cars a year by 2020.”
And yes, produced fractionally more than that, and delivered fractionally less.

Does anyone have other examples of surprisingly on-time Musk predictions?

Does telling a short seller ... "Dude, its gonna sting!" count?