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

[MikeAtkinson]

Predicting the future is difficult!

There are known knowns - for Tesla that is the current state of manufacturing, product roadmap (Cybertruck, etc.), competitor intentions.
There are known unknowns - for Tesla that is production ramp, new factory locations, when FSD is 10x better than humans, competitor execution.
There are unknown unknowns - a year ago Bot was not on anyone's radar, 3 years ago a global pandemic was not foreseen.

For Tesla several approaches have been used:

1. Steven Mark Ryan and others pick a few scenarios: bear, base, bull, superbull; assign probabilities to them, then compute the expected share price from those.

2. ARK Invest use a Monte Carlo model.

3. Scenario technique (I am not aware of anyone using this): work out multiple scenarios, e.g. FSD working -> Robotaxi -> Bot -> full AGI, with times to make each step, competitors, take up rates, margins, etc. as parameters of the scenario. T

 

[StealthP3D]

We know Tesla has similar contracts. I wonder if we’ll see anything similar to this with the Q1 results:

Volkswagen reaps unexpected $3.8 billion windfall on nickel price spike

The carmaker, hit by a range of component shortages led by semiconductors, also warned of renewed pressure on already fragile supply lines.

www.mining.com

Let's hope Tesla's trading profits do not outshine their automaking profits as was the case with VW. That just means they didn't make enough EV's.

Without having the specifics of VW's "windfall", I think it's likely because they expected to use higher quantities of Nickel than they actually used making EV's, reportedly due to parts shortages.

I would not expect Tesla to report similar results (and I would not wish for that either).

 

[TN Mtn Man]

This is a valid point, up to a point. That is, this is true in the moment while he is actually interacting. Evaluating what happened after the fact is actually something those on the spectrum do to create coping mechanisms for such situations.

From a perspective of analyzing and identifying problems, as well as potential solutions, he is very well equipped and capable. Asperger's folk can excel in this, despite their problems functioning "normally" in any given moment.

Building a social site in such a way as to encourage the silent majority to take part in order to damp the strong voice of the vocal minority may be tricky, but he is very likely the best person to select team members and assign tasks, while steering their efforts and monitoring the results. The goal should be to have a site that rewards those who oscillate around a happy medium of bias and discourage those who swing to the fringes toward more open-mindedness.

As an active participant in the mechanism (Twitter) already, the additional burden, once he has the ball rolling, likely won't have a significant impact on his other efforts.

The Model 3 "Production Hell" didn't slow down SpaceX,, Boring Co., and other projects, did it? He had good people assigned to those tasks with clearly defined goals to achieve.

Encouraging polite discourse and good manners is really something everyone should be doing more of. All Elon wants to do is make this possible by eliminating the existing lean toward a biased output on the site.

And THAT is part of the danger of "social media". Throughout history, it's that "vocal minority" that in many cases is responsible for human progress. That vocal minority has included voices like Galileo, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein and...Elon Musk. Where would be be had those voices been suppressed, had they had no voice, had no one listened to their message. If instead of listening to those voices we held to established wisdom (aka group think)? We'd still believe that the world was flat, that lightning was magic, and getting around by horse and buggy. Science in particular is based on the scientific method-of posturing a hypothesis, of conducting experiments to validate or disprove it, of sharing the data and methodology to enable independent, reproducible results. Not by screaming "the science is settled" and silencing debate. I could go on, but don't want to make this more political.

The flip side-those minority voices? They can just as easily be an Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro or Karl Marx. The question is, to what extent do we censor free speech to "protect" from the possibility of being exposed to different ideas and opinions? Is there a point where the censorship is justified to prevent the spread of "dangerous" ideas? Who decides what ideas are acceptable or unacceptable? Proposing to murder someone would be widely considered an example, but would a discussion about assassinating Hitler have been inappropriate? Reportedly, right now, Facebook has cancelled their bans on such conversations concerning Putin. So talking about murdering someone is OK if they are a really bad guy? How about someone proposing political ideas some decry as dangerous? Imagine if we had Twitter in 1950, and someone proposed integrating schools, black and white people dating or marrying, doing away with things like poll taxes-would those things be labeled dangerous? Just examples-we can go on and on.

My take-it shouldn't be up to the board of a private company to decide what is or is not politically acceptable speech-if they claim to be a platform for open communication and discussion. Flip side-as a private company, I do support their right to set terms-yes, cognitive dissidence here. But even then, I'll agree there are limits-keeping sexual predators off such a platform I certainly support. But...where do you draw the line, and more importantly-who decides?

 

[kbM3]

The 20% discount rate may lead to you dramatically underinvesting in TSLA relative to your investment objectives.

The discount rate is used to account for the time-value of money from your perspective. To determine your own discount rate to use, the game is to figure out how much of a preference you actually have for receiving cash sooner rather than later.

Using a 20% rate means you think $100 today is equal in value to $100*(1-0.2)^t after t years. In other words, you’d be ambivalent about choosing between having $100 now, $80 a year from now, $64 after two years, $11 after ten years, $1 after twenty years, etc.

A baseline discount rate many people use is around 8-10% which aligns with the long-term historical performance of S&P500 index funds with some bonds mixed in and you might consider that a baseline benchmark to try to surpass.

Because the discount rate effect is an exponential decay over time and because the bulk of Tesla’s earnings will occur in 2030 and beyond, a choice of 20% is basically heavily biasing your TSLA valuation for what they do in the next 5 years and ignoring the future potential. Basically valuing long-term future profits as worth an order of magnitude less for every decade of waiting. For example, if you expect Tesla to earn $1T in 2032, you only value that year’s earnings today at $110B.

Not investment advice.

I think you got it backwards.

Everybody in the U.S. would choose $100 now over $80 in 1 year. I think you meant between $100 now and $120 in a year

 

[TN Mtn Man]

I agree but did you read the advantages he has in winning. Also MSNBC seems to love to run hit pieces on Elon, they had a long one last night full of misrepresentations. Dan is a moron but a tenacious one with a bone to pick and lots of money to burn, they article is worth a read. Dems are afraid of this campaign but what an irony, they also don't like Elon so it should be interesting, Dan is really bad at twitter but his spoof account is great.

My recollection is that O'Dowd has a loosely termed "software company" that has dabbled in autonomous driving-and is vested in LIDAR technology. His potential lies and distortions concerning Tesla seems as if they'd put a rather big target on him for the SEC to investigate. But frankly, I won't hold my breath.

 

[MikeAtkinson]

Predicting the future is difficult!

There are known knowns - for Tesla that is the current state of manufacturing, product roadmap (Cybertruck, etc.), competitor intentions.
There are known unknowns - for Tesla that is production ramp, new factory locations, when FSD is 10x better than humans, competitor execution.
There are unknown unknowns - a year ago Bot was not on anyone's radar, 3 years ago a global pandemic was not foreseen.

For Tesla several approaches have been used:

1. Steven Mark Ryan and others pick a few scenarios: bear, base, bull, superbull; assign probabilities to them, then compute the expected share price from those.

2. ARK Invest use a Monte Carlo model.

3. Scenario technique (I am not aware of anyone using this): work out multiple scenarios, e.g. FSD working -> Robotaxi -> Bot -> full AGI, with times to make each step, competitors, take up rates, margins, etc. as parameters of the scenario. T

As I posted part of this by mistake, I tried to edit, took too long and lost all the substantial additions, too late now to retype.

 

[redan]

Another margin trigger? Tesla removes "free" mobile connector - it's available for purchase for $400 in the Tesla store (apparently with additional adapters, per Elon).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1515439697425805315

 

[Discoducky]

With all that is being said on this thread as of late, I think it is important to realize and/or challenge the following (this is the terse/as simple as I can say it version):

0. Tesla is run from engineering/physics first principles
1. Tesla has distant/no competitors in any of its endeavors
2. Tesla is not recognized by the market as a tech company
3. TSLA is being manipulated by MMs on a daily basis
4. Tesla is attacked by FUD on a daily basis
5. Tesla/Elon has a single vision to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy
6. Tesla is and will always be, while Elon is in charge, an engineering playground that is simply unequaled due to the above singular vision
7. Tesla attracts the best and brightest engineers due to the above
8. Tesla is moving faster each and every day; acceleration of growth due to the above

I'm writing this as all of the above could have lengthy discussions and that is great, but we are only made better with healthy conflict, healthy back and forth, healthy ways to find common ground to build on and then construct arguments that lend themselves to further healthy discussion.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Another margin trigger? Tesla removes "free" mobile connector - it's available for purchase for $400 in the Tesla store (apparently with additional adapters, per Elon).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1515439697425805315

Wait...how do you charge the car without an included charging cable?

 

[Singuy]

Wait...how do you charge the car without an included charging cable?

I think most people bought a tesla wall charger with their car. It's an expensive option people didn't have to go with since a dryer plug plus the mobile connector will do. However it appears that maybe over 90% of the people got the wall connector.

 

[Ogre]

Another margin trigger? Tesla removes "free" mobile connector - it's available for purchase for $400 in the Tesla store (apparently with additional adapters, per Elon).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1515439697425805315

A little of column A, a little of column B.

Much like Apple pulling the charger from the iPhone packaging, it is absolutely is wasteful if most people aren’t going to use it or need it. But it also absolutely helps margins as well.

It also means they can put it in a smaller box.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I think most people bought a tesla wall charger with their car. It's an expensive option people didn't have to go with since a dryer plug plus the mobile connector will do. However it appears that maybe over 90% of the people got the wall connector.

What? That's unbelievable. I thought most people were like me, I had a NEMA 14-50 plug put in my garage and for the last 4 years I've been charging my car using the mobile connector plugged into that. Is Elon saying I'm the only person on Earth who did that?

Also the mobile charging connector is Sold Out on Tesla's website. So are people going to be buying cars and there is no way to charge them because you can't order the connector right now?

 

[TN Mtn Man]

Predicting the future is difficult!

There are known knowns - for Tesla that is the current state of manufacturing, product roadmap (Cybertruck, etc.), competitor intentions.
There are known unknowns - for Tesla that is production ramp, new factory locations, when FSD is 10x better than humans, competitor execution.
There are unknown unknowns - a year ago Bot was not on anyone's radar, 3 years ago a global pandemic was not foreseen.

For Tesla several approaches have been used:

1. Steven Mark Ryan and others pick a few scenarios: bear, base, bull, superbull; assign probabilities to them, then compute the expected share price from those.

2. ARK Invest use a Monte Carlo model.

3. Scenario technique (I am not aware of anyone using this): work out multiple scenarios, e.g. FSD working -> Robotaxi -> Bot -> full AGI, with times to make each step, competitors, take up rates, margins, etc. as parameters of the scenario. T

In engineering, we call that a SWAG (scientific wild-a**ed guess). It doesn't mean the engineering, modeling or analysis isn't done. It's an admission that in spite of all that, the end result is an educated guess, based on our best assumptions of certain values and how things are expected to work.

 

[Singuy]

A little of column A, a little of column B.

Much like Apple pulling the charger from the iPhone packaging, it is absolutely is wasteful if most people aren’t going to use it or need it. But it also absolutely helps margins as well.

It also means they can put it in a smaller box.

Understand that Tesla should do this to reduce E-waste. However Apple is being super cheap there as their charging cable rubber disintegrate every year. It is the least reliable part of the product and they totally did it for the profits.

 

[Ogre]

What? That's unbelievable. I thought most people were like me, I had a NEMA 14-50 plug put in my garage and for the last 4 years I've been charging my car using the mobile connector plugged into that. Is Elon saying I'm the only person on Earth who did that?

Also the mobile charging connector is Sold Out on Tesla's website. So are people going to be buying cars and there is no way to charge them because you can't order the connector right now?

I’ve used the mobile charger plugged into 120v at home to charge my Model Y since I bought it. I have a Wall Charger but have not had the opportunity to install it yet.

I doubt Musk is lying about the statistics though. A lot of people think a wall charger is required. Lots of folks don’t have spare 220v outlets and installing a new 220v outlet is only marginally less expensive than the wall charger.

 

[Singuy]

What? That's unbelievable. I thought most people were like me, I had a NEMA 14-50 plug put in my garage and for the last 4 years I've been charging my car using the mobile connector plugged into that. Is Elon saying I'm the only person on Earth who did that?

Also the mobile charging connector is Sold Out on Tesla's website. So are people going to be buying cars and there is no way to charge them because you can't order the connector right now?

I think people who are not well verse with Teslas end up getting the wall charger. I almost got the wall charger until I found out it's not required. There's not much on youtube or from Tesla screaming at you that a NEMA 14-50 plug is the way to go.

 

[VValleyEV]

I think most people bought a tesla wall charger with their car. It's an expensive option people didn't have to go with since a dryer plug plus the mobile connector will do. However it appears that maybe over 90% of the people got the wall connector.

I purchased and pre-installed the Tesla wall-mounted charger before taking delivery of my first Tesla because I wanted the mobile adaptor to always be in the car to get emergency charging from somewhere. If I used that mobile adaptor to charge at home, I knew for sure I wouldn’t always remember to move it back to the car before taking a long drive or trip.

So I have almost never used the mobile adaptor, but I consider it essential. I did use it recently when parked for a few days at a friends house in rural Northern California. I used a trickle charge at 120v to make the next hop easier. I used it last fall in Garnett, Kansas where I booked a room in a little hotel/RV park combo. Was pretty cool, I had my own RV space with a picnic table and grill on one side and a 50a power supply on the other. And I could see the Tesla parked in that space from the room.

 

[MP3Mike]

It also means they can put it in a smaller box.

Your Tesla came in a box? I didn't get to do an unboxing on mine...

 

[Ogre]

Understand that Tesla should do this to reduce E-waste. However Apple is being super cheap there as their charging cable rubber disintegrate every year. It is the least reliable part of the product and they totally did it for the profits.

I think they still ship cables in with the phone. They stopped shipping the little charging bricks which last about 20 years (I’ve never had one fail).

I have a dozen or more lightning cables sitting around the house aftermarket and Apple both, so if my last phone didn’t come with one I didn’t even notice.

 

[Mengy]

Another margin trigger? Tesla removes "free" mobile connector - it's available for purchase for $400 in the Tesla store (apparently with additional adapters, per Elon).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1515439697425805315

My gut reaction is "wow that's a terrible move!"

But then I realize I too bought the wall charger and had it installed the week I bought my Model Y, and since then I've not used the mobile connector even once. Soooo.....

I could see myself using the mobile connector in campgrounds whey I car camp on long trips, but most people won't ever do that. Still, I'm glad my car came with one.