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

[StealthP3D]

After reading recent discussions regarding Tesla and PR departments, and after reading a lot of Gary Black (someone who I often find myself agreeing with these days), I think that he has a fair point that Tesla has NO PROBLEM with short term demand, but long term demand could take a hit through lack of PR.

Its REALLY hard to change 'common knowledge' about a brand. For example, I have no idea of skoda cars are well made, or reliable, or safe, but historically, I know they had a reputation for being laughable, cheap, fragile rubbish. They could spend billions trying to change my mind, but that first impression is real deep.

• Apple products are overpriced
• Chinese made goods are cheap and fall apart
• Germans are efficient and made reliable products
• Russian companies cannot be trusted.
• Porsches are fast
• Gucci is stylish

Maybe none of those things are true now? who knows! but these things have been so deep-set in my mind that its hard to change such opinions. Mostly these are opinions formed by PR and marketing. I've never even sat in a Porsche, but I know they are sexy and fast. How is this different to never having sat in a Tesla, but knowing they have panel gaps and catch fire?

I think Elon is basically one of those people who is so intelligent, he has reverse dunning-kruger, where he assumes everyone is intelligent, open-minded and analytical like he is. BUT THEY ARE NOT! In fact very few people are.

Advertising works, and PR works. I've never owned a Porsche, or anything by Gucci, but i've been 'primed' by PR and marketing to have opinions on them. Right now, Tesla is letting the rivals throw free punches at them in the media.
I agree that advertising right now would be a ludicrous waste of money, but PR is different. Way cheaper, and potentially more effective. PR to get facts out there for the media, in a hand-dandy format for their stories, and PR to get Teslas in to the hands of the movers and shakers and influencers.

We wouldn't need to care if Tesla stuck at 1 million car/year, but to hit 10 million a year you need to stop the deluge of bullshit about accidents and fires and emerald mine and so on.

There will be a time and a place for PR and it will come from the smallest and leanest PR department (relative to the size and value of the company) that the world has ever seen. Other PR departments will laugh nervously at the small size of Tesla's PR department, relative to Tesla's size and success. Currently, an "official" statement from the company, no matter how carefully worded, would only be used as a spring-board for more attacks. Every factual statement released by Tesla would be twisted and turned to further box Tesla in or to show how they were not adhering to their own plans or ideals. How their claimed past actions somehow diverged from this policy or ideal. Every statement Tesla made would spawn hundreds of new talking points, almost all of them negative and false. It would be completely counter-productive.

People that hate Tesla desperately wish the company would say more things they could twist and turn into negatives. They yearn for a Tesla PR department to play with and keep them busy. Instead, their wild claims and twisted lies and distortions are met with...wait for it....silence. That is a sad sound to these cretins, nothing is worse than being met with official silence, nothing to play off of, to make new headline without appearing silly, nothing to twist and turn into a negative as the company tries to defend itself. Silence!

That is why they say nothing at all and yet some people think the answer is for Tesla to release more official statements. Talk is cheap. Telsa and Elon Musk will continue to do more to fight climate change than any other individual or company in existence. They will not lead by talking, but by doing. This is becoming more and more apparent to those threatened by Musk-inspired disruptions who will continue to try to twist anything said by the company in a negative manner as long as they still think they have a chance of slowing them down. But before his cars become mainstream, before Tesla has a vehicle in every market segment, and before Tesla is no longer limited by the number of batteries but the number of buyers, Tesla will have a PR department.

By then, what Tesla says will be golden, no one will be able to deny Tesla has done more to combat climate change and improve the livability of cities, all while being continually attacked with ridiculous accusations. It will be obvious to all that Tesla was not like other companies who talk but do not act, who open their mouth but do not speak the truth. It will be obvious who is standing on the true high ground and who is hurling unsubstantiated insults from an ugly place. The money behind the attacks will dry up because there will be nothing of value left worth protecting. The whole idea that the reputational damage will be impossible to undo assumes that Tesla is like Ford, GM and VW. But it will be obvious they are not like them at all. By the time Tesla has a PR department, it will be less to protect their reputation and more of a public service.

Elon knows that, in a world filled with disinformation, people will naturally learn to look at what you do, not what you say. The early indications of this transformation are already in place. People no longer trust the things politicians, the media or large corporations tell them. They know if their lips are moving, it must be a lie. Or, at the very least, a coloring of the truth, and this is not getting better, it's getting worse. Tesla is not playing that game.

 

[Blue horseshoe]

What are the upcoming news dates for Tesla?

early July? - Q2 Produced/Delivered report?
7/20/22 - Q2 Earnings Announcement
8/4/2022 - Annual Shareholder Meeting
9/30/2022 - Tesla AI Day 2

Anything else of significance?

Stock split will likely occur end of august.. in the last split the shares gained 80% between announcement and the actual split of 5:1. Since we are doing a 3:1 I will be ok with seeing a 48% rise in share price.

 

[damonbrodie]

For each of the past three years their capital expenditures have been going up as as they have been building out their factories, etc.

2021 - $6.5b
2020 - $3.2b
2019 - $1.4b

in Q1 this year it was $1.7b

Any guesses where that will end up on an annualized basis for 2022? another $6.5b (ish)? From a capital expense perspective the big outlays would be for Cyber and Semi production and possibly more factories if they start any this year. Anything else big?

 

[Krugerrand]

Curious to get everyone's opinions as to whether the P&D Q2 numbers will have a positive or negative impact on the short term stock price.

Will they be taken in context of Shanghai shutdown or at face value? Knowing how fickle the market is I can see it going either way.

Dan

Yes. Definitely.

 

[damonbrodie]

Stock split will likely occur end of august.. in the last split the shares gained 80% between announcement and the actual split of 5:1. Since we are doing a 3:1 I will be ok with seeing a 48% rise in share price.

That would be cool, but I wouldn't expect any change in price simply due to the split alone.

 

[OrthoSurg]

That would be cool, but I wouldn't expect any change in price simply due to the split alone.

Just the FOMOing caused by it

 

[Eugene Ash]

That would be cool, but I wouldn't expect any change in price simply due to the split alone.

March 2020, is why. Juicy options executed! A lot of strong people in this board bought at that gut-wrenching bottom. Some held. These executed over the weekend

 

[The Accountant]

For each of the past three years their capital expenditures have been going up as as they have been building out their factories, etc.

2021 - $6.5b
2020 - $3.2b
2019 - $1.4b

in Q1 this year it was $1.7b

Any guesses where that will end up on an annualized basis for 2022? another $6.5b (ish)? From a capital expense perspective the big outlays would be for Cyber and Semi production and possibly more factories if they start any this year. Anything else big?

I am projecting $5.8B for 2022; however, Tesla has guided between $5B-$7B for each of the years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
See excerpt from their 2021 10K. I highlighted the last sentence.

Cash Flow and Capital Expenditure Trends
Our capital expenditures are typically difficult to project beyond the short term given the number and breadth of our core projects at any given time, and may further be impacted by uncertainties in future global market conditions. We are simultaneously ramping new products in the new Model S and Model X, Megapack and Solar Roof, ramping manufacturing facilities on three continents and piloting the development and manufacture of new battery cell technologies, and the pace of our capital spend may vary depending on overall priority among projects, the pace at which we meet milestones, production adjustments to and among our various products, increased capital efficiencies and the addition of new projects. Owing and subject to the foregoing as well as the pipeline of announced projects under development and all other continuing infrastructure growth, we currently expect our capital expenditures to be between $5.00 to $7.00 billion in 2022 and each of the next two fiscal years.

 

[Blue horseshoe]

That would be cool, but I wouldn't expect any change in price simply due to the split alone.

There will be a change in share price with the split. This is certain

 

[Favguy]

Decades ago, GM faced the same FUD, in an environment where creating and distributing FUD was much harder. ONE anti-capitalist nut wrote a book called "Unsafe at any Speed" attacking the Chevrolet Corvair. A car that was as "safe" as any vehicle of it's time. GM tried to counter, with their massive PR and marketing departments. It did no good. Later GM built poor quality cars compared to their Japanese competition. No advertising or PR budget overcame that. Now we have Jim Cramer and POTUS singing the praises of GM, along with that same PR department. Yet they still shipped a total of ~450 EVs last quarter, most of them some of the worst on the market. Not sure I see the advantage of spending $millions on advertising when you don't have a good product.

The nut was Ralph Nader. Years before he tried the same hit piece with the original VW Bug. In fairness, he was at least partly right, both designs had unconventional handling dynamics that were more dangerous in the hands of less capable drivers!

 

[Usain]

ONE anti-capitalist nut wrote a book called "Unsafe at any Speed" attacking the Chevrolet Corvair.

Only one chapter of that book talked about the Corvair.

That anti-capitalist nut, Ralph Nader, documented numerous practices by the auto industry that put profits over safety. Are you an anti-capitalist if you advocate for basic safety features like seat belts?

Elon has often talked about how it is unethical to equip his cars with anything but the most advanced safety features. Tesla goes the extra mile to improve safety, even at the expense of profits.

Tesla has the same philosophy as Nader and I'm proud to invest in a company that truly puts safety first.

 

[unk45]

The nut was Ralph Nader. Years before he tried the same hit piece the original VW Bug. In fairness, he was at least partly right, both designs had unconventional handling dynamics that were more dangerous in the hands of less capable drivers!

...or more experienced drivers. Swing axles are inherently unstable but they were CHEAP. Remember the VW technology was cheap car 1930's. For the Corvair no excuse. I still am grateful that I never charted either one even though I drove both with unwise enthusiasm. The Corvair Monza Spyder was enormous fun, the one I did not crash soon was crashed by the former owner; former because he did not survive.

The 2020 equivalent might be skipping the exotic quality control and BMS on Lithium ion batteries, just depend on the vendor (as in B787, Chevrolet Bolt; (dis)honorable mention to Hyundai, Porsche et al).

This ought to remind us of the enormous value we get from the Tesla safety obsession. One can still kill oneself in one but really must try very hard to do it.

 

[Ogre]

For those of you in or around the New Orleans area. Tesla's Autopilot team is there at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference. They appear to have brought the Cybertruck with them.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1539265765051875328

Seems like the Cybertruck is at every event Tesla attends now. Nice to see my little big shiny buddy hogging the spotlight.

 

[thesmokingman]

Decades ago, GM faced the same FUD, in an environment where creating and distributing FUD was much harder. ONE anti-capitalist nut wrote a book called "Unsafe at any Speed" attacking the Chevrolet Corvair. A car that was as "safe" as any vehicle of it's time. GM tried to counter, with their massive PR and marketing departments. It did no good. Later GM built poor quality cars compared to their Japanese competition. No advertising or PR budget overcame that. Now we have Jim Cramer and POTUS singing the praises of GM, along with that same PR department. Yet they still shipped a total of ~450 EVs last quarter, most of them some of the worst on the market. Not sure I see the advantage of spending $millions on advertising when you don't have a good product.

That was really a twisted way to distort what happened.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

in a world filled with disinformation, people will naturally learn to look at what you do, not what you say.

I wish this was true but too much damn life experience has taught me differently. People believe what makes them feel good and they have very short memories when their source is proven wrong.

 

[ZachF]

This stock is bussin fam, no cap.

 

[Ogre]

This stock is bussin fam, no cap.

Oh indeed, tearing it up. We set a new 11 day High. I'm getting heady.

 

[Xd85]

Oh indeed, tearing it up. We set a new 11 day High. I'm getting heady.

So 775 pre- “super bad feeling job cuts” is the target?

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Oh indeed, tearing it up. We set a new 11 day High. I'm getting heady.

Before we get too excited...reality is:

$TSLA +10.5%
$RIVN + 12.5%

 

[damonbrodie]

So 775 pre- “super bad feeling job cuts” is the target?

target for what time frame?