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

[WADan]

It was last week's rise in the stock market that was probably more of an anomaly. With persistently high worldwide inflation, with an imminent official recession, there is no real reason for the market to not be bearish. For a true change in sentiment on the stock market, the inflation has to drop, for that to happen oil has to drop significantly (say to 70-80 dollars per barrel). Oil price should drop once recession hits in full force, perhaps in a few months.

Am waiting with couch cash for more TSLA for that, in a very naive and misguided belief I will be able to time the bottom

I know dollar cost averaging is the way to go, and in general I practice it. However, all these macro headwinds have me spooked a bit, compounded by both the Ukraine war and a lack of vision/long term economic policies from the governing bodies. So am now keeping cash just in case things go much more downhill than anticipated.

Also, on a more sinister level, I am located in the eastern part of EU, and to be honest, here one can never be sure if the Ukraine war will spill over, with Russia attacking its formed Soviet Union minions - if that happens it is a very good policy to have cash in hand, so I can get my family out west.

I feel the same. I think we are just at the beginning of the recession. When the statistics actually confirm it, the recession is already far along as the statistics are typically lagging indicators. My ROTH gun is loaded, but I am not ready to pull the trigger. Nobody knows when the bottom is!

 

[jw934]

Bloomberg - (link to article that's behind a paywall)

EU Countries Uphold Phaseout of New Cars Emissions by 2035​

EU Countries Uphold Phaseout of New Cars Emissions by 2035
European governments reach agreement on set of climate laws
Deal includes stronger carbon market, improved price controls

ByJohn Ainger and Ewa Krukowska

June 28, 2022, 8:19 PM EDT
Updated onJune 28, 2022, 9:43 PM EDT

European Union countries endorsed a push to eliminate carbon emissions from new cars by 2035, effectively heralding the end of the era of the internal combustion engine.

Environment ministers struck a deal on the proposal after Italy, home to Ferrari NV and Automobili Lamborghini SpA, gave up demands for a five-year delay in the EU’s plan for automakers to clean up their fleet. Italian Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani told his counterparts earlier on Tuesday he was “satisfied” with a compromise proposed by Germany that could enable the use of carbon-neutral fuels after 2035.

------------------------------------------------------

This is going to cause some serious drop in legacy automakers' stock price in the morning is my guess, or maybe not.
A "stronger carbon market" sounds beneficial to Tesla.

 

[Singuy]

I feel the same. I think we are just at the beginning of the recession. When the statistics actually confirm it, the recession is already far along as the statistics are typically lagging indicators. My ROTH gun is loaded, but I am not ready to pull the trigger. Nobody knows when the bottom is!

This recession will be gone as soon as all the ports are working, China stop randomly shut down, chips are of abundance, and the entire world(minus Ukraine) goes back to full production. GDP is a measure of goods produced and services for a country. Key word here is GOODS PRODUCED. Supply chain disruption is the culprit for a decrease in goods produced and high inflation. Once this is restored, GDP will shoot up.

I don't know why people are freaking out as if the supply chain will never be restored back to pre disruptive levels. If this is your belief then inflation is not transitory and we are in the beginning of a major recession. I'm on the other side believing this will all blow over in a few months(and things already massively improved). Third quarter GDP will correlate what Tesla Q3 production will be. If you think it's flat or negative compared to Q2, then recession continues.

 

[FlatSix911]

BULLISH !!
Have people forgotten?
Remember what happened the last time Tesla focused on cutting costs?

Cut Costs in May:
View attachment 822392

Stock Soars in October:
View attachment 822400

. . . and there was a lot of doom and gloom at the time. Things were so desperate at Tesla that employees were bringing in their own toilet paper to work. Tesla was close to bankruptcy, etc.

More information here on the AP staff reductions.

Tesla Autopilot workers confirm mass layoff in San Mateo office

Tesla’s mass layoffs reached the Autopilot team in San Mateo. Autopilot workers have started posting the news on LinkedIn.

www.teslarati.com

"Tesla’s mass layoffs reached the Autopilot team in San Mateo. Autopilot workers have started posting the news on LinkedIn.
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Tesla laid off about 200 Autopilot workers from its San Mateo office.
San Mateo had around 350 employees before the recent layoffs. Tesla transferred some of the San Mateo staff to a nearby facility in previous weeks."

 

[DarkandStormy]

BULLISH !!
Have people forgotten?
Remember what happened the last time Tesla focused on cutting costs?

Cut Costs in May:
View attachment 822392

Stock Soars in October:
View attachment 822400

. . . and there was a lot of doom and gloom at the time. Things were so desperate at Tesla that employees were bringing in their own toilet paper to work. Tesla was close to bankruptcy, etc.

So you're saying Tesla is close to bankruptcy again?

 

[Gigapress]

This is their official page for it

Mobileye REM™ - Road Experience Management

Mobileye REM™ - Road Experience Management

www.mobileye.com

You can find press releases via Google where they discuss data collection from various brands and from fleet vehicles etc. They say they have 200 petabytes of data collected over the last 25 years.

Mobileye is the originator of all this stuff and their hardware is still what powers AP1

I know you just recently showed up here to contribute your “contrarian voice” so here’s some help.

@Discoducky worked at Tesla on the Autopilot engineering team in 2014 and 2015 which was the Mobileye AP1 era. Lecturing him on how it works is a bad look, especially when you don’t understand the subject matter yourself.

Yes, Mobileye technically sends back some fleet data from consumer vehicles but it’s not AI training data which is what was being discussed. They’re using it to form a big map.

 

[Blue horseshoe]

Using price to sales valuation for q2 production if we come in at 240k produced vs 260k produced here is the share price estimates:

With our recent low share price we have a 10.3 price to sales ratio.

P/S of 10.3 has a price range of $651-$684 using the above production numbers

A P/S of 15 has a price range of $947-$997

This of course ignores future growth. VW's CEO recently noted chip shortages appear to be easing and he expects the second half of 2022 to see strong growth. I think this bodes well for Tesla's growth prospects. I continue to remain bullish on Tesla despite how this year has progressed for the share price.

 

[OrthoSurg]

This recession will be gone as soon as all the ports are working, China stop randomly shut down, chips are of abundance, and the entire world(minus Ukraine) goes back to full production. GDP is a measure of goods produced and services for a country. Key word here is GOODS PRODUCED. Supply chain disruption is the culprit for a decrease in goods produced and high inflation. Once this is restored, GDP will shoot up.

I don't know why people are freaking out as if the supply chain will never be restored back to pre disruptive levels. If this is your belief then inflation is not transitory and we are in the beginning of a major recession. I'm on the other side believing this will all blow over in a few months(and things already massively improved). Third quarter GDP will correlate what Tesla Q3 production will be. If you think it's flat or negative compared to Q2, then recession continues.

One thing people who have went to previous recessions have to explain to me.
If the market is pricing in a likelihood of recession and has dropped accordingly, if the market is forward looking, if the market sees that supply chain issues to resolve in the future, is the market going to go down until we have an official growth during a quarter or it will go up before since it’s forward looking?

 

[woodisgood]

I know you just recently showed up here to contribute your “contrarian voice” so here’s some help.

@Discoducky worked at Tesla on the Autopilot engineering team in 2014 and 2015 which was the Mobileye AP1 era. Lecturing him on how it works is a bad look, especially when you don’t understand the subject matter yourself.

It’s more fun when you’re less helpful.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

One thing people who have went to previous recessions have to explain to me.
If the market is pricing in a likelihood of recession and has dropped accordingly, if the market is forward looking, if the market sees that supply chain issues to resolve in the future, is the market going to go down until we have an official growth during a quarter or it will go up before since it’s forward looking?

Often times the market bottoms before the actual recession happens. Now sometimes that bottoming process can take months, but the market usually sells off beforehand and how “bad” the recession ends up being determines how quickly the market recovers

 

[JimS]

It's not whether Telsa currently competes solely on price, apparently, right now they don't have to in order to take increasingly large chunks out of ICE sales. Consumers would not be paying more if the ICE car was comparable. We know ICE SUV's are inferior in just about every metric except for range. Even in that metric the Tesla wins if measured by the average range available each morning when you wake up.

Face it, the Tesla SUV's offer superior value or they would not be wiping out big swaths of the market when those ICE SUV's cost less. Car buyers are not stupid. Value does not always equal the lowest price, it's how much you get for your money. You will never convince me that in 2022 an ICE SUV is a better value for most people compared to an EV. Resale value on those ICE SUV's is really going to be in the dumpster, once the chip shortage has eased.

You can pay now, or you can pay later. There is no free lunch. ICE cars are over-priced crap. And don't be fooled by the archaic safety ratings. If ICE SUV's were as safe as you say, they would not be crashing, rolling over, catching fire, etc. and killing their occupants by the thousands every year. That could be your family. Tesla engineers go beyond a 5-star safety rating that is gamed by greedy and short-sighted car makers. Tesla has reams of real-world data to constantly improve the actual safety while other manufacturer's engineer to the synthetic safety ratings.

Teslas are over-priced, (and worth every penny!) Excellent business model.

 

[Ogre]

Teslas are over-priced, (and worth every penny!) Excellent business model.

In my experience, most good products appear “overpriced” And very few bargain products are significantly better value in the long term.

There are also plenty of overpriced products which are just lipstick on a pig too. But it’s pretty uncommon for truly good products to be cheap. One exception which comes to mind is the 1980s era Hondas. Even that didn’t last very long.

 

[CLK350]

Some Thoughts About My Upcoming Interview With Elon Musk

(Includes a preview)

gettingstoned.substack.com

Hopefully she won't mind - saving you all a few clicks - and saving /archiving just in case

... <snip> (Please do click the URL link to her Substack if you can, fun side details about that interview )

...
Elon opened the fudge I'd brought him from Bucc-ees, and a few horns honked in the background as we were in a factory. So I apologize in advance for those minor glitches. Note to self, air, and paper can be very loud.

What We Talked About

I had a lot of questions and although we didn’t get through them all, he invited me back to finish asking him at another time so there will eventually be a part 2. Here’s what we talked about in this episode:

What the light of consciousness itself meant to him. He always talks about it but what is it to him?

His thoughts on what would happen to the light of consciousness if/when humanity goes extinct. What he's looking for in the first few people who go to Mars. The role Starlink has played and will continue to play in disaster relief. The Musk Foundation and its role in disaster relief, XPRIZE, and carbon capture (here I brought up Project Vesta, peridot, and other companies using lab-grown diamonds as a form of carbon capture.)

We also talked about his favorite accomplishment of the Musk Foundation so far although he emphasized that there is a lot of work to be done and that it's hard to spend the money in a way that is well spent--that has the highest impact.

Other topics we spoke about included the declining birthrate, poverty as a cause (we differed in opinion on that), and one key solution to solving poverty and I agreed with him on that. That solution is literacy. I am very fortunate that my mother taught me how to read at a young age. The library was my safe place as a child and I love to read. However, I know people who don't know how to read or write and they are in my age group.

The education system has failed so many here. I remember being in a class where impatient teachers would force students to struggle to read out loud. And she would impatiently correct them if they couldn't read the word fast enough. Many of my classmates hated books and reading. I hated math and sciences--we hate what we don't understand and find confusing especially if we are being taught these subjects by someone who isn't passionate about their job.

I digress. Elon also shared some updates for Tesla’s legal and justice department (good news for Tesla) and we spoke of Tesla Insurance, my hope that it will come to Louisiana soon since we have the highest average cost of insurance in the nation, mining, Tesla Energy's impact with ERCOT and the Texas grid (I got tongue-tied. Texla.) And we briefly touched upon AI and general intelligence.

Elon emphasized that he has no desire for Tesla to go into the mining industry. He made that super clear to me and I just wanted to emphasize that for anyone curious or even hopeful.

Meeting Him and the Adventures I Experienced Along the Journey​

​

Boy, was this trip an adventure? Already my flight home is delayed by a day. But at least, for now, I am not stranded in Dallas again. Fortunately, I used to live in Dallas. I was married there and this was my first time back since the hell I went thru (the hell that eventually let me to Elon, oddly) and it was surreal. I have friends and family there and one of them picked me up from the airport and drove me to Austin.

And since this was Elon’s birthday weekend, I wanted to get him something nice. I had already gotten him some Cafe du Monde from the Baton Rouge Airport (they have a cute little Louisiana grocery section in their store). I picked up some fudge from Bucc-ees along the way and made a stop at Nature’s Treasures.

I got him a couple of nice things from there and one of the clerks also bought him a small gift (a small pyrite specimen) and gave me a discount when I told them who I was interviewing. So, shout out to Nature’s Treasures in Austin for the love. Gail’s daughter designed a cute tee shirt and they also gave him some goodies.

Meeting Elon Musk and experiencing his kindness in person made the flight adventures worth it. Despite the audio glitches, I hope you all enjoy the podcast.

And thank you, Elon Musk, for joining me. For part two, I’m going to ask you about your favorite mineral, pyrite—among other things.

The interview drops July 1, 2022.​

​

The interview will be available on my website, www.gettingstoned.online, and will also be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Here’s a quick preview with Elon talking about Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3.

 

[Discoducky]

So let's say we are in a recession, how does that negativity impact Tesla *exactly*?

This hand wringing while having incredible demand is odd.

 

[mars_or_bust]

This recession will be gone as soon as all the ports are working, China stop randomly shut down, chips are of abundance, and the entire world(minus Ukraine) goes back to full production. GDP is a measure of goods produced and services for a country. Key word here is GOODS PRODUCED. Supply chain disruption is the culprit for a decrease in goods produced and high inflation. Once this is restored, GDP will shoot up.

I don't know why people are freaking out as if the supply chain will never be restored back to pre disruptive levels. If this is your belief then inflation is not transitory and we are in the beginning of a major recession. I'm on the other side believing this will all blow over in a few months(and things already massively improved). Third quarter GDP will correlate what Tesla Q3 production will be. If you think it's flat or negative compared to Q2, then recession continues.

How I hope you are right.

 

[Beltsbear]

On the ground at Southampton. Tesla customer delivery area is open and active at 7:00 am London time. Model Y with hatch open can be seen along with a customer tent . I saw one customer drive off in the few minutes I was nearby. Car carriers were loading up in another lot.

 

[Ohmster]

I think much of the wide variation in perspectives about how capable FSD is (or isn't) is due to the set speed. Those who set a speed equal to or lower than the speed limit will have much better results than those who set it for 5 or 10 mph over. A lot of this comes down to expectations. FSD is still very much a beginning driver and expecting it to drive considerably faster than the speed limit at this point sets it up for failure.

I set to 5mph less than posted speed limit. In my opinion, FSD drives like a speed freak. Biggest problem with it is inconsistency. One second I am astounded by its brilliance, the next I’m frantically disengaging to save me/car/other from an imbecilic move.

• Quite sparse, even cheap-feeling interior for the high-end models compared to other brands.

Whole heartedly disagree. Love the interiors. Tesla has done an admirable job of improving them. The difference between our ‘17 S&X and our ‘22 S&Y is astounding. Sparse is minimalist. And that is elegance. Making things simple is hard.

This is awful news. I've been away for 36 hours and we lose one of our most valuable contributors? WTH. I really hope this is not permanent. His experience and perspective were unique, detailed and definitely enriched our discourse. A shame.

Agreed. Miss him already.

 

[Ohmster]

Nice start. Read elsewhere that the costs including charging are paid off first week of every month.

15,000 Tesla vehicles are already in the hands of Uber drivers through Hertz deal

Uber announced that 15,000 Tesla vehicles are already in the hands of its drivers in more than 30 US cities...

electrek.co

 

[CorneliusXX]

Re @Ogre's post Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable


View attachment 822372

Looking up @CorneliusXX 's post I get a 404 - was that post deleted, and if so what was it - why deleted - or if wrong link can someone (mod?) correct pls

View attachment 822374

I deleted it as I thought it was misleading/waste of time after @Ogre pointed out that my thought had already been debunked by Joanna. It was a low effort post and I hadn't done the background reading.

 

[hobbes]

Tesla Update - Your Model Y collection is scheduled for 9:00 PM on Thursday 30 June at Horizon Cruise Terminal, Southampton, SO15 1AW. You must bring a valid driving licence and ensure appropriate insurance cover is in place. If trading in a vehicle, please bring the V5c and both keys, and remove all personal belongings from the vehicle before entering the terminal.

Arriving by car? Enter at Dock Gate 10 and turn right at the roundabout and follow the left-hand lane to Horizon Cruise Terminal. Arriving by train? The closest train station is Southampton Central Station - 12 mins by foot and 4 mins by taxi to Horizon Terminal.

We cannot guarantee the level of charge on your car. Your collection will be self-service, so download the Tesla app at ts.la/app to learn about your Model Y. Not ready for your Model Y or need help? Reply here.

Would be cool if you could document your pickup (pics/video)! Thanks