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

[Tommy O]

AWD is almost universally a safer vehicle, especially in inclement weather. Pretty sure it fits with their mantra of making the safest possible vehicles.

Gary black* has been pushing for tesla to market itself as the safest brand out there. I haven’t done exhaustive research on the safety of tesla, but sure damn seems like they might make the safest cars on the road. I’m aware of the crash stats, autopilot stats, and many anecdotes.

“I can’t believe you’re alive, much less barely injured” seems to be a frequently reported phrase from EMS, according to tesla crash survivors.

The tesla insurance feedback loop, with OTA updates doing things like pre-tensioning seatbelts before imminent crashes, reducing personal injury costs, is insane!!!

*gary black is who he is. I think he’s honest about his opinions, even if wrong sometimes. The honesty is more important to me. I think he’s at least directionally right in his suggestion for tesla to market the safety of their cars.

 

[Ogre]

This new telescope…

 

[shrspeedblade]

Gary black* has been pushing for tesla to market itself as the safest brand out there. I haven’t done exhaustive research on the safety of tesla, but sure damn seems like they might make the safest cars on the road. I’m aware of the crash stats, autopilot stats, and many anecdotes.

“I can’t believe you’re alive, much less barely injured” seems to be a frequently reported phrase from EMS, according to tesla crash survivors.

The tesla insurance feedback loop, with OTA updates doing things like pre-tensioning seatbelts before imminent crashes, reducing personal injury costs, is insane!!!

*gary black is who he is. I think he’s honest about his opinions, even if wrong sometimes. The honesty is more important to me. I think he’s at least directionally right in his suggestion for tesla to market the safety of their cars.

Sadly I know something about that from a couple weeks ago. F250 truck tried to zip around me at a bad moment on a residential street. I walked away.

202k miles. I wanted to be one of the first to 300k in a model 3! After doing the math, I already ordered my next model 3 but may have to make a $250 donation to third quarter and opt for a used one. As much as I drive I can’t afford NOT to drive a Tesla. Probably some other good reasons as well …

 

[JusRelax]

View attachment 827658
Sadly I know something about that from a couple weeks ago. F250 truck tried to zip around me at a bad moment on a residential street. I walked away.

202k miles. I wanted to be one of the first to 300k in a model 3! After doing the math, I already ordered my next model 3 but may have to make a $250 donation to third quarter and opt for a used one. As much as I drive I can’t afford NOT to drive a Tesla. Probably some other good reasons as well …

Sorry for your loss, but so glad that the Tesla kept you safe, like it should.

 

[Blue horseshoe]

Gary black* has been pushing for tesla to market itself as the safest brand out there. I haven’t done exhaustive research on the safety of tesla, but sure damn seems like they might make the safest cars on the road. I’m aware of the crash stats, autopilot stats, and many anecdotes.

“I can’t believe you’re alive, much less barely injured” seems to be a frequently reported phrase from EMS, according to tesla crash survivors.

The tesla insurance feedback loop, with OTA updates doing things like pre-tensioning seatbelts before imminent crashes, reducing personal injury costs, is insane!!!

*gary black is who he is. I think he’s honest about his opinions, even if wrong sometimes. The honesty is more important to me. I think he’s at least directionally right in his suggestion for tesla to market the safety of their cars.

If you think of this in terms of return on investment it makes sense why Tesla is not spending money on marketing/advertising in this way.

Tesla is currently production constrained with wait times going into next year for some models. Cars are not sitting in lots for months waiting to be sold.

Money spent on marketing/advertising would not increase sales. If anything it increases demand and increases wait times.

Therefore it is not reasonable to spend money in this way.. currently.

However, if FSD goes wide release with more revenue recognition there is a reasonable path to spending on marketing/advertising. If such spending increases awareness AND measurably increases FSD take rate, then there's positive return on investment and this spending would make sense.

Once FSD goes wide release and if take rate is below 50% I expect we will see some spend on FSD focused marketing/advertising. My two cents.

 

[dhanson865]

In case folks on here don't know... Central Texas and the area where Giga Texas is, is suffering through a heatwave, which in 2022 means 110°F/43°C yesterday, 109°F/42°C today and so on. The local energy provider has been attempting to prepare us. Hopefully production at Giga Texas will not be affected.

 

[shrspeedblade]

If you think of this in terms of return on investment it makes sense why Tesla is not spending money on marketing/advertising in this way.

Tesla is currently production constrained with wait times going into next year for some models. Cars are not sitting in lots for months waiting to be sold.

Money spent on marketing/advertising would not increase sales. If anything it increases demand and increases wait times.

Therefore it is not reasonable to spend money in this way.. currently.

However, if FSD goes wide release with more revenue recognition there is a reasonable path to spending on marketing/advertising. If such spending increases awareness AND measurably increases FSD take rate, then there's positive return on investment and this spending would make sense.

Once FSD goes wide release and if take rate is below 50% I expect we will see some spend on FSD focused marketing/advertising. My two cents.

As somebody who has been thrust neck deep into it right now, the used Tesla market is nuts and the best value out there are the new ones, at least for the 3 and the Y, IF you can wait for delivery! The only beneficial aspect to advertising would be to inform and improve the perception of EVs, which the other companies are starting to do anyway, and maybe somewhat counter Elon's *cough* questionable public activities.

One informative aspect is I'm driving a LFP standard range car from Hertz right now, and for most people it's pretty ideal, especially when you consider the battery chemistry and its higher tolerance to full charging, etc. If they can get them back to $35k only the ignorant or defiant would go with something else. Funny but true for me even coming from a LR RWD 3 it feels kind of slow- meaning it's about as fast as my old BMW E36 M3 and Elon's ruined me for everything else. Thus I ordered a M3P. Screw U Elon!

 

[Tommy O]

Sadly I know something about that from a couple weeks ago. F250 truck tried to zip around me at a bad moment on a residential street. I walked away.

That’s scary. Glad you’re okay.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I feel like Troy was closer than your projections for q2, and you criticized his numbers all quarter.

And the Shanghai Covid lockdowns were an ever evolving situation……so not really.

Go back into 2021 and early 2022 and the situation changes drastically. Somehow people forget Troy was off over 10% for Q4 2021……and no, adjusting your numbers higher in the final 2 weeks doesn’t count. Sorry

 

[Tommy O]

Go back into 2021 and early 2022 and the situation changes drastically. Somehow people forget Troy was off over 10% for Q4 2021……and no, adjusting your numbers higher in the final 2 weeks doesn’t count. Sorry

Going to sound like a broken record here after defending Gary, but I like Troy because he’s pretty open about his motivations.

That said, he was only right for Q2 2022 because he was so wrong about S/X and 3/Y and they just happened to cancel each other out.

 

[Tony73]

And the Shanghai Covid lockdowns were an ever evolving situation……so not really.

Go back into 2021 and early 2022 and the situation changes drastically. Somehow people forget Troy was off over 10% for Q4 2021……and no, adjusting your numbers higher in the final 2 weeks doesn’t count. Sorry

Troy’s error rate for Q4 2021 was -3.1%. At least that’s what it says on his Twitter page.
He tends to err on the side of the caution which is a good thing. From the error stats at the top of his Twitter page, he has consistently come in under the actual numbers by less than 3%.
Consistency is what his patreon subscribers pay for.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Troy’s error rate for Q4 2021 was -3.1%. At least that’s what it says on his Twitter page.
He tends to err on the side of the caution which is a good thing. From the error stats at the top of his Twitter page, he has consistently come in under the actual numbers by less than 3%.
Consistency is what his patreon subscribers pay for.

He upped his delivery estimate by 20k in the final week of Q4. So no, he wasn’t 3.1%. I don’t consider being off by 10-15% for most of the quarter being accurate.

I’ll freely admit I was off for Q2 because I was going off of the information that was constantly changing and I drastically overestimated Fremonts ability to pick up the slack

 

[MrMoo]

He upped his delivery estimate by 20k in the final week of Q4. So no, he wasn’t 3.1%. I don’t consider being off by 10-15% for most of the quarter being accurate.

I’ll freely admit I was off for Q2 because I was going off of the information that was constantly changing and I drastically overestimated Fremonts ability to pick up the slack

How dare he up his numbers by 20k in the final week of Q4. He should at least be doing this a month or two in advance.

 

[Thekiwi]

And the Shanghai Covid lockdowns were an ever evolving situation……so not really.

Go back into 2021 and early 2022 and the situation changes drastically. Somehow people forget Troy was off over 10% for Q4 2021……and no, adjusting your numbers higher in the final 2 weeks doesn’t count. Sorry

Maybe a tad of humility is in order before you start throwing around shade.

After the Shanghai shutdown last quarter, in the post linked below you were very critical of Troys estimates as being way lower than your own estimate. Needless to say, Troy was far closer with his figures than you were.

To sum it up, I see Q2's deliveries coming in 300-315k based on no further shutdowns out of Giga Shanghai. The estimates out there of 270-280k make zero sense to me.

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

Selling options has little risk, everything is defined up-front, you know the premium you receive, you know what price your shares will be sold at, and with sold options you can always roll, unlike bought options - which are a totally different beast OK, on the first page of the thread you...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Xepa777]

There's a pattern of bashing and branding people permanently who bring up pessemistic viewpoints.

1. Fred (because of some FUD in 2017-ish I gather and catalyzed from him being salty about not getting free roadsters anymore?)
2. Gary (because he poo poos some Tesla viewpoints like FSD and Bitcoin)
3. Troy (because he's posted bear-ish guidance, r/tslalounge especially hates that dude)
4. Cathie because ark sold tesla for stocks like teledoc

It's disheartening to see. I work in crypto so I see this type of behavior amped to an extreme. And yes, there's always individual moments you can point out where somoene has made a wrong call / thought / personality. (I can see it now, "Oh no Xepa Gary that one time said XYZ ridiculous comment and now I label him an idiot no true Tesla investor should seriously follow, oh Troy uses no statistical regression formulas or data science so I hate his forecasts because of that, so forth and so forth)...but net net there's INCREDIBLE bias overall. It's like going to a political forum, where the "other side" is straight up like an enemy (can even see it leak in the Russia/Ukraine thread, or hell the hate against the people on the Tesla Options thread).

I can point to so many pro-Tesla people who were wayyy off whether it's on forecasts (Mayur, James Stephenson, even Rob though he sounds super logical + flat + articulate when he talks so some of his over-zealous optimism is easily forgiven/forgotten), technology (Douma), and roadmap (Gali for a period of time until his moonshot mondays went off the deep end,
Warren Redlich who I don't know how anyone can take that dude seriously, SMR).

Look at my comments (probably including this one) and the people who will just hail down "dislikes" because I dare to bring this up. This IS a Tesla website, so you gotta expect it'll happen. I just hope most people here can filter through the lens of their own discerning eyes (yes, NOTHING said here is financial advice).

It's why I personally peruse r/selfdriving, the anti-elon threads on r/technology + r/space and elsewhere (NOT r/RealTesla as it's is just straight up bad).

What I do like about reddit is the "remind" notification feature you can set for 1 or more years out. TMC should really implement a feature like that as well. Time is the ultimate arbitrator of debates.

 

[Troy]

That said, he was only right for Q2 2022 because he was so wrong about S/X and 3/Y and they just happened to cancel each other out.

I was off by only +1.5% for Model 3/Y production and +0.3% for Model 3/Y deliveries. You can see the details for Q2 2022 here. I'm not sure "so wrong" is a fair description for Model 3/Y.

How dare he up his numbers by 20k in the final week of Q4. He should at least be doing this a month or two in advance.

Here is what happened in Q4 2021. I upped my estimate in the final week by 10K, not 20K. This was the quarter when analysts missed the boat because there was a big jump in production at Fremont. Fremont production was 108,170 in Q2 2021 and 108,759 in Q3 2021. Then it jumped to 126,610 in Q4 2021. That's an 18K increase. I saw the numbers increase but I could have been quicker. Some of these updates were not posted on Twitter.

The drop to 276K on 13 Dec was because the China November production number had just been released and it was lower than expected. November came in at 56,917. Later we would find out that December was 66,759.

 

[Drezil]

Tesla broke below $700 in Europe. Currently $695.
Looks like another rough day

 

[insaneoctane]

View attachment 827658
Sadly I know something about that from a couple weeks ago. F250 truck tried to zip around me at a bad moment on a residential street. I walked away.

202k miles. I wanted to be one of the first to 300k in a model 3! After doing the math, I already ordered my next model 3 but may have to make a $250 donation to third quarter and opt for a used one. As much as I drive I can’t afford NOT to drive a Tesla. Probably some other good reasons as well …

Please share (or PM) what insurance offers for M3 LR with 202k miles...very curious.

 

[PKEllefsen]

Does this look like a fairly decent split between the different models?

 

[petit_bateau]

Whilst I think there is a lot of value being developed in FSD, I don't think it will be monetised via an autonomous taxi service anytime soon. That is why I have no value attributed to a taxi service in my own calculations.

Those of you who do have a significant (material) value attributed to an autonomous taxi service might find it interesting to read the expose of Uber's business practices and regulatory/competition responses that has started surfacing. When something (Uber) looks too good to be true, it probably isn't true - or at least isn't sustainable. The same underlying issue will likely affect any rapid step-change in robotic/autonomous labour substitution as the social backlash will be substantial. Even where the benefits are plentiful societies only have a limited absorbtive capacity for change.

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