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

[TheTalkingMule]

Won't know the Friday OI for $950c until 7am, but it feels like keeping SP below that is the absolute priority and volume's been so low it should be easy enough.

Then of course any MM shenanigans for this week need to be unwound Mon/Tues ahead of the split Wednesday.

Fireworks should be Monday, but these clowns have had plenty of time(and extra float from Elon) to formulate a plan to deal with the split. Maybe they hold off covering longer than expected, hoping for folks to lose faith in a pop?

We shall see.

 

[geometro]

I’d love a rally, but my expectations are tempered as the macro environment is very different now than two years ago. Seems like that’s a bigger factor/cloud currently for all stocks.

 

[larmor]

I’d love a rally, but my expectations are tempered as the macro environment is very different now than two years ago. Seems like that’s a bigger factor/cloud currently for all stocks.

Also would temper expectations as well, since tesla has had continual yoy increase in margins, and persistent profit in setting of increased production and sales during a world wide shortage of parts. And we all know that the market does not put a value on a company that has booked profits continually...

 

[Gigapress]

Rehash:
'Tailgate' isn't the differentiator, tailgate isn't even defined. Though in common usage, it's a hatch that opens downward.
The SUV/ station wagon difference is they are sub categories of light truck vs passenger vehicles (mutually exclusively).
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

Also, I think the Rob interpretation is off. This is going in the tax code so, by default, Secretary referes to 'of the Treasury'. Sec of Labor and Sec of Transportation are both fully named in the amendment.

You linked the correct sections, thanks. My post from last week missed the real definition.

I also just verified the secretary thing. The Secretary of the Treasury is who will decide what vehicle classification standards to use, not the Secretary of Tranportation as I had mistakenly assumed.

The EV tax credit update is an amendment to Title 26 U.S. Code § 30D. Title 26 is indeed for taxes (Internal Revenue Code).

Subtitle F Procedure and Administration —> Chapter 80 General Rules —> Subchapter A Application of Internal Revenue Laws —> § 7801 - Authority of Department of the Treasury states:

(a)Powers and duties of Secretary
(1)In general
Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, the administration and enforcement of this title shall be performed by or under the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Link

That being said, my intuition says that the Treasury will go with the EPA definitions for vehicle classifications. If they choose some other scheme, it’s possible the Model Y would be excluded.

 

[thesmokingman]

Regarding the Dan O’Dowd child mannequin test…if we give the benefit of the doubt and say FSD was actually activated and the result wasn’t fraudulent.

The FSD software has to decide how to maximize safety. Slamming on the brakes is hazardous, but it is worthwhile if, for instance, a child is directly in the path of the car. It is detrimental to safety to do a hard stop if, for example, a harmless plastic object is directly in the path of the car.

The test was the latter situation, but the premise of the test was that it was representative of the former situation with a real human child.

Is it possible that FSD Beta correctly classified the mannequin as harmless plastic road debris and not a person, based on the appearance of the mannequin and context clues, such as its inhuman total motionlessness, and made the correct risk minimization decision to keep going instead of decelerating aggressively?

FSD behaves quite well. Ignore the subterfuge I say. Pay attention to what he finds around 6:40, they try to push accelerator as the dummy moves in and FSD doesn't allow override.

 

[Ogre]

Some may not know who you are referring to. It is the infamous John Petersen. One of the original master TSLAQ member, writing hit piece after hit piece proclaiming Tesla is dead and Musk is fraud in Seeking Alpha. His articles got plenty of clicks and comments. And then he vanished one day never to be seen again in any forum. This guy predates Montana Skeptic and other scums.

I never heard of him. Was before my time. Probably did like the Dwarves of Moria and Shorted Too Deep.

There is a special kind of idiot who just has a hate boner for certain companies. I recall when I was thinking about investing Amazon when it was around $250/ share some hate monger on Seeking Alpha turned me off from them. What a fool I was for listening to that nonsense. (Not excited about Amazon now or advocating, but it was a huge money maker for over a decade).

Hate fans are far more destructive than stans... almost every single time. Stans you can get your head around easily and take into account their bias a lot easier.

 

[AZRI11]

Musk at McCarthy retreat in Wyoming Elon Musk tells GOP at exclusive donor retreat to be more compassionate​

 

[NicoV]

So what if Tesla were to make a stripped down version of a 3 and/or Y that had a purchase price low enough to get the $7,500 tax credit (or rebate, much better), but also had the capability to load up post purchase options OTA after the initial purchase is complete? Say activate additional battery capacity (installed already), better audio, Autopilot, FSD, and other items that could be authorized or downloaded after the car has already been bought and paid for.

Would the Feds and the competition cry foul? Seems to me that post purchase options would be a great way to take advantage of the superior Tesla network to allow Tesla purchasers to reduce the cost of their vehicles. I mean you can purchase third party options (like floor mats, etc), why not from the manufacturer?

Whaddya think?

Tesla could do like some other vendors did in the past, and provide a rented battery. That would significantly lower the purchase price of all their cars, and do something useful with their cash mountain.
This makes sense as soon as Tesla starts to have more production capacity than demand.
Making EV’s affordable this way would fit well with their mission statement.

 

[aswami]

Every time there is a split, people do two things: (a) Describe how the split makes no difference to the value of the shares and the company due to Math. (b) Argue about how past studies have shown no specific correlation between the split and subsequent share price.

I don't know why they do this. I mean, I don't know why they WANT to prove that the TSLA split will have no effect on its price. But they forget one critical point: human desire and emotion!

Suppose, there is a pizza that everyone in the neighborhood loves and wants. It is usually sliced into 4 pieces and sold at $50 per slice. Only 5 people in the neighborhood can afford to pay $50 per slice. (Yes, yes, we know fractional shares is a thing, but the trading volume in fractions is orders of magnitude lesser than whole shares). They are the ones who usually buy / trade these slices. The value of the whole pie is $200.

Suppose, the pizza seller starts slicing the pizza into 20 slices and selling for $10 per slice. The over-all size of the pizza is the same. You still get the same amount of pizza for $50 as you used to get before. But all of a sudden, there are 15 people in the neighborhood who can afford to pay $10 per slice. Moreover, although the size of each slice has reduced, the cost of the slice being $10 psychologically appears a lot cheaper to most people. Both these factors (number of people who can afford AND psychological desirability of the stock being higher) result in a much greater demand. Due to the higher demand, the price per slice increases to $15. Suddenly, you have the value of the whole pie increased to $300. That's a 50% jump in value compared to the previous value of $200. Normally, it would have taken a lot longer for the value of the pie to increase by 50%. But the split and the subsequent demand increase accelerated it.

A competing pizza store sees this and decides to adopt the same strategy. The increase the number of slices per pizza and the decrease the cost per slice. Unfortunately for them, this is a pizza that was not all that great to begin with and not many people wanted it. So, even when the cost per slice decreased, there is no increase in demand and as a result, the value of the pie did not increase.

Conclusion: Stock split does indeed accelerate the share price increase of a company whose stock is already in demand. Just because a stock split does not help companies whose stock does not have such great demand does not mean they don't help companies that are already in demand.

 

[lascavarian]

There seems to be more safety FUD appearing regarding automotive touch screen usability. The article comes from an European auto review magazine/website.

There is a kernel of usability truth but their presumption is that muscle memory is faster to find controls with buttons and switches than touch screens. This is linked to safety.

But their test ignores voice commands!!!

Touch screens can have usability issues but they offer superior benefits IMO. The whole article seems slanted against EVs in particular. Tesla scores about in the middle of the pack.

The reality is that touch screen controls in conjunction with voice commands delivers superior reliability, high visibility, upgradability and video training abilities over knobs and switches. Muscle memory with knobs and switches is useful on the yoke.

 

[MABMAB]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Above is link to potential pump and dump, sucked retail in. Heck, seems all of retail jumped onto the "gamma squeeze" bandwagon.

Interesting phrase near the beginning: "made popular by what Elon Musk's offshore investing unit did with Tesla repeatedly in 2020 and 2021"

I can find no further info on what this alludes to, even searching that site.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I think maybe you missed my point?

It almost doesn't matter if Tesla makes its own batteries. Even if other manufacturers are able to build batteries faster and cheaper than Tesla, it is Tesla who benefits the most. Tesla makes the products that put batteries to profitable use. That's what they do far better than anyone.

Build or buy, Tesla makes the most money from a cell.

4680 is just icing on the cake. And a what sweet cake it is!

That's true in a competitive market, however Tesla producing their own cells is fantastic insurance - it ensures internal supply as a minimum and provides a forcing function for the rest of the industry to keep producing cheaper and better cells as Tesla can just make more of their own if cell suppliers want to charge high prices or slack off on quality.

IMO it would be easy for cell makers to act in a cartel fashion as the industry matures as cells that aren't produced at scale with the latest technology will just not be competitive against the cheaper more powerful cells - which would mean that established players could keep prices high and take margin from vehicle manufacturers (not unlike microchips today). We saw a little of this a few years ago when LG was playing off the German OEMs for cell production as they were one of the few companies that had cell supply.

Then there's Tesla's speed of innovation - who knows how good and cheap the 4680s will become.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Lol, I'm afraid you've got your centuries mixed up. T/A far pre-dates social media. In fact, a treatise on the subject was published as a textbook back in 1948:

The Pioneers of Technical Analysis | Investopedia

Back in the '40s social media was radio. We didn't even have widespread TV adoption yet.

In the 1700s the Japanese were doing a simplified version of TA using candlestick charts.

 

[Usain]

Tesla could do like some other vendors did in the past, and provide a rented battery. That would significantly lower the purchase price of all their cars, and do something useful with their cash mountain.
This makes sense as soon as Tesla starts to have more production capacity than demand.
Making EV’s affordable this way would fit well with their mission statement.

Battery rental also makes sense as a clever way to get the Model 3 under the $55,000 price cap.

Vinfast is planning to do battery rentals for their EVs made in its new factory in North Carolina. So we will see how this plays out relatively soon.

 

[jw934]

People familiar with the matter said to Bloomberg that Tesla is coordinating with the Shanghai and Sichuan governments to ensure its suppliers in Sichuan have ample power, adding that the carmakers hadn’t seen any production delays as yet.

A representative for Tesla in China declined to comment.

Tesla Asks China for Help as Summer Power Crunch Hits Suppliers

Tesla Inc. and SAIC Motor Corp. told Shanghai’s government they may have difficulty maintaining production if a power crunch in Sichuan continues to impact suppliers, people familiar with the matter said, prompting city officials to ask the southwestern province if it could prioritize...

www.bloomberg.com

 

[OrthoSurg]

I’m not going to argue back n forth about the impact on invest confidence and willingness of institutional investors to buy in. I think it’s pretty clear there’s little actual buying interest for TSLA amongst institutional investors at this valuation and to me, it has everything go do with the noise around Elon. Obviously you don’t agree, we’re not going to agree on this.

I don’t know how you don’t see the giant down channel from November and that it’s very much still in place. The fact that it can’t break that channel even on the back of a stock split is very bearish, which is why I’ve been saying it’ll take Q3 earnings to do the trick. By that time though, you’ll be looking at a share prices in the low 800’s/high 700’s.

There was a breakout of the downward channel. This bear market is in jeopardy!

 

[elasalle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560208624408039426

 

[GOVA]

I'd love the stonk to be 4K post 2nd split but also I'd caution everyone. They aren't that stupid and the dark side is still strong.

The record earnings reaction was the warning for those who made 'sure' bets. They do what they want. Be careful of those bets. Hold is the answer.

 

[Scuttlebutt]

Is it green?

This is what I'm thinking. Sail power is the greenest possible. Hopefully with an electric motor to move when not under sail.
View attachment 841942

I don't post often as I come here daily to learn from this incredible group of people., but now you're in my wheelhouse, as it were. After 25 years of living on all manner of boats (sail and power), the one you want (if you want to get as off-grid as possible) is the new HH44 (built in Cebu, PH). Starting at $950k base + options. The Sport model is 1.2 mil before options. *I have no financial interest with this company, just a fan of good design and construction. This yacht uses extensive carbon-fiber to keep weight down.
MODS: Sorry OT.

EcoDrive, a parallel hybrid system​

The HH44 was conceived from the ground up to work with a parallel diesel/electric hybrid, an industry leading 4.2kW solar array on the cabin top and hydro-regeneration while sailing.

Our EcoDrive provides all the benefits of an electric boat: silent fume free motoring, instant torque for maneuvering, and hydro-regeneration while sailing; while also providing the reliability of trusty diesel engines as a back up.

 

[2daMoon]

View attachment 842237

I don't post often as I come here daily to learn from this incredible group of people., but now you're in my wheelhouse, as it were. After 25 years of living on all manner of boats (sail and power), the one you want (if you want to get as off-grid as possible) is the new HH44 (built in Cebu, PH). Starting at $950k base + options. The Sport model is 1.2 mil before options. *I have no financial interest with this company, just a fan of good design and construction. This yacht uses extensive carbon-fiber to keep weight down.
MODS: Sorry OT.


View attachment 842234

EcoDrive, a parallel hybrid system​

The HH44 was conceived from the ground up to work with a parallel diesel/electric hybrid, an industry leading 4.2kW solar array on the cabin top and hydro-regeneration while sailing.

Our EcoDrive provides all the benefits of an electric boat: silent fume free motoring, instant torque for maneuvering, and hydro-regeneration while sailing; while also providing the reliability of trusty diesel engines as a back up.

If they shoe-horned in a Tesla motor (relieving it of the Diesel motor) and a Cyberwall (or similar battery storage), it would be on topic.

If the existing electric motor is efficient enough to get the boat through the Doldrums, maybe all that is needed is to remove the Diesel, add batteries and maximize Solar Panel output.