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

[MP3Mike]

Tesla seems to be able to handle my shareholder voting so this SAY thing seems poorly designed.

No, they don't. Tesla doesn't handle the voting. Your broker contracts with someone, normally ProxyVote, to collect the votes and then submits them in aggregate to Computershare who is who Tesla has handle the voting.

Why not simply use a shareholder code as validation.

Because no such thing currently exists. Tesla doesn't know that you own any shares, and you likely don't actually hold/own the shares, unless you have paper stock certificates. Your broker owns the shares on your behalf.

 

[redan]

Just in from @Troy

• 372,070 production
• 363,000 deliveries

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575941680338829313

 

[FreqFlyer]

@DaveT just met with Martin Viecha and he is just recorded a quick video to share what he learnt:

Haven't got time to summarise at the moment, but the video is ~10 mins long so well worth a listen.

The part about the third generation platform that would be cheaper to manufacture (various new vehicles will sit on top of it) is interesting. Interesting to guess what vehicles that would include.

 

[Xepa777]

What you have concluded is completely against what I believe. I have LISTENED to Douma. And even while I don't know the subject Douma makes it understandable to me on more than a layman's level. And thus is relevant... and very bright. He may be wrong often, but he comes from a stable base.

Making something understandable means it's good. There's a ton of "influencers" who pedal complete *sugar* or exaggerate the hell out of things.

Even in the Tesla investor community, you have Dave pedaling Lemonade (rough), Gali promoting Arcimoto (rough), and SMR promoting ARK (rough). And Cathie promoting...teledoc?

Because there was for the longest time a void of speakers on AI for Tesla, people looked to Dave/Douma for it. I still remember when Dave was on TMC with a thread asking for people who bought significant amounts of Tesla for under $10 and never sold to come on his Youtube channel. Like...what about people who averaged in over the years? What about people who had to sell some to pay for student debt or a mortgage? Does that "disqualfy" you as a worthy Tesla oracle? The criteria was ridiculous. Honestly I don't have a high opinion of Dave at all. A lot of us (including myself) honestly got partially (if not fully) lucky that we stumbled on a once-in-a-lifetime company. But let's not pretend like it was all because of how we completely knew it, or how we can translate it to other stocks. Or even within Tesla, other unsolved areas (FSD).

And yes....AI is one of Tesla's blind spots. Yes, Tesla might figure it out and go robotaxi in the next year or two. But if Douma was making Youtube videos in 2019 making these claims you'd have an incredibly false perception of the timeline. In fact...Ark has this same problem. Their price targets for Tesla were correct, but their logic was wrong (because robotaxis aren't here yet). And it's why they invested in...GM....recently (for Cruise).

I understand your perspective about value-add for normie-simplifying concepts. Now...shout out to @GOVA for adding nothing of substance and just trying to make snipey remarks.

​

 

[lafrisbee]

and as far as Douma being wrong about the hands HE WAS NOT. The hands that WERE shown earlier had metal tips/touch pad areas. These definitely have a soft surface where the feeling of touch will be imperative. And that was the main reason Douma said that the hands in the original image would NOT be the hands of Optimus.

 

[traxila]

They do have two massive new gigafactories ramping up, both of which are singularly dedicated to producing what is about to be the world's fastest-selling car. Doubling the number of factories producing cars. Does that not count for anything? It's not exactly like the phrase "all things being equal" is in play

Happy to be proven wrong.

Tell me the SP if Tesla increase production by over 100k cars and 35+% in one quarter.

450!

 

[elasalle]

Hope all you guys/gals wake up with a good mood Monday morning cheers!!

This Q, we delivered more cars than in all of 2019 ... is what I am looking for as 1st line of delivery letter ....

 

[Singuy]

and as far as Douma being wrong about the hands HE WAS NOT. The hands that WERE shown earlier had metal tips/touch pad areas. These definitely have a soft surface where the feeling of touch will be imperative. And that was the main reason Douma said that the hands in the original image would NOT be the hands of Optimus.

I am trying to find this clip and can't for the life of me find it. Was it from Dave Lee or someone else?

 

[lascavarian]

No, they don't. Tesla doesn't handle the voting. Your broker contracts with someone, normally ProxyVote, to collect the votes and then submits them in aggregate to Computershare who is who Tesla has handle the voting.



Because no such thing currently exists. Tesla doesn't know that you own any shares, and you likely don't actually hold/own the shares, unless you have paper stock certificates. Your broker owns the shares on your behalf.

Somebody knows I have shares. Use that method. Using SAY is a horrible idea the way it is currently being run.

ProxyVote provides a paper sheet with “Tesla” and a voting code in an outlined box. That should be validation that shares are owned with far less risk to tesla shareholders. YMMV

SAY seemed like a helpful thing until I saw the ridiculous amount of risky personal info they required.

 

[ZachF]

This sums up the stupidity of modern western NIMBYism right here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575868620118188033

God forbid a barren field of mud have zero emission solar panels placed on it!

 

[Mengy]

The part about the third generation platform that would be cheaper to manufacture (various new vehicles will sit on top of it) is interesting. Interesting to guess what vehicles that would include.

If I had to guess as to what vehicles the Gen 3 platform would support, it would be:

1) Dedicated RoboTaxi.
2) Compact consumer sedan (the 25K Tesla).
3) A hatchback version of #2 above (mainly for the Euro market).

Each of these models would be on the same skateboard and have identical substructures, only the bodies would be slightly different from each other. Designed with economical & very high volume manufacturing in mind.

 

[MP3Mike]

ProxyVote provides a paper sheet with “Tesla” and a voting code in an outlined box. That should be validation that shares are owned with far less risk to tesla shareholders. YMMV

But Tesla doesn't have access to that information. So that voting code is just a random number to them. And it also would provide no way for them to know if you have acquired more shares, or sold all of your shares. So it won't work.

I'm not saying that the Say Technologies solution is great, but it is what we currently have.

The solution would be to get rid of this "beneficial owner" crap, and track ownership of them to the actual person that owns them. But that would require a complete revamp of the stock market system.

 

[ZachF]

Just in from @Troy

• 372,070 production
• 363,000 deliveries

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575941680338829313

I think that’s probably gonna be pretty close, but I’m gonna guess ~375k pro, ~370k del.

 

[Gigapress]

So Tesla IR told Dave that they can't release new info and the official goal is still 50% growth over 2021.

Tesla produced 936k vehicles in 2021 and has produced 565k cars in Q1 and Q2. If Q3 is about 370k produced, then for 50% total YoY growth, Q4 would need to be 936*1.5-565-370 = 469k, which is around what most of us expect for Q4.

The Reuters figure was 495k just for 3&Y. In Q2, Tesla made 16k S&X, so with some continued growth, in Q4 they'll make approximately 20k S&X. So Reuters is implying that Tesla will produce more like 515k total cars in Q4. This would make total YoY growth for 2022 more like 55%. Thus, the comment Dave received from Tesla IR is pretty ambiguous and I don't think it can be taken to mean that 495k 3&Y is in the cards as the most likely result for Q4.

The really sketchy part of this Reuters report is the stuff after Q4. Reuters is saying that Tesla intends to stop growing production of 3&Y and Fremont and Shanghai while Berlin and Texas somehow slow down growth massively, below even what Shanghai achieved 2 years ago. In Q4 '20, Shanghai was producing at a rate roughly equal to where Berlin & Texas are likely to be in Q4 '22. Three quarters later in Q3 '21, Shanghai's production had more than doubled despite the complexity of introducing Model Y during that period, but Reuters is claiming that Tesla plans for B&T to grow only about 80% in the three quarters following Q4 despite focusing just on Y, despite being newer factories and despite explicit guidance from Tesla leadership on a recent earnings call that B&T should ramp faster than Shanghai.

 

[MP3Mike]

I am trying to find this clip and can't for the life of me find it. Was it from Dave Lee or someone else?

It is probably this video:

In which he says that that can't be real hands because you can't see any way to move/control the fingers. Which turned out to be wrong.

In which he said:

yeah that's that's not those are robots i'm sorry that's a mannequin

did you talk about the ai dave picture with the chrome hands yes yeah those are those that they're those are non-functional that's just a picture and i it's i've seen a lot of interpretation because i think people think that that's actually the robot um sneak peek you know you let me just point out if you were making a robot you wouldn't put stainless steel fingertips on it right you would it'd be trying to be like trying to pick up a coke bottle with chopsticks or something right because you need something with a squishy grippy surface on it on your fingers i'm sorry yeah

can see where the joints are right it's two pieces of metal with like a with just like a pin through them there's no actuator in there to move the finger

He is right that they aren't what is going to be shown today, as the obviously made some refinements, but I think the picture was of a working set of hands, just like the video clip they released today.

 

[Zero CO2]

Somebody knows I have shares. Use that method. Using SAY is a horrible idea the way it is currently being run.

ProxyVote provides a paper sheet with “Tesla” and a voting code in an outlined box. That should be validation that shares are owned with far less risk to tesla shareholders. YMMV

SAY seemed like a helpful thing until I saw the ridiculous amount of risky personal info they required.

i think many "reputable " companies have proven they cant handle the responsibility of SPI data over the years ... IIRC correctly SAY was bought by Robinhood another red flag in my mind .... however not sure how to prove share ownership to Tesla IR for retail investor info

 

[PeterJA]

On this day of AI revelations, let's remember that the dark side of AI is coming along with the bright side. Disinformation will keep growing more sophisticated.

 

[WattsHappening]

I guess when I plug the numbers to say

Q1 - 520k
Q2 - 540k
Q3 - 550k
Q4 - 600k

Plus 100k S/X

Then I get a total of 2.31 million. Added in something like 40k of Cybertruck/Semi to bring it to 2.35 million. That's about 57% YoY growth if they do 1.5 million for 2022. So I guess it actually adds up.

But still, 495k of JUST 3/Y for Q4 still seems pretty nuts. Add in 25k of S/X and that's a 530k quarter.

One of us has been hitting the sauce a bit early getting ready for AI Day.

 

[Gigapress]

Would like to point out that James Douma was confidently and almost condescendingly dead wrong when he said this the original picture of the hands was just a pretty render and had nothing to do with the robot.

Douma is nowhere near some like sandy Munroe and the only reason he has relevance is because Dave gave him a platform to speak.

I've noticed several mistakes in things Sandy Munro has said, and the fact that he seemed to have been convinced by interviews with Nikola as well as Jaghdeep Singh (CEO of QuantumScape) is not a good sign in my opinion, as I believe both of these companies are most likely scams. I still respect Sandy's opinion and watch all the Munro Live EV teardowns, often multiple times for each video. However, I can't think of as many examples of James Douma getting technical stuff wrong like this. James Douma was confidently and condescendingly wrong on this one thing, sure, but we all are about some stuff once in a while. What else has James Douma gotten wrong in your estimation that makes his interviews not worth listening to?

 

[Singuy]

So Tesla IR told Dave that they can't release new info and the official goal is still 50% growth over 2021.

Tesla produced 936k vehicles in 2021 and has produced 565k cars in Q1 and Q2. If Q3 is about 370k produced, then for 50% total YoY growth, Q4 would need to be 936*1.5-565-370 = 469k, which is around what most of us expect for Q4.

The Reuters figure was 495k just for 3&Y. In Q2, Tesla made 16k S&X, so with some continued growth, in Q4 they'll make approximately 20k S&X. So Reuters is implying that Tesla will produce more like 515k total cars in Q4. This would make total YoY growth for 2022 more like 55%. Thus, the comment Dave received from Tesla IR is pretty ambiguous and I don't think it can be taken to mean that 495k 3&Y is in the cards as the most likely result for Q4.

The really sketchy part of this Reuters report is the stuff after Q4. Reuters is saying that Tesla intends to stop growing production of 3&Y and Fremont and Shanghai while Berlin and Texas somehow slow down growth massively, below even what Shanghai achieved 2 years ago. In Q4 '20, Shanghai was producing at a rate roughly equal to where Berlin & Texas are likely to be in Q4 '22. Three quarters later in Q3 '21, Shanghai's production had more than doubled despite the complexity of introducing Model Y during that period, but Reuters is claiming that Tesla plans for B&T to grow only about 80% in the three quarters following Q4 despite focusing just on Y, despite being newer factories and despite explicit guidance from Tesla leadership on a recent earnings call that B&T should ramp faster than Shanghai.

Well yeah after the steep part of the S curve, growth slows down dramatically until phase 2 is introduced to Berlin and Texas. Phase 1 is 500k annualized production capacity per factory. It can take up to 2 years to maximize production capacity. Shanghai is just done with phase 2 now can hit 1M run rate, so lets expect Berlin/Texas to go slower.

So if Texas/Berlin can hit 5k/week which is guided according to this slide for Q4 2022, and hit 7k/week exiting Q4 2023 which looks to be guided according to that chart. This is a pretty fast ramp.

It took Fremont 1.5 years to go from 5k/week to 7k/week of model 3s btw.