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

[samppa]

Hasn’t the market realized that Ruski said nuclear is off the table for now?

source?

 

[ZeApelido]

If it goes any lower, I will potentially get 13,000 more, meaning I would have doubled my position from 40,000 to 80,000 TSLA shares. Then I am done!

Hi dad.

 

[elasalle]

source?

Don’t have link , but read articles yesterday that Russia (statement)would not retaliate with nuclear for blasting of the bridge

 

[JustMe]

 

[2daMoon]

Yeah, that's my fault. I put in a limit order for 4 chairs at a price that was quickly surpassed.
At this rate, we could easily see 300 before end of day if I don't cancel and resubmit a Market order after trading opens.

Taking one for the team.

HODL

Edit: Oh well, so much for that strategy... order filled.

 

[unk45]

It seems to me that many of us who are TSLA fans may tend to minimize problems. To that extent I generally agree with some recent @AudubonB comments.
We mostly do tend towards overoptimism. Perhaps that is partly due to the constant FUD we see and hear quite constantly.
There is a regular issue that has plagued the optimists since the beginning: Announcing and showing products to be delivered sometime;
For example: I stood in a long queue to reserve my Model 3 on Mach 31, 2016, two days later they opened reservations for Brazil. MY Brazil reservation is still there today and there is zero indication of delivery anytime soon. Of course that has been typical of every Tesla product.
Is that wise? Should we all ignore it?
For another example: When my Model 3 Performance was crashed five days after delivery in September 2018 (30 months after reservation) there were no replacement parts and a long litany of errors. I got the car back, in perfect condition, five months later. The good news, despite the destruction wreaked on the car, it did not even need alignment, to the astonishment of everyone. Was complete absence of reliable parts support acceptable?
There are many others, all them them FUD-feeders. How about those Tesla shingles; all the stationary storage options?

The optimists, including @AudubonB and me, stay very, vey long through frothy highs and depressing lows. I admit I really thought about selling in late 2018, but those capital gains were attractive despite near bankruptcy fears. After all, long time holders ahem done very well watching the highs and ignoring the lows.

Now we are contemplating Semi and Cybertruck plus more car variants, including the China-specific LWB Model 3 and probably Model Y. (no announcement but China-market people know that those have been popular there and in much fo the Middle East for decades. We consider all the new battery options...

And we realize the only significant issues today remain, as always, Tesla ability to ramp existing products and variants while simultaneously launching Dojo, Tesla Bot, Optimus, Roadster (remember that?), plus new geographic markets promised years ago but not delivered...

And our CEO copes with SpaceX, The Boring Company, Starlink, Twitter, and has time left over to"solve" Ukraine/Russia, Taiwan/China...

So, yes, there are absolutely reasons to be concerned even without the present geopolitical and geoeconomics problems.
We are being really ignorant if we ignore all those problems.

After all that long list it seems most of us think TSLA is one of the very best places to place our investments. Despite all those negatives I will not sell a single share, except for charitable and family contributions, most of which come from other sources anyway.

Why? Because TSLA persists in redefining problems in a way that is fundamentally superior to any other company I can find. To me, such things as Giga Press, structural battery, design for safety, direct sales and service, mobile service and more outweigh every negative.
The single continuing success that surpasses all others is the proven record of attracting the very best talent and continuing to do that, while proving over and over that there is never any single indispensable person, not even Elon Musk.

That is why I am very long and have been for longer than I have held anything else.

Please, everyone, make certain you know the difference between FUD and real problems.
Then you can determine whether the potential rewards outweigh the known risks.

Ignorance is the one catastrophic risk!

 

[EVWatcher]

Pretty deafening silence into this awful market open.

 

[Todd Burch]

Pretty deafening silence into this awful market open.

I'll take the current awful color any day!

 

[2daMoon]

Pretty deafening silence into this awful market open.

Heck, its not so bad. When in doubt, zoom out, and remember Buffett's maxim about fear and greed.

It is easy for me to just think of it as watching the spring being wound up... again.

 

[elasalle]

Most of that 'wave' was due to Hurricane Ian in Florida and the East cost. No amount of money wasted on logistics was going to get those cars to their new owners by midnight on Sep 30. I was the perfect time to unwind the delivery wave (and far more profitable).

So how does Hurricane Ian in Florida account for 4 ships in transit to EU at EOQ from China, and early VIN assignments and transport to Australia. do tell? Butterfly effect? What big picture piece of puzzle is missing?
Also, Austin run rate is like 1K/week ... so not sure how much of disruption to Florida really mattered ..

 

[Artful Dodger]

Could be as much as $10,000 per share if Tesla solves battery bottlenecks and FSB.

Yeah, Elon's working on 'solving the FSB' but Putie isn't helping...

Cheers to the Longs!

 

[LYTRIDR]

UPDATE TO MODEL Y ORDER

Spoiler: My previous post where I tell about being able to defer my wife's Model Y order

While the market panics due to the unwind of the quarter-end wave, I thought the board may be interested in my anecdotal report of current US Model Y LR delivery/wait times.

I ordered a white/white LR Y with base wheels in the first week of December last year. Hoping that I'd lock a lower price combined with a promised tax credit which I expected would pass in Q1 2022. The estimated delivery date was July when the order was placed. As July approached the delivery dates were pushed back many times peaking about 6 weeks ago at Jan-March 2023. When the large reset of delivery time-frames rolled out a month or so ago, my new time-frame was Oct 6-30 '22. Last week I was assigned a Fremont VIN and contacted by the delivery team.

For various reasons, including the $7,500 tax credit and wanting to buy the dip a bit more, I asked if I could postpone delivery and if pricing would be changed.

Tesla's response was that I could delay, but it was not recommended as due to supply shortages, it might take up to 8 months before I'd get back to the front of the line. My price is still locked as it was at the time of reservation, my deposit is not forfeit, and I'm moved to the back of the line.

So, it will be interesting to see if Tesla continues the policy of letting people push the delivery window into the tax credit period or if they clamp down and require the order to be reset at the new higher price going forward.

Shortly after the email exchange with my delivery consultant, I got an e-mail from another address at Tesla with the subject line:

YOUR UPCOMING MODEL Y ORDER CANCELLATION RN116XXXXXXX

This email stated that not only would my order be canceled with my price lock voided, but I'd also lose my deposit if I did not remove the hold by October 16.

Naturally, I reached out to my contact who confirmed that the email is correct and that he'd given me information that according to him was true at the time, and that he'd only been recently notified that there has been a policy change for Tesla forcing delivery for people who hold reservations.

While I'm naturally disappointed in losing the ability to game the tax credit, I feel a lot of relief as an investor as I now believe that there will be fantastic delivery numbers in Q4 barring a new geopolitical shock.

 

[elasalle]

Tesla probably had no choice. The reason given most people think it's due to q3 number production having logistic issues at 365k having trouble being delivered. It's actually about the much harder q4 numbers Tesla logistics is trying to solve and must start in q3.

Tesla was 90k cars behind schedule due to q2, so lots of work needs to be done to somehow make it up q4.

The choice Tesla had was likely to pay more (just like paying 3X overtime for keeping factory open during recent holiday). But ya maybe the typhoon disrupted ship schedules(seems even China transport includes ships) and trucks and local businesses might have tried to haggle for higher prices ... make available logistics only at EOQ and try to get the most out of Tesla, knowing tesla modus operandi of trying to get the max number of vehicles delivered.

 

[OrthoSurg]

I have been super lucky. I sold my company, the deal closed on Monday and the funds came through on Tuesday.

So last week I bought 27,000 new TSLA shares at an average of $243. So quite a discount from the $300 the share price was a couple of weeks earlier when I thought the deal would close.

If it goes any lower, I will potentially get 13,000 more, meaning I would have doubled my position from 40,000 to 80,000 TSLA shares. Then I am done!

Very conservatively, we should get to $1,000 per share within 3 years, and $3,000 by 2030. Could be as much as $10,000 per share if Tesla solves battery bottlenecks and FSB. We will probably reap any robot related gains after 2030.

Really happy to see some investor making big chunk of TsLA purchase at these prices. I feel less like a bag holder now.

 

[GOVA]

Hasn’t the market realized that Ruski said nuclear is off the table for now?

With ruskis, well, it is exactly like Gordo or Cramer - just means the opposite. Every breath they take is a lie.

 

[RobPet]

 

[strago13]

I wanted to give everyone an update on solar / energy. I am in a unique position where we got solar installed in 2020 and then proceeded to move 2 blocks to the other side of our neighborhood (needed more space) and get solar installed again. So I have seen first hand the improvements Tesla has made in ~2 years with the energy side of the business.

In the first house, we had 3 powerwall v1's installed. It took them an entire full day to do the install of the power walls and get everything setup (2 electricians). For the solar panels on the roof, we had 3 separate clusters installed totaling about ~42 panels. They were 320w panels, cutting edge at the time. The team was a team of 4 and it took 3 full days.

In the second house, we had 2 gen 2 powerwalls installed and it took them ~4 hours including waiting ~30 minutes for our utility provider to show up so they could open the box (exact same 2 electricians ). We had 60 410w panels installed (bringing us 100% off the grind) installed in 2 days. With that being said, they started at 8 and slowed down around 1pm and just sort of messed around the rest of the day. They could have 100% finished the job in one day. The crew was double the size, but they were way more efficent and organized.

Additionally, our utility provider does not let us push energy back to the grid until they finish the interconnection process which takes about ~2 months between all the inspections. At the old house, Tesla showed us how to turn our system off (it still pushed back to the grid when it was on) so we had to be careful with it. The new system is 100% self contained and controlled by software, so the system has been on since they left. It automatically clips energy production when the powerwalls are full. They figured out how to stick it to the utility providers with software. Additionally, I had a quality assurance person reach out to me for the 2nd install to come by and double check all the work to make sure it was done up to their standards.

All in all, I dont see how this cant be bullish. They are clearly ramping and optimizing the energy side of the house.

 

[2daMoon]

On a brighter note I watched SMR's recent video on the potential of Stock Buyback by Tesla. One factor I was unaware of is a new IRA-related 1% tax on buybacks of over $1M that goes into effect Jan 1, 2023.

Anyway, he makes a reasoned argument for the possibility of a shares repurchase by Tesla before year end.

 

[elasalle]

Regarding tax exemptions for buybacks -- if the 1% tax goes into effect Jan 23... in order to avoid Tesla must announce and complete buyback by Dec 31st?
Also do share holders need to vote for the buy back ... if so better hurry up Tesla

 

[StealthP3D]

I have not written anything of the sort. You could not be more incorrect. I, more than you or anyone else here, need a well-performing, capable and dependable truck, and I fervently hope the CT is up to it. The Denali Highway, for all its well-deserved storied fame as one of the world’s top “must drive” roads, is a hellish car-eater of a track and it is hundreds of miles to a service center. There is very good reason rental agencies refuse to let their vehicles on it.
What I HAVE written is just the opposite:
Posters here, despite not quarters but years of delays for the CT’s rollout and without development progress having been revealed by Tesla, glorify it as the ne plus ultra of automobiles.

It is that unsubstantiated exaltation that I deplore.

So you are saying car rental agencies have learned from experience that their ICE rental vehicles do not fare well on the torturous Denali Highway.

O.K. I'll take your word for that Audie, but it's utterly unclear how this went from "the Cybertruck is going to be a raging success" to "the Denali Highway ruins vehicles and there is no evidence an unreleased and delayed Cybertruck will be able to survive it either". Because the ICE vehicles that are Tesla's competition fare poorly.

It's illogical to use that to make your case. Further, while we have very little concrete information about the Cybertruck beyond its basic specs, we have a plethora of information with which to form an analysis about demand and production. And it is every investor's job to take a wide swath of clues and information and form likely scenarios.

So, I'll say it again, the Cybertruck is going to be a raging success (for all the reasons I have outlined here in detail since we started learning about it). You say you hope it's successful, but hope is not a viable tool of an informed investor. I hope it's successful too, but I'm not going to spend any time or energy on that. Informed analysis is valuable, hope is worthless.