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

[jerry33]

I don’t understand why the constant belief there are a demand issue.

Sure.. eventually, we are not there yet.

You can’t throw the demand card alas an answer to all questions about production/deliveries. Not sure why Gary, Troy and everyone else keeps doing this

It’s easier to say “demand” than to investigate.

 

[Cosmacelf]

You don't? Was pretty widely discussed at the time...

https://twitter.com/x/status/984882630947753984

He also admitted (several times) to mistakes about service center number and location-- though his specific promises about fixing them and covering "all regions of NA (not just big cities) within 3 to 6 months." haven't actually happened 4 years later.

Thanks, yeah, the automation thing is what I remembered. But that’s still far from admitting he did “more harm than good”. Yes Elon makes mistakes, he is human after all, but his accomplishments outweigh those mistakes and I don’t think he has ever strayed into the “more harm than good” territory if you look at things holistically.

 

[wipster]

Or maybe Gigapress needs to publish on a blog…

Or just have a separate Gigapress thread here on TMC.

 

[Rarity]

Don't even know why Gary is trying to explain anything. We have a classic bear market crash which results in everything hitting 52wk low as the result despite whatever is reported. Tsla is pretty much the last man standing next to Appl. Consider that a badge of honor and a sign that we are near bottom because everything needs to be hit hard.

I totally agreed with you until "near bottom." I don't know that it's a clear indication that we are near a bottom. Rather, we might take another leg down because everything needs to be hit harder than originally expected.

Moral of the story is not to dabble in margin loans if you want to sleep through the night. And don't blame others for bad decisions that you made.

 

[Singuy]

You don't? Was pretty widely discussed at the time...

https://twitter.com/x/status/984882630947753984

He also admitted (several times) to mistakes about service center number and location-- though his specific promises about fixing them and covering "all regions of NA (not just big cities) within 3 to 6 months." haven't actually happened 4 years later.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1052356093534302208

That would make things worse based on his assumptions. He's capping demand and saying unless china sales go way up there'd be no buyers for the extra cars.... that's why he "doubled" non-china deliveries seemingly thinking that'd knock out 100% of backlog and there's no more demand beyond that.

There is, of course, SOME limit to demand for vehicles in this price class- but the idea previous #s plus existing backlog (which is a # he's also kinda guessing at) is exactly it is... a guess at best.

Oh okay, I was under the assumption that Shanghai was production constrained and not demand constrained. This is the correct assumption when we only saw 5k exported in the last month and they are paying triple time to hit production goal for q4.

We know that Tesla does not and have never over produced for the hell of it. Q1 2019 was a good example of them scaling back production because they had demand pockets, logistic issues, or whatever. They could have easily over produced by 20-30k cars but didn't. So if Tesla is pushing production harder than ever, then it correlates directly to high demand.

 

[Singuy]

I totally agreed with you until "near bottom." I don't know that it's a clear indication that we are near a bottom. Rather, we might take another leg down because everything needs to be hit harder than originally expected.

Moral of the story is not to dabble in margin loans if you want to sleep through the night. And don't blame others for bad decisions that you made.

Near bottom is a relative term. As in we are closer to bottom today than months ago when Tesla didn't hit 52wk low.

From all the TA I have seen from people who called current place in the market way before, they are all expecting a relief rally into earnings and a possible capitulation after earnings if guidance stinks for the final bottom.

 

[Gigapress]

To be fair, 50% yearly growth was supposed to be significantly harder towards the end of the decade, not this early on. If you look back even 1.5 years ago you would regularly read posts by people here on tmc targeting 80% growth for 2023.

I'm still targeting 90-100% growth for 2023. 1.4ish --> 2.7-2.8ish

 

[Discoducky]

Are you saying that Teslas vehicles (control systems) behave differently of public roads compared to private?

Yes, public roads are mapped correctly (well, they fall within the domain of being 'able' to be mapped without prior consent), supposedly maintained correctly (Seattle roads barely make the cut) and all laws apply to those roads (like speed, lane width, curvature/radius requirements, slope, surface friction...etc) so the system will then map routes on those roads and FSD/AP will operate correctly.

 

[JRP3]

Is Tesla really going to be punished further if they barely miss 50% even with COVID shutdowns, for something completely out of their control? That would be a crappy thing to do. I’d think missing is already baked in (definitely at this price). At the Q2 call they said it would be much harder to hit 50% but they’re going to push hard for it.

This Wall St expectations game is stupid. Delivery growth might end up being 47% yoy despite a factory getting shut down and they’ll still paint it as a failure on Tesla’s part even though in reality they managed those hurdles spectacularly.

Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

If (P/E)/G (annualised, not forward looking) falls below 1, I’m back in.

Lol.....has this ever even occured in a company over $500B and growth over 50%?

Honestly don't know the answer, just can't see it being likely.

 

[Matias]

Lol.....has this ever even occured in a company over $500B and growth over 50%?

Honestly don't know the answer, just can't see it being likely.

Don't know the answer to your question, but anyway, we're pretty close now with Tesla.

If eps is 1$ q3, tsla is 200 and YoY growth is 50%, then we're there.

 

[cliff harris]

“I’m gonna buy Twitter so I can unban white supremacists and the reason my daughter doesn’t like me is because public schools preach communism”

Can you link to the tweet where he used those words? because unless he literally said that, this is just usual BS where people over-react to the sudden realisation that not everybody 100% agrees with their politics.
Its this sort of hyperbole that drives me mad, and is why I stopr eading ANY article about elon, or tesla. In my experience there is a more than 50% chance any such article is a lie, (provably so), so why would I take the choice to actively decrease my IQ by reading them?

I find simply following elon directly on twitter gives you way more information than reading 3rd hand what people imagine he has said.

 

[Knightshade]

Can you link to the tweet where he used those words? because unless he literally said that, this is just usual BS where people over-react to the sudden realisation that not everybody 100% agrees with their politics.
Its this sort of hyperbole that drives me mad, and is why I stopr eading ANY article about elon, or tesla. In my experience there is a more than 50% chance any such article is a lie, (provably so), so why would I take the choice to actively decrease my IQ by reading them?

I find simply following elon directly on twitter gives you way more information than reading 3rd hand what people imagine he has said.

Nearest he came is on the daughter stuff-and it was elite colleges and universities, not public schools. Also was in an FT interview, not something he tweeted.

Elon Musk Says 'Communism' Caused Rift With Transgender Daughter

His trans daughter, Vivian Wilson, wants nothing to do with Musk, and he blames "full-on communism" that he says is taught at colleges and universities.

www.advocate.com

Billionaire electric car magnate Elon Musk is blaming “communism” in elite colleges and universities for his estrangement from his transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson.

“It’s full-on communism ... and a general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil,” Musk told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday. “It [the relationship] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others [children]. Can’t win them all.”

On the "unban white supremacists" bit- he certainly never specifically said THAT-- but did say he was a free speech absolutist and didn't think bans were a good idea- which certainly can be read as a Musk run twitter would unban ALL SORTS of folks, including the group described-- and then leave it up to individuals to block anyone they didn't want to hear from... with the only censorship from twitter themselves being the minimum required by law.

 

[Discoducky]

Weekend 2.3 update TL;DR - Better, several non-intervention drives with many city street complexities, but still a few safety issues with non 90 degree UPLs and multi-lane roundabouts.

It drives much better, than even 2.2, less often makes mistakes in roundabouts, less jerky with traffic in intersections. I've had several complete end to end no-intervention drives, much like Whole Mars Catalog, so I echo his confidence and conclusions.

Where it is not good: Non 90 degree UPLs as it is not using the creep wall and I believe the lane connectivity graph is incorrectly perceiving these lanes intersecting. To be clear, the car will stop at the intersection, creep forward for visibility, see vehicles coming from both sides correctly and visualize the lanes as intersecting, but won't act on them as target vehicles that have intersecting paths (I have my crude handheld phone video to demonstrate this).

The Fix: Train on these type of intersections so that the creep wall appears and is effective

And multi-lane roundabouts are still a huge issue in my area. Nearly unusable in traffic as it attempts to change lanes TWICE inside the roundabout while coming to a complete stop. This could also be a lane connectivity graph issue.

 

[Gigapress]

Berlin and Austin are supposed to surpass 5k per week run rate by the end of this year.

Shanghai entered 2021 at slightly over 5k per week and ended '21 at 15k per week, with cumulative total '21 production of 486k.

There is no guarantee that Berlin and Austin will have the same ramp curve as Shanghai because they aren't exactly the same factories, there are risks of 4680s not ramping as hoped, and other risk factors, but this should give investors a rough guideline and it's what my own model is working off of. I'm actually conservatively modeling for 445k for Berlin and 425k for Austin in '23 which would be about 10-15% slower than Shanghai's historical performance, so my overall guess of 2.8M for '23 has significant upside.

However, if anything, Berlin and Austin are likely to materially exceed Shanghai's '21 ramp speed, due to the advantages of:

• Making only Model Ys instead of mainly Model 3 like Shanghai was doing in '21 (with some Cybertrucks as a bonus)
• Front and rear castings
• Two years worth of improvements to Tesla's factory software and Model Y production knowhow
• Structural battery pack making General Assembly much easier
• Improvements to factory layout
• Absence of '21 chip supply constraints

Data source: Tesla Daily's table (link) with numbers collected from Chinese Passenger Car Association publications.

Spoiler: Raw Data in Tabular Format

Month	Production	Prod per Calendar Day	Prod per Calendar Week	MoM Delta in Prod per Day	Annualized (millions)
Jan 2021	24,819	801	5,604	-	0.30
2/1/2021	23,632	844	5,908	43	0.28
3/1/2021	30,791	993	6,953	149	0.37
4/1/2021	30,494	1,016	7,115	23	0.37
5/1/2021	36,861	1,189	8,323	173	0.44
6/1/2021	30,896	1,030	7,209	-159	0.37
7/1/2021	37,052	1,195	8,367	165	0.44
8/1/2021	41,754	1,347	9,428	152	0.50
9/1/2021	50,258	1,675	11,727	328	0.60
10/1/2021	55,554	1,792	12,544	117	0.67
11/1/2021	56,917	1,897	13,281	105	0.68
12/1/2021	66,759	2,154	15,075	256	0.80
1/1/2022	68,117	2,197	15,381	44	0.82
2/1/2022	56515	2,018	14,129	-179	0.68
3/1/2022	65814	2,123	14,861	105	0.79
4/1/2022	10757	359	2,510	-1,764	0.13
5/1/2022	33544	1,082	7,574	723	0.40
6/1/2022	70,928	2,364	16,550	1,282	0.85
7/1/2022	38,719	1,249	8,743	-1,115	0.46
8/1/2022	76605	2,471	17,298	1,222	0.92
9/1/2022	82088	2,736	19,154	265	0.99

 

[bkp_duke]

I agree with your sentiments, but what are you referring to above? Was it his order to automate everything? I don’t remember him pointing out specific mistakes, or saying that he did more harm than good.

I was referring to what @Knightshade pointed out - Elon insisted in excessive automation (over the recommendation of his staff).

 

[StateoftheArt]

I like fart button Elon, I like flamethrower Elon. I hate that he’s turned into “I’m gonna buy Twitter so I can unban white supremacists and the reason my daughter doesn’t like me is because public schools preach communism” Elon.

Free speech for individuals is fine, even if you have issues with what they say. Bots and troll farms are not. Twitter has way too many of those.

Actually, this type of quote is exactly the type of nonsense you hear from those very same bots.

 

[StateoftheArt]

I’m an investor in a company posting in a discussion thread for investors of that company, offering insights that have proven increasingly correct, but are extremely unpopular, because most investors here are actually here seeking comforts like reassurance and reinforcement rather than things like risk assessment and frank reflection.

Practice what you preach -----SELL your stonks

 

[wipster]

Can anyone verify Teslike's claim below?

 

[Unpilot]

At the gym for some reason I started listening to Vietnam era songs. So late sixties, early seventies.
The parallels in some of the words to issues we have today are strong.

One line I remember is "singing songs and they carrying signs Mostly say Hooray for our side"

What does this have to do with TSLA...it struck me we (Humans) just don't learn.
Instead of listening to each other, we cheerlead "our" side.
And write off the "other" and magnify perceived wrongs.

I don't recommend watching the "news" but sometimes can't help but glance at the TV when it's on at the gym.

The outright bias and slanted headlines are so glaringly obvious it makes me sick/sad.

We hare at TMC focus on Tesla of course and can see the bias right away. Unfortunately, that bias and side taking is rampant and IMHO will be our undoing if left unchecked.

So to bring this to TSLA and Elon, I got a glimpse into why he would want to buy and change twitter.
As one of the largest "message boards" it has an opportunity to provide a platform for an honest exchange of ideas.

I can see how he is trying to save us from ourselves.
I fully support that effort.