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

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That is what I’m personally doing but to be clear I’m not advocating one way or another. Thus far my aggressive usage of margin has caused me to lose shares and sell in a tax-inefficient manner. I didn’t expect that, but oh well. I got the opportunity to buy a lot of LEAPS at what I believe is an extreme discount, so if I’m right about the next two years for TSLA then this crash was actually extremely beneficial if I just stay the course, because the gains from the LEAPS would far outstrip the loss from margin issues.



Here’s how I looked at this a few weeks ago and nothing’s really changed.

I’m 28, single, have no kids nor house, and am ok with living a lifestyle that is exceptionally frugal by first world standards. This situation profoundly affects my risk tolerance with respect to loss of capital. I could sell my Tesla and go back to exclusively bike/transit/Uber without much disappointment. I could move to a cheaper apartment that’s not in the city. My brokerage accounts could go to zero and I could recover and probably be a multimillionaire before age 35 or so, because I can still get a paid job and the long-term TSLA opportunity still hasn’t gone anywhere. The longer the irrationality persists, the bigger the opportunity to funnel income into LEAPS until TSLA catches up with reality.

My wife’s works as an engineer and makes enough money to pays for everything for the daily living and for the kids. She has a secure pension fund. I bought the house and the Model Y and purchased 250k of TSLA during the pandemic crash and 250k on margin. It was nice to see that almost 10x before it reversed. My mistake was to refund gradually my margin but at the time time buy more TSLA on every dip it went -10% to -20%. So my margin never reduced. Instead of selling shares to convert to LEAPS, I doubled my workload to have sufficient funds to have sufficient margin to back my puts I sold for Jan2025 at 430 strike price. These are my reverse-LEAPs play to clear my whole margin today and it’s give me 2 years to make the money to buy these shares if for whatever reason the SP doesn’t recover. I didn’t know how much longer the stock price can stay irrational but they say it can stay irrational longer than we can stay solvent. The advantage of still working is that my solvency increases considerably over time.

I discourage margin usage to everyone who is starting to invest, unless they are ready to lose every last cent they have invested. Once that said, it is still not fun to see that money disappear even if you don’t need it and ready to lose it all. This reminds me when I went to six flags with my kids last month and we did all the roller coasters 3-4 times straight and had so much fun until we went in the condor and the Chaos, after spinning too much the head down my older boy started vomiting on the way back home in the Model Y while I was driving with nausea. Margin is fun until it’s not.
 
Well…


Tesla team just completed a 500 mile drive with a Tesla Semi weighing in at 81,000 lbs!
-Musk

edit: 🥷'd by @Paul_SF
I can't wait til this scales. Our industry is a huge consumer of diesel, our nation is a massive consumer. Our little company could cut 80 gallons of diesel a day if we could switch to a Tesla semi (or an EV by any other company). We'd never do the asinine FCEV. We have an outside chance of getting a powerpack or the like with the rural energy grants and then we could charge on our own solar. That's likely 2 years away but we plug away. I suspect the waiting list will be legion. 5 cars worth of 2170 batteries.
 
Our little company could cut 80 gallons of diesel a day if we could switch to a Tesla semi ... I suspect the waiting list will be legion.

I too think, once the Tesla Semis are on the road and working, and after the word is out on just how profitable a transition they can be for anyone using diesel trucks, the waiting list for them will grow incredibly fast.

I think I read the current line in Nevada can make three semis per day? They need to get the Austin semi line up fast, because 1000 trucks per year is NOT going to meet the demand for these things.
 
So now the question is what price is Tesla charging to supercharge. Cost Of diesel is 5.5/gal, fully loaded truck gets 6.5mpg. So will Tesla hit lower than 2kw/mile? Will each kw cost 46c or 8c according to Teslas slide? This makes a huge difference. 8 cents might just be what electricity cost charging at "home", home being the fritos factory for example.
 
I too think, once the Tesla Semis are on the road and working, and after the word is out on just how profitable a transition they can be for anyone using diesel trucks, the waiting list for them will grow incredibly fast.

I think I read the current line in Nevada can make three semis per day? They need to get the Austin semi line up fast, because 1000 trucks per year is NOT going to meet the demand for these things.
A quick search suggests there are currently ~2 million 18-wheelers on the roads in the US. Annual TAM of 100k-200k?
 
So now the question is what price is Tesla charging to supercharge. Cost Of diesel is 5.5/gal, fully loaded truck gets 6.5mpg. So will Tesla hit lower than 2kw/mile? Will each kw cost 46c or 8c according to Teslas slide? This makes a huge difference. 8 cents might just be what electricity cost charging at "home", home being the fritos factory for example.
I expect all trucks delivered in the near term will be for trips that only require charging at the base and destination not on the road.
 
I too think, once the Tesla Semis are on the road and working, and after the word is out on just how profitable a transition they can be for anyone using diesel trucks, the waiting list for them will grow incredibly fast.

I think I read the current line in Nevada can make three semis per day? They need to get the Austin semi line up fast, because 1000 trucks per year is NOT going to meet the demand for these things.
I would guess that's just a pilot line to work on processes? 3 a day is nothing.

Just watched a good engineering video in the Semi thread. So he assumes a 1MW battery, looks like a financial no brainer if we do the solar system, we'd need about 10 acres of ground devoted to the solar install, enough for cloudy winter days, running mills, charging evs, and now a truck or two. Might have to get a megapack :) if we keep growing .
 
So now the question is what price is Tesla charging to supercharge. Cost Of diesel is 5.5/gal, fully loaded truck gets 6.5mpg. So will Tesla hit lower than 2kw/mile? Will each kw cost 46c or 8c according to Teslas slide? This makes a huge difference. 8 cents might just be what electricity cost charging at "home", home being the fritos factory for example.
Trucks really don't get 6.5 though, more like 5.5 if they are efficient. We keep 2 independent truckers busy and are constantly looking at the numbers of bringing in house. We can do wholesale diesel at 4.90. Wholesale national electric rates re a shade under $0.10.

I know this is the investor thread but I think investors should understand why this is a killer product so I am posting a link to the thread where there is a youtube link and it is well worth the watch. Numbers breakdown of energy use and implications on $ and CO2.

 
I too think, once the Tesla Semis are on the road and working, and after the word is out on just how profitable a transition they can be for anyone using diesel trucks, the waiting list for them will grow incredibly fast.

I think I read the current line in Nevada can make three semis per day? They need to get the Austin semi line up fast, because 1000 trucks per year is NOT going to meet the demand for these things.
I also wonder what this is going to do to the new and used diesel truck market...
 
I too think, once the Tesla Semis are on the road and working, and after the word is out on just how profitable a transition they can be for anyone using diesel trucks, the waiting list for them will grow incredibly fast.

I think I read the current line in Nevada can make three semis per day? They need to get the Austin semi line up fast, because 1000 trucks per year is NOT going to meet the demand for these things.

Add to this how Over The Road trucking will require charging stations spaced along their routes. This will require a massive expansion of Mega-chargers into truck stops before that segment can buy in too. (alternately, long-distance trucking companies could establish their own charging network at company-owned locations spaced at intervals)

In the mean time, local deliveries and short-haul transport that return to their own facilities for charging each day or two will be the primary customers.

This market should grow at as fast a pace as Tesla can create product. What else is new? This IS Tesla!
 
Good info. I was just low-balling a WAG of average life expectancy at 10-20 years having no idea; only 9 years is a bit surprising.

They might get shipped to other third-world countries while not practice to keep running here.


I believe the economics of the Tesla Semi will cause a rush for at least half of the Semi's on the road to be replaced ASAP.

Businesses, especially low margin ones, care about only one thing: money! And the Semi is going to save them a ton. To the point where companies might go out of business if they don't switch fast enough due to their higher costs.
 
I think the big question is why was this only done / validated now when the big semi release event is days away?

Shouldn't this have been done a while ago with one of the validation or prototype units?

I suppose one can just extrapolate the energy usage out to a full discharge of the pack, but it always sounds better to have actually proven it in real life.
Is that you Bill? 🥸 🤣
 
I highly doubt it. They've been driving the prototypes for years now, I'm sure they've range tested, tweaked, improved, and validated many aspects of the semi along the way.

They are only speaking publicly about it now! :D
Potentially, the prototypes were using smaller packs due to non-optomized design. This would let them test and develop all the other features without needing maximum energy density. For example, four 100kWh packs stacked together.

In parallel, they would have the pack design testing on thermal and electronic load systems to find the limits. Hours of continuous high load/ uphill testing. Hours of start/stop urban tests. Things you can't do in the real world.

Someone on twitter posted that there were over 220,000 NEW Semis bought in 2021, and over 280,000 used ones. So technically the TAM in the US is over 500,000!
Except the new are, at least in part, replacing the used.
At the other end of the spectrum, it could be a fleet change of zero to negative (220k new, 220k new->used, 60k used->used, ?k used->scrap)
 
Mod: I'm currently using the twitter thread as a dumping ground for posts about twitter that have new thoughts or information in them, that I deem worth keeping, even though the thread is locked. But don't rely on me (or other mods) to be tolerant of random musings. --ggr
So the Twitter thread is locked and we can’t talk about Twitter here? How does that make sense? I guess go to some other unnamed social media discussion forum?

Btw, completely related to Tesla post: For those worried about software engineers running away screaming from Tesla (and Twitter), Geohotz gives his opinion on his twitch livestream (he’s stream his coding??? What a time to be alive!), 20 seconds long: georgehotz - working at twitter

tl;dr All is fine.
 
I think the big question is why was this only done / validated now when the big semi release event is days away?

Shouldn't this have been done a while ago with one of the validation or prototype units?

I suppose one can just extrapolate the energy usage out to a full discharge of the pack, but it always sounds better to have actually proven it in real life.
No, the big question is why you’d think they just did it now for the first time? 🙄

This is what happens when you get into a negative headspace about someone. All you see, all you can imagine, all you think from that point forward is negative. You’re no longer looking for any truth that isn’t negative. And you know exactly what I’m referring to.

First of all, they need current data/pictures/video for the presentation. Something they validated 3 years ago on a prototype isn’t worth a cob of corn on Dec 1 at the event.

Second, throwing out little crumbs prior to an event is the Elon way, unable to always control his enthusiasm about accomplishments of the team.

Third, throwing out information like this generates ah, excitement, interest, even disbelief - I’ve got to see this with my own eyes.

Fourth, it doesn’t actually matter at what point they prove their specs. This isn’t GM/Ford/and the like. Tesla actually aims for the specs they put out with their prototypes and then tries to exceed them with the final product. That’s actually sentiment right from Elon and most times they accomplish it.

This is a mic drop moment. Stop trying to rain on it.