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

[hobbes]

I have to admit I’m a little shocked by these graphs. I’ve honestly tuned out and focus more on personal life rather than on teslas numbers lately and just believed growth was still solidly above 40% yoy. Are these charts accurate? This is not the picture I was perceiving from the last few earnings calls.

Edit; did I just got so engrossed in Optimus/robotaxis/tesla energy that I missed tesla auto stalling out super hard this year?

With data it is always important to put it in context. Depending on how it is presented, it can tell different stories. The plots you refer to are just for a few quarters in 2023, no comparison to last year. If you look at the corresponding plots from he Q3 shareholder letter, which shows trailing twelve months data (so ironing out short term quarter to quarter variation) and over a longer time horizon, it looks completely different:

Neither of these plots are wrong, but as I said, context is important.

This might also make you feel better:

 

[thx1139]

Could it be that people that were in the market caught word that because of the IRA details pushed to March that all EVs (subject to income and price) will get $7500 credit and Tesla just felt need to push out these last few thousand rather than wait?

 

[elasalle]

this page shows historical data of the total number of new (in existing inventory) Tesla vehicles (Model S, 3, X, Y) available in stock (in the United States) on their website

Portfolio - Matt Jung Photography

tesladata.mattjung.net

 

[The Accountant]

Even with the $7,500 discount, Model Y LR is 10% higher than Q4 2021.
Tesla knows how to manage pricing well.

 

[Creekstalker]

Wow, thanks for that article. Probably about time I did some due diligence on what is now my largest holding. Badri sounds like a fantastic CEO. Feeling even better about Enphase now!

Quit pumping other stocks here please. You do this quite often. There are other threads for this. Thanks

 

[The Accountant]

Megapack is sold out until Q3 2024

 

[SN_8]

NOTE: this post is neither asking to dox Troy or to pile on about anyone's usual complaints.

But part of the reason I, and perhaps others have difficulty trusting his analysis is because we don't know anything about him or his experience/background/training/expertise/cv/etc.

Obviously, most of us here are pseudonymous, myself included. We all have that right, Troy included. But I don't say anything important anyway. Troy on the other hand has emerged as a closely watched analyst of one of the largest companies in the world and what he writes moves the market. For other analysts with that clout, not only do we know who they are, but they are also expected to disclose potential conflicts. And I don't just mean wall street analysts either; Tesla fans turned analysts/commentators typically share more about their background than Troy does, e.g. Rob, Dave, Emmett, etc. With Troy we get none of that. I checked his Patreon site, and all I learned is that he is a fan of Tesla and Google Sheets.

Maybe the anonymity of a high profile Tesla analyst isn't a problem. But at the very least I think it contributes to the skepticism some of us have.

 

[nativewolf]

But @Gigapress , isn't this an extremely optimistic outlook?

If we do go into a deep recession in 2023, I'm talking about the possibility the market and economy get even worse than they are today, then isn't it reasonable to assume this "demand problem" could form very quickly? Auto sales always take a serious hit in big recessions, most large expenditures like them do. This isn't to say people won't still want to buy Teslas, but in difficult financial times people do tighten their belts, and let's be honest the majority of Tesla's revenue is still from auto sales, expensive high end auto sales at that.

To be clear, I'm not saying we have a demand problem today, but given the dour outlook for 2023 right now I don't think it's unreasonable for someone like Troy to be concerned about potential demand problems for next year. As investors we need to be very aware this could materialize very quickly if things go even further south, which they likely will yet.

Long term Tesla will be fine, but I think we need to be open to some possible murky waters for us in 2023. Things might not go as smoothly as we'd like them to.

I would add even more caution on the CT. Lots of those reservations are "want to have" discretionary spends. I find the expansion of Energy sales more hopeful for profit, if it is expanding as quickly as some posted also the Semi deliveries (say $400k each?) will help.

Just noise from the field but we are heavily dependent on business activity and we've been informed of deep cutbacks in orders from our mills, price cuts have started and production quotas, some extreme will be implemented in January. Largest buyer went under 4 weeks ago, 2300 lost jobs directly and it will close 10 large sawmills indirectly. At least in construction things seem to be looking very bleak for 2023. At the same time all the builders new equipment and truck fleets that are financed have become more expensive due to rapidly rising finance charges. They'll wrap up projects this winter but then the summer looks to be brutal and we'll see lots of used equipment hit the auction block. Anecdotal info from the field. I think @Mengy is spot on regarding the possible need to temper expectations on vehicle demand and pricing.

To me the Semi and energy products that are business friendly ie have a positive ROI are the products that will differentiate Tesla in 2023 and maybe 2024. The semi production of 50000 units at $400000 would deliver $20B in 2024 if they can do it.


I think you'll see price compression on the megapacks next year, lots of competition coming but if they can even run that assembly plant at half capacity that would be great.

 

[Gigapress]

But @Gigapress , isn't this an extremely optimistic outlook?

If we do go into a deep recession in 2023, I'm talking about the possibility the market and economy get even worse than they are today, then isn't it reasonable to assume this "demand problem" could form very quickly? Auto sales always take a serious hit in big recessions, most large expenditures like them do. This isn't to say people won't still want to buy Teslas, but in difficult financial times people do tighten their belts, and let's be honest the majority of Tesla's revenue is still from auto sales, expensive high end auto sales at that.

To be clear, I'm not saying we have a demand problem today, but given the dour outlook for 2023 right now I don't think it's unreasonable for someone like Troy to be concerned about potential demand problems for next year. As investors we need to be very aware this could materialize very quickly if things go even further south, which they likely will yet.

Long term Tesla will be fine, but I think we need to be open to some possible murky waters in 2023. Things might not go as smoothly as we'd like them to.

Yeah we could but that’s where the current outlook of $33k gross margin on the Y is so important. Tesla could reduce prices aggressively to be able to keep pushing more volume while making profit margins that still are fantastic. Competitors don’t have that luxury in a recession with cars like the RAV-4 and CR-V, with margins currently more like $5-10k and relatively high operating expenses that need to be covered. Price decreases have nonlinear effects. Every $1k cut from the price invites more new customers than the previous $1k cut.

Troy’s doubt about Tesla potentially not even achieving 70% growth in the US next year due to insufficient demand also neglects that Tesla doesn’t offer the base RWD version these days. It’s not very difficult to add it back to the menu and tool up production. A $50k 2023 Y with 260 miles range and a $7.5k credit making the effective price $42.5k would have a mob of customers beating down a path to Tesla.com and if that one is maybe $2k cheaper to manufacture then Tesla would still be earning about $50k - $36k + $3k = $17k gross profit.

This is why we have a tremendous amount of safety margin for having demand to achieve volume growth plans next year and the demand question really is more about exactly how fat the margins will be.

 

[bkp_duke]

Dont understand why the US discounting to clear inventory. Just seems weird with the IRA credits right around the corner. Unless Tesla simply doesnt have enough space to store them seems like why not wait until January to sell them? I see 1377 in inventory at Tesla buyers guides, worldwide inventory and support for owners 650 of them are S and X. With expectations of ending the wave the most units produced now until end of the year would go into inventory anyway.

Also this winter storm hitting a huge part of country next couple of days will hurt deliveries. Could this be part of equation to get people to go out in this nastiness and take delivery of a car?

Because an inventory build is bad for optics and can have a snowball effect.

Plus, getting cars into people's hands at the holidays is free advertising. People drive more, they show off their cars to family and friends, etc.

Finally, Tesla has raised prices drastically throughout the year because of increased components costs. As those are coming down, they can afford to drop costs and keep inventory moving with little material impact on margins (this final bump is only for the last 10 days of the quarter, and only for inventory cars).

 

[Atomsla]

You've all seen this type of post before, but I'm making it anyway. Since the high earlier this year, my account is now 16,5% of what it was back in january. I leveraged all the way down, because surely the SP can't drop any more. Just no reason for it, was there??

Up until today I had about 30% of the tattered remains of my account sitting in a leveraged TSLA product which would disappear completely at a share price of 110. I bought it back when the price was well over 200, thinking it would be nigh impossible to drop ~50% after the 50% drop from 400-some we already had. Things turned out a bit more poorly than I'd hoped, so now I'm making sure I don't lose that 30% as well. Having been through numerous precipitous drops that were actually connected somewhat to the fundamentals of the company, I felt it would be different this time, because its obvious even to the big boys how tesla will execute in the coming years, right? It couldn't go down for that long. Just not possible, because it is so crystal clear where Tesla is headed. Obviously it still is, but not before I handed most of my gains back.

My foolishness will have a direct impact on my family - we live in a rather small apartment and were getting ready to buy our own house. It was easily possible in january, february or march, but that is no longer the case. We still have a fine and wealthy life compared to most on this globe with no investments at all, mind you. Also, even with most of what we had gone, we can still climb out of this hole. If tesla executes and gets back to 400 at some point, we'll be sitting at about half of where we were earlier in the year.

I know its too much to ask for without experiencing a downfall like this for yourself, but try to learn from this post if you do similar stuff. Don't, if you get margin called, 'make it right' by adding leverage to further increase margin. I dug myself a deeper and deeper hole with every trade, up until the stock price dropped so low that I couldn't go any further.

I'm sure there are people here much worse off than me, and I feel for you - it hurts.
So, just buy stock. If you must use margin, use a little, not a lot unless you make enough money to fix your situation and most definitely don't combine leverage with margin. Just buy lottery tickets instead if you want to piss it all away.

 

[nativewolf]

Megapack is sold out until Q3 2024

View attachment 887851

I know...we tried to reserve one this summer.

 

[Knightshade]

Dont understand why the US discounting to clear inventory. Just seems weird with the IRA credits right around the corner.

Most common theories are the push to try and miss the 50% projected growth by as little as possible-- or that there's some sort of refresh of HW (radar, maybe cameras/driving computer) coming in January and they want to clear as much old HW inventory as they possibly can. Could be some of both, or neither. The fact that they appear to now be offering discounts in Canada and the EU though seems to support one or both of these above simply the "avoid IRA delays" theory that was floating when 3750 came out.

Nope he’s not selling it’s the blackout period. Ends sometime in January

As noted repeatedly, he absolutely could be selling if there was a 10b5-1 plan in place to do so-- not saying he is, but blackout period does not prevent that.

 

[traxila]

Most common theories are the push to try and miss the 50% projected growth by as little as possible-- or that there's some sort of refresh of HW (radar, maybe cameras/driving computer) coming in January and they want to clear as much old HW inventory as they possibly can. Could be some of both, or neither. The fact that they appear to now be offering discounts in Canada and the EU though seems to support one or both of these above simply the "avoid IRA delays" theory that was floating when 3750 came out.





As noted repeatedly, he absolutely could be selling if there was a 10b5-1 plan in place to do so-- not saying he is, but blackout period does not prevent that.

It is pretty clear that the IRA plays a huge role in the USA. Don't see how this is still at the 'theory' stage.

It is also pretty clear that Tesla wants to post good to great numbers (or better than they are tracking in any case, whatever that might be) for deliveries for 2022 and is pushing for it all around the globe with discounts.

 

[Sunlight]

I discovered Tesla in 2014 and invested as we had some spare money (which we could afford to lose). Later I discovered TMC and have spent time on it virtually every day since then through the release of the Model X; announcement of the Model 3; the near-life-or-death ramp up of the M3 production; success of the MY and the crazy share price ride.....

When it all shakes out it has been an entertaining and nail-biting ride and we have made handsomely on those shares – we are definitely HODL people so the share price at the moment just seems an aberration.

Elon has given us plenty to ponder on and his behaviour seems to be affected by how stressed he seems – he got cranky during the M3 ramp and I feel he has been frustrated recently due to Twitter aggravated by the Cybertruck/FSD/Semi etc delays. But it is beyond me why he even contemplated buying that cesspit – Twitter – even at $69 (or maybe $420) but $44 billion – WTF? I thought he was clever?!

So what affect has Twitter had on Tesla? I doubt that it is more that 10-20% of the drop. Interestingly Xpeng and Nio (similar in many ways to Tesla) have suffered worse drops in the last year. Makes on wonder if there aren't other influences at work rather than Twitter – China? Big Oil?

Interestingly VAG; Hyundai; Ford and GM have also had steep drops and they have committed to electrification – maybe I'm becoming a conspiracy theorist?! Whatever it does not make sense and maybe 'outside forces' have been hard at work whilst all the macros and the war muddy the waters.

Elon sadly gave them more grist to the mill with Twitter and his irrational behaviour! A wise and sensible american friend said he doubts the average person looking to buy an EV really cares what Elon thinks – maybe under 1-3% influence, no more.

Maybe too many of us are self-flagellating and in-fighting during this share price slump. Let's just chill and HODL for a few more months – I feel that 2023 will be a turning point (and tougher on other car companies)

 

[thx1139]

Most common theories are the push to try and miss the 50% projected growth by as little as possible-- or that there's some sort of refresh of HW (radar, maybe cameras/driving computer) coming in January and they want to clear as much old HW inventory as they possibly can. Could be some of both, or neither. The fact that they appear to now be offering discounts in Canada and the EU though seems to support one or both of these above simply the "avoid IRA delays" theory that was floating when 3750 came out.





As noted repeatedly, he absolutely could be selling if there was a 10b5-1 plan in place to do so-- not saying he is, but blackout period does not prevent that.

To me the 50% projection for production has nothing to do with this action. After all produced is produced sold the last week of December or 1st week of January wont matter. Could easily be mentioned in the earnings report that all the units left over at the end of 2022 sold the 1st week of January. Can say January started with unprecedented sales in the United States.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Two things. There is some inventory here in Vancouver and the 5000 “credit” is now showing on the website.

I’m still in the camp that having some inventory in various colours and trims is a good thing as there are some buyers who actually want to sit in a car, fall in love with it and then drive it home that day.

If they made the 5000 reduction permanent the standard range would be eligible for an additional 5000 federal and 4000 provincial incentive. These are not tax incentives, these are direct off the taxed price incentives. That’s a total of 14000 less than it is now. That’s a big incentive.

 

[Nocturnal]

To me the 50% projection for production has nothing to do with this action. After all produced is produced sold the last week of December or 1st week of January wont matter. Could easily be mentioned in the earnings report that all the units left over at the end of 2022 sold the 1st week of January. Can say January started with unprecedented sales in the United States.

Storage may very well be an issue. My local SC was just built 2 years ago and is always busting at the seams with cars.

I think it's more about pushing hard for a solid quarter though.

 

[SOULPEDL]

You've all seen this type of post before, but I'm making it anyway. Since the high earlier this year, my account is now 16,5% of what it was back in january. I leveraged all the way down, because surely the SP can't drop any more. Just no reason for it, was there??

Up until today I had about 30% of the tattered remains of my account sitting in a leveraged TSLA product which would disappear completely at a share price of 110. I bought it back when the price was well over 200, thinking it would be nigh impossible to drop ~50% after the 50% drop from 400-some we already had. Things turned out a bit more poorly than I'd hoped, so now I'm making sure I don't lose that 30% as well. Having been through numerous precipitous drops that were actually connected somewhat to the fundamentals of the company, I felt it would be different this time, because its obvious even to the big boys how tesla will execute in the coming years, right? It couldn't go down for that long. Just not possible, because it is so crystal clear where Tesla is headed. Obviously it still is, but not before I handed most of my gains back.

My foolishness will have a direct impact on my family - we live in a rather small apartment and were getting ready to buy our own house. It was easily possible in january, february or march, but that is no longer the case. We still have a fine and wealthy life compared to most on this globe with no investments at all, mind you. Also, even with most of what we had gone, we can still climb out of this hole. If tesla executes and gets back to 400 at some point, we'll be sitting at about half of where we were earlier in the year.

I know its too much to ask for without experiencing a downfall like this for yourself, but try to learn from this post if you do similar stuff. Don't, if you get margin called, 'make it right' by adding leverage to further increase margin. I dug myself a deeper and deeper hole with every trade, up until the stock price dropped so low that I couldn't go any further.

I'm sure there are people here much worse off than me, and I feel for you - it hurts.
So, just buy stock. If you must use margin, use a little, not a lot unless you make enough money to fix your situation and most definitely don't combine leverage with margin. Just buy lottery tickets instead if you want to piss it all away.

There's a little piece of your pain in all of us. If it feels any better, imagine how much money you won't loose because you didn't buy a home at the peak. My son is literally urging me to sell my home and rent in a mansion somewhere from Blackrock, then buy it from Blackrock in a couple years. He might be right. Best wishes in the future for your family. And if you unfortunately end up in a tent someday with your brother, make sure and grab some silicone spray or it's really gross when the mattress gets wet - at least for us at the time with my wise, older brother. (No not Bob, this was Mike. The lessons from Bob had more depth, like to come check out TMC and Tesla.)

 

[oldTAVguy]

Just found this website tracking Tesla US used and new inventory (except for duplicate vehicles at the same place):

Portfolio - Matt Jung Photography

Model 3 new inventory is already declining for some time:
View attachment 887843

Model Y new inventory starts to decline with new discount:
View attachment 887844

For S/X new inventory is rather staying flat (no discount here).

wow!!! 8 hours of global production.