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

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Just noodling a bit this afternoon thinking about exactly what we need to see on March 1st in order for Tesla to maintain their 50% growth for another 4-5 years. From what I can tell based on my napkin math, Tesla is going to need to start opening Gigafactories fast.

If they cut ground on a facility and it takes 18 months before production starts, they need to open about 2 new factories every 6 months to hit their 50% growth target. I'm assuming for the moment that Texas is the oversized outlier and that most factories are going to be capable of 1-2 million cars/ year while Texas is likely to hit 3-5 million a year eventually.

This is what I cooked up on the back of my napkin for the next 5 years. The 50% growth calculation I did here is a bit on the high side it should be 8.7m units in 2027.

I'm sort of assuming here that Shanghai and Fremont are more or less tapped out.

This is just the first 5 years, after this they need to add capacity even faster. I have only 2 new factories here in 2024, but I think they might actually need more. Hopefully this is where we get with MP3.

1674868233609.png
 
I noticed a tidbit of information on the earnings call that I haven't heard anyone pick up on. Drew Baglino said:
"Our fleet is starting to mature, the 3, Y fleet. And we're gathering a lot of data out of that fleet to understand how we can sort of bring some margin that we didn't know we had out of the product. So over the course of 2023 on the powertrain side, we're actually going to go after sort of some materials where we're paying for more performance than we need, or we have more content than we need, without impacting reliability at all. And that will actually add up to a pretty significant cost reduction on the powertrain side over the course of 2023. So we're not just sort of relying on supply. We're also doing design actions to bring cost out."

I assume he is alluding to going down in material specs where fleet data indicates over engineering, but also that the the 3/Y non P cars have largely the same drivetrain as the P and are as such unnecessarily costly. If so, it means that they would separate P from non P hardware specifications more. An interesting balance act between saving on material vs increased production complexity and logistics costs.

If 3/YP will be replaced by the speculated carbon wrapped rotor Plaid 3/Y they will be separated anyway. Plaid 3/Y Seems more likely now that Semi is scaling up with the same motors which thus need to become super reliable and cheap.

By the way, I found it interesting that it wasn’t Elon saying the cars have too much power and we could scale it back for cost reduction. It was Drew and he said it by referencing detailed data they had, almost as if they had to convince someone else in the room who historically has always pushed for more power and faster cars. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it sure seemed to me like Drew was taking a data driven product management approach to vehicle design rather than what has happened in the past, which was that Elon heavily influenced design decisions. To me, it sounded like a baton was being passed at that moment.

Now that I re-read the quote, Drew might not have been talking about vehicle power, but instead saying they could build the same powertrain with cheaper components. Well, I guess we’ll see.
 
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So Farley thinks that dealer network is an asset and not a burden!! 🤣🤣
Farley is talking to a bunch of dealers... of course he's going to say they are the cat's meow. He's going to say nice things about the Unions as well, particularly if he's talking to Union reps. You can't anger the parasites too much or they might kill the host.

Ford can't legally ditch their dealer network even though it is an albatross on their neck. Farley is trying to walk a thin line and placate these leeches even if he's trying to end-around them at the same time.
 
By the way, I found it interesting that it wasn’t Elon saying the cars have too much power and we could scale it back for cost reduction. It was Drew and he said it by referencing detailed data they had, almost as if they had to convince someone else in the room who historically has always pushed for more power and faster cars. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it sure seemed to me like Drew was taking a data driven product management approach to vehicle design rather than what has happened in the last, which was that Elon heavily influenced design decisions. To me, it sounded like a baton was being passed at that moment.

Now that I re-read the quote, Drew might not have been talking about vehicle power, but instead saying they could build the same power train with cheaper components. Well, I guess we’ll see.
I heard that and it makes me pretty curious about what changes they will end up making. Maybe slightly smaller motors and acceleration? My MYLR has more power than I really need, if they could shave $200 - 500 off the price and ship the same vehicle slightly slower they should, particularly if they could noodle a couple more miles of range out of it.
 
The end is near, Ford Dealers are caring, understanding people, unlike that Elon Musk.
Back when I had my 2013 Ford Focus Electric and chargers were few and far between, I needed a charge and stopped at a Ford dealer. (The MSRP for my Focus Electric with 76 mile range was $41,000, but I couldn't afford an S.) I went in and asked if I could use their outside charger, and a fellow said yes. Then the owner walked past me charging, went inside, and sent someone out to tell me to leave.
 
If they cut ground on a facility and it takes 18 months before production starts, they need to open about 2 new factories every 6 months to hit their 50% growth target. I'm assuming for the moment that Texas is the oversized outlier and that most factories are going to be capable of 1-2 million cars/ year while Texas is likely to hit 3-5 million a year eventually.

I've got the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that each new GF, Singapore, Berlin, Austin are to a large extent fresh factory level designs. When they reach the point of needing to open 3 - 4 new factories each year, wouldn't it make sense to standardize the GF design for each new group of factories? Wouldn't that save some time needed to build each group of factories, as well as reduce the ramping time? We now know the amount of time needed to ramp current unique design factories is substantial. If a group of factories were essentially identical, once the first one has gone through it's ramp, wouldn't the time for the identical ones to ramp be less?
 
So with the closing price today at $177.90 and the open on Monday at $135.87, we've had a weekly (M-F) gain of 30.93%!

I thought this may have been a record weekly gain as there was nothing bigger in my data going back to mid 2017. I had to update the data all the way back to Tesla's IPO to check and so below are my results for the top 5 weekly gains.

RankWeekly Gain (M-F)M OpenF Close% Gain
1Mon 5/6/13 to Fri 5/10/13
$3.76​
$5.12​
36.1%​
2Mon 1/23/23 to Fri 1/27/23
$135.87
$177.90
30.9%
3Mon 4/13/20 to Fri 4/17/20
$39.34​
$50.26​
27.7%​
4Mon 10/21/19 to Fri 10/25/19
$17.22​
$21.88​
27.0%​
5Mon 10/22/18 to Fri 10/26/18
$17.38​
$22.06​
26.9%​

So not quite the record gain but a pretty good result any way you look at it. Congratulations all.:D
Aw, we didn’t beat the record. Oh well, there’s always next week… 😉
 
I've got the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that each new GF, Singapore, Berlin, Austin are to a large extent fresh factory level designs. When they reach the point of needing to open 3 - 4 new factories each year, wouldn't it make sense to standardize the GF design for each new group of factories? Wouldn't that save some time needed to build each group of factories, as well as reduce the ramping time? We now know the amount of time needed to ramp current unique design factories is substantial. If a group of factories were essentially identical, once the first one has gone through it's ramp, wouldn't the time for the identical ones to ramp be less?
Just a correction for newcomers: Tesla doesn't have a GF in Singapore. I believe that you meant Shanghai. Also, while I am not a manufacturing person, I think they would rather incorporate new efficiencies and improvements in the new GFs, believing that the advances would outweigh any improvement in ramp speed.
 
I've got the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that each new GF, Singapore, Berlin, Austin are to a large extent fresh factory level designs. When they reach the point of needing to open 3 - 4 new factories each year, wouldn't it make sense to standardize the GF design for each new group of factories? Wouldn't that save some time needed to build each group of factories, as well as reduce the ramping time? We now know the amount of time needed to ramp current unique design factories is substantial. If a group of factories were essentially identical, once the first one has gone through it's ramp, wouldn't the time for the identical ones to ramp be less?
Singapore?

🧐

Is it official now?
 
Can someone who knows tell me exactly how the IRA tax credit fits in with the new lease price on Model 3 SR+'s? Assuming the lessee meets the conditions and pays enough tax to take advantage of it. I've read that the $7,500 goes to the leasing company and can be passed to the consumer in the form of lower lease payments, but is that how/what Tesla is doing with this new lower lease payment? The Tesla order/payment page is silent on that

The more I read the more confused I get. Any informed clarification would be appreciated! We can move this to a separate thread if necessary.
 
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I just roll my LEAPS frequently before they get very old, I'm almost paranoid that there are LEAPS that expire 5 - 10 months later than mine, that I want to roll mine out to the latest expiration date offered just for less risk.

Today, since TSLA seems to be rising, I bought June 2025 Strike $240 LEAPS, then did a sell order for my January 2025 strike $300 and $200 LEAPS at a few dollars over the Last EX for the January 2025 strike 300 leaps. Though I didn't buy the later expiration LEAPS for the same as I sold my older LEAPS like @Papafox somehow manages to do, I felt like I'm still a little ahead in the exchange, and I sleep better nights knowing there's more time till expiration.

I'd buy some farther OTM strikes if they were available; their lower Delta making them cheaper initially, they'll make that up as Delta grows, essentially a sort of leverage assuming stock price rises, of course, over the next 18 - 29 months. If not, I'll keep rolling them.

My LEAPS were recently worth 1/10 of their all-time-high value (sniff) - but 10x my initial investment (YAY!)... Might just be Dunning-Kruger in action, but I feel good about what I'm doing, keeping it simple with my limited option knowledge.

Sorry so slow replying, @CHGolferJim .

Not advice.

Edit- To my way of thinking, maintaining more time before expiration = a longer ladder to bridge the un-seeable crevasses.
Thanks, dang it today would have been a perfect day to roll LEAPs doing the buy new ones first, then sell the old ones via limit order at earlier price received method. I was too mesmerized by the stock action, and wanted to tally all of January’s data in my LEAPs weekly values table before deciding what and how to roll. The table shows >$300 Jan‘24 LEAPs up 3x YTD (these had lost the most value since late 2021 purchase), Jan’25 $160 and $300 1.9x, and TSLA 33%. So maybe I’ll wait until perhaps July/August to roll, maybe catching another 🚀 after 2Q ER. Have a long way to go to break even as these LEAPs were mostly converted from shares at SP ~$400.
 
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I feel 👎 👃 (bad)
I have a friend who put his entire IRA into F, GM, and Toyoda....
I warned him.
I told him I knew Elon, I mean @ZeApelido ... and he was making a mistake.
He said F Elon... he isn’t watching the assembly line. He is too busy making babies 👶.

I even gave him @Gigapress cell phone # to get the real facts... /s. didn't work.

Guess you can't fix stupid ...
 
I feel 👎 👃 (bad)
I have a friend who put his entire IRA into F, GM, and Toyoda....
I warned him.
I told him I knew Elon, I mean @ZeApelido ... and he was making a mistake.
He said F Elon... he isn’t watching the assembly line. He is too busy making babies 👶.

I even gave him @Gigapress cell phone # to get the real facts... /s. didn't work.

Guess you can't fix stupid ...
This community has taught me that there are people working at Tesla specialized at converting the impossible to late.

Fix
Stupid
Dimwit | Dolt | Dullard | Dunce | Doofus

I think that's the program your looking for?

So be patient.
 
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NASDAQ reported Short Interest (SI) for TSLA has increased by 10.4M shares since the last reporting period: (Dec 30, 2022 vs Jan 13, 2023)


TSLA.SI.2023-01-13.png


This represents an increase of 5.7% in the number of shares shorted, but also this is an increase in the value of shares shorted by $1.12B or +11.2%. Paging @Papafox

Shortzes DID NOT expect such positive 2022 Q4 results, and were set up for a 'miss'. Now, they are scrambling to outpace a short-covering rally. We are up > 75% since the TSLA bottom during the 1st week of Jan 2023:

sc.TSLA.50-DayChart.2023-01-27.22-00.png


Cheers to the Longs!
 
I've got the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that each new GF, Singapore, Berlin, Austin are to a large extent fresh factory level designs. When they reach the point of needing to open 3 - 4 new factories each year, wouldn't it make sense to standardize the GF design for each new group of factories? Wouldn't that save some time needed to build each group of factories, as well as reduce the ramping time? We now know the amount of time needed to ramp current unique design factories is substantial. If a group of factories were essentially identical, once the first one has gone through it's ramp, wouldn't the time for the identical ones to ramp be less?

I think so. But it may be Berlin or Texas are that final master design.

I think a part of ramp up time is just assembling the equipment and tuning it. Also, not sure about Berlin, but Texas seemed to be held up significantly by supply and battery shortages. I got the distinct impression that Texas would have ramped a lot faster if they’d had 4680 supplies.
 
So with the closing price today at $177.90 and the open on Monday at $135.87, we've had a weekly (M-F) gain of 30.93%!

Slight quibble: the figure above is the 4 day gain from Monday's Open to today's Close.

To calculate the weekly gain, you must go from Friday-to-Friday, Close-to-Close.

That is $177.90 / $133.42 = +33.33% gain

Cheers!
 
I don’t always agree with this poster, but do share this sentiment…

Its like a horoscope. So vague it could mean anything.

What other low value companies are riding along?

Are we talking about the junk basket that is the pile of EV startups which follow Tesla’s price everywhere like little dogs? That’s not exactly surprising, dogs are pack animals who always follow the alpha. Tesla is the alpha. They followed Tesla down, now they follow Tesla up.

They are only really independent from Tesla when their earnings come out and their basis gets reset.