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

[Max Plaid]

Like me.

Tesla is just waiting for those cars to go to the junk yard so that they don’t have to fund our travels anymore.
I will some day get tired of waiting and buy the latest Model S.

Thing is that free supercharging isn't actually worth all that much for the average driver who uses it for road trips, it's more of a psychological thing IMO. That being said, I'd pay up-front to have it unlimited, like the old days when they asked $2k for it on the MS

 

[AndrewZ]

I'm looking at switching from my P100D to a Plaid, but in The Netherlands none are available for a test drive. So I've been trying the LR to get a feel for the new Model S.

Today I tried to make an appointment at the closest Tesla store for a test drive in an LR with 19 inch wheels (I drove one with 21 inch last week and want to feel/hear the difference). The guy said that the car with the 19 inch wheels had been transported to another store and that he unfortunately had to hang up the phone. "Too many customers waiting in the store for a Model 3 or Y".

I called the store it was transported to. "Sorry, it's on display and will only be available for test drives near the end of the quarter."

So I called a third store. "Yes, we have an LR, but we can't schedule a test drive. Every spot for the next few weeks is booked with Model Y and Model 3 test drives. We can't plan any further ahead."

So I called a fourth store. They have the right car. No spots this week, but they could fit me in for next week.

I'd say bullish.

Just handling this sudden influx must be difficult

In terms of overall European inventory, it seems a new shipment may have come in from China or something and there should be plenty of vehicles for these customers. I see over 1,200 new Model 3 inventory listings right now and 1,400 Model Y, up like 1k from yesterday

 

[Ogre]

Relevance - the presentation is literally about expanding the company, growing revenues, making more EVs, and making EVs more affordable. The purpose isn't hard to understand and it should be relevant to investors and markets. (Perhaps some clarity about the 50% growth rate here).

This to me is the huge difference.

Battery Day and AI day were fundally “Look at this cool thing coming 2-15 years in the future“ events.

I think March 1st will be more along the lines of showing off the latest manufacturing technology they are already using in a factory.

That said, it might be bumpy regardless. I’m starting to wonder if they are going to fire up Model 3 production in Texas and shut down the line in Fremont for a few months while they retrofit it. I think the sort of change they are planning won’t be quick or simple and it will require a month or more of downtime.

 

[Skryll]

Yep, and with all of that, neighbor's wife still did that. And I would not put it past my wife.

Upgrade the wife maybe ?

Love our model X

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

Yeah, this one's a total head-scratcher to me... lots of folks would trade if they could keep their FSD; Even more of the early-adopters are hanging on to their old clunkers for free Supercharging and premium connectivity - if they transferred these to new cars too then the S&X sales would go nuts

I don't get it at all

As a shareholder I think this would be a very bad idea. I'm also 99% certain it will never happen.

They gonna let people that paid $5k years ago now get a new car that could be on the roads for maybe 25 years with FSD for that same $5k? It would be better to just give those that bought the first couple of years a refund.

 

[bkp_duke]

Upgrade the wife maybe ?

Love our model X

You can't upgrade an angel.

EDIT - referring to my wife, not the neighbor's.

 

[NicoV]

Think is that free supercharging is actually worth all that much for the average driver who uses it for road trips, it's more of a psychological thing IMO. That being said, I'd pay up-front to have it unlimited, like the old days when then asked $2k for it on the MS

Yes its purely psychological, I don’t use supercharging that much.
To be honest, I’m probably more waiting on a higher TSLA to buy a new S. That and a price decrease, because it’s now a lot more expensive than in the USA.

 

[Dutchie]

I wouldn't quit the stock if I was you. Not advice... but I wouldn't quit it.

How many miles on your model X?

I brought in my early 2018 X75D (now has 45,000 miles on it), for something minor about 18 months ago and they replaced a mountain of stuff including air suspension and speakers that I never dreamed had any issues all, plus they upgraded the FSD hardware on warranty. I paid ~$2500-ish for the upgraded display, but the paid repairs have been nothing like what you describe.

Thanks. Our car has 118,000 miles. We like to drive. So now we are in for our second front brake set. All because some ceased calliper.

After some thought we decided to hold off on the repair. Have to prioritize things (first clean up tax bill) We are away in February, and in March temperatures start to climb again. We will not need heater in the months thereafter.

So strange that we have such bad luck. I hear other people also not needing so much repairs. I am really careful with the car. Fully wrapped the car with paint protection film, keep it clean etc. Hardly supercharging and slow AC charging limited to 40A. Don’t drive like maniacs and use FSD beta now like 90% of the time.

Hopefully TSLA is a bit positive in coming months. It can help pay for the bills.

 

[MP3Mike]

Wonder what the details are on that "more than one OEM" requirement. Aptera Motors announced that they would use the Tesla charging connector natively on their cars. Are they big enough to count? (they haven't shipped anything yet, there is that caveat)

I think further revisions dropped that and specifically call out CCS. (I know the Oregon requirements specifically call out CCS.)

Here is the current federal guidance: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environmen...nations/90d_nevi_formula_program_guidance.pdf

• All EV charger infrastructure installed as part of the NEVI Formula Program along the designated corridors should be Direct-Current (DC) Fast Chargers. Stations should be designed to provide at least four Combined Charging System (CCS) ports capable of simultaneously charging four EVs. Station power capability should be no less than 600 kW (supporting at least 150 kW per port simultaneously across four ports) for charging.
• Maximum charge power per DC port should not be below 150 kW and should consider design and construction practices that allow for 350kW or greater charging rates through future upgrades.
• Power sharing across ports should be permitted so long as it does not reduce the maximum output per port below 150 kW. For stations with ports above 150kW, States should support station design that facilitate power sharing across ports. For more information on forthcoming minimum standards and requirements, see Section C below.

So CCS required, and output can't ever be restricted below 150kW for a NEVI compliant port. (Current V2 and V3 Superchargers don't meet either of those requirements.)

On the other hand TravelCenters of America will probably apply for, and get, a bunch of NEVI funding for these installs: TravelCenters of America Enters Agreement with Electrify America to Expand Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (~1,000 chargers at 200 sites.)

 

[Speedr117]

Yeah, this one's a total head-scratcher to me... lots of folks would trade if they could keep their FSD; Even more of the early-adopters are hanging on to their old clunkers for free Supercharging and premium connectivity - if they transferred these to new cars too then the S&X sales would go nuts

I don't get it at all

Or discount FSD on the new car by half...

 

[Buckminster]

Nice picture of the inventory locations for the strong swimmers amongst us:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1619992213613858817

 

[Captkerosene]

I am really thinking of giving up.

We bought our car in 2017 And we love driving it. because of our experience we bought TSLA which appreciated like crazy so much so that at one time we earned as much that we drove the car for free. My mistake last year is not cashing out on TSLA

We were sold on the out Model X with FSD being an appreciating asset. Soon we could deploy it as a Robotaxi so Elon told us. Our car has free unlimited supercharging and the future looked bright.

Last year the issues came. the stock price went down so we were not as rich as we thought we would be. We had some major repair bills on our Model X mounting to over $10,000 (front suspension. Lower and under arms etc). We thought it was a one of thing and that this year would be better. Last month we found out that we needed new front calipers, brake disks and pad. Again more than $3,000 repair bill.

Yesterday we drove and our heater stopped working. just got back an estimate of $2,200.

All these costs on top of a huge tax bill because of all the stocks we needed to sell last year.

We looked online about the average repair bill for a Model X and we don’t come near anything that is being said there.

As much as we love driving our Model X, we are seriously considering selling all our stocks and selling the car and start driving a”normal” car again. We never had these kind of repair bills on our old car (I remember most was $1,000 for an air conditioning repair). It is now 2023 and all the nice words of Elon were just that, nice words. He keeps doing that as V11 FSD is also nowhere to be found. I blame myself for not having cashed out when stocks were high. I never in my wildest dreams thought that TSLA would sink as low as it did. I also blame myself to being so gullible in believing Elon and the whole Tesla story.

It really hurts. I love driving the car. There is is nothing else like it, but having a $2,000 repair bill each month is unsustainable especially if there is nothing like a Robotaxi or appreciating TSLA to compensate that. I am sad man.

Keep the car. Keep the stock. Best thing to do is nothing. In five years the car will be worth more than it is today and the stock will 10X.

 

[SmokyPeat]

No matter what, the designer of any charger should never allow it to put out enough current to weld the contact points together. This is dealt with by monitoring the current flow and by knowing the working range the contacts have and allowing for a reasonable safety margin. Having a temperature sensor in the plug would complement this as well.

If the system detects that current or heat is nearing the limit, it adjusts the output as needed to stay within designated operational parameters.

This is so basic a design consideration I cannot fathom Tesla having not addressed this in their charger from the get-go. It would be a gross oversight in protecting the charger to have let the vehicle's communication be the only determining factor.

EA's design team may have been working from a different set of goals that put this consideration further down the list of priorities.

Any fast charger puts out plenty of current to do serious welding. All that it requires is a short circuit. Sounds to me like it's primarily a fault within the vehicle.

 

[petit_bateau]

Model X is the one Tesla I would never touch. Not dissing those that got the car, hope you all enjoy it. But the way my wife tries to maneuver in and out of the garage . . . a door would have been sheered off already. Funny thing, neighbor had to have 20k of work done on his X late last year for that very reason (although insurance covered his wife's mistake).

I didn't realise one could buy insurance for wives ...

 

[MP3Mike]

Any fast charger puts out plenty of current to do serious welding. All that it requires is a short circuit. Sounds to me like it's primarily a fault within the vehicle.

I don't think we know that. Apparently the EA cabinet holding the power electronics popped and was smoking too. There are also a number of reports of EA stations providing more power, volts/amps, than requested causing vehicles to enter a fail safe mode and cut off charging until some time passes and they are reset. And I have seen one person report that an EA site fried the PCS in their Tesla.

It seems like we have four reports of fried vehicles, each a different brand, but all while charging with EA equipment. That would make me think that the primary fault is on the charger, i.e. EA, side. We know that the power modules in EA sites fail frequently, which is part of why they can't always put out the full power they are rated for, so it could just be a matter that sometimes when they fail they send a surge through to the vehicle.

Here is a Tweet about smoking EA equipment. And here is an article with more details, and includes the report of a Bolt being fried by EA as well. (Who knows how many more instances there have been that just haven't been made public, but it sounds like EA just wanted a paid invoice from the Bolt driver to reimburse him since GM didn't cover it under warranty, which makes me think they know they have problems.)

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I didn't realise one could buy insurance for wives ...

Happens every day, its called 'life insurance'

 

[JRP3]

In five years the car will be worth more than it is today

Highly unlikely.

 

[Hiline]

Nice picture of the inventory locations for the strong swimmers amongst us:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1619992213613858817

Nice picture! Do we know how many cars each ship can carry?

 

[scaesare]

I haven't seen one. We would need usage amounts with times by each location. Then you could run that against the likely tariffs that each location might be receiving based on total usage etc. I struggle with the arguments that charging stations will be cash cows.

I haven't seen a pic of the Hawthorne Design Center "Supercharger Dashboard" in a while (the one below is from several years ago). You could estimate monthly usage from a heavily used site to get some idea of what it would take to offset with solar + storage.

I think I also saw some stats of overall energy for the whole network somewhere... maybe the annual report?

In-post Mod-inserted question: 372/66 = 5.6 gallons per car? Seems puny, 'tho I admit I'm used to the F-350's bottomless appetite.

 

[petit_bateau]

All we have is on 1-2 occasions that Elon on quarterly calls has said that after the "all in" costs, the Supercharger network is ~10% profit margin.

It is generally believed that the margins on trade-ins (which can be upsold with software unlocks and free SC miles) tend to flatter the Services & Other line. If so the SC network is likely operating closer to breakeven. Which is fine with me. But as a shareholder I would prefer repeated reliable transparent quarterly data so as to better understand management decision making.