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

[Knightshade]

FSD sales/ deferred revenue should more than cover that.

For the folks who paid 15k for FSD and already had HW3 new in the car that's probably true,

For the folks who paid 2-3k for FSD and the car was already upgraded for "free" once from HW2.x to HW3, that's almost certainly NOT true (and even the 15k folks isn't a sure thing given Elon already mentioned HW3->HW4 would likely be cost prohibitive).


There's a whole thread on HW3/HW4 where further discussion prob. belongs though

There will be NO HW4 upgrade for HW3 owners

Right, reading the article, Elon's lawyers basically successfully argued that he was only "considering" taking it private, and that he did at least have a verbal agreement for the funding, so I agree it doesn't set any precedents for future cases about his tweets. That said, I highly doubt that...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Ogre]

That pricing may be set to try to match that of the current #1 car in the US - the Toyota Corella.

New article from CleanTechnica -

Tesla Model 3 Lease Price Slashed To Match The Toyota Corolla!​

The article suggests that Tesla is due to lose it’s $7,500 rebate due to the IRS policy change… but does this apply to leases?

I thought leasing was an end-around to most of the restrictions. If so, I’d bet we see this lease deal stretch out for quite a while.

 

[scaesare]

Even after the tax credit, the Model 3 SR is still much more expensive than the Corolla. If we assume Tesla doesn't have an issue with demand, there must be something else going on with Tesla's future vision for this baseline model. E.g. common use as robotaxi or re-selling lease returns with added software.

Acquistion cost: yes. TCO for the duration of, say, and auto loan? Not so sure...

 

[CorneliusXX]

All true, but why is noone talking about the windshieldwiper - the hole appeal to me dies with this thing on. Without it the lines are slick and all, but with any iteration I saw so far it was just bad - less bad now with the narrow one than the enormous one from the beginning but still just bad.

Am I alone with this view?

I would hate to be your realtor.

realtor: Modern house, uses far less energy than the neighbours, can withstand cat 5 hurricane, lots of storage, cheap.

You: I dunno, the mailbox is pretty ugly.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I would hate to be your realtor.

realtor: Modern house, uses far less energy than the neighbours, can withstand cat 5 hurricane, lots of storage, cheap.

You: I dunno, the mailbox is pretty ugly.

And that paint color is horrendous....

 

[Ogre]

Even after the tax credit, the Model 3 SR is still much more expensive than the Corolla. If we assume Tesla doesn't have an issue with demand, there must be something else going on with Tesla's future vision for this baseline model. E.g. common use as robotaxi or re-selling lease returns with added software.

The Corolla lease does not look like a particularly good deal so it’s not that hard to beat. Either Toyota is lowballing their residual or just not super excited about leasing right now. (which is probably smart considering where the market for used ICE vehicles is going!)

I’ve definitely seen lease deals from Toyota better than this in the not too distant past.

As your post implies, Tesla wants cars back in inventory in a couple years. Toyota doesn’t.

 

[JRP3]

In this pic it seems clear to me that the lowest part of the bucket seat is almost at the same level as the foot well. That's why the thigh support is angled so steeply, you are almost literally sitting on the floor.

 

[CitizenKane]

I recommend not repeating TSLAQ talking points here as if they are credible.

? That is quite the allegation.

That the Cybertruck is not available to order in Sweden is certainly not someone's talking point but apparent to anyone who, like me, lives in Sweden and has access to Tesla's local website and can visit their showrooms.

That it would fail to meet EU standards in its present shape I do not know if it is a TSLAQ talking point but the interesting things is whether it is true, I hope, not who may or may not have talked about it? I had to check where I got this from since I remember hearing about it a long time ago and the source seems to be an interview with Musk himself, where he supposedly said "We made the exec decision to not make a world truck, so it does not comply with a lot of EU spec and stuff” in a Daily Drive interview.

If you want to dig deep into the EU type approval for the protection of pedestrians (so called vulnerable road users) you can check out the regulation here: EUR-Lex - 32019R2144 - EN - EUR-Lex

Again, I am definitely not an expert on this and it may be that Cybertruck will be approved, or modified so that it will be approved, but I do think it is very silly to jump to the conclusion that any post that raises any question about Tesla would be repeating TSLAQ talking points.

And not that it is any of anybody's business, but I am quite heavily invested in Tesla and would love for them to sell a lot of cybertrucks in Europe.

 

[Stretch2727]

The article suggests that Tesla is due to lose it’s $7,500 rebate due to the IRS policy change… but does this apply to leases?

I thought leasing was an end-around to most of the restrictions. If so, I’d bet we see this lease deal stretch out for quite a while.

View attachment 904035

The commercial portion of the law which allows leasing to qualify has no price, battery, income or manufacturing requirements. One reason imported cars are eligible. So the clarification on the battery mineral requirements in March should not effect the leasing work around.

 

[Olle]

Tesla, great company. Too bad so many weirdos piggyback on it for their own personal clout from Warren to Prophet Sarajh to Stephenson and SMR.

What? I thought Warren's model for 100x by 2030 was guaranteed? Seriously though I actually don't see any problem with these people. I watch SMR and Warren once in a blue moon to cheer myself up if I have been exposed to too much FUD. But who is Prophet Sarajh?

 

[Papafox]

I read Papafox’s Daily TSLA Trading Charts with great interest, not the least because of the great insight into what goes on behind the scenes and the manipulations that occurs all the time.

There is one thing I don’t quite understand though, perhaps someone here can explain it: It is apparently quite normal that eg. market makers short TSLA during the day to keep the price down and then cover for the shorted stocks during the Closing Cross at the end of the trading day. I would expect a somewhat symmetrical effect on the stock price, I.e that the price would go up with approximately the same mount when covering as it went down when shorting. I don’t see any signs of that, so did I miss something or what Is the explanation for that? Thanks!

Markets are more complex than the simple rule of buying X shares brings the stock price up so much and selling X shares pulls the stock price down so much. Instead, buyers and sellers are affected by expectations as well as disinformation.

Take, as an example, the inability in recent days for TSLA to climb above $200. Market makers and hedge funds have been shorting TSLA as necessary (capping) to keep TSLA below 200 when it is quickly heading for a higher price right after market open. If you were planning to sell some Tesla and you saw TSLA moving quickly upwards, your tendency, if you wished to maximize profits, would be to hold off on selling until TSLA looked closer to a top. What the capping through short-selling does is create an artificial top for the day that would not otherwise be present with normal market dynamics. The seller sees TSLA bounce off 198 and head down to 197. He decides this is the best TSLA will do for the day and sells here. His selling may contribute to a further dip in the stock price. Meanwhile, there are buyers waiting on the sidelines for either a deep dip or a strong increase which they don't want to be late buying into. When TSLA bounces off 198 and settles lower, these sideline buyers decide there's no reason to invest in TSLA this day because the stock is clearly not going to run much higher than it already is. They stay on the sidelines and fail to put upward pressure on the stock.

Of course eventually the cap fails. We saw such a failure in recent days when a known resistance point of TSLA, 167, was breached. Many buyers were aware of the resistance point and when TSLA broke through 167 you saw strong buying take it much higher. A quickly rising TSLA changes both buyer and seller expectations with sellers holding off selling until a higher equilibrium price is reached and buyers accelerating buying so as to catch the run-up early. It's all about psychology. The short-sellers who capped can slowly buy back throughout the day if they have succeeded in holding the cap, and they can finish with buying to cover during the 4pm closing cross when that buying has negligible affect upon the day's stock price and even less affect upon the inclinations of buyers and sellers going forward.

Shorting a stock during the day and then covering during the 4pm closing cross is just one technique for holding the stock price back. There's spoofing, as well, where hedgies and MMs may put in large sell orders above a certain price without the intention of actually selling. If the stock price gets too close to this selling price, they will pull the order before it is executed. What the spoofing looks like to an advanced seller or buyer with access to the TSLA order book is that there's a price above which TSLA will not rise because of the abundance of sell orders just above that price. Sellers decide that since TSLA won't rise above that price, they'll sell below. Buyers see TSLA unable to climb above that price and figure there's no more upside for the day (best to hold off buying until another day).

I'm sure @Artful Dodger and others could expand upon these observations, but the bottom line is that not all buying and not all selling affects the stock price equally. That buying or selling that changes the expectations of the market clearly has a larger affect on the stock price than trading that doesn't.

Hoping this explanation has been helpful.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

What? I thought Warren's model for 100x by 2030 was guaranteed? Seriously though I actually don't see any problem with these people. I watch SMR and Warren once in a blue moon to cheer myself up if I have been exposed to too much FUD. But who is Prophet Sarajh?

The self proclaimed prophet Sarajah claimed $TSLA would hit $3000 in 2020:

His latest claim:

 

[Yuha]

In this pic it seems clear to me that the lowest part of the bucket seat is almost at the same level as the foot well. That's why the thigh support is angled so steeply, you are almost literally sitting on the floor.

One advantage of double layer vs single layer is that it puts the mass closer to the center of mass, which reduces rotational inertia. This improves cornering behavior, which could be significant for the Roadster, at least.

 

[MC3OZ]

We need to keep a running track of the sensationalist hype BS this man has said over the years.

Just from what I have saved, this is the same dude who once predicted 540k+ deliveries in 4Q21 alone w/ASP @ $108k+. Also predicted $16.6bn GAAP Earnings for FY21. You have 0 credibility. Denied China demand weakness last year. overshot both on deliveries and eps this past quarter.

Sure he spits out a lot of pretty charts, but his forecasting is borderline embarrassing that makes TSLAQ folks look right on things. But because he’s a bull people so easily gloss over his irresponsible overshooting all the time.

Tesla, great company. Too bad so many weirdos piggyback on it for their own personal clout from Warren to Prophet Sarajh to Stephenson and SMR.

I would remove Stephenson from this list, James backs most of what he says with data.

 

[loquitur]

Ron Baron is in that ballpark too.

“I think in 2025 it (Tesla) will be $500 to $600 (per share). And in eight to ten years, we ought to be somewhere around $4.5 trillion.”

His $5-$600 a share is for EVs only, no autonomy, batteries etc.

This post reminded me to put up some Tesla investor-related files from the recent
"funding secured" lawsuit.

On the stand, Elon favorably mentioned Ron Baron as one of best investors around.
The context was that he often had Elon's ear and bugged him to tweet less, pleading with
him to instead "If something really upsets you, go for a walk around the factory.
Get an ice cream cone. Just don't use Twitter."

This quote about the ice cream cone did make it out to mainstream media like The Guardian,
but here is the actual email from Ron Baron, admitted as evidence into the court record:

https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/18-cv-04865-EMC%20In%20re%20Tesla%20Inc.%20Securities%20Litigation/Trial%20Exhibit%200078%20-%208.01.18%20Baron%20Email%20to%20Ahuja.pdf

It was sent weeks before the immortal "funding secured" missive, now indelibly etched into
both securities law and Tesla shareholder culture.

Oh yeah, while on the subject of Ron Baron, thanks to the TMC search button and member CLK350 here,
my attention was brought to the Baron/Musk interview, and the factoid that Mr. Baron made his early money
driving an ice cream truck (or ICE cream truck, thanx for pun CLK350!) -- maybe this was a subconscious
influence on his email. [...continued...]

 

[ZeApelido]

Guys I met some TMCers in real life including @Gigapress.

Literally the first thing he said to me was "why do you post so many memes?"

Can you believe this guy?

 

[kbM3]

1. Wright's Law, as presented, is in regard to a doubling of production resulting in a particular percentage of price reduction. The chart represents this as it has happened over a period of several doublings.

2. I agree about his mistake about Megapacks and later specifing cells. I worked through that and it didn't change things, just defined it more accurately. I appreciated that he made the correction.

3. It seems to me that the purpose of the credits is to stimulate domestic production. It is granted that the boon for this won't last forever. However, it has been discussed many times that mining, Lithium refinement, and battery production have a timeline of 5 to 10+ years from breaking ground to shipping product. His timeline was 6 years. That seems reasonable, unless politicians change things.

4. Tax credits as revenue or COGS is picking nits. If the result is lower overall cost for batteries, what is the difference in how the accountants deal with it? The net result is the same if the credits offset the cost of manufacturing the cells.

Edit: changed "cost" to "price" in 1 above.

“Pioneered by Theodore Wright in 1936, Wright’s Law aims to provide a reliable framework for forecasting cost declines as a function of cumulative production. Specifically, it states that for every cumulative doubling of units produced, costs will fall by a constant percentage.”


Cumulative doubling means the number of LiFP batteries produced from today forward, would be double the number of batteries EVER produced since the beginning of time. Not double the number produced this year.

If it’s not accounted for in COGS, it’s not a cost. He’s confusing margins with markup. You can have > 100% markup. You cannot have > 100% margin.

 

[ZeApelido]

No. Noo. Noooooo.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1622699204433903625

https://www.thestreet.com/.amp/investing/jim-cramer-gives-surprising-answer-when-asked-if-hed-rather-own-tesla-or-one-of-its-rivals

 

[insaneoctane]

Wow. They actually are the same lease price now, in the US at least which is what the article shows.

M3 and Corolla both going for $477/month for 36 months, 10k miles per year and $1.1k due at signing.

Anyone else scratching their head asking “Who would lease a Corolla for almost $500/mo”?

 

[loquitur]

This post reminded me to put up some Tesla investor-related files from the recent
"funding secured" lawsuit.

On the stand, Elon favorably mentioned Ron Baron as one of best investors around.
The context was that he often had Elon's ear and bugged him to tweet less, pleading with
him to instead "If something really upsets you, go for a walk around the factory.
Get an ice cream cone. Just don't use Twitter."

This quote about the ice cream cone did make it out to main stream media like The Guardian,
but here is the actual email from Ron Baron, admitted as evidence into the court record:

https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/18-cv-04865-EMC%20In%20re%20Tesla%20Inc.%20Securities%20Litigation/Trial%20Exhibit%200078%20-%208.01.18%20Baron%20Email%20to%20Ahuja.pdf

It was sent weeks before the immortal "funding secured" missive, now indelibly etched into
both securities law and Tesla shareholder culture.

Oh yeah, while on the subject of Ron Baron, thanks to the TMC search button and member CLK350 here,
my attention was brought to the Baron/Musk interview, and the factoid that Mr. Baron made his early money
driving an ice cream truck (or ICE cream truck, thanx for pun CLK350!) -- maybe this was a subconscious
influence on his email. [...continued...]

Please excuse my poor form in replying to my own post.

More generally for TSLA investors, the federal court file linked earlier is from a folder containing
lots of good nuggets for Tesla history buffs. It showcases things like minutes from Tesla board meetings,
(rarely made public except in lawsuits), partially-redacted phone texting and email germane to the case, etc:

files.cand.uscourts.gov - /files/18-cv-04865-EMC In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation/

If you find some insightful info within, please post here!

I found the material called Project Turbo, then later Project Titanium enlightening,
which is stuff from SilverLake Partners, retained to advise on the take-private deal:

https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/18-cv-04865-EMC%20In%20re%20Tesla%20Inc.%20Securities%20Litigation/Trial%20Exhibit%200179_Redacted%20-%20Project%20Turbo.pdf

and here, from Goldman Sachs:

https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/18-cv-04865-EMC%20In%20re%20Tesla%20Inc.%20Securities%20Litigation/Trial%20Exhibit%200254%20-%20Email%20Titanium%20Materials.pdf