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

[UncaNed]

Came back from the road trip and had to drive the 101 today because the grapevine was closed due to blizzard conditions. It was really scary and it's going to get worse from what I'm getting fed and reading about weather articles. Re: my Model 3, some thoughts:

- It re-routed me through the Chumash Highway instead of keeping me on Hwy 101. I don't know why (maybe it was a battery charge optimization), but Chumash was a terrible highway with frozen roads and fog where you can only see 2-cars in front of you (also the rain) at high elevations that I drop 25 miles through to get back onto the 101. From a safety perspective, it should have kept me on the 101 which is all mostly flat land at that point.

- I don't know if Tesla navigation already does this, but it needs to be respectful of weather conditions somehow in the routing process. I don't know if it's something like synthesizing windshield wiper signals (Lvl 1-4) from the fleet and incorporating that into routing navigation, but after today's experience I think it's really necessary as weather continues to get worse.

- I don't know if Tesla navigation already does this, but it needs to incorporate closures somehow...for example re-routing to 101 instead of 5 when there's road closures. Santa Cruz had something similar happen at the 17 was closed today too...which might completely close off Santa Cruz from Silicon Valley during a workday.

I trust Tesla navigation as far as I can throw my Model X. Several years ago it routed me through marginal city streets causing me to miss a funeral. 2 months ago, FSD Beta brought me on a superfluous 1mile loop 2 miles from home, not being on a hurry, I allowed it to see what it would really do.

 

[willow_hiller]

Not sure why you'd want to stare at a Tesla logo for ~69 hours, but that's an option now because the link to the Investors Day stream is live:

2023 Investor Day | Tesla

We plan to host Tesla's 2023 Investor Day on March 1, 2023. Our investors will be able to see our most advanced production line as well as discuss long term ...

www.youtube.com

 

[Webeevdrivers]

So, are these Superchargers with the Magicdock that are popping up in New York funded by NEVI funds or are they just part of teslas plans to open the network. It just seems they don’t come even close to the NEVI specs. Weird.

 

[mongo]

Covered windows could be explained by making castings for the Cybertruck, which for now Tesla want to remain hidden.

Not just the castings, all the intellectual property that goes into the die and tooling setup.

 

[lascavarian]

Somebody please explain this sentence to me. Thanks!

Investors like me. I get some yield from selling covered calls. Beyond that, shares held for many years get sold. Fewer shares results in reduced income from selling calls which might even pressure to sell a few more shares. With occasional dividends, shares might even be able to be added.

Everyones situation is different. Buy backs ignore liquidity requirements for some investors as I see it. Dividends don’t work for everyone and neither do buy backs. The board will figure out what to do.

 

[JustSaying]

View attachment 911683
aaaaand ... it's gone

Teslas built like Mattel "Hot Wheels"?
(Sorry if posted before....)

 

[Cosmacelf]

So, are these Superchargers with the Magicdock that are popping up in New York funded by NEVI funds or are they just part of teslas plans to open the network. It just seems they don’t come even close to the NEVI specs. Weird.

Can’t be. NEVI funds haven’t been allocated yet. It’s probably Tesla giving consumers a small taste of the SC network as a way of applying pressure to the states to allow this solution be allowed to receive NEVI funding in the future because right now, Magic Docks don’t meet a bunch of bureaucratic requirements.

 

[wdolson]

I am in the camp of those expecting that Investor Day will be about Master Plan Part Troix, i.e. how to scale for a global transition to renewables. So far, I abstained from such speculations but @wdolson wrote in a post in the Russia/Ukraine thread [emphasis mine]:

My immediate reaction was like "We're a household of 3 with an electric car and we use less than 15kWh per day on average. This 50kWh number has to be the entire country's consumption divided by # of UK citicens".

The 50 KWh per day was not just the electricity directly used by one person in one day, but all the energy that goes into their lives, which includes fossil fuels used to get the products they buy to the store, the natural gas used for heating and cooking, etc. I read a few things and watched a couple of David MacKay videos a few years ago, so my memory is hazy, but I do remember the 50 KWh per day was not just electricity use. And I believe he said the current level is higher than that.
His TED talk about it

The UK may have a slightly higher energy per day per person usage than Germany. Germany is on the continent and a lot of supplies move by rail, much of that now by electric rail. The UK must import almost everything and it comes in mostly by ship. Germany may also have more energy efficient buildings on average than the UK. I have friends in the UK who live outside the major cities and they have commented on how poorly insulated a lot of the buildings are in their towns.

 

[wtlloyd]

Pierre Ferragu lays it out on the expected "Model 2"

..."We expect Model 2 15% shorter, 30% lighter and 25% smaller battery than Model 3. We looked at how ICE compacts compare to mid-size ICE sedans and extrapolated the comparison between Model 3 and ICE mid-size sedans to reach this conclusion."....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1630010483511009282

The slides are well worth taking a closer look at.

 

[bkp_duke]

Article on the politics in Mexico around locating the Tesla plant. Sounds like the Mexican president wants to decide where it should go and is using the water as and excuse for not approving Nuevo Leon.

Opinion | Tesla Meets the Rule of AMLO

But López Obrador says he’ll allow the U.S. to subsidize Mexico’s wind farms.

www.wsj.com

Not a smart move on the Mexican president's part. Playing chicken with Elon may just cost him the plant entirely. Plenty of other countries would want that plant.

 

[Ogre]

Can’t be. NEVI funds haven’t been allocated yet. It’s probably Tesla giving consumers a small taste of the SC network as a way of applying pressure to the states to allow this solution be allowed to receive NEVI funding in the future because right now, Magic Docks don’t meet a bunch of bureaucratic requirements.

I think Tesla got separate funding for their magic dock installations.

NEVI is for new installations. Biden wanted Tesla to open up their existing network to other car companies and many of their chargers don’t meet the NEVI requirements even if you ignore the CCS aspect.

 

[Sofie]

Tesla doing buybacks act like another Leo with deep pockets buying the dip. It provides the stock with more support when there's a sell off. That's why everyone and their mothers wanted Tesla to announce a buy back when the stock was in free falling.

So let’s say a buyback is announced, would we even notice, in terms of the movement of the stock? Would the stock price most likely go up or down?

 

[TrendTrader007]

on any given day TSLA trades approximately $27 to $40 billion worth stock. somedays back in november 2021, even close to $60 billion in a single day! so a buyback by itself will not be able to support stock price but the psychological significance can not be understated. it would signify a high degree of confidence by TSLA management that stock is either undervalued or at least fairly valued. back in early 2021 when TSLA made mistake of buying $1 billion worth or so of bitcoin, stock fell for several months. a stock buy back likely to have reverse effect and cause stock price to shoot up and continue rising for several months. a buy back sometime in 2023 is imminent, in my opinion. Elon and board are in favor and it is simply a matter of when
not financial advice

PS: one of the beautiful things about trading TSLA is amazing liquidity. TSLL could never afford me that. however, i find that selling TSLA with market order in any sizeable order is a losing proposition. i always use limit otherwise market makers rob me blind.
hard to find any stock with phenomenal fundamentals, stunning growth, deep liquidity combined with gut wrenching volatility anywhere else. one could make an entire career of trading nothing except TSLA for decades to come. (and one should. just kidding, Lucid is a better stock and so is GM. better trade them while they still exist)
again, not financial advice

 

[heltok]

Link to future stream of the 2023 Investor Day:

 

[JRP3]

Thanks, hoping someone here would know, as I am trying to fight a FUD from a BBC article that claims that recycling is an unprofitable industry not going anywhere..

It is likely profitable since there are companies already doing it. Take a look at lead acid battery recycling for an example of a mature industry. And if by some miracle it wasn’t profitable, then governments would make it profitable through mandates and recycling fees.

JB has said Redwood's recycling operations are already profitable.

 

[MP3Mike]

Can’t be. NEVI funds haven’t been allocated yet. It’s probably Tesla giving consumers a small taste of the SC network as a way of applying pressure to the states to allow this solution be allowed to receive NEVI funding in the future because right now, Magic Docks don’t meet a bunch of bureaucratic requirements.

Or Tesla isn't even planning on dealing with NEVI requirements. (It requires a lot of openness, which Tesla doesn't tend to want.)

NEVI is for new installations.

No, it is for upgrades as well. For example, Arizona has said that they plan to use almost all of the first year NEVI funds to upgrade existing installs to be NEVI compliant. I was thinking that that was a bad use and that expanding wound be better, but if the upgrades get existing sites to 97+% reliability than it is a very good use of funds.

 

[growler23]

Thanks, hoping someone here would know, as I am trying to fight a FUD from a BBC article that claims that recycling is an unprofitable industry not going anywhere..

One data point might be the Tesla Environmental Impact Report - iirc they at least discuss their tonnage of recycling from 2021. Doubtful they discussed cost though.

 

[Singuy]

According to the Tesla FSD recall faq, fsd beta roll out to New customers have been suspended until the fix is out.

 

[MC3OZ]

Or Tesla isn't even planning on dealing with NEVI requirements. (It requires a lot of openness, which Tesla doesn't tend to want.)


No, it is for upgrades as well. For example, Arizona has said that they plan to use almost all of the first year NEVI funds to upgrade existing installs to be NEVI compliant. I was thinking that that was a bad use and that expanding wound be better, but if the upgrades get existing sites to 97+% reliability than it is a very good use of funds.

Seemed to me like Elon had a meeting with the Biden team and after the meeting, both sides where happy with the deal?

There are 4 possibilities:-

1. Elon and the Biden team could not find common ground.
2. There is a deal, but it is separate to NEVI. (only for old sites)
3. NEVI will be modified to accommodate Tesla, but those changes are grinding through the process.
4. Tesla will accommodate some or all of NEVI (only for new sites).

So my best guess is some mix or 2, 3 & 4. the deal of existing Tesla sites is outside of NEVI, at new sites Tesla will conform to a possibly amended form of NEVI.

Both sides should want to be accommodating, as both have what the other wants.

Tesla wants the money, the Biden team wants a rapid charger expansion, and an opening up of the Supercharger network.

The deal Elon has is likely only with Biden, some states might not want to play ball. In that case, Tesla can expand and open in more cooperative states,

My guess is opening and expansion are interrelated. Only a modest amount of opening without expansion.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla wants the money

How can you state that as a fact? Tesla rejected the $6M they were granted from California for 4 sites, presumably because it came with requirements they didn't want to comply with.