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

[EVNow]

He was at 407k a few weeks ago. Many of us were in the 420s at the start of the quarter.

So ... ?

He was right to have increased the forecast as stronger than expected sales figures came in from multiple European countries. I prefer data based forecasts than "gut feel" forecasts.

ps : BTW, many of the people who were at 420 in the beginning of the quarter had upped the estimate to 440 or even 450 as stronger than expected data came in from Europe and China.

 

[OnMyWayOut]

Whoops, Sorry everyone. It was unintentional, I assure you!

View attachment 924204

Okay so the numbers are actually quite... average. Production YoY growth of +44.3% and deliveries +36.4%:

View attachment 924205

Thanks @mongo and @dl003.

Q4 2021 production is off too

 

[Stretch2727]

S/X logistics are harder because they're only produced in Fremont right

3/Y are produced in Berlin and Shanghai, with the latter already shipping a lot of vehicles to Europe, and deliveries were being pushed big time into smaller markets like Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, etc

Yeah agreed but they used to do S/X better. For Fremont it would be more efficient to build the EU and Asia units in batches and ship them early in the quarter.

Likely there was some logistics or supply chain issue where they could not build or ship the correct units at the right time. Seems like there is plenty of unfilled demand in EU and Asia and excess inventory in North America.

 

[Todd Burch]

So ... ?

He was right to have increased the forecast as stronger than expected sales figures came in from multiple European countries. I prefer data based forecasts than "gut feel" forecasts.

ps : BTW, many of the people who were at 420 in the beginning of the quarter had upped the estimate to 440 or even 450 as stronger than expected data came in from Europe and China.

Except that's not a forecast, it's a nowcast. What value is it adding? Anyone could easily check European numbers to get a good idea of where Tesla was at. China was mostly known, and US was expected to be an increase over last Q with the IRA incentives.

 

[mongo]

So in Q1 2023 the prod-deliveries percentage is 4% of production. Just 4% of production is in transit or adding to inventory.
(440,808 422,875)
For Q4 2022 it was 7%.
(439,701 405,278)

The percentage of production that is in transit, or heading to inventory has DECLINED by actually quite a huge margin.
Is my maths wrong? because it seems like people are panicking about something thats actually *less* of an issue than before.

Surely the mass media couldn't be spinning the facts wrong?
This is a very good quarter methinks.

Factset had a high of 451k for a delivery estimate...
Tesla compiled is likely more representative.

So in Q1 2023 the prod-deliveries percentage is 4% of production. Just 4% of production is in transit or adding to inventory.
(440,808 422,875)
For Q4 2022 it was 7%.
(439,701 405,278)

The percentage of production that is in transit, or heading to inventory has DECLINED by actually quite a huge margin.
Is my maths wrong? because it seems like people are panicking about something thats actually *less* of an issue than before.

Surely the mass media couldn't be spinning the facts wrong?
This is a very good quarter methinks.

While inventory may not have increased as much, it still increased.
The days of inventory figure is sort of a better number if % in transit is ideally a constant. That number is based off of deliveries and 75 days.
Q4 2022 was 13 days @ 405,278 deliveries or 70,248 cars. An additional 17,933 with 422,785 delivered puts us at a bit under 16 days of supply.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Hmmmm….

On March 14th Troy estimated 413k deliveries- and Tesla beat that
On March 18th Troy revised his estimate to 418k deliveries - and Tesla beat that
On March 31st Troy revised his estimate once again to 426k - a number that would be higher than Tesla’s actual deliveries…and CNBC was already prepared with a “It’s a Miss!” article that was in-part based on Troy’s last minute ‘revision’.

Odd….

https://twitter.com/x/status/1640820377466093569

https://twitter.com/x/status/1641898360385818635

March 14th, TSLA closed at $183.26
March 31st, TSLA closed at $207.46

Troy et all those analysts/promoters that raised their P&D numbers the last two weeks of Q1 2023 simply brought forward the buying activity of TSLA, prior to the release of the P&D report. It makes no difference to long term buy and hold investors. Anyone speculating on a pop from the P&D report...not so much. True and steady wins the race. Kudos to the entire Tesla Team and all their suppliers / sub contractors on another record quarter of Production and Deliveries.

 

[ZeApelido]

As someone who does predictive modeling, I have both positive and negative views of Troy’s efforts.

Positives:

His detailed tracking of all aspects of of production & deliveries means it is certainly possible he picks up more rapidly on changes in Tesla’s actual status - for instance I believe the rapid drop in orders in Q4. That has real value.

He may be less likely to have biased estimates than other less detailed estimates.

Negatives:

Troy’s method allows too much variance. He is too frequentist in his statistical approach and neglecting to add some Bayesian “common sense” filtering. This means he has wild swings in estimates. That is not good from a prediction standpoint, nor from an investor standpoint.

Seriously, you want to pick the more stable like in this chart.

The “ideal” prediction timeline would be one that shifts slowly and steadily from whatever initial error (bias) toward the final estimate that is pretty close to truth.

 

[Opus BC fan]

It seems to me that Tesla met Wall St. expectations for deliveries. It should be interesting to see how the stock reacts tomorrow. I predict a green day unless macros get spooked by the OPEC+ production cuts.

But you must remember that the MMs narrative for the next few weeks is "they were only able to do that by cutting their profit margin because of falling demand"

(or some other bs like that...)

 

[SmokyPeat]

But you must remember that the MMs narrative for the next few weeks is "they were only able to do that by cutting their profit margin because of falling demand"

(or some other bs like that...)

So far I'm seeing about a 50/50 mix of articles spinning the Q1 numbers either positive or negative. Could be worse.

 

[Max Plaid]

So what or who decides Wall Streets analyst expectations? There seem to be two figures, 420K and 430K.
Of course now the media will cover this as a miss

Tesla posts record quarterly deliveries after price cuts, up 4% from Q4

Tesla Inc on Sunday posted record quarterly vehicle deliveries, but quarter-on-quarter sales growth was modest despite price cuts as rising competition and a bleak economic outlook weighed.

www.reuters.com

So I guess all the gains of TSLA made last friday will be gone by tomorrow.

420 is the Tesla-compiled consensus from the more respectable analysts, the 430 is from FactSet which includes inflated estimates from nefarious idiots to try and engineer a miss (and yet those same cretins will be on CNBS the next morning talking about demand issues)

It's all bollocks, basically

 

[SOULPEDL]

310 to 422 ?? YOY ... that's amazing growth!

Well done Tesla and crew.

Exactly! And this is with 2 new GigaFactories now ramping and Berlin hitting their first 5k only days ago. You can see their pride in the video. EU is going gaga over Model Y, Q2 could be epic. Plus we have no idea how many battery modules sold, except its more than claimed, lol.

This bickering over the forecast is only feeding the wolves even more meat IMO. Their game, since there is no stopping Tesla, is to try and disappoint employees hoping for that pop AND keep the oil pumping AND to keep us all from cashing in to keep fueling inflation.

So here’s to all those Tesla employees who know better and worked their assesss off to exceed expectations again - against all odds. Thank you Tesla!

Bravo China!
Bravo Germany!
Bravo Nevada!
Bravo Texas!
Bravo California!
Get ready Mexico!
Oh Canada?

(Did I miss any? Sorry if so, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track, maybe take a step back for the bigger picture.)

 

[Electroman]

I had to chuckle that CNBC quoted @Troy ... but my hats off to @Troy for all their effort. Well within the targeted 3% error margin.

He was quoted only because the numbers came a bit less than his prediction. Had it been the other way, Lora Fraudoliny would have ignored him.

 

[MartinAustin]

CNBC had enough integrity to avoid words like "miss" and "failed" in the headline -

 

[Electroman]

Tesla needs to drop S+X price 10K+ more in the US to get line utilization higher.

Absolutely. The price is really in stratosphere and is not justifiable even by the 1%.

 

[FSDtester#1]

Good news! What was your previously installed version of FSD beta prior to today's update?

Cheers!

I got V 11.3.4 last night. Took a few drives... hats off to the beta team.
Best release since the inception of beta. I now understand why they delayed it so long. They wanted it to be a huge step forward with minor regressions.
The Tesla autopilot team delivered their best software to date, and it now feels like we are closing in on a finished product. Bullish and HODL...

 

[CYBRTRK420]

New record quarter with 44.3% YoY Growth in production volume. Giga Berlin is accelerating its ramp up, Texas is also increasing output of locally made Model Ys and Cybertruck production is getting closer as we speak.

Congrats everyone,

the future is bright.

 

[Dikkie Dik]

Tesla took 8.4% of the total Dutch car market in Q1.

Pretty substantial I think.

Total car market was up 25%, one reason given was the easing of parts shortages.

 

[lafrisbee]

How you know numbers are good: TMCers going “we’re going to be rich! I retire!!!!” And 30+ pages on this thread in a day

How you know the numbers are bad: TMCers rationalize why the numbers are good

But BOTH cause a significant drop in SP

 

[AndrewZ]

Except that's not a forecast, it's a nowcast. What value is it adding? Anyone could easily check European numbers to get a good idea of where Tesla was at. China was mostly known, and US was expected to be an increase over last Q with the IRA incentives.

This is exactly how forecasting works and how original estimates are derived and refined. You start off with some info, set of assumptions, you refine them as time goes on, and accuracy should increase as you approach the end of a reporting period. At the end you see how accurate you were, identify sources of inaccuracy, refine further, and continue.

I do very similar stuff professionally but on cost/schedule and manpower forecasting for projects, this IS how it works and Tesla does the same thing internally for their own decision-making around production and logistics. I guarantee Tesla is constantly adjusting things on the fly because they really have no idea what curveballs may be coming at the start of any given quarter.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi folks,

Going forward, we should adjust the way we estimate deliveries, given that Model S/X has now achieved steady-state production. Historically, the S/X deliver rate was 93.7% of production in FY2022, so if S/X production remains steady at 2023Q1 rates we can estimate about 72,860 S/X deliveries for FY2023.

Despite any moaning to the contrary, the fact that Tesla did not discount prices further at the end of Q1, while a substantial percentage of S/X vehicles were in transit to APAC + Europe shows that Tesla is now delivering S/X to higher-margin markets, while PRIORITZING strong S/X margins over same-qtr deliveries. The thing that matters for the Business is that those S/X vehicles will be delivered, while the exact timing across quarters boundries matters little for year-end FY2023 results. But g.m. will matter!

Another big positive which came out in the 2023Q1 P&D results is that Tesla already has a strong start on the 2023 Model 3/Y deliveries ramp. This is a product line which hasn't yet reached it's steady state, and Berlin+Austin Model Y, plus 'Project Highland' will drive 3/Y growth throughout all of 2024.

N.B. I estimate that Model 3/Y deliveries need to grow at 1.095x per qtr vs Q1 for Tesla to achieve +50% YoY total vehicle deliveries. Here's my 2023 projection, w. S/X returning the historical rate via a deliveries bump in Q2 (or smooth the bump over the rest of the year, no matter for FY2023 totals):

2023 Tesla Vehicle Deliveries projection: by @Artful Dodger (published April 02, 2023)

FY2023​	Models S/X​	Models 3/Y​	Deliveries​
Q1​	10,695​	412,180​	422,875​
Q2​	25,737​	451,192​	476,929​
Q3​	18,216​	493,897​	512,113​
Q4​	18,216​	540,644​	558,860​
Totals:​	72,863​	1,897,914​	1,970,777​

Note that the above estimates DO NOT include either Tesla Semi nor Cybertruck delivers, which I do not expect to go into volume production until 2024, per Tesla guidance. There may be a few hundred Semis in 2023 and a few thousand Cybertrucks, but not enough deliveries to effect earnings substantially. Though maybe enough to push Tesla over 2M deliveries for FY2023?

Ideally, 3/Y will be close to steady-state deliveries (and maximizd profitability) by the time the Model 2 ramp begins in Monterrey, Mexico sometime next year. There is now a clear path for exponential growth looking forward multiple years into Tesla's future. And that's BEFORE announcing any follow-on factories built to use the highly-efficient, highly-profitable "unboxed" manufacturing philosophy. Good times ahead!

Cheers!

#Predict