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

[Cosmacelf]

The price cuts by Tesla deliver a huge blow to Mobileye stock.

Mobileye Stock Tanks After Earnings. Blame Tesla.

Self-driving-technology firm Mobileye reported strong first-quarter earnings. But its disappointing outlook was a problem.

www.marketwatch.com

From the article, from the Mobileye PR:

“The China electric-vehicle market has been negatively impacted by meaningful pricing actions by a global EV OEM [ie Tesla], reduction of government electric-vehicle subsidies, and general economic weakness in the country,”

In others words, third party confirmation that Tesla is significantly impacting competitors in China.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Yes, they started back again this week

https://twitter.com/x/status/1650856876844933121

Thanks. I would imagine with some changes and upgrades as well.

 

[Ogre]

Google trends for 3/Y are showing a big increase over the past month. The big positive is this seems to be a slower, more organic ramp than the instantaneous jump on January price cuts.

Up 69% since Mid March local min, up 147% from Thanksgiving bottom, and up 58% from a year ago. More importantly, recent rise in last month seems more gradual buildup than the sharp rise due to January price cut announcement.

View attachment 932460

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651688442819141633

Related to this.

Searches for “Electric“ on Car Max is increasing fast over the past year. Still fairly small, but this doesn’t count people who just search direct for “Tesla” or “Mach E”.

Also, unsurprisingly, Tesla dominates their top sellers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651703250192613376

 

[Electroman]

Unfortunately this article doesn’t explicitly say either about import tariffs from SK. But interesting none the less about import rates going up.

As far as SK:
“Carmakers including South Korea's Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) and Kia Corp (000270.KS), Germany's Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Skoda Auto and Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) sell imported cars in the country, with some also selling electric models.”

India raises tax on imported cars, motorbikes, including EVs

India on Wednesday said it will raise taxes on imported cars and motorbikes, including electric vehicles (EVs), as it seeks to boost local manufacturing in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" campaign ahead of elections in 2024.

www.reuters.com

“Make in India campaign ahead of elections in 2024”

Reuters as usual peddling biased fake news. Modi as far I have been watching has always pushed for Make In India and has been highly successful on that since he came to power many years ago. This isn’t new. The most well known example of that is manufacturing iPhones in India.

Projecting this as if somehow this is some election gimmick, is what Reuters does best - Gaslighting

 

[Bobfitz1]

You had to live through this and be paying attention, to have any idea who that is and what he is doing. Made me laugh, well played!

Thanks @wtlloyd. Glad you recalled the Challenger Investigation, Richard Feynman's dramatic o-ring demonstration and got a chuckle.

After posting the reply I mused about how sometimes what seems obvious in hindsight is somehow missed by experts who you'd think couldn't possibly have missed the significance. I figured there must have been a whole department of smart engineers at Thiokol (based in Utah) who knew everything there was to know about O rings and their properties. So how did they and NASA not realize it was unsafe to launch that cold morning?

It took 30 seconds to find an article from the Salt Lake Tribune published on the 30th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster. It is a sad and sobering reminder of how deadly management hubris can be. It's a quick read and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't know the full story.

The O ring experts had identified the low temp safety risk. They reported it to NASA and were over ruled and forced to sign off it was safe to launch below 53 degrees.

"In January 1985, company engineers found a large quantity of black soot in the O-rings of the recovered boosters that had helped launch the Discovery. It was the first time they had found black soot in the rings, indicating seal leakage, said McDonald, who retired in 2001.
Engineers concluded that the only difference from previous launches had been the air temperature: 53 degrees, or the lowest ever up to that time. The temperature had dropped into the teens for three nights before that launch."

That prompted Roger Boisjoly, Morton Thiokol's O-ring expert in Utah, to write a memo to NASA, saying he believed the O-ring seals could fail in freezing temperatures.
"The result could be a catastrophe of the highest order — the loss of human life," he wrote.

From Salt Lake Tribune 2016. 30th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster

 

[woof]

I wasn't aware that the Mobileye product name is "SuperVision". That's a pretty good double entendre, and won't get them into trouble with the "auto" police.

 

[Thekiwi]

Google trends for 3/Y are showing a big increase over the past month. The big positive is this seems to be a slower, more organic ramp than the instantaneous jump on January price cuts.

Up 69% since Mid March local min, up 147% from Thanksgiving bottom, and up 58% from a year ago. More importantly, recent rise in last month seems more gradual buildup than the sharp rise due to January price cut announcement.

View attachment 932460

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651688442819141633

I think using “Tesla Model” is a better search term on trends to get the overall demand picture over time:

worldwide:

Note: this presumably excludes china (where people don’t use google)

 

[Thekiwi]

By Q1 earnings results so far reported, it seems like there is no recession happening. Instead there are slowdowns in just a few specific industries:

- Tech hardware: due to overbuild of inventories combined with a really tough year on year compare,

- Housing and Autos: Industries heavily reliant on customers using credit to buy there products are facing strong headwinds from significantly higher interest rates.

- Commercial real estate: which is suffering from the new remote work reality.

The rest of the economy is chugging along fine for the most part, and there doesn’t seem like much reasoning for the Fed to cut rates anytime soon, as its increases so far to combat inflation have not yet tipped the economy into recession.

 

[xhawk101]

I'm in Berlin right now, and toured the factory today.
It was amazing!
Status of ramp: a finished car comes out of the line about once/minute, goes to a supercharger, then to trailer.

Takes 10 hours to go from a block of aluminium to a finished model Y!

Berlin Y is all aluminium, we were told. I understand fremont and shanghai Y are part aluminium, part steel.

The whole production line just seems so simple, they've really managed to simplify the car.

Ramp is going good!

how does one schedule a tour? ive been to reno, frenont 2x, austin 2x and must see Berlin!

 

[JusRelax]

The Tesla Model Y was the tenth best selling vehicle in Taiwan in Q1 2023. This is after being introduced to the Taiwan market in Dec 2022:

Focus2move| Taiwan Best Selling Cars - Top 50 in 2023

Taiwan Best Selling Cars ranking in 2023 dominated by Toyota. Toyota Corolla Cross still on top followed by RAV4 and Town Ace. The MG HS joins the top 10 jumping 233 spots.

www.focus2move.com

 

[samppa]

how does one schedule a tour? ive been to reno, frenont 2x, austin 2x and must see Berlin!

This was organized by our local Tesla owners club, I have no idea..

 

[Ogre]

I think using “Tesla Model” is a better search term on trends to get the overall demand picture over time:

worldwide:

View attachment 932531

Note: this presumably excludes china (where people don’t use google)

Then you lose out on the granularity of what’s going on with the various models. Blue is Model Y which has overtaken the Model 3 as of the first of the year when price cuts kicked in.

 

[Thekiwi]

Then you lose out on the granularity of what’s going on with the various models. Blue is Model Y which has overtaken the Model 3 as of the first of the year when price cuts kicked in.

View attachment 932562

I see that chart as a reason NOT to use those search terms, seeing as Model Y has been outselling the model 3 in the US for a while now, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at those search terms.

 

[MrMoo]

And I did NOT agree to your request to let you out of the bet.

You are dishonorably trying to squelch on like a $150 bet. Even a moderator here told me to keep hounding you about the bet.

It's not dishonorable, they raised the prices a few weeks after they dropped them. It's a legitimate reason.

I can't make you agree with me. It'll just have to be an agree to disagree situation.

 

[Tony73]

It's not dishonorable, they raised the prices a few weeks after they dropped them. It's a legitimate reason.

I can't make you agree with me. It'll just have to be an agree to disagree situation.

It’s NOT a legitimate reason unless the terms of the bet explicitly stated so. I can’t lose the bet because of something I did not foresee is NOT legitimate.

 

[Maarten]

 

[2daMoon]

It's not dishonorable, they raised the prices a few weeks after they dropped them. It's a legitimate reason.

I can't make you agree with me. It'll just have to be an agree to disagree situation.

Are you expecting by posting this in this forum that the court of public opinion will rally to support your argument?

A bet is a contract. What were the stated terms? What was the result?

Was the price raise specifically called out as a condition of the bet that would nullify it?
If not, the raising of prices is of no consequence to the bet itself.

"But, but, but, I never thought this or that might happen" doesn't get one out of it if there was no caveat agreed to by both parties in the original wager to account for the eventuality.

The whole point of making a bet is that one party feels the other hasn't thought it through, and the other feels strongly enough about their argument to go ahead with the wager.

Would you tell your broker to sell a share, then come back when the share price goes up and try to convince them you didn't mean for them to sell it then and expect to reap the gain that happened after it sold?

Too bad. So sad.

Sometimes one will have to take their lumps and learn from the experience. This is how an honorable person will conduct their affairs.



Edit: ninja'd by @Tony73

Spoiler: A Personal Anecdote

One time my wife, a neighbor, and I were exploring jeep tracks in the Chihuahuan Desert and we came to a "T" in the road. I was turning left and my neighbor said we needed to go right. He was a smart fellow and we often argued over matters and he was usually right. We went back and forth over this for a couple of minutes and then he said, "I'll bet you a thousand dollars I'm right" and we shook on it.

I took the left turn and shortly it became obvious I was right. Before I could say anything, he had already written a check and handed it to me.

I held his check for about a month before giving it back to him. He framed it to remind himself not to make that sort of bet ever again.

 

[SN_8]

This is a prime example of why wagers should not be allowed on this site. But it happened, and you lost, so you should pay. But either way for goodness sake please stop whining about it.

"No, no Mr Bookie. You don't understand. I didn't think I could actually LOSE when I made the bet."

 

[MrMoo]

Are you expecting by posting this in this forum that the court of public opinion will rally to support your argument?

A bet is a contract. What were the stated terms? What was the result?

Was the price raise specifically called out as a condition of the bet that would nullify it?
If not, the raising of prices is of no consequence to the bet itself.

"But, but, but, I never thought this or that might happen" doesn't get one out of it if there was no caveat agreed to by both parties in the original wager to account for the eventuality.

The whole point of making a bet is that one party feels the other hasn't thought it through, and the other feels strongly enough about their argument to go ahead with the wager.

Would you tell your broker to sell a share, then come back when the share price goes up and try to convince them you didn't mean for them to sell it then and expect to reap the gain that happened after it sold?

Too bad. So sad.

Sometimes one will have to take their lumps and learn from the experience. This is how an honorable person will conduct their affairs.



Edit: ninja'd by @Tony73

No I'm not. I PMed him. His posting it on a court of public opinion.

This is a prime example of why wagers should not be allowed on this site. But it happened, and you lost, so you should pay. But either way for goodness sake please stop whining about it.

"No, no Mr Bookie. You don't understand. I didn't think I could actually LOSE when I made the bet."

I'm not whining about it. Look at my post history. I didn't once bring this up. But hey im happy never to respond to any posts about this again. There problem solved.

 

[2daMoon]

No I'm not. I PMed him. His posting it on a court of public opinion.

I quoted your post. So, it was indeed YOU who posted it.

You will have to consider how this response to my follow up further paints in a poor light your ability to deal with fact.

Do you agree with the points made regarding the nature of contract?
If so, go back and review the terms of the original bet you two agreed to and decide for yourself whether or not you need to settle up.

Or, perhaps