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

[Maarten]

If anyone wonders if the media is really that bad, or: do paying customers of the media have the media in their pocket?
Well, Toyota is known to be one of the largest buyers in the world when it comes to paid advertising.
You would think that becoming aware of fraud by Toyota manipulating exhaust fume numbers, after the huge VW-diesel fraud, is really big news.
A lot about this Toyota-fraud can be found on the TMC forum, including Toyota going through the dust via statements from themselves.

In The Netherlands there is a popular online news website, called nu.nl (The Dutch word ‘nu' translates as ’now’).
Because it remained silent about this big Toyota news at nu.nl, I alerted the editors about this scandal around a week ago.
It could be that such great news has escaped their attention, right?

Well, in the meantime, very exciting (/s) messages have appeared on nu.nl about e.g.:
- Dutch people who keep their mobile phone longer these days, and
- That in many restaurants the information about allergens is far below standard.
But.... NOTHING about the fraud by Toyota.

N=1, but it does confirm my thoughts about ‘journalism’ and the media.

 

[2daMoon]

Sure, Berlin and Austin could potentially produce many more vehicles this year, but will Tesla be willing to lower prices even further?

Yes, they would be willing to...

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)​

Elon Musk, Co-Founder & CEO of Tesla Motors, August 2, 2006

The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.​

 

[Artful Dodger]

It doesn't surprise me that the company knew that their end of year sales are going to be slower than expected and issued guidance reflecting that. And again, they barely maintained a stagnant year (instead of typical near 50% growth at the end of year) despite price cuts and aggressive that were far more aggressive than usual for this company.

You like to play fast and loose with what Tesla says, so let's make this quick. Tesla said 50% average growth over the long-term, some years more, some less. 2023 was far from stagnant, name any other automaker that added 500K sales over the previous year, and was profitable while doing so.

But hey, if you truly believe the company is not in any trouble, you should buy as much stock as you can right now.

Don't forget about Model Y becoming the best-selling car in the world either, delivering 1.2M units in 2023. Every other car maker wishes they had those kind of "troubles".

Buh-bye, shortie

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1754887426026229782

 

[terranx]

2023 was far from stagnant, name any other automaker that added 500K sales over the previous year, and was profitable while doing so.

Hey I know based on your posts you may have had trouble in elementary school and can't read context. So I'll spell it out for you. I'm talking about within the year. Again, every year prior, they had drastic growth in Q3/4 compared to Q1/2. This year q3/4 were stagnant.

Don't forget about Model Y becoming the best-selling car in the world either, delivering 1.2M units in 2023. Every other car maker wishes they had those kind of "troubles".

I mean they sell 4 models, with two of them being consolation prizes. If you take SUV/CUV sales instead of splitting by model, their numbers aren't *that* great (but yes, they still sold an impressive amount). Regardless, as you know, the market is a little bit stupid and cares about infinite growth rather than profitability in general. So unless you think the Y can sell say... 1.8M units this year, they're going to get hit hard.

I love how idiots here use shorts as an insult when it's just one of many investment strategies.

 

[GeoX750]

Not directly stock related, but a buddy of mine and his wife, woke millennials who absolutely hate and scorn Elon and swore they would never buy a Tesla, got a Model Y this past weekend.

They have been thinking of switching their 11-year old Subaru to an EV and asking me about different EVs, Audi, Mercedes, Volvo, BMW (I own 3 EVs + 3 ICEs). Finally got them to go to Tesla and they were completely turned around by the car and the deal, a "clear the lot" special. Left Tesla with the new Y on our visit.

So while Elon is definitely an albatross to sale, he's not something that cannot be overcome. Especially with the quality of the car and the deals that are being offered.

 

[GOVA]

It doesn't surprise me that the company knew that their end of year sales are going to be slower than expected and issued guidance reflecting that. And again, they barely maintained a stagnant year (instead of typical near 50% growth at the end of year) despite price cuts and incentives that were far more aggressive than usual for this company.

But hey, if you truly believe the company is not in any trouble, you should buy as much stock as you can right now.

Gordon Johnson has joined the chat. Welcome!

 

[SOULPEDL]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1754887426026229782

I suspect there's a bump in China if these folks can get their vehicles before the Chinese New Year... for a road trip!

 

[terranx]

Gordon Johnson has joined the chat. Welcome!

Ah yes, the winning strategy for any argument.

If you believe the company actually has a good path ahead of them, show me your numbers.

 

[Ellec]

Hey I know based on your posts you may have had trouble in elementary school and can't read context. So I'll spell it out for you. I'm talking about within the year. Again, every year prior, they had drastic growth in Q3/4 compared to Q1/2. This year q3/4 were stagnant.

Looking at individual quarters and extrapolating that out is naive/myopic/concetited. If you look at the growth YoY from inception it's clear the company is growing stronger and now profiting at the same time. This graph should end the conversation.

 

[terranx]

Looking at individual quarters and extrapolating that out is naive/myopic/concetited. If you look at the growth YoY from inception it's clear the company is growing stronger and profiting at the same time.

So deviating from a 10 year trend where the second half of the year selling drastically more than the the first half (with Q4 sales essentially being the same as Q1 of the following year) is meaningless?

I think the more likely explanation is Tesla is transitioning from supply limited to demand limited. And what's more concerning for them is that demand is falling.

 

[Favguy]

I hope you are right. To me, first of all, I already have too many shares, around 50% in value of my assets. Second, my wife is watching my monthly performance, and I cannot tolerate too much volatility. 3rd, I lost quite a lot on shorting SMCI in January already, so my YTD performance is ugly. In retrospect, "Fortunately" I closed my short position of SMCI at $399 and now it is $643 and went as high as $683 yesterday.

If you really can't handle much volatility, your investing behaviour certainly doesn't seem to match your risk profile at all! I wish you well with it anyway.

I'm far too dumb and don't have the stress tolerance to do anything other than buy and hold, lol! Been all in since January 2012, so seen plenty of periods of stagnation and downturns along the way. I took around 10% out back at around $400 to cover our living costs for a few years, but 90% of net worth still in TSLA at present which seems to scare all my relatives senseless for some reason! I'm going to take another 50% out at $500, might take a few years yet, (or not, who knows?) but we're good whatever now with zero debt, so just amused by the ride at this point.

 

[Mengy]

+1 for the maths. Don't let @Mengy see this...

It's okay, I enjoying reading opinions which differ from my own!

Here is why I believe 2.1M is closer to what we'll see in 2024:

These are the line capacities as given by Tesla in the Q4 ER:

Fremont: 650K
Shanghai: >950K
Austin: >250K (CT ramp will add to this)
Berlin: 375K

All of this adds up to 2.23M per year, but that's only if Tesla runs at full capacity for all of 2024, which isn't likely IMHO. CT ramp will add to that 2.23M too. Say we get 60K CT's by the end of 2024, that would equate to 2.29M production for 2024. Now throw in some downtime for things like line upgrades, Red Sea drama, and unexpected stuff, say an 8% penalty to capacity (admittedly this is pessimistic) and you get an estimate of 2.11M for 2024, a 17% production growth over 2023.

Some assumptions here on my end which I think make this 2.1M likely to happen:
- CT will only produce about 60K this year.
- Model Y refresh will reduce MY production below normal capacity for some of the year.
- Berlin and Austin MY production (and Fremont / Shanghai for that matter) won't ramp higher than they currently are, I think Tesla might hold back ramping them higher until interest rates and demand are more favorable.
- No Gen3 production for 2024.

I admit this is conservative, and I'd love to be way too low from what we actually get, but it's how I predict the year will play out. Just my opinion however!

 

[Drax7]

Every year I hear how iPhone demand is falling. By now they don’t sell any iphones.

 

[mongo]

So deviating from a 10 year trend where the second half of the year selling drastically more than the the first half (with Q4 sales essentially being the same as Q1 of the following year) is meaningless?

I think the more likely explanation is Tesla is transitioning from supply limited to demand limited. And what's more concerning for them is that demand is falling.

Q1s are historically lower demand than the preceding Q4, so a Q1 on par with Q4 is a sign of strength, not weakness.

You've already been informed H2 had factory retooling that impacted Q3, yet even with that reduction in production, H2 matched the quarterly output of Q2. Which also means Q4 was dealing with backlog thus making Q1 even more impressive.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I suspect there's a bump in China if these folks can get their vehicles before the Chinese New Year... for a road trip!

This should be enough to keep us in the green...for today at least

 

[Singuy]

It doesn't surprise me that the company knew that their end of year sales are going to be slower than expected and issued guidance reflecting that. And again, they barely maintained a stagnant year (instead of typical near 50% growth at the end of year) despite price cuts and incentives that were far more aggressive than usual for this company.

But hey, if you truly believe the company is not in any trouble, you should buy as much stock as you can right now.

How is this company in trouble? Because they have reduced their price from gouging levels back to annoucement prices?(actually still more than announcement prices).

Perhaps you don't appreciate the fact that the model Y outsold all of BMW's suv combined, beating the Rav 4 at almost double the ASP. So when the 25k car comes out, what will happen if it outsell all of Toyota's cheap sedans combined? They will be doing this while making billions off their charging infrastructure (considering we are what, went from -500M to positive 500M today). Most people are attributing this to selling used model 3s but warranty repairs must be a huge drag when Tesla 2x their fleet. I see super chargers actually starting to pay dividend since now the fleet have 2x.

So we are not even going to talk about all the "pie in the sky" stuff, just car sales and making money off their ability to move around. So you tell me why the future look so bleak?

 

[terranx]

You've already been informed H2 had factory retooling that impacted Q3, yet even with that reduction in production, H2 matched the quarterly output of Q2. Which also means Q4 was dealing with backlog thus making Q1 even more impressive.

If you expect that to be the entire story, then we should see a large increase in Q1 of this year. And if production was the limiting factor, it should have been extremely difficult to get a Tesla in the second half of last year, which was not the case. Based on them reintroducing incentives to try to move cars, I suspect their demand is not what they were hoping for. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

[NicoV]

But hey, if you truly believe the company is not in any trouble, you should buy as much stock as you can right now.

We were starting to get on the steep part of the EV-adoption S-Curve and that curve suddenly disappeared? Is it gone forever?

 

[terranx]

How is this company in trouble? Because they have reduced their price from gouging levels back to annoucement prices?(actually still more than announcement prices).

Perhaps you don't appreciate the fact that the model Y outsold all of BMW's suv combined, beating the Rav 4 at almost double the ASP. So when the 25k car comes out, what will happen if it outsell all of Toyota's cheap sedans combined? They will be doing this while making billions off their charging infrastructure (considering we are what, went from -500M to positive 500M today). Most people are attributing this to selling used model 3s but warranty repairs must be a huge drag when Tesla 2x their fleet. I see super chargers actually starting to pay dividend since now the fleet have 2x.

So we are not even going to talk about all the "pie in the sky" stuff, just car sales and making money off their ability to move around. So you tell me why the future look so bleak?

I don't really care what the Y sold compared to BMW. Point is I don't think they have much room for growth which is what their valuation is based off of.

The suppoised 25k car probably won't come out until 2028 at least.