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

[jerry33]

Many people are conservative but convenience and costs matter more, I think. How many people actually buy their own CDs/DVDs today vs just streaming? I remember a lot of skepticism in the beginning, when many stated that they would prefer to own their music and films.

Actually, I do because you can't stream a lot of the non-hollywood movies or music I watch unless you stream from sketchy streaming sites.

 

[GOVA]

The Tesla brand has become completely toxic and a total non-starter for half of Americans, and that is 100% entirely Elon's fault. The effects of that are now being reflected rather severely in terms of demand.

I identified this specifically as the #1 biggest risk to Tesla's brand several years ago, although many (not all) of my posts expressing that opinion were deleted as too political.

Anyway, i was absolutely right.

Fair warning to Tesla itself, and anyone still holding shares. This demand problem will not cease as long as Elon is still the CEO. It's not about price or competition. You may not like it, but that is the unpleasant truth.

Do you also admire yourself in the mirror?

 

[uscbucsfan]

Let's not be too dramatic. I live in a very liberal bubble, and people are still buying and like Teslas regardless of how they feel about Elon. I'm certainly not saying it doesn't have an impact, but "completely toxic and a total non-starter for half of Americans" is way over the top if you are talking about the Tesla brand itself.

I think the issue, from a very high level view, is that a large contingent of conservatives are completely against EVs and now Elon has "turned" against his biggest political group of buyers.

It obviously has an impact. Do I think that's the reason the demand has been dropping since 2022? Not "largely", no.

The selection and pricing factor in, but there's still a finite amount of people (especially in the US and countries without charging infrastructure) that are willing to buy an EV at all. It's growing slowly, but that impacts things, IMO, far more than people hating or loving a CEO.

 

[Knightshade]

As I explained in my first post, people are not as desperate so they are unwilling to buy cars in the winter BECAUSE the world has inventory now. This is why Tesla is not very concerned about demand THIS Q.

And as I explained in my first response your theory is not supported by the data showing sales overall are up in Q1 for vehicles (though only by like 3%)

While being massively down for Tesla. (by quite a bit more than 3%)

If people were simply buying less cars this Q1 then overall sales would be down, not up.

 

[GOVA]

Easy to "compare" sales from quarter with 0.99 APR and 8.99 APR and bitch about it. People have been robbed, they might get less cars.

 

[EVNow]

Tesla told us they were going to flatten the delivery curve and increase inventories. Some of you act so surprised and want this to translate into a demand issue.

The hopium is strong. You don't listen to even Elon saying the environment is tough because of interest rates being high and very competitive Chinese companies.

 

[uscbucsfan]

As I said in my original post on the data source, business figures in general are disliked in this current political climate. Only 30% of those polled have a positive opinion of Tim Cook, compared to 47% for Elon. You don't see articles citing Tim Cook's unpopularity as sinking Apple.

Right, seems more that the poll is skewed. Cook isn't the polarizing figure that Gates and Musk are...not even close.

 

[uscbucsfan]

Easy to "compare" sales from quarter with 0.99 APR and 8.99 APR and bitch about it. People have been robbed, they might get less cars.

Car sales are up, but it may be cheap car sales are up?

 

[Singuy]

And as I explained in my first response your theory is not supported by the data showing sales overall are up in Q1 for vehicles.

While being massively down for Tesla.

If people were simply buying less cars this Q1 then overall sales would be down, not up.

And I said it's up because the world has inventory vs q1 2023. Tesla was never meant to sell over 400k cars Q1 of 2023 if the world had plenty of inventory because people hate winter deliveries. At least this is how Elon thinks of it as he mentioned many times about Q1 seasonality.

 

[jerry33]

Can't this all be done with an Uber? I'm not comparing someone having a vehicle at all in a dense city (and I've lived in one), but about the robo-taxi owner who wants to replace their car and drive others around while dumping $30k-$40k + $12k for FSD just to drive you around.

Charging isn't cheap, in say San Francisco assuming you're using public charging and peak rates are well over $0.80/kWh in San Diego. Add in cleaning, vandalism, repair cost, just beaten to crap taxis and the math doesn't sound great to me.

Uber has a problem in that it never comes most of the time. It's not something you can rely on to get to work every day.

 

[Usain]

Fair warning to Tesla itself, and anyone still holding shares. This demand problem will not cease as long as Elon is still the CEO. It's not about price or competition. You may not like it, but that is the unpleasant truth.

I'll grant you that Elon has done some damage, but we don't know how much.

Images can be repaired. Perceptions do change.

Plus Tesla's current and future products are undeniably better because Elon was driving them. (For instance, we wouldn't be on the verge of cracking FSD without Elon's leadership)

The idea that Elon needs to leave Tesla in order to save it is just going way too far.

 

[Knightshade]

And I said it's up because the world has inventory vs q1 2023. Tesla was never meant to sell over 400k cars Q1 of 2023 if the world had plenty of inventory because people hate winter deliveries.

So lemme get this right.

Nobody wants a car in Q1.

Except sales of cars are UP this Q1...because...inventory is high.

Except at Tesla-- where inventory is also high but sales went down.

Because... REASONS.

Also 400k in a quarter was only because nobody else had inventory... (which isn't actually true- Q1 23 still had plenty above 0 days of inventory for all car makers I'm aware of... ) but Tesla is now producing significantly more than 400k a quarter...but there's no demand concern.

These are some impressive mental gymnastics at work.

 

[kabin]

I thought the plan was to ramp up production, and not to follow the auto industry stupid rules.

Did we forget the mission? If we have a demand problem, perhaps we should wonder why those who can afford a Tesla don't buy one. And do something about it (or be honest and drop the mission).

As Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Long term they could build better cars with nicer creature comforts etc. In the short term they will likely need to lower prices substantially. The April price increase was pretty silly given macros and rising competition.

 

[Linkmeup]

Just a question to the mods, Tesla reported a political conflict (Red Sea and Eco Terrorists) on their quarterly deliveries report as a reason for the miss.

Does that mean talk about politics is material here in this thread?

Personally, I think 2024 is one of the most important years in human history (if not at least US History). Between AGI, Climate Change, etc...the next 4-5 years is going to dictate a lot of the path forward for our society. That's going to affect the market.

I'd like to propose a separate thread for the 2024 US election, and its relationship to TSLA, in this investment forum.

 

[spacerfc]

My one saving grace right now is beating BYD as it seems the price war is being won

https://twitter.com/x/status/1775152470215295344

Well I guess the BYD brand must be completely toxic in China due to its CEO then.... /s

But seriously, should be obvious the weak Chinese economy is another factor, Tesla didn't spell this out probably because they don't want to anger CCP.

 

[AndrewZ]

As I said in my original post on the data source, business figures in general are disliked in this current political climate. Only 30% of those polled have a positive opinion of Tim Cook, compared to 47% for Elon. You don't see articles citing Tim Cook's unpopularity as sinking Apple.

Who is Tim Cook, does he have any relation to Tim Apple?

Maybe Elon needs an alter ego like this to provide some separation. The scary thing is, Elon probably already uses burner accounts for his most controversial Twitter posts and then, after getting that out, switches to his official account to post “!!”

 

[Usain]

Keeping a product line that is updated and fresh or risk not being the "shining new thing".

FSD V12 is so shiny it will blind you. Now that we've seen how fast Tesla can put out new versions, I expect that it's going to get so bright that nobody will be avert their eyes.

 

[Singuy]

So lemme get this right.

Nobody wants a car in Q1.

Except sales of cars are UP this Q1...because...inventory is high.

Except at Tesla-- where inventory is also high but sales went down.

Because... REASONS.

Also 400k in a quarter was only because nobody else had inventory... (which isn't actually true- Q1 23 still had plenty above 0 days of inventory for all car makers I'm aware of... ) but Tesla is now producing significantly more than 400k a quarter...but there's no demand concern.

These are some impressive mental gymnastics at work.

No, I said Tesla was never meant to sell over 400k cars in Q1, Q1 Q1 Q1. So their demand for Q1( and only Q1) is soft. However due to global shortage, this softness was masked the last 2 years.

 

[willow_hiller]

Right, seems more that the poll is skewed. Cook isn't the polarizing figure that Gates and Musk are...not even close.

It's really easy to click around on the site and read the data for yourself. The polarization is captured in the data.

	Positive opinion	Negative opinion	Neutral
Elon Musk	47%	36%	14%
Tim Cook	30%	10%	22%

Yes, Elon is more disliked than a lot of CEOs. But he's also more liked. But I don't see why having a polarizing CEO would inherently lead to a suppression of demand. Positive opinions likely lead to more sales, negative opinions likely lead to fewer. Elon's favorability is probably a wash.

 

[larmor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1775157795366551763

Yes pls discuss esp how retooling factories for unboxed building process with smaller factory footprint will increase or decrease cost of production? Just asking for a friend...