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

[Krugerrand]

Sometimes there is nothing wrong with a little fear Krug, it can even be healthy when tempering expectations. Too many people put fear into a negative connotation in my opinion.

Fear has a place. Like causing you to look both ways before crossing the street so as not to be the bug. But I’m pretty sure the ‘emotions don’t belong in investing’ slogan is alive and well here - and yet -

So, what are you really afraid of? Losing money that you actually need but bet anyway? Are you afraid of what the future looks like if Tesla doesn’t continue to wildly succeed beyond imagination like it has already?

You know what I’m afraid of? People continuing down their current path, placing importance on irrelevancy, oblivious to what really matters. And it’s not that I’m afraid for those people, but rather where it leads.

 

[Knightshade]

OK, some napkin math on batteries and Q1 margins, here goes nothing. Maybe not as Bat as you Tink.

Assuming a simple 50K vehicles short in Q1 and a 75 kWh pack size (maybe less on ave). That's about 50K x 75kWh = 3,750 MWh of Batteries not put in vehicles this quarter.

Stationary in Q1 delivered "4,053 MWh of energy storage products", so QoQ Storage growth may have been easily sourced from the drop in Auto to take up some slack.

I thought we already established megapacks aren't using the same cells as the cars now?

 

[2daMoon]

I have no aversion to using Tesla’s network because it doesn’t follow me around with the car. I certainly hope they build a robust and profitable EV charging network to further adoption.

You may be misunderstanding the point of my post. I’m not willing to buy another Tesla automobile because I don’t want to be associated with the brand every time I drive somewhere and I don’t want it front and center at home and work. This may be an interesting data point for investors.

I’ll use whatever charging network is most practical with my next car because I won’t be regularly seen with the brand. Just like when I buy gasoline for my F150 or my bike I’m sure it’s going to some unsavory company but I don’t drive around with an Exxon logo bolted to the tailgate.

Got it. You bought the right car for the right reasons, and nothing about the car or the company has changed.

You will buy some lesser car next time because you are being shamed, or, merely want to avoid the idea of potentially being shamed by your peer group.


Thankfully, people who think this way are in the minority, even though they might not believe they are.

I'm glad that you are supportive of the transition to sustainable energy, and expect that eventually Tesla may find its way into your good graces. Once the peers you are worried about shaming you have bought Tesla cars or routinely use Tesla Robotaxis, have bought Powerwalls, and possibly have a humanoid robot at home or at work.

 

[Usain]

This probably doesn't matter much, but I just had a thought. If sales of ICE is up, then regulatory credits should be up as well, right?

 

[GOVA]

It's been my 6th 1st quarter that I've been reading this forum trough. Can do trends now.

Point: People read what they want to read. Nobody has mentioned record storage deployed.
Second, there have been only certain accounts that post around this time of year. This is actually very frightening. Can Elon buy this forum?

 

[2daMoon]

Since the company is sitting on like 60,000 unsold cars after throwing discounts, advertising, FSD transfers, and unlimited supercharging transfers, something might be up, as it were.

You think that something might be up because ~3% of annual production is either in transit, waiting for delivery, or waiting to be purchased?

That number doesn't seem all that bad to me.

 

[mtndrew1]

You think that something might be up because ~3% of annual production is either in transit, waiting for delivery, or waiting to be purchased?

That number doesn't seem all that bad to me.

I think this was a very bad quarter for deliveries, that Tesla has produced more vehicles than they’ve sold for a while now, and that there are some sort of impediments to the growth story.

Then I provided an anecdotal sample of my personal experience with known Tesla customers leaving the brand because of a very specific factor.

Might be nothing.

 

[unk45]

True.
But we shouldn’t exagerate the issue. The non-english speaking part of the world doesn’t care what Elon says. Mainly because they don’t understand him, and if they would, they wouldn’t be able to interpret it because they lack the US/North-American context. So less than 5% of the world population is affected. And we need 100% of the world population to switch to EV’s.

For those who see the glass half full...
1. Tesla does not sell at all, in numerous countries that contribute tens of millions new vehicle sales. Among them one of GM's largest markets, several major VAG markets, significant sales for EV's and several fo the fastest growing EV markets. Before TSLA holders panic they need to understand that major markets for Stationary storage, vehicles of all types are all around the world. They might also reflect that even in the US, even in California distribution is far from saturated.
2. As @NicoV says, in most of the world Elon's politics and commentary is not relevant at all, of they even know about it.
3. As several people point out, as Tesla matures so will inventory levels. 28 days! Horror! Most OEM's would eb thrilled. All of TSLA holders should know by now that Tesla investors is combined wholesale and retail and that a sale is only counted when delivered to the end user with payment in full. 28 days is not much, especially when considering Chinese New Years this time with changing market conditions, Suez and terrorism in Germany. Those affected deliveries more than sales.
4. Then we need to consider that Performance 3 and Y were absent, refresh of both lagged demand. Even refresh S was demand limited.

So all of that happened and Stationary roared again.

Nothing unforeseen happened. People's wild guesses proved to be that, and they were optimistic as does happen.

If we had listened carefully at 2023 year end comments we would not be surprised or even dismayed. We'd just HODL, with slightly reduced gains, but we were not selling anyway.

As for speculators and panic-ridden folk, some lost some have short term gains. It is as always. yet another reason why short term forecasts generate clicks and make money for those who offer them, and good comfort for those who buy that perspective. That is part fo securities markets. Anyway Ken Griffin is doing very, very, very well!

 

[DarkandStormy]

Good thing Google is your friend.

??? Lol.

BYD Q1 2024
-300,114 BEVs
-324,284 PHEVs

BYD Q1 2023
-264,647 BEVs
-283,267 PHEVs

So I'm not sure why you're trying to claim BYD didn't grow sales YoY. They did for both BEV and PHEV.

Maybe use that Google you mention before posting misinformation.

 

[FreqFlyer]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1775153327661052111

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I had an experience like this yesterday with a plug in Prius owners. I could tell she didn't like my "A Prius is not an EV" comment but I limited it to that. I of course thought of the perfect thing to say after she was gone so take note:
"You seem pretty well informed on Elon's political opinions, for the sake of intellectual honesty it would be beneficial to be as equally informed of the political/lobbying efforts of the company(s) you support to prolong the ICE age.
(I have to worry about getting 1- starred, otherwise it would be "you're a virtue signaling idiot!"

Make no mistake here in the $TSLA bubble though, Elon's actions have had an impact. As investors that should concern us all. Disregarding it is another form of intellectual dishonesty.


Living wage taxi drivers got killed off and in the U.S. nobody lifted a finger. Uber may eventually be the author of their own death sentence in the way they've chosen to run their company. Hopefully this is the most ironic outcome.

I posted a similar thought months ago that got mod deleted (1st time ever) for why I'll never understand, but Uber for most of their history has been (and to a lesser degree still is) a silicon valley cash furnace. They are not efficient with capital at all, ala Twitter before Elon's takeover. First investors and now drivers are subsidizing their business model. @Gigapress touched on this informatively.

Tale from the trenches:
FSD approached the exit to a gated community yesterday, stopped 5ft short of the gate and waited patiently for it to open. then pulled through!

We had a ford decide to make a 3 point turn in the middle of the street yesterday. Bad decision on his part. But anyway, car waited patiently while he screwed around. Once it was clear it went thru. Nice.

But you would think after all this time it would know what an advanced green arrow left turn thingy is. It’s not a regression. It has never recognized them. Just pointing out that unless there is a car in front it can follow its full stop, end of ride for any robotaxi client if it is the lead car. If there is a driver in the car a nudge on the go pedal and it goes. But without a driver that’s where the passengers get out cause it ain’t moving. . It has been suggested to me that this is a Canadian thing but I have no idea.

Just an observation. Cheers.

 

[Musskiah]

OK, some napkin math on batteries and Q1 margins, here goes nothing. Maybe not as Bat as you Tink.

Assuming a simple 50K vehicles short in Q1 and a 75 kWh pack size (maybe less on ave). That's about 50K x 75kWh = 3,750 MWh of Batteries not put in vehicles this quarter.

Stationary in Q1 delivered "4,053 MWh of energy storage products", so QoQ Storage growth may have been easily sourced from the drop in Auto to take up some slack.

Impact on Margins?

Well, "Tesla deployed 3.2 GWh in Q4 2023", so about .850 GWh more Storage this quarter from last gives 0.85/3.2 x 100 = 26% increase in growth... if my numbers are even close, I'll take it!

In this chart below, we see the margins are higher for Storage (source not verified but this could also get even better once China Factory is complete for more volume storage).

View attachment 1034688

https://twitter.com/x/status/1750948698383917185

So while there's a loss in 50K vehicles, the gold for Tesla may have shifted to feed Storage growth in Q1 where margins are about 5% better than Auto. (Somebody verify?) Overall a better position, especially if they remain battery constrained overall.

This tells me that Tesla should consider exiting the auto industry to focus on Storage and Energy, but it's a really good thing they're not all about money! And if battery utilization in Storage is better than my car sitting in the garage, this is also good news. Fortunately, FSD "Unsupervised" will kick in someday and take care of some of those "static" Batteries out there sittin' around.

Grok would be a nice add to the vehicle and Optimus. Lots of stuff (always) coming, so hang in there folks.

Fantastic post!

I was just talking with a friend last night about how Tesla is battery constrained for the forseeable future, and as such, their product portfolio allows them to shift sales from product with the lowest demand (Autos) to that with the highest demand (Megapacks). Once Lingang is online, they become nible in China: LFP auto sales down one Q? No problem, those batteries can be sold through (higher margin) Megapacks instead. I'll reiterate, this gives them an unassailable (thanks SMR) competitive advantage over their Chinese peers in that they can sell vehicles at a HUGE loss if they ever needed to because a fully ramped Lingang Megapack factory with fat margins is essentially equivalent to the profitability of TWO GigaShanghai Auto factories! Without 40GWh of stationary storage to sell, BYD and NIO and all the others can't step to this!

EDIT: @Knightshade corrected my incorrect understanding of this. LFPs are NOT interchangeable LFP prismatic in Megapacks 2.0, while LFP cylindrical in Autos.

 

[cliff harris]

I just bought another 75 shares. I now have just under 20,000 in my main account. Frankly at this price it would be crazy not to.
I AM over-exposed to the one stock, and do intend to sell these 75 back once we cross back over 200. Most of my shares I'll keep till 300, and a lot until 400, I'll probably keep half of them for another decade just to see how high it runs.

This is one of those classic investment moments. You only ever make money from stocks when you know something that the market does not (fully) know or appreciate. In this case its actually 4 things.

• FSD 12 may be the real deal, at long last.
• There was an arson attack on a factory, a one-off incident
• There was a shipping issue (red sea) another one-off incident
• Tesla has a factory in shanghai thats affected by chinese new year

None of this is actually news to ANYBODY here, but you would be amazed how shallow most peoples investment 'research' is. The most common forms seem to be 'I bought Tesla because those electrical cars are getting popular' and 'i hear the Chinese have overtaken tesla' and 'The media tells me EV demand has collapsed'.
These are the geniuses at robinhood and wallstbets who buy stocks as a form of gambling. They probably all sold today because CNN etc told them to. I bet none of them even know that supercharger revenue, tesla energy or FSD subscriptions are even a thing. 'Tesla make EVs' and thats it.

I THINK I will have to wait for earnings to see 200 and flip these 75, but maybe not. Esp if FSD gets some even better updates.

 

[SunCatcher]

Can I share my @x profile on here for those who wish to engage with me or no?

"It is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission"

 

[Unpilot]

There’s how people actually behave and how they “should” behave (define that as you will).

A company that’s not Tesla will be getting my next automobile purchase because of very vocal antics from Mr. Musk. That may be noteworthy for investors.

Since the company is sitting on like 60,000 unsold cars after throwing discounts, advertising, FSD transfers, and unlimited supercharging transfers, something might be up, as it were.

You seem like a smart, well-informed human.

It also seems like you're worried about what other people think of you based on what you drive.

Unless you're dropping someone off at the red carpet, I don't think anyone really cares....not should you.

 

[FreqFlyer]

I just bought another 75 shares. I now have just under 20,000 in my main account. Frankly at this price it would be crazy not to.
I AM over-exposed to the one stock, and do intend to sell these 75 back once we cross back over 200. Most of my shares I'll keep till 300, and a lot until 400, I'll probably keep half of them for another decade just to see how high it runs.

This is one of those classic investment moments. You only ever make money from stocks when you know something that the market does not (fully) know or appreciate. In this case its actually 4 things.

• FSD 12 may be the real deal, at long last.
• There was an arson attack on a factory, a one-off incident
• There was a shipping issue (red sea) another one-off incident
• Tesla has a factory in shanghai thats affected by chinese new year

None of this is actually news to ANYBODY here, but you would be amazed how shallow most peoples investment 'research' is. The most common forms seem to be 'I bought Tesla because those electrical cars are getting popular' and 'i hear the Chinese have overtaken tesla' and 'The media tells me EV demand has collapsed'.
These are the geniuses at robinhood and wallstbets who buy stocks as a form of gambling. They probably all sold today because CNN etc told them to. I bet none of them even know that supercharger revenue, tesla energy or FSD subscriptions are even a thing. 'Tesla make EVs' and thats it.

I THINK I will have to wait for earnings to see 200 and flip these 75, but maybe not. Esp if FSD gets some even better updates.

Do your last three bullet points explain the 8.5% drop in deliveries?

 

[Krugerrand]

It’s such a weird position to be in because I, too, often defend the company because there are so many outright falsehoods about Musk and Tesla floating around.

That said it’s very easy to pull up actual screenshots and quotes these days straight from the horse’s mouth which project a very specific narrative.

If that’s not the narrative that aligns with the buyer, it’s a turnoff. The absence of a political narrative when car shopping is ideal, in my opinion.

A screenshot and a quote so often lacks context. Which has always been a problem, along with people’s ability to comprehend or even interpret. Two people can read the same sentence and come away with exact opposite opinions about what they just read.

People read what they want to read, shaped by their own beliefs, thoughts, opinions, experiences etc…. The problem at its core is that they read it as if they wrote it, instead of reading it from the shoes of the person who did write it.

Never in my life has anyone, I personally know nor have crossed paths with, viewed the vehicle they drive as a political symbol. And I have lived in different places.

Currently I reside in self-proclaimed hillbilly redneck central territory. I’ve had one person try to coal roll me here and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a local. All of whom have been nothing but welcoming and friendly. I’ve had a lot of conversations about my Tesla, EVs, and Elon with these people. Not one has said anything disparaging. Maybe they’re all just afraid to say it to my face, but I rather suspect not. They’re pretty vocal, straightforward people. Most ask typical questions. Some are actually really well-versed. I had one guy bring up the topic of the Chicago fiasco and laugh about the media’s ridiculous coverage. Even that guy knew preconditioning the battery in those temps was a must. He doesn’t even own an EV of any kind, it’s just common sense a cold soaked battery can’t take charge. Some have been quite upfront about how an EV won’t work for them. They’ll find out soon enough they might need to rethink that when I get my CT.

Point being, your reality is simply that. Yours. Extrapolating that to a worldview is a mistake.

As a side note: those you surround yourself with are typically a reflection of yourself.

 

[jabloomf1230]

The beatings will continue until the Fed lowers interest rates.

 

[Musskiah]

I thought we already established megapacks aren't using the same cells as the cars now?

Megapack 2.0 built in Lathrop using LFP just like MY RWD has been since Q323 Tesla Model Y RWD Returns to the US Market With a LFP Battery and Updated Price and M3 RWD has for some time now.

EDIT: @Knightshade corrected my incorrect understanding of this. LFPs are NOT interchangeable LFP prismatic in Megapacks 2.0, while LFP cylindrical in Autos.

 

[dhrivnak]

No not WRONG as you so adamantly say. My point is that 100% of Leaf miles are electric.
Volt drivers could have chosen an EV rather than a PHEV, but they did not. It is good, if true that 82% of Volt miles are on electric. The three Volt drivers I knew all used their cars for short local commutes, well within the range of a Leaf. I have not idea at all about survey results accurate or not.

It is not worth arguing about. I believe plug-in hybrids like the Volt, and Toyota Primes are a gateway for many people. They also allow for towing far better than the Tesla options for that small segment of the market that does tow. To me the goal is to reduce gasoline use, not get everyone into an EV. And here a plug-in hybrid definitely helps reduce gas usage.