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

[Singuy]

That's my take as well. There's so many companies building cheap ice cars, I don't see any of them setting valuation records. In the long run, my understanding of automotive manufacturing says that there's no moat that you can hold and everyone ends up on the same margins. Which is proven right now. Not to mention that there's some dealer margins hidden in Tesla's figures since they sell direct.

Tesla's valuation has always been dependent on the capability to deliver autonomous driving with a relatively cheap sensor stack. Focusing on that is good, although I must admit i don't see the reasons to not do both. It's not like they don't have the money right now. I'm also concerned on the development outoput of the company. The past 3 years, although marking excellent profits haven't shown new products at the rate at which you'd expect from even a normal car company.

The moat from manufacturing comes from Tesla building the machine that builds the machine. There are many manufacturing techniques that require Tesla to build the machines themselves as such ones doesn't exist. As of Today, no EV car builders has a positive net margin on EVs using western workers. In fact all of them couldn't even hit a positive gross margin.

But yes, if every car company goes to the same OEM and use the same machines to build cars, then yes margins are more or less determined more by their desirability/demand than COGS.

 

[rentierparasit]

This forum is an investors forum. It's for people to share thoughts as an investor of Tesla. It's not a forum for people to convince each other to not be an investor of Tesla.

The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies." Every other forum for any other company can answer "why you shouldn't invest in Tesla".

Hi, Singuy --

> The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies."

Should there be another forum for, "Let's work together to figure out what the stock is worth and what the risks are?" Because that seems worth discussing, too.

Yours,
RP

 

[Robertj]

Re S & X Pricing. Drops of 30 % over last two years and still no RHD versions ?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781534682448015389

 

[InTheMiddle]

Hi, Singuy --

> The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies."

Should there be another forum for, "Let's work together to figure out what the stock is worth and what the risks are?" Because that seems worth discussing, too.

Yours,
RP

If the discussion is from the perspective of those who are invested (or strongly contemplating investing) in Tesla, this forum is a perfectly reasonable place for such discussion, as those people have a seat at the "Investors Roundtable" forum to have such discussions.

If the discussion is from the perspective of those who do not have such an investment nor do they wish to have one, then by all means, have such discussion in a separate, more appropriate forum instead of trying to take a seat at the "Investors Roundtable" forum. Perhaps that other, non-investors forum could even best be hosted on another server as well...

 

[Singuy]

Hi, Singuy --

> The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies."

Should there be another forum for, "Let's work together to figure out what the stock is worth and what the risks are?" Because that seems worth discussing, too.

Yours,
RP

Yeah we have threads for that. There's a thread about any other tech stock people are bullish or bearish in.

 

[Linkmeup]

Man, TSLA is beaten up royally - can't believe it's market cap is less than $500B on a $100B annualized revenue generating business.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781889613155496131

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781893130843009131

 

[InTheMiddle]

Man, TSLA is beaten up royally - can't believe it's market cap is less than $500B on a $100B annualized revenue generating business.

On a trailing twelve-months (TTM) basis, TSLA currently has $96.773B revenue currently; however, the concern is that once 2023Q1 is replaced with 2024Q1, that TTM revenue number will decrease, not increase. Possibly significantly so. We will know that in less than a week with real data.

The real question is, what will the forward-looking 12 months of revenue after that look like, 2024Q2 thru 2025Q1? That we may get hints on this week, but it will be just that, hints and hopes but not yet sufficient real data to know.

 

[elasalle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781892523121672695

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781883009869681112

 

[2daMoon]

I personally cannot agree that "The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies."
I think this forum's purpose is for investors who have involved in TSLA to help each other have a better performance. So, at some point of time, a TSLA investor should sell all of his shares or at least, cut some positions, wait for a better time for entrance.
And, if the fundamentals have changed (though everyone has a different ruler/scale of that), quit investing TSLA.
At this time point, fundamentals really changed, 3/Y don't have growth, CT is ramping up slowly, China sales are going down, FSD revenue is not certain. And the company is pivoting to autonomous. The evaluation is definitely changing, investors should be careful not to take more risks than they can sustain.

I, who has 4000 shares now, hope that $140-ish will be the bottom this time.

As an investor, you should evaluate your performance. We all know that TSLA has 10x or 20x growth since 2012 or so, but how about the past 3 years?
And how is that compared to other companies, such as Meta, NVDA, or just MSFT?
Just reiterate that you are a long-term investor doesn't help your performance.

Regarding weekly, quarterly, or yearly delivery numbers... if up to now you cannot see that 2024 is on the track of "delivering less than 2023", then you are probably blocking your own eyes by your own will.

Oh, that explains it. Maybe you are in the wrong thread.

Try this one, perhaps they do more of that "timing the entrance" stuff.

Wiki - Selling TSLA Options - Be the House

I decided to create this thread as a more focused variation of the Option Trading and Advice thread, with that focus on the option strategy known as The Wheel. The thing to understand up front - I'm not a financial advisor, nor am I particularly expert in options trading. So far my experience...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[mongo]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781883009869681112

I don't follow...
$1,300*484,500 cars = $630 million / 10% = $6.3B initial labor cost. Total OpEx is only $2.4B so was production labor > $3.9B a quarter?

Total headcount was ~140k, 10% is 14k
$630 million / 14k = $45k / quarter or $180k average fully burdened annual salary. Seems high.

 

[rentierparasit]

Yeah we have threads for that. There's a thread about any other tech stock people are bullish or bearish in.

Hi, Singuy --

Kind of regretting getting involved here, but --

"a thread about any other tech stock people are bullish or bearish in."

, does not sound to me much like a thread for,

"Let's work together to figure out what the stock is worth and what the risks are?"

I'm not picking on you personally, we've never met, I have no problems with you, you just happen to have been an unusually quotable voice in the "echo chamber" discussion. I find it really hard to square, "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies," with, "this is not an echo chamber."

A problem with this thread is that it's the mega-thread, quite likely there should be another for people who are interested in discussing what the stock is worth. This is all meta-discussion having nothing to do with investment or the stock, so I'm unlikely to respond further.

Yours,
RP

 

[EQC_]

About time! Here we go!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781856306242175382

I presume this X App for Tesla is a native app which runs on the car OS. Will be interesting to see how they handle embedded video. Will be even more interesting to see if the X app uses one of the Tesla neural net NN cores to run a large language model LLM.

Cheers!

Hmmm...

FSD
External Speaker
Large language model

Finally, the car can not only drive itself, but also holler at other drivers when needed too. Frees up the human even more.

Just need to integrate a light-up hand gesture and FSD is truly complete.

 

[GatorMeat]

We heard recently that Tesla CT is sold out for the 2024 model year. That likely means that unless you're willing to pony up for the Foundation Edition AND qualify to 'cue-hop' as a long-term TSLA shareholder, your number in the line is going to come up no sooner than 2025. If you do decide to pony up the extra $20K for the Foundation Edition, rest easy knowing that you helped bring CT to positive gross margins months or even quarters sooner.


Confucius say: "Don't feed the trolls".

Cheers!

Sold out for 2024 cannot be true. I sat on my invite since Jan 19th, configured on Mar 24th, and have an April-June delivery window. I don't believe Tesla sold out the last six months of 2024 production since Mar 24th

 

[Krugerrand]

Hi, Singuy --

> The number 1 question this forum answers is "why should you invest in Tesla and why you shouldn't invest in other similar companies."

Should there be another forum for, "Let's work together to figure out what the stock is worth and what the risks are?" Because that seems worth discussing, too.

Yours,
RP

The risks have always been discussed here. The potential of the SP has always been discussed here.

On the latter, however, this isn’t the place to discuss day to day, week to week, or even month to month SP gyrations. That discussion happens in a different thread.

 

[AndrewZ]

NHTSA would disagree with that. They can force a recall with its associated stop sale implications (known non-compliant new vehicles cannot be sold). That manufacturers initiate the recall should not be seen as the regulators lacking teeth.



Had this been the original design, I doubt anyone would have taken notice. Note the nice alignment jig and vacuum used to clean up the mess.


I'd say low cost, final result matches the esthetic (square rivets would just be asking for trouble).
Supplier should be on the hook for replacement units with this potentially being done as a minigation step.

Forced recalls don’t happen often and require court action when they do. Basically all vehicle recalls are voluntary, even when initiated by NHTSA investigations etc — ie you’ll see NHTSA documentation comes out that talks about their investigation and findings but mentions how the manufacturer decides to voluntarily recall as a result.

 

[Krugerrand]

I don't follow...
$1,300*484,500 cars = $630 million / 10% = $6.3B initial labor cost. Total OpEx is only $2.4B so was production labor > $3.9B a quarter?

Total headcount was ~140k, 10% is 14k
$630 million / 14k = $45k / quarter or $180k average fully burdened annual salary. Seems high.

Less employees also reduces the company’s health insurance costs, employer state/federal costs, food costs, travel costs, other miscellaneous costs you don’t think of but add up (like security badging costs) AND the big one - 2-ply toilet paper costs.

 

[Dutchie]

After been reading and watching enviously for a couple of weeks about the hype of V12 I finally installed V12.3.4 yesterday coming from V11. Believing in the hype I was ready to invest more in TSLA, but having experienced the new version I will hold off for the moment.

Compared to V11 I find V12 marginally better. It accelerates and steers a bit smoother and has not stopped randomly in the middle of the road like I had version 11. Also, the wipers seem to work much better.
That being said; it still does the most basic stuff wrong:

- use of indicators. Why is it so hard to turn on indicators when you are entering and exiting roundabouts. Well for FSD it is hard.

- it turns on the indicator because it needs to move to a right lane - that is correct, however, it does it also right before a street on the right side. Drivers in that street think you might be turning right while you are not.

- choise of lanes is odd. For instance when there are two lanes before a traffic light and the left lane is for straight ahead only and the right lane for turning right and straight it is courtesy to use left lane if you want to go straight and leave the right lane for cars that want to go right on red. Not so for FSD

- totally ignores school zones or playgrounds.

- it still has some (slight) phantom braking

One can say that these things might be easily solvable, especially the indicators at roundabouts. If that is so, why haven’t they done that yet? I have used version 10, 11 and 12 and still these things are not solved.

Don’t get me wrong. I like FSD and I use it all the time. But not being able to do the most basic and mondaine things, as mentioned above right, after these many versions — I don’t see it turning into an autonomous system any time soon if ever. I will keep my cash for now.

Ok, after two, weeks, I stand corrected!
FSD does much better than when I first installed it. I don’t know what it is but is seems to learn on the fly. it now sometimes uses indicators when approaching a roundabout!

It is a bit inconsistent though. Sometimes it drives like a grandma and sometimes like Max Verstappen. It use indicators, but occasionally it does not. It turns correctly and sometimes not - as it goes over the edge of the road. It almost seems like it has his own personality.
I am very happy. But it is strange that it performed so poorly in the begining

 

[alexxs88]

The moat from manufacturing comes from Tesla building the machine that builds the machine. There are many manufacturing techniques that require Tesla to build the machines themselves as such ones doesn't exist. As of Today, no EV car builders has a positive net margin on EVs using western workers. In fact all of them couldn't even hit a positive gross margin.

But yes, if every car company goes to the same OEM and use the same machines to build cars, then yes margins are more or less determined more by their desirability/demand than COGS.

I don't see that in the numbers. Remember that Tesla gets the extra benefit of having no dealers. A dealer gets 10-15% margin on the retail price, margin that would be instead seen in Tesla's financials (minus the relatively small cost of operating a website and minimally staffed delivery centers in each country). In my country, Tesla operates the sales component with essentially 1% of the people of all the BMW dealers (excluding service components for both) while selling the same number of cars. That obviously shows conventional manufacturers where they could extract extra margin from, but also shows that Tesla's manufacturing is not such a marvel as some might think.