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

[DarkandStormy]

How long until we hear Rob Maurer has been hired as the new head of IR?

 

[Doggydogworld]

I think its not fully appreciated that a $30,000 with high interest payments will cost the average buyer WAY more than a $30,000 car with low interest payments.

1. Interest rates aren't high, they were just low for a freakishly long period
2. Monthly payment on 30k loan for 5 years -

• 6% interest = 579.98
• 3% interest = 539.06

It's not nothing, but most people got raises. ICE sales are doing fine. Tesla's main issue was a limited, aging lineup. Which they're now moving to address via "new models".

I think Tesla has a lot more data and foresight to project sales for this year, and I sincerely doubt they would mislead investors during an earnings call if they know otherwise.

What did they say about 2024 volume? All I recall was one analyst who specifically asked if "lower growth" included the possibility of negative growth. Elon the uberoptimist said "I think sales will be higher this year", which I take to mean sales might be higher this year but don't bet the ranch.

 

[capster]

Most people don't have analytic mind, indepedent thinking, they read and beilive what MSM writes. it is kind of unfortunate Tesla does not want to allocate resourses to rebuttal MSM garbage articles.

Um, doesn’t processing a rebuttal and changing your mind based on it require an analytic mind and independent thinking? Your premise belies your implied recommendation.

You’ve inadvertently given the most concise reasoning for not wasting time, money or energy on rebuttals that I’ve seen here except for the one I myself like.

And that is the ancient saying, versions of which are found in many Eurasian languages: "The dogs bark but the caravan moves on."

 

[Knightshade]

I think its not fully appreciated that a $30,000 with high interest payments will cost the average buyer WAY more than a $30,000 car with low interest payments.

I think its not fully appreciated that monthly payments today are MUCH LOWER than they were when interest rates were low-- because the price cuts are vastly larger than the amount of higher interest being charged.

Anybody blaming car loan rates for Teslas flat sales compared to then the cars were 20k more money is just bad at math.

 

[GOVA]

Has anyone mentioned the M3 Performance today?

 

[Todd Burch]

Sorry, have to point out a flaw in your logic - you say Tesla is printing money in spite of massive AI capex when they positive result was only before capex as @Robertj pointed out.

I worded that poorly. They had massive AI capex (a one-time expense) and, despite having a terrible quarter by Tesla standards with lots of headwinds, still made a ton of money ignoring the one-time capex.

 

[capster]

AFAIK the major obstacles to rolling it out in Teslas other two big markets are:

EU: Regulations make it impossible to roll out right now. Regs coming later this year/early next might make it POSSIBLE, but still not rapid (Rohan said some things about this soon before he left)- so this isn't coming SUPER soon.

China: Regulations for the service aren't a huge obstacle--- but regulations require car data to not leave china-- which makes local training a huge obstacle until Tesla has a lot of compute physically IN china---- made extra hard by it being illegal to import the more powerful GPUs. But you might see a less-optimal version launch there once it's "good enough" and then it'll improve steadily as they can ramp compute there with lesser hardware (but perhaps more of it).

Not only will autonomous driving save lives (a wonderful result on its own to be sure) it will also provide an economic boost.

I expect a measurable boost in economic productivity due to autonomous driving. This will be due to people working and shopping while being transported. There may also be a further health dividend—beyond that from accidents averted—as people shed the stress of driving and, perhaps also, roads become driven with less aggressiveness and aggravation overall.

China and Europe will have little choice but to follow America’s lead for competitiveness reasons, if not just for health and mortality reasons.

 

[uscbucsfan]

I think its not fully appreciated that monthly payments today are MUCH LOWER than they were when interest rates were low-- because the price cuts are vastly larger than the amount of higher interest being charged.

Anybody blaming car loan rates for Teslas flat sales compared to then the cars were 20k more money is just bad at math.

It's true. It's actually cheaper to finance now than it was during Covid with the low interest rates due to the lower pricing.

 

[insaneoctane]

Agreed on all counts.

That said... what about beyond short term?

This year is likely gonna be roughly flat (I can see arguments for SLIGHT unit growth, and arguments for SLIGHT unit shrinkage, but roughly flat overall).

Next year- if they can get the cheaper model(s) on existing lines started by EOY 24- we could be back to significant 50% YoY growth in 2025.

But... then what?

At that point they're up in the 2.7-3M range end of 2025.... with no more existing capacity

So I'm kinda hoping 8/8 has something to say beyond this call regarding new factories-- because without that we're just in for another plateau in '26, and to avoid that they'd need to start construction on something in the next 3-6 months.

Agreed. Also, ignore RT for a moment, as FSD improves over the next several months+, it could meaningfully impact demand for the existing fleet...but, Tesla will "at capacity".

 

[capster]

Same! (Well, actually owner of 3 since 2020 (currently 2). Sold all my TSLA shares this morning. Fan of the company but believe I can find a better place to invest than the stock.

Long time investor and owner of 5 vehicles since '16 (currently have 3). Just sold all of my holdings.

Dizzying edge case in the Matrix: Shorts and longs capitulating simultaneously.

 

[DarkandStormy]

I think its not fully appreciated that monthly payments today are MUCH LOWER than they were when interest rates were low-- because the price cuts are vastly larger than the amount of higher interest being charged.

Anybody blaming car loan rates for Teslas flat sales compared to then the cars were 20k more money is just bad at math.

Wow way to call out Elon

 

[scaesare]

Their gross margins declined. Their Op Margin % for the quarter was 5.5%, which is bad abd below most other automakers.

While the teams are focused on cost reductions, we are approaching the limits within our current platforms

^That's what the CFO said in January. Do you think he was lying?

1) Approaching ≠ reached. (see my previous post to you on this).

B) Operating includes operating expenses like overhead, and yet was positive. GM was also positive. Strike two for your "RIP margin" comment.

III) Do you think things can't be discovered in several month's time... or platforms won't evolve?

 

[ggies07]

Long time investor and owner of 5 vehicles since '16 (currently have 3). Just sold all of my holdings.

 

[Linkmeup]

Long time investor and owner of 5 vehicles since '16 (currently have 3). Just sold all of my holdings.

Hopefully, you just make some of it back in passive income from the 5 vehicles...

 

[aubreymcfato]

Nice series of plots of data from the earnings report:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782865274095481006

Piloly is the best chartist out there. If youre on X give him some love.

 

[hobbes]

Piloly is the best chartist out there. If youre on X give him some love.

Yeah. Would be even better if he´d post his data sources.

 

[cliff harris]

Those two photographs were taken at Austin and Berlin by Joe Tegtmeyer and Tobias Lindt. I posted an analysis of the Berlin photo back in February in another thread. It's clear that the undercover car in Berlin was a Model Y body from the front bumper to the rear passenger area, then truncated in length by about a foot in the rear.

Significantly, this vehicle was being built in Berlin. There is spare capacity inside the Phase One Assembly Hall to build this new vehicle there, and if it reuses the majority of the stamping dies and the safety and engineering from the Model Y, then it will be very quick to put into production. Which is what we heard yesterday on the conference call. Don't be surprised if we see it before the end of Q4 2024.

That would be very very interesting. A shorter model Y, especially if its noticeably cheaper would be very popular in Europe, and Berlin is the obvious choice of where to manufacture it. TBH I still don't understand why Berlin isn't making model 3s. Seems bizarre to still ship those from shanghai.

 

[Knightshade]

Wow way to call out Elon

TBF I also called you out, but WEIRDLY ENOUGH you didn't reply.

 

[insaneoctane]

Newb question...
Tesla is spending billions of Capex on Nvidia H100 GPU training clusters...how long will these be useful? Will there be an H101 next year? Someone wanna take a stab at explaining the initial investment vs upgrade / maintenance requirements for me?

 

[Knightshade]

Newb question...
Tesla is spending billions of Capex on Nvidia H100 GPU training clusters...how long will these be useful? Will there be an H101 next year? Someone wanna take a stab at explaining the initial investment vs upgrade / maintenance requirements for me?

There's already an H200 that'll be on sale soon

NVIDIA Supercharges Hopper, the World’s Leading AI Computing Platform

NVIDIA today announced it has supercharged the world’s leading AI computing platform with the introduction of the NVIDIA HGX™ H200.

nvidianews.nvidia.com

But there'll be a long line to get any big number of em.... Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google all buy a LOT more GPUs than Tesla does so they'll likely be ahead of them in line for new ones too... while Tesla is bragging about having 85,000 H100s of compute by end of 2024, Meta plans to have 600,000 of em.

But H100s don't suddenly stop computing because a new chip is out either.