TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[gora321]

Okay, based on the feedback so far, let's request that the universe schedule the "highly negative Tesla market event" for Monday

No, I do not want to do that! I have my standard. Never, never hurt the Tesla!

When other are doing that I'm just penalising.

Tesla (Elon) is may hope, dream and inspiration.

 

[beachbum77]

I think it's enough if it's a big Tesla event: business media will find a clever way to spin it into a highly negative event, they are quite resourceful when it comes to that!

Then I would suggest another big weekend sale this time in southern CA, followed by a "flood" sale on the East Coast on Monday. That should do it.

Did anyone read of people attending the continued Fremont sale on Monday?

 

[winfield100]

The other day, a friend of mine told me that Tesla has purchased/leased the closed Gander store in West Palm Beach, which has 200+ parking spaces. That should give them some room for more Model 3 deliveries!

Pebb comes back from tragedy with Tesla dealer, Gander Mountain site

(note: google picture is probably 1-3 years old)

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Okay, based on the feedback so far, let's request that the universe schedule the "highly negative Tesla market event" for Monday

NOW you're talkin'!

Dan

 

[winfield100]

Tesla taking over a former Volvo dealership. What a novel idea. There are empty dealerships all across the country begging for tenants but instead Tesla has gone into expensive mall and shopping centers with no service capability. Maybe they have finally hired someone with an automotive background to do site selection who could convince management of the value of all-in-one locations. Bravo!

Now can we send that person to Raleigh, NC please?!

how about Rockville, Maryland, service center. I have counted over 50-60 Model S and X there at a time over the years.
Staging area for the "John Broder memorial drive" ~4 years ago, the week after he drove from Washington DC area to New York, but neglected to charge the vehicle, and wrote a hit piece about how dumb he was because he thought the vehicle filled itself
5-8 Tesla S 85's recreated the drive, in February, all at comfy temps, one young couple just for fun
picture is a few years old, when the supercharger network was much less built out
(the tornado of a few summers ago missed it by appx 3/4 of a mile)
Google Maps

 

[winfield100]

Uhh, here in Denver they bought a vacant BMW dealership last year. Now it's a fantastic location for them--gallery, service center (much larger and more capable than their former location, which now serves as mobile service HQ), separate delivery building, and a reasonably large amount of parking.

Rather than call the idea novel, I'd suggest that they are being opportunistic with expansion and grabbing significant real estate improvement when they can do so at reasonable cost.

@Zaxxon,
??google maps picture of the place?

 

[Zaxxon]

@Zaxxon,
??google maps picture of the place?

It's Tesla Littleton.

 

[beachbum77]

It's Tesla Littleton.

View attachment 334216

Great location next to a CarMax for dealing with trade-ins!

 

[avoigt]

Come 2019H2, the current German EV incentive drops 4k€ (to 0), a drop more than twice that of the US incentive at the same time (i.e. 3750$ - 1875$ = 1875$). So from an incentive maximizing point of view, it would make sense for Tesla to make good on their prediction to start delivering Model 3 to Germany in 'Early 2019'.

Full disclosure: As a day 1 (or 2?) Model 3 reservation holder in Germany, I have a delivery prediction of 'Early 2019'.

Good to hear another voice out of the city I live in!

Its correct that the €4k EV incentive is scheduled just up to June 2019. Given the high pressure here around carbon emissions with Munich to be the most dirty town in Germany now (Landsberger Street), hefty discussions about Diesel hardware changes and some other like elections I do expect that our Government will have no chance to extend the incentives next year. The amount of EV cars here on the road are disappointing and it will be very unpopular to reduce incentives. The discussion with a Government swimming in Taxpayers money they do not know where to invest in will be rather what else they can do.

Also in 2019 we hopefully have some German EVs on the road so the German OEMs will support incentives in particular as I do not expect them to be able to make any profit on theirs due to a variety of factors discussed here before.

Until today only a fraction of the incentive budget has been requested mainly due to not enough attractive EVs offered and missing charging infrastructure. On top of those they discredited Tesla with taken their incentive away and had to pull back after the judge made the sentence in favor of Tesla. Still the auto industry is doing what they can to keep Tesla small in Germany and I expect the gear to shift once the 3 hits our Autobahn with 155 m/h (250 km/h). You and me will have kind of a responsibility to show people on the street how superior that car is.

Congrats to your choice - we had the same thought. I have a reservation for a 3 (P3D) and should be early in the queue too. Lets hope we get a chance to s´drive it before placing the order. Not that I expect it will change my decision but just to increase the up front joy a little....

My delivery date is early in 2019 as well.

 

[lklundin]

from an incentive maximizing point of view, it would make sense for Tesla to make good on their prediction to start delivering Model 3 to Germany in 'Early 2019'.

Has anyone been keeping an eye on tesla.com/careers ?

I just went there and looked at open positions in 'Sales' for the USA. This returns a large number of 'Associate Delivery Manager', 'Customer Experience Specialist', 'Delivery Experience Specialist', 'Delivery Supervisor', 'Owner Advisor' and 'Vehicle Prep Specialist'.

So I deduce that deliveries are handled by the 'Sales' department - and that a significant expansion is still foreseen for the US.

I then do the same 'Sales' search, but this time for Europe and get a much smaller number (71) of open positions. Fair enough.

Of these 28 (40%) are German language (Junior) Sales advisors, half in Germany (the other half in Austria/Switzerland).

The second largest group of (25) open sales positions (35%) is for a 'Product Specialist' (who just has fun talking about how great the cars are without trying to sell anything. Tesla could fill these with TMC people who have a clean shirt), these 25 positions are all open in non-German speaking countries, incl. the UK.

The same search for Asia/Pacific returns a list dominated by 'Product Specialist' for China.

So is it reasonable to interpret this to mean that Tesla is indeed preparing to significantly increase their sales in Germany and German speaking countries? (a quick search seems to indicate Austria has a 3k€ BEV-incentive in 2019H1).

And that for the remainder of Europe (+ China) Tesla is preparing to increase if not directly their sales staff then staff that indirectly lead to sales?

Has anyone looked at Tesla's careers page some time ago, so an idea can be formed of what kind of change there is in their hiring pattern?

Thanks.

 

[Thekiwi]

(note: google picture is probably 1-3 years old)
View attachment 334206

Apple maps pic:

 

[mrdoubleb]

Well, I think it makes sense to carefully parse what Elon and JB said about this in the 2017/Q4 conference call:

Analyst: "Yes. Thank you. It sounds like from the letter that you could do more than 100,000 S and X in 2018, but you're constrained by the 18650s. And I'm just curious what would it take to see the 2170 cells in these vehicles?"

Elon: "Yeah."

Jeffrey B. Straubel: "Well, this is JB. It's something we've of course contemplated, but it's quite a large change to the architecture of the module and the battery pack overall. And while the 18650 supply is somewhat of a cap at about 100,000 units per year, even just a few months ago we didn't feel that expanding and making some long-term bets on expanding that supply with Panasonic in Japan was really the right risk. It's something we could consider, but right now we're pretty happy with that balance and it matches our other production capabilities and our other investments."​

I believe JB would have mentioned it if the changes went beyond the battery pack. Changing the battery pack is of course still a major change, but it's still a lot better than significant changes to the chassis - which would basically require a re-design and re-qualification of the whole car and would require major tooling changes as well in Fremont, because chassis and interior dimensions would change as well.

Given that 2170 has lower mass per kWh, I believe their plan is to fit it into the form factor of the existing battery pack with very few changes required on the chassis and elsewhere (beyond battery pack integration and maybe the cooling compressor: increasing the cooling compressor's capacity would make sense anyway).

Plus Occam's Razor: I'm pretty sure they already knew that 2170 would fit when they picked 21700 as their form factor back in 2016. I mean, killing the 'easy' expansion path for the Model S/X would have been an unforced error of epic proportions...

Yeah, but we also have this tweet from Elon - though it is dated earlier. I am also sure this doesn`t mean *never*.

Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[keydiver]

(note: google picture is probably 1-3 years old)
View attachment 334206

No, the Gander Mountain store is off Northlake Blvd, and right along Route 95, right behind a Home Depot. Look at all that parking!!

 

[bdy0627]

• Cash flow: right now Tesla is paying about $600m-$700m of cash per quarter for the Model 3 production lines. These payments will phase out in 2019 and improve cash flow directly and automatically.

Is there information from Tesla on these payments and when they are completed?

 

[Tslynk67]

Come 2019H2, the current German EV incentive drops 4k€ (to 0), a drop more than twice that of the US incentive at the same time (i.e. 3750$ - 1875$ = 1875$). So from an incentive maximizing point of view, it would make sense for Tesla to make good on their prediction to start delivering Model 3 to Germany in 'Early 2019'.

Full disclosure: As a day 1 (or 2?) Model 3 reservation holder in Germany, I have a delivery prediction of 'Early 2019'.

Is a €4k incentive really a show-stopper? Just asking? I assume you get other benefits too, like minimal car tax and for companies good tax deductibility?

 

[mongo]

Is there information from Tesla on these payments and when they are completed?

Q4 '17 letter said some CapEx was deferred to Q1 '18
Q1 letter said more than half of the 656 Million CapEx was for 3 at Fremont, GF1, and tooling. Projected < 3 Billion for the year down from > 3.4 Billion.
Q2 letter projected <2.5 Billion CapEx for 2018. Currently at 1.27 Billion.(610 million for Q2)

So expected spend is ~612 million a quarter.
My recollection from conference calls is that the existing 3 CapEx should be mostly wound down, so the additional is new equipment.
Given their slowed pace of 3 volume increase and talk of 8k, I'm expecting even lower CapEx for Q3/Q4.

 

[lklundin]

from an incentive maximizing point of view, it would make sense for Tesla to make good on their prediction to start delivering Model 3 to Germany in 'Early 2019'.

Has anyone been keeping an eye on tesla.com/careers ?

I just went there and looked at open positions in 'Sales' for the USA. This returns a large number of 'Associate Delivery Manager', 'Customer Experience Specialist', 'Delivery Experience Specialist', 'Delivery Supervisor', 'Owner Advisor' and 'Vehicle Prep Specialist'.

So I deduce that deliveries are handled by the 'Sales' department - and that a significant expansion is still foreseen for the US.

I then do the same 'Sales' search, but this time for Europe and get a much smaller number (71) of open positions. Fair enough.

Of these 28 (40%) are German language (Junior) Sales advisors, half in Germany (the other half in Austria/Switzerland).

The second largest group of (25) open sales positions (35%) is for a 'Product Specialist' (who just has fun talking about how great the cars are without trying to sell anything. Tesla could fill these with TMC people who have a clean shirt), these 25 positions are all open in non-German speaking countries, incl. the UK.

The same search for Asia/Pacific returns a list dominated by 'Product Specialist' for China.

So is it reasonable to interpret this to mean that Tesla is indeed preparing to significantly increase their sales in Germany and German speaking countries? (a quick search seems to indicate Austria has a 3k€ BEV-incentive in 2019H1).

And that for the remainder of Europe (+ China) Tesla is preparing to increase if not directly their sales staff then staff that indirectly lead to sales?

Has anyone looked at Tesla's careers page some time ago, so an idea can be formed of what kind of change there is in their hiring pattern?

Thanks.

 

[lklundin]

Is a €4k incentive really a show-stopper? Just asking? I assume you get other benefits too, like minimal car tax and for companies good tax deductibility?

No, not for me as a buyer. Keep in mind, no one in Europe knows the Model 3 pricing (except what guesses may be made from current Model S/X US vs EU pricing), so there is already plenty of uncertainty regarding the price.

My reasoning regarding incentives is from Tesla's perspective (and thus for me as an investor): With potentially many millions of Euro in difference to the buyers, there may be a tangible difference in revenue by keeping an eye on the incentives in the different countries.

My personal interest (and thus my disclosure) is more along the lines that a focus on Germany for 2019H1 would mean that Tesla would actually meet their delivery prediction.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Is a €4k incentive really a show-stopper? Just asking? I assume you get other benefits too, like minimal car tax and for companies good tax deductibility?

@lklundin My understanding is uptake on the current incentive is very low. Do you have a feeling on how that may change with Model 3? Tesla hasn`t released any preorder figures per country, so not sure how many Germans we have waiting. But it would definitely make sense for them to pay attention to these sort of deadlines, and in the past they have done so in other countries.

At the same time, i think it is not stretch to say that the German EV incentive program so far has been a failure. In January German press reported that only about 10% of the fund was used in 2017. So I would expect they will come up with sg. new to boost the transition. The cynical part of me says they will wait until the big 3 German car conglomerates are ready with their mainstream offerings...

 

[lklundin]

Given the high pressure here around carbon emissions with Munich to be the most dirty town in Germany now (Landsberger Street), hefty discussions about Diesel hardware changes and some other like elections I do expect that our Government will have no chance to extend the incentives next year. The amount of EV cars here on the road are disappointing and it will be very unpopular to reduce incentives. The discussion with a Government swimming in Taxpayers money they do not know where to invest in will be rather what else they can do.

Also in 2019 we hopefully have some German EVs on the road so the German OEMs will support incentives in particular as I do not expect them to be able to make any profit on theirs due to a variety of factors discussed here before.

Until today only a fraction of the incentive budget has been requested mainly due to not enough attractive EVs offered and missing charging infrastructure. On top of those they discredited Tesla with taken their incentive away and had to pull back after the judge made the sentence in favor of Tesla. Still the auto industry is doing what they can to keep Tesla small in Germany and I expect the gear to shift once the 3 hits our Autobahn with 155 m/h (250 km/h). You and me will have kind of a responsibility to show people on the street how superior that car is.

Yes, given the predicament with an important and prestigious industry literally poisoning the tax-paying electorate, it is quite possible that a new EV incentive will be introduced.
Since the legislators try very hard to exclude Tesla, I can imagine a policy that not only reserves a given amount of money for incentives (which the taxpayers will appreciate), but one that also limits the number of eligible cars per manufacturer. I basically imagine that the legislators will instruct each German auto maker to estimate how many EVs they will sell in Germany within some number of years, given a stipulated incentive (and no talk about fines to emissions cheaters). Some weighted average of this estimate will then become the cap for each EV maker - maybe counting all EV-sales so far in Germany, if that helps to minimize the number of eligible Teslas. I guess only historical EVs sales with at least 5 seats would be counted against the quota (of eligible cars with any number of seats), for the benefit of BMW. Yes, legislating is difficult.

Back in 2014 I managed to get a Tesla brochure from the Munich store, it hangs at my office door, so I already have a long list of people that I had to promise a test drive once my Model 3 arrives.

PS. Should "will have no chance to extend" be read as "will have no chance but to extend", or no?