TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[elasalle]

Now, why go back to November 2016 statements? About that same time Musk said Tesla would build 200,000 Model 3's in 2017. Can we please stick to current information? Otherwise how about a new thread for "Historical predictions that proved to be bull*sugar*"?

We still have 1 Q left. maybe not 200K, but very easily in 150-170K range

 

[ZachF]

I completely agree. I have written this before.

He would be the perfect person to take the best of Tesla and turn around the rest. He did it at Boeing and he did it at Ford. His efforts at Ford are why they never had to go BK as GM and Chrysler did. All Mark Fields had to do was follow Mulally's playbook and he would still be CEO. The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" led to Fields exit from Ford.

Team-building is Mulally's best quality. Tesla desperately needs that in many areas. He is also a great systems talent and God knows Tesla's order and delivery departments needs help there.

His handling of the 787 was a disaster, had it not been for the strong growth in demand for airplanes from emerging markets and a huge drop in the value of the dollar the company would have suffered tremendously.

Ford's comeback was also mostly following the recovery of the economy as a whole. Ford isn't doing too well now either after all his policies are now in place... he got out before the consequences could be fully accounted for.

 

[generalenthu]

I only have 'a' call.

With options, you have options.

Sell a 315 or 320 call. Get back your original investment, and retain the upside till the new strike.

 

[beachbum77]

So Gorman was paid and therefore he would go out on a limb to make himself look like an idiot? I don’t find that credible. If he truly believed Musk would lose, Gorman wouldn’t risk his own reputation.

At the very end he said “is more than defensible”.

People do it every day on CNBC, CNN, FOX, etc. They need intelligent contrasting opinions, otherwise viewers tune out. Contributors are asked to put together opinions for a given position. That is how news reporting works. How many others gave similar conclusions? As far as I can find no one else who took Gorman's position. Neither did Musk's lawyers. Sound bites will not damage his reputation in the least.

 

[beachbum77]

His handling of the 787 was a disaster, had it not been for the strong growth in demand for airplanes from emerging markets and a huge drop in the value of the dollar the company would have suffered tremendously.

Ford's comeback was also mostly following the recovery of the economy as a whole. Ford isn't doing too well now either after all his policies are now in place... he got out before the consequences could be fully accounted for.

Check your facts. All of Mulally's policies are not in place. Mark Field's ego takes credit for that and why he is now gone.

 

[mrdoubleb]

People do it every day on CNBC, CNN, FOX, etc. They need intelligent contrasting opinions, otherwise viewers tune out. Contributors are asked to put together opinions for a given position. That is how news reporting works. How many others gave similar conclusions? As far as I can find no one else who took Gorman's position. Neither did Musk's lawyers. Sound bites will not damage his reputation in the least.

Check your facts. All of Mulally's policies are not in place. Mark Field's ego takes credit for that and why he is now gone.

Haha! So you can make stuff up with no proof (Gorman was paid to say pro Musk things) but then instruct others to "check their facts".

Ok. Bye.

 

[beachbum77]

We still have 1 Q left. maybe not 200K, but very easily in 150-170K range

I am pretty sure there are no quarters left in 2017...

 

[Joe F]

Egads, that's hilarical.

My fav: " I have no idea why various car frames are sitting outside, presumably rotting away. But here they are. "

So how long, exactly, does it take an aluminum frame to "rot away" from being outside?

Actually, I would have stopped reading, in total agreement, after "I have no idea." Truer words were never spoken.

 

[ZachF]

Check your facts. All of Mulally's policies are not in place. Mark Field's ego takes credit for that and why he is now gone.

Fields was pretty awful, no doubt.

-EDIT-

But most people don't realize how bad the 787 program was run. Had the emerging markets not been on an airplane-buying binge and the dollar drop giving a huge discount, it probably would have sunk the company.

 

[wipster]

Waited all this time and I wake up to an MMD...
Can't wait for part deux!

 

[beachbum77]

Haha! So you can make stuff up with no proof (Gorman was paid to say pro Musk things) but then instruct others to "check their facts".

Ok. Bye.

So you did not know that contributors on TV are paid for their participation in addition to promoting themselves and/or their companies? I'm shocked! Next, you are going to tell us reporters are not paid either. LOL.

 

[kbM3]

The good old times ... Tesla Model 3 will not arrive until ‘very end’ of 2018, says once TSLA-cheerleader Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas

“We continue to forecast a Model 3 launch at the very end of 2018 (more than 1 year later than company target) with 60k units in 2019 and 130k units in 2020.”

Don’t be too hard on Adam. He just left out the fact in 2019 and 2020 his estimates were per quarter not per year. Still too low, but...

 

[SO16]

People do it every day on CNBC, CNN, FOX, etc. They need intelligent contrasting opinions, otherwise viewers tune out. Contributors are asked to put together opinions for a given position. That is how news reporting works. How many others gave similar conclusions? As far as I can find no one else who took Gorman's position. Neither did Musk's lawyers. Sound bites will not damage his reputation in the least.

Are you saying Gorman doesn’t believe what he stated?

If that’s the case, your response is “oh they were just paid to say that”? It’s all BS because people are paid to give a contrasting opinion? I guess that means we can apply your logic to all of your “fact based” articles you have written then.

 

[mspohr]

Support for Elon and Tesla from NY Times
The Future of Electric Cars Is Brighter With Elon Musk in It Opinion | The Future of Electric Cars Is Brighter With Elon Musk in It

 

[Brando]

No thanks.

Mulally's handling of the 787 was a disaster, TBH, It will be studied for decades to come as a case study for excessive outsourcing. Also, most of Boeing's resurgence against Airbus in the mid-00s was because of a huge drop in the value of the dollar, not his direction as CEO

Boeing a defense contractor - nothing that goes on there is helpful to an actual competitive/market based manufacturer. SpaceX is obviously kicking ULA butt. (ULA=Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense)

He left Boeing to work at Ford - and many thought him nuts to leave Boeing. Just means he & Musk have both worked Aero/Transport.

It was his work at Ford we should look too. ONLY Ford & Tesla have not gone Bankrupt so far.
(having only the media stories .... well we all see mis-leading (not informative) and unreliable the press usually is.)

Tesla also nearly went broke "out-sourcing" at least twice. So they both have learned that lesson up close.
Apple can do it - they may be the exception to prove the rule. Many ways to skin a cat as they say.

 

[avoigt]

If you read the SEC lawsuit, Musk and the BoD gave the SEC enough information to win their case. I believe that is why his team was reportedly shocked when he turned down the first settlement offer. We do not know what the SIF actually told the SEC investigators which could have been even more damaging.

Remember, in a civil class-action they do not have to prove fraud, just that the tweets Musk made were incorrect as of August 7th. With no discussion with the Saudis on a price per share or how much they would have to fund the "go private" effort, Musk did not have "funding secured". Whether he could have raised the funds after the fact does not matter.

Without a vote of approval from the BoD on his plan (which had not been presented as of August 7th, a shareholder vote was NOT all that remained to make his plan happen. Whether Musk understood that at the time is irrelevant. The statements were factually incorrect. That will be the basis of new and on-going lawsuits, and Musk will certainly settle just as he did with the SEC and will put this all behind him.

The new communication controls the Board will introduce will prevent this sort of thing from happening again in the future (we hope).

A funding will only be relevant if his thought about Tesla going private will materialize into action. A going private will not be relevant for an investor if only funding is secured but many other aspects still needs to happen like for example that the shareholders vote for it.

For that reason it does not matter if the statement funding is secured was accurate or a lie at that very moment. Given that it is not relevant if they can prove it or not.

 

[Bobfitz1]

I first thought I read "with $ flowing in to support MY Semi capital needs" --- and I thought, wow he's buying a Semi! lol

LOL That is brilliant @dqd88, thank you! I have been wishing Tesla would open a gallery somewhere in southern Vermont where I live, so I might get a part time job as geezer/original Roadster owner door greeter and smoozer! If Walmarts can have someone like that why not Tesla galleries?

That scenario is a long shot, but maybe leveraging SP increases to finance a Semi would let me roam the U.S. doing promotion events at Tesla Galleries! Pull into parking lot in my Semi, then the back doors open and friends drive out in my 2010 Roadster and 2019 M3 P. A joke idea for now, but I'm hard pressed to dream up a more fun way to help Tesla mission!

 

[ZachF]

Boeing a defense contractor - nothing that goes on there is helpful to an actual competitive/market based manufacturer.
SpaceX is obviously kicking ULA butt. (ULA=Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense)
He left Boeing to work at Ford - and many thought him nuts to leave Boeing. Just means he & Musk have both worked Aero/Transport.
It was his work at Ford we should look too. ONLY Ford & Tesla have not gone Bankrupt so far.
(having only the media stories .... well we all see mis-leading (not informative) and unreliable the press usually is.)

Alan Mulally - Wikipedia

Mulally was the executive vice president of Boeing and the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA)

 

[KarenRei]

LOL That is brilliant @dqd88, thank you! I have been wishing Tesla would open a gallery somewhere in southern Vermont where I live, so I might get a part time job as geezer/original Roadster owner door greeter and smoozer! If Walmarts can have someone like that why not Tesla galleries?

That scenario is a long shot, but maybe leveraging SP increases to finance a Semi would let me roam the U.S. doing promotion events at Tesla Galleries! Pull into parking lot in my Semi, then the back doors open and friends drive out in my 2010 Roadster and 2019 M3 P. A joke idea for now, but I'm hard pressed to dream up a more fun way to help Tesla mission!

The funny thing is, you'd actually get more range in your Roadster that way The "500 mile" Semi is only rated as such for when carring a 80k lb GVW. You'll get far more if your only cargo is a Roadster.

The really cool thing would be if you could retrofit a Semi into something equivalent to a huge Class A RV. A typical trailer is about 15m in length. Surely the Roadster is under 5m length. 10m living area, 5m garage, solar panels on the roof, rainwater collection....

ED: Whoa:

semi-luxury-mobile-home-32117 - Cavareno Home Improvment Galleries

You'd need to extend the aero shrouds, but that'd be an impressive way to travel! Manufacturer is "Anderson Mobile Estates"

ED2: The more that I think about it, the more I can picture it being used more than just a way for retirees to travel in luxury. Picture, say, mobile restaurants that switch cities every week or two... hotels that drive into town when there's festivals on and in general go wherever the demand will be... things of that nature. The cheaper you can haul cargo, the more practical such things become. And with enough solar, and keeping trips down to a few hundred miles, it wouldn't even need megachargers. Combined with rainwater collection, all you really need is an occasional sewage stop.

 

[Bobfitz1]

Yeah, what I meant was, other than a cursory "hello" I hope he stays off the call. He can use twitter to explain what's happening. The earnings call needs to be as boring as possible, and let Deepak deal with it.
Otherwise you know what all the questions will be; just leading him into questions about the SEC deal etc. All that needs to be stamped on, and so better if he was there for show, but didn't answer any questions.

LOL. Right, Elon there for show but not answering/commenting! Snowballs chance in Production Hell. We'll hear Bob Lutz say something worthwhile before that happens!