TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Fact Checking]

OT,

I bring it up in conversation from time to time that we should be aiming for 70 billion.

Current cultural trends are projecting a world population maximum of 10 billion people and a slow reduction back to 8 billion people after that:

That's under the "medium" projection of current fertility trends.

Here's the regional trends:

So I agree with @Krugerrand partially, we probably don't have to be ready for 70 billion people. Not even close - and we'll achieve that via the most peaceful way: by slowly advancing societies.

An interesting fact is that as societies modernize and get more prosperous, population growth slows down and even stops.

So just making the planet enjoyable and sustainable for all of us is inherently self-stabilizing. EVs and Tesla are a big factor in that process.

Humanity can also expand in the solar system, which has even more resources than Earth.

 

[AndyH]

We've already over fished our oceans with current population, not to mention the plastic waste problem, farming discharge problem, etc. Plus think about the human waste problem. Not sure why some people seem to think we need to keep pushing population growth to the limits, and beyond.

Just because we're behaving like morons now doesn't mean we have to be morons forever and ever. But then again historic behaviour is usually a good guideline for future behaviour.

With our current way of living 7 billions is too much for the earth. We have to change our behaviour or billions of humans will be ****ed.

 

[defc0n]

I’m so glad Napoleon Bonaparte forced us to use the metric system. Thank God shares can only bought per piece, not per foot or gallon.

I buy my shares every 40 rods to the hogs head.

 

[Etna]

Here in Vancouver area I am too seeing many more Teslas than ever

Vancouver is definitely a city that loves EVs. I was there last week (walking, biking, driving) and stopped counting the number of Model 3 - they are everywhere.

I even saw a Tesla Roadster for the first time, and also a Karma Revero (makes a weird noise).

 

[CHGolferJim]

OT,

BTW., while that might be true assuming our current non-sustainable mix of technologies, the real population limit of this planet, using high living standards for everyone and only assuming available technologies, is more like 100 billion people living comfortably (!):

• Earth receives stupendous amounts of energy from the sun, and energy is the main physical limit,
• ~80% of the population lives on like ~1% of the planetary surface, and that doesn't even include the 75% oceanic surface,
• we are wasting a lot of premium surface living space and are sacrificing a lot of our quality of life on ICE based transportation infrastructure: EVs and tunnels alone will be a giant step forward.
• Earth also still has stupendous amounts of mineral resources, there's literally no lack of anything: for example Earth's oceans contain somewhere between 50,000 and 1,500,000 metric tons of gold dissolved - up to 7x all the gold mined in history? And gold is a very rare and comparatively unimportant mineral resource - more abundant metals like lithium are probably already economically feasible to extract from ocean water.

The problem is only that we tend to mine the easiest to extract stuff that has the lowest short term expense at the place of extraction, shuffling longer term (I.e. longer time distance and longer geographical distance) costs on others.

Once that practice is superceded (by properly pricing of long term costs/damage) the road to more population growth is wide open, without compromising on living standards.

Makes sense, but food production has a long way to go to support that level of population (Disclaimer: Personally involved in an indoor vertical farming venture in NC.)

 

[JRP3]

Just because we're behaving like morons now doesn't mean we have to be morons forever and ever. But then again historic behaviour is usually a good guideline for future behaviour.

Exactly. I don't expect packing ever increasing numbers of people into the same space is going to drastically improve human behavior.

 

[KarenRei]

“Volkswagen has such high expectations of the new ID ... The Neo will be followed by a crossover in the Tiguan format in 2020, before the E-Bulli ID Buzz ... "

I'd love to meet the 13-year-old who time-traveled here from the year 1999 that VW hired to come up with its product names.

 

[Thumper]

OT,



BTW., while that might be true assuming our current non-sustainable mix of technologies, the real population limit of this planet, using high living standards for everyone and only assuming available technologies, is more like 100 billion people living comfortably (!):

• Earth receives stupendous amounts of energy from the sun, and energy is the main physical limit,
• ~80% of the population lives on like ~1% of the planetary surface, and that doesn't even include the 75% oceanic surface,
• we are wasting a lot of premium surface living space and are sacrificing a lot of our quality of life on ICE based transportation infrastructure: EVs and tunnels alone will be a giant step forward.
• Earth also still has stupendous amounts of mineral resources, there's literally no lack of anything: for example Earth's oceans contain somewhere between 50,000 and 1,500,000 metric tons of gold dissolved - up to 7x all the gold mined in history? And gold is a very rare and comparatively unimportant mineral resource - more abundant metals like lithium are probably already economically feasible to extract from ocean water.

The problem is only that we tend to mine the easiest to extract stuff that has the lowest short term expense at the place of extraction, shuffling longer term (I.e. longer time distance and longer geographical distance) costs on others.

Once that practice is superceded (by properly pricing of long term costs/damage) the road to more population growth is wide open, without compromising on living standards.

There is more to life than making stuff and feeding people. Quality of life depends on political stability, health, and limited natural disasters. Cramming the maximum number of people on the planet is lowering quality of life for almost everyone. It is not a stretch to imagine so many wildfires, hurricanes and floods that neither governments nor insurance companies can pay to recover. Huge climate caused migrations are causing and will increasingly cause migrations which are disruptive at both ends of the trek. It is not at all clear that you can achieve your goal of 100 gig people if the oceans are acidified and the permafrost releases it's methane.
A world with nothing but people and few other species is a diminished world. Max population at some point is an inevitability. Why not choose to make that number smaller? There is no compelling reason to continue the upward trend. We are victims of inertia and failed ethical leaders.

 

[Unpilot]

*Market Action* So what say yea market procrastinators will we see a repeat of the last few weeks?
A nice rise followed by a little retrenchment on Friday?

Watching the news about Tesla it seems to me the narrative is shifting from mostly negative FUD articles to more of the "wow this company may actually have something" type articles.

With the SP passing thru so many "Barriers" lately and sustaining them I feel we are near a tipping point. There seems to be so many positive actions happening with Tesla that the breakout WILL happen soon.

What say yea?

 

[traxila]

Anyone concerned about emails from Tesla promising EOY delivery and 7500 tax credit if you order now?

Not sure how to process this.

 

[pz1975]

Anyone concerned about emails from Tesla promising EOY delivery and 7500 tax credit if you order now?

Not sure how to process this.

Are these only to people in California/nearby states? If so then I would presume it is because shipping built cars to reservation holders further away or overseas wouldn’t make it to them by December 31 and they want to maximize deliveries this quarter.

 

[traxila]

Are these only to people in California/nearby states? If so then I would presume it is because shipping built cars to reservation holders further away or overseas wouldn’t make it to them by December 31 and they want to maximize deliveries this quarter.

I am in NYC.

 

[mongo]

Anyone concerned about emails from Tesla promising EOY delivery and 7500 tax credit if you order now?

Not sure how to process this.

Key clause (paraphrased):
"Or get your deposit back"
May lead to claims of inflated deposits in Q4, but we know those only shift the cash posotion, not the bottom line.

 

[JonathanDandrea]

The guarantee is a full refund if not delivered in time which cancels delivery and leaves Tesla with a new car to sell, seems to me the only cost to Tesla is the logistics of returning the deposit. It’s really a no risk offer for Tesla if I understanding correctly. They are not offering to discount the car 3750$ if delivered on / after Jan 1.

 

[traxila]

Says nothing about deposit back, although obviously that is part of the deal. Just order now and get yours delivered before the end of the year.

Making the offer obviously is not a risk to Tesla. The question is why?

Why would Tesla calculate that it could deliver ANY new orders with two weeks left in the year?

 

[Intl Professor]

I’m so glad Napoleon Bonaparte forced us to use the metric system. Thank God shares can only bought per piece, not per foot or gallon.

Schwab has bought them by pennies and fractions for me, when reinvesting dividends, for example.

 

[Ugliest1]

Just checking...

Edit: seems ok, I'm just as ugly as before.

Yes, but is that enough?

 

[gene]

You need to be careful posting such a name around these parts. There's a certain reluctance to click a hyperlink attached to 'Spiegel'. Sure confused me initially, until I understood you were referring to the media outlet.

The magazine is not called "Spiegel", it is "Der Speigel" meaning "The Mirror". It's kind of a German version of Time Magazine. I used to enjoy reading it when I lived in Zurich.

 

[Remus]

Occam’s razor be damned for these shorts. Fake buyers, everyone here is fake, I’m not real either and those cars I see on the street aren’t real. Inventory and product in transit is real, but it’s just moved around the country from unsold locations over and over. The conspiracy is so absurd, but somehow the only way to hang on to their fraudster meme. I hope the paid haters paymasters are revealed and losers like fed zeppelin sue the bejesus out of their deep pockets.

It has risen to a comical level, brings lots of laughter. I even hate longs who tried to debunk theirs dreams on Twitter. Why not just let them mortgage their house and go all in?

 

[22522]

Anyone concerned about emails from Tesla promising EOY delivery and 7500 tax credit if you order now?

Not sure how to process this.

End of subsidy has always loomed. As have concerns about market saturation. And cultural time constants for change.

Tesla high low product roll out has orchestrated these factors extremely well. There will be glitches at the transitions.

Speaking as a long with some understanding the difficulty of driving cultural change Elon’s tweets don’t bother me.

Acceleration is rarely comfortable.
And its first first derivative is jerk

Tesla is directionally correct. I keep money in because I like what they are doing.