TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Vitold]

OT



The epidemic of deaths in and around cars led to the government regulation.

National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act - Wikipedia
Drunk driving in the United States - Wikipedia
Tetraethyllead - Wikipedia

I'm glad we don't live in the unregulated world. It would be nice if we could make the regulations shorter and sweeter, and with current technology we probably can. For instance, nowadays we could simplify a lot of the regulations to:
-- no driving with any detectable alcohol level in your blood
-- no fuel-burning cars at all
-- cars must have sensors to detect things in front of them and must safely stop rather than crashing into things

+ I would add cheap and accessible transportation. I think Uber and lift had a great impact on lowering DUI.

 

[Vitold]

OT



Sure, as long as they're not allowed to drive the unsafe cars on the public roads, which are the public property of all the people, managed by the government on our behalf, and devoted to the public good of transportation.

Unsafe cars on the public roads were and are killing passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers of other cars -- people who chose NOT to buy the unsafe cars. Not OK.

And in fact, cool unsafe cars ARE legal as long as you only drive them on private property which you own. As it should be! There are unsafe car rallies out in the Arizona desert every few years, featuring insane rocket cars and stuff.

I agree. I love eutocap tests that want to protect pedestrians as well as the driver. I think that is the result of universal healthcare we’re injuries are public cost.

 

[Artful Dodger]

WEEKEND OFF-PLANET - (CON'T)

More OT
Far better quality and similar but different

Cool vid! Thanks for that!

I'm sorta kinda like Elon (in this one way):

"I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact" ​

I've got my fare (if Elon delivers on his expected costs), but I'm like you in that I'm torn between going personally or funding my heirs. I guess it'll come down to time and the ravages thereof.

At least growing up in the '60s parents didn't think too hard about the future of all those long-heired hippies.

Cheers!

 

[avoigt]

Also note that VW cited WLTP range standards which are obsolete even today. EPA ranges are 30-40% lower - so the real I.D. range is probably 120-140 miles and 190-220 miles.

I believe the only thing the I.D. is going to compete on is entry price and the smaller form factor, as Tesla is unlikely to be offering a Model 3 variant with just 130 miles of range. The Standard Range Model 3 might even beat the higher specced VW I.D. on price, while offering similar or higher (220 miles) EPA range.

Agreed . Even worse all manufacturers shows a pattern of over promising and under delivering in terms of range and efficiency e.g. e-Tron or I-Pace.

Form factor makes sense but it needs to be notibly cheaper than the low cost 3 to attract anybody.

And we can fairly assume once the I.D. Goes in sale Tesla will be releasing new innovations and better tech.

 

[neroden]

OT:

The more the merrier. We know that there isn't an "EV market", there's a "car market". I believe that if VW really does make a bunch of nice high-volume EVS, they won't change Tesla's sales trajectory at all -- they'll just eat into ICE sales. Yay!

 

[HG Wells]

WEEKEND OFF-PLANET - (CON'T)



Cool vid! Thanks for that!

I'm sorta kinda like Elon (in this one way):

"I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact" ​

I've got my fare (if Elon delivers on his expected costs), but I'm like you in that I'm torn between going personally or funding my heirs. I guess it'll come down to time and the ravages thereof.

At least growing up in the '60s parents didn't think too hard about the future of all those long-heired hippies.

Cheers!

Brings up some good questions about writing the will to accomplish it without being too restrictive.
IE Give them 1/2 if they don't want to go. Rest goes to mars scholarships etc.

This is where my Tesla stock is going. Grandkids to mars or 1/2 to charity.

 

[lklundin]

View attachment 363214

Glad to learn that the paperwork could all be handled.

 

[winfield100]

OT

Brings up some good questions about writing the will to accomplish it without being too restrictive.
IE Give them 1/2 if they don't want to go. Rest goes to mars scholarships etc.

This is where my Tesla stock is going. Grandkids to mars or 1/2 to charity.

.....unless Elon can get the "neural link" Iain M banks 'neural mesh' working.....

 

[Artful Dodger]

Tesla just had pencils down for Y. They are working on truck and semi still. Probably will finish that next year. So they will start working on next model end of 2019, will have finished design in 2021 and begin production in 2023.

Yes it's an exciting Product Map. Elon said this during the 2018 Q3 Conference Call:

Maynard Um (Macquarie Analyst):

"Hi, thank you. Congratulations on a great turning point for Tesla. As you continue to scale the business, can you talk about how we should think about how you balance profits versus reinvestment, you're targeting sustainable GAAP profitability and cash flow but I'm curious if there's a level of GAAP profitability or GAAP operating margin or cash flow you want to hold and then take the excess to fund new growth or accelerate opportunities?"

Elon R. Musk - Co-Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & Product Architect

"Sure, I mean, maybe to, if I characterize that question it would be like, are we starving new vehicle development in order to achieve GAAP profitability and cash flow positive? Would that be inaccurate? Is that essentially...?

"The answer is no. So we've made significant progress on the Model Y. So in fact I approved the prototype to go into production recently, so it will be 2020 before that's in volume production. We made great progress there.

"Also we continue to make progress on the Semi and the new Tesla Roadster. And then actually product them. Personally most excited about is the Tesla pickup truck. I think that's going to be some next level stuff there."​

Cheers!

 

[lklundin]

Now with panel gaps no longer an issue, another huge problem has just emerged. Tesla might need to rethink their car external design to better serve these typical users...

@KarenRei, given your knowledge of both cars and the Internet, what do you make of this video?

 

[Anstandswauwau]

4 Minutes ago I have seen that the e-tron is on display in the Munich airport.

After security Terminal 2 at the duty free area.

Nice car.... too bad about range and efficiency.

View attachment 363345

IIRC BMW did the same with the i8 at the Frankfurt airport back in '13.

I have to admit, it's a rather smart way to present a car up close to a huge audience.

 

[hacer]

...
Charge a pollution tax so cost aren't transferred to the public square
...

So when your child is killed by air pollution it's ok because somebody else paid a tax?

 

[guidooo]

€10k makes a huge difference to many buyers (actually make it €15k as European SR is estimated to be ~€40k).
0-60 time does not make any difference to many buyers.
Top speed does not make any difference to many buyers.
206 miles is plenty for many buyers.

Looks true to me. Looking only at purchace price, the first generation Leaf is already the most expensive car I ever bought. At that time, I needed to adjust the way i look at mobility, but it suits my needs in an (i hope) environmentally sustainable way. LR EV's for sale these days make it much easier to switch from ICE.

If i ordered a 3, it would come at a price tag of 67K Euro (that's with a color change and autopilot). At this moment, I don't feel like spending 67K on a set of wheels, even though it's possibly (one of) the best cars ever made into existence. Different buyers, different needs (or wants) for mobility.

 

[wnorris]

OT



The epidemic of deaths in and around cars led to the government regulation.

National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act - Wikipedia
Drunk driving in the United States - Wikipedia
Tetraethyllead - Wikipedia

I'm glad we don't live in the unregulated world. It would be nice if we could make the regulations shorter and sweeter, and with current technology we probably can. For instance, nowadays we could simplify a lot of the regulations to:
-- no driving with any detectable alcohol level in your blood
-- no fuel-burning cars at all
-- cars must have sensors to detect things in front of them and must safely stop rather than crashing into things

OT

This is something I have been thinking a lot about today. The big focus of the US Government today is to build or not build a wall costing $5B on the border with Mexico.

I find it hard to believe that this is even being considered when $5B spent toward vehicle safety/efficiency, health care, education, or energy generation/storage would not have a drastically more impactful benefit.

Media coverage of immigration drastically skews the mindset of Americans (to which I am one) to make them believe that this is an efficient use of their tax dollars. Sorry to be political here, but this is another example of how Republicans fleece voters.

 

[Intl Professor]

Unregulated markets start monopolizing almost instantly, which robs people of "free choice". Unregulated companies also lie and mislead routinely, which robs people of "informed choice".

Exactly how would unregulated markets avoid negative externalities like lead poisoning? There's still tens of thousands of tons of lead contaminating the soil of inner cities, with nobody liable for cleanup. Statute of limitations long passed, the culprits gone. Children get exposed to that lead even today. How do "informed decisions" help there?

I linked to numerous examples of horrendous abuse by the car industry, which cost numerous lives. We cannot just ignore that track record of lack of regulation and parrot libertarian dogma mindlessly.

Even Adam Smith, author of "Wealth of Nations", who coined the "invisible hand" of the markets, acknowledged it over 200 years ago:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."​

In practice the main "free" thing about unregulated markets is "free of consequences". Without regulations and enforcement human lives become litigation costs, balanced against the costs of a recall and redesign. Bad reputation becomes a PR and marketing cost.

In practice the "free" markets sought by libertarians are as elusive fantasies as the "unselfish" societies sought by communists.

In the first oil shock in the seventies a group of students in one of my classes pursued research into the possibility of nationalizing the industry. They changed gears (so to speak) in mid-semester. Why? "We'd have to nationalize our government first." (Read "democratize" in the parlance of our times.)

 

[EVNow]

It would be nice if car companies could make the cars they see fit to make and how they wish to make them without millions of pages of government regulation.

And then fail or succeed in the market place without government intervention.

It would be nice if car companies could make the cars that don't poison the air I breathe.

And then my health can fail or succeed without fossil fuel intervention.​

 

[HG Wells]

Musk star ship ahead of schedule. First hops March ?

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says Starship (BFS) hop tests could start in early 2019

Better call my lawyer to rewrite my will.
Grandkids to mars or it ALL goes to charity.

 

[EVNow]

I would rather have free people make informed decisions.

For that we need to free people first. And for that - we need the government not to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs.

Then we need the people to be educated enough to be informed. Then we need the companies to publish all the information correctly so that the free people have information.

Free market capitalism assumes perfect information, which is never present.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

If anyone needs a last minute gift idea, TSLA shares make a great stocking stuffer (no pun intended).

 

[HG Wells]

If anyone needs a last minute gift idea, TSLA shares make a great stocking stuffer (no pun intended).

When I was growing up my grandfather gave me 10 OIL company stock certificates in my christmas stocking.
They were absolutely gorgeous and not worth the paper they were printed on. They went to 0 in 1927.
Was fun tracking down their value. No internet back then.