TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[sundaymorning]

China to Cut Import Duty on Cars to 15% After Truce With Trump

This is great news.

 

[ggr]

Isn't there a vote for the annual meeting in June?

Yes, but you can only vote based on the shares you held (in your own name, not loaned out) on the record date. You can't buy your first shares today and get into the shareholder's meeting. It's the same with dividends (not relevant for Tesla), when the company announces "a 1c dividend for shareholders of record on such-and-such-date". Even if you've sold the shares since that date, the money still comes to you. I had an investment account once, transferred all the contents of the account elsewhere, and closed the account, and was surprised to get a statement two months later, because a few dollars worth of dividends had gone back into it.

 

[Starno]

News are going to distort the Model 3 brake thing.
Expect a red day.

 

[Todd Burch]

Strong MMD this morning.

I think we'll bounce back and end in the green today.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

OK, order executed.

Stock can start to soar now. LOL!
(We'll see what happens in the short term. Pretty confident in the long term.)

Dan

 

[JRP3]

Hence, they’ll nitpick until they find something wrong to talk about

Testing two different cars with terrible braking is hardly nitpicking. Elon has now admitted there is a problem. CR did their job properly and Tesla responded properly, period.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Wow a million shares in 20 minutes? What’s going on?

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Wow a million shares in 20 minutes? What’s going on?

32 of those buys were mine. I guess I started a trend? LOL!

Dan

 

[Todd Burch]

Wow a million shares in 20 minutes? What’s going on?

That's people not realizing:

1. How easy the braking issue will be to fix.
2. How it will cost Tesla almost nothing to fix.
3. How CR will likely test the fix and recommend the car (assuming it's fixed), and
4. How Tesla actually ends up getting positive PR for this by responding quickly and making the braking even better than it was supposed to have been.

Same thing happened a few years ago when there was a recall of some Model S's for improper assembly. Tesla identified a problem, immediately issued the recall, and fixed it promptly, without any regulators needing to intervene. Stock price went UP as a result of the recall, not down, because it demonstrated proactive safety measures were always at the forefront.

This while at the same time, other auto manufacturers were trying to cover up fatal flaws (ignition switches).

 

[WarpedOne]

3. How CR will likely test the fix and recommend the car (assuming it's fixed), and

They will not.

 

[dmvevguy]

Seems stable at 280...just picked up 200 shares. I'm disappointed, though, that they didn't perform the test that CR would perform and should have caught this well in advance considering they know all the negative FUD / PR it would bring to this critical roll-out. Hoping they can do a fix quickly OTA and re-test...and if CR doesn't do a re-test then they should release their own internal test showing the improvement.

 

[Todd Burch]

They will not.

Why do you say that? It's happened in the past. (AP2 Model S's were, early on in AP2's lifetime, not recommended because AEB hadn't yet been activated above a certain speed. Once they did, they became recommended again).

Also, it would be foolish, with as much publicity as this gets, for CR to not recommend a car for a reason that is not accurate anymore.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

They will not.

What makes you think they wouldn't? Tesla gives them a recent release. They test it. The initial problem is fixed. CR touts how influential they are with manufacturers. Everyone buys their magazine. The cycle repeats.

Dan

 

[Krugerrand]

CNBC View attachment 302908

The headline appears only 4 times in a row. What a disappointing effort.

 

[Drax7]

If the 5500 lb model X can stop within acceptable limits, how hard will
It be to stop model 3 at 3800 lbs

 

[kbM3]

Tesla Bears argument will change from Tesla can not produce model 3s (March 2018) to Ok they can produce M3s but they can not make profit (July 2018) to Ok they can make profit but why value Tesla more than GM,FORD (December 2018) and when finally Tesla will post GAAP profit of 1.5 billion (6 billion Plus annual GAAP) in Q2 2019 with revenue of 12 billion with M3 fully ramped up to 10K/Week, they will so OK but competition is coming in 2021.

They will add to this following FUD stories
Tesla cars are unsafe, whenever Tesla crash is reported.
Tesla cars fit and finish and quality overall is not good
Tesla execs are leaving company

IMO Tesla will be 3X by this time next year. 6 billion annualized GAAP profit run rate with 30x valuation gives me 180 billion. Valuation is on higher side because Tesla will quadruple their 2019 revenue by 2025 in range of 175-200 billion.

1.5 billion GAAP profit in Q2 2019 is based on following assumptions
130K model 3 sales at ASP 50K with 6.5 billion revenue (ZEV credits added to this)
Model 3 gross margin of 25%
S/X gross margin 32% (should be logical because higher priced cars should be more profitable and also indicated by Elon in earnings call)
S/X sales of 30K Annual run rate of 120k and 3 billion quarterly revenue (Leasing and ZEV credits added to this)
Energy revenue of 1.5 billion (Tesla roof ramped up to 20K roof installations, Powerwall 2, traditional solar, big projects like 1GWH battery )
Energy margin of 20%
Services and other revenue of 1 billion with break even
Autopilot / Self driving activation revenue 300 million (90% margin. I expect Tesla Self driving tech will be available in beta by end of 2018. So those who did not purchase these features initially will buy)
Operational costs 1.5 billion (1 billion S&G and 500 million R&D)
2.5 billion cash flow from operations (profit 1.5 billion + depreciation 600 million + ESOPS 300 million + 100 million other)

Im expecting the bear argument for Q3 and Q4 to morph to:

They’re selling primarily the expensive cars. There is still no way they can sell the $35k car profitably, like we’ve always said.

 

[Todd Burch]

MMD complete folks. On our way back up. I think.

 

[Krugerrand]

True!

The really impressive part though is that they can obviously improve the brake with an OTU. Lets think about this for a minute in terms of comparing what every other car manufacturer would have done and how long it in average would take to adjust the issue not to mention the costs associated.

The so called negative report from CR is turning now into a big positive given that the reaction time, costs and easiness to improve is unprecedented.

Agreed. It’s actually epic but I fear lost on most people due to FUD. I’m not liking a lot of people this morning. They are real lucky I haven’t yet perfected my superhero ability of blowing them up with my mind.

 

[EinSV]

Im expecting the bear argument for Q3 and Q4 to morph to:

They’re selling primarily the expensive cars. There is still no way they can sell the $35k car profitably, like we’ve always said.

Yup.

Would probably help defuse that a bit to get some standard battery Model 3s in the mix for Q4, which seems to be the plan given the recent estimate of 6-12 months to delivery for new standard battery Model 3 orders.

It may take 3-4 quarters cash flow positive and profitable to knock out some of the more stubborn shorts, and probably not close to all of them even then. But cash flow positive and profitable in Q3 and Q4 is likely to attract new investors and push out some of the smarter shorts, along with shorts who can't afford to keep sustaining losses, which would be nice.

 

[Krugerrand]

Seems stable at 280...just picked up 200 shares. I'm disappointed, though, that they didn't perform the test that CR would perform and should have caught this well in advance considering they know all the negative FUD / PR it would bring to this critical roll-out. Hoping they can do a fix quickly OTA and re-test...and if CR doesn't do a re-test then they should release their own internal test showing the improvement.

There is no indication that Tesla didnt do their own testing. In fact they did as they had their own stopping distance, which they responded with to the CR report.

Since this can apparently be fixed by an OTA update it seems more likely that a bug happened/or some such during continued work on the car’s software.