TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Reciprocity]

Higher supercharger rates make free supercharging for life more valuable. Apparently about 20-40% more valuable. 100% valuable in some places. My guess is that this incentive will make another comeback once the fed tax credit phases out. It's also a great differentiator vs model 3 and frankly every other EV.

 

[Krugerrand]

What happens if people just don't pay their electric bill?

(In most of US) Can the utilities keep billing you a connection fee and eventually put a lean on your house?

I own a property that I haven’t used electricity on for an extended period of time. I get billed every month for ‘delivery’ charges. If I don’t want to pay that fee, Iam free to PAY to have all utility lines and equipment removed from my property, then they can’t ever charge me again. Carry on Tesla. I’m waiting for the day...

 

[Reciprocity]

In WA the commercial rate is about $0.0768. Tesla just increased the supercharging cost in WA from $0.11 to $0.25. So they are essentially applying a 3.25 multiplier. As a consumer, I find this outrageous and it does make me pause since I was expecting Tesla will not go the route of other commercial charging providers. As an investor, it's fine.

What if they also multiplied the supercharger locations by 3.5, because that is that they are doing in my area. 4 newly opened in the last 3 months and atleast 4 more locations planned for this year. Each one seems larger then last with more chargers per location. And as mentioned here by others, EVgo and some of those others are $.49/KWh with minimums and parking fees sometimes. And that's for level 2! Not received DC fast charging.

 

[avoigt]

Tesla just jacked up superchargering rates. Positive or negative effect on stock price?

Thats an indication that Model 3 numbers are about to go up strongly.

 

[MitchJi]

The problem is that at some point, when Model 3 production increases, the stock will climb and stay over the ATH. So the safest thing to do may be to leverage with options after a 10% dip, and convert to stock after each climb and maybe buy Puts, as others have suggested in the past, so that you don't miss the boat when she finally leaves.

That’s a sure fire method to not have any leverage when the SP goes ballistic.

 

[pz1975]

I love selling weekly OTM puts when the stock is middle/low like it is now.

Stock goes up - I collect 100% profit.
Stock goes down a bit (last like week) - I collect 100% profit.
Stock goes down - I buy shares cheaper than if I had just bought them when I sold the puts (or roll it forward to next week if I prefer).

 

[Reciprocity]

That’s a sure fire method to not have any leverage when the SP goes ballistic.

I think it's a fine tactic as long as the puts and calls are smaller by a lot then your actual stock position. I think this is a stock to be long in and to add leverage with calls and even puts when appropriate. Just be prepared to lose all of the amount you bet on calls and/or puts. But if you use some longer time frames, this stock will give you an out on both. I suggest itm calls and puts. Don't get crazy. And your stock position in general should be long. But playing on the fringes is why I started to learn how to trade options to begin with. Protect against downside risk and capitalize on the upside. It's no easy task and I'm just learning as I go. Last week for instance, I was in and out of Tesla calls a dozen times and netted very positive results even though the stock was down and I did it mostly with calls. This stock is nutty, but it has rythim.

 

[MitchJi]

Even with only 20K US M3 deliveries in 1H18, in order to shift the 200k date into Q3, Tesla would have to keep MS/X deliveries to significantly below 10K/Q (their recent avg), probably closer to 5K/Q. I still don't see a high likelihood of that happening.

Or sell only MS-MX outside the USA.

 

[Ulmo]

What is the competition charging?

Here in CA it is $.49 per kWh. At a 50 kWh CHAdeMO station.

In California North of Bakersfield at least, I was getting $0.20/kWh as a member of one of the major Chademo networks, and approximately $0.25/kWh at many of its main competition Chademo stations, for 30kW-42kW speed, last year December 2016 - June 2017. Of course, I could have picked more expensive stalls where the sky was the limit, but that wasn't what I was doing, and I was doing fine finding many reasonably priced Chademo stations.

The recent SuperCharger expansion would have removed my need to use most of those competitions' charger systems (had I not sold my Tesla). But, the Chademo networks have also been lowering their prices to some degree as well as continual expansion, and now with the raising of the SuperCharger prices, it puts them about par for price conscious Chademo adapter equipped Tesla owners that can wait the extra amount of time because half the charging speed. While it's rare that this is necessary given the good SuperCharger expansion, it still fills in some spots, and could be useful for some regular long distance routes that some drivers use. I have to admit that there's only three Chademo stations I can think of that would benefit me given the recent SuperCharger expansion, but all three are closer to my usual long distance endpoints than any SuperChargers, and half of them are useful places to stop.

(Yes, I can count. 1 is 100% useful for stopping, and 1 is 50% useful for stopping, while 1 is 0% useful for stopping (other than charging), which adds to half.)

I have not yet confirmed that the Chademo adapter works on Model 3; I assume the nominal answer is yes. Oops: it is no at current, with no known medium and long term answers from Tesla at all. Anybody with insight about when Model 3 will have CHAdeMO enabled? If you need Chademo, get a used X cheap (or S if you are small frame person) instead of a Model 3.

 

[Reciprocity]

Tesla just jacked up superchargering rates. Positive or negative effect on stock price?

Two works "captive audience"

And, charge at home with solar and you only pay 4.5c/KWh. So buy solar from Tesla who manufactures in the good old solar tariff free USA.

 

[Ulmo]

Updated predictions on self-driving from Musk during the SXSW 2018 Q&A (3/11/2018):

"I think probably by end of next year [end of 2019] self-driving will encompass essentially all modes of driving and be at least 100% to 200% safer than a person. By the end of next year. We're talking maybe 18 months from now. NHTSA did studies on Tesla Autopilot 1 which is relatively primitive and found a 45% reduction in highway accidents. And that's despite Autopilot 1 being just version 1. Version 2 I think will be at least 2 or 3 times better. That's the current version that's running right now."

This was at about 3hrs, 48 min into the livestream:

I watched it live today and can confirm from my memory that he said approximately that, despite the fuzzed out video reference. There are other copies on YouTube if you want to watch the whole 2 hour interview. The search code is "SXSW 2018 Elon Musk". It was just a general current Elon interview about whatever.

Elon did repeat many things he's already said in the past.

It was one of the best interview formats for a general whatever interview that I've ever seen: a friend of the interviewee is the interviewer, reading his own prepared questions as well as a curated sampling of live questions silently colated via electronics from the local-only paid audience. The fact that the interviewer was one of his long time friends makes him ask better questions, yet the fact that he's just a friend and not a business partner and/or competitor makes the questions more genuine, well rounded, and accessible; I also like the business partner interviewers if the business partners are mature imaginative friendly sorts rather than cut-throat dim-witted liars, and we've seen a few of the former with Elon recently (NASA, etc.).

--

My opinion about the above Elon statement: The window of 18 months until Full Self Driving continues to slide forward in time. At some point, it should catch friction and stop sliding. No one seems to actually know when that will be.

 

[MitchJi]

It has been exceedingly quiet on the 3 VIN threads. I'm all out, except for retirement shares. Nothing's gonna happen on the positive side for the SP until we see real movement on the 3 deliveries.

Which might happen in early April or May.

 

[phil0909]

It's profoundly unhelpfull to reason through a reductio at absurdum.

You don't seem to understand what 'reductio ad absurdum' is. In fact, it is a perfectly effective logical device, and is extremely helpful, when properly applied. An introductory course in logic, or a few minutes on the interwebs could clear this up for you.

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

NASDAQ futures are taking off. I would be prepared for TSLA to be left in the dust tomorrow as traders and investors rush into the strong names. I'm hoping we are lucky though and the new VIN registrations and VIN assigning activity installs some FOMO and TSLA rises along with everything else but I wouldn't expect it. Shorts have gotten loud again lately so maybe it's time they learned a lesson again. Good luck out there.

 

[Intl Professor]

your concerns are all too real
See what Warren Buffet tried to pull off when he bought Nevada Power.
Casinos had to PAY millions to disconnect from the Nevada Power grid.
and residential solar was stopped for a time.
Public Utilities - for the most part - are actually 25-40% cheaper than investor owned - you might check.

good luck to all - keep an eye on them

Sacamento's SMUD is a dream once we elected a board not under the thumb of PGandE. PGandE caused us to build a Babcock and Wilcox nuke plant which we eventually mothballed after Three Mile Island.

 

[Tslynk67]

This might be picked-up on: SpaceX and Tesla 'almost went bankrupt'

Elon Musk says his companies SpaceX and Tesla are both still alive only "by the skin of their teeth".

Not sure if this is accurately reported or whether it's meant to be a historical comment that's out of context.

 

[uselesslogin]

This might be picked-up on: SpaceX and Tesla 'almost went bankrupt'

Elon Musk says his companies SpaceX and Tesla are both still alive only "by the skin of their teeth".

Not sure if this is accurately reported or whether it's meant to be a historical comment that's out of context.

Huh? Nothing is out of context in this article. Did you misread the year? This is about 2008.

 

[montefuego]

So when you said the E would be formidable threat to the S you were referring to exactly what aspect? Because so far you’ve yet to give one example of what will make it a formidable threat to a Civic, let alone an S.

Because the experience of driving the Porsche, other than the ICE engine's power curve, was a great joy to me for the time that I had it. That simple

 

[Tslynk67]

Because the experience of driving the Porsche, other than the ICE engine's power curve, was a great joy to me for the time that I had it. That simple

Probably great fun when you're driving alone, but not very funny if you have your family in the car, inless you carry adequate supplies of sick-bags. I'm certain that the Porsche will handle and brake much better than a Model S, but even without seeing the final design or specs I'm also quite sure it will be a far less practical car. They seem to be quite different beasts to me.

I used to drive a Model S, which was just about enough space for our family - wifey, three kids (10,10, 7) and two small dogs. Now the kids are that bit bigger (14, 14, 11) it got a little too tight for comfort in the rear, so I traded for a Model X. No way I could even condier the Porsche at this stage of my life - even with just two kids I reckon it will be tight when luggage is included. Maybe in 5 years it might be an option, but current plan is an R2...

 

[HG Wells]

Nice open.
Glad I bought more friday.

UP 6 at 941