TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Artful Dodger]

"Tesla bulls think it's a tech company.
Tesla bears think it's a car company.
Apple is not a phone company."
@BenedictEvans

Tesla, software and disruption Aug 29, 2018 blog

 

[davecolene0606]

Rogan format

Wide ranging 2-3 hour conversations where multiple ideas are discussed and explored. Additionally, there is a guy hangin in doin live info gathering as the discussion proceeds.

Very useful insights often arise on Rogans podcast. It is unscripted without handlers.

Fire Away!

 

[anon]

Very good statement which brings it to the point. I wonder why Noone ever thought about the reasons why he is doing all of this:

-NYT interview crying about having no time for family
- Aggression against nonsense (pedo story)
- his use of words

This all does in my opinion just clarify that this guy is on huge stress, whatever may be the cause of this stress is up in the air (failed going private, production hell missed targets, Sec investigating, loss of his crazy girlfriend, loss of battle against shorts, no free time, competition, missing targets and promises, personal financial situation, loosing of trust by investors ).

To me it is clear some of the above are true I just hope Tesla is doing good.

As discussed repeatedly here before, the NYT interview was nothing new, except that the journalists decided to take things out of context and use splashy headlines. They also filled the majority of the article with innuendo from "people familiar with the matter" supported by only a handful of cherry-picked quotes from Musk, even though it was supposed to be an hour-long interview. Other news sites then picked up on it and further amplified things, often losing much of the context in the process and making it seem like much of the innuendo was established fact or had come from Musk during the interview; in some cases, they also made it sound as though Musk had been in tears throughout, including when discussing the decision to announce taking Tesla private, as though he was crushed by regret over it.

However, Musk had already used similar words and displayed considerable emotion during the shareholder meeting. There was also briefly some emotion on display when discussing these topics in the Q2 earnings call and April CBS TV interview. He has also used similar language to talk at length about the stress of the job in the past. In fact, the NYT authors even admitted they knew this in a follow-up article, which claimed that Musk's mental health was in question over a year beforehand. Why does Musk talk this way? Well, it probably is stressful, but also I think this kind of talk has helped to build his image over the years, as someone totally dedicated to the job.

Musk further clarified that his voice cracked just once and he did not cry, which is consistent with his performance in prior interviews - some cracking of the voice, but no actual crying. The NYT would not even release a transcript, let alone audio of the call, and it's obvious why - there wasn't anything new there and it wasn't as bad as they made out.

This isn't the first time that journalists have behaved like this. Musk often used to say that the share price was over-valued by traditional metrics for a normal company, but was undervalued when looking at Tesla's extreme growth prospects (or words to that effect). The trick for journalists back than was to distract him half way through the conversation or somehow get him to say it in a way that could be taken out of context - a Financial Times journalist managed to pull this off quite skilfully and ran with the headline saying something like "Musk claims that Tesla is overvalued". This of course temporarily made the stock plunge at the time, even though Musk's comments were entirely consistent with ones he had made numerous times before in the preceding weeks.

 

[Revhappy2]

A bullish article on TSLA

Tesla: Don't Panic, Buy The Dip Instead - Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha

 

[SO16]

In my personal opinion, the heightened U.S. delivery will be temporary, as Tesla fulfill their PROMISE to rush as many cars as possible to game the tax incentive deadline.

Starting from Jan 2019 a significant portion of the production will be shipped overseas. Delivery in U.S. will drop. I don't think it is wise to fully provision the delivery system for a temporary peak.

The US tax credit doesn’t fully disappear in January. So there is still incentive to ship as many as possible in the US next year.

 

[jhm]

A damming headline: https://jalopnik.com/the-2020-mercedes-benz-eqcs-200-mile-range-is-a-disappo-1828812912

It is interesting that expectations are solidly that range will be longer in 2020. Are prospective EV buyer really that hung up on range? I don't know. But it sure makes for an easy way to sort out weak competitors. MB just looks pathetic, not quite ready for primetime. Not quite ready for 2020.

 

[dondy]

Is AP considered a liquid asset? Will it convert to cash in one year or less? Is it part of inventory?

If to go beyond formal definitions: yes, yes and yes.
Existence of AP even in it's current state is an active asset. People do consider existence and quality of AP when they are buying cars. People who drive cars themselves are very interested in functional AP. Comparing Tesla S with it's direct concurrents in the segment translate AP value into 10k+. It's the cost of luxury detailing Tesla would have to spend to compete in Tesla S segment without having AP.
Customers in the 80k+ segment which buy Tesla form the group way bigger and more diverse than Tesla's critics want public to believe.
Considering the target group in 35-50k (core of middle class segment) you get very picky group who are crazy about functioning AP and would value it just a bit after functional quality (ratio repair/use), and residual value.

Tesla can sell AP even in it's current state. If to compare with existing concurrents, splitting AP into separate entity and selling it now would generate 10+bln. now. Will Tesla do it? Absolutely not. See above, and see the main focus in reports of Tesla investors.

It is obvious part of inventory and it's value is more important than 0-60, or even internal volume, and probably AP is shadowed only by effectivity of Tesla energy package (motors+battery+BMS+superchargers network).
If you meet Tesla owner AP will take like 30% of the story. that's practically the AP ratio in Tesla "street" value.

 

[SO16]

A bullish article on TSLA

Tesla: Don't Panic, Buy The Dip Instead - Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha

The author seems to be bullish on many different companies.

 

[loky]

Interestingly, I've never heard of stamping or plastics being a bottleneck. I guess Tesla has that part down

Indeed. Increasing plastic parts production is easy with new special tool(s) that work on standard equipment.
During Q2 call, EM has stated that Body Shop line reached for the first time production rate of 5600 cars/week. Thanks to evaluation of two auto analysts, George Galliers and Arndt Ellinghorst,published in Evannex Blog :
MODEL 3 ON TRACK FOR 8,000 CARS PER WEEK, SAY ANALYSTS IN DETAILED TESLA FACTORY AUDIT
with their statementa that "Body Shop line rates were sub 65 seconds at several stations" (>9300 cars/week !!) and by "our understanding that incremental capex is required (our impression is in the tens and not hundreds of millions) in order to get to both 8k units and eventually 10k units".
Closely watching a few available videos of Model 3 Body Shop line, it looks to me that further incremental optimization of moving of welding robots are very possible.
So, I think we should exclude Body Shop and Stamping line as possible future bottlenecks.
I would recommend Evannex Blog, some valuable information can be found.

 

[Mike117]

Autopilot v9 still not good... Tweet by Elon... Hopefully ready by end of month (his words). Further pain incoming ...

 

[loky]

Maybe MOD should consider banning some trolls here for a few days, as a pedagogical measure.
Or at least from 9.30 am to 16 pm, during trading time, on working days only.

 

[bhzmark]

Maybe MOD should consider banning some trolls here for a few days, as a pedagogical measure.
Or at least from 9.30 am to 16 pm, during trading time.

Pls just use ignore for people whose postings you don't like. All the complaining is thread pollution . Btw this is a public service.. not yet another complaint..

Back on topic.. sort of.. I suspect the Rogan podcast will be fireworks. Not the best environment for Musk. Rogan is somewhat inflammatory and over the top, and might incite more imprudent remarks. Sam Harris would be more Elons speed , but Rogan has a much bigger audience. Certainly a must listen.

 

[Boomer19]

Pls just use ignore for people whose postings you don't like. I don't like the complaining which makes me tempted to put the complainers on ignore.

good call, done.
he’s complaining about being down 10k on his stock. then lied about a short strategy, later admitted he didn’t do what he said he did. then rants and raves about elon all night. he’s a child that clearly doesn’t belong in any investor forum

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Autopilot v9 still not good... Tweet by Elon... Hopefully ready by end of month (his words). Further pain incoming ...

to who? investors? You actually think a slight delay in the release of the new update for autopilot moves the stock price? If the factory canteen runs out of vanilla ice cream should that lead to a stock drip too?

 

[Mike117]

Autopilot v9 still not good... Tweet by Elon... Hopefully ready by end of month (his words). Further pain incoming ...

Do you see stock price? Investors have lost trust in Elon completely.
If course that will influence stock price as it shows that he can't stick to his promises. I do really hope for all of us that this was not the last time to see Tesla over 300.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

How many investors have the release date of V9 autopilot in their spreadsheets? You are talking nonsense. I even DRIVE a tesla (I suspect you dont), and I didn't even know V9 was coming, much less care when. Show me all the other cars that get features improved after release at zero cost? Try to fit the whole list in a single post if you can. I'll wait.

 

[EVMeister]

TSLA going down. Unheard of! Seriously Mike, you must be new here or haven't been following TSLA for long. It just bumps up and down within a certain range until some real positive news pushes it up to a higher range. I'm expecting such news in the coming months. Either way, it doesn't bother me. I'm a long-term Tesla investor and this is just noise.

 

[HG Wells]

to who? investors? You actually think a slight delay in the release of the new update for autopilot moves the stock price? If the factory canteen runs out of vanilla ice cream should that lead to a stock drip too?

Well if Elon really really LOVES vanilla ice cream and they run out, it could significantly hurt production. /S

 

[bdy0627]

I have this feeling that TSLA bulls have misplaced expectations on the share price and that is the cause for much of the angst. Every time the share price falls a bit, people here say, this is the lowest it can go, I am getting my dry powder, etc. I dont think markets work that way. The share price can swing wildly and no number is too low or too high for a stock like TSLA.

Anyone following TSLA for over a year should know this. TSLA often rapidly dips way more than many would expect. It also typically reverses quickly, not spending a great deal of time at either higher or lower levels. Instead, it rapidly reverses direction. I think that's what many unseasoned bulls and bears also don't anticipate. We are now down 11.9% since the local high of $327 on 8/23. That was a quick but short climb. If you go back to the local high of $387 on 8/7, we are down 25.6% from there. The reality is that it could still fall quite a bit further, just take a look back at early April 2018 when it dropped all the way to $244. There is a reason it's called a momentum stock.

 

[justobuf]

I saw elon tweet he is going to be on Joe Rogan thursday. I am hoping that goes well. If so could be good lift to rebuild some of the confidence in Elon that i think has been lost on Pedo and NYT and also on stock.