TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[wipster]

Meanwhile increasing EV usage over ICE, and expanding knowledge of Tesla's. Give your passengers your business card with your referral number on it. Extra buck for a fast ride, $2 extra for self-drive demo! You could milk it... I'd probably do it just to see people's faces.

Just look at the video of that guy using his new model 3 for Uber posted on this thread about a week ago... people were blown away by it and I bet he sold several Tesla's, just in one day! I think Tesla should at a minimum allow free superchargering for folks that do that. Some of the best marketing they could do IMHO.

 

[azaz]

the stock should really be at 400 smh

 

[suwaneedad]

Listen to minute 0:37and after

I like that squeezing! Many others deserve it even more.

Interesting how they struggle to find any negative to talk about

Wall Street analysts just continue to crack me up. Who pays these jokers?!
No wonder Elon taunts them, and the shorts with short shorts and the like.
A bunch of business school do-nothings who sit in Manhattan in the cheap seats and throw darts to get their 90 seconds of press now and then.
What a pathetic life.

 

[anthonyj]

This will probably sell off tomorrow morning. It’s been the trend. Blowout quarter and only a 7% jump in AH... shorts are damn strong and won’t cover. The only thing saving this from going under 300 is a new chairman announcement, analyst upgrades, or a Saudi deal (tomorrow is the last day of the Future Investment Initiative, they are planning to announce something big)

 

[suwaneedad]

I'll pour me a glass of fresh squeezed short juice and sleep well tonight! ^_^

Congratulations to all involved with Tesla for a historic achievement. Absent a terrible macroeconomic event or some other extreme external occurence, there's nothing that can keep Tesla from being a long-term viable company at this point. Of course given that the bet-the-company capital utilization events can also stop without compromising future growth, but I would think that this latest year of short propaganda has taught company leadership to be very careful how they expose themselves to capital market risks.

The only byproduct that bums me out is that it means growth will come from organic cash flow.
That means fewer bold moves, and at a slower pace.
That's a shame. It'll mean Elon will get bored soon. It'll mean the world will transition to sustainable energy more slowly.
I'd rather they raise $5-10B next month, map out what they're going to do with it and that the haters will be the haters, and march ahead.

Otherwise, at this rate with the Fords and Jags of the world being so sluggish about their EV programs, and Tesla not improving its annual output beyond maybe 1-2MM vehicles a year within the next say five years, the only path to exponentially shifting EV market share globally anytime soon is the Tesla Network coming into its own quickly and enabling the displacement of ~2x the number of cars that Tesla has put onto the road by then.

The conservative part of me loves what Tesla is now doing...I feel like Deepak finally has Elon's ear and they're going to grow sensibly from here. But sensibly is not as bold as we've come to expect from Tesla.

 

[electracity]

but, that isn’t what Elon just said, like, an hour ago.
he roughly estimated 1/2mm to 1mm model 3 demand globally per year, and also said that Y would see vol prod in 2020
that leads me to believe that they have ideas, maybe a plan, to deal with both of those scenarios. like you said, no need to make the call right now, but soon, if you’re going to start spec’ing out prod lines

So you saying that the model Y will be the first Tesla product released in the year predicted by Elon?

I think Elon is simply setting up the scenario where he isn't accused of rushing the model Y because the model 3 isn't maxing out Fremont production. The model Y is the relief pitcher in the bullpen. If the starter can go the distance the starter probably stays in the game.

 

[beachbum77]

Sure, if they create an uber type network, where owners sign up and just get directed to riders and Tesla for example runs that network, without taking much if any spiff from the drivers - sure, I could see THAT coming sooner for sure. If they haven't developed that platform yet though, I would put that business/services model at 12-18 months out.

At the end of last year Uber claimed to have 750k drivers in the U.S. and 2 million globally. With a parttime take rate of 10% of Tesla Model 3 owners, it could take a decade or more to be able to support a service. Tesla drivers are better off just signing up for Uber or Lyft as they do now.

No one is going to use a service where the low numbers of cars make it a toss-up if there is even a car available when they need a ride. Riders are just not motivated to wait. At this time Uber and Lyft do not even have a way for someone to request an EV. That would be an important first step to see just how many riders would be willing to wait an extra 10-15 mins for an EV.

 

[EngRyan]

You did say GF1 and I misread, probably because I think in the short term that Model Y production in Sparks can't happen.

I doubt they could sneak a paint shop and stamping into GF1 without the news leaking. Plus that capex is needed soon to do those functions at GF1. That why I think the model Y is a safety strategy to hedge against low model 3 demand. Otherwise I think near term capex goes to China, semi and solar roof.

No worries, my grammer not good times at. You do have me pausing at the thought of paint shop and stamping. Though you still wouldn't see that stuff going in for a while. China will be it's own thing with local banks instead of eating much free cash from operations. Dunno, hard to say.

 

[Ulmo]

I agree. But they are going to have to stop making some model 3 to make the model Y in Fremont.

I doubt they want to make that call yet. If they saw model 3 demand still very strong mid next year then it would be hard to change what is working. That could push the model Y to 2021ish, perhaps in Sparks.

Given Tesla's production constraints the model Y is very much a safety play. Tesla could not be sure that buyers would not look at the model 3 and say "nice, but it's a sedan". But fortunately for Tesla many of us were not willing to wait for the SUV.

If the model 3 is supply constrained in 2019 and 2020 Tesla maximizes revenue by not making the model Y until they add a U.S. factory.

They could start making portions of Model Y all over the place: Livermore, Nevada, Fremont, Korea, maybe China, etc.

 

[Krugerrand]

View attachment 346684

He nailed it!

 

[Ulmo]

Umm, really? What world are you living in? Certainly not anywhere I have ever driven.

The one in which we constantly complain about how bad other drivers are. When we look at it very carefully, they are just not as perfect as we are.

 

[BenPrice]

He nailed it!

It’s all “omg here’s the next thing that could go wrong” and absolutely zero analysis of a company.

It’s all fear mongering for idiots he’s enlisting to hold his bags.

You understand that the big boys are flipping, and the dumb sheep who don’t understand basic manufacturing or economics will hold the bags.

This dudes funds are so below the S&P during a bull market that if I took your money, buried it in my yard, but spent 10% of it on coke and hookers, then dug up what was left and gave it to you, you’d be 10% ahead of this dudes fund the past 2 years.

And he “nailed it”

Follow him in a market that isn’t gaining 30% and see how “well” he does.


The S&P is up like 30% and he’s negative the past few years. Bets on gm, Mylan, short Tesla, short Netflix are the exact things that lose money the past 24 months.

And his quarterly statements are “we were completely wrong” followed by “we like our positions”.

Everything his firm invests in is dying now that they sold Apple. Good thing he doesn’t invest in Tesla.

 

[Sparky4life]

That's wrong, shadow mode very likely runs and logs the vehicle control logic as well, except that it doesn't actively control the car. This offers a measurable differential between human reactions and (shadow mode) vehicle control reactions.

This is what @diatz was talking about.

Tesla has a massive NN training feedback advantage by having hundreds of thousands of vehicles capable of running their test NNs in shadow mode.

The pipeline is:

perception (what's around me) -> localization (where am I) -> path planning -> torque/brake/steering control

The hardest part is perception and that's where the NN comes in. If perception is very good, meaning that the vehicle has very good knowledge of where the road is, where the lanes are, where other vehicles are, and where the obstacles are, then path planning and beyond can be accomplished with well-defined procedural algorithms. The NN doesn't need to learn how to drive, that problem is already solved. It just needs to know to a high degree of precision what's in the environment. The training is to create a NN that can reliably turn images into object lists with velocity vectors for each object. The NN doesn't care how the human driver drives while collecting the images.

 

[Ulmo]

It’s all “omg here’s the next thing that could go wrong” and absolutely zero analysis of a company.

It’s all fear mongering for idiots he’s enlisting to hold his bags.

I think it's all nothing. Just useless words from the useless words past-established declining companies.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Another way to put it:
Tesla does not (yet) have appropriate supervisors for supervised learning, and "doesn't wreck" or even "doesn't wreck + ends up at the right place" is not a good enough standard for unsupervised learning.

Ya, FSD will never be as good a driver as you. You should ask for a refund.

What's with this negativity? You're trying to project yesterday's science 5 yrs out. The car barely drives like Grandma and you're wanting them to hire Mario Andretti to teach it better?

Or do you have some other agenda here? You afraid Tesla might blow away Uber and Waymo combined?

I bet they will. I'm betting big too.

 

[MP3Mike]

I’m still saying flying customers to California is cheaper then trucking the cars to customers.
Increase Q4 deliveries by 4K without changing anything.

Won't work for me as the CA tax would cost way more than trucking the car to me...

 

[Boomer19]

So you saying that the model Y will be the first Tesla product released in the year predicted by Elon?

I think Elon is simply setting up the scenario where he isn't accused of rushing the model Y because the model 3 isn't maxing out Fremont production. The model Y is the relief pitcher in the bullpen. If the starter can go the distance the starter probably stays in the game.

i get what you’re saying.

but also,
mod Y originally was supposed to be 2019
last qtr, or possibly the annual meeting is when elon pivoted to say 2020

 

[steve3]

Is TSLA now likely to qualify for S&P500 inclusion after Q4 ER?

 

[EngRyan]

i get what you’re saying.

but also,
mod Y originally was supposed to be 2019
last qtr, or possibly the annual meeting is when elon pivoted to say 2020

Ahh interesting. I couldn't remember what was originally stated. Then that still follows with volume production in 2020. Better way to state it really as it's harder to *sugar* on Elon if they are only producing in the hundreds per week in 2019.

 

[ZachF]

The only byproduct that bums me out is that it means growth will come from organic cash flow.
That means fewer bold moves, and at a slower pace.
That's a shame. It'll mean Elon will get bored soon. It'll mean the world will transition to sustainable energy more slowly.
I'd rather they raise $5-10B next month, map out what they're going to do with it and that the haters will be the haters, and march ahead.

Otherwise, at this rate with the Fords and Jags of the world being so sluggish about their EV programs, and Tesla not improving its annual output beyond maybe 1-2MM vehicles a year within the next say five years, the only path to exponentially shifting EV market share globally anytime soon is the Tesla Network coming into its own quickly and enabling the displacement of ~2x the number of cars that Tesla has put onto the road by then.

The conservative part of me loves what Tesla is now doing...I feel like Deepak finally has Elon's ear and they're going to grow sensibly from here. But sensibly is not as bold as we've come to expect from Tesla.

Eh, Tesla has an easy roadmap to $35 billion next year, and $50 billion in 2020. At $50 billion that's about half of BMW's revenue and a bit more than a third of Ford/GM. VW is $230b and Toyota $250b.

Assume a Amazon-esque 30% per year thereafter, paid for with FCF, and revenue growth looks like this:

2021: $65.0b
2022: $84.5b
2023: $109.9b
2024: $142.8b
2025: $185.6b
2026: $241.3b

By about 2026 Tesla is the world's largest automaker, and by this time the collapse in ICE sales may make their revenues a fraction of today's.