TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[dmckinstry]

I like the line at the bottom. "Although it was in the precambrian era".
I knew it. Elon has a time machine. He's seen the past and the future and knows Tesla can become a $650 T company. Of course there will be a lot of inflation by then.

This has happened before, but I can't understand why this post has been flagged as Informative.

 

[Electroman]

This hollywoodish truck looks like it will turn out to be another wasted opportunity. you know like the X

 

[shlokavica22]

Any member of the press who doesn't understand this distinction between Elon's and Trump's criticism of the press is part of the problem I'm afraid.

It's blatantly obvious the majority of the modern US (in particular) media are agenda pushers and not a journalists.

 

[Words of HABIT]

...Give the truck industrial strength electric outlets with days of run time, pneumatic outlets for tooling, hydraulics to move cargo, 4 wheel steering and precision positioning, plus 360 degrees camera vision and flexible illumination of surroundings and cargo space and they'll sell like hotcakes.

I.e. electricity should be used to turn the pickup truck into a mobile factory platform.

Also Elon should use the tried and true Tesla product cycle: introduce a bigger, better equipped, more expensive pickup truck first, then introduce higher volume, smaller sized mass market versions later.

This exactly! Start with the roadster of pick-ups, capitulating Ford and GMs highest profit margin products, and work down. It will be awesome and set the new standard for what a pick-up truck should be! This will be the end game for the Big 3 if they don't go electric.

 

[shlokavica22]

This hollywoodish truck looks like it will turn out to be another wasted opportunity. you know like the X

Or any other Tesla product really. Elon finds it very hard to catch what people want.
But there always is hope. He might eventually get it right and deliver a product that gets traction.

 

[KarenRei]

SpaceX has titanium 3-D printers, that may bring the typical cost down...

And yeah, pulling a self supported 250k pound load is not the same as putting it your pickup's bed, my point with that was current motors have the power needed to match a one ton truck, so why limit to a half ton (beyond the material/cost difference) .

3d printed titanium parts are much more expensive than simple stamped titanium sheet. Vastly so. The capital costs and per-unit depreciation on the hardware is crazy high. It takes powerful (kilowatt-class), very expensive lasers to slowly fuse the titanium powder, one sub-millimeter layer at a time. Fine for low-volume rocket parts. Very much not fine for mass production.

Watch how long it takes to make a single, paper-thin layer:

Here's laser metal deposition. Not exactly going to win any races either:

 

[Fact Checking]

This has happened before, but I can't understand why this post has been flagged as Informative.

It's often an indirect joke in itself: Elon made a deadpan joke which was blatantly, ridiculously non-serious - which was doubled down on by you with a "I knew it, he has a time machine!" deadpan joke - and marking that joke 'informative' is a certain kind of funny as well that signals that the reader understood the joke, in a double- triple- entendre way.

What I find most funny about marking it informative is that you would do the same regardless of whether you believed in Elon's time machine or not!

BTW., I agree with you regarding the many trillion dollars of Tesla valuation, and I don't think it requires hyperinflation to materialize.

Feel free to mark this comment informative.

 

[dondy]

Small tip for those worrying about pickup design. Look at the IVA design for SpaceX suit.
Musk will go from basic design requirements and will most probably ask help of some futuristic (see Bladerunner reference) designers, probably even designers indeed participating in Hollywood projects. Will it be F-150 Tesla's take? Obviously not, it will relate to existing designs no more than Model 3 to other sedans. Will pickup crowd embraces EVs? Only partially, significant part of it are DIY people, and 400V EVs are not exactly garage friendly cars. Tesla can design and produce DIY electrification kits for such users, and indeed pickup designs are very friendly for such conversions, will they do some generalized kit for pickups, speedboats etc. coming years? No. In 2022-25? Most probably.

Interesting that there are people still claiming that Model X is a failure. I am curious how do they define a failure. Since when 100k autos selling on the rates of 60k-80k segment are a failure?
Falcon doors are designed with a thought for families needs. Anybody who had to use child sits will relate.

 

[sundaymorning]

It DOES NOT matter how many employees testify they thought and they told Elon it is not possible.

It ONLY MATTERS on what Elon thought and told his internal team *and* if it matched what he told investors.

From the fired employees (and the fact they were fired) it is abundantly clear Elon believed mass production is feasible in ‘17. So there is no false reporting or intent to deceive.

And from past history it is abundantly clear Elon has always been aggressive when everyone else around him had said ‘it is impossible’.

On the other hand if he had agreed with his advisors and employees and said one thing internally and something else to the investors - then there is a case here.

With all the news/leaks about how difficult it was to work with Elon (executives leaving), how he has recently fired his SpaceX executives for not launching (impossible deadlines), my bet is that Elon stuck with his guns until the very end and then revised the quarterly projections when he finally took control of production during Q1 2018. This was when the new projections of 2,500 M3s were released to shareholders instead of sticking to the 5,000/week number.

Also, didnt a judge recently throw out a shareholder case regarding this same matter? If so then the SEC seems to be digging around for items that doesn’t exist. Shame on them.

 

[Fact Checking]

how he has recently fired his SpaceX executives for not launching (impossible deadlines)

Apparently most of them were former Microsoft managers hired for the Seattle office to do Starlink.

Why Elon thought it a good idea to hire managers of the development team of a lazy monopolist who for decades used force and market power arrogantly rather than finesse and hard work to enter new markets is beyond me, but by now he has probably learned the lesson that he should probably hire ... hungrier developers to drive ambitious technologies like Starlink.

 

[KarenRei]

Small tip for those worrying about pickup design. Look at the IVA design for SpaceX suit.
Musk will go from basic design requirements and will most probably ask help of some futuristic (see Bladerunner reference) designers, probably even designers indeed participating in Hollywood projects. Will it be F-150 Tesla's take? Obviously not, it will relate to existing designs no more than Model 3 to other sedans. Will pickup crowd embraces EVs? Only partially, significant part of it are DIY people, and 400V EVs are not exactly garage friendly cars. Tesla can design and produce DIY electrification kits for such users, and indeed pickup designs are very friendly for such conversions, will they do some generalized kit for pickups, speedboats etc. coming years? No. In 2022-25? Most probably.

Interesting that there are people still claiming that Model X is a failure. I am curious how do they define a failure. Since when 100k autos selling on the rates of 60k-80k segment are a failure?
Falcon doors are designed with a thought for families needs. Anybody who had to use child sits will relate.

It's not about "style". It's about six-figure unimog-sized pickups. Where's the market for that, in meaningful quantities?

 

[dmckinstry]

• Trump criticizing the press claiming that broad segments of the press are lying about him, which claim is actually false and a gas-lighting lie in itself: if Trump has one talent it is to play the mainstream press like a fiddle and choose/switch narratives. Estimates suggest Trump got billions of dollars worth of free press coverage during the 2016 election alone. Even today the mainstream press is still handling Trump with kid gloves: for example the 'lie' word is seldom uttered by mainstream journalists.

Any member of the press who doesn't understand this distinction between Elon's and Trump's criticism of the press is part of the problem I'm afraid.

The best thing the press could do about Trump would be to ignore him. Of course then we'd still have Faux News, but he wouldn't get upset about them.

 

[dondy]

With all the news/leaks about how difficult it was to work with Elon (executives leaving), how he has recently fired his SpaceX executives for not launching (impossible deadlines), my bet is that Elon stuck with his guns until the very end and then revised the quarterly projections when he finally took control of production during Q1 2018. This was when the new projections of 2,500 M3s were released to shareholders instead of sticking to the 5,000/week number.

Also, didnt a judge recently throw out a shareholder case regarding this same matter? If so then the SEC seems to be digging around for items that doesn’t exist. Shame on them.

SEC just like any other institution needs to have sufficient reasons to start an investigation. Rule of tumb is a belief that they can win the case.
Tesla should follow fantastic example of SEC and start a control trial to check if indeed SEC believed they will win Model 3 numbers trial during starting phase. It is gonna be FUN.

 

[dondy]

It's not about "style". It's about six-figure unimog-sized pickups. Where's the market for that, in meaningful quantities?

Looks pretty good to me. Model X quantities.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Incredible TSLA action the last few weeks, showing its true colours, substantially increasing while the general broader markets and tech companies collapse. All this amid renewed and regurgitated FUD which is no longer having a negative effect on TSLA. It is truly a case of "the boy who cried Wolf". TTSLA (Teflon TSLA) is the new TSLAQ. The tide is changing and Tesla is riding the wave of the century.
Hang Ten bro.

 

[Fact Checking]

It's not about "style". It's about six-figure unimog-sized pickups. Where's the market for that, in meaningful quantities?

I think for mass-manufacturing Tesla should wait for the Dreadnought v2, i.e. the Model Y platform.

Meanwhile they could assemble six-figure pickup trucks with no compromises - not much to turn it into a mass market, but to share the R&D costs via a few ten thousand sales. This creates a feedback loop to create the next, mass market version that is going to compete with the F150 head-on.

This should also be a nice investment into changing the political tone, once the oil industry starts driving these cars.

Plus a military version could sell quite well as well: the "no engine noise" and "can go anywhere" aspect should be worth quite a bit.

So not a bad strategy I think.

 

[lklundin]

Just curious, is anybody doing stuff like this here? (see image)

View attachment 349277

Yes. I carry my stock trading neural network with me at all times. Instead of 18 it has about 10^11 neurons, kept in relative safety inside my cranium.

 

[dmckinstry]

Falcon doors are designed with a thought for families needs. Anybody who had to use child sits will relate.

Or people my age who have passengers as old or older that want to get in the back without having to do contortions.

 

[EVNow]

It's blatantly obvious the majority of the modern US (in particular) media are agenda pushers and not a journalists.

Here is a great conversation with Jay Rosen, NYU journalism professor and long time media critic (with Ezra Klein of Vox). TL;DR : They are more like agenda followers - leading to group think. Once a Conventional Wisdom forms (probably pushed by a few) you can't shake it.

Is the media making American politics worse?

 

[lklundin]

More to the point, MBS confirmed a couple weeks ago that they still own the stake.

While quite possibly true, the fact that MBS confirms something does not necessarily imply that it is actually true.