Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[hobbes]

A new FSD Beta Version 10.69.3.3 was first pushed today to the OG beta testers. I could not detect a change in the release notes compared to 10.69.3 / 10.69.3.1.
Version 10.69.3.2 only went out to Tesla employees.

Test by Chuck Cook out already:

 

[betstarship]

It sounds like they are using something like Autobidder to get you the best rates.

Tesla tracks energy prices in real time and sells your excess electricity to the grid when prices are high, earning you credits on your bill

This triggered me to look into Autobidder and the 1st mega battery site, Hornsdale, in Australia started in ...2017! Lo' and behold, I found some nuggets:

Hornsdale Power Reserve: The First Big Battery to Deliver Inertia Services at Scale

Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve can now provide 2,000 Megawatt Seconds (MWs) of equivalent inertia to South Australia’s grid via Tesla’s Virtual Machine

www.energymatters.com.au

Quotes

"...distributed energy generation capacity is predicted to double or triple in the next 20 years. Rooftop solar is expected to deliver up to 22 per cent of total electricity."

and...

“Remarkable:” South Australia may soon be first big grid to run on renewables only

South Australia closer to becoming first gigawatt scale grid in the world to run without any local fossil fuel or synchronous generation, a major milestone in transition to renewables.

reneweconomy.com.au

Quotes

"South Australia leads the world with the penetration of wind and solar in its grid, and has averaged more than 64 per cent over the last 12 months."

"It regularly reaches levels where wind and solar produce more than 100 per cent of state demand – in fact it set a new record of 146 per cent of state demand from wind only on Wednesday morning – but this excess is exported to Victoria through its transmission links."

"It also means, that with the completion of the new link to NSW due in 2025/26, the state will likely be able to remove the need for even a single synchronous generator when that is connected."

 

[Curt Renz]

Anyone have any thoughts on how tomorrow's triple witching will affect TSLA?

There could be an attempt by large option writers to keep the share price near $160, but much will depend on tomorrow's early and midday trading.

Meanwhile, it's heartening that TSLA closed up today while the averages were well down. This with the only significant TSLA news being last evening's report of Elon's TSLA sales for the first three days of the week. Some here feared that would put downward pressure on the share price today. I thought just the opposite, since it provided an explanation for much of the selling earlier this week. That's why I did not hesitate midday yesterday to share my observation of circumstantial evidence indicating that Elon might have been selling some TSLA.

 

[Krugerrand]

Stop what ?

Are you the type now who closes ears and goes "la,la,la,la" ?

It doesn't matter what I & you think - I'm just talking about what I read ... and unlike you I've an open mind.

If you want to stop a rumor, do it properly.

Stop the ridiculousness.

Tesla refuted the claim THREE separate times.

The only one being closed minded is the person who thinks THREE public refutations by the company of an outright media lie isn’t somehow enough and doesn’t meet your standard of ‘proper’.

 

[Singuy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603468547623161872

 

[tslagreen]

There could be an attempt by large option writers to keep the share price near $160, but much will depend on tomorrow's early and midday trading.

Meanwhile, it's heartening that TSLA closed up today while the averages were well down. This with the only significant TSLA news being last evening's report of Elon's TSLA sales for the first three days of the week. Some here feared that would put downward pressure on the share price today. I thought just the opposite, since it provided an explanation for much of the selling earlier this week. That's why I did not hesitate midday yesterday to share my observation of circumstantial evidence indicating that Elon migClht have been selling some TSLA.

Cnbc just had an analyst recommending Tsla as a buy. I think Scott Wapner of Cnbc, the host, is pretty fair despite most on this board bashing the channel.

 

[NicoV]

Yeah. It’s annoying. Last quarter I think was the third time that they said they were ending the wave.

So Belgium 3 cars inventory + 1 demo car for sale
France about 70 (not a lot for a country of that size)
The Netherlands 8 cars inventory + 2 demo cars for sale
Spain: 2 cars inventory
Iceland: 2 cars inventory
Italy: 0 inventory
Norway: 0 inventory
Switzerland: 23 inventory
Germany: delivery at the factory, no Model Y’s in stock, and 23 Model 3’s inventory.
Not a single S or X in stock in any of these countries.
The only major European country I found with a lot of inventory was the UK

I don’t think the wave ends this quarter.
That or Tesla stopped producing cars afraid of not being able to sell them.

 

[mach-edriver]

So hopeful a rebound tomorrow .. if the forms tonight means the sale is over ...

"As others have pointed out, Wall Street trading firms KNOW when Elon is selling. "

Conspiracy talk is cheap and all-too-common. This presumes that Elon Musk is too dumb to realize that his brokers are frontrunning his trades. I believe that the sales are ill-advised: he should have made them earlier when he was compelled to close the deal. But that doesn't mean that the latest sales weren't well-executed. Unfortunately Musk gave the orders to sell at a two-year low.

 

[Thekiwi]

Has Tesla’s 2022 met our expectations?

I get the impression that some people think Tesla’s poor performance in 2022 is somehow the result of Musk’s behaviors or Musk selling. While it might have had some impact, 2022 was not a year full of good news and rose parades. Neither for Tesla, nor for the macro environment. Look back a year ago this time and think about what we expected.

• 4680 production in Texas was going to be ramping up fast by now. This has not happened. Lots of equipment, very little if any output.
• Model Y production in Texas and Berlin were going to be complete. We’re getting closer… but shy of the 5k/ week expectations at the moment.
• Deliveries were supposed to be up at least 50%. We’re likely falling a bit short of that too. COVID shutdown in April and slower than expected factory ramps more or less skewed this target.
• The 4680 Model Y from Texas was going to be the wonder car with huge range, huge weight savings, and massive cost reductions. Seems like the promised battery chemistry updates didn’t come through and we’re still looking at energy density comparable to 2170s. Since the 4680 production is still struggling, cost savings are questionable at the moment too.
• Cybertruck was supposed to be launched…. Yes, this was still on the table for 2022 a year ago.
• While FSD Beta “Full Release” is out, Robotaxi and it’s promises are still seemingly at least another couple years out, nor does it appear likely FSD is in a state where it’ll drive revenue in a huge way soon.

This is on top of fed increasing rates, literal war, huge energy crisis in Europe, Chinese economic and political instability.

While I still think Tesla is an A+ company, 2022 was clearly a C- sort of year And coming into 2022, we were priced for an A+ year and lets be honest, most of us expected it. If 2023 is a C- sort of year, it’s likely we’re not going to see any big positive swings in the SP regardless of Musk’s “antics” or lack of antics.

People need to own the fact that for Tesla, this hasn’t been an outstanding year even if you remove all of the Musk related news from the picture. We were priced for perfection…. We knew Tesla was priced for perfection. Tesla did fine…. But they were not up to the level of performance we or the investing world expected.

When people claim Musk is responsible for the current state of Tesla stock, they are ignoring dozens of other things which contributed to what has been a less than stellar year for Tesla. I have no idea what the impact of Twitter and Musk’s sales have had on the SP over the past year, but the current rut is largely driven by missed expectations. If Musk was selling shares on the back of the 1.6-1.7m deliveries which most here expected, it would be a non-event. Likewise, if we were eyeballing the Cybertruck order forms and Tesla was taking deliveries. Or even if the 4680 was flying out the door at Texas… just that would be huge.

I’m certainly underwater far more than most here and I’ve lost too much to admit to my wife in short term options. But I’m not nearly as worried about Musk‘s stock sales as I am about these other more fundamental things.

What are you doing? Don’t you know you are not allowed to post anything critical of Tesla on here, let alone a list of everything they failed at this year? You are supposed to go cry into a pillow apparently like our grandparents did.

(sarcasm of course)

Excellent post! I agree all those things you listed were negatives for the stock price, but Elon has not helped either with his antics & selling. A brutal one-two punch for TSLA investors.

 

[dl003]

Whatever happened to Tesla ending such waves? IIRC several well known predictors of P&D based their #s on such wave endings that this info from China suggest are not actually ending?

Maybe it's not a Tesla wave they're talking about. You know, just a figure of speech. Could be "deliver as many cars as we can" instead of "everything must go."

We'll see.

 

[Rarity]

Has Tesla’s 2022 met our expectations?

I get the impression that some people think Tesla’s poor performance in 2022 is somehow the result of Musk’s behaviors or Musk selling. While it might have had some impact, 2022 was not a year full of good news and rose parades. Neither for Tesla, nor for the macro environment. Look back a year ago this time and think about what we expected.

• 4680 production in Texas was going to be ramping up fast by now. This has not happened. Lots of equipment, very little if any output.
• Model Y production in Texas and Berlin were going to be complete. We’re getting closer… but shy of the 5k/ week expectations at the moment.
• Deliveries were supposed to be up at least 50%. We’re likely falling a bit short of that too. COVID shutdown in April and slower than expected factory ramps more or less skewed this target.
• The 4680 Model Y from Texas was going to be the wonder car with huge range, huge weight savings, and massive cost reductions. Seems like the promised battery chemistry updates didn’t come through and we’re still looking at energy density comparable to 2170s. Since the 4680 production is still struggling, cost savings are questionable at the moment too.
• Cybertruck was supposed to be launched…. Yes, this was still on the table for 2022 a year ago.
• While FSD Beta “Full Release” is out, Robotaxi and it’s promises are still seemingly at least another couple years out, nor does it appear likely FSD is in a state where it’ll drive revenue in a huge way soon.

This is on top of fed increasing rates, literal war, huge energy crisis in Europe, Chinese economic and political instability.

While I still think Tesla is an A+ company, 2022 was clearly a C- sort of year And coming into 2022, we were priced for an A+ year and lets be honest, most of us expected it. If 2023 is a C- sort of year, it’s likely we’re not going to see any big positive swings in the SP regardless of Musk’s “antics” or lack of antics.

People need to own the fact that for Tesla, this hasn’t been an outstanding year even if you remove all of the Musk related news from the picture. We were priced for perfection…. We knew Tesla was priced for perfection. Tesla did fine…. But they were not up to the level of performance we or the investing world expected.

When people claim Musk is responsible for the current state of Tesla stock, they are ignoring dozens of other things which contributed to what has been a less than stellar year for Tesla. I have no idea what the impact of Twitter and Musk’s sales have had on the SP over the past year, but the current rut is largely driven by missed expectations. If Musk was selling shares on the back of the 1.6-1.7m deliveries which most here expected, it would be a non-event. Likewise, if we were eyeballing the Cybertruck order forms and Tesla was taking deliveries. Or even if the 4680 was flying out the door at Texas… just that would be huge.

I’m certainly underwater far more than most here and I’ve lost too much to admit to my wife in short term options. But I’m not nearly as worried about Musk‘s stock sales as I am about these other more fundamental things.

I think it should be noted at the outset that in 2022, Tesla has grown at the fastest rate in history of any company of its scale. I categorically reject the notion that this is anything short of spectacular or that execution is lacking.

 

[Thekiwi]

I think it should be noted at the outset that in 2022, Tesla has grown at the fastest rate in history of any company of its scale. I categorically reject the notion that this is anything short of spectacular or that execution is lacking.

A bit of hyperbole there, but regardless even if it were true, its the expected rate of future profit growth that matters when talking about a company valuation.

 

[The Accountant]

I get the impression that some people think Tesla’s poor performance in 2022 is somehow the result of Musk’s behaviors or Musk selling.

Tesla and Amazon's one year chart. Did Bezos buy a social media company? I missed that.
I know the comparison is not fair for several reasons but I couldn't help notice the similarity in the lines.
I'm sure if there is an AMZN forum somewhere commiserating over the 2022 share price movement, it's not as fun as our forum.

 

[Curt Renz]

Cnbc just had an analyst recommending Tsla as a buy. I think Scott Wapner of Cnbc, the host, is pretty fair despite most on this board bashing the channel.

Here is a CNBC YouTube of what you describe from about an hour ago.

 

[FSDtester#1]

Wise words…

Excellent post... everyone should watch the entire video.

Best summary of what we all have been discussing for months in 14 minutes
And why we should HODL

If you aren't satisfied after watching, I will happily accept a downvote.

 

[Ogre]

I think it should be noted at the outset that in 2022, Tesla has grown at the fastest rate in history of any company of its scale. I categorically reject the notion that this is anything short of spectacular or that execution is lacking.

This is true.

It is also true that many—including the consensus here—expected even more. I very distinctly recall people talking about people debating whether Tesla would ship 1.6 or 1.7 million vehicles in 2022.

Tesla and Amazon's one year chart. Did Bezos buy a social media company? I missed that.
I know the comparison is not fair for several reasons but I couldn't help notice the similarity in the lines.
I'm sure if there is an AMZN forum somewhere commiserating over the 2022 share price movement, it's not as fun as our forum.

View attachment 885480

Agree!

In case I wasn't clear enough in my previous post... I don't think Twitter or Musk selling will have a lasting impact on Tesla share price or performance.

 

[Singuy]

Has Tesla’s 2022 met our expectations?

I get the impression that some people think Tesla’s poor performance in 2022 is somehow the result of Musk’s behaviors or Musk selling. While it might have had some impact, 2022 was not a year full of good news and rose parades. Neither for Tesla, nor for the macro environment. Look back a year ago this time and think about what we expected.

• 4680 production in Texas was going to be ramping up fast by now. This has not happened. Lots of equipment, very little if any output.
• Model Y production in Texas and Berlin were going to be complete. We’re getting closer… but shy of the 5k/ week expectations at the moment.
• Deliveries were supposed to be up at least 50%. We’re likely falling a bit short of that too. COVID shutdown in April and slower than expected factory ramps more or less skewed this target.
• The 4680 Model Y from Texas was going to be the wonder car with huge range, huge weight savings, and massive cost reductions. Seems like the promised battery chemistry updates didn’t come through and we’re still looking at energy density comparable to 2170s. Since the 4680 production is still struggling, cost savings are questionable at the moment too.
• Cybertruck was supposed to be launched…. Yes, this was still on the table for 2022 a year ago.
• While FSD Beta “Full Release” is out, Robotaxi and it’s promises are still seemingly at least another couple years out, nor does it appear likely FSD is in a state where it’ll drive revenue in a huge way soon.

This is on top of fed increasing rates, literal war, huge energy crisis in Europe, Chinese economic and political instability.

While I still think Tesla is an A+ company, 2022 was clearly a C- sort of year And coming into 2022, we were priced for an A+ year and lets be honest, most of us expected it. If 2023 is a C- sort of year, it’s likely we’re not going to see any big positive swings in the SP regardless of Musk’s “antics” or lack of antics.

People need to own the fact that for Tesla, this hasn’t been an outstanding year even if you remove all of the Musk related news from the picture. We were priced for perfection…. We knew Tesla was priced for perfection. Tesla did fine…. But they were not up to the level of performance we or the investing world expected.

When people claim Musk is responsible for the current state of Tesla stock, they are ignoring dozens of other things which contributed to what has been a less than stellar year for Tesla. I have no idea what the impact of Twitter and Musk’s sales have had on the SP over the past year, but the current rut is largely driven by missed expectations. If Musk was selling shares on the back of the 1.6-1.7m deliveries which most here expected, it would be a non-event. Likewise, if we were eyeballing the Cybertruck order forms and Tesla was taking deliveries. Or even if the 4680 was flying out the door at Texas… just that would be huge.

I’m certainly underwater far more than most here and I’ve lost too much to admit to my wife in short term options. But I’m not nearly as worried about Musk‘s stock sales as I am about these other more fundamental things.

I disagree with some of this. 4680s currently seems to be the only major blunder, and if you want to count FSD not being a robotaxi then sure.

But as for the cybertruck and production ramp

GigaBerlin and Texas are on track. Remember the first deliveries out of Giga Shanghai was Dec 30 2019. They did not hit 5k/week until Q4 2020 earnings call which is 1 year later.

Giga Berlin's first deliveries was Mar 22 2022. Expecting them to hit 5k/week right now will put them a full quarter FASTER than Shanghai.

As for the cybertruck, this was explained by Elon. The demand for the 3/Ys were higher than expected and they had a battery shortage all the way till now. Killing themselves trying to release the cybertruck not only gets you less cars made but way worst margins. Tesla did the sensible financial move delaying the cybertruck.

 

[Rarity]

This is true.

It is also true that many—including the consensus here—expected even more. I very distinctly recall people talking about people debating whether Tesla would ship 1.6 or 1.7 million vehicles in 2022.

If this is true, then 2022 has been an A++ year, with a strong finish. Come on, a C- year? Give me a break. Tesla has been lights out.

 

[MC3OZ]

This triggered me to look into Autobidder and the 1st mega battery site, Hornsdale, in Australia started in ...2017! Lo' and behold, I found some nuggets:

Hornsdale Power Reserve: The First Big Battery to Deliver Inertia Services at Scale

Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve can now provide 2,000 Megawatt Seconds (MWs) of equivalent inertia to South Australia’s grid via Tesla’s Virtual Machine

www.energymatters.com.au

Quotes

"...distributed energy generation capacity is predicted to double or triple in the next 20 years. Rooftop solar is expected to deliver up to 22 per cent of total electricity."

and...

“Remarkable:” South Australia may soon be first big grid to run on renewables only

South Australia closer to becoming first gigawatt scale grid in the world to run without any local fossil fuel or synchronous generation, a major milestone in transition to renewables.

reneweconomy.com.au

Quotes

"South Australia leads the world with the penetration of wind and solar in its grid, and has averaged more than 64 per cent over the last 12 months."

"It regularly reaches levels where wind and solar produce more than 100 per cent of state demand – in fact it set a new record of 146 per cent of state demand from wind only on Wednesday morning – but this excess is exported to Victoria through its transmission links."

"It also means, that with the completion of the new link to NSW due in 2025/26, the state will likely be able to remove the need for even a single synchronous generator when that is connected."

I always see batteries and inverters as a kind of "swiss army knife" that can do many things people assume they can't.

There is a fair amount of pioneering working going on the the Australia grid:-

• Grid forming inverters.
• Rooftop PV inverters contributing to maintaining voltage and frequency.
• Gird scale batteries helping to maintain frequency.
• Grid scale batteries providing synthetic inertia

In fact smart batteries and inverters can usurpingly provide any combination of frequency and voltage that is needed, provided they have the energy.

They are doing many things that Fossil Fuel fans claimed a few years ago that batteries could not do.,

The alternative to batteries for these roles is Gas or Synchronous Condensers, and typically batteries are the cheaper option.

A lot of this stuff is being trailed slowly and methodically in Australia, and the relevant authority AEMO knows it's job is to "keep the lights on". It is doing a good job of managing innovation and risk.

 

[kbM3]

Has Tesla’s 2022 met our expectations?

I get the impression that some people think Tesla’s poor performance in 2022 is somehow the result of Musk’s behaviors or Musk selling. While it might have had some impact, 2022 was not a year full of good news and rose parades. Neither for Tesla, nor for the macro environment. Look back a year ago this time and think about what we expected.

• 4680 production in Texas was going to be ramping up fast by now. This has not happened. Lots of equipment, very little if any output.
• Model Y production in Texas and Berlin were going to be complete. We’re getting closer… but shy of the 5k/ week expectations at the moment.
• Deliveries were supposed to be up at least 50%. We’re likely falling a bit short of that too. COVID shutdown in April and slower than expected factory ramps more or less skewed this target.
• The 4680 Model Y from Texas was going to be the wonder car with huge range, huge weight savings, and massive cost reductions. Seems like the promised battery chemistry updates didn’t come through and we’re still looking at energy density comparable to 2170s. Since the 4680 production is still struggling, cost savings are questionable at the moment too.
• Cybertruck was supposed to be launched…. Yes, this was still on the table for 2022 a year ago.
• While FSD Beta “Full Release” is out, Robotaxi and it’s promises are still seemingly at least another couple years out, nor does it appear likely FSD is in a state where it’ll drive revenue in a huge way soon.

This is on top of fed increasing rates, literal war, huge energy crisis in Europe, Chinese economic and political instability.

While I still think Tesla is an A+ company, 2022 was clearly a C- sort of year And coming into 2022, we were priced for an A+ year and lets be honest, most of us expected it. If 2023 is a C- sort of year, it’s likely we’re not going to see any big positive swings in the SP regardless of Musk’s “antics” or lack of antics.

People need to own the fact that for Tesla, this hasn’t been an outstanding year even if you remove all of the Musk related news from the picture. We were priced for perfection…. We knew Tesla was priced for perfection. Tesla did fine…. But they were not up to the level of performance we or the investing world expected.

When people claim Musk is responsible for the current state of Tesla stock, they are ignoring dozens of other things which contributed to what has been a less than stellar year for Tesla. I have no idea what the impact of Twitter and Musk’s sales have had on the SP over the past year, but the current rut is largely driven by missed expectations. If Musk was selling shares on the back of the 1.6-1.7m deliveries which most here expected, it would be a non-event. Likewise, if we were eyeballing the Cybertruck order forms and Tesla was taking deliveries. Or even if the 4680 was flying out the door at Texas… just that would be huge.

I’m certainly underwater far more than most here and I’ve lost too much to admit to my wife in short term options. But I’m not nearly as worried about Musk‘s stock sales as I am about these other more fundamental things.

This is a great post @Ogre.

It is easy to miss the forest in the trees. A lot of advertised milestones were not hit this year, some of them for very good reason (deliveries & production / COVID China Shutdown) others for seeming failure of execution (4680s). It is easy to lose track of this as Tesla is still executing spectacularly, better than any company in the history of the auto industry. We know that EM loves aspirational goals that may be impossible to hit as motivational tools, and it certainly seems that this was at play this year.

2022 is shaping up to be a great year, but short of the spectacular that was expected.

If 2023 picks up the shortfall this year and the Cybertruck launch is seamless, then we could well get priced to that perfection that we enjoyed for a few short months. I am optimistic that Tesla can do this for 2023 and especially 2024.

But, if we muddle along in 2023 and only hit 40% growth with Cybertruck issues, we can expect that stock to muddle along as well, as unfair as this might be in the grand scheme of things as Tesla continues to telegraph that it will dominate the BEV market for years to come regardless.

You’re using the incorrect metric when grading Tesla for the year.

Elon sets hyper-optimistic goals and then everyone claims Tesla fails (or is below average on your grading scale), when the company fails to meet them.

But the grade is NOT determined by how close they were to meeting Elon’s schedule. The grade is how they did compared to the competition. So giving Tesla a C- is equivalent to claiming they were below average. Can you name other automakers that have performed better than Tesla in 2022?

Who’s closer to Cybertruck capability? Who’s made more improvements in their ADAS? Who’s been producing their own cells in a factory 1/4 the size and cost of a typical cell factory?

In actuality Tesla’s 2022 grade of A++ completely breaks the curve!