Search results

@futureproof Do you remember how much of the planned 50GWhs from the giga-factory is sort of allocated for stationary storage?

Tesla Plans at Least Two Battery as Musk Emphasizes Speed - Bloomberg

It's a fallacy that solarcity's operations will seize up in a recession due to lack of funds. It's thoroughly rebuked by someone here by directly referring to the official 10K document. Pasting here for convenience. *** The topic of what will happen to SCTY's financing if there is a recession...

Are you talking about the same agency which rated sub-prime mortgages as AAA? To top it off they lowered US rating from AAA only to see Treasuries take off. Data is firmly on my side of the argument. Default rates on solar leases are lower than on prime-mortgages. Take a look at: SolarCity -...

This depends on the level of maturity of the ABS market at the time of recession. If ABS market evolves enough, there will always be a market. The rates may go higher but that's about it. In a normal recession Markets don't completely seize the way you are imagining. 2008 was an anomaly. Even in...

Here is the deal on SCTY's stock price. Elon Musk bought 214,869 shares and Lyndon Rive bought 107,434 shares at a price of $46.54 per share in Oct 2013, in the secondary offering. Most definitively, these two guys know of the company's prospects and vision than anyone else on the planet...

I haven't paid much attention to EPS numbers in the past as I thought they are sort of irrelavent. As I take a close look now, the ship has already turned!! These are the GAAP numbers (including some restatements): Q4 13 -> 0.280 Q3 13 -> 0.040 Q2 13 -> -0.310 Q1 13 -> -0.410 Q4 12 ->...

Given that SCTY is a recent IPO, it has limited 200-day-moving-average history. It only spans last two ERs actually. ER Date Price 200-day-MA %Away %Fall Next Day 3/18/14 77.10 51.20 50 -5.71% 11/6/13 59.65 32.65 82 -16.70% So you might be...

Taking another close look at the ownership in the proxy statement: **** John H. N. Fisher (7) --> 14,367,790 Draper Fisher Jurvetson (14) --> 14,967,241 **** (7) 7,440,718 shares held of record by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund IX, L.P., 70 shares held of record by Draper Fisher...

I wonder if there is any double counting between John H. N. Fisher (7) --> 14,367,790 Draper Fisher Jurvetson (14) --> 14,967,241 Especially given this: (7) Includes 7,440,718 shares held of record by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund IX, L.P., 70 shares held of record by...

@futureproof Thanks for the proxy link. I was looking at some tool which has outdated info.

@futureproof I see about 30% shares owned by Insiders and Jurvetson's fund owning 16%. That makes it 45% outstanding. Curious, where are you seeing 71%?

I appreciate your optimism. But as a general rule SCTY always falls after ER. Here are the price changes on each of the post ER days (starting from the latest): -5.71% -16.70% -10.80% -12.37% -14.43% The issue here is, faster they grow, the bigger the loss they show. As I said many times in...

@futureproof Thanks for the updates. Appreciate it. Will check the transcript once it's out on SA. Quite weird that they won't talk about it, after such a big PR splash. From news it wasn't even clear if Google will own the system/lease or if SPWR will. Google initiative will lease solar...

Here is a well informed report on China deliveries. Tesla CEO Makes Smooth Drive Into China - Forbes

Posted this in Long Term thread but I think this specifically relates to Solars and SolarCity as well, as Natural Gas is considered a cheaper alternative to Solar. Is the U.S. Shale Boom Going Bust? - Bloomberg View

Interesting read on Shale Oil/Gas production sustainability Is the U.S. Shale Boom Going Bust? - Bloomberg View

Here is a panel discussion on SolarWorld's trade dispute. Assessing the Impact of the U.S.-China Solar Trade Case, Recorded on 4/15/14 GreentechMedia on USTREAM. Conference Key takeaway: In most cases shouldn't have too much impact on DG market. Can be devastating to utility scale projects...

This video has a thorough analysis of lease vs own debate in an overall market perspective. It's from GTM Solar Summit 2014. Solar Summit 2014: Opportunities and Threats in the Residential Solar Market, Recorded on 4/16/14 GreentechMedia on USTREAM. Conference

Does any one have a reference to the current market breakdown between leases vs purchases? I know for scty it's 90%+ vs <10%. I am curious to know what the overall market split is. or even better what the market split is in the 14 states that solar city services in.

Here is an interesting blog post by Peter Rive: Put Battery Storage in the Hands of Grid Operators

a) The potential market size is so abnormally big and growing I have a hard time seeing solarcity coming into competitive pressure and going into lower margins. If anything they are the ones putting pressure on the competition by taking ever increasing market share!! Feeling threatened by...

Your numbers make sense in theory but the actual numbers are showing the exact opposite trend. I'm pulling these numbers from respective quarterly slideshows. Total Retained Value $/watt Q1 2013: $1.25/watt Q2 2013: $1.27/watt Q3 2013: $1.37/watt Q4 2013: $1.51/watt Note these...

I am a SCTY ultra-bull. But I have to admit that sleepyhead has a point here which needs careful assessment. The core point he is making is, leases provide very high margins for scty. We can't disagree with that. In addition his point is that margins will come down as: a) more people will...

Taking on a long term lease is less scary as it appears actually. Without a solar system, you are effectively in a PPA with your utility for perpetuity! It's actually worse than a PPA as you don't get to lock-in any kind of prices.

@futureproof I'm on my way out to a vacation, so will give a few quick remarks. Deutsche Bank put a price of $90 based on cumulative installs of 9GW by 2020 and 1% growth rate after that. Many times in the document they themselves said it is very conservative. You can get a copy of their...

OMG I never thought I would live to see this day. What happened??

Hi Dave, I know you have been looking for Deutsche Bank report on SCTY. I got a copy simply by going to dbresearch.com - clicking on Contact at the top and filling out a small form. They sent an email two days later with the attachment. Couldn't send you a private message because your mailbox is...

This is a positive news overall. But putting these three statements together, something is a miss: Mayor Thomas Koch has signed off on a 2-megawatt solar-power project expected to account for about 10 percent of the city government's total energy consumption. Koch’s office said the deal with...

@futureproof, I am not aware of any such quotients. Just like you, both my Tesla and SolarCity investments started with qualitative analysis to begin with. I used some fuzzy math to get a rough idea of what the size of addressable market is etc. Much of the growth projections I used were based...

"Throughout his letter to shareholders, Buffett focuses on per share results. He compares the growth in Berkshire’s book value per-share to the performance of the S&P 500." Buffett gets beat by the SP 500 over five years. (But wins over six.) - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet...

(this time without snippiness) futureproof, Yes point taken. I was specifically addressing the remark that SPWR's powerplant business is more lucrative than SCTYs on a per unit electricity basis. SCTY gets rates that a consumer typically pays utilities. SPWR's power plants make money that the...

Actually, every single data point I used is either official guidance or public information (facts). These are the only data points I used. - Book Value and it's growth: 10K document - Price to Book Value: basic math - 100% growth rate: fact for past, guidance for future - S&P 500's P/B: fact...

All of you guys trust Elon Musk here. 1) There is a reason why Musk didn't create a company to manufacture solar cells, modules and panels. No he is not allergic to manufacturing. Tesla belongs to one the largest manufacturing industries in the world. 2) There is a reason why Musk didn't...

JASO is a different story. Market doesn't trust it's assets. Remember Sino-Forest? - - - Updated - - - Could you please explain how and why? - - - Updated - - - Despite harsh words, I'll appreciate if you correct me with specifics. - - - Updated - - - You haven't explained why. You are...

To add: I couldn't care less what "analysts" call growth, how they define it or how they measure it. I started buying Tesla when it was $35. Most analysts had no clue as to how to value the company. They all chased the stock by it's tail until recently. Bank of America is still lost in ether...

Firstly, I am NOT "deducing earnings growth" from book value growth. I defined "growth" from Book Value, by properly offsetting the effect of share issuance in posts #166 second half and post #158. We don't need to do all that. You can look at MWs deployed or look at growth in Retained...

This is the fundamental beauty of Net Metering which most people don't fully appreciate. When you put solar panels on a rooftop and effectively make the utility bill 0 at the end of the year, you are getting the grid for free. But in reality grid costs money. A lot of money. In fact where I...

I believe this is where the fundamental disconnect is. SPWR gets wholesale prices for it's electricity. SCTY gets retail prices. In my own electric bill the difference is a factor of 3X (supply charges vs delivery charges vs total charges is 1:2:3) - - - Updated - - - Cash raised through...

Sorry, but you missed a fundamental point. Stocks don't trade at P/B of 1. S&P 500 trades at a P/B of approx 3. Not even utilities that grow at a rate of 2% trade at a P/B of 1. They trade at a P/B of around 1.7 to 2.

Sorry, didn't mean to flare up that discussion. Lets agree to disagree.

Continuing further, if we look at P/B currently it is at 7. With the guidance provided, we can safely assume that P/B at the end of the year will be 3.5 or below. That is close to S&P 500's P/B of around 3. Based on this calc, only this year's guidance is priced in.

Getting to the next steps. In the same page 80, I see Total Equity (which is Assets - Liabilities) grow from $280Mil in 2012 to $804Mil in 2013. If I further normalize with Shares Outstanding at the end of each period, I get Book Value per Share of $3.74 at end of 2012 and $8.83 at end of...

Our numbers are off at various levels. Just to begin with: In the latest 10K document, page 80, I see this: Total assets $2,809,534 Total liabilities $1,960,410 Total equity $804,415 Total liabilities and equity $ 2,809,534 I considered the $804Mil to be Book Value. Where...

Pretty soon batteries will be the only saving grace in this industry. SolarCity is best positioned to deal with this. Probably the only company properly positioned to deal with this. I just can't see how all other competitors won't get wiped out.

Sleepyhead, Thanks for explaining your position. Here is some potential positive news (futureproof posted this earlier): China, U.S. may be close to a trade deal to end solar panel disputes CCTV News - CNTV English I don't have exact stats with me, but from what I remember, panel costs are a...

I think I get what you are alluding to. Last time around SolarCity exploited a loophole to ship from Taiwan. This time SolarWorld is trying to close that loophole. So they may be left with no choice but to pay more for panels. This is my take on that. As someone already pointed out earlier in...

I am not sure if you are alluding to something specific or if you are asking a general question. In any case, here are my observations. 1) The all-in-costs for install has progressively/continuously went down over years. a) Due to lower panel prices in the market. In the Fortune interview I...

Which is?

Here's an excerpt of Fortune magazine interview with Lyndon Rive from Mar 2013: Adam Lashinsky: Could you meet your growth targets if government incentives went away tomorrow? Lyndon Rive: If it went away tomorrow, no. So today there is a 30% tax credit that expires -- or it doesn't expire...