2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[kenliles]

Thoughts on your Price target for selling?...
So question for all you investors... what's your game plan?

Layer 1(80%)- Core set of stock will hold for years(currently strong bull)
Layer 2(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on Tesla cycles(currently bull)
Layer 3(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on macro situation(currently bear on macro)

Contextual reference for Layer 1- TSLA stock holder from $28- Avg in sub $100, but adds thru $200

 

[AlMc]

Thoughts on your Price target for selling?

I've been holding Tesla for a long time. Seen it hit $260 2 previous times now only to see it drop to low $180s and every time I bang my head against the wall asking myself why didn't I sell back at $260 so I could rebuy at the $180 mark. Buying stock is easy... knowing when to sell is the hard part.

I bought 1000 shares of Nvidia at $26 and sold at $28 thinking I was awesome... It's now $103...

So question for all you investors... what's your game plan?

Difficult question as none of us know your entire (nor should we) financial situation/age/goals.

Like several other TMC forum members, I think of myself as a 'hybrid' investor. I have some long term (cores) shares I would only sell if a 'black swan' event happens. I have some 'trading shares' where I might try to 'time' the market. Then, some options for leverage with money I can definitely afford to lose.

 

[Intl Professor]

Meh, no BIGLY...

Come on, Trump is a promoter not a doer and with Republicans behind the curve on health care, not a doitoverer either. He'd be a great PR guy when Tesla becomes a "Wall Street normal" company.

 

[Off Shore]

Thoughts on your Price target for selling?

I've been holding Tesla for a long time. Seen it hit $260 2 previous times now only to see it drop to low $180s and every time I bang my head against the wall asking myself why didn't I sell back at $260 so I could rebuy at the $180 mark. Buying stock is easy... knowing when to sell is the hard part.

I bought 1000 shares of Nvidia at $26 and sold at $28 thinking I was awesome... It's now $103...

So question for all you investors... what's your game plan?

I'm holding my pitiful fistful of shares until they can pay for the Model 3 I've reserved.

 

[Runarbt]

Layer 1(80%)- Core set of stock will hold for years(currently strong bull)
Layer 2(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on Tesla cycles(currently bull)
Layer 3(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on macro situation(currently bear on macro)

Contextual reference for Layer 1- TSLA stock holder from $28- Avg in sub $100, but adds thru $200

I have a core holding which I will hang on to for 5-10 years (bought at $32). And 10% if this in march17 calls which are looking very good now. plan to sell closer to Q4. put 50% in stock and 50% in new calls (6-12 months out) if/when the next +60$ dip occurs. Try to grow my holdings a bit quicker than shares only.

 

[AlMc]

Thoughts on your Price target for selling?

I've been holding Tesla for a long time. Seen it hit $260 2 previous times now only to see it drop to low $180s and every time I bang my head against the wall asking myself why didn't I sell back at $260 so I could rebuy at the $180 mark. Buying stock is easy... knowing when to sell is the hard part.

I bought 1000 shares of Nvidia at $26 and sold at $28 thinking I was awesome... It's now $103...

So question for all you investors... what's your game plan?

Layer 1(80%)- Core set of stock will hold for years(currently strong bull)
Layer 2(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on Tesla cycles(currently bull)
Layer 3(10%)- Trade on LEAPS and stock depending on macro situation(currently bear on macro)

Contextual reference for Layer 1- TSLA stock holder from $28- Avg in sub $100, but adds thru $200

Listen to this man

 

[LargeHamCollider]

Packs made from the new cells will gain 7.5% from the height alone. Plus at least 5% from the new chemistry.

Can we please either stop posting about Costco or move the discussion to a dedicated thread?

Right, my point here is that if we assume that the volume of each cell is utilized with equal efficiency (not guaranteed), and nominal voltage is 3.7V, then it follows that there has been a chemistry improvement of ~7.5%; this, in combination with the 7.7% height increase, gets you to a ~115kwh S/X pack.

 

[Skryll]

Have no fear.. the better tech will win the day and Tesla is the iPod in a sea of Sony Walkman manufacturers.

Why get your energy from coal when you can have a roof that costs less than a regular roof, lasts twice as long as a regular roof, looks far better and produces its own electricity? When a natural disaster strikes and all your neighbors lose power and come to your house to charge their iPhones, they'll see the benefits too.

And Tesla Energy.. every business, every utility and every home could use energy storage and competitor comes close to Tesla's price per K/W

Here is what I found talking to anti clean energy people on the facebook car advertisements I am trolling. Californians look at how their solar panels pay for themselves in 6-8 years but forget that the same is not true in Ohio or Florida. I ran a random address from two peoples area through project sunroof from google, and one said it will break even in 20 years, the other said not even then. Which is why they think solar is a scam.

What puzzles me is that even in germany people are able to benefit from solar, so how could it not be making sense in Ohio and Florida then ? Maybe project sunroof is too pessimistic about the cost? I know I got my own solar system about $8k cheaper than what they advertised, but it did take major shopping around and finding a nongreedy contractor willing to install for about $1/W as all the big players seemed to agree on the price of installation (excluding material mind you) to be closer to $1.8/W

Project Sunroof

 

[neroden]

Was just typing up something similar, but almost 50% higher numbers.. (guess I used lower energy / cell and added TE cells

Anyway, just to put this in perspective. Assuming your numbers.. and even assuming 24/7 operation (will not happen)..
- 65M cells / month = 2,16M cells / day = 90k cells per hour = 25 cells per second !!
- 195M cells / month = 6,5M cells / day = 271k cells per hour = 75 cells per second !! (run rate end of 2018)

WOW ! Bullet speed indeed !!!
Remember all these cells have to be produced, but also get the initial charge and be aged and tested.

Thinking about it, the aging is probably the reason the Gigafactory is so huge. Does anyone know for how long the cells have to be aged? We could get an estimate of the volume required for aging rooms alone.

 

[Krugerrand]

It's sort of amazing to me that Elon/Tesla see such a different thing than other companies.

The difference is reasoning by first principles instead of reasoning by analogy.

 

[dc_h]

Can you please cite your sources/pictures? Just assumptions and expectations are not that interesting

mmd assumptions are interesting

Two other things I didn't mention that are quite relevant:

1. When that Comma.AI dude wanted to work with Tesla on AI, Musk specifically said that what he is doing isn't that interesting for Tesla because having something working in a straightforward scenario isn't that difficult, it's handling the corner cases that will make it a usable product and that requires a lot of grunt work not some one genius. You can't possibly claim they arrogantly think they'll just show some videos to some neural network and call it good. They stated that explicitly a year ago.

2. On the narrow bridge scenario. There's a much more frequently occurring and a more difficult scenario: a narrow one lane city street with cars parked on both sides where you can go both directions. Not only AI will have to figure out how to arbitrage with an oncoming car, but it must be able to back up and let someone go to resolve a deadlock (possibly with another AI car). This they'll have to solve soon, if they haven't already. Your one way bridge scenario is actually a somewhat easier instance of the same generic problem of navigating a narrow passage where oncoming traffic might be present.

can they teach the car to honk and flash brights?

 

[neroden]

Realistically, an untrained computer program isn't going to behave any worse than people do in these situations. IE., I've lost count the number of times I've seen news reports of people needing to be rescued from their vehicles because they attempted to drive on a flood road. Just sayin'.

This is entirely true, if you amend it to "Realistically, an untrained computer program isn't going to behave any worse than average drivers do in these situations".

The thing is that public perception and acceptance of automated stuff is a bit weird. People expect it to be better than very good drivers. Musk's even commented on this. Public perception is the main reason we don't have automated trains everywhere; the tech was working in the 1970s and perfected in the 1990s. Psychology is weird.

Hitting the mark where they're better than 90% of drivers is going to take a while.

 

[Krugerrand]

Can you please cite your sources/pictures? Just assumptions and expectations are not that interesting

Well neither was your assumption that because there's just currently one line that that somehow means no such thing as economy of scale.

 

[dakh]

can they teach the car to honk and flash brights?

I don't do any of the above when driving and manage just fine. It's not in the rulebook either, in fact AFAIR in NYC honking is explicitly prohibited. When the car decides someone is on a collision course with it, I'm guessing it'd be quite easy to make it honk. If there's a deadlock and the car knows it needs to yield, I'm guessing it is possible to make it flash but I don't think it's necessary and not convinced it's helpful.

 

[Krugerrand]

You mean EM offering Trump the job as COO??? I really wanted Wheeler for that position

Uncool.

 

[Krugerrand]

Not having a firm date, but I'm hoping for some "material" TE announcements prior to earnings. The California project was "nice", but with cells and the production process ramping at the Gigafactory, let's get some bookings globally for TE, looking specifically at Germany, China (largest renewable portfolio and recent announcement of 100s of Billions of renewable spending), Australia.....you get the picture. Would like to have Elon, JB, Wheeler etc give TE related guidance for 2017 on the earnings call and be able to point to more than Hawaii and California as markets.

Wasn't there suppose to be a project in Ireland?

 

[dakh]

This is entirely true, if you amend it to "Realistically, an untrained computer program isn't going to behave any worse than average drivers do in these situations".

The thing is that public perception and acceptance of automated stuff is a bit weird. People expect it to be better than very good drivers. Musk's even commented on this. Public perception is the main reason we don't have automated trains everywhere; the tech was working in the 1970s and perfected in the 1990s. Psychology is weird.

Hitting the mark where they're better than 90% of drivers is going to take a while.

From what I can tell they are only talking about safety. Accidents per mile, that's it. "Better" driving is a highly contested topic and I doubt there will ever be an agreement on that. Drive from A to B in reasonable time, don't have tickets or accidents. Simple (doesn't mean easy).

 

[neroden]

What's the relevance of Costco and operation of gas station to this thread?

Free association. I think we started by discussing how the disapparance of gas stations would accelerate demand for electric cars?

 

[Intl Professor]

I'm long only and no dry powder. Last purchase was at around $250 right after the M3 reveal. If I had powder and/or were less than 80 years old, I'd happily buy again at any price lower than $250. Once M3 sales reach a few hundred thousand I would not be surprised if Tsla trades at three times its current price and worth the purchase (maybe 2-3 years, conservatively). Even with last purchase, since I started buying in 2010, our cost is just under $40 per share. (But not many shares!!!)

If I had a crystal ball and wanted to sell, as some here want to do, my guess a good time would be before you expect Elon to announce another stock offering. Some have suggested on the previous thread Musk might not offer more shares, but issue debt to cover future and massive expansion plans. Your crystal ball might give a hint when a GF (integrated battery and auto) is announced in Portugal or elsewhere. That will happen, I guess, a year or three before Fremont plus its expansion has to be augmented in either Europe or China (Vietnam?). So watch Fremont productive capacity as some of you are able to divine by examining its entrails or parking lots. Just some thoughts on the vagaries of predicting our problematic future.

 

[neroden]

So... what's the next catalyst on the chopping block?

4Q16 ER in late Jan/early Feb?

Yes, though I really have no idea when the earnings will be released.