General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[ruralectric]

Thanks to ruralectric's pm, Musk's humor is refined enough that it might turn out that dangerous flame thrower is merely a cigarette lighter. (One can only hope.) Have any been seen in the wild, to borrow a phrase?

Hmm. Well, there's the videos on Instagram and the BC web site. And per folks on this board, a number have shelled out the $500 smackers. I kinda think it's real.
Instagram post by Elon Musk • Jan 28, 2018 at 1:29am UTC

 

[Words of HABIT]

If The Boring Company can market not a flamethrower, then hopefully Tesla can market not a lawnmower, except make it a lawnmower. Hey Tesla, I've already designed it for you.

I see The Boring Company is hiring a Flamethrower Fulfillment Specialist. I'll pass on that, but will take up a Lawnmower Fulfillment Specialist position for Canada region when it becomes available.

 

[Lessmog]

Thanks to ruralectric's pm, Musk's humor is refined enough that it might turn out that dangerous flame thrower is merely a cigarette lighter. (One can only hope.) Have any been seen in the wild, to borrow a phrase?

Elon is certainly inventive and renews whole new fields so often.
Last time: Flame wars.
Next time: Custom customs?

 

[avoigt]

Group of VINS spotted in Denver. Quite some high numbers which is another indication:

Model 3 #4202 #3933 #4637 #5215 #6286 #5448 #4550 #5465 #5329 #014 #4202 #4719 #5482 #4459

6 of 7 highest VINs spotted at Denver SC • r/teslamotors

an some in Atlanta:

Model 3 #4568 !vinbot Model 3 #4270 !vinbot Model 3 #4609 !vinbot Model 3 #5208 !vinbot Model 3 #3846 !vinbot Model 3 #1941 !vinbot Model 3 #4527 !vinbot Model 3 #5659 !vinbot Model 3 #4069 !vinbot Model 3 #4812 !vinbot Model 3 #3143 !vinbot Model 3 #4093 !vinbot Model 3 #3812 !vinbot Model 3 #3592 !vinbot Model 3 #3997 !vinbot Model 3 #4497 !vinbot Model 3 #5658 !vinbot Model 3 #4373 !vinbot Model 3 #5325
20 Model 3s waiting for delivery in Atlanta • r/teslamotors

 

[avoigt]

6533 spotted in AZ

https://model3ownersclub.com/attachments/20180131_151705-jpg.5413/

 

[Off Shore]

Thanks to ruralectric's pm, Musk's humor is refined enough that it might turn out that dangerous flame thrower is merely a cigarette lighter. (One can only hope.) Have any been seen in the wild, to borrow a phrase?

EM tweeted a vid of himself using the doomsday machine. Looks pretty much like this:

...though clearly much more fun.

 

[Drax7]

Porsche announced that its doubling their investment in electrification from €3bn to €6bn until 2022.

The target GM is 15%. Expect to sell 20k Mission E p.a. in 2020 or '21. In 2017 4% more deliveries confirmed with €22bn revenue in 2016.

In 2019 we should see headlines that Tesla is larger in revenue than Porsche.

Konkurrenz für Tesla? Porsche investiert sechs Milliarden Euro in neue E-Autos

3 to 6 billion are investment or burned ?
Tesla burns, Porsche invests is the Wall Street narrative

 

[JRP3]

A bit of negativity for the weekend:
First Model 3 motor failure reported, Tesla engineers on their way to investigate

An early Tesla Model 3 owner has reported that the motor in his Model 3 suddenly failed, leaving the car inoperable.

Expect more negativity from this guy in the future

 

[jhm]

There are two estimation charts here - the invites spreadsheet
View attachment 277795
and
View attachment 277796

Both of these charts show close to 18000 for Q1 which equate to 1500 average per week for a 12 week period, where your graph predicts around 2200 per week at the end of Q1.
Therefore, it appears that all three these graphs predict a rate of above 2000 per week by the end of Q1.
Go Tesla!!!

Super! Are these quadratic fits? It would be nice to know what the coefficients are, which you can differentiate to find the production delivery rate.

 

[jhm]

Group of VINS spotted in Denver. Quite some high numbers which is another indication:

Model 3 #4202 #3933 #4637 #5215 #6286 #5448 #4550 #5465 #5329 #014 #4202 #4719 #5482 #4459

6 of 7 highest VINs spotted at Denver SC • r/teslamotors

an some in Atlanta:

Model 3 #4568 !vinbot Model 3 #4270 !vinbot Model 3 #4609 !vinbot Model 3 #5208 !vinbot Model 3 #3846 !vinbot Model 3 #1941 !vinbot Model 3 #4527 !vinbot Model 3 #5659 !vinbot Model 3 #4069 !vinbot Model 3 #4812 !vinbot Model 3 #3143 !vinbot Model 3 #4093 !vinbot Model 3 #3812 !vinbot Model 3 #3592 !vinbot Model 3 #3997 !vinbot Model 3 #4497 !vinbot Model 3 #5658 !vinbot Model 3 #4373 !vinbot Model 3 #5325
20 Model 3s waiting for delivery in Atlanta • r/teslamotors

Hmm, I saw 14 Model 3 today at the Decatur, GA, Delivery Center. I didn't bother to examine their VINs.

 

[Morris1100S]

South Australia showing leadership again.
More Tesla energy sales http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-04/elon-musk-tesla-to-give-solar-panels-batteries-to-sa-homes/9394352

 

[Reciprocity]

South Australia showing leadership again.
More Tesla energy sales http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-04/elon-musk-tesla-to-give-solar-panels-batteries-to-sa-homes/9394352

50000 power walls and solar systems? That's $1B deal. $15,000 solar paired with $5500 powerwalls.

 

[goinfraftw]

South Australia showing leadership again.
More Tesla energy sales http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-04/elon-musk-tesla-to-give-solar-panels-batteries-to-sa-homes/9394352

Smells like we can expect another Gigafactory in Australia, no?

 

[vigleik]

50000 power walls and solar systems? That's $1B deal. $15,000 solar paired with $5500 powerwalls.

$15,000 for solar might sound reasonable to an American, but solar doesn’t cost that much down under. Half of that, maybe. The article mentions a total of 250MW, so 5kW per system. According to Solar power system prices: Residential & Commercial - Solar Choice the average price for a 5kW residential system is A$5,880. That includes sales tax, but is after the solar tax credit. Putting the tax credit back in and subtracting the sales tax, then converting to US$ gives...a number very close to $7,500. Which would make this a $650 million deal.

The high price of residential solar in the US remains a mystery to me. Tesla better not bring...whatever it is that inflates the price of solar to Australia.

 

[RobStark]

The high price of residential solar in the US remains a mystery to me. Tesla better not bring...whatever it is that inflates the price of solar to Australia.

It is government permitting and inspection process that must be done on each and every install.

 

[RiverCard]

So the way (I think) it works is that Tesla sets up a limited liability company that is fully owned, operated and consolidated by Tesla. The leases in question, both the financial instruments (ie, income from the customers) and the assets (ownership of the car) are transferred to this company. The subsidiary pays Tesla some $500M for this. To pay the $500M the subsidiary writes a bond, entitling bond holders to all future income from this particular company (and also obviously clauses to make it operate its business in a way that is in direct interest of the bondholders). So while Tesla has sold the value of the remaining depreciated car at the end of the lease, the bond holders will not own that car, they just have a payment due from the limited company that now owns the car.

If at some point, residual values are higher and/or defaults lower than initially estimated, the limited company will make a profit. I believe this profit will revert to Tesla. If on the other hand there is a shortfall then that limited company will not be able to pay bond holders their final tranches. But Tesla will just walk away. So that''s why, even if the assets are fully controlled by Tesla, it is still the bond holders that have the most interest in making sure that their residual values are estimated correctly.

I suppose since this is Tesla's first round, bond holders are looking for a lot of safe side. Ie, they'll be demanding that residual values are estimed lowly and defaults highly. In addition to a fat interest rate. Possibly this makes it more expensive for Tesla to sell out this particular batch of cars than to just keep it on the books. But I believe the real value to Tesla is to get started with it so future potential bond buyers understand the economics of leased Tesla cars, are able to predict residuals and default rates better and over time bid down between them the safety margin they ask from Tesla.

There is also discussion in today's (2/3/18) Market Action thread which should probably be transferred here

While I'm no expert on US securitisations, It seems unreasonable to expect that on an individual contract level the ABS line is entitled to receive any more than the contracted RV. I would expect any gain to be received by Tesla and any loss to be reimbursed through excess spread.

Thanks. I'm trying to understand the mechanics of how any residual value shortfall might affect Tesla shareholders; specifically, is Tesla able to reduce it's residual value risk by financing the leases using the ABS as opposed to WL borrowings?

Is “the excess spread” the difference between the interest rate paid to the ABS holders and the interest rate used in the underlying leases? Any sense of how big the spread is? When the leases were financed using WL borrowings, did Tesla retain all of the benefit from the excess spread?

Am I correct that the spread is in addition to the over-collateralization, i.e. the 0.75% initial reserve plus the $62 million out of the $608 million pool not assigned to any ABS class, to fund a lower resale price than the contracted RV?

 

[EinSV]

Major distributed energy project — “virtual power plant” announced by South Australia and Tesla — 250 MW residential solar plus 650 MWh storage to be completed by 2022.

Tesla to build 250MW “virtual power plant” in South Australia

Posted by @jhm in the Energy thread but should be of broader interest. On the storage side this is ~5X bigger than the Hornsdale big battery.

 

[avoigt]

"Residents will enjoy lower bills and backup storage from their Tesla Powerwall battery, and the broader community will benefit from a more reliable grid that can better cope with peak demand.” (...)

"The key objectives of the virtual power plant are to:

• Provide significant cost savings to consumers participating in the program
• Demonstrate the ability of a virtual power plant to deliver savings to households and improve the resilience of the grid
• Introduce competition into the South Australian energy market, placing downward pressure on energy prices
• Establish a new, dispatchable renewable energy power plant, providing energy when it is most required"

Tesla to build 250MW “virtual power plant” in South Australia

These objectives apply to many countries and regions of the world in particular where high energy prices exist.

The project will prove on a large scale how superior a micro grid or decentralized grid is for costs, grid stability and competition.

With the truth now finally dripping through a lot of projects like this are to be expected in 2018 and the years to follow. I do hope that this helps the market to understand the huge opportunity and unique market position of TE.

 

[hobbes]

Major distributed energy project — “virtual power plant” announced by South Australia and Tesla — 250 MW residential solar plus 650 MWh storage to be completed by 2022.

Tesla to build 250MW “virtual power plant” in South Australia

Posted by @jhm in the Energy thread but should be of broader interest. On the storage side this is ~5X bigger than the Hornsdale big battery.

Cool! Another article on this here: Elon Musk, SA Premier in deal to give solar panels, batteries to 50,000 homes (via reddit).

 

[avoigt]

Tesla represents 58% of all electric cars (including hybrids) and 81% of all EVs sold in January in the US if the numbers predicted are correct.

Thinking about how the rest of the years will look like..... its a shame for all large auto manufacturers and I really hope that they manage to get some decent cars out that attract consumers. OTOH as a shareholder I should not complain...

Big Auto, We Have A Problem — US Electric Car Sales Report | CleanTechnica