General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[vigleik]

What do you guys think about this: there are approximately 100 milj passenger cars sold in a year. If after 20 years they're all electric and Tesla has 10% market share, it is 10 milj cars sold in a year. Which is about the same what Toyota sells now. Toyota's market cap is 195 bil. Tesla's is 45 bil. So Toyota is 4.3 times bigger. If Tesla is after 20 years as big as Toyota is now, market cap would rise approximately 7,5% in a year. Which is not much more than what you get from stock market normally with distributed portfolio.

What am I missing? Tesla energy? Tesla has better margin than Toyota (difficult to say what margin is 20 years from now..)?

Others already pointed out several things you missed about Tesla, such as their higher ASP/autonomy/Tesla Energy (I guess you mentioned the last one, but valued it at zero in your toy model). Here’s one thing you missed about Toyota: Their stock price is depressed, because their best days are behind them.

If, in 20 years, Tesla is selling 10m cars per year and generally doing well, what do you think their price/earnings ratio will be? Toyota is around 8 while the average for the s&p 500 is about 20

So it’s very easy to update your toy model by finding another three or four factors of 2 or 3...

 

[Matias]

Others already pointed out several things you missed about Tesla, such as their higher ASP/autonomy/Tesla Energy (I guess you mentioned the last one, but valued it at zero in your toy model). Here’s one thing you missed about Toyota: Their stock price is depressed, because their best days are behind them.

If, in 20 years, Tesla is selling 10m cars per year and generally doing well, what do you think their price/earnings ratio will be? Toyota is around 8 while the average for the s&p 500 is about 20

So it’s very easy to update your toy model by finding another three or four factors of 2 or 3...

Just one point, that p/e 20 is historically high. But on the other hand 8 is low and usually attributed to shrinking business.

 

[Matias]

Thank you all for your answers, lots of good points.

 

[RobStark]

China Car Sales Drop as Economic Woes, U.S. Trade War Hit Buyers
Bloomberg News

China Car Sales Drop as Economic Woes, U.S. Trade War Hit Buyers

 

[ggr]

Semi-mod: Reposting this about how to avoid bloomberg TOSV. Rob I fixed yours for you. --ggr

China Car Sales Drop as Economic Woes, U.S. Trade War Hit Buyers
Bloomberg News

China Car Sales Drop as Economic Woes, U.S. Trade War Hit Buyers

Terms of Service Violation

Can someone tell me what this (TOSV) means? It is a link to a Bloomberg article.

When you just post a link to the Bloomberg article, the software chases the link (to put in the page title) and Bloomberg notices it came from somewhere else, and replaces the title with what you see. Instead, just type some explanatory text like this, select the text, press the hyperlink button (chain-like icon right of the font button) and paste the URL in there instead. Alternatively, cut-and-paste the actual title, then do those actions, like:
Tesla Fills Chief Accounting Officer Void With Seagate's CFO

 

[Buckminster]

Ben on Teslanomics has some great data on Model 3 efficiency - 88% versus the Model S at 72%. If this is correct - another game changer as the competition will all be trying to match the S.

22 mins in.

 

[KarenRei]

Powertrain efficiency? Well, duh. PM motors are a lot more efficient than induction motors.

 

[JRP3]

Powertrain efficiency? Well, duh. PM motors are a lot more efficient than induction motors.

Not according to Tesla Induction Versus DC Brushless Motors

 

[mongo]

Not according to Tesla Induction Versus DC Brushless Motors

Are you referring to a little vs a lot?

With induction, as machine size grows, losses do not necessarily grow. Thus, induction drives may be the favored approach where high-performance is desired; peak efficiency will be a little less than with DC brushless, but average efficiency may actually be better.

3 uses a PMSR motor which gets around some of the pure PM issues. The new SiC FETs are likely less lossy, adding to the efficiency gain.

 

[KarenRei]

There is no modern induction motor that will average even close to the efficiency of a modern IPM. Regardless of what some Tesla blog entry from 2007 says.

Tesla didn't switch to a PM motor for giggles.

 

[AWDtsla]

There is no modern induction motor that will average even close to the efficiency of a modern IPM. Regardless of what some Tesla blog entry from 2007 says.

Tesla didn't switch to a PM motor for giggles.

Nah, they could have kept AC induction motors and built a more advanced charging system to get rid of the ~10% loss they have now, and it would be pretty much the same thing. If that's not enough get another 1MWh/year back from eliminating vampire loss. I'm still amazed that neither of these things improved with Model 3. That's how you know Tesla has no competition.

 

[JRP3]

Are you referring to a little vs a lot?

Yes.

The new SiC FETs are likely less lossy, adding to the efficiency gain.

That's inverter improvement not motor.

There is no modern induction motor that will average even close to the efficiency of a modern IPM.

Give me some real world numbers and we can decide if the difference is "a lot".

 

[Ugliest1]

Still not wise choice by EM. Bad optic/easy for FUDsters. to push an agenda to people that do not know Tesla/EM as well as Tesla product owners and stockholders.

I totally agree. He should have just said no IMO from a selfish stockholder perspective. (That “O” stands for Opinion)

But, I don’t walk in his shoes and I’m not willing to judge him for whatever. His emotional bank account with me is still quite high because of all the good. The hit was minor (pun intended).

Note, I’m not arguing with you @AIMc, your post was just the one I finally responded to. And my wife doesn’t agree with me not getting pissed off. So there.

 

[AlMc]

I totally agree. He should have just said no IMO from a selfish stockholder perspective. (That “O” stands for Opinion)

But, I don’t walk in his shoes and I’m not willing to judge him for whatever. His emotional bank account with me is still quite high because of all the good. The hit was minor (pun intended).

Note, I’m not arguing with you @AIMc, your post was just the one I finally responded to. And my wife doesn’t agree with me not getting pissed off. So there.

I like your wife even though we have never met...............j/k......be well. We will still get there with Tesla....just will age a bit more than our chronological years would say.

 

[mongo]

Yes.


That's inverter improvement not motor.



Give me some real world numbers and we can decide if the difference is "a lot".

The efficiency of an AC Induction motor falls off rapidly at the lower end of the power curve, so the statement (peak is slightly less, but average could be higher) is not applicable to motor state on a Tesla at legal US Highway cruising speed that can also pull down single digit 0-60 times.
PM vs AC for qualitative data:
http://www.ashraeboston.org/resources/Documents/Presentations/January Main Presentation.pdf

 

[RobStark]

 

[Mich]

View attachment 333930

Cute

 

[jkirkwood001]

People seen this?

Elon Musk's Brain is not like yours

I post here because it provides IMO one of the most compelling and unsettling arguments for why we can't count on Tesla ever making money (unfortunately: I'm long). Read to the end to get that point.

 

[mongo]

People seen this?

Elon Musk's Brain is not like yours

I post here because it provides IMO one of the most compelling and unsettling arguments for why we can't count on Tesla ever making money (unfortunately: I'm long). Read to the end to get that point.

1. Actually this means my brain is more like Musk's.

2. Many already do not expect Tesla to produce dividends until far in the future (see the recent go private then back public statement). Good thing it still has value anyway, otherwise his compensation plan will never vest. If profit growth rate exceeds infrastructure build rate, we could get dividends earlier (that the stable company point).

3. To achieve the Master Plan, Elon needs to be reasonable in his (Tesla) pursuits. So that will provide a regulation factor.

 

[aubreymcfato]

People seen this?

Elon Musk's Brain is not like yours

I post here because it provides IMO one of the most compelling and unsettling arguments for why we can't count on Tesla ever making money (unfortunately: I'm long). Read to the end to get that point.

Great article, I like Melissa Schilling already.
This is her twitter handle: Melissa A Schilling (@mschilli1) | Twitter

How come the best Tesla analysts are women (Andrea James, her, that young Canadian CEO)?