General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[jkirkwood001]

I view Elon as very smart, very passionate, and absolutely normal for a smart and passionate person.

When he sips some whiskey - normal
When he occasionally replies back forcefully on twitter (and then realizes it was mistake) - normal
When he tries a puff of a weird looking tobacco and pot thing and then hands it back - normal
When he likes spinal tap and spaceballs - normal
When he is awkward in public - normal
When he works day and night to solve a problem - normal
When he gets really tired after the crunch - normal
When he is honest about his feelings - normal
When he likes to talk about and get excited about big ideas - normal

The biggest thing that freaks people out I think, is that he isn't the usual salesman CEO, always spinning, always selling, always hedging...

He's very upfront about everything - because it is more interesting that way.

He's got plenty of people running the nuts and bolts of the company.

But Tesla will be successful for exactly this one thing:

If you are smart and passionate, you don't want to work for a full of it spinning hedging salesman CEO,
you want to work your ass off for someone smart and passionate and direct and yes normal like Elon.

I don't think you understood the article. It says - paraphrasing - that Elon is not normal. In particular, his creative bent has an adverse effect on his social filter. He does things most people would consider outlandish because a) he doesn't care about his persona, and b) this trait enables him to think outside the box and take risks more than "normal" people. It's not a tactic. It's his psychological make-up. It has benefits, and drawbacks. And he can't prevent it. It's in him.

The message is - he will never put practical profits first. Can't you hear it? Every time he talks about short-term Tesla being profitable, I feel he's clenching his teeth, like he's being forced to say it (that's why he wanted to go private). Kinda like (I can't resist) Trump's wannabe-handlers telling him not to encourage racists when it might mean less people will stroke his ego. He doesn't wanna do it.

 

[Yuri_G]

I don't think you understood the article. It says - paraphrasing - that Elon is not normal. In particular, his creative bent has an adverse effect on his social filter. He does things most people would consider outlandish because a) he doesn't care about his persona, and b) this trait enables him to think outside the box and take risks more than "normal" people. It's not a tactic. It's his psychological make-up. It has benefits, and drawbacks. And he can't prevent it. It's in him.

The message is - he will never put practical profits first. Can't you hear it? Every time he talks about short-term Tesla being profitable, I feel he's clenching his teeth, like he's being forced to say it (that's why he wanted to go private). Kinda like (I can't resist) Trump's wannabe-handlers telling him not to encourage racists when it might mean less people will stroke his ego. He doesn't wanna do it.

He understands when he needs to produce a profit and when he can push for max growth. Right now it's the former.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

Brent crude oil prices are set to move beyond $80 per barrel, as expected. The surge I predicted is still on, primarily due to struggling Venezuela production, Iran sanctions, struggling US oil production and infrastructure bottlenecks out of Permian, as well as rising global energy demand.

As a reminder, each $1 per gallon increase in gasoline prices increases the relative value of owning an all-electric vehicle by $5,000: $2,500 during the first five-year ownership period and $2,500 in residual value. Higher fuel prices could in effect offset impact from lower tax credits in 2019.

 

[RobStark]

Following Ford North America.

Nissan exits Europe's compact car segment

"Nissan is ending sales of two compact cars in Europe and Russia, citing a consumer swing away toward utilities in the segment.

The electric Leaf is the only remaining non-SUV compact car sold by Nissan in Europe."

 

[larmor]

Was NIO the startup that Aramco wanted to acquire? The IPO wasn't as compelling as had thought, so if someone wants a large chunk of tesla, it remains a bargain, and the street can shift the 'you'll need cash to borrow' mantra to NIO now...

 

[Opus BC fan]

Nice positive press:

Tesla is releasing more battery capacity and giving free Supercharging to owners in Hurricane Florence’s path

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

This is interesting: Terms of Service Violation

“The burden for our company, such as the cost of bringing to market electric cars, will be higher than expected,” Diess said in a joint interview with labor head Bernd Osterloh in VW’s internal newsletter. “This is particularly so since some of our competitors have been making more progress.”

Gee, you mean Tesla won't sit still and wait for you to catchup and fulfill every short-seller's wetdream? Who woulda-thunk-it!?!

 

[avoigt]

This is interesting: Terms of Service Violation

“The burden for our company, such as the cost of bringing to market electric cars, will be higher than expected,” Diess said in a joint interview with labor head Bernd Osterloh in VW’s internal newsletter. “This is particularly so since some of our competitors have been making more progress.”

Gee, you mean Tesla won't sit still and wait for you to catchup and fulfill every short-seller's wetdream? Who woulda-thunk-it!?!

Interesting!

"We need higher Profits to finance the future"

They are trying to achieve 4% but if they want to invest in innovation need 6% and claim to be save with 8%.

Step by step the large OEMs realize the burden they have to move an ICE production into an EV production. Most manufacturers still do not get that they loose the largest advantages of an EV if they only exchange the motor. Thats what Daimler and BMW (partly) doing. Sounds good for shareholder but every Engineer will warn them.

If you switch fully as announced from many its like you invent a new company in your shop floor. In that case its not only that you have the costs of building something new its also that you have the costs of getting rid of the old. So that is a double burden of production lines as well as labor.

And if you don't get rid of the old fast enough you will be get rid of..... fast enough.

 

[winfield100]

This is interesting: Terms of Service Violation

“The burden for our company, such as the cost of bringing to market electric cars, will be higher than expected,” Diess said in a joint interview with labor head Bernd Osterloh in VW’s internal newsletter. “This is particularly so since some of our competitors have been making more progress.”

Gee, you mean Tesla won't sit still and wait for you to catchup and fulfill every short-seller's wetdream? Who woulda-thunk-it!?!

"VW CEO Warns of Higher Than Expected Electric Car Costs"

 

[UrsS]

It seems semi will go to mass production earlier than Y. Could anyone point out why tsla takes this route? iirc Y would have higher margin than semi?

Elon has stated over and over again that he wants to get us (humanity) away from burning carbon. In this forum it has been discussed ad nauseam how much fossil fuels would remain in the ground if the trucking industry would switch to electric - much more than any amount of Model 3s or Ys ever could.
So, in order to get closer to the stated goal the Semi should have priority. The only question is, who is going to pay to get there. And that is the 'job' of Model 3.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Look at Elon's popularity (looking at Wikipedia traffic):
The Celebrity Billboard Project

 

[dhrivnak]

No I would say ignoring charging efficiency and vampire drain is even more misleading to the casual driver than what you're asserting. Long range trip pushing the limits of the pack is still a rare thing. A driver in the course of a normal week will come up against these two repeatedly, while almost never coming up into a absolute range issue. If the mean commute distance is 14 miles, and you're losing 50-100% of that in vampire drain, WTF, really.

I think you are greatly overestimating vampire drain. We left our Model 3 Monday morning with 277 miles and it was unplugged. 2 1/2 days later, 60 hours we are at 274 miles. So right at a mile/day.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Nice positive press:

Tesla is releasing more battery capacity and giving free Supercharging to owners in Hurricane Florence’s path

The last time Tesla did this they were painted as money-grubbing a**holes for artificially limiting cars that people bought and ought to have full use of.

 

[avoigt]

Ordered 3 days ago, getting delivery within 6 days. (3 days maybe, 6 days definitely!) • r/teslamotors

This is what we may see here:

Production processes where many steps are involved are usually calculated in batches or lots. There are calculations and formulas to determine what the optimal batch size is in order to achieve the best output. This is what you learn as an Engineer. So far Tesla has produced cars based on customer orders. So you don't calculate as input may be missing but just determine a lot size. By doing that you loose efficiency in the production and your output will be lower. There are many reasons why it is like that and I do not want to dive too deeply here. Its boring stuff..

What Tesla seems to do now is to work with the optimal lot size to maximize the units produced. When you do that you may have an overhang of products you cannot allocate to customers because the produced variation has not customer order behind or the customer order is not in the region where you want to deliver.

Long story short Tesla has cars in a specific variation that they want to deliver in a specific region but there is not yet an order. They put the car in a parking lot and once the order arrives it can be delivered within days. Parking lots are limited so there is a high priority to get this stock out to customers. Thats what likely is happening here. Nothing special just very normal in any kind of production environment.

 

[gora321]

My mind is with people who suffers this:

 

[SlicedBr3ad]

My mind is with people who suffers this:

as a person who may be affected by Issac. Please send good vibes!

 

[JRP3]

John McElroy becomes a Tesla fan How I Drank the Tesla Kool-Aid and Became a Believer

If other automotive journalists got to experience a Tesla like I did, it would likely generate a new group of enthusiastic supporters.

 

[JRP3]

You might be able to get your own Boring hookup to your garage Boring Company approved to build a tunnel entrance inside a residential garage

 

[mltv]

You might be able to get your own Boring hookup to your garage Boring Company approved to build a tunnel entrance inside a residential garage

Can't you just park your car in the tunnel or above the tunnel (under your house), why a garage is necessary anymore.

 

[mongo]

Can't you just park your car in the tunnel or above the tunnel (under your house), why a garage is necessary anymore.

For efficiency, rather than individual side tunnels, then could run a branch tunnel under multiple garages. There is also the practicality aspect. You have a car full of groceries or you need to put the kids and their stuff in the car. Much easier to load / unload the car in your garage than take s personal elevator multiple times. Which does pose the question of inspection requirements, I think people elevators need inspected every year, perhaps inspection and on site annual vehicle service at one low price?

Also need the garage for access to local road system for a run to the corner store.

I do wonder about limiting unwanted access and the issue of garage chemicals entering the system...

As stated elsewhere, this seems to make the most sense for apartments / condos/ malls/ airports/ hotels, but is currently being vetted in the single spot case with the test tunnel.