Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[Krugerrand]

There are relatively few people in this world that can *create* things, even fewer that can *create* new revolutionary things in a way never done before; and then there are a lot of people that can take things apart and find mistakes in the things created by first group.

Bravo!

 

[AlMc]

I am a Wheeler fan at this point because I believe he is capable of threading the needle of cost containment without stifling growth. I am hopeful he can stand up to EM, when needed. I give him a 'mulligan' on this situation and am hopeful of good things to come.

If he can pull this off I vote my small number of shares to support him for COO.

 

[Dwdnjck]

I counted 15 new X's at the San Diego delivery center this Thursday. They were new cars still with protective wraps and they were not there the previous week.

 

[Lump]

There are relatively few people in this world that can *create* things, even fewer that can *create* new revolutionary things in a way never done before.

I thought all public company's are expected to report financials accurately irregardless of the business they are in.

 

[uselesslogin]

Ok reading the X threads I believe the ramp is now really happening. VIN 751 is taking delivery Monday and VIN 29xx is saying March to late April. We could see more than 3k X deliveries this Q.

 

[anon]

Ok reading the X threads I believe the ramp is now really happening. VIN 751 is taking delivery Monday and VIN 29xx is saying March to late April. We could see more than 3k X deliveries this Q.

Also, judging from the e-mails that were sent out, telling people with higher VINs that there car will be built by the end of the month and delivered in April, there could be well over 4000 total X production for the quarter.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I thought all public company's are expected to report financials accurately irregardless of the business they are in.

Agreed.

I think that most reasonable people would recognize this for what it is at this point - just a petty grievance, immaterial because it did not apply to the actual financial statements.

To round up this important subject, I would like to bring a petty grievance of my own:

 

[FredTMC]

I am a Wheeler fan at this point because I believe he is capable of threading the needle of cost containment without stifling growth. I am hopeful he can stand up to EM, when needed. I give him a 'mulligan' on this situation and am hopeful of good things to come.

If he can pull this off I vote my small number of shares to support him for COO.

i think he did fine on the EC last time.

 

[dc_h]

Interesting note on the latest GF pictures, one end of the building is open where they are probably bringing in new hardware. It also looks like they won't close this end up, just start the next phase of construction when all phase 1 hardware is installed. They also poured concrete for two more sections last year, so they would be able to increase the phase 1 space by 50% very quickly.
Do we know if phase one is all dedicated to TE stationary systems, or will it include the full cell production for the Model 3? Getting pack production out of Freemont seems important, to open up space for the Model 3 line and have the Freemont line staff dedicated to vehicle assembly. Tesla's investment in the production equipment is limited, so if they plan a steady 300-400 million annually, then phase 2 should be starting fairly soon. Will be interested to see if any new construction permits are noted after Q1 is over.

Yes the current pilot plant can be in full production in 2017 (in fact of think in 2017 it would be larger than now). But still not at the 2020 full GF full production rate. The difference in production influences their bargaining power over suppliers of raw materials and ultimately impact their cost of the battery packs. If the 2020 full GF1 makes battery at $100/kWh cost level, the 2017 cost will be higher due to smaller scale of production.

 

[MitchJi]

wsj idiocy (commuter lane stickers!):

Voters Should Be Mad at Electric Cars
If Trump and Sanders fans hate absurd handouts to elites, the Tesla economy is the place to look.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
March 11, 2016 6:10 p.m. ET
How much subsidy is flowing to electric cars these days? An accidental experiment in California might open some eyes. California awards carpool-lane privileges to electric cars, but thanks to a legislative lapse ran out of the green stickers for plug-in hybrids. A local Ford dealer tells us that late-model hybrids with the sticker now fetch a $3,000 premium over the identical car without the sticker.

 

[dc_h]

Does make you wonder who at Tesla is reading the Forum, since this issue was picked up here first. Regarding him personally catching this, maybe. He seems focused strategically on smoothing investments out and measuring cash flow so the market can understand margins of the production business, versus long term investment. The Tesla is losing money on every car narrative is important to rebut and putting in place a holding company structure also seems like a coming initiative.

I'm not as concerned about him pouring over line items as guiding investments and putting in place controls to provide steadier results.

Wow. That does not reflect well on the new CFO at all. $173M error in reported book value : these are mistakes he personally should have caught.

 

[The Blue Owl]

Does make you wonder who at Tesla is reading the Forum, since this issue was picked up here first.

I thought it was Paulo Santos on Seeking Clicks.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I thought it was Paulo Santos on Seeking Clicks.

And "Montana S(k)eptic" before him. Seeking Clicks guys were tripping over each other over this - feeding frenzy...

 

[Fallenone]

There's definitely more constructions going on. I think I read somewhere (probably one of their filings last year, can't remember which) that 2016 phase 2 should be completed and phase 3 should begin.

Interesting note on the latest GF pictures, one end of the building is open where they are probably bringing in new hardware. It also looks like they won't close this end up, just start the next phase of construction when all phase 1 hardware is installed. They also poured concrete for two more sections last year, so they would be able to increase the phase 1 space by 50% very quickly.
Do we know if phase one is all dedicated to TE stationary systems, or will it include the full cell production for the Model 3? Getting pack production out of Freemont seems important, to open up space for the Model 3 line and have the Freemont line staff dedicated to vehicle assembly. Tesla's investment in the production equipment is limited, so if they plan a steady 300-400 million annually, then phase 2 should be starting fairly soon. Will be interested to see if any new construction permits are noted after Q1 is over.

 

[dmckinstry]

Agreed.

I think that most reasonable people would recognize this for what it is at this point - just a petty grievance, immaterial because it did not apply to the actual financial statements.

To round up this important subject, I would like to bring a petty grievance of my own:
View attachment 114687

I've had the same grievance since my spell checker tried to change "regardless" to "irregardless", i.e. from without regard to with regard. I looked up regardless in an online dictionary and saw that now "irregardless" is being accepted as the new norm. Ignorance prevails again.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Book value of SC network grew over $300M in 2015 (from 10K fillings).

That's over $75M per quarter, after amortization. Taking out $75M quarterly cost could make a difference for cash flow.
Not everyone will like that decision, but I for one trust that Tesla's mgmt has more info to judge this type of decision. And this is a decision, freely made. As opposed to f... up with X model ramp, which drives me mad too (though I don't doubt they work hard to fix it)...

Unrelated, anyone knows how many reputation points I need to get my second green button? I'm working hard here people

I'm going to feel like celebrity if my post (March 3rd!) started all this supercharger value noise. I _think_ this post triggered discussion on TM on value of network, that got picked up elsewhere.
I did make an error, reporting growth of network value as $300M, when it was around $230M, as I was working from the memory.

And yeah, it's immaterial. Glad we got to bottom of it. Even Paul Santos said that today, could you believe? Smart, trying to look objective.

Still working on my second green (72 points). Just saying ...

 

[vgrinshpun]

I'm going to feel like celebrity if my post (March 3rd!) started all this supercharger value noise. I _think_ this post triggered discussion on TM on value of network, that got picked up elsewhere.
I did make an error, reporting growth of network value as $300M, when it was around $230M, as I was working from the memory.

And yeah, it's immaterial. Glad we got to bottom of it. Even Paul Santos said that today, could you believe? Smart, trying to look objective.

Still working on my second green (72 points). Just saying ...

Looks like "Montana S(k) eptic" beat you by one hour and 41 minutes:smile:

 

[Johan]

Good find Zhelko, if it was in fact you who found it/put focus on it, leading to Tesla having to put out the correction. (I wonder how many such mistakes there are in quarterly reports of publicly traded companis that are overlooked by everyone and never corrected? Especially errors like this one where in place you put the wrong number but in the sheet from which all calculations the correct number is given?)

In fact I'll just quote this post from another thread, that states it beautifully:

For the first 10 or so years of my legal career I focused on securities transactions and did a lot of work with SEC filings. You have to distinguish the financial statements, which are the actual numbers for the financial condition of the company (and are usually in the "F" page section of SEC filings) with the narrative section in the body of a filing that discusses the financial condition in a plain english manner, known as Management's Discussion and Analysis" (MD&A). MD&A is the CFO's office attempt to give the average person a very high level discussion of what the numbers in the financial statements mean. Only accountants really can understand the financial statements, so MD&A tries to give investors the bottom line meaning of the financials and by definition, it's always going to be an informal and somewhat vague description. What I think happened here is that the number in the financials was correct but the person who wrote the MD&A didn't carry the right number into that narrative when discussing the supercharger valuation.

In other words, the financial disclosure numbers were right, the description of those numbers in the non-financial section of the filing was wrong. It happens. A lot.

But here's what I'm pondering now: is Tesla going to actually launch an app store (on the S/X) now after March 31 or at least during 2016, after announcing Model 3? And what would the potential value of a future such app market/ecosystem be. The direct economic value could be for Tesla to take a cut from all app sellers, like Apple who are make a lot of money on their closed app system. The indirect value of course would be how much having such an app ecosystem would increase demand.

 

[brian45011]

Looks like "Montana S(k) eptic" beat you by one hour and 41 minutes

He also posts on the Yahoo board. It appears the issue was first raised there by this poster:

"investor.gator • Feb 24, 2016 8:45 PM

* And one puzzling disclosure:

** A 50% increase in the number of supercharger locations (from 380 to 584) led to a 3x increase in the carrying value on the balance sheet: from $107.8 to $339.2. Is it getting that much more expensive to get new SC locations up and running.

** Looking at the 9/30 Q offers no help. The book value is listed at $152M for 536 locations as of 9/30

*** Between 9/30 and 12/31: did 48 new SC locations cause book value to increase by $187M (more than the value of all 380 combined as of $12/31/14)? "

 

[mmd]

I'm going to feel like celebrity if my post (March 3rd!) started all this supercharger value noise. I _think_ this post triggered discussion on TM on value of network, that got picked up elsewhere.
I did make an error, reporting growth of network value as $300M, when it was around $230M, as I was working from the memory.

And yeah, it's immaterial. Glad we got to bottom of it. Even Paul Santos said that today, could you believe? Smart, trying to look objective.

Still working on my second green (72 points). Just saying ...

LOL! Even if you were the first to point that out, you won't be getting any greens on this forum for that one Overstating book value of SC by more than its real value isn't a positive for TSLA. You have to sing the chorus with the choir to be up-voted, so the choir gets stronger and the chorus gets louder Some sample themes below:
a) Go TSLA Go! Death to the shorts and "market manipulators" keeping the stock down.
b) Tesla $400 by June. $1000 coming soon.
c) Hold TSLA till death! Pass it on to your grand children.

Posting factually correct data or singing your own song probably won't help you much. But honestly, I care a lot more about the "green" in my portfolio than the green bars next to my alias.