Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[uujjj2]

Rivian didn't raise even a Billion in 2009,2010, 2011, or 2012. Rivian has raised $10.5B since 2019.

It was building an ultra light four passenger sports car with intention of buying a 1 litre turbocharged gas engine from an OEM. It would be quicker than a corvette and get 80+ MPG. They were targeting 100 MPG.

RJ Scaringe drove a Model S in 2013. And decided to Pivot.

From MotorTrend( Elon's favorite legacy auto journalist) R1T has the fit,finish,and polish of the best in the business.

Lordstown looks like a hacked together effort. Couldn't finish half a race it entered in Baja California. CEO and CFO resigned for misrepresenting committed sales from potential buyers.

Hey, as a startup guy I respect a "hacked together effort" done quick and cheap. The Tesla Roadster was a "hacked together effort" too.

 

[Buckminster]

Idra casting machines needed:

2022
Roadster? - 1 machine
Semi (unlikely) - 0
Cybertruck - 2?

2023
Cybertruck - 2?
M2 - 8?

2024
M2 - 8?

2025
M3 - 4?

How many do they make a year? Above doesn't include S,X and importantly Y. Presumably several more needed in Austin and Berlin for Y. Tesla may need to start buying the M2 machines for receipt earlier than needed as Idra won't be able to produce them all at once.

 

[samppa]

I think you must have witnessed some street theatre by someone wanting to watch the reaction of Tesla drivers and/or make the point that Tesla STILL hasn't opened their network up to non-Tesla. I would think as soon as he held the charge handle in his hand he would realize that wasn't going to work.

Kind of like the Tesla driver who pulled into a gas station and acted confused that there was no hole to put gasoline in.

Not necessarily.. theres rumours around that they work. And in europe the connectors are physically the same CCS connectors.
I remember some time ago there was a supercharger in Germany where non-tesla vehicles could charge - charger was still lacking correct firmware for handshakes, so any car could charge. That lasted a day or two.

 

[Knightshade]

In this environment I suspect the NA take rate for Premium connectivity might well exceed 50%. There should be margins close to 80% on that feature, so even, say, a half million subscriptions should yield ~$48 million for next year alone.

That profit margin seems super high to me?

Tesla has to pay AT&T for the unlimited LTE plan for each subscriber out of the $9.99 they collect, plus whatever they pay slacker per subscription, etc...plus whatever minor admin costs are involved in making all that happen.

 

[henchman24]

I think we are closer to 240k than 220k this quarter. I agree, the Model S deliveries this quarter will tip the scale either way:
View attachment 709553

I expect that Shanghai deliveries in Q3 will exceed production as they have been building inventory all year and also came into the year with inventory in transit.

Shanghai entered the year with 3,496 units in inventory and so far this year they have produced 7,447 more cars than delivered leaving them with 10.943 cars in inventory/transit. With the Q3 wave push that Elon encouraged in his recent email, I expect deliveries for Sep to exceed production in SGH as was the case in August. It will come down to logistics execution.

View attachment 709559

I think 220k is certainly the baseline right now. ~5k S and ~3k inventory reduction/slight efficiency improvements puts 228k in reach and is my rough expectation. If S really is 11+k we are in the low to mid 230s. I think that is still a bit aggressive for S, but anecdotally, deliveries are picking up with September deliveries. Or Fremont having some 3/Y significant efficiency upticks combined with some inventory reduction could push 230k without the S.

That said 235k with 4-5k S vs 230k with 10-11k S are far different to me. Not only in margin, but execution. The S refresh has been a bit of a boondoggle that has cast doubt on Tesla being able to ramp (after seemingly ramping the Y with little issues especially in Shanghai). It is allowing execution questions creep into projections. 10k S would go a long ways to showing they have it under control and should be able to execute future products a lot better once the chip shortage eases.

Hitting 240 and having 11k S would be an absolute home run of a quarter. That puts a lot of questions at ease that have been clouding the stock since Q1.

 

[lafrisbee]

The only thing I've got for you is that is the new TSLA whale, KoGuan Leo, has bought up 1.2+ million shares in the past week or so.

Because he's a shareholder of record, he won't be deceived by counterfeit shares (he'll be able to verify his holdings with the share issuing agency).

So the MMs/hedgies shorting TSLA last Friday and again Monday now have to scramble to locate a large number of shares in a short time to avoid an FTD report.

Go Whalers! (extinct Harford hockey team reference)

Cheers!

People also ask:​

​

What happens when a short seller fails to deliver?

Subsequently, the pending failure to deliver creates what are called "phantom shares" in the marketplace, which may dilute the price of the underlying stock. In other words, the buyer on the other side of such trades may own shares, on paper, which do not actually exist.

Failure To Deliver (FTD) Definition - Investopedia​

Yeah but? help me out....so KoGuan Leo bought 1.2 million shares last week. Some/Most of them from "Phantom Sources" at $750.
And I am assuming here but it is very logical that the people that sold those phantom shares are able to buy real shares back for less this week?
If this is correct (and logic and facts seem to hold to it being fact), then the people that did that are geniuses (with very large testicles_ My Opinion).
?

 

[MP3Mike]

That profit margin seems super high to me?

Tesla has to pay AT&T for the unlimited LTE plan for each subscriber out of the $9.99 they collect, plus whatever they pay slacker per subscription, etc...plus whatever minor admin costs are involved in making all that happen.

But Tesla is already paying for the AT&T connection and Slacker regardless of if the person subscribes to Premium Connectivity or not. So they would only have to pay for any additional data used. (Assuming they pay per byte for data and they don't have a unlimited plan.)

 

[phantasms]

So where are we thinking we will go by Friday, with all the “triple witching” shenanigans?

738 is my vote.

 

[22522]

Elon made the point that it's hard to change the wheels of a bus going 80mph on the highway in his interview with Sandy Munro. Casting will come to Model 3 but not right now.

As a rule of thumb, [math based], stiffness goes as the thickness cubed. [If the face sheets have an effective shear layer between them.]

 

[The Accountant]

11,300 might be high for S&X. Doesn't look like any X deliveries yet. Based on my vin it looks like 5000+ is more realistic although there might be already produced vins previously that have been delivered. There are some still in containment hold for parts as well as refused deliveries. However, I hope I am wrong!

Here's the good news. Let's use @henchman24 baseline of 220k deliveries (vs my 240k) and change Model S to 5,000 units.
We still get:

Revenues: $13.4B - a new all time record
Gross Profit: $3.3B - a new all time record
Operating Inc: $1.7B - a new all time record
GAAP Earnings: $1.5B - a new all time record
NonGaap Earnings: $2.0B - a new all time record
And the $1.73 EPS still beats WS consensus of $1.45

I don't show it below, but 220k deliveries gets about $1.5B in Free Cash Flow

Table on the Left shows Q3 forecast vs Q3 2020
Table on the Right shows Q3 forecast vs Q2 2021

 

[Mengy]

Here's the good news. Let's use @henchman24 baseline of 220k deliveries (vs my 240k) and change Model S to 5,000 units.
We still get:

Revenues: $13.4B - a new all time record
Gross Profit: $3.3B - a new all time record
Operating Inc: $1.7B - a new all time record
GAAP Earnings: $1.5B - a new all time record
NonGaap Earnings: $2.0B - a new all time record
And the $1.73 EPS still beats WS consensus of $1.45

I don't show it below, but 220k deliveries gets about $1.5B in Free Cash Flow

Table on the Left shows Q3 forecast vs Q3 2020
Table on the Right shows Q3 forecast vs Q2 2021
View attachment 709583

Yeah, I really think Q3 is going to be a monster quarter for Tesla. It just seems to be inevitable.

 

[The Accountant]

Yeah, I really think Q3 is going to be a monster quarter for Tesla. It just seems to be inevitable.

Can you imagine what Q4 will look like?

 

[NicoV]

Do you have any way of appraising how comprehensive of updates this allows? My understanding was that the ID3 and ID4 would never have the ability to update ALL software over-the-air due to so many modules running isolated software that is not accessible by the system software.

The article says this about this update to v2.3: “Wat houdt deze update precies in? Nou, het ID.Light (de lichtbalk die onder voorruit zit) biedt nu bijvoorbeeld “intuïtieve ondersteuning” voor energiebesparend rijden. Dat had je vast niet gemist, maar wie weet rijdt je straks opeens een stuk efficiënter. Waar je wellicht meer aan hebt: de camera herkent nu sneller motorrijders en andere weggebruikers. En zo zijn er nog wat kleine verbeteringen her en der.”
Translated:
“The ID.Light (a light strip under the windshield) supports intuitive support for energy efficient driving. More usefull: the camera recognises motor drivers and other drivers faster. And some small improvements here and there”
Rather underwhelming. There will be about 4 of these updates per year.
This is for the free updates, there will also be paying upgrades with hopefully more elaborate functionality.

 

[Todd Burch]

Yep. Should start seeing that gradual recovery now. It's like it's literally programmed into the MM's automated trades, to stop at 10:30 Eastern.

LOL and that's exactly what happened. Again.

 

[Knightshade]

But Tesla is already paying for the AT&T connection and Slacker regardless of if the person subscribes to Premium Connectivity or not. So they would only have to pay for any additional data used. (Assuming they pay per byte for data and they don't have a unlimited plan.)

That's why I specified unlimited plan in what you quote.

Data needs without PC are quite low, relegating most data hungry features to wifi only. With PC however you can be streaming movies, music, etc all the time.

I'm giving credit to Tesla for NOT paying for unlimited on cars without PC, as that'd be a waste of $- thus the unlimited cost comes out of that $9.99 (as does slacker sub cost, admin cost, etc).

If anyone has "real" numbers on how cheap AT&T sells this stuff wholesale I'd love to see em... I know they charge 10-20 bucks a month retail in cars for it.. (and slacker gets $3.99/mo retail for the music sub)

 

[henchman24]

Here's the good news. Let's use @henchman24 baseline of 220k deliveries (vs my 240k) and change Model S to 5,000 units.
We still get:

Revenues: $13.4B - a new all time record
Gross Profit: $3.3B - a new all time record
Operating Inc: $1.7B - a new all time record
GAAP Earnings: $1.5B - a new all time record
NonGaap Earnings: $2.0B - a new all time record
And the $1.73 EPS still beats WS consensus of $1.45

I don't show it below, but 220k deliveries gets about $1.5B in Free Cash Flow

Table on the Left shows Q3 forecast vs Q3 2020
Table on the Right shows Q3 forecast vs Q2 2021
View attachment 709583

Yup, I think either way we are going to see a massive quarter.

Tesla is getting close to the point where questions on FCF and what are they going to do with it will have to be answered. I hope the next factory announcement and expansion of Shanghai for the 25k model are just around the corner.

 

[Knightshade]

So where are we thinking we will go by Friday, with all the “triple witching” shenanigans?

OI chart looks like $735.01 would be ideal though $739.99 is about as good

 

[lafrisbee]

Crap, I am lost....
maxpain is still? $700?
Stock Option Max Pain

 

[Knightshade]

Crap, I am lost....
maxpain is still? $700?
Stock Option Max Pain

It is, but that only tells you part of the story... there's lots of puts at 400, 500, and 600 that have no relevance to the closing price this week... look at the OI chart anywhere near current SP though.

There's a massive put wall at 700, but also a quite big one at 720.

Puts still outnumber calls (by increasingly smaller amounts) up through 735.

Then at 740 calls outnumber puts by a bit, and by 750 calls outnumber puts by a lot.

Hence at a glance 735.01-739.99 would be the "practical" ideal close for the most options to expire worthless despite the mathematically max pain being 700.

 

[Krugerrand]

Well based off the leverage of legacy auto and UAW with our current politicians to pull off a ridiculous $4,500 credit....it's possible that the NHTSA might be weaponized to stop Tesla's AP & FSD in their tracks. It would be a windfall for legacy auto just like the EV union-made credit. I don't think this is likely, but it's not as impossible as it was $4,500 ago....

They can try and they might be, but they won’t succeed; way too late in the game. Elon and Tesla are too powerful now.