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

[capster]

The amount of increased demand for EVs and Tesla took Tesla execs by surprise. .. :O

Called it.

Salient bit:

tl;dr: Pandemic drives change of fashion which plays into Tesla’s advantages ‘cause we are still primates.

Full post:

Congrats!

I have an inkling what is happening. It’s based on a cocktail party theory of mine which I think is actually true.

Whenever there is a major economic or societal disruption, fashions change—and they change for a reason:

Fashions are fitness markers in the evolutionary sense of the word. We humans use stuff to strut our stuff. That is, we display our goods to show we are fit mates and to maintain our status in the group.

After there is an upheaval, fashions change so that folks are required to spend on the new fashions if they want to show they are still fit. If you’re running around in last season‘s clothes or have that dated purse or car, your fitness comes into question.

If you think you’re immune, think again. A former neighbor who always has the best wines, the top of the line Model S, and the Model 3 performance for the academic hubby as well as recently buying a large power cruiser is quoted to have said to her kids "we don’t do status symbols" (pretty much gets a ”Whaaat?" and a laugh from anyone who knows her).

tl;dr: Pandemic drives change of fashion which plays into Tesla’s advantages ‘cause we are still primates.

 

[Dancing Lemur]

The FSD beta had 150K users click The Button, who drove 100M miles and were 30% less likely to have an accident compared to the rest of the fleet.

Whatever the reasons for the difference, that’s significant, and shows how the insurance product could actually make drivers safer.

 

[StealthP3D]

I already thought Zach would be the next CEO, and him leading the call makes it pretty clear that's the plan. I think he'll do great and wall street will love having a more traditional CEO who can devote himself full-time to the job. Elon key person risk will be reduced dramatically when he's no longer CEO.

The risk of losing Elon would be because Tesla no longer had Elon. Him leaving early doesn't get rid of the risk, it ensures it. Fortunately, he's made it clear he doesn't plan to leave for at least 5 years. I think when he does finally step down, Tesla will be in an even stronger position than they are now and people will WANT to follow in his footsteps.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Gene Munster on Bloomberg with great interview. "In 3 years Tesla will have Apple-like gross margins"

Also Ark Invest's Keeney: Tesla Is Pulling Ahead of Peers | Bloomberg Technology on Youtube (26 min ago)

 

[MP3Mike]

The Insurance industry will only be impacted by Berlin, Austin, Fremont and Shanghai. The insurance is limited to those four. So the percent of market share Tesla Insurance can take is a small fraction, and will be for a long time.

Huh? Sure that is where Tesla make cars. But their plan is to offer insurance in every market that they sell cars. And Tesla vehicles are probably some of the bread-and-butter insurance sales, so taking them away from the incumbents is a big deal.

 

[StealthP3D]

The FSD beta had 150K users click The Button, who drove 100M miles and were 30% less likely to have an accident compared to the rest of the fleet.

Whatever the reasons for the difference, that’s significant, and shows how the insurance product could actually make drivers safer.

If that's what it takes to save money on future insurance costs I'll just have to budget for 400% higher cost insurance! No way am I going to drive the rest of my life like I'm on opiates!

Just kidding. I haven't had a budget since 1988.

 

[Mike Smith]

The risk of losing Elon would be because Tesla no longer had Elon. Him leaving early doesn't get rid of the risk, it ensures it. Fortunately, he's made it clear he doesn't plan to leave for at least 5 years. I think when he does finally step down, Tesla will be in an even stronger position than they are now and people will WANT to follow in his footsteps.

They'd still have Elon - he's said he'll be with the company long term, just not as CEO. Having a separate CEO reduces key person risk.

 

[Gigapress]

I already thought Zach would be the next CEO, and him leading the call makes it pretty clear that's the plan. I think he'll do great and wall street will love having a more traditional CEO who can devote himself full-time to the job. Elon key person risk will be reduced dramatically when he's no longer CEO.

Drew Baglino more likely. Zach is Master of Coin, but Tesla's top spot is for the Technoking which needs to be an engineer. Zach has an engineering degree but Drew has been an engineering leader at Tesla since 2006.

 

[Mike Smith]

Drew Baglino more likely. Zach is Master of Coin, but Tesla's top spot is for the Technoking which needs to be an engineer. Zach has an engineering degree but Drew has been an engineering leader at Tesla since 2006.

Elon wouldn't be leaving as Technoking, just as CEO. The whole reason he wants to step down as CEO is so he can focus on being Technoking. The only reason he hasn't done it yet is because he couldn't find the right person to be CEO, but Zach seems to be the guy.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Very good earnings conference call. Not once did I find myself muttering "Please STFU and just say 'We can't talk about that at this time. Next question!'" They could have generally been a bit more positive, rather than constantly harping on how difficult the environment is now. By that I mean, start with "Here's how we are handling that problem...." But that's a nitpick. In general, on earnings calls boring is best.

One new question this brought up for me is whether there is a limit to how many different things Tesla can "intensely focus" on.

 

[ZeApelido]

Drew Baglino more likely. Zach is Master of Coin, but Tesla's top spot is for the Technoking which needs to be an engineer. Zach has an engineering degree but Drew has been an engineering leader at Tesla since 2006.

Throwing my hat in.

I have many engineering degrees, invested in Bitcoin years ago, and have learned finance from this thread.

 

[mltv]

Sandy rants so I don't have to

 

[jhm]

Actual PE is kinda pointless since we're now in the bendy part of the S-curve. Is PE calculated off non-GAAP?

If so........860/(.8+.93+1.45+1.86) = 171

A version of forward looking.......860/(1.86*4) = 116

Rapidly headed to Ben Graham cigarette butt levels.

 

[Artful Dodger]

As previously discussed here on Aug 29th, Tesla has confirmed that the new building in the NE corner of the Giga Shanghai plot is indeed the new China R&D Center: (image extracted from TSLA-Q3-2021-Quarterly-Update.pdf)

Cheers!

 

[jhm]

@jhm

That's a rather long and possibly informative post that will be burried because of the Earnings Call. Interesting timing.

Ha! Thanks. Truth is, I was so absorbed with writing it forgot all about the earnings report. And then after I posted it, I thought, Oh, damn, that's bad timing; no one will read it now.

Here's to an excellent Q3, cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Ha! Thanks. Truth is, I was so absorbed with writing it forgot all about the earnings report. And then after I posted it, I thought, Oh, damn, that's bad timing; no one will read it now.

Here's to an excellent Q3, cheers!

No, thank you! Check for your post over in the "Moderator's Choice" posts-of-merit thread. It's already been nominated...

Cheers!

 

[geometro]

Good call… very tight and a lot to be proud of. Liked the tone and direction, but think Elon needs to join at least once per year… a lot of what was discussed was by the folks executing extremely well and understand the plan, but Elon introduces some intrigue and drama which I actually missed.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The FSD beta had 150K users click The Button, who drove 100M miles and were 30% less likely to have an accident compared to the rest of the fleet.

Whatever the reasons for the difference, that’s significant, and shows how the insurance product could actually make drivers safer.

Yeah, 30% safer by Zach's numbers. Wasn't it some jack*** over at Consumer Reports that was whinging about how the 'safety score could lead to more accidents'? What a jerk.

Cheers!

 

[MP3Mike]

Good call… very tight and a lot to be proud of. Liked the tone and direction, but think Elon needs to join at least once per year… a lot of what was discussed was by the folks executing extremely well and understand the plan, but Elon introduces some intrigue and drama which I actually missed.

Well we just had Elon at the annual shareholders meeting two weeks ago. Maybe he will do that every year.

 

[StealthP3D]

They'd still have Elon - he's said he'll be with the company long term, just not as CEO. Having a separate CEO reduces key person risk.

I don't really see that's how things work at Tesla because the top people work as a team. That's why they make up fanciful titles for themselves like "Master of Coin" and "Techno-King", they are just making fun of traditional corporate structure and compartmentalization. Whether Elon is called CEO or not won't really matter, whoever is in that position will still take their lead from him. I think if you went inside the corporate offices you would find other team members doing many of the things that a CEO typically does and find Elon doing many things that would typically be delegated to an underling.