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

[StarFoxisDown!]

This. This is the reason I finally pulled the trigger and sold my Rivian position yesterday (at a decent short term profit). First strike was their lack of communications regarding deliveries. Second was yet another delay to April or later. But it is this that is most concerning. Tesla has been raising prices as inputs and inflation keep rising. Rivian hasn't.

Rivian not only has to prove it can manufacture at scale, but do so at positive margins...

The progression of Rivian has been very bizarre to me and quite honestly feels more and more "fishy" with each passing week.

Started out well, truck carved out a nice niche. Visually appealing, decent enough specs to have demand. Then this progression of events

- Massive fund raising, both privately and through IPO. Many times more than Tesla raised in their first 5 years.
- Amazon Van deal is announced. Sounds nice on first look but for a company with no manufacturing experience to be doing 3 separate vehicles (van, truck, suv) within the first year of ANY production seemed off
- Rivian/Ford deal announced with tech sharing.......but by Rivians own accords they have no real innovative tech. Nothing in their trucks, especially the drivetrain or battery is custom. They're buying off the shelf. They instead rely on gimmicks (nice gimmicks, but still gimmicks)
- Rivian announces plans for second factory even though no production has started in their first factory. This, IMO, was the biggest and most obvious red flag
- Reports come out about Amazon van specs not living up to the promised specs
- Ford cancels partnership deal
- Huge delivery delays.

Up next? 3-4 quarters of absolutely horrific earnings. As Cosmacelf said, Rivian hasn't adjusted prices for inflation and cost of goods. In my opinion, the reason the IPO was priced so high and so many shared offered was because Rivian is very aware that they're going to be burning an extraordinary amount of cash for the next 2 year minimum.

 

[Sudre]

GM is leading… they will be the first in bankruptcy.

Joke and prediction all in one go.

They were already the first in bankruptcy. I guess now they will be the first in second bankruptcy. THEY are working on a pre-bankruptcy bailout as we speak.

 

[RobDickinson]

The progression of Rivian has been very bizarre to me and quite honestly feels more and more "fishy" with each passing week.

Started out well, truck carved out a nice niche. Visually appealing, decent enough specs to have demand. Then this progression of events

- Massive fund raising, both privately and through IPO. Many times more than Tesla raised in their first 5 years.
- Amazon Van deal is announced. Sounds nice on first look but for a company with no manufacturing experience to be doing 3 separate vehicles (van, truck, suv) within the first year of ANY production seemed off
- Rivian/Ford deal announced with tech sharing.......but by Rivians own accords they have no real innovative tech. Nothing in their trucks, especially the drivetrain or battery is custom. They're buying off the shelf. They instead rely on gimmicks (nice gimmicks, but still gimmicks)
- Rivian announces plans for second factory even though no production has started in their first factory. This, IMO, was the biggest and most obvious red flag
- Reports come out about Amazon van specs not living up to the promised specs
- Ford cancels partnership deal
- Huge delivery delays.

The cells are off the shelf, the pack, invertor, charger, motors etc I have no idea I assume they are designed and built by Rivian

The report on the vans is pure BS, preproduction vans with no insulation that the drivers use with doors open, so what.

Personally what I think is that Amazon got their money in the door and seat on the board and pushed the company into doing the vans as priority 1.

Ford has since left the board and took a huge step back, out muscled , and I think scared of the new platform and would rather throw batteries into its own truck because its easier.

 

[StealthP3D]

Hopefully not too off topic but related to competition and margins. I wonder how Rivian is able to price the R1S starting at $70,000 compared to Tesla Model X that starts at $105,000. R1S has 35% bigger battery and two additional motors which along with lack of scale in manufacturing should make it more expensive?

Rivian is a start-up with access to billions in capital. They can price the R1S at whatever they want. Common sense says they would price it roughly as high as the market will bear, or slightly less to keep demand and interest high. In other words, Rivian's pricing is less connected to cost to produce and almost entirely market based. In time they will have to be able to prove they can produce at volume and for a profit but I suspect that is at least 2-4 years away (when they will have to show progress on being able to sell a price that is sustainable without a constant influx of new investor money). Tesla took around 8 years from when they went public to making profits but the EV industry was in a nascent stage and I suspect investors will expect Rivian to show good results sooner since they are not exactly pioneering modern EV's. Exactly how long will be determined by investor appetite and how much skill Rivian proves with their designs, reliability and manufacturing speed and efficiency.

 

[Cosmacelf]

The progression of Rivian has been very bizarre to me and quite honestly feels more and more "fishy" with each passing week.

Started out well, truck carved out a nice niche. Visually appealing, decent enough specs to have demand. Then this progression of events

- Massive fund raising, both privately and through IPO. Many times more than Tesla raised in their first 5 years.
- Amazon Van deal is announced. Sounds nice on first look but for a company with no manufacturing experience to be doing 3 separate vehicles (van, truck, suv) within the first year of ANY production seemed off
- Rivian/Ford deal announced with tech sharing.......but by Rivians own accords they have no real innovative tech. Nothing in their trucks, especially the drivetrain or battery is custom. They're buying off the shelf. They instead rely on gimmicks (nice gimmicks, but still gimmicks)
- Rivian announces plans for second factory even though no production has started in their first factory. This, IMO, was the biggest and most obvious red flag
- Reports come out about Amazon van specs not living up to the promised specs
- Ford cancels partnership deal
- Huge delivery delays.

Up next? 3-4 quarters of absolutely horrific earnings. As Cosmacelf said, Rivian hasn't adjusted prices for inflation and cost of goods. In my opinion, the reason the IPO was priced so high and so many shared offered was because Rivian is very aware that they're going to be burning an extraordinary amount of cash for the next 2 year minimum.

I agree with all those. The other red flag for me is that they keep spending a lot of money producing really slick marketing videos. Seems to be their core competency. BUT THEY SHOULDN'T NEED TO DO SO. They have or should have a multi year backlog of orders, so WTF? To me, that just speaks of management incompetence.

On the other hand, the R1T truck is a real truck and initial indications are that it is a nice vehicle.

On the other other other hand, Rivian is way behind building service centers. The company has zero sense of urgency.

RIVN may very well be a good stock buy - after the inevitable stock crash crater when their slow production, inability to pump out three vehicles at the same time, and probably negative margins catch up to them.

 

[DragonWatch]

GM is leading… they will be the first in bankruptcy.

Joke and prediction all in one go.

Forward Observing

I totally agree, problem is that I have kicked the runny dog poo out of them over the years.

Oh, and they might get another government buy out.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

All jokes aside....what are the chances a guy with a Tesla face tattoo isn't a poster here? It's pretty much a lock.

 

[Cattledog]

I agree with all those. The other red flag for me is that they keep spending a lot of money producing really slick marketing videos. Seems to be their core competency. BUT THEY SHOULDN'T NEED TO DO SO. They have or should have a multi year backlog of orders, so WTF? To me, that just speaks of management incompetence.

On the other hand, the R1T truck is a real truck and initial indications are that it is a nice vehicle.

On the other other other hand, Rivian is way behind building service centers. The company has zero sense of urgency.

RIVN may very well be a good stock buy - after the inevitable stock crash crater when their slow production, inability to pump out three vehicles at the same time, and probably negative margins catch up to them.

I've shared this a couple times - I worked on some work for Rivian, they appear to be disorganized without the brilliance to supersede their disorganization. Lucid may be similar. Polestar (GGIP) may be a better Place bet (horse racing analogy).

 

[ZachF]

Hopefully not too off topic but related to competition and margins. I wonder how Rivian is able to price the R1S starting at $70,000 compared to Tesla Model X that starts at $105,000. R1S has 35% bigger battery and two additional motors which along with lack of scale in manufacturing should make it more expensive?

In 2022 the margins on the X will probably be ~30% while Rivian will probably have negative margins for at least a couple years.

 

[DragonWatch]

Forward Observing

FYI ~ I’ve gone back to my military style haircut. Helps camouflage the tatoo.

FYI ~ I hide my MX in the garage ~ get a better charge out of it that way.

Cheers

 

[MC3OZ]

I've shared this a couple times - I worked on some work for Rivian, they appear to be disorganized without the brilliance to supersede their disorganization. Lucid may be similar. Polestar (GGIP) may be a better Place bet (horse racing analogy).

Another reason why it is hard is there is a lot more competition in 2022 than there was in 2012.
They are competing with Tesla, many Chinese car companies, VW, Daimler, Ford, etc.

The competition has more resources, more experience, deeper pockets, etc., it will be hard to make high margins during the start up phase,
And it may be very easy for the competition to increase volumes and lower prices, further squeezing margins,

Rivian and Lucid need a product attractive enough to enable high margins.. This is necessary because it is very expensive and risky to shoot for high volume production straight away. Even a big pile of cash can melt away fast.

IMO Lucid has some good features, and seems to have the right pricing.

For some reason I have a hunch 1 or 2 of these start ups will make it in the end. But that probably means 9 or 10 fail.

 

[ZachF]

All jokes aside....what are the chances a guy with a Tesla face tattoo isn't a poster here? It's pretty much a lock.

Sounds like the type of dude who would post numerology stuff…

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Futures looking very strong in the midnight hour. Insane China production rumors might be confirmed?

Perhaps I'll awaken from my slumber to Berlin up and running? First order of business.....figure out the best way to roll my 12/3 $1200c.

Nighty night!

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Elon likes to sell into green days. He's only 54% done.

 

[generalenthu]

Elon likes to sell into green days. He's only 54% done.

Was wondering about this. I think @Cosmacelf might have posted this, but can Elon have his 10b plan say, sell any day if it has been up for 2 days in a row and opens in the green a third day?

It just occurred to me that yes, that could be possible, but until now, i was just thinking the selling is going on preset days.

 

[printf42]

They were already the first in bankruptcy. I guess now they will be the first in second bankruptcy. THEY are working on a pre-bankruptcy bailout as we speak.

GM CEO couldn’t stop talking about their “robust work force who knows how to build EV”, very clearly sending the message that the administration has agenda to save their UAW friends no matter how screwed up GM is.

Oh btw, those workers who really knows how to build GM’s EVs are actually in Korea and work for LG, small technical detail no need to mention though.

IMHO this union subsidy thing has/will back fired so much that a bailout is questionable.

That entire interview sounds like inviting people to short their stock. Too convincing it’s a bit surreal.

Way OT, but a extreme case represents what kind of competition Tesla has on EV front.

 

[Ohmster]

Futures looking very strong in the midnight hour. Insane China production rumors might be confirmed?

Perhaps I'll awaken from my slumber to Berlin up and running? First order of business.....figure out the best way to roll my 12/3 $1200c.

Nighty night!

Let me know when you figure that one out. I have similar dilemma.

 

[WattsHappening]

And… the whistle is sold out.

Damnit, I've been swamped with work after turkey day weekend. Just catching up now and I see this.

$50 for a whistle? Are you crazy? Well yes, I must be. Unfortunately, I guess I'm out of luck.

 

[Tslynk67]

Apparitionly, they live...

View attachment 739172

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi folks,

Over 2.075M shares traded in the After-hrs session yesterday (an exceptionally high 7% of daily TSLA volume, especially given that Tuedays aren't Options Expiry days).

Now, in very early trading at the Tradegate borse in Berlin, TL.0 (Tesla) is trading at €1023.80 (equiv to $1,160.58)

Something's definately up in BERLIN, starting with the SP...

Cheers!