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

[SOULPEDL]

I'm aghast. Most of the questions are remarkably stupid. They seem to fall into 4 equally-weighted categories:

1. Questions recently answered elsewhere.
2. Questions they definitely won't answer at all.
3. Questions that are just too stupid to acknowledge.
4. Questions that are genuinely helpful.

Here's to hoping that only the last kind get up-voted.

This was my question, any better?

ANONYMOUS RETAIL INVESTOR ASKS
How do you know that I closed my Center Console Door too quickly?

(Edit: Was rejected. but I figured it out.)

 

[Electroman]

This was my question, any better?

ANONYMOUS RETAIL INVESTOR ASKS
How do you know that I closed my Center Console Door too quickly?

(Edit: Was rejected. but I figured it out.)

Actually I am curious too.. (not that I would ask such questions in a Shareholder meeting though)

 

[Mengy]

Welp the day started out good but now it just feels like the usual 10:30 walk down.

Still, should be an interesting week for us TSLA holders.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Wow David Einhorn takes a stake in twitter
What a bitter loser

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I wonder how Jim Chanos is doing these days?

 

[SOULPEDL]

This is not new news whatsoever. Expressing the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline in its standard physics units of ~33.5kWh simply goes to show how inefficient internal combustion is. My OG P85 contains the same energy as about 2.5 U.S. gallons of gasoline. But it still gets EPA 265 miles of range. If a F150 with a 25-gallon tank had the same efficiency, it would have an EPA range of 2,650 miles!!!

When this simple statement of physics reaches more people, they'll realise how bad ICE has been all these years.

Edit: I see @growler23 said basically the same thing already

Well, I was amazed anyway, so new to me.

I came into electrification straight from ICE, so no Hybrid or PHEV background. My early test drive was a joke and I never looked back. So I'm learning more as I hear about how this is getting tied to the bill somehow, and many here expressed frustration by this. I followed in posture, then realized I didn't even know the difference between the two systems. The more I read on this, the more I needed to listen.

I really should actually work some today, but I'll share this for any other folks out there who are also coming up to speed. Looking forward to understanding this more, thanks for all the input.

These are links to energy.gov website with some other forms of locomotion off to the right side. In discussion, I suspect when people say "Hybrid" they could actually mean PHEV or either. I did notice how someone qualified it earlier today in their post. Thanks, that person!

Hybrid
PHEV

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Did Pelosi land in Taiwan already a day early? asking for a friend

 

[thesmokingman]

Welp the day started out good but now it just feels like the usual 10:30 walk down.

Still, should be an interesting week for us TSLA holders.

Now I'm starting to get annoyed.

 

[Max Plaid]

In theory yes. The most option pricing models include the risk free interest rate which is basically the fed discount rate.

In practice the market and stock volatility far out weigh this factor as a pricing mechanism.

An option's sensitivity to the risk-free interest rate is measured by the greek Rho... but indeed it has little bearing on the prices for folks like us

 

[Singuy]

Did Pelosi land in Taiwan already a day early? asking for a friend

Probably has something to do with it, Pelosi visiting Taiwan which potentially can lead to ...something. Vix is way up more than you expect given current market condition. Guess people are putting in their puts for any potentially impending doomsday scenario.

 

[StealthP3D]

Exactly. It's almost like Elon planned to flood the market with shares knowing hedgies and MM's would take the extra float and push SP down 50%. Then all these new employees come on board and instantly see a 100% appreciation of their options.

Tightening the float via share split looks to be doing wonders for clearing out the synthetic short shares, then the EPS deluge begins in earnest by mid October. Glorious.

MM's will be fine with it too, since they can now screw over all the CC and call spread sellers. They'll be gobbling up their shares for $850-1050 all the way to Christmas with SP at ATH. Must be nice.

I don't think it will be all roses for market makers. I understand the mindset of these Wall Street market maker types and it's about as far from an investor mindset as you can get. Don't get me wrong, they are smart and make a lot of money, but they don't know very much about the bigger world, including Tesla. They are experts in their own little world, they own it, it's easy for them. But many things that are simple for you and me, they know nothing about. Here's an example from another "industry":

My neighbor was a retired Rear Admiral in the Navy. As a young man he went to Annapolis and learned to sail small craft and the craft of general seamanship. Through his career he rose through the ranks and was charged with progressively more important Navy boats until eventually, he commanded an aircraft carrier, including it's entire battlegroup consisting of destroyers, cruisers and other auxiliary craft working support roles including a fast attack nuclear submarine. You don't rise to this kind of position without being competent and, indeed, he was an impressive and likeable man. In his retirement he bought a pleasure boat and he and his wife invited us for a day cruise. Imagine my surprise when I learned he didn't know how to start his own outboard engine in perfect condition after spending his lifetime on the water! He had someone else to do that for him. He knew how to do more important things. This was a shocking realization for me.

Wall Street market makers are no different, they know what they know and no more. They also tend to be very biased against anything that is different from what they know. They don't know much about cars, someone else takes care of that for them (if they even bother to own one). They don't know much about investing as they have an investment advisor that takes care of those details. They know stock trading, options, and everything having to do with that. The underlying securities? They really don't have well-informed opinions on those. They have strong opinions (because they are naturally cocky) but their opinions tend to based more on internal biases rather than actual facts. And they don't need to be experts here, their job is all about statistics and compliance rules and regulations, favors, trust, and supply and demand. Most of them have had a dim view of EV's and people like Elon Musk forever and the success of Tesla has them more than a little confused. But they still don't understand the business fundamentals driving this success, they think of it as a fad. The point is, they continue to under-estimate TSLA's unusual potential and include it when that kind of judgement is called for. Normally that kind of judgement is not called for. But market makers are also wheeler-dealers because extra profits can be made. And the more they play fast and loose, the more actual judgement they need. That is judgement they tend to not have, especially around TSLA because TSLA is not like the rest. This means they can be burned again.

It's impossible to know how much learning the market makers have benefited from during the pain of the last TSLA split but my guess is they are almost as uninformed as ever and still under-estimating how little even very high prices might deter demand once Tesla has released the numbers and everyone wants a piece of TSLA. They are probably a little more cautious and a little less cocky. We will see. This recent run has been a warning flag and probably scared a bit of sense into them, but we have no way to know how exposed they still are and how much they are under-estimating the potential of this company that does not follow the same rules as the rest. Their exposure is supposed to be limited to that which is necessary to carry out their market maker duties on a day-to-day basis, but we know it's not. The other thing we know is the stock split is going to happen and will force them into accounting for every last share they have sold, whether it was fabricated from thin air or not. I look forward to watching this unfold (again). I can't promise it will be as dramatic, and common sense says it won't be, but common sense is not always correct.

 

[henchman24]

Welp the day started out good but now it just feels like the usual 10:30 walk down.

Still, should be an interesting week for us TSLA holders.

It is going to be swing filled. Uncertainty with the reaction tomorrow, in the midst of squeeze (that could pop once pressure subsides), shareholder's meeting, possible split execution date, etc. Keeps people on their toes!

People should expect that any moment of weakness after the run of the last 2 weeks is going to get pounced on hard. There is simply too much money at stake for it not to be.

On a different note... the GME share split via dividend is going really, really poorly. Shares are not able to be accounted for to split properly.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Green!

 

[H Mak]

Green!

@StarFoxisDown! will be doing cartwheels across his lawn

 

[Causalien]

Did Pelosi land in Taiwan already a day early? asking for a friend

no,

Original projection was August 4th. Newer source says 3rd. So a day earlier. But not today.

There are a couple of planes that landed in Japan which raised a few eyebrows. including 9 refueling planes that can service 4~6 fighters each.

 

[thesmokingman]

Imagine my surprise when I learned he didn't know how to start his own outboard engine in perfect condition after spending his lifetime on the water! He had someone else to do that for him. He knew how to do more important things. This was a shocking realization for me.

I had a college mate that was an engineer for IBM, who worked at Citi (contract) at one of their data centers in CHI. Anyways he moved back home to socal and we hung out. He ended up asking me for help building him a PC. I'm like wtf, you work on mainframes yet don't know how to put a PC together? Insane... just one of those things that make you huh?

 

[AudubonB]

What are the odds that The Usual Suspects cannot keep inane and inflammatory political posts from drooling out of various orifices?

Two posts deleted.

 

[MABMAB]

What are the odds that The Usual Suspects cannot keep inane and inflammatory political posts from drooling out of various orifices?

Two posts deleted.

 

[Big Time]

900 makes me warm and fuzzy inside

 

[UltradoomY]

900 makes me warm and fuzzy inside

Spank machine warming up?

 

[growler23]

Well, I was amazed anyway, so new to me.

I came into electrification straight from ICE, so no Hybrid or PHEV background. My early test drive was a joke and I never looked back. So I'm learning more as I hear about how this is getting tied to the bill somehow, and many here expressed frustration by this. I followed in posture, then realized I didn't even know the difference between the two systems. The more I read on this, the more I needed to listen.

I really should actually work some today, but I'll share this for any other folks out there who are also coming up to speed. Looking forward to understanding this more, thanks for all the input.

These are links to energy.gov website with some other forms of locomotion off to the right side. In discussion, I suspect when people say "Hybrid" they could actually mean PHEV or either. I did notice how someone qualified it earlier today in their post. Thanks, that person!

Hybrid
PHEV

Greatly appreciate the candor you show here, and the being open to learning. That's what can keep pulling us from the brink of groupthink. Well played, @SOULPEDL, well played...
That might have been me earlier, distinguishing between hybrid and plug-in hybrid. I often forget how being an engineer and decade+ hybrid owner made me deep dive into a lot of this stuff. Imagination was captured way back in the early aughts...
A plain vanilla (non-PHEV) hybrid, when well made, basically uses the electric motor + battery to keep the gas engine in its most efficient operating regime, allowing you to achieve far better mileage (like Prius) or only slightly better mileage (any GM "2-mode" hybrid, if you remember those). So vanilla "hybrid" has no plug and therefore no external energy source. Therefore by physics (aka First Principles) you could never exceed the thermodynamic efficiency limits of the ICE (roughly 40%) since there is no external power source beyond gasoline - you could just approach those limits much closer than the typical ICE implementation, and (importantly for me and I bet others here) you got a taste of short distances of all-electric operation. Man, I loved those little all-electric stretches. Definitely pushed me further towards EV, which admittedly was already a direction I was pointed in.
Even in the realm of straight hybrid, there is much gas to be saved. @TN Mtn Man I believe gave a synopsis of the Prius Hybrid Synergy Drive, which is actually a worthy work of art: subtle, rugged, and flexible in many modes of operation. Perhaps similar in some ways to the Octovalve, although I admit dearth of knowledge there.
Since we can't make enough EVs this year or next year, IMHO, throwing a little money to decent hybrids is not a prima facia waste as has been stated here. Devil in the details and all, but God is also in the details
PHEV's opened up a whole new vista for us hybrid owners. [I was such a Prius nerd that I was upset Toyota didn't offer me an easy way to plug in my little 1 kWh vanilla (non-PHEV) hybrid battery so I could always start off with a full charge, minimizing my fuel use.] When they finally started offering PHEVs - larger batteries with EV range measured in miles (not feet) that came with a plug, you could suddenly talk about the "best of both worlds": all electric daily commutes, with overnight charging, and no range anxiety limitation for long trips. From this point of view, PHEV's are a great invention. They stay "great" as long as the price of batteries in a full EV is above a certain point. IMO we may or may not have reached that point today, depending on which EV and which PHEV you are talking about as well as your driving use case. These things matter a lot for cost comparison perspectives as well as GHG calculations.
I have seen a number of folks who love their Prius Primes (that's the PHEV version) and they point with pride to the high percentage of EV use they get out of them and point with pride to their efficient gas mileage when NOT in EV mode, and a number who love their RAV4 Prime (in Toyotaspeak Prime = PHEV version). Each offers a believable commute range (~30 miles Prius, ~50 miles Rav4, Prius Prime has increased EV range over the years) to entice the environmental crowd, and solid gas mileage (hybrid synergy drive improved over regular ICE) for long trips to entice the budget crowd.
And yes, absolutely : long term engineering wise, this "best of both worlds approach" - approaches - the "worst of all worlds" as the weight and complexity of carrying BOTH _interacting_ power trains brings down your efficiency and brings up your cost. But even that is not a total loss: for example, Prius gets by with a much smaller and lighter ICE than it would otherwise need, with it able to run in an Atkinson cycle (less power more efficiency) with the power difference made up by electrics. So there is indeed some engineering "Synergy" between the two systems that can be exploited by PHEVs.
But for some period and some uses (perhaps some right now), they make sense for people AND they are better than straight ICE. And IMO therefore in some cases they are worth incentivizing, again, until we have far more EV's and far more charging infrastructure.

(edited for typos)