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

[adiggs]

How can shorts think Tesla will run out of demand, but ICE car makers will continue to have 80 million demand a year? Their logic is really weird to me. Maybe these shorts have never driven a Model 3?

It doesn't seem to have come up recently (year or three), but this idea of driving the car as an important component of the investment thesis has been there for me since 2012 when I invested, and has been an important part of the discussion about why to invest for at least that long.

And one of the most common themes back then was we'd have people drop into the forums talking smack about Tesla, and when pressed, it was clear that they hadn't test driven a Model S yet. That clearly, a Model S was just some variant of car like any other variant of car and therefore it wouldn't justify (fill-in-the-blank).

I suspect it's as true today for many shorts - that they still haven't gone and driven an electric car at all, much less a Tesla.


That's the thing about paradigm shifts. When you're on the wrong side of it, people can tell you that there's a paradigm shift happening, but until you experience it for yourself, it's almost certainly not going to happen. Driving electric is a paradigm shift, and that's going to ensure we have lots of this contention, angst, and misunderstanding between people for years to come as the paradigm shift continues.

The way through a paradigm shift is to EXPERIENCE IT. If you're reading this and you haven't driven an EV, and especially a Tesla, I tell you in all seriousness, ignore everything else you've read of mine or anybody else's today:
GO TEST DRIVE ONE ASAP. There is no other reliable way through a paradigm shift like this except to do it.

 

[omarsultan]

2) the price cuts on the existing fleet are obviously because a refresh is imminent and they need to get rid of stock and lower the price of the existing configs to make room for the new configs at the top of the price range.

There is nothing "obvious" about a refresh being imminent--that is someone's theory with no backstop as far as I can see.

Tesla also does not have "stock" they need to flush. Everything is built-to-order and batched with a just-in-time supply chain so the component inventory is kept lean.

If you look at the history of the S and X, they just make rolling changes so you end up with a better car than you thought you were getting. They do the with big changes like AP hardware (including the original rollout) and the refreshed nose, but also a bunch of little things along the way.

Finally, as lean was the company runs, I cannot see them trying to refresh two models at the same time, especially since the X is only three years old. I would imagine every spare cycle has been devoted to getting the Y out the door and then pivoting over to the pickup later this year.

 

[Fact Checking]

Man, they're slow...

CNBC is indeed very slow at posting positive Tesla news, but they are making up for it by posting negative Tesla news super fast!

 

[Zaxxon]

Norway back to its March average today after a slightly slower Thursday. Still on pace to make this quarter Tesla's best in Norway by a fair margin, but also still too early in the month to say whether that's likely to occur:

 

[EVNow]

How can shorts think Tesla will run out of demand, but ICE car makers will continue to have 80 million demand a year? Their logic is really weird to me. Maybe these shorts have never driven a Model 3?

Because they think - like 90% of the world - that EVs are a niche and the total demand is limited.

BTW, ICE makers aren't exactly doing great on the stock market either. Ford that sells > 10x the number of cars Tesla sells has a lower market cap.

 

[EVNow]

Norway back to its March average today after a slightly slower Thursday. Still on pace to make this quarter Tesla's best in Norway by a fair margin, but also still too early in the month to say whether that's likely to occur:

View attachment 384263

Is there a place where all EVs sales are maintained ?

 

[KarenRei]

Hmm, did this get mentioned here? Canaccord reaffirmed its $450 target.

 

[Lucky_Man]

I would agree except currently when a hotel chain asks about what to install for their customers the car industry and charging industry who want lots of money says CCSJ1772chademoblah blah blah and it cost $1xxxx to install. In reality all the hotel chain needs is......View attachment 384230

True. Just be sure it's UL-rated 3R minimum. A weatherproof enclosure is required by NEC code when installed in an outdoor location. [Edited - spelling]

 

[Lucky_Man]

Not likely. Mall leases commonly have provisions for minimum rent vs percentage of sales. The greater the sales, the more rent that is due (what Blankenship refers to as "surcharges"). But mall leases also usually contain provisions establishing mandatory hours of operation and prohibitions on "going dark".

OT

Simple solution. Just sell Tesla merchandise. I'd buy a new hat there

 

[jerry33]

Many of us speculated that the Model 3's results in Consumer Reports' recent media blitz might not be representative of the current state of the Model 3 due to that dataset's age. TrueDelta took a special 2nd-half-of-2018 survey for certain models for which they felt that more recent data would be helpful. In it, the Model 3 showed dramatic reliability improvement.

I received that email as well. I'm not sure if that's any more reliable than the CR one because it's not a random sampling, only owners who signed up have input. It also doesn't do a good job of differentiating between what's major in an ICE and what's major in an EV. Not that I don't doubt the 3 is reliable, but I believe it makes the previous cars appear much worse than they really are.

 

[Unpilot]

She is bullish as something.

 

[printf42]

According to my Thinkorswim newsfeed a few minutes ago at 12:40 pm CST:

Canaccord Genuity has reaffirmed its BUY rating on Tesla with a price target of $450, after the electric car maker this week introduced V3 Supercharging…

Shorts will be screaming:
Another big reason to buy Tesla cars just went away.
No more supercharger chats with fellow Tesla owners, they just slashed average supercharging time in half.
Sell sell sell!

 

[electrichapp]

my crystal ball says we'll be closing at just below 285

 

[Tslynk67]

What do you mean? Musk's guidance is that they don't expect a profit.

You musk be miss-taken, CNBC shows an estimated 50c EPS!!!!

 

[lklundin]

Fifteen clicks to go for the Spartans...

 

[Artful Dodger]

Heavy volume on the $280 strike CALL option today. Sitting at 12.73K in vol at 2:17 EST.

Lots of PUTS there too, at 5.37K today.

 

[jerry33]

There is nothing "obvious" about a refresh being imminent--that is someone's theory with no backstop as far as I can see.

Tesla also does not have "stock" they need to flush. Everything is built-to-order and batched with a just-in-time supply chain so the component inventory is kept lean.

If you look at the history of the S and X, they just make rolling changes so you end up with a better car than you thought you were getting. They do the with big changes like AP hardware (including the original rollout) and the refreshed nose, but also a bunch of little things along the way.

Finally, as lean was the company runs, I cannot see them trying to refresh two models at the same time, especially since the X is only three years old. I would imagine every spare cycle has been devoted to getting the Y out the door and then pivoting over to the pickup later this year.

Agreed that there is no way they would refresh both at the same time. And it's anyone's guess as to when the refreshes will occur. While it's possible that the refresh, when it happens, will be just battery and motors, it's probable that a body refresh would happen at the same time just to give a new look.

 

[brian45011]

This is really off base...So thinking more broadly, the only properties where lease breaking would make sense would be the glossy galleries that don't also provide service and delivery. But to my knowledge, Tesla is not talking about closing those, or at least breaking a lease to do so.

OK, but where do the savings come from that allows a 6% across the board price reductions, and what are the write-downs that Elon mentioned in the revised guidance during the private conference call with the press?

 

[EVNow]

Heavy volume on the $280 strike CALL option today. Sitting at 12.73K in vol at 2:17 EST.

Lots of PUTS there too, at 5.37K today.

Max Pain 285.

 

[anthonyj]

Citron Research | Executive Editor Andrew Left | Publishing Since 2001

Andrew Left is still bullish