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

[StarFoxisDown!]

Hopefully they get the earnings report out quickly. Right now there's no clue as to what the loss is going to be like..50 million......150 million and FUD is gonna hammer that it's probably going to be way more. I want to see what the free cash flow is like along with Model 3 margins. TE is the wild card.....maybe they actually started a noticeable ramp in Q1.

Also not sure if it made a difference here in the US but Q1 was pretty hard hit in terms of winter in mid to late Jan and all of Feb across a lot of the US. The PNW alone was practically shut down for a period of 3 weeks due to snow storms. The Midwest and Northeast were in the single digits or lower for weeks. I could see that effecting demand/orders for Jan/Feb but who knows.

 

[Fact Checking]

What happened to the 30,000 in the last three weeks story?

It's explained in the report:

Due to a massive increase in deliveries in Europe and China, which at times exceeded 5x that of prior peak delivery levels, and many challenges encountered for the first time, we had only delivered half of the entire quarter’s numbers by March 21, ten days before end of quarter.

Sky is not falling, but these revenue #s may make Q2 S&P addition a whole lot less likely unfortunately.

If Q2 is profitable and Q1+Q2 income is more than -$400m, which still looks likely, then S&P 500 inclusion in Q2 is still on track.

 

[Fred42]

Get away from the quarter numbers. Annual deliveries projected 360K-400K... let that sink in for a hot second.

One quarter does not dictate a business' future. Especially one that was able to pay off a 920M bond in cash.

For those questioning demand please note:
- Leasing isn't available for Model 3 yet
- Model 3 in the US is nowhere near as big of an opp. in Europe and China. Add onto that Australia later this year and UK
- There are still a ton of people who don't know what a Tesla is (or even seen one)-- shocker I know
- Autopilot/FSD is getting better everyday

Essentially Tesla took a big one time hit in scaling delivery globally. Logistical nightmare. Just imagine cleaning up while breaking stuff in a rush

The news around this will harm US sales volume and/or ASP for at least a few months because it contributes to perception that buying a Tesla isn't a sensible thing to do. Future news will help people move past this.

I suspect the store closing fiasco harmed volume and/or ASP due to impact on public perception. (I haven't seen a post that mentions this.)

 

[sunhelm]

It's a guide down from the 500k rate from what it seems.

Nope. 500K is for all cars. The 300 to 400k guidance is for Model 3 only.

 

[sundaymorning]

Get away from the quarter numbers. Annual deliveries projected 360K-400K... let that sink in for a hot second.

One quarter does not dictate a business' future. Especially one that was able to pay off a 920M bond in cash.

For those questioning demand please note:
- Leasing isn't available for Model 3 yet
- Model 3 in the US is nowhere near as big of an opp. in Europe and China. Add onto that Australia later this year and UK
- There are still a ton of people who don't know what a Tesla is (or even seen one)-- shocker I know
- Autopilot/FSD is getting better everyday

Essentially Tesla took a big one time hit in scaling delivery globally. Logistical nightmare. Just imagine cleaning up while breaking stuff in a rush

Plus the standard isn’t available for order in Europe or China yet.

 

[dhrivnak]

Was there anyone who was even remotely accurate with production/delivery numbers for Q1 for Model 3?

Looks like whatever info we were getting about pack production at 6k a week for Model 3 was completely unreliable. A lot of the bits we were receiving about production for Model 3 were misleading.

Heck I thought they have been saying that they have been making 5,000 model 3's a week for nearly 9 months now and they occasionally hint at 6 or 7k a week. At 62,950 and 13 weeks that is 4841 a week and no holidays to speak of.

 

[KSilver2000]

I personally do not see Tesla waiting until Q3 (estimated) for the refresh if that rumor is even true, because another quarter like Q1 for S&X will not be good. I hope they accelerate that timeline somewhat...to maybe mid Q2 but not late Q2.

I doubt it. Tesla’s immediate future hinges on Model 3 (and Y) success. The S and X was to help finance producing the 3. They need to start producing and delivering more 3’a before anything else.

 

[GeoX750]

Yeah guys time to go in a hole for 3 months. FUD is gonna be crazy after this and the only thing to change the narrative is waiting another 3 months to see what Q2 P/D numbers are. The S/X numbers were expected to be bad but not that bad and I'm still scratching my head on Model 3 production. What's the holdup on getting above 5k/week at this point? It can't be the paint shop at this point because there were less S/X going through the paint shop this quarter. I really wish we could get some clarification as to what's going on.

Also, giving guidance for Q2 would have been much more reassuring than just reiterating 2019 guidance.

What is holding up production? Is it not obvious by now there is a lack of US demand? I know, FUD, FUD, FUD . . .

Wake up and smell the coffee on this board. The early adopters are running out. Tesla needs to advertise, address the typical consumer's concerns about EVs, and operate more a mass market auto manufacturer that manages and creates demand for its models.

The incredible overseas potential will keep Tesla humming for sometime, but now is the time for Tesla to pivot and mature as a company.

I know, FUD, FUD, FUD, Funny, Funny, Funny.

 

[ZachF]

It's explained in the report:





If Q2 is profitable and Q1+Q2 income is more than -$400m, which still looks likely, then S&P 500 inclusion in Q2 is still on track.

The problem is, if it doesn't hit that in Q2, you'll also lose that strong +$300m Q3, which pushes out S&P addition possibly out to Q4, or 2020.

I'm not saying it won't make it necessarily, just that the chance of it not getting added to the S&P after Q2 has risen greatly, and if it doesn't make it by Q2, It may not make it until 2020 if Q1 is bad enough.

 

[Pras]

Not to worry the man in charge isn't. Still time to noodle around on Twitter and other distractions.
View attachment 393487

I always said s and x would be bad, just not enough reason to buy basically a 4 year old model. They need refresh. The issue was low model 3. That too was expected after tax cliff and lack of lower end product. I think they did pretty ok for the quarter. Also most delivery number assumed lower inventory. Say 10k inventory would have been 5k. In that case the delivery would have been right about 68-70k mark. The enthusiasm in the last quarter around delivery was misread. Agree stock will be under pressure but again, most long are not moving because of 5-10k delivery. The question will be how many SR and SR+.

 

[Tenable]

Oh come on.... tomorrow Am won’t be pretty, but 245.90 sounds a touch extreme.

Very real chance we drop big. These numbers are absolutely brutal.

 

[Causalien]

I always said s and x would be bad, just not enough reason to buy basically a 4 year old model. They need refresh. The issue was low model 3. That too was expected after tax cliff and lack of lower end product. I think they did pretty ok for the quarter. Also most delivery number assumed lower inventory. Say 10k inventory would have been 5k. In that case the delivery would have been right about 68-70k mark. The enthusiasm in the last quarter around delivery was misread. Agree stock will be under pressure but again, most long are not moving because of 5-10k delivery. The question will be how many SR and SR+.

It was a great job given the Macro environment and they did better than last year. But it also killed alot of bull theories. And judging from the timeline of events. The Bear's theories were correct.

Going forward I think the concern should be less about stealing market share from other automakers, but more about the whole sector subjected to what the general market is doing. i.e. the trade war and maybe Mexico border.

Production is lower than expected. My guess is that they slowed down production in order to make the higher margin models for China and EU. The interruption in deliveries forced them to slow down the production, so we are not seeing the full might of the line running at 100%. This is a big IF though. Pulling forward SR+ and SR delivery was probably a strategy used to fill up delivery because they saw the interruption in China and EU.

At this point, I don't know if S+X can make up enough demand for 100k for the year so that total delivery is 500k.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Also why the massive VIN registrations? Really curious about that.

 

[ZsoZso]

What is holding up production? Is it not obvious by now there is a lack of US demand? I know, FUD, FUD, FUD . . .

Wake up and smell the coffee on this board. The early adopters are running out. Tesla needs to advertise, address the typical consumer's concerns about EVs, and operate more a mass market auto manufacturer that manages and creates demand for its models.

The incredible overseas potential will keep Tesla humming for sometime, but now is the time for Tesla to pivot and mature as a company.

I know, FUD, FUD, FUD, Funny, Funny, Funny.

Before advertising and pulling other demand levers, first of all they have to complete basic availability world-wide:

1. SR, SR+ model has to be marketed world-wide, not only in North America
2. Right hand drive Model 3 still not available at all (any model)
3. All market regions, looking at Iceland, Hungary etc...
4. Leasing still not available

Once they make these 4 basic steps to reach full availability of all models and leasing world-wide, then we can check what demand looks like at that stage.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

From my perspective, Tesla is building a product that people love, people want to buy, and their biggest issue right now is building them and delivering them to customers. That seems like a good problem to have.

 

[Tenable]

Tesla's First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

• New-vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell 31% from the previous three months

• Tesla had slashed the Model 3's starting price three times during the quarter, finally reaching its long-promised base of $35,000, suggesting that demand for more-expensive versions had plateaued.

• Tesla attributed the slowdown to challenges associated with taking the Model 3 overseas for the first time

• The company cautioned that first-quarter net income would be "negatively impacted" while saying it planned to end the quarter with "sufficient cash on hand."

• Tesla said it delivered 50,900 Model 3 cars in the first quarter, down 20% from 63,359 the preceding three months

• Sales of the more-expensive Model S car and Model X sport- utility vehicle collectively fell to 12,100 from 27,602 during the fourth quarter

Does NOT look good.

Telsa's announcement came minutes after the conclusion of after-hours stock trading.
Coincidence ?

My delivery number was 52k for the M3. So, my estimate was inline with 50.9k

I expect tsla to retrace all of its gains the last 5 trading days.
Looking at $270 SP tomorrow.

If we end the week at $270 we should all consider ourselves very forunate. This is ugly, even by my low expectations. These numbers mixed with discounting vehicles.. I hope we sold a lot of discounted fsd to the general public and every model 3 buyer is road tripping and pumping small amounts of money into super chargers. Because we need a miracle for the ER.

 

[JRP3]

I've been expecting a 400 mile battery pack with v3 charging and upgraded interior to make Model S the flagship again. It's technically feasible and is now desperately needed.

It's not technically feasible now without compromising interior space and significantly increasing vehicle weight.

 

[neroden]

Ok, I will comment.

I said the most pessimistic sceamrio I could come up with was over 50K model 3. I was right.

My "tax credit hangover" model is validated; add it to seasonal effects and I get the right ballpark for S/X deliveries. The catch is that I don't have regional breakdowns for S/X deliveries in any quarter, but I was projecting S/X deliveries in US to be down by 2/3 year over year, which may actually have been a bit worse than happened; there may have been an overseas drop I didn't see (did I miss overseas tax changes?).

Judging from the number of shutdown factory days in January per leaks, I am guessing this repeated in Feb and Mar and there were only 66 to 77 days of actual production. This would match up with factory "per day / per week" rate leaks, but mean that there is a lot of downtime days. Hope Tesla has a plan for addressing that as that is the only real new news for me here.

Please note that Tesla did not give regional breakdowns so we do not know the US China breakdown. We seem to have good Europe data. I would be surprised if China is as low as some are saying and surprised if the US is as high as some are saying.

Probably GAAP loss will be 300 to 400 million, with cash flow plus 400 to 500 million. Profit in Q2 is highly likely along with S&P inclusion. Have to fix all those production bottlenecks, but that is something the company is historically good at.

 

[reddit_tl]

Numbers are bad.

The production rate is low. If we still believe Carsonight's battery numbers, it begs the question: where did the battery go?

 

[anthonyj]

If we end the week at $270 we should all consider ourselves very forunate. This is ugly, even by my low expectations. These numbers mixed with discounting vehicles.. I hope we sold a lot of discounted fsd to the general public and every model 3 buyer is road tripping and pumping small amounts of money into super chargers. Because we need a miracle for the ER.

I would wait 3 days before buying a dip. That’s been the typical pattern. Let the tutes sell, let the shorts sell, let the FOMOs sell. Buy the cheapies at $200-$240. Those S/X numbers are scary... they were giving them away. If there isn’t at least an interior refresh within April then something is wrong with this company