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

[ReflexFunds]

JB finishes work on plans for 2TWh or c.40 million annual cars worth of Tesla in-house battery cell capacity.

My work here is done.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

At current volumes though it's simply still not enough to deliver a consistent profit. They had 25%~ in Q3-Q4.

Of course. Which is why they need higher volumes(I believe the 10k/week number has been suggested as the breaking point). Margin should also continue improving going forward as ASP for Model 3 is staying stable, costs are falling and pre-Raven S/X inventory was cleared out.

 

[EVNow]

Anybody done any estimation on how much they need to sell to reach breakeven? is 10k/week enough?

Probably - but we need 10-Q to figure this out better.

More importantly need to look at ASP, margin.

 

[neroden]

And what are the real problems?

Communications problems. I've been trying to communicate this to management but I can't figure out how.

 

[elasalle]

No Jonas?!

No need for Short Bulls, to step out of the Bull Pen

 

[jerry33]

And what are the real problems?

People cannot contact service.

 

[Tenable]

I think you're right. Do we have to wait until Q3 to ask, though? Anyone got another pathway to communicate through?

The problem with communications problems (as opposed to other sorts of problems) is that it can be very hard to make management aware of the communications problems -- *because* of the communications problems.

---

OK, it's over. Pretty bad call.

Once again, I'm leaving a CC depressed. I love my cars. But as an investment TSLA is beyond frustrating.

 

[Thekiwi]

Anybody done any estimation on how much they need to sell to reach breakeven? is 10k/week enough?

can be done with 100-105k deliveries, assuming S/X ASP move up slightly (all Ravens now?) and 3 ASP only suffers a small drop to $48-$49k while maintaining margin.

Presuming no one-off/restructuring charges.

 

[tinm]

Master Plan, Part Trois:

1. Stop doing silly things.
2. ???
3. Profit!

 

[Fred42]

The profit margins suck. S/X demand is in a corkscrew nosedive.

Everyone forgot about service or customer satisfaction.

I guess Tesla will be profitable in Elon time.

1500/week is 75,000/year. If they continue to sell only LR, this volume is good for the bottom line. And Right Said Fred just said he heard 1600 - 1700/week.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Having attended the shareholder's meeting, I instantly realized JB was leaving when he and Drew were brought onstage by Elon. It was obvious, and it was my first thought.

Hearing Elon joke about S and X spelling SEXY just now on the call and hearing him say S/X in the same breath are not that important in the long term is really shocking. Makes me think their days are numbered.

I think he was just trying to get rid of some of the FUD about how 'falling demand' for S and X is going to kill the company, by explaining that in a few years time they will be only 5% of sales (at 80-100 k per year).

 

[Joe F]

Having attended the shareholder's meeting, I instantly realized JB was leaving when he and Drew were brought onstage by Elon. It was obvious, and it was my first thought.

Hearing Elon joke about S and X spelling SEXY just now on the call and hearing him say S/X in the same breath are not that important in the long term is really shocking. Makes me think their days are numbered.

Yeah, I thought, "Well, I now own a classic car." Priceless.

And, SP tanking aside, I feel like a winner today because I just installed the latest release. Oddly timed I thought, though. Feel good release?

 

[Green Pete]

well that was overall disappointing.

 

[neroden]

Master Plan, Part Trois:

1. Stop doing silly things.
2. ???
3. Profit!

That would actually work, you know? Everything which is currently hampering Tesla is really silly, like not answering the phones at the service centers, not having a phone number for Mobile service, or the main phone tree option for service telling you to go to an online chat which doesn't exist and then hanging up on you -- even though there is a central service call center, which can only be reached by being transferred from Roadside Assistance. This is all very very silly.

The screwups in software (from not listing music tracks in the right order -- now fixed -- to overloading the MCU1 computer by downloading a 5GB file to it) are also very very silly.

....I wish I could apply for the unpaid job of "Vice President of Fixing Elon's Blind Spots". The insane thing is that most of the biggest problems with the company could literally be fixed within days, it just requires awareness.

 

[lascavarian]

I've been trying to communicate this to management but I can't figure out how.

Hummm, a failure to communicate...

 

[Cosmacelf]

Looks like S/X demand is not expected to recover soon - Musk is forecasting maybe 1500/week (in rough terms) by the end of the year.

Yes. But Although Elon botched his delivery of the answer of why this doesn’t matter (when it takes you 2 minutes to make a lame joke and then laugh at your own joke), he was correct.

No one cared about the Roadster when the Model S started selling because Model S volumes were so much higher. Similarly now, no one should care much about Model S and X sales since Model 3 is what drives the company.

 

[EVNow]

pre-Raven S/X inventory was cleared out.

Zach said, majority is out. So, some 5k probably still left. That could also explain why they removed SR from lineup.

 

[Thekiwi]

Having attended the shareholder's meeting, I instantly realized JB was leaving when he and Drew were brought onstage by Elon. It was obvious, and it was my first thought.

Hearing Elon joke about S and X spelling SEXY just now on the call and hearing him say S/X in the same breath are not that important in the long term is really shocking. Makes me think their days are numbered.

its not really that shocking. When 3 & Y are shipping 1 million + combined in 2-3 years time, and with Semi & pickup ramping, then S/X/R shipping in combined volume under 100k is fairly meaningless in the grand scheme.

 

[Green Pete]

Musk talking about word-of-mouth marketing. (Hasn't noticed the bad word-of-mouth coming from being unable to get anyone on the phone.)

He's SO close to getting it right.

"You have to have a service location that's reasonable... so, like, you don't have to drive 5 hours..."

Mapping driving time from customers to service centers based on existing customers. Great. So they're trying to minimize some kind of 90th-percentile-time-to-service-center calculation -- great idea.

(Still forgetting about new customers, but still, that's OK for now. We have plenty of existing customers in Ithaca; they just brought it down from 5 hours to 3 hours, but closer would be better.)

So that's great, but it's very important to have the phones answered! I could not figure out how to reach the newly opened service center.

Supercharging -- "you need 100% of the routes". (So where's North Dakota?)

Rrrrrgh. He's so close, how do we get through the bubble and explain the communications problem to him?
---

Parts question. Apparently the parts are already in stock (working capital has already been committed), they just have to have them at the service centers. (They didn't mention the giant parts warehouse though!)

North Dakota omw

 

[elasalle]

Communications problems. I've been trying to communicate this to management but I can't figure out how.

twitter to EM and Tesla with some mimes should do it