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

[Hock1]

Mere peanuts. Wait for the last weeks of the month.

But it's nice to see 15-20 Model X Raven (and some Model S Raven) deliveries in Norway every day. I also see trailers with Model S and X every day now, driving from the Tilburg factory eastwards.

On a bus tour through Oslo yesterday, for the first half hour I was counting Teslas. After about 30 minutes I had counted a pretty much even distribution of 20, Ss, 3s and Xs. I stopped counting but later in the ride the bus passed a small parking lot of perhaps 40-50- cars---11 of the these were Teslas. Even the tour guide took the time to talk (in a positive way) about the arrival of Tesla in Norway. Two days previous, I visited a store in Gothenburg, Sweden. Spoke with a sales person who said not only are the 3's in high demand, but the raven Ss and Xs have been very popular.

 

[Tenable]

To add another data point - I continue to see absolutely no level of substantive discounting of inventory models, and any half-decently discounted vehicle is snatched up quickly.

I disagree regarding discounting. There were at least two waves of "accidentally priced" model 3s. People grabbing 2019 AWD dual motor M3s for 36k. Once I may have optimistically bought that it was a technical error. But its happened twice now that I know of. Extrapolate what you will, regardless of why its happening it does give me some cause for worry. To your point, these discounted units were bought very quickly.

Side note: I've been MIA from the forum for a good while, my apologies if these discounts have already been discussed.

 

[Tenable]

Thought .. can there be a product like "Insurance On Demand" ... this would disrupt the whole Car Insurance
You sign up for Tesla Insurance.
Tesla Auto detects who drives and auto-enrolls you for insurance when you drive, auto un enrolls as soon as you stop driving?

So if I don't drive for 2 weeks, I pay $0 for insurance ....

Sooo if someone steals your car...

 

[CorneliusXX]

It may be fair to say that the market has given up trying to predict Brexit, but they absolutely do care about the outcome. The UK the world's sixth largest economy - nearly fifth.

To further add to your point, the market has had two years to prepare for a no deal Brexit. Contingency plans have been made, new offices and subsidiaries have been set up, supply agreements in place, etc. They do care about the outcome but can deal with either scenario better than they could have a couple of years ago.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Nasdaq 100 Futures - Sep 19
7,714.75 +97.25 +1.28%
03:28:01 - Real-time derived data.
Currency in USD

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Pre-Market Trading
$228.24 +$3.23 +1.44%
04:08 ET​

 

[Stars aligned]

She might be right, she might not be, nobody knows yet . And even when there is or isn’t an upcoming recession we still may not be able to say for sure whether it was inverted yield curve related or deflationary boom that caused it one way or the other.

I just view it as a game of probability.

Given we are 10 years now or whatever in a bull market, near all time highs, have ever escalating trade wars, have a temporarily juiced economy with unsustainable tax cuts, have signs of global economic slowdowns, have an inverted yield curve which appears to have quite an accurate track record and gobs of money fleeing to bonds, and have an upcoming presidential election with perhaps unfriendly candidates to markets makes me think one would be not crazy to think a recession could be in the near future

Cathy’s theory? Feel free to apply some percentage of the effect of her theory against the headwinds described above.

Headwinds are temporarily, at best they will last another year or two. Maybe less. The deflationary forces are in play for a longer time, the next 20, 30 years to come.

The fears you described are widespread, and I've them too. But exactly because they are so widespread, most investors are prepared for that outcome, and conservative investments are popular - gold, bonds, even with negative interest rates, dividend aristocrats and so on. Should the development be a little bit better than feared, many will be underinvested, and there may be a boom. Historically, a low sentiment has often be a good indicator for a market upswing. And vice versa.

It's also helpful to remember that the market often rallied after an inversion and the recession and downturn only hit 12 to 24 months after. Because together with the inversion, short and long term interest rates are falling considerably and make those conservative investments less attractive compared to the more risky bets.

And that's also my view on the self-fulfilling market prophecy topic. The majority is more often wrong than right. And so, from a rational perspective, I rather expect a good stock market environment for the next months, and also many years to come as long as innovation fuels the deflationary forces.

Which doesn't rule out temporary setbacks in the medium term, once the market gets overheated, being it for a slowdown / reverse in growth or excessive optimism or, even more likely, both in combination.

 

[Thekiwi]

Yes.

Layering EV subsidies on top of existing ICE/Fossil Fuel subsidies is crazy. MUCH better to drop all the current Oil Subsidies including “absence of a a pollution fee”, and EV adoption will soar.

BUT US politics don’t work that way. Once a subsidy is in place it never goes away once it is no longer needed; if we do anything at all it is to add other subsidies elsewhere in an attempt to counterbalance, all driven by politics and not sense or science.

From a pure Machiavellian POV the best outcomes for the EV subsidy is either it becomes permanent with no cap and is only available to US manufactures (which would likely be considered illegal under WTO but that doesn’t seem to be a factor anymore under trump), OR the subsidy goes away immediately for everyone.

As it currently stands the EV subsidy in USA is pretty terrible for Tesla, with essentially every big rival but one having full access to the Federal $7500 EV credit, and Tesla having zero as of Jan 1st.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I disagree that Musk is a net negative in terms of speed of ramping production. He is actually one of the primary drivers of faster development/innovation. He strips things down to the necessary essentials and encourages those under him to get to the finish line sooner.

It would be a sad thing indeed if he were barred from the China plant (which makes no sense anyway if you think about it for a minute). He's the CEO. Duh!

But nice jab.​

Agreed, it's difficult to believe there would be the radically better wiring harnesses and large casting of the body for the MY if anyone else but Elon was in the top spot.

You could argue the risk he took with the conveyor belts at the start of 3 production slowed things down compared to conventional production but that willingness to take risks and try new things is without doubt a net positive for the company.

Would Bob Lutz sign off any of those proposals?

 

[Stars aligned]

Agreed, it's difficult to believe there would be the radically better wiring harnesses and large casting of the body for the MY if anyone else but Elon was in the top spot.

You could argue the risk he took with the conveyor belts at the start of 3 production slowed things down compared to conventional production but that willingness to take risks and try new things is without doubt a net positive for the company.

Would Bob Lutz sign off any of those proposals?

And even if he would sign off, he would probably not be able to control those staff who are not aligned with his decision. They would do sabotage as much as they can. Musk on the other side doesn't hesitate to get rid of non-aligned staff, that's for sure a reason behind the high management turnover.

This alignment of the human vectors, so to speak, is a major enabler for Tesla's innovation speed and efficiency and can't be matched by the traditional companies whose CEO's doe not have so much power, even if they share some of the visions.

 

[Fact Checking]

To further add to your point, the market has had two years to prepare for a no deal Brexit. Contingency plans have been made, new offices and subsidiaries have been set up, supply agreements in place, etc. They do care about the outcome but can deal with either scenario better than they could have a couple of years ago.

This, unfortunately, is not nearly universally true: the insane BRExit unicorns that have been floating around in the press and which have become part of UK political common wisdom have hurt firm's abilities to prepare for no-deal BRExit and there's also been documented cases of political threats against UK companies preparing for a BRExit worst-case, because this was seen as disloyalty to either the Leave or the Remain side. Consumer facing businesses absolutely don't want to get in the press as being on either side - they'd alienate one half of their customers ...

But investment and policy uncertainty is so high that at this point many businesses would prefer to have it all over and done with. But a no-deal BRExit is still going to be very messy, probably combined with a deep economic slump.

 

[Tslynk67]

Someone put in a sell at market and the $210 just happened to be there.

I had my AH $220 buy order sitting there, wasn't filled

And today looks green - I guess mostly HK positive news on (seemingly) China backing off.

No doubt the positive Brexit vote is impacting a bit - the £ is trading stronger as a result, which means business confidence higher for the UK as a result.

So not convinced I'll get anything for $220, especially as the InsideEV's may come out today and ought to be positive - might be a wildcard if they're not...

 

[Tslynk67]

The UK is going to a general election as a proxy for a referendum, with Tories campaigning to Brexit, deal or no deal, on 31 October.

The 21 Tory MPs that rebelled against the government today will be deselected.

The polls look good for the Conservatives and bad for Labour/Liberal Democrats.

If the Conservatives win a majority they can repeal the anti-Brexit legislation in a day.

It's crazy, if the UK Labour party had any other leader than Corbyn, then they'd be in power some time ago and Brexit would likely have been trashed already, but people are terrified of him. I never worked out why, I rather like most of his policies, but he does seem a bit indecisive.

The risk for Labout and Lib-Dems is that they split the remain vote, handing power the the Tories. The risk on the Tory side is that the (another idiot) Farrage Brexit Party might split the leave vote. Ideally Labour and Libs should form some kind of pact or arrangement to avoid this.

What is clear, is that it's clear Boris Johnson is going for a no-deal, just as long as he can blame everyone but himself for it, so this should galvanise some minds - there will be no other withdrawal deal from the EU, so at least people know what Brexit will mean.

If the Tories do win again and they crash out of EU, well at least people will have this time really made a choice for that.

 

[Christine69420]

The Automobile Association in Norway has tested range and charging for smaller EVs including the Model 3. It ends up beeing a good story on why you should buy a Tesla.

But not even the most experienced drivers can repair broken charging stations or sneak in the charging queue. And make sure they also mess with apps, chips and various payment solutions.

Unless you drive Tesla and have gotten into the routines a bit. The American electric car pioneer still has a big head start with its unique charging network and easy payment solution.​

Googly-translated link:

Google Translate

Source in Nrwegian:

Stor test: Denne bilen vinner suverent i ladetest

 

[Fact Checking]

The polls look good for the Conservatives and bad for Labour/Liberal Democrats.

What polls are you looking at? This seat by seat analysis:

"The Tories 'Would Lose Six Seats' If PM Calls Snap Election, New Poll Analysis Suggests"​

is suggesting that both Labour (-20) and the Tories (-6) lose seats in a general election, while Liberal Democrats win +9 seats, with +17 for the SNP.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) obviously does not support BRexit, let alone a no-deal BRexit.

If the Conservatives win a majority they can repeal the anti-Brexit legislation in a day.

If those projections I cited are correct then the conservatives do not have a certain or even likely majority - and there's additional risks to them as both the proroguing of an elected Parliament by an unelected Prime Minister and monarch, and yesterday's vote loss was substantial. Not a good backdrop to go into a general election campaign.

Also, Parliament might not approve a general election in the time frame Johnson wants, and he clearly has no parliamentary majority anymore.

 

[Tslynk67]

It makes me wonder how many idiots forgot they even had a keycard in their walet or purse today, just like the ICE car people whose fob goes dead and they forget there is a real key in the fob. Or is this another completely fake Linette story?

FUD, because you don’t need the app to operate the car. The car is bonded to the phone itself, so as long as Bluetooth operates it’s not an issue.

M3 owners please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[Tslynk67]

He looks like a carbon copy of Trump. Maybe that is not coincidental. From the Guardian: Revealed: how US billionaire helped to back Brexit

OI is an idiot, he has no grasp of anything other than the remote control button to switch the channel to Fox. BJ is intelligent and well educated, but like many of the Tories he’s Eton educated, parents with a privileged diplomatic background, so he feels he’s entitled to whatever he wants.

Where he is similar to Trump us that he’s a congenital liar, totally in it for himself, untrustworthy to the extreme and stabs his friends/allies in the back to further his own ambitions.

Note that historically he’s been pro-EU, hell, he even lived in Brussels for a while (and attended the same school as my wife - at the same time, but different year - and kids). But when the referendum came along, he saw an opportunity, flipped allegiances, then became the main architect of the leave campaign.

 

[Fact Checking]

OI is an idiot, he has no grasp of anything other than the remote control button to switch the channel to Fox.

I'll give Trump one compliment though: he found and grabbed various tools of presidential power that his predecessors didn't dare to use. Executive action, extreme court packing, unprecedented rejection of congressional oversight, blatant partisan use of government resources, outright illegal actions with a promise of a presidential pardon - you name it.

The positive side effect is that should a Democrat gain power she'll have a lot more tools at her disposal to fix up the mess ...

Back on topic: TSLA is nicely up today in the premarket, but this might just be the calm before the macro storm - both BRExit and China trade are still powder kegs with unpredictable lunatics handling the burning fuse ...

Tesla's Q3 is also not necessarily in the bag: zero Q3 production and deliveries related leaks so far that I can see, and end of quarter is only 3.5 weeks away ... Even with good deliveries the year-over-year comparison might show a drop in revenues, which the TSLAQ suspects sure will take advantage of.

 

[Xenius]

FUD, because you don’t need the app to operate the car. The car is bonded to the phone itself, so as long as Bluetooth operates it’s not an issue.

M3 owners please correct me if I’m wrong.

You need to be logged into the app for the bluetooth key to work. However, you DO NOT NEED INTERNET CONNECTIVITY to Tesla for the key to work.

The only way people can get themselves locked out of a model 3 is to do two things 1) Not carry your physical keys 2) Log out of the app when the app can't connect to home base.

Said another way: If you lose your physical key to your stupid ICE car, you're boned, but with a Tesla you can use your phone as a key if you happen to forget your physical key.

This is a plus, not a minus.

Linette is an f'ing moron.

 

[Tslynk67]

A good read if you want to understand BJ

My Boris Johnson story | Coffee House

 

[Tslynk67]

You need to be logged into the app for the bluetooth key to work. However, you DO NOT NEED INTERNET CONNECTIVITY to Tesla for the key to work.

The only way people can get themselves locked out of a model 3 is to do two things 1) Not carry your physical keys 2) Log out of the app when the app can't connect to home base.

Said another way: If you lose your physical key to your stupid ICE car, you're boned, but with a Tesla you can use your phone as a key if you happen to forget your physical key.

This is a plus, not a minus.

Linette is an f'ing moron.

Does anyone ever log out of the app?

In any case, I always have my MX fob with me, I imagine a card in the wallet is even easier. I only use the app for opening remote or if I’m in my garage and decide to go in the car, but can’t be arsed to go get the fob...