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

[dc_h]

checked the original language in German, the commitment sounds pretty weak:

• it says "for the time being" & "it is not definite that they won't resume development work in the future"
• main R&D focus is on "electrification, electric drivetrains and battery development" -> "electrification" can also mean hybrids
• there are "currently no plans for new engine developments" -> this sounds like he is referring to from-scratch developments, and this obviously does not exclude upgrades and minor improvements

since an engine platform is usually good for ~10 years and they just completed the latest iteration, it's a statement they can easily make at the moment.

It’s a big deal. The German govt and 2 of 3 German manufacturers are taking the EV revolution seriously. China is taking this seriously, Germany and 1 American company. They don’t all know what they don’t know, but their committing to finding out. I hope Tesla is making 2-3 million cars before they get their act together, but glad the transition is happening. The transition is going to speed up the economy of scale that has helped Tesla drive down costs since the Roadster. By next year with Shanghai at phase one full speed Tesla may already be beating most of ICE-land on cost. Daimler and VW engaging will just help drive down the cost of batteries and motor tech down even faster.
It’s all good, be good winners!

 

[KarenRei]

Speaking of New York data, is this it?

https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/Vehicle-Snowmobile-and-Boat-Registrations/w4pv-hbkt/data

I see 1456 Teslas registered in Jul-Aug, vs. 1491 in Apr-May.

If this can be trusted to be new sales, this data has good utility. Might even be possible to work out the mix based on the body type and unladen weight columns. Colour is in there too, to work out the paint colour option mix. Too bad it appears to only be updated monthly rather than realtime..

California would be a real score - anyone want to dig a bit and see if they can find an Open Data source for CA?

(And to sum up: flat US data would be perfectly fine this quarter, given how well Europe is doing plus all of the new markets ).

ED: Hmm, I'm not sure how much you can trust it. Looking at these "Reg valid date"s for this quarter, I see many vehicles of older model years - and not just 2018, I see as old as 2012. :Þ

There is VIN data, so you could use that to get a range of possible production dates... Hmm, I think this is perhaps the sort of data you could feed into a complex model to try to extract some reasonable numbers... but I'm not sure how much it should be trusted in its raw form.

ED2: If anyone wants to scour the New York site better, there might be a more appropriate spreadsheet in there that could help distinguish new registrations from renewals...

 

[FreqFlyer]

Has anyone seen this? This is not a negative, this is why you test at the Ring.

@Karen Rei, you posted some time ago why didn't Tesla bring the Raven to the Ring to compare against the Taycan. Don't fret, the Porsche Taycan Ride and Drives for the auto press are going on right now (in Norway?). When the press embargo is over and the Taycan reviews start flooding the internet ,you can believe Car, Autobilde,Motor Trend, CarandDriver, Jalopnik, Motor 1,Autoblog,Bloomberg, etc will have their own Taycan/ Raven S comparos, and then you have your answer.

 

[dc_h]

Thoughts re: SpaceX/Starlink:

If Starlink turns into a cash machine... is there anything that could stop Elon from just using SpaceX to buy up Tesla, bit by bit on the open market? Not that they would want to, but could any SpaceX investors stop him if they did?

SpaceX could of course pay a dividend and Musk could use the cash to personally buy Tesla stock. But using SpaceX to buy it would nearly double the buying power.

At 30% SpaceX ownership of Tesla, plus his 20% personal stake, would Musk not, for all effects and purposes, fully control Tesla?

He could start paying himself, but that’s not enough to buy serious stock. If SpaceX hit 60 or 100 billion he could borrow 5-10 billion to buy more Tesla stock. That would give him a bigger majority and he could eliminate the float and screw shorts and then take delivery of options. He may have some benefits from the stock staying below 300 a share until SpaceX is over 60 billion.

 

[dc_h]

Imagine that, market participants asking regulators to prevent blatant market manipulation. What is the world coming to?

I'd personally prefer Musk not pump the stock then dump all his shares and move the proceeds into un-traceable offshore assets before fleeing to a country with no extradition treaty. But reasonable minds can differ, lol.

I wish we could find a cynical tslaq loser half as funny as tsla @anthonyj

 

[Svetlin]

Speaking of New York data ...

...
...

Hmm, I'm not sure how much you can trust it. Looking at these "Reg valid date"s for this quarter, I see many vehicles of older model years - and not just 2018, I see as old as 2012. :Þ

Troy seems to be accounting for model years in his estimates: Troy Teslike on Twitter

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Link please? I’m seeking an entertaining read.

This is the bottom of the tweet thread where he admits he was wrong: Robb Holland on Twitter

 

[KarenRei]

Troy seems to be accounting for model years in his estimates: Troy Teslike on Twitter

Model year limits.. kind of work, I guess, since no 2019 should need to be re-renewed yet? Won't work for older inventory, though, but that's mainly an S/X thing. 2018s should be acceptable for them (I think?)

 

[Reinhard]

Speaking of New York data, is this it?

https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/Vehicle-Snowmobile-and-Boat-Registrations/w4pv-hbkt/data

I see 1456 Teslas registered in Jul-Aug, vs. 1491 in Apr-May.

If this can be trusted to be new sales, this data has good utility. Might even be possible to work out the mix based on the body type and unladen weight columns. Colour is in there too, to work out the paint colour option mix. Too bad it appears to only be updated monthly rather than realtime..

California would be a real score - anyone want to dig a bit and see if they can find an Open Data source for CA?

(And to sum up: flat US data would be perfectly fine this quarter, given how well Europe is doing plus all of the new markets ).

ED: Hmm, I'm not sure how much you can trust it. Looking at these "Reg valid date"s for this quarter, I see many vehicles of older model years - and not just 2018, I see as old as 2012. :Þ

There is VIN data, so you could use that to get a range of possible production dates... Hmm, I think this is perhaps the sort of data you could feed into a complex model to try to extract some reasonable numbers... but I'm not sure how much it should be trusted in its raw form.

ED2: If anyone wants to scour the New York site better, there might be a more appropriate spreadsheet in there that could help distinguish new registrations from renewals...

Thank you for the link.

Sorting by 2019 model year then registration date yields:

August: 414
July: 308

June: 942
May: 435
April: 274

So registrations for the first 2 months are 722 Q3 vs 709 Q2. Q3 is actually slightly ahead of Q2. This is strong evidence against jaberwock's thesis of 20% lower US deliveries.

 

[MartinAustin]

The guy who posted his 40-minute commute in a Model 3 with the latest Version 10 software... has taken the video down.

I'm assuming he was contacted by Tesla and informed that attaching a weight to the steering wheel to avoid nagging is ungentlemanly and breaks the terms of the Autopilot software license. Pretty dumb too, IMO.

Nice day for TSLA, handily beating the NASDAQ. Tesla's "prowess reports" (GF3, Nurburgring/Plaid, IIHS etc. etc. etc.) plus the Deutsche Bank report should have had more effect if you ask me, but what do I know

 

[mongo]

Nice day for TSLA, handily beating the NASDAQ. Tesla's "prowess reports" (GF3, Nurburgring/Plaid, IIHS etc. etc. etc.) plus the Deutsche Bank report should have had more effect if you ask me, but what do I know

Maybe because Deutsche is out of the trading game and only does research...
Deutsche Bank Is Quitting Stock Trading. What It Means for Equity Research.

But a new rule recently implemented in Europe has changed all that. That rule, known as Mifid II, requires fund managers to pay for stock research separately from trading commissions. Mifid II—it stands for “markets in financial instruments directive, part II”—made it possible for Deutsche Bank to get rid of its struggling equity-trading business, but still maintain its research group. Deutsche appears to have seen opportunity in research, but the Mifid II rule has been pushing others out of the business altogether and ultimately could make research more difficult to access.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Tesla‏Verified account @Tesla 10 hours ago

"Data from our track tests indicates that Model S Plaid can achieve 7:20 at the Nürburgring. With some improvements, 7:05 may be possible when Model S returns next month."​

Nio EP9 specs:
Nürburgring Nordschleife 7:05.12

"NIO EP9 - World's Fastest Electric Car sets Nurburgring Record"

... jus' sayin'

 

[StealthP3D]

Has anyone seen this? This is not a negative, this is why you test at the Ring.

I got a real kick out of watching some of those ICE cars make a lot of loud noise while barely accelerating at all and struggling to maintain directional control.

 

[204EV]

It's so hot in Manitoba?

No it's cold....damn cold. But it's not weird to see people drink a Slurpee in -40 weather here (C or F its the same)

 

[hacer]

I'd like to quibble with this part: I believe Ihor used the SEC definition of "illegal naked shorting", which is failure to deliver shares under the rules (within ~3 trading days), which rules are arguably very friendly to shorts.

Under that metric there's been I believe near zero "failure to deliver" events for TSLA, which is not surprising, given how widely shorted TSLA is - it's in the top 3 short positions by nominal value so the borrowing pools would be among the most liquid ones.

...

Peaked at 191,448 shares (2.6% of average daily volume) for first half of August, then 250,337 shares (3.5% of daily volume) in second part of August. SEC.gov | Fails-to-Deliver Data
It's small, but it's not zero.

 

[bhtooefr]

Nio EP9 specs:
Nürburgring Nordschleife 7:05.12

"NIO EP9 - World's Fastest Electric Car sets Nurburgring Record"

... jus' sayin'

It, um, got faster after that run, a 6:45.90:

 

[Tim S]

Thank you for the link.

Sorting by 2019 model year then registration date yields:

August: 414
July: 308

June: 942
May: 435
April: 274

So registrations for the first 2 months are 722 Q3 vs 709 Q2. Q3 is actually slightly ahead of Q2. This is strong evidence against jaberwock's thesis of 20% lower US deliveries.

Just a reminder about NY and the reason these numbers are as low as they are... There is a law limiting Tesla to 5 stores in the entire state, and they are all in the NYC area. The law is supported by the dealership lobby. I had to drive 2 hours to pick up my Model 3, and other parts of NY have 4-5 hour drives to the nearest store. Meanwhile, there are probably 30 non-Tesla dealerships within a 20-minute drive from my house in Albany. A Tesla store here would do great. Tesla did recently open a local service center, but they can't deliver cars there.

My point is, there is room for huge growth here for Tesla, and in other states with similar laws. Hopefully as Tesla keeps growing the dealership lobby will get weaker and these laws will go away.

 

[Carl Raymond]

Epic climate strike today. This is Sydney, starting the ball rolling.

And yes, on topic. This is world changing stuff. A movement gathering strength at this pace changes emission laws, changes governments. Tesla sitting right in the zeitgeist.

 

[Artful Dodger]

It, um, got faster after that run, a 6:45.90:

um, no it didn't. That was an untimed run, with a video provided by NIO, not witnessed or verified by any other party.

 

[Buckminster]

If Rivian makes 100K BEV vans for Amazon by 2024, that's 100K fewer ICE or hybrid vans that will be made. I really don't see Rivian as competition, I welcome them as part of the team moving towards the goal... the more the better!

Rivian are spreading themselves too thinly. Not sure about the design also, futuristic with a bit of this nose thrown in: