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

[JBRR]

Baird maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Neutral and target $650
Baird maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Neutral and target $650
Past Target Price: $525
Issuance Date: 2020-01-30

Wedbush maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Neutral and target $710
Past Target Price: $550
Issuance Date: 2020-01-30

Deutsche bank Maintains Hold on Tesla, Raises Price Target to $510
Deutsche bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner maintains Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a Hold and raises the price target from $455 to $510.

Roth Capital maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Sell
Roth Capital maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Sell
Issuance Date: 2020-01-30

RBC Capital maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Underperform and target $530
RBC Capital maintained Tesla (TSLA) coverage with Underperform and target $530
Past Target Price: $315
Issuance Date: 2020-01-30

 

[jerry33]

I am almost certainly such a person. I ordered one of each trim level the moment Elon said "You can order now if you want." ...and I don't have room for even one. I did this because the deposit was small and refundable, and I thought maybe I could somehow sell my place in line

You do realize that you don't get a place in line until you actually configure the vehicle? Then your place in line depends on how they batch the configuration you choose (including options). The RN number really doesn't mean much.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Secret battery lab is at somewhere very cold, that's a hint so it's unlikely to be Tesla's

Tesla was hiring for Bty cell jobs in Colorado last fall. There's cold in them thar mtns.

 

[Green Pete]

Someone reassure me that this isn't a cause for mild concern:

M3 sales up YoY: 42%
Service centers: 13%
Superchargers: 28%

Lets not forget that in the past a lot of S/X sales were to multiple car (wealthier) buyers. having to wait on service is a pain...but manageable. Also they have longer range, so superchargers are likely used less.
I would *really* like to see supercharger installs and service center locations increase at (at least!) the same rate as car production.

I accept that they dont break stores/service out, and some stores closed, but that doesn't excuse the slow supercharger roll-out.

It would be different if tesla already had an exemplary record for timely servicing, but we all know thats not true . (To be fair, here in the UK, I wrecked the front of my S and it was fixed by a 3rd party tesla-approved garage, super-close to me, fairly quickly, even over christmas).

Having driven from chicago to sf via yellowstone and seattle its pretty amazing to see the difference in the usage rates around the bay area vs the rest of the country. Given that most of the superchargers (by count) exist to make it POSSIBLE to get across the country but go largely unused, its totally possible a 10% increase in total count just in the high usage areas goes a long way.

Also having used the v3 charger last weekend it was mind blowingly fast. Rolling those out in bulk will effectively double the network size in high traffic areas anyway.

 

[Words of HABIT]

To me the most positive take from today is that we got to $650 without even using most of the available ammo.

No talk about SP500
No talk about FCA money
No talk about deferred taxes
No specific date or info about battery day (and more than two months out)
Only 500k given as delivery goal which to most here is very low
No specifics given on any specific production achivements really. Didn't even get a question about when they'll get to X number of model Y per day etc.

There are hardly any promises made they can really miss baring macro economic stuff. But still so many achievements they can announce this year. I was sure they would have to make lots more promises on the high end to get to $650.

$800 in February?

...and no BINGO.

 

[Fact Checking]

I'm currently feeling darned smug about writing this:
Cliffski's Blog | The case for buying tesla stock.
when the stock was.... 258

Personally I'm very fond of this not-advice end of May last year:

JFYI, let's just document how this 'nursebee' concern-troll, after putting up months of a charade of being 'concerned', decided to burn this years old TMC account forever with a final, blatant round of fear-mongering. I.e. probably even the shorts think these price levels are ridiculously low and won't hold for long.

"Birds" and bees of the same feather flock together, it appears.

(Emphasis mine.)

I wrote this post when we hit $195, and TSLA was within days of the $178 low.

 

[Green Pete]

For those risk takers and options traders here. The Jan 2021 leap calls are under a $1 for a strike of $690. If FC FSD arrives and Shanghai factory outputs good numbers by the end of next year I see no reason why the price can’t explode to at least 750 giving you a 60x return. The Tesla price is always somewhat of a mystery to me but a tripling in price with everything expected over the next year isn’t entirely unreasonable to me. Not a lot of risk for a lot of reward there.

Frankly I feel like if the right things happen there’s no reason it couldn’t explode far more than triple.

Not advice. Just an opinion.

Fingers crossed these go ITM today

 

[RobStark]

Nothing has changed at VW, they got caught. The mission is still the same and it is not a great mission for earth or, I believe, for germany. They are in an impossible situation. Mercedes...maybe. BMW could have. Those two rely on the middle level german companies for parts. VW does most stuff in house so the transformation will hurt them more directly. The workers council must be going nuts.

Then something has changed dramatically.

Herbert Diess is the exact opposite of Martin Winterkorn.

Martin Winterkorn and those most closely affiliated with dieselgate at VW have been kicked out of VW.

Before dieselgate Herbert Diess was on the outside of the powerful inner circle for advocating BEVs.

BTW Elon Musk has endorsed Herbert Diess' leadership. Elon never endorsed Winterkorn.

 

[RobStark]

Someone reassure me that this isn't a cause for mild concern:

M3 sales up YoY: 42%
Service centers: 13%
Superchargers: 28%

Tesla is also building much larger service centers and supercharger stations with more throughput as well as expanding existing service centers and supercharger stations.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Morning rush hour has begun:

Real-Time - data as of 1/30/2020 7:02:03 AM
$646.06
+$65.07
+11.2%​

 

[AquaMan]

You do realize that you don't get a place in line until you actually configure the vehicle? Then your place in line depends on how they batch the configuration you choose (including options). The RN number really doesn't mean much.

Didn't quite realize that, and respectfully I'm still not sure it's true, but it doesn't matter much. I've already specified the number of motors and whether to include FSD... which is pretty much all I configured for my Model 3. (Since color and wheel size don't apply.)

I also didn't think people would find this offensive. (Someone called me stupid above. LOL.) As far as I know I haven't hurt anyone or anything including myself. Worst case, I've been able to enjoy seeing people's faces when I tell them I ordered 3 Cybertrucks. I'll probably cancel eventually. Or, if my life changes I might actually take delivery of one.

But I'm wondering... if there's no place in line... Is there any reason at all to place an online order? Surely there must be. I don't think Tesla can even count those $100 payments as revenue.

[Edit: I think what I have is a place in line to receive the emailed "Invitation to configure your Cybertruck". (To include probably interior color and whatever else they decide.) They won't want to send such an email to all 250K+ people at the same time.]

 

[Green46]

I don't see a way out for them. If Tesla goes internal and proprietary with the new tech batteries, the OEMs might as well throw in the towel on their own EVs. What does that leave them with? Hybrids and ICE. Dead end. Their last hope - kill Tesla - has probably slipped away from them.

I agree, the issue though is if this forces ICEs to throw in their towel, will Tesla have accelerated or delayed the advent of sustainable energy? I dont know the answer to this yet, but its actually a crucial question in the grand scheme of things.

Is Tesla paving the way for all to join? Or are they way too far ahead and too quick to even try catching up? From what ICEs are doing (or not) atm, it seems to be the latter unfortunately. I hope I'm very wrong on this one.

I also dont think the big fines for CO2 credits that are or will be imposed on ICE will change their spineless stance on this.

 

[NakedLong]

If you honestly believe Gali knows jack squat about battery chemistry or manu. tech you are on seriously shaky ground with any of your subsequent conclusions.

He's a biz student with a year of watching youtube vids and hyperventilating over his incorrect assumptions.

The only place other than TMC that has presented any good analysis is EV TV, courtesy of Jack Rickard, although we've pointed out many of his mistakes here at TMC.

Please to sit down.

This is just condescending and wrong. Have you even watched his videos? Gali merely uncovered research papers and connections between several major battery players to show the direction the battery tech is going - it's not like he is presenting his own battery tech. Every now and then I will agree he gets slightly carried away, and I agree he is not very technical, but he is logical, knows his own limits, and 95% of the time is right.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Uh....
That’s only two words*
(and a salad)

 

[Pras]

Someone reassure me that this isn't a cause for mild concern:

M3 sales up YoY: 42%
Service centers: 13%
Superchargers: 28%

Lets not forget that in the past a lot of S/X sales were to multiple car (wealthier) buyers. having to wait on service is a pain...but manageable. Also they have longer range, so superchargers are likely used less.
I would *really* like to see supercharger installs and service center locations increase at (at least!) the same rate as car production.

I accept that they dont break stores/service out, and some stores closed, but that doesn't excuse the slow supercharger roll-out.

It would be different if tesla already had an exemplary record for timely servicing, but we all know thats not true . (To be fair, here in the UK, I wrecked the front of my S and it was fixed by a 3rd party tesla-approved garage, super-close to me, fairly quickly, even over christmas).

The right comparison should be number of new Teslas in the total current fleet vs. number of service centers or Superchargers.

 

[Artful Dodger]

what comes to my mind could be Dalhousie if he’s actually telling the truth about stuff.

Dalhousie is in Halifax, just a km from the Atlantic. There is no deep cold there, at least outside of a lab.

 

[Fact Checking]

The right comparison should be number of new Teslas in the total current fleet vs. number of service centers or Superchargers.

The right comparison is Tesla fleet size vs. Supercharger Network total charging speed.

V3 is happening too, which increases the throughput of each stall massively.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

While it's only a week or two since this was brought up and discussed my memory is already fuzzy on the details so anyone wanna spell out the implications since we seem to have hit the threshold?

Apparently Tesla had issued calls and puts(?) at various prices to hedge some of the convertible debts they took on in the last couple of years. As I remember it the price point where Tesla would make the maximum back from those was supposedly $609 if I remember correctly?

Now being above that price what does this mean? Will Tesla sell their positions because they can't get more valuable? Where would this end up in the accounting? Does this mean Tesla can just give this money to the debt holders instead of giving them stocks to avoid diluting the stock numbers?

This has to be good for us shareholders but will it have any effect on Q1 results?

Do I even remember any of this correctly or is it from some weird dream? I have started to have dreams about stockcharts that look like rocket launches so could be.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I see no logical reason to draw two horizontal lines on a stock chart and call it “trading range”. The price represents market valuation of a company with compounding annual growth greater than 50%. It’s not static as a horizontal line would imply.

If you draw two upward sloping lines on a logarithmic stock price chart, fine, that’s at least a logical attempt to represent trading range.

FTFY. Wall St. logical, LOL!

Cheers!

 

[EinSV]

Then something has changed dramatically.

Herbert Diess is the exact opposite of Martin Winterkorn.

Martin Winterkorn and those most closely affiliated with dieselgate at VW have been kicked out of VW.

Before dieselgate Herbert Diess was on the outside of the powerful inner circle for advocating BEVs.

BTW Elon Musk has endorsed Herbert Diess' leadership. Elon never endorsed Winterkorn.

Elon has supported Diess and Diess is saying the right things about EVs BUT

We should not sugarcoat the fact that VW continues to poison people by using cheat devices to market excessively high emissions spewing diesel vehicles

This is happening on Diess's watch. (It is not limited to VW of course).

There have been numerous reports and court findings of VW continuing to use emissions defeat devices/software on post-Dieselgate vehicles including diesels currently being sold.

These defeat devices result in excessive real-world emissions many times higher than lab tests would suggest, and continue to be a very serious public health issue, especially in Europe.

Abgasskandal: Weitere Abschalteinrichtungen bei VW?
Volkswagen's Dieselgate software fix has another cheat device: German court
Remote sensing of motor vehicle emissions in Paris | International Council on Clean Transportation
Alex on Twitter
Volkswagen headquarters raided again over diesel scandal