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

[Sanny]

My second biggest fear regarding short term price action is Adam Jonas on the call asking a loaded question about current SP and Elon saying that it is way ahead of execution. The first fear is of course not showing a profit. I feel like I should be better doing what I do best - staying away and not investing myself emotionally into short term movements.

 

[Buckminster]

OK?
When the guy in Northhampton UK gave me a good understanding of this technical geek stuff I could handle it..."Some Bloke in a Pub wearing tweed in the Summer with a border collie at his feet musing over The Financial Times while the snaggle-toothed waitress slides a beef and kidney pie to 'im."

Northampton is more:

 

[mikevbf]

And this is what I’m thinking, so Elon isn’t likely to give in to S&P wishes unless it suits/is beneficial to Tesla.

Which brings me back to Elon’s very specific comment about it being more important to use money efficiently than to have more of it than they can actually use. He’s also commented on Tesla being close to a situation where they’re making enough to fund their expansion as fast as is efficiently and feasibly possible. I think that happens fully in Q3 & Q4.

How much more than the 8B do they need to have on hand? If they come out of Q2 with the same 8B in the bank after riding out the COVID shutdown, yet continuing their expansion, then - we don’t need no stinking capital raise, people! Am I right?

Ok, but what if Tesla doesn’t want to raise money because they have enough and they can’t go any faster than they already are going.

In general I agree with you Krugerrand, but right now I more agree with TheTalkingMule:

This is why I'd like to see a cash raise done immediately, the tipping point has been reached. There's no amount of battery capacity Tesla could add that would be too much. So why not start work on 4 more Gigafactories with an $8B raise?

And especially MC30Z:

But the scale of the opportunity, the level of Tesla preparedness, and the pay back on any money spent on sensible expansion now, is mind blowing...

It is hard to know how big Tesla can go, and how soon they can do it.. I think battery raw materials are a likely limiting factor, that is why some investment in mines and processing would not surprise me..

This is the key point. There are two ways TSLA is worth way more than today's stock price:
1) software = FSD = trillion+ dollar robo taxi opportunity
and/or
2) batteries = taking over transportation + energy storage (taking over the grid) more trillion dollar opportunities.

In order to accomplish the battery side, Tesla needs a stable priced and plentiful source of battery raw materials = mines and processing which more than likely means they need to own or at least partner (in a panasonic way) mines and processing companies. Mining and processing is very expensive and takes a long time to ramp up. Therefore, I believe TSLA could use even more capital right now in order to "control it's own destiny." Building cash over time instead of doing a capital raise creates a longer delay in starting the massive and slow mining and processing expansion needed to transition the world to more sustainable transportation and energy.

 

[StealthP3D]

The overwhelming majority of analysts are lagging indicators, making them useless for price prediction.

They are great at telling you what the weather will be yesterday.

Only when they are having a lucky streak!

 

[The Martian]

Suffice it to say, The Boring Company won't buy a lot of vehicles. Won't really impact Tesla demand for a long, long time.

But that's huge advertisement for Tesla with millions of people from all around country/world moving through.

 

[Silentk]

Or ARK invest??

Can any Europeans advise how to invest into the Baron Funds BPTRX / BFGFX (to get into SpaceX) or ARKK / ARKQ?
My broker here said not possible to do with them.

Thx.

 

[Krugerrand]

Just checking on some of my favorite expressions...

Bated breath is a phrase that means to hold one's breath due to suspense, trepidation or fear. Bated breath is a phrase first mentioned in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The word bated is an abbreviation of the word abated, meaning to lessen in severity or amount.

I will not be gobsmacked by some shenanigan and tomfoolery questions from certain unnamed prigs later today.

 

[Christine69420]

Can any Europeans advise how to invest into the Baron Funds BPTRX / BFGFX (to get into SpaceX) or ARKK / ARKQ?
My broker here said not possible to do with them.

Thx.

My Broker - Nordnet - don't have Baron Funds. But they do have ARK. This is in Norway.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Who will win? This person, or McAfee? ‘Worthless Coin’ — McAfee Says He Never Believed Bitcoin Would Hit $1M

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Really hope TSLA makes actual cash flow....as this would be extremely scary to watch!

 

[Silentk]

What happened to the MPVs?

Elon replied that the future is single passenger vehicles, not the ones originally shown.

 

[dww12]

I found that part interesting. Why would they operate multiple types of vehicles? The only answer I have is that they believe they are truly production constrained, which would explain the lack of the Y in there which would be a better choice overall. I'm guessing they plan to just fill in the fleet whenever they have excess inventory of 3s, Xs, S etc.

So you can test ride any one you want. I still can’t decide between a X and a Y. Maybe I’ll go to LV and go in an infinite loop. It’s also very powerful to show that ALL Teslas can do this right out of the box. I hope there is a Ludicrous launch option. It will be the most popular attraction in LV.

 

[azaz]

Elon replied that the future is single passenger vehicles, not the ones originally shown.

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Gonna be system capacity/speed issues. It’s a one lane underground highway...

 

[c041v]

To be fair, Boring's other projects will likely have purpose built vehicles. Boring has submitted proposals for other tunnel systems which would require 12 or 16 person pods (presumably built by Tesla). But AFAIK Boring hasn't won any of these contracts yet. Again AFAIK, The Vegas convention center loop is the only contracted project so far. Note there is negotiation underway to extend this loop to the airport and the entire strip - at that point, luggage comes into play, etc.

I gotta say, picking between all of Elon's companies to invest in, Boring would be a very attractive investment indeed.

Edit: Just to give you perspective. Boring won this three person station contract with a $55M bid. A giant German company known for ski lifts among many other things, put in a bid for $500M. That's what you call disruption.

As I wait for trading to close, I'll chime in;

I'm skeptical about the Boring Company's long term profitability. Tunnel boring can be a very challenging type of civil work (Not that landing rockets isn't) and firms in this field have historically had some major problems over a long enough horizon. The Boring Company has taken on a few, relatively short tunnels in what I suspect are not that difficult rock/soil conditions. Maybe that is the intended formula, I don't know.

I've been to the head of an operational TBM and work in the Infrastructure business. Tunnels are only taken on by a select few international firms that have the risk tolerance and experience for such things and there's a long list of those who have failed. Just a couple of months ago, a partner company pulled out of a project as they were struggling so much with rock conditions. Even the nature of these machines is unique in that they can't often be re-used and are difficult to transport - I think the LA TBM is parked off to the side?

To me, the low bid for the three person station demonstrates a lack of experience more than disruption at this point. I see very low bidders all the time and it's for one of two reasons; 1. "Buying the job" to secure work, or 2. They screwed something up in the bid. It's normally the latter.

I have complete faith in Elon and the team, but the key to this industry is not about drilling faster, it's having a sixth sense in terms of geotechnical conditions, the ability to cut through bureaucratic red tape as it concerns authorities and utility providers and manage labour/equipment effectively. I'd like to see more holistic information around how the completed projects went, and less about how they are just planning to drill faster. Again, Elon is no stranger to seemingly impossible challenges, I'm just not seeing any disruptive magic in what the Boring Company is currently doing.

 

[Krugerrand]

Maybe, but that doesn't sound like Elon. It would be far more efficient all around to pick 1 specific type of vehicle rather than deal with routing passengers through several configurations. "Oh, your party has 4 people but lots of luggage? Ok, we have to move you to that Model X. Whoops, we just put 2 people into that X with no luggage." But of course your point is valid in that it shows off multiple models.

I suppose it may depend on how they are setting the whole thing up.

Why couldn’t the people choose for themselves?

 

[mejojo]

Elon replied that the future is single passenger vehicles, not the ones originally shown.

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IMO "individualized" is not the same a "single passenger"

 

[lafrisbee]

View attachment 567569

what the hell?
The saying is " if you can't run with the big dogs STAY on the porch."
So what am I missing?

 

[Tslynk67]

Can any Europeans advise how to invest into the Baron Funds BPTRX / BFGFX (to get into SpaceX) or ARKK / ARKQ?
My broker here said not possible to do with them.

Thx.

I've read that you can't invest in the ETF's from Europe.

I see ARKK on my broker app, but in the past when I tried a purchase I got an error message.

 

[mikevbf]

There is no long term effect on TSLA if it’s in S&P 500 or not, Neither Elon cares or true long term investors, How has Tesla done so far without being in Index ?

Tesla transitioning the world to sustainable transportation and energy is like launching a rocket which requires fuel. One of TSLA's great fuels are the shorts. It's time to use what remains of that fuel now by joining the S&P 500. Shorts have always hoped TSLA is a passing fad and would go bankwupt. Joining the S&P 500 puts those notions to rest.

How more obvious does Elon need to be? Selling red shorts that arrive about now! and his twitter image of falcon engines at full burn! Stay calm and buckle in for the ride.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Gonna be system capacity/speed issues. It’s a one lane underground highway...

Maybe. But. The tunnels can be much smaller. So you can have many more parallel tunnels.

Right now you have huge trains that start and stop at each station. Most of the tunnel system is empty at any one point in time. If you had small pods, you could pack in tons more pods into the tunnels than you can trains. So the overall system capacity might be very similar.

From a users perspective, trains are awful since they stop at every station and require disembarking and reembarking at transfer points. A pod system would skip all those intermediate stations and go directly from start to finish station, automatically navigating different tunnel “lines”.

Pods are the way to go if you want to actually eliminate or mitigate surface based road traffic.

 

[Christine69420]

My Broker - Nordnet - don't have Baron Funds. But they do have ARK. This is in Norway.

I've read that you can't invest in the ETF's from Europe.

I see ARKK on my broker app, but in the past when I tried a purchase I got an error message.

I have ARKF and ARKG in my account.