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

[navguy12]

“…When you look at actual sales rather than inventory (a better measure of true demand), American EV sales are at an all-time high, up 50 per cent year on year in the second quarter of 2023…”

From an opinion piece in yesterday’s Toronto Star discussing the differences between American and Canadian EV incentives:

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[navguy12]

”…The debate is not about the viability of electric vehicles anymore,” says Wallace of the response to the global climate crisis.
“It’s about how fast we can scale deployment of them”.

Again, from yesterday’s Toronto Star, a story debunking some EV FUD talking points:

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[bkp_duke]

I was just bye Blue Oval City For the first time in a while. They sure haven’t been told about a change in plans here. The scale is far bigger than giga Texas. Several huge buildings nearing completion, one monster about 3/4 the way done. Here Ford appears to be working faster than Tesla speed.

If memory serves me, F and GM both build things in single-story facilities. GigaTexas is 3 (sometimes 4) floors.

You need to compare utilized floor space, not plant footprint for an accurate comparison (and even then Tesla is far more efficient).

 

[FireMedic]

My sincere hope is that the government does not throw a bunch of our money down the toilet by subsidizing their vain effort. No amount of money can save them. RIP.

You mean like this?

Ford agrees to $9.2 billion US government loan​

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN
Updated 12:38 PM EDT, Thu June 22, 2023

Article link

 

[LTC_RRR]

+1

As I am traveling around cities in India now, I am astounded at the number of EVs I see on city roads. EVs are easily identifiable with a green plate.

And more than half of them are Tata Nexon EV. And I took one out for a spin. Very well built and drives like a contemporary Leaf. Comes with two ranges 180 Kms and 300 Kms (from my memory). Too puny range for US, but MORE than enough for Indian city white collar commuters.

Most of the cars are mostly used for local city travel, and long distance travel by personal cars is a rarity. Fast chargers almost non existent. And there is a hunger to switch to EVs. Tesla could do very well if they get one for $20k with 150 mile range and one for $25k with 200 mile range, and of course blanket the highways with their splendid Superchargers.

Nissan missed a good opportunity with their Leaf.

"...You have a real hard time selling wide vehicles of any sort to people who live in old cities..."
Have to look at height, as well. I recall having issues with American vehicles (and loaclly rented vans) in the underground parking garages that are so common in Germany. Seemed like I kept having problems with a vehicle that was 2-5 cm higher than the maximum clearances for those garages.

 

[scaesare]

Tesla was trying to make the safest car ever. Hatchbacks lack a rear bulkhead. This is problematic for veteran car companies. Tesla managed to make the safest car ever, according to the standards. It even broke at least one of the test machines. When Tesla made the Model 3, the only place to put the cross beam needed for hatch attachment was where the rear passengers heads would be. So, they raised the roof to make a hatchback and called it the Model Y. Yeah, they jacked the whole car up and called it a suv like the original Forester. Volvo did the same thing with one model about 10 years ago. Of course, none of this takes away from the Y being a great vehicle. It made it better.

So given that the S also needs to have a beam there, given it's a hatchback sedan, and it obviously performed quite well.[1] I'd imagine the issue is that with the 3's decreased dimensions, it caused the headroom issue you mentioned?

Mod: The discussion regarding hatchbacks, etc., ended some pages back

[1] Tesla Model S Rear-Ended By A 40-Ton Semi (The Semi had to be towed)

 

[Cosmacelf]

LK-99's synthesis is pretty easy- the problem is nobody, not since it was first claimed to have these properties in 2020 has anyone else been able to prove it does what they claim or replicate their results.

Actually it isn’t that easy to make. Latest info seems to indicate you have to add oxygen at just the right/time amount in one of the process steps, for one example. Seems that they've made small, impure samples so far, but they don't have the tools/equipment to make large amounts of pure superconductor material. This has heretofore been an underfunded effort. Lots of labs, better funded, are now on the case and we shall see where this leads. Regardless of outcome, this will be interesting.

 

[Hock1]

You mean like this?

Ford agrees to $9.2 billion US government loan​

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN
Updated 12:38 PM EDT, Thu June 22, 2023

Article link

unfortunately, yes.

 

[dhanson865]

So Gary Black says for 2030 he has TSLA with a 51 price to earnings with zero robots and zero robotaxis. Just based on being a bigger car company than Toyota (He's modeling tesla at 10M units per year in 2030).

He'd rather have to add in the robots, FSD/robotaxi later if it happens than to have to take it out of his model (he doesn't want to guess the timing and will just add it when it happens).

at 3:05

 

[Thekiwi]

So Gary Black says for 2030 he has TSLA with a 51 price to earnings with zero robots and zero robotaxis. Just based on being a bigger car company than Toyota (He's modeling tesla at 10M units per year in 2030).

He'd rather have to add in the robots, FSD/robotaxi later if it happens than to have to take it out of his model (he doesn't want to guess the timing and will just add it when it happens).

at 3:05

I don’t see how it could have a 51x PE ratio 2030 just from being the largest auto company. It would have to have robotaxi or Optimus as well to get that multiple, considering the days of 50% auto growth would be rapidly drawing to a close post 2030.

 

[Patrick66]

I was just bye Blue Oval City For the first time in a while. They sure haven’t been told about a change in plans here. The scale is far bigger than giga Texas. Several huge buildings nearing completion, one monster about 3/4 the way done. Here Ford appears to be working faster than Tesla speed.

Are you sure about relative size? From what little I can see from Street View (old images), the portion of the site they were working on is about half the footprint of GF Texas and less than that in terms of floor area.

Also, the anticipated employee counts that I can find are half to 1/4 that of Tesla. Happy to be proven wrong, but I can't find any solid information out there.

 

[hobbes]

Netherlands national newpaper NRC Handelsblad visited Giga Berlin:

Na een bezoekje in de Tesla-fabriek blijkt: het bedrijf heeft de auto-industrie binnen één decennium op afstand gezet

Tesla-fabriek Berlijn: NRC kreeg een inkijkje in de even omstreden als gigantische Tesla-fabriek die vorig jaar werd geopend bij Berlijn. Het mechanische robotballet in de hallen toont hoe het bedrijf de auto-industrie binnen één decennium op afstand wist te zetten.

www-nrc-nl.translate.goog

 

[cliff harris]

I don’t see how it could have a 51x PE ratio 2030 just from being the largest auto company. It would have to have robotaxi or Optimus as well to get that multiple, considering the days of 50% auto growth would be rapidly drawing to a close post 2030.

That depends. Traditional auto companies don't sell software subscriptions or fuel. Tesla could totally stop building cars, and still have a growing business by being the global supercharging empire. And subscription revenue isnt just FSD, even regular autopilot, or premium connectivity for netflix & spotify also brings in money. Even if FSD and optimus fail I cant see Tesla just giving up and running a flat business by 2030.

I do agree that some element of FSD & Optimus needs to be included in any long term model though.

 

[Mengy]

I don’t see how it could have a 51x PE ratio 2030 just from being the largest auto company. It would have to have robotaxi or Optimus as well to get that multiple, considering the days of 50% auto growth would be rapidly drawing to a close post 2030.

I agree with this, but then I tend to model conservatively anyway just like Gary does. I model a TSLA PE of 15-20 in 2030 if we are just still auto + energy (no Robotaxis's nor Optimus) because the production growth rate will have likely slowed below 50% CAGR by then.

If Robotaxi's are deployed and the robots are in production, well my model changes DRASTICALLY in this scenario.

 

[Buckminster]

You can apply a likelihood to FSD / bot to your model but given that the likelihood is high then all it serves is to make you look like a fruit loop. I should know:
Super Bull Future TSLA Valuations

 

[Snerruc]

If memory serves me, F and GM both build things in single-story facilities. GigaTexas is 3 (sometimes 4) floors.

You need to compare utilized floor space, not plant footprint for an accurate comparison (and even then Tesla is far more efficient).

While it is hard to tell what’s inside a cube, I would estimate these buildings are as tall as gigaTexas. Plenty of room for multi stories. Also, they have about 1,000 more acres to build on.

 

[lascavarian]

Actually it isn’t that easy to make. Latest info seems to indicate you have to add oxygen at just the right/time amount in one of the process steps, for one example. Seems that they've made small, impure samples so far, but they don't have the tools/equipment to make large amounts of pure superconductor material. This has heretofore been an underfunded effort. Lots of labs, better funded, are now on the case and we shall see where this leads. Regardless of outcome, this will be interesting.

Description of the molecular design is reminiscent of high strength glass invented I believe at Alfred University where the crystalline entity is heated under pressure and Florine gas (?) is driven into the lattice and then slowly cooled. The result is a different structure under stress as identified with X-ray crystallography and nearly unbreakable glass. Costly to produce but introduces a novel characteristic.

Producing quantum tunnels via a similar method rings a bit like dilithium warp drive theory. I hope they don’t cross the beams

 

[samppa]

Most important use for V2L

 

[AndrewZ]

Description of the molecular design is reminiscent of high strength glass invented I believe at Alfred University where the crystalline entity is heated under pressure and Florine gas (?) is driven into the lattice and then slowly cooled. The result is a different structure under stress as identified with X-ray crystallography and nearly unbreakable glass. Costly to produce but introduces a novel characteristic.

Producing quantum tunnels via a similar method rings a bit like dilithium warp drive theory. I hope they don’t cross the beams

Just need to be careful not to expose the crystalline entity to high-frequency graviton pulses

 

[EVWatcher]

While it is hard to tell what’s inside a cube, I would estimate these buildings are as tall as gigaTexas. Plenty of room for multi stories. Also, they have about 1,000 more acres to build on.

Maybe fords building what tesla tells them so they can assemble Teslas with Ford logos on them. Only half joking.