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

[FreqFlyer]

Biden administration to reportedly relax EV rule on tailpipe emissions

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration intends to relax limits on tailpipe emissions that are designed to get Americans to move from gas-powered cars to EVs.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1759407927130018135

 

[Todd Burch]

I think Troy is missing the following in his forecast (probably among other things as it changes significantly as we get closer to the end of the quarter):

He tracks VIN data on *delivered* cars--which is fine for tracking deliveries. However, as a *forecaster*, he should be aware that the EPA has asked Tesla to withhold deliveries on certain models until their bookkeeping issue is cleared up. These cars will certainly get shipped to delivery centers but will be held there until released by Tesla once their EPA snafu is cleared up.

Therefore, deliveries will temporarily lag the normal pace for a few weeks while that's sorted out. When it's cleared, we should see a burst of deliveries. Is he accounting for that, or blindly just extrapolating the current rate?

(Spoiler, I think it's the latter).

Edit: Or it could be that he tracks VIN numbers once they are visible to customers...not sure.

 

[heltok]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1759451523212620143

 

[jamaatta]

Tesla Club Finland has donated ca. 40 "mini Teslas" since March 2020 to the child's hospitals around Finland. This was just published in the biggest newspaper in Finland.

Sairaudet | Lapset ajavat pienillä Tesloilla sairaalassa Helsingissä – Taustalta paljastuu joviaali idea

Vapaaehtoiset veivät sairaalaan sähköautoja, jotta pienet potilaat eivät jäisi leikeistä paitsi.

www.hs.fi

 

[Dikkie Dik]

New sighting ‘Highland’ Performance

https://twitter.com/x/status/1759414905332011356

 

[inconel]

Will there also be some body differences in front and back given the camouflage?

 

[T@oo]

Will there also be some body differences in front and back given the camouflage?

I sincerely hope so. The back is fine for me but the Highland front is boring AF.

 

[EQC_]

Will there also be some body differences in front and back given the camouflage?

Plot twist: that's not camouflage. It is the final body appearance. The performance version will feature cardboard body panels covered in waterproof fabric to save weight.

 

[cliff harris]

Both Lucid and Rivian report earnings this week.
Lucid is clearly about to collapse into bankruptcy. I suspect deep pocketed investors who cannot understand that there are Chinese rivals are going to keep shoveling money into rivian's moneypit for another quarter or two.
Obviously the media wont see this as vindicating Tesla, or being anything but 'EVs are doomed', but when Lucid dies, it may give Tesla more opportunity to raise prices and margins on the S/X, esp plaid?

 

[Tony73]

Both Lucid and Rivian report earnings this week.
Lucid is clearly about to collapse into bankruptcy. I suspect deep pocketed investors who cannot understand that there are Chinese rivals are going to keep shoveling money into rivian's moneypit for another quarter or two.
Obviously the media wont see this as vindicating Tesla, or being anything but 'EVs are doomed', but when Lucid dies, it may give Tesla more opportunity to raise prices and margins on the S/X, esp plaid?

The Rivian R1S is the main competitor to the X in the US market. It outsold the X by a few percent last year

 

[Mengy]

Wow, what happened to Ross Gerber? I had no idea he'd become so bitter against Elon, not like this:

If I was invested with Ross (I am not) I'd be a tad worried about that investment right now.

 

[Cobos]

Both Lucid and Rivian report earnings this week.
Lucid is clearly about to collapse into bankruptcy. I suspect deep pocketed investors who cannot understand that there are Chinese rivals are going to keep shoveling money into rivian's moneypit for another quarter or two.
Obviously the media wont see this as vindicating Tesla, or being anything but 'EVs are doomed', but when Lucid dies, it may give Tesla more opportunity to raise prices and margins on the S/X, esp plaid?

I might add that Lucid has a biggish store on our Karl Johan street the one bookended by the Central Station and the Royal Palace, so very expensive. And they sold 5 Lucids last year in Norway, EV nirvana. That’s less than Ferrari. So even though they are announcing the RWD Air now under 1 million NOK to the “we only buy 4x4 cars” Norwegians. It’s not looking very good for them.

 

[Usain]

While I’m not confident Tesla FSD is just around the corner, I don’t get the pessimism that “autonomous driving/robo taxi is at least 6-8 years away”, when there are already autonomous robotaxis operating in select US cities.

If Tesla wanted to do a geofenced robotaxi in the short term (like Waymo does) - I think they wouldn’t need to do much additional work to do that - the Tesla vision perception/comprehension is already pretty good, so combined with hard coded maps in a defined city area like San Fran or Austin, I think a Tesla robotaxi network could easily be operating today.

It is a separate debate, but I think they should actually consider doing it, even if purely for marketing purposes.

Tesla WILL do a geofenced robotaxi for some period of time. How else would they get started?

No matter how good Tesla thinks FSD has become, they can't just turn on robotaxi everywhere and hope for the best.

 

[Usain]

The marketing in this case would be "Tesla copies Waymo". I don't believe that's positive marketing.

The marketing would be, "Tesla copies Waymo, but Tesla makes a profit."

 

[Tony73]

The marketing in this case would be "Tesla copies Waymo". I don't believe that's positive marketing.

Whose “marketing” would that be ? Waymo’s ? What would waymo have to gain by highlighting a competitor ? Only upstarts do that.

Of course TSLAQ will say that but if they had influence in the real world, Tesla would have died a long time ago.

 

[unk45]

Both Lucid and Rivian report earnings this week.
Lucid is clearly about to collapse into bankruptcy...
... but when Lucid dies, it may give Tesla more opportunity to raise prices and margins on the S/X, esp plaid?

Lucid , but...

Lucid Group Makes History in Saudi Arabia as it Opens Country's First-Ever Car Manufacturing Facility | Lucid Group, Inc.

Lucid Group commences assembly of Lucid Airs in its new Advanced Manufacturing Plant, AMP-2, its first international manufacturing facility, strategically located in King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia . In the first phase, the facility has the capacity to assemble 5,000 Lucid

ir.lucidmotors.com

Lucid Group, Inc. (LCID) Stock Major Holders - Yahoo Finance

Find out the direct holders, institutional holders and mutual fund holders for Lucid Group, Inc. (LCID).

finance.yahoo.com

Consider that Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund owns 60% of shares plus funded the new Lucid plant near Jeddah, King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC).

King Abdullah Economic City: Moving Forward

www.kaec.net

A cursory look makes it obvious that Lucid is a logical tenant and part of the KAEC story, but hardly a major drain, in comparison.

Were Lucid to be a purely commercial enterprise they would probably have never made it to production, but they are not.
After all they added Aston Martin to their portfolio, not something a profit-seeking enterprise would probably do.

Whether they ever become profitable is an open question. In the land of air-conditioned dairy farms, KAIC and so much more the notions of Free Cash Flow or even selling a product for more than the marginal cost to produce it... are irrelevant!
Eventually, maybe, but bankruptcy, very very unlikely.

Rivian is an entirely different story...

 

[2daMoon]

I sincerely hope so. The back is fine for me but the Highland front is boring AF.

I thought the sleek Highland front was a significant improvement over the previous Mick Jagger's lips front of the original.

Looking forward to seeing similar on the Y refresh.

 

[unk45]

It is good to note that among the major competitors to Tesla for vehicles, services and TE products the vast majority have never really been constrained by traditional notions of sound financial management. Even giants such as Toyota, VAG, GM, Ford and all the major Chinese have financial resources adequate to allow them, temporarily at least, ignore even the basics, such as selling above the marginal cost to produce a product.

Tesla never has had such an indolent view. The CEO has repeatedly warned about the dangers of poor financial management. Hence fast growth/stable sales, always generate positive Free Cash Flow. Even the financial analysts try to game TSLA as less cash rich by counting non-recourse
securitizations etc as additional debt, so ignoring their self-liquidating character. Even so TSLA continues generating Free Cash Flow.

When we compare TSLA with any and all others, let us consider also that they keep funding themselves every single quarter, adding to the reserves as they continue breakneck investments. (check the factory videos, THEN look at the financials). Nobody ever has managed that feat, least of all a manufacturer which is highly integrated. Nobody outside of China has anywhere close to that degree of vertical integration.

Of course we worry about quarterly sales, labor union issues, political risks, even CEO comportment. Those are all fair topics. Let us all realize that as GM, Ford, VAG etc panic, Toyota gives up, more or less, and Honda and Apple may show up, Tesla just rolls on.

There really is no other public company quite like this one. No wonder securities analysts don't understand. How could they?
We have trouble enough each time we think of Mexico, Corpus Christi, Optimus, FSD, Megapack, 4680, Octovalve, 'the machine that builds the machine', Gigapress and on and on. Frankly I was blown away in 2012, but with autopilot and Inconel producing Ludicrous in 2015...the radical innovations just keep coming. OMG, did I even forget Cybertruck (not likely, the list just keeps going on.

 

[dhrivnak]

With all the gloom posted this year along with the declining stock price, I took the time to compare the financials of Tesla compared to Toyota, GM and Ford. I would love for others to check my numbers for 2023, but after the exercise I am glad I am long on Tesla. Here are a couple of key metrics:

.........................Tesla................Toyota.............GM................Ford
Profit per car...........$9,567...............$1,893.............$1,637............$985
Cash on hand.............$29B.................$0.05B.............$12B..............$25B
Debt.....................$0.044B..............$114B..............$16B..............$99B

I knew Tesla was profitable but I had no idea they totally killing the competition. If you look at cash - long term debt again only Tesla is solid and solid to a VERY strong degree, $29B versus GM the next closest at -$4B. So unless I made some mistakes all I need to say is WOW, Tesla is killing it.

Note: Toyota I think, counts a financial year from July to July so timing is a bit off and I had to covert Yen to $. So not a true apples to apples but we shoul be close. The cash to debt ratio of Toyota is just down right scary.

PS trying to correct for formatting.

PM me if you need reposting your corrected version here. This one’s painful!
Othermod: sort-of fixed formatting. --ggr