TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Cosmacelf]

4th Q: Adam Jonas, MS: 2 questions: AP is essential a "terminator", could have military applications. Do you see any risk that this weapons grade technology could be restricted from countries like China.

Elon: Uh no, never came up.

Jonas: Who do you think would be a more competitor over time: BMW or Amazon.

Elon: Neither, really.

 

[ruralectric]

Adam Jonas: What a doooofus!

Edit: (Just heard his 2nd question) Adam Jonas: What a DUM* A*S!

 

[ZachShahan]

Adam Jonas just asked about whether they're worried about not being able to export "weapons grade AI" in their FSD...

bigger competitor going forward — BMW or Amazon?

i laughed so hard on that one. Elon's response epic too, and then professional before he slammed BMW too hard.

 

[MXWing]

What in the fuq at Morgan Stanley guy, PETA lady with leather in the gear shifter made more sense.

 

[The Blue Owl]

DEEP question from Jonas-the-Deep:

Who do you think will be a more formidable competitor to Tesla? BMW or... Amazon?!​

 

[BioSehnsucht]

They are a bunch of losers but they inadvertently forced me into the single most profitable trade of my life $TSLA J 2020 $300 calls #300

So I am thankful to the fools!

How does this work? Do you get to pick any time before Jan (June? July?) 2020 that you want to take the shares at the price of $300 a share?

 

[dailo]

I was waiting for Elon to say something snarky for Adam, but he behaved. He's crushing this call so far!

 

[YasB]

no regulatory restriction/investigation preventing equity raise.

now once and for all, stop spreading that bullish!t. tell your friends too.
thanks.

See, that was easy. Another short theory down the drain.

 

[TradingInvest]

Adam Jonas: What a doooofus!

Edit: (Just heard his 2nd question) What a DUM* A*S!

Based on his questions, his firm probably is on the short side. Loser. It seems these guys have no engineering background/capability, so they just make wild guesses.

 

[Cosmacelf]

5th Q: Ferrigue: How did you stop burning cash? Every additional car, you get payables increase $20K per car. Get cash up front but have 60 days for payables.

Deepak: Many factors. Working capital benefit has been one factor to increasing cash. But also margins, S/X volumes, all other business doing well. Opex is essentially staying flat. And yes, your $20K per car payables boost is about right.

 

[jelloslug]

DEEP question from Jonas-the-Deep:

Who do you think will be a more formidable competitor to Tesla? BMW or... Amazon?!​

He might as well have just asked if he though blue or gray was a better color...

 

[Boomer19]

5th Q: Ferrigue: How did you stop burning cash? Every additional car, you get payables increase $20K per car. Get cash up front but have 60 days for payables.

Deepak: Many factors. Working capital benefit has been one factor to increasing cash. But also margins, S/X volumes, all other business doing well. Opex is essentially staying flat. And yes, your $20K per car payables boost is about right.

i think @mongo (or someone) talks about this probably 100 pages ago, at this point. nice to see that come to light.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Hmm v9 *early access* in 4 weeks. Full release in Sept.

 

[Cosmacelf]

6th Q: What's holding back from FSD coast to coast, all road conditions.

Elon: We can do a coast to coast drive. Could write code to game to route. But they are working on the general solution. Best dev build recognizes traffic lights and stop signs, hard right turns, but not at the right safety level yet.

6-12 months will deploy rich environment understanding into active safety rather than FSD.

Elon: coast to coast demo maybe before end of year.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Demand is still absurd.
Production is stabilizing.
Cash raise is likely unnecessary.
It's on folks.

 

[larmor]

'thestreet' live blog commentary super slow, cuz tesla executing...

 

[Big Earl]

Q: Is GA4 permanent?
A: It's permanent for now.

Someone needs to ask about GA2. What is it? Is it running? Will it run?

 

[Cosmacelf]

7th Q: JOhn Murphy BofA: GA4 is now permanent? IS this a new model for capacity additions?

Jerome: Permanent for now. Unless we come up with something better. Good model going forward to make better.

Elon: Basically, we were forced to be capital efficient, and we discovered some new manufacturing tricks.

JB: The "tent" is a distraction, it is a building, what's inside is the innovation. Process improvements.

Elon: We think innovations will transfer to Shanghai. Paint shop can be made simpler, body shop can be really simplified. Design/manufacturing improvements too. Elon sounded pumped about lessons learned about how to design next car to easier manufacturing.

JB: This isn't really a walk back from automation. Just a more thoughtful application of automation to areas that matter most.

Follow up Q: What are average transaction prices are you thinking for future good margins, still 40K

Deepak: Yes, Q2 will get 25% margins on Model 3.

 

[Boomer19]

understatement of the week,

“we’re really quite good at software, relative to other car companies”

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Second Q: China Gigafactory. What are cost and production capability.

Elon: again apologies for last call. Should cost a lot of less than GF1. Closer to $2B cost, at 250K vehicle per year rate. Includes pack production, vehicle, etc. DOES NOT INCLUDE cell production. Still figuring that out for Shanghai.

I think it's sensible not to include cell production, assuming they have a similar but not identical arrangement for GF3 as they do for GF1 with Panasonic (whether it's Panasonic or someone else). Suppose Tesla leases out some space for cell production to their supplier (such as Panasonic for GF1) and buys cells at a given price per cell, but perhaps doesn't pay for the production hardware directly. I think GF1 there's some weird arrangement where they paid for the Panasonic equipment (lease or something?). With a lower risk now, where everyone can be sure the project will succeed, it might be sensible to let Panasonic bear the full cost there and just pay a higher rate per cell accordingly (with same and perhaps overall lower costs over time, since Tesla would not paying for the hardware too).