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

[GrandEnigma]

First Tesla store being across Centinela Avenue in West Los Angeles instead of Beverly Hills makes Tesla a brand of the people.

No, but back then the hill was much higher. Find me a kid now days that doesn’t know what an EV is let alone Tesla.

 

[Singuy]

Even if Lucid arrives as they claim, its meaningless to Tesla. Whats the worst that happens? Tesla sells a few thousand less Model S & X units a year? pffft. big deal /s

Tesla is currently building capacity for 2 million+ cars a year in Shanghai, Berlin & Austin - none of those factories are for Model S&X because they, and other $100k+ luxury EVs, are now essentially meaningless to the future of Tesla and global EV adoption.

The 2010s were about proving that EVs were good enough to replace ICE, by way of introducing high priced EVs that could perform well with decent range. That time has gone.

The 2020s are all about producing enough EVs at scale to replace ICE in every price level and vehicle category all the way down the line. New luxury EV entrants are skating to where the proverbial puck was 5 years ago. The new low cost micromobility companies building little 2 seater city range sub-$20k EV cars are way more relevant than a new luxury $100k+ EV maker.

The worst is just more FUD. Tesla will need to have an answer to this just to obtain the status that they are the best. Although mindsshare is heavy enough that it doesn't really matters. Once Tesla was given 8 years to establish themselves as the best, it doesn't matter if something else comes out that one ups them. But I am curious about 15% gap they need to close if there is one. Also we need to know how lucid is doing their calculation. Could be a 125kw pack with 113kw usable kind of shenanigans.

Battery day will tell, Raven gave a pretty good range bump with essentially no new tech and it's almost 2 years old. So I expect plaid to do some leap frogging.

So the problem with competition of each company trying to one up each other is increase R&D spending while not able to capture economy of scale very effectively for both companies. It will also drive margins down. It can end up being a distraction when the mission is to destroy ICE via mass market and not rich people's wallets. So that's why I'm not too keen on lucid trying to attack Tesla and not ICE.

 

[RobStark]

No, but back then the hill was much higher. Find me a kid now days that doesn’t know what an EV is let alone Tesla.

2008 Tesla didn't have to compete with 2021 Tesla. Lucid Motors does.

To many Beverly Hills means luxury. Lucid Motors wants to be the Electric Mercedes Benz. Tesla rejects "luxury" instead it is high tech/performance.

Ergo first Lucid store is in Beverly Hills.

 

[GrandEnigma]

2008 Tesla didn't have to compete with 2021 Tesla. Lucid Motors does.

To many Beverly Hills means luxury. Lucid Motors wants to be the Electric Mercedes Benz. Tesla rejects "luxury" instead it is high tech/performance.

Ergo first Lucid store is in Beverly Hills.

100% agree.

And there is some irony there as Mercedes worked with Tesla in 2012 to build a CA compliance car along with Toyota. Fast forward nearly a decade and somehow they still don’t get it. Nor does Lucid. The mass appeal is the disruption, not the luxury/performance.

 

[traxila]

Interesting comment. Made me realize that early adopters of Teslas were in the same boat, took a big risk as there was no way to know if a new car company would fail.

Are any of you on this board part of that group?

Bought a 2013 Model S sight unseen, never test driven in March of 2013 (waited an extra three months for multi coat Red. What a nice color!). Bought it for one reason only: it was an electric car. Best car I ever drove....until I bought a Model X in 2016. Best car I ever drove... until I bought a Model 3 in 2018. Best car I ever drove... until I bought a Model Y in 2020.

Not alone. This forum has been around a long time, and at one time it was teeming with people who did the same in 2012 and 2013, buying cars without even having seen them. A lot of them are still here.

 

[lafrisbee]

I'll try not repeat what has been said about LUCID already...
Lucid should not sell a financially significant number of the cars below the Max Priced model. If a person wants a Tesla with a luxury interior and a different look then they will buy the fully tricked out LUCID.
If the buyer can't afford the top-tier Lucid then it will be obvious they did not have enough money to buy the real LUCID, and it will be all about showing and feeling.
The lower tier models will have to compete with Tesla models, and then the stats become important, and Tesla will be chosen over LUCID. The choice will be:
A low end Lucid or the high end Tesla. (Not real a choice)

Now the not logical me, and OT...
I would prefer the interior and exterior of a LUCID over a Tesla. I'd really love a LUCID interior in a Cybertrck for ballin'. Some rapper or Footballer will go there.
I have yet to see a Tesla that looks good until I see the "T" on it.

 

[S3XY]

Same. V2G on a tri motor Cybertruck will easily replace a whole house generator for a few days. And once you run low? Drive to the closest SC with power, fill up, and head back home. The value proposition is insane. Even just using the built in 220/110 will be enough to power say a fridge and some basics.

Those of us who can see all the pieces Elon is putting together are going to make out like bandits. (more so than we have so far)

I keep telling my wife this every time she brings up getting a natural gas generator.

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

The Lucid Air is EPA 517 miles est. on a 113kWh battery

Yea, that's been known for a while.

 

[steve3]

Can anybody point me to the Tesla thread?

 

[GrandEnigma]

I keep telling my wife this every time she brings up getting a natural gas generator.

This is what I am hoping for and why I’m holding off on committing to my solar/power wall order until after battery day.

 

[printf42]

My take on Lucid Air:

1. They are legit, many of the engineering details they shared are impressive.
2. They would be able to sell to their target audience, who has money to burn and for some reason just hate Tesla and couldn’t be seen in one.

But they are not competition to Tesla:

1. They deliberately announce the Air before Battery day, since they know there is a high chance Tesla would announce Plaid by then, and when Tesla announce it, it would start delivery the same day. Air doesn’t stand a chance competing with that.
2. They probably burned through PIF money already and need new cash infusion to setup production, so uncertain whether they would make it.
3. Air appears to be competing with Model S, but in reality it would not sway any potential Tesla customer because the lacking of Autopilot alone, it might attract customers from other executive sedan though, but that market is very limited now.
4. Even if with the slightest chance some potential Model S customer were turned, Model S business is less and less relevant to TSLA since it already served its goal of funding other projects.
5. Lucid keep talking about applying the tech to future mass market products, but, without a clear battery strategy, they would not be able to compete with Tesla in any cost sensitive segments

Overall I wish them good luck, since any one car they sold would take one ICE off the road, but they won’t have any impact on TSLA, except, what if they buy battery from Tesla?

 

[Paul_SF]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1303897732487274497?s=21

 

[humbaba]

sheesh! all of this nonsense about Lucid being a competitor to Tesla or will it take any sales from Tesla. It won't. Sure, someone will say (for bragging rights if nothing else) that they bought a Lucid Air instead of a Tesla. And in some cases it may even be true. But Lucid Air is bringing more attention to EVs and it will certainly be true that someone may have their interest sparked by Lucid Air promotion/advertising then get a Tesla because it is better for them.

Whether Lucid makes 4,000 or 400,000 cars a year, they would never be any threat to Tesla. At most they will threaten legacy makers. And I hope they do.

While I realize that comparing Lucid to Tesla is inevitable, and it sure sounds like Lucid is encouraging this in a mistaken belief that they are competing with Tesla, the reality is that Tesla will continue to sell whatever units they can make. The reality is that there is not some magically different "EV market" that is somehow separate and distinct from the "real" automotive market. Last year it was apparent from sales figures that some of the legacy manufacturers (primarily german in the luxury segment) were being impacted. The model Y is extending that pain and the cyber truck will hammer it in. The reality is that the global automotive market (measured in units sold) is shrinking and -- relative to the size of the market (number of drivers) -- has been doing so since 2015. When you subtract EV sales the decline is accelerating. If Lucid ends up making 400,000 units per year that will make them the second biggest contributor to the decline of legacy auto. If Lucid flubs... well, someone else will pick up the slack. Maybe VW will get their act together. Maybe GM will make desirable EVs in non-compliance numbers. Maybe Nissan will stage a comeback.

But what I am certain of is that for the next five to ten years EV manufacturers will not really be competing with each other even if they claim to do so. The market is who decides that, not the makers, and the market has demonstrated an appetite for compelling EVs. While I expect Tesla to continue to lead, it doesn't really matter at this point if another manufacturer does somehow manage to pull ahead. Its a race to transition from oil to electric as fast as possible, and Tesla is there to set the pace.

 

[Singuy]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1303897732487274497?s=21

Did he just responded to a tweet from 2019?

 

[RobStark]

100% agree.

And there is some irony there as Mercedes worked with Tesla in 2012 to build a CA compliance car along with Toyota. Fast forward nearly a decade and somehow they still don’t get it. Nor does Lucid. The mass appeal is the disruption, not the luxury/performance.

Most are not interested in the disruption.

They want a nice car. That it does spew toxins and pollution is a bonus.

It is ok that Lucid is not interest in a vehicle for every car and purpose.

Daimler Benz did quite well during the ICE Age. Half of revenue coming from Mercedez and the other half coming from Daimler. All without a Golf/Corolla competitor.

More info in Air

 

[scaesare]

The worst is just more FUD. Tesla will need to have an answer to this just to obtain the status that they are the best. Although mindsshare is heavy enough that it doesn't really matters. Once Tesla was given 8 years to establish themselves as the best, it doesn't matter if something else comes out that one ups them. But I am curious about 15% gap they need to close if there is one. Also we need to know how lucid is doing their calculation. Could be a 125kw pack with 113kw usable kind of shenanigans.

Battery day will tell, Raven gave a pretty good range bump with essentially no new tech and it's almost 2 years old. So I expect plaid to do some leap frogging.

So the problem with competition of each company trying to one up each other is increase R&D spending while not able to capture economy of scale very effectively for both companies. It will also drive margins down. It can end up being a distraction when the mission is to destroy ICE via mass market and not rich people's wallets. So that's why I'm not too keen on lucid trying to attack Tesla and not ICE.

The Raven models absolutely introduced new tech with the new SWPRM motors.

 

[Bet TSLA]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1303897732487274497?s=21

That tweet expresses fairly succinctly why I am invested in Tesla. Aside from the mission, I mean.

Elon wrote:
"Tesla is best understood as a collection of about a dozen startups, mostly in series, increasingly in parallel. Every product line & new production system was invented. Instead of playing chess with the same pieces as everyone else, create new pieces."

This makes the company somewhat hard to value for conventional thinkers. They protest that Tesla can't possibly win the chess game. They don't understand that it's a new game.

 

[GrandEnigma]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1303897732487274497?s=21
"Instead of playing chess with the same pieces as everyone else, create new pieces."
That's it. Inclusion cancelled.

Purple patches in midst of a global pandemic and such.

What exactly was the good luck caused by their primary manufacturing plant being closed for weeks?

 

[farzyness]

I think the Lucid Air will sell and sell really well. It’ll take way more market share away from Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and the like than Tesla. They will definitely steal some Model S sales even with a refresh but it won’t be noticeable.

if anything, Lucid’s success will be an additional catalyst to the death of ICE. Right now established OEMs are in do or die situations with Tesla as the only player. Once you start introducing Lucid and others in the game it’ll turn into mass panic.

 

[Artful Dodger]

After-action Report: Wed, Sep 09, 2020: (Full-Day's Trading)

Headline: "TSLA Bounces Off 50-Day Moving Average"

Traded: $28,253,064,732.32 ($28.25B)
Volume: 79,465,392
VWAP: $355.54

Closing SP / VWAP: 103.11%
(TSLA closed ABOVE today's Avg SP)
Mkt Cap: TSLA / TM = $341.303B / $184.345B = 185.14%​

TSLA 1-mth Moving Avg Market Cap: $361.36B
TSLA 6-mth Moving Avg Market Cap: $205.34B
Nota Bene: 3rd tranche of CEO comp. unlocked as of Fri, Sep 04, 2020

'Short' Report:

FINRA Volume / Total NASDAQ Vol = 49.1% (49th Percentile rank FINRA Reporting)
FINRA Short/Total Volume = 40.1% (44th Percentile rank Shorting)
FINRA Short Exempt Volume was 8.16% of Short Volume (113th Percentile Rank)​

Cheers!

Comment: "TSLA adds $10 to gains After-hrs"

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