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

[DarkandStormy]

Troy's current number for Q1 is 484k (so about flat to Q4'23 but ahead of Q1'23 of 423k).

Production challenges in Q1 are:
- 2 week shutdown in Berlin
- Model 3 Highland ramp in Fremont
- Chinese new year shutdown (no different than last year)

Production upsides:
- Higher weekly production output Berlin/Austin vs Q1'23
- inventory wave flattening likely completed.

Regarding the inventory wave reduction, see this table:
View attachment 1014767
I believe the wave flattening began in Q3 2022 and ended in Q2 2023 (see black box above).
The inventory build that occurred at year-end in Q4 '23 was to replenish the inventory draw in Q3'23.
In Q1 2023, you can see that Tesla produced 17,933 more cars than it delivered as vehicles were in transit on ships/car carriers.
This Q1, I expect to see a small build in inventory of about 5k but we may actually see a draw where Tesla delivers more cars than produced (there were some late ships at year-end that arrived early Jan).

Considering the challenges I mentioned above (Berlin shutdown, Fremont Highland ramp), I think Troy's 484k is reasonable.
490k would be solid and anything over 500k very bullish, imo.

Welp.

This is a huge miss from early to mid quarter expectations.

Btw, to hit 1.8m for FY2024 they need to *average* 471k/quarter over the final 9 months.

 

[AndrewZ]

Every time the Troy haters have come out in full vocal force, he ends up being too optimistic.

 

[ShareLofty]

387k

Pathetic. Where is the board of directors? Time for another letter writing campaign

 

[uscbucsfan]

I see a lot of predictions of 4k CTs being delivered in Q1. That's probably better than many had at this point.

That will only grow from here.

 

[Musskiah]

My local Tesla center has over 200 cars in the lot. They are delivering only 23 cars today. They are not pushing hard. I would like deliveries to come in under 400k at this point and just stash 40k+ in inventory. Who cares? It's really a nothingburger, with the exception of this drawdown of Shanghai workdays. Q1 is always wah-wah, except for only one year. These quarterly deliveries are no longer the important narrative anyway; Energy & FSD are the new growth waves. It's about time Troy and others expand their analysis to be more inclusive of them. They are going to be forced to in no time now.

@hobbes What can I say? It appears my service center wasn't the only one to be building inventory. What a power move! Bravissimo Mr.Musk does it again! Flatten the delivery curve while releasing the FSD Krakken. Brilliant!

 

[Rotte]

Sold 1000 at 165. I normally don't do short trades and am really bad at it but to me it seems unlikely that the stock would bounce back quickly.

Good luck with timing the market. I've invested in the company for the long term. I think I'm right.

 

[Knightshade]

At least I spelled it right this time
FWIW, I'm more critical of those whose posts are more highly regarded. If someone didn't read the P&D report themselves, they might think that Tesla really did use largely, or words to that effect. I do appreciate @Knightshade's attention to detail.

While I do appreciate that I think if you asked an employee "How did this error happen?" and his only and entire explanation was "Well, it was partially due to my screwing up at my job" and then that's all they said, you might be reasonable in drawing certain conclusions about how accurate their use of "partially" is in the response.

But the other side of that is- if you DO accept the idea they only, intentionally, gave a partial and incomplete answer, you now have to consider what the REST of the unspoken answer is.

If it isn't supply, it must be demand.

Thus we can reach one of two conclusions in all this (and I apologize if my previous posts lacked clarity on this, but perhaps the below resolves that?):


Either Tesla is refusing to admit there's an actual, real, demand problem right now (more likely IMHO)
or
Tesla doesn't think demand is a concern and they misused the word partially in the excuse they gave for the really low delivery numbers being production related (less likely IMHO)

 

[cusetownusa]

Re robotaxis. 12.3.3 is great but this time of the year with road work etc we have been in a number of situations that involved flag people. Lots of hand signals, directing etc. I just disable FSD bad all is well. But I’m curious how much of a challenge this will be for FSD and the robotaxi dream. Thoughts?

I think it will be a huge challenge, but I am no expert. I got the free month trial of 12.3.3. While it seems better then when I had FSD for a month last summer, it is still not even close to being able to handle my short 7 mile commute. At least for me, I see no value in it except for maybe the highway portion for road trips.

 

[Usain]

Sorry, not buying that wishful story either. My wife is a teacher in an urban High School. The kids may not have money but they aspire to own a car, and yes, some of them aspire to own a Tesla.

My wife teaches in a fancy prep school. Those kids do have money and many don't want to learn how to drive. They like being driven.

For them, getting a driver's license is not the rite of passage it used to be. It's definitely a trend.

Why U.S. teens aren't getting their driver's licenses

Are they avoiding adult responsibilities?

theweek.com

 

[GOVA]

I'm not a fan of his work (and also recently discovered he blocked me on X), but I believe his 409k - even if off by more than 5% - was closest to the real number.

It is not whether he/she is right or wrong and buy how much. It just does not matter.

 

[Singuy]

While I do appreciate that I think if you asked an employee "How did this error happen?" and his only and entire explanation was "Well, it was partially due to my screwing up at my job" and then that's all they said, you might be reasonable in drawing certain conclusions about how accurate their use of "partially" is in the response.

But the other side of that is- if you DO accept the idea they only, intentionally, gave an partial and incomplete answer, you now have to speculate what the REST of the answer is.

If it isn't supply, it must be demand.

Thus we can reach one of two conclusions in all this (and I apologize if my previous posts lacked clarity on this, but perhaps the below resolves that?):


Either Tesla is refusing to admit there's an actual, real, demand problem right now (more likely IMHO)
or
Tesla doesn't think demand is a concern and they misused the word partially in the excuse they gave for the really low delivery numbers being production related (less likely IMHO)

I don't think Tesla believes demand is a concern as people don't usually take deliveries in the Winter. They only did in 2022 in which deliveries were higher than production is because people were desperate due to chip shortages hitting all car makers. Typically production is way over deliveries Q1 of most years.

 

[replicant]

I keep being astonished by the number of people around me buying ICE cars at prices far above Tesla's. They don't trust anything about Tesla because all they hear from the mainstream media and its CEO has very little to do about its products, its prices, its mission, etc.

The only people in my circles considering Teslas are the richest and youngest, but there are far too few of them to support Tesla's ambition. The last few times I visited showrooms, the vast majority of visitors were very high income, and about between 20 and 30 y-o. The last sales rep I talked too kept telling me about the great discounts they have, with 200 new Teslas sitting in a nearby parking, about 2 weeks ago.

The young and rich segment is pretty limited (I'm 38, have no car but over 15,000 TSL shares). Few of my friends and colleagues can afford a Tesla but the old people are proud of their ICE or stupid hybrids. Here in France, new car buyers are 55 y-o on average and they keep getting older…

Tesla is still good at word-of-mouth on some social networks, but very, very words are reaching the hears of Teslas's potential buyers. It's worrying.

 

[Drax7]

Without sales , and pricing power , you have nothing.
Now tesla has to capitalize on FSD, to both increase
Sales and regain pricing power.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Ok, I agree. I expect lots of robotaxis when they happen. I don't expect huge profits. I am really not sure on the vehicle ownership, buying an old scion or corolla for $1-2k and paying gas and 50/month in insurance is going to be very hard to beat. Then you have public transportation to compete with in NYC, Chicago, etc. I just think transportation will prove a hard profit nut to crack.

Also add in any parking costs, and vehicle maintenance and repair costs.

Insurance premiums are an increasing problem. In some places it is forcing people to sell current vehicles and buy worse vehicles. In other cases people drive uninsured. And some lower income drivers, driving old vehicles are 1 significant breakdown away from being unable to get to work or education, hunting for rides, or having to pay high taxi fares.

Public transportation is large vehicles in a hub-and-spoke and often limited hours, or limited service in odd hours.
AV is point to point, 24/7, on demand, with smaller vehicles.
And of course for some cities there's the option of mixing in rideables.

People could combine AV, current public transportation and rideables for a better overall experience, without having to own, register and insure a vehicle.
Somebody working odd hours, or somebody going spoke to spoke could more easily use AV for commuting, but outside of that use public transportation.

Also, as I mentioned, it would be easy for employers to offer free or subsidized commuting through AV providers in order to attract or retain employees. If that happens then the relative cost of private vehicle ownership would be higher.

Also, of course, in an AV, you don't have to do the driving. You don't even need to get a driver's license.

 

[FastEddieB]

Thanks, I believe Thor is with me on this one

Please do not make a joke out of this.

Some here may not know I’m an ordained Pastafarian minister, and I take these things very seriously.

 

[kabin]

Tesla only blame the bad numbers on production issues, so @Knightshade is right.

Or they may continue to misjudge the demand problem.

Or the plan is to ramp up inventory before a layoff. It is the auto industry after all. The big question is how long inflation/interest rates remain high and EV demand slow.

 

[DarkandStormy]

I see a lot of predictions of 4k CTs being delivered in Q1. That's probably better than many had at this point.

That will only grow from here.

You do realize if they did, in fact, deliver 4k CTs in Q1 that means they only delivered 13k S&X combined. So much for those refreshes jump starting sales of those models.

Why doesn't Tesla break out sales by model? I'm not aware of any other auto company lumping in sales quite like Tesla does. So much for transparency.

 

[Usain]

Yes, I agree and I'll keep that prediction. Waymo makes a billion in profit from robotaxi before Tesla. We can laugh at me later if this blows up on me. I don't equivocate, it is a prediction but not wishy washy.

Fair enough.

When you talk Tesla versus Waymo, it has always been a race to see if Waymo can achieve profitability before Tesla can achieve the technology for a low-cost robotaxi.

Right now, it does look like Tesla is in the lead. We hear Tesla say that they see a clear technology path, but we don't hear Waymo say they have a clear path to profitability.

 

[sunwarriors]

If I don't need to park, nor a garage, insurance, service, changing to winter tires, cleaning etc, and can order a car to take me (and family/friends) from and to wherever at any time and can sleep, watch a movie, be drunk etc and can do this at a cost that is lower than that of owning and driving my own car and without any need to finance it, it seems an obviously more appealing alternative to me.

Can't this all be done with an Uber? I'm not comparing someone having a vehicle at all in a dense city (and I've lived in one), but about the robo-taxi owner who wants to replace their car and drive others around while dumping $30k-$40k + $12k for FSD just to drive you around.

Charging isn't cheap, in say San Francisco assuming you're using public charging and peak rates are well over $0.80/kWh in San Diego. Add in cleaning, vandalism, repair cost, just beaten to crap taxis and the math doesn't sound great to me.

 

[FreqFlyer]

I keep being astonished by the number of people around me buying ICE cars at prices far above Tesla's. They don't trust anything about Tesla because all they hear from the mainstream media and from its CEO has little to do about its products, its prices, its mission, etc.

The only people in my circles considering Teslas are the richest and youngest, but there are far too few of them to support Tesla's ambition. The last few times I visited showrooms, the vast majority of visitors were very high income, and about between 20 and 30 y-o. The last sales rep I talked too kept telling me about the great discounts they have, with 200 new Teslas sitting in a nearby parking, 10 days before EOQ.

The young and rich segment is pretty limited (I'm 38, have no car but more than 15,000 TSL shares). Here in France, new car buyers are 55 y-o on average and they keep getting older…

Tesla is still good at word-of-mouth on some social networks, but very, very words are reaching the hears of Teslas's potential buyers. It's worrying.

Would-be Tesla buyers snub company as Musk's reputation dips

The ranks of would-be Tesla buyers in the United States are shrinking, according to a survey by market intelligence firm Caliber, which attributed the drop in part to CEO Elon Musk's polarizing persona. While Tesla continued to post strong sales growth last year, helped by aggressive price...

finance.yahoo.com