Mega Thread for Tesla Investors

[TeslaInvestors]

One of the logical fallacies Prius owners and climate science students have to deal with are selective edits ... lying by omission:
..
Regardless of Lutz, we are 12 days away from the end of Q3 and the facts and data. I like my bet. If Lutz wants to bet on the other side, there are plenty of opportunities. He could announce his "short" position.

Bob Wilson

Come on, another Bob. Watch the video. It's fun. Don't just read the paraphrased sentences below that.
See the disclosure in the video. Neither Bob nor his family nor his company has any interest in Tesla stock.
But I do have. Sold my puts, but increased the short position slightly.
By next summer, it will be a huge blood bath.

 

[bwilson4web]

Tesla taking massive beating in Norway.
http://ev-sales.blogspot.com/

Pl Norway                 August YTD   %
 1 Nissan Leaf              1241 8012 18%
 2 VW e-Golf                 764 4371 10%
 3 BMW i3                    473 3542  8%
 4 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV 190 2353  5%
 5 Tesla Model X             113 2346  5%
 6 Tesla Model S              82 1959  4%
 7 Renault Zoe               386 1816  4%
 8 Volvo XC60 PHEV            81 1755  4%
 9 Mercedes GLC350e           19 1713  4%
10 Volvo S/V90 PHEV           66 1670  4%
11 VW Passat GTE             298 1543  3%
12 Hyundai Ioniq Electric    159 1375  3%
13 BMW 225xe Active Tourer   185 1200  3%
14 Audi A3 e-Tron            269 1065  2%
15 BMW X5 PHEV                13  904  2%
16 Volvo XC90 PHEV            60  866  2%
17 Kia Niro PHEV              77  862  2%
18 Kia Soul EV               168  830  2%
19 Audi Q7 e-Tron            160  807  2%
20 VW Golf GTE                88  661  1%

Well this absolutely prove ... Q3 will end in 12 days and press releases and financials will follow. Just I would observe the "Orange One" has been raising tariffs with counter tariffs by other countries.

But I do have. Sold my puts, but increased the short position slightly.

We've both laid our bets and the dice are coming out in 12 days.

Bob Wilson

 

[bwilson4web]

Come on, another Bob. Watch the video. ...
By next summer, it will be a huge blood bath.

I'll wait for the transcript as I don't have time to video edit 'GM bankrupt' Lutz. So how is "VIA Motors" doing? Is he tearing up the EV market with his "VL Destino", the Corvette re-engined Fisker?

Lutz is the Rodney Dangerfield of automotive talking heads:

At least Musk chose a better, not so addictive, burning weed:

The Sooners (Oklahoma State) and Boomers (University of Oklahoma) fans got into a fireworks fight. The Boomers were throwing firecrackers and the Sooners were picking them up, lighting them, and throwing them back.

Bob Wilson

 

[bwilson4web]

My expectation is as we get closer to the end of Q3, the nervous shorts will be bidding up the stock. Regardless, the dice are out and will land in 12 days.

Bob Wilson

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

My expectation is as we get closer to the end of Q3, the nervous shorts will be bidding up the stock.

The increasingly desperate, increasingly far removed from reality, posts by "TeslaInvestors" in this thread certainly seem to be an indication of his nervousness about his (perhaps increasingly risky) bet on Tesla declining and falling, but I don't follow the stock investor market, so I don't know if his posts are an indicator of what the "shorts" in general are thinking.

At any rate, here on Earth-1, Tesla's increasingly obvious success -- along with Model 3 sales -- is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds every quarter!

Go Tesla! Keep going Tesla!

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Pushy, Tesla delivery system is so overloaded, so overloaded, that Elon has started offering free one-year supercharging for RWD Model 3 if you take delivery by this month!
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...ing-if-i-take-a-delivery-in-september.128873/

There was an article at the InsideEVs news site just today about the situation with Tesla's overloaded delivery system, and how Tesla is now making serious efforts to reduce that problem. That is, the situation here on Earth-1; obviously the conditions you keep describing on Earth-2, TeslaInvestors, are very different!


A quote from the article:

As most everyone is aware at this point, the automaker struggled with Model 3 production early on, which lasted for many months. For this reason, delivery logistics wasn’t a major issue since there just weren’t that many cars to deliver. Now, Tesla is on the cusp of consistent production of some 5,000 Model 3s per week. It’s also important to note that over the past several months, there has been a backlog of Model 3 vehicles produced, but not delivered. Some were stockpiled for one reason or another, while others were in transit at the end of the month, etc.
​

Full article: "Tesla Model 3 Delivery Push In Full Ramp Mode"

​

 

[bwilson4web]

Part of what we see makes sense with:

In a perfect world, the price of stock would follow a normal Bell curve. Variations of internal and external events would let the stock wander around the peak. But that changes with heavily shorted stocks like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla where overlapping skewed curves makes sense:

• higher prices (right side) - the shorters "borrow" the stock and sell it on the open market with variable confidence in what that price should be.
• lower prices (left side) - the shorters buy real stock to cover their margin and make a profit. Also with a variable confidence in how low it should be.

In effect, shorter behavior actually feeds stock instability. But there is something they can't control, the quarterly report. The current Q3 ends in Sunday, Sept 30, 12 calendar days, and the next day, Monday, October 1, we should get the initial press releases by the end of October, the quarterly financials. We call a "Come To Jesus" moment.

Bob Wilson

p.s.
By now, the short stories about "horrible Musk", "no one buying", and "failed production" have pretty well saturated the financial noise machine. It has no effect on those who notice the contradictions: "no one buying" vs "failed production. With parking lots at Tesla stores full, the "failed production" claims have obviously been a lie. When the same claimants switch to "no one buying," I'm reminded of the Firesign tune:


The best inoculation against the "noise machine" are facts and data ... reading the SEC filings of the quarterly and filed press releases ... along with personal experience.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

... With parking lots at Tesla stores full, the "failed production" claims have obviously been a lie. When the same claimants switch to "no one buying"...

I really enjoyed some of the snarky comments posted today to the InsideEVs news article I linked above. Riffs on a quote from Yogi Berra: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

We could say, in response to the ridiculous and (unintentionally) funny comments from "TeslaInvestors" claiming that demand for the Model 3 has fallen off a cliff:

Nobody is buying the Tesla Model 3 anymore. It's too popular.

 

[TeslaInvestors]

"no one buying" vs "failed production. With parking lots at Tesla stores full, the "failed production" claims have obviously been a lie. When the same claimants switch to "no one buying," I'm reminded of the Firesign tune:
.

Haha. If you don't know what "factory gated" means and the fact that only 14% produced cars (OK, let's be generous and say it has improved to 24% no) are fit for delivery, then you don't understand production success.

BTW, I am expecting < 35000 Model 3 deliveries for this quarter.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

...the fact that only 14% produced cars (OK, let's be generous and say it has improved to 24% no) are fit for delivery...

Gosh yes, I'm sure that none of those remaining 86% or 76% of early production Model 3's were ever fixed and sent on to delivery. They were all just sent to the crusher for recycling.

We certainly understand something you apparently don't: That Tesla has greatly improved its quality control for building the Model 3 since the early days, even as it continues to accelerate the pace of ramping up production and sales.

BTW -- We apparently need to remind you, once again, regarding Tesla's runaway success with the Model 3, that -- as Mark Twain put it: "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

 

[bwilson4web]

Source: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2015/08/total-tesla-motors-sales-figures-usa-canada/

My best estimate is 65,100 total Tesla sales for Q3:

• ...$651,000,000 - a low-ball $10,000 profit per car.
• $1,627,500,000 - a realistic $25,000 profit per car.
• $1,953,000,000 - optimistic, $30,000 profit per car.

Bob Wilson

 

[TeslaInvestors]

Source: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2015/08/total-tesla-motors-sales-figures-usa-canada/

My best estimate is 65,100 total Tesla sales for Q3:

• ...$651,000,000 - a low-ball $10,000 profit per car.
• $1,627,500,000 - a realistic $25,000 profit per car.
• $1,953,000,000 - optimistic, $30,000 profit per car.

Bob Wilson

Interesting. So you are also expecting a miss? Because 65000 total, will mean Model S&X has to be 10k-15k to meet the Model 3 guidance of 50k-55k.

I kinda agree. I think IEV has been fooled this time by the different misleading signals Tesla may have shown it.
Your profit numbers seem too good, since Tesla itself has guided 15% gross margin (if I remember) for Model 3.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

More good news for real Tesla investors -- those who actually buy stocks -- and consequently bad news for Tesla "short" investors, who merely borrow them:

"Tesla Model 3 Gets 5-Star Safety Rating From NHTSA"

"See Loads Of Tesla Model 3 Vehicles Ready To Roll Out For Delivery"

The title of that second article may look like it's merely a fluff piece, but there is tidbit of real investor info there:

That wasn’t the first time this month that we’ve told you to expect a massive number of Tesla deliveries in September.
​

Go Tesla! Keep going Tesla!

 

[bwilson4web]

Interesting. So you are also expecting a miss? Because 65000 total, will mean Model S&X has to be 10k-15k to meet the Model 3 guidance of 50k-55k.

I kinda agree. I think IEV has been fooled this time by the different misleading signals Tesla may have shown it.
Your profit numbers seem too good, since Tesla itself has guided 15% gross margin (if I remember) for Model 3.

Just using a different source than the Bloomberg data I digitized along with an exponential curve from GoodCarBadCar.com:
https://insideevsforum.com/communit...ad-for-tesla-investors.3163/page-3#post-30965

I took the GoodCarBadCar July and August numbers and added the delta between July and August to the August numbers to estimate the likely September numbers. Then I summed them all to get 61,500 Tesla cars. As for the gross profits, I used three SWAGs to estimate the car gross profits. There is another revenue source in energy systems which could easily bring profits over $2B.

Still we have from the Q2 report "Gross profit total automotive $691,027,000." Double it, $1,382,054,000 which is achievable with the additional production line. Add half again from Q2 for learning curve, $2,073,081,000. So I'm fairly sanguine about what we'll learn in 12 days, when Q3 has ended.

In 1991, we knew Apple was going to release their first portable. So I bought a hundred shares weeks before the official release. Then the price jumped up by nearly 50% after the announcement. We had rabid fan boys for the technology superior Apple computers. The portable moved Macintosh off the desktop and the rest is history. Sad to say, I sold the Apple stock for a house down payment the next year. This is the same pattern Tesla has followed with the Model 3.

Bob Wilson

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

In 1991, we knew Apple was going to release their first portable. So I bought a hundred shares weeks before the official release. Then the price jumped up by nearly 50% after the announcement.

Hence the classic "Buy on rumor, sell on news" stock investment strategy. (Even a non-investor like me knows that one.) I see it worked well for you that time!

 

[bwilson4web]

Well I was an operating system programmer with mechanical and electrical engineering background. I also owned a 128k Macintosh. Knowing Steve Jobs being almost as anal retentive as me, it was an easy decision.

Funny thing is I never really looked at Tesla until I came here and read the anti-Tesla FUD. It reminded me of the anti-Prius and anti-Apple crap I’d heard before. The irony is the anti-postings led to me taking a closer look at Tesla. The rest was pattern matching.

If the anti-posters had been factual, I would not care. Then I realized I needed to liquidate my 401k in the next 3 years.

Carpe Diem!

Bob Wilson

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Carpe Diem!

Serendipity! My monthly home theatre movie group watched "Dead Poets Society" (1989) just last month.

Carpe diem indeed!

 

[TeslaInvestors]

Well I was an operating system programmer with mechanical and electrical engineering background. I also owned a 128k Macintosh. Knowing Steve Jobs being almost as anal retentive as me, it was an easy decision.

Funny thing is I never really looked at Tesla until I came here and read the anti-Tesla FUD. It reminded me of the anti-Prius and anti-Apple crap I’d heard before. The irony is the anti-postings led to me taking a closer look at Tesla. The rest was pattern matching.

If the anti-posters had been factual, I would not care. Then I realized I needed to liquidate my 401k in the next 3 years.

Carpe Diem!

Bob Wilson

So if you go bankwupt with your "put all your eggs under a falling knife" investment strategy, can I at least take some credit ?

 

[bwilson4web]

So if you go bankwupt with your "put all your eggs under a falling knife" investment strategy, can I at least take some credit ?

The "David Green" and that fuel cell guy started the ball rolling. You've played your part but the rest was pattern matching and the quarterly reports.

Independently I discovered a need for a safe harbor for part of my 401k. In particular to avoid touching the 22% tax rate. So two things came together.

Bob Wilson

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Independently I discovered a need for a safe harbor for part of my 401k.

I hope you're not calling Tesla stock a "safe harbor"? That's a highly volatile stock, and I'm pretty sure it's considered a fairly high-risk one. Now, if you had bought in not long after Tesla's IPO, when the stock price was low, then I'd agree that leaving your money there was a "safe harbor". But these days, when most analysts say Tesla's stock is significantly overpriced, and even Elon Musk has said the same at least 2 or 3 times, then I don't think Tesla stock is at all a "safe harbor" for your retirement funds.

Just my non-investor's opinion, of course.

​