Author Topic: Why now for TESLA?  (Read 8725 times)

achvfi

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #100 on: January 14, 2021, 01:21:11 PM »
Thank you bacchi, saved me the trouble of posting that.
Tesla requires new models and new markets for their growth. Sales peak in every market as a new model is introduced then tapers off. This while sales of new models cut into sales of older models. Sales in USA peaked in 18, Europe in 19, and likely China in 20 or 21. When (if) a new cheaper model is introduced it will likely follow the same pattern.

This reminded of a game called "Car Tycoon". In the game you will see this sales cycle. Good times dont last unless you refresh the models continuously and strategically.

maizefolk

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #101 on: January 14, 2021, 01:36:45 PM »
Oh, I agree that everyone does it, including Tesla.

My point is just that one needs to be careful about inferences, such as "Company X could have set the price higher" etc. Heck, how do we even know that it's TRUE? Presumably a reporter with "Car and Driver" had a stopwatch was there placing refundable orders just to independantly verify the time. Perhaps GM pre-ordained that the window would only be open ten minutes. They are trying to generate a buzz about the vehicle. It worked.

About the bolded bit.

When it comes to publicly traded companies we can usually be confident that anything they explicitly say is true. It may be an incomplete picture of the truth. It maybe framed in a much more positive light than others would choose to do. But making explicitly false statements, even about things as simply as "we sold out in ten minutes" vs "we only allowed pre-orders for ten minutes" opens them up the shareholder lawsuits in a way that "we thought only 20,000 people would preorder so we only made 10,000 preorders available so we'd still be able to say we had sold out of preorders" does not.

Now there are certainly exceptions to that rule (like Nikola). They were faced with the choice of certain doom if they told the truth or possible doom if they lied AND those lies were discovered. A company like GM has a lot more to lose if they choose to make an explicitly false statement (rather than engineering the situation to be able to say something that will sound really positive).

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #102 on: January 14, 2021, 02:03:59 PM »
Thank you bacchi, saved me the trouble of posting that.
Tesla requires new models and new markets for their growth. Sales peak in every market as a new model is introduced then tapers off. This while sales of new models cut into sales of older models. Sales in USA peaked in 18, Europe in 19, and likely China in 20 or 21. When (if) a new cheaper model is introduced it will likely follow the same pattern.

This reminded of a game called "Car Tycoon". In the game you will see this sales cycle. Good times dont last unless you refresh the models continuously and strategically.

As usual, 3toe is a fountain of misinformation on the topic of Tesla. Tesla sales did not peak in the US in 2018 as he/she claims.

2018   - 197,517   
2019   - 195,125
2020   - 292,902   

So, after basically flat US sales from 2018 - 2019, Tesla sales increased 33% from 2019 to 2020. It's also inaccurate to say sales peaked in Europe in 2019. Sales numbers for all of Europe for 2020 have not been released. Misleading articles citing fewer sales in Northern Europe through Nov, but ignoring the Dec deliveries push and a rise in sales in UK and Germany are the source of this misleading headline that 3toe is trumpeting. It’s very likely, Tesla sold more cars in Europe in 2020 than they did in 2019. It may also be true that Tesla’s share of the total EV market in Europe declined, but that is due to the rapidly increasing size of the total EV pie and Tesla’s production constraints.

Beware of any one that points to Tesla sales in one country or region for a month, quarter or even a single year as evidence of a lack of demand. Since Tesla is supply constrained, they prioritize shipments and deliveries to different countries and regions in different times of the year/quarter and can not meet all demand in every location. The renewal and expiry of various tax incentives can also effect where deliveries are made from quarter to quarter. It leaves their supply chain lumpy and uneven until they complete their factories in Berlin and Austin, which come on line in 2021. I guess Tesla is building new factories simultaneously to meet their flagging demand.

The real picture, and the only one that really matters, is told by global sales year over year and the numbers speak for themselves. Tesla is growing exponentially despite not engaging in any real advertising or marketing, having no dealerships, and only selling cars in half the world’s auto markets (no SA, India, Africa, ME, Korea, etc.). And, despite only serving the $40K and up market segment. There are numerous demand levers Tesla has yet to pull and still they sell every car they make as they make them while growing sales an average of 40% YOY.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-vehicle-deliveries/

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #103 on: January 14, 2021, 02:14:24 PM »
Oh, I agree that everyone does it, including Tesla.

My point is just that one needs to be careful about inferences, such as "Company X could have set the price higher" etc. Heck, how do we even know that it's TRUE? Presumably a reporter with "Car and Driver" had a stopwatch was there placing refundable orders just to independantly verify the time. Perhaps GM pre-ordained that the window would only be open ten minutes. They are trying to generate a buzz about the vehicle. It worked.

About the bolded bit.

When it comes to publicly traded companies we can usually be confident that anything they explicitly say is true. It may be an incomplete picture of the truth. It maybe framed in a much more positive light than others would choose to do. But making explicitly false statements, even about things as simply as "we sold out in ten minutes" vs "we only allowed pre-orders for ten minutes" opens them up the shareholder lawsuits in a way that "we thought only 20,000 people would preorder so we only made 10,000 preorders available so we'd still be able to say we had sold out of preorders" does not.

Now there are certainly exceptions to that rule (like Nikola). They were faced with the choice of certain doom if they told the truth or possible doom if they lied AND those lies were discovered. A company like GM has a lot more to lose if they choose to make an explicitly false statement (rather than engineering the situation to be able to say something that will sound really positive).

Has GM announced how many preorders for the EV Hummer they have? If not, I’m guessing the number is underwhelming.

Six months ago, there were over 650,00 Cybertruck deposits. A number that has likely grown since. Even if the conversion rate is only half that it is unprecedented demand for a vehicle that is not even in mass production yet.

If GM had anything approaching that number of deposits why wouldn’t they share it. It would be great marketing and spark FOMO reservations.  With a price tag over $110k, my guess is GM secured 100s of reservation in that hour and the conversion rate will be much lower when the deposit holders are asked to follow through on the $110K vehicle.

For the record, I’ve never gotten too excited one way or another about these reservation counts. I just know I’d much rather be Tesla than GM in this situation.

https://electrek.co/2020/06/22/tesla-cybertruck-pre-orders-rose-over-650000-report/

MoseyingAlong

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #104 on: January 14, 2021, 03:26:57 PM »
Thank you bacchi, saved me the trouble of posting that.
Tesla requires new models and new markets for their growth. Sales peak in every market as a new model is introduced then tapers off. This while sales of new models cut into sales of older models. Sales in USA peaked in 18, Europe in 19, and likely China in 20 or 21. When (if) a new cheaper model is introduced it will likely follow the same pattern.

This reminded of a game called "Car Tycoon". In the game you will see this sales cycle. Good times dont last unless you refresh the models continuously and strategically.

As usual, 3toe is a fountain of misinformation on the topic of Tesla. Tesla sales did not peak in the US in 2018 as he/she claims.

2018   - 197,517   
2019   - 195,125
2020   - 292,902   

So, after basically flat US sales from 2018 - 2019, Tesla sales increased 33% from 2019 to 2020. ...

Sounds like you're talking about total Tesla sales. While it sounded to me, 3toesloth was talking about specific model sales since they mention a peak as a new model is introduced.

If you just look at a specific model, say the 3, does that hold true?

As an aside, I don't have a dog in this fight. Interested bystander. I've driven them and wasn't impressed. The gimmicks are fun but not overwhelming for someone who's usually the only one in my car. I am looking forward to self-driving vehicles. That will be a world-changer for a lot of people.

maizefolk

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #105 on: January 14, 2021, 04:19:10 PM »
Oh, I agree that everyone does it, including Tesla.

My point is just that one needs to be careful about inferences, such as "Company X could have set the price higher" etc. Heck, how do we even know that it's TRUE? Presumably a reporter with "Car and Driver" had a stopwatch was there placing refundable orders just to independantly verify the time. Perhaps GM pre-ordained that the window would only be open ten minutes. They are trying to generate a buzz about the vehicle. It worked.

About the bolded bit.

When it comes to publicly traded companies we can usually be confident that anything they explicitly say is true. It may be an incomplete picture of the truth. It maybe framed in a much more positive light than others would choose to do. But making explicitly false statements, even about things as simply as "we sold out in ten minutes" vs "we only allowed pre-orders for ten minutes" opens them up the shareholder lawsuits in a way that "we thought only 20,000 people would preorder so we only made 10,000 preorders available so we'd still be able to say we had sold out of preorders" does not.

Now there are certainly exceptions to that rule (like Nikola). They were faced with the choice of certain doom if they told the truth or possible doom if they lied AND those lies were discovered. A company like GM has a lot more to lose if they choose to make an explicitly false statement (rather than engineering the situation to be able to say something that will sound really positive).

Has GM announced how many preorders for the EV Hummer they have? If not, I’m guessing the number is underwhelming.

Six months ago, there were over 650,00 Cybertruck deposits. A number that has likely grown since. Even if the conversion rate is only half that it is unprecedented demand for a vehicle that is not even in mass production yet.

If GM had anything approaching that number of deposits why wouldn’t they share it. It would be great marketing and spark FOMO reservations.  With a price tag over $110k, my guess is GM secured 100s of reservation in that hour and the conversion rate will be much lower when the deposit holders are asked to follow through on the $110K vehicle.

For the record, I’ve never gotten too excited one way or another about these reservation counts. I just know I’d much rather be Tesla than GM in this situation.

https://electrek.co/2020/06/22/tesla-cybertruck-pre-orders-rose-over-650000-report/

ColoradoTride, I am trying to figure out how your post is connected to the discussion you quoted between bwall and I about whether it is reasonable to believe GM is telling the truth when they said their preorders sold out or not. I am afraid I'm not seeing the connection.

Could you explain?

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #106 on: January 14, 2021, 04:42:28 PM »
Oh, I agree that everyone does it, including Tesla.

My point is just that one needs to be careful about inferences, such as "Company X could have set the price higher" etc. Heck, how do we even know that it's TRUE? Presumably a reporter with "Car and Driver" had a stopwatch was there placing refundable orders just to independantly verify the time. Perhaps GM pre-ordained that the window would only be open ten minutes. They are trying to generate a buzz about the vehicle. It worked.

About the bolded bit.

When it comes to publicly traded companies we can usually be confident that anything they explicitly say is true. It may be an incomplete picture of the truth. It maybe framed in a much more positive light than others would choose to do. But making explicitly false statements, even about things as simply as "we sold out in ten minutes" vs "we only allowed pre-orders for ten minutes" opens them up the shareholder lawsuits in a way that "we thought only 20,000 people would preorder so we only made 10,000 preorders available so we'd still be able to say we had sold out of preorders" does not.

Now there are certainly exceptions to that rule (like Nikola). They were faced with the choice of certain doom if they told the truth or possible doom if they lied AND those lies were discovered. A company like GM has a lot more to lose if they choose to make an explicitly false statement (rather than engineering the situation to be able to say something that will sound really positive).

Has GM announced how many preorders for the EV Hummer they have? If not, I’m guessing the number is underwhelming.

Six months ago, there were over 650,00 Cybertruck deposits. A number that has likely grown since. Even if the conversion rate is only half that it is unprecedented demand for a vehicle that is not even in mass production yet.

If GM had anything approaching that number of deposits why wouldn’t they share it. It would be great marketing and spark FOMO reservations.  With a price tag over $110k, my guess is GM secured 100s of reservation in that hour and the conversion rate will be much lower when the deposit holders are asked to follow through on the $110K vehicle.

For the record, I’ve never gotten too excited one way or another about these reservation counts. I just know I’d much rather be Tesla than GM in this situation.

https://electrek.co/2020/06/22/tesla-cybertruck-pre-orders-rose-over-650000-report/

ColoradoTride, I am trying to figure out how your post is connected to the discussion you quoted between bwall and I about whether it is reasonable to believe GM is telling the truth when they said their preorders sold out or not. I am afraid I'm not seeing the connection.

Could you explain?

I don’t have an opinion on wether GM is telling the “truth” on this matter. Selling out, whatever that means, is meaningless without any context as to the number of preorders. I merely speculated that if GM had an amazing number to share they wouldn’t cloak it under the veil of “sold out”. I thought I was on topic with my response, but feel free to ignore me if not.

MustacheAndaHalf

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #107 on: January 19, 2021, 09:22:41 AM »
Michael Burry, who predicted and profited off the 2008 Financial Crisis, has been getting louder about shorting Tesla.  That's not a bad time to exit, in my opinion.  Had I bought Tesla, Burry shorting it would definitely have made me rethink it.
Same.

I read "The Big Short" and was pretty impressed by how Burry called the housing crisis. I'd hate to be on the other end of his short. However, shorts generally tend to be pretty secretive. Just the fact that he's talking about his short is an attempt to talk the stock price down. He's in a world of pain now (initiated short at $560 I think, IIRC).

Tesla issued stock to raise $5 billion to pay off bonds and have a cash cushion. Didn't phase the stock at all. Why doesn't Musk issue another $5 billion or so in stock to have a nice cash cushion for forever? My only guess is because he expects the stock to be worth even more in the future than it is today.
If you recall the source of when he initiated the short position, I'd be interested.  I know he tweeted in December, and Tesla was around that price/share.  My personal speculation is that he shorted some time between mid-Aug and mid-Nov, when TSLA was in the $400-$450/sh range.  And then when the stock soared, his sarcastic tweet about the stock came partly from the pain he had experienced ... but then again, I would feel pain in that situation.  But Burry, who bet against the financial system and waited years to be proved right, must have thick skin.

In my view, Tesla needs stronger competition and a huge negative event before it's stock price suffers.  Tesla's model S gained the highest scores Consumer Reports ever gave a car, if I recall correctly.

bthewalls

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #108 on: January 19, 2021, 04:22:26 PM »
Isn’t there talk of apple coming into that market?....if so they’ll give Tesla some competition

bacchi

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #109 on: January 19, 2021, 05:59:46 PM »
Isn’t there talk of apple coming into that market?....if so they’ll give Tesla some competition

Apple and Amazon (via Rivian; 100k electric delivery vans ain't nothing) are entering the market. The biggest competitor will probably be VW though.

TomTX

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #110 on: January 19, 2021, 07:43:08 PM »
How on earth did we need a 4th thread about tesla valuation??

Good question. This one did certainly bring out the Tesla DOOMED crowd.

After being consistently wrong for over a decade, you would think they would get a clue. But apparently not.

TomTX

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #111 on: January 19, 2021, 07:49:14 PM »
Tesla is not production constrained. Their own 10k and earnings state they have current capacity of 813k cars yet they only sold 499kblast year

You are using the wrong numbers (of course) - that's current capacity, not what it was as the start of 2020. Just about anyone who has followed Tesla at all knows they had major capacity increases this year, heavily weighted toward the end of the year.

And of course, they (like most manufacturers) had fairly lengthy COVID shutdowns during 2020.

Of course when you fail at simple rounding, one can easily disregard all of your calculations and bluster.

TomTX

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #112 on: January 19, 2021, 07:51:09 PM »
My recollection is Elon has stated he thinks electric powered flight will be possible in the not to distant future. Key is the energy density of the batteries and getting to a workable weight to energy ratio. Not an expert on this matter, but it sounded more a matter of when and not if.

Electric flight is going to be from the "bottom up" - there are already electric powered planes for training new pilots (short duration is fine) - and the Orkney island air service is converting to electric - very short hops.

As technology (mostly battery technology) improves, longer and longer flights will be practical with electric airplanes.

TomTX

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #113 on: January 19, 2021, 07:57:13 PM »

This seems to point out that Europe has produced cars that Tesla is unable to compete with.

Cites facts not in evidence. Shipping and selling to Europe is more costly for Tesla - they are selling every car they can make, and have ramped production rapidly over the past decade. So, sell more where you have more profit or less? The answer seems super obvious.

In 2014 when Musk first made the statement (there's a clip on YouTube) it was considered ridiculous they could think they would produce 500k cars in 2020.

Despite the pandemic, that's just what they did. Okay, a bit more - something like 509k.

KungfuRabbit

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #114 on: January 20, 2021, 12:57:39 PM »
I won't link articles, but over the years Tesla has consistently been ranked as the #1 place to work for engineers (flip flopping with SpaceX for #2 sometimes...).  One of the top reasons Tesla chose Austin for their next factory was it is a very trendy city - ask any top engineer if they'd rather work at Tesla in Austin or GM in Detroit, they will literally laugh at you for even having to ask. 

Never discount the value of access to the best talent in the world, and never underestimate what the smartest scientists in the world can accomplish. 

That is why I own the stock, and will for the long term.

TomTX

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #115 on: January 20, 2021, 04:56:51 PM »
I won't link articles, but over the years Tesla has consistently been ranked as the #1 place to work for engineers (flip flopping with SpaceX for #2 sometimes...).  One of the top reasons Tesla chose Austin for their next factory was it is a very trendy city - ask any top engineer if they'd rather work at Tesla in Austin or GM in Detroit, they will literally laugh at you for even having to ask. 

Never discount the value of access to the best talent in the world, and never underestimate what the smartest scientists in the world can accomplish. 

That is why I own the stock, and will for the long term.
As an aside, housing prices in Austin have gone from "that's a steep increase" in the spring/summer to "OMG" - there's something around 1K houses listed for sale in the area. Normally it's more like 6-8K.

I have seen multiple firsthand reports of attempted homebuyers offering $50k-$85K over asking price, no contingency clauses, no inspection  and not getting the house because they were outbid.

ColoradoTribe

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #116 on: February 01, 2021, 09:09:03 AM »
StreetInsider - this morning: Tesla (TSLA) PT Raised to 'Street High' $1,200 at Piper Sandler; 'Don't Sell the Stock Despite Surge'

Excerpt:

Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter raised the price target on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) to a 'Street High' $1,200.00 (from $515.00) while maintaining an Overweight rating.

Potter said while 2020 was a breakout year for TSLA, they believe "the fireworks aren't over."

Despite a 10x return over the past 12 months, they don't think investors should be selling this stock.

"To defend our new price target of $1,200, we are publishing a 100+ page report entitled The Definitive Guide to Investing in Tesla," Potter commented. "While it is more exhaustive than anything we have published to date, even our expanded model does not capture all potential revenue streams. Indeed, with Tesla's target industries still embracing outdated business models, it may be decades before this company runs out of new opportunities to pursue.”


ColoradoTribe

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Re: Why now for TESLA?
« Reply #117 on: February 01, 2021, 10:46:01 AM »
Teslarati - today: Tesla Model S refresh gets fastest charging rate even without 4680 cells

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-refresh-supercharger-v3-speed/

Excerpt:

Tesla’s page for the Model S notes reveals that the flagship sedan is capable of replenishing 200 miles of its range in 15 minutes. This effectively makes the Model S refresh about 12% faster than the Model 3, the fastest charging Tesla prior to the flagship sedan’s update. The Model X, for its part, now matches the Model 3’s Supercharging speed, with Tesla noting that the SUV could now recharge 175 miles of its range in 15 minutes.