TSLA - Tesla Motors

[SHDL]

Maybe the scheme here is to get a bunch of people to do a “free” test drive — which requires a $40k upfront payment but don’t worry it’ll be fully refunded ... in 90 days.  I.e., the greatest float business known to mankind.

 

Once foot goes on to the pedal at price point proposed; no one may return it. If you haven't pressed the pedal, may welcome to join all California streets which are daily flooded with these cars. Completed; 1 year with 24000 miles , drove on road trips on autopilot .Nothing close to this car exists in the market.  May want to check out how many second/used available, which indicates proposed returns.

 

I was half joking obviously, but I think you’re right. Plus, the endowment effect can be quite powerful.

[Jurgis]

Maybe the scheme here is to get a bunch of people to do a “free” test drive — which requires a $40k upfront payment but don’t worry it’ll be fully refunded ... in 90 days.  I.e., the greatest float business known to mankind.

 

Once foot goes on to the pedal at price point proposed; no one may return it. If you haven't pressed the pedal, may welcome to join all California streets which are daily flooded with these cars. Completed; 1 year with 24000 miles , drove on road trips on autopilot .Nothing close to this car exists in the market.  May want to check out how many second/used available, which indicates proposed returns.

 

There are tons of Model S used available: https://www.tesla.com/inventory/used/ms

The prices actually have dropped hugely: last year cheapest Model S used was in 60-70K range, now it's 39K with not that bad mileage. I guess that's understandable: nobody's buying used S when new 3 is available for similar or lower price. Although some S features are better (and you get free supercharging).

 

Tesla does not list used Model 3's yet. Either they don't have used inventory (yet) or they don't want to list them or who knows what.

[A Dhandho Investor]

It is clear that this step was necessary to try to stay alive, as the demand for the higher prices Model 3 was as good as dead in the US: Tesla has been producing Model 3's for the European market since January and there are currently still US inventory cars available for sale that were produced in December.

 

In January and February, Tesla has registered less than 5K Model 3's in Europe in total, so demand is definitely more soft than Elon wanted to admit in the Q4 CC.

 

Linked to this, I don't think it is surprising that Musk scheduled this 'event' on February 28, around the time investors would be starting to ask questions if bad February sales figures were to be published. I expect that we will find out later today or on Monday what the actual February sales figures look like. 

 

This news is just another example that Elon is figuring things out along the way. There is no plan. Just try to stay alive for as long as possible.

For example, as recent as December, Tesla opened 11 extra stores:https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1072297925957554176

edit: and also this: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2019/01/17/tesla-renews-lobbying-efforts-to-open-more-retail-stores-in-new-jersey-781511

btw: without the physical stores, what will happen to all the customers interested in the products from Tesla's energy division?

 

The question whether they can sell a cheaper version profitably is imo also an open question for Tesla. Hence the decision to change the business model and the additional lay-offs.

 

ps: the lay-offs related to this news concerns lay-offs on top of the ones announced in January, so the third round of lay-offs in less than one year. Seems consistent with the image of a hyper growth company.

pps: apparently, the cheaper model 3's will also have a glass roof instead of a metal roof, which is clearly cheaper. Another example that this was not a planned move by Tesla.

ppps: good VIC post https://twitter.com/harfangcap/status/1101321383785697280

 

 

 

[A Dhandho Investor]

Maybe the scheme here is to get a bunch of people to do a “free” test drive — which requires a $40k upfront payment but don’t worry it’ll be fully refunded ... in 90 days.  I.e., the greatest float business known to mankind.

 

Once foot goes on to the pedal at price point proposed; no one may return it. If you haven't pressed the pedal, may welcome to join all California streets which are daily flooded with these cars. Completed; 1 year with 24000 miles , drove on road trips on autopilot .Nothing close to this car exists in the market.  May want to check out how many second/used available, which indicates proposed returns.

 

There are tons of Model S used available: https://www.tesla.com/inventory/used/ms

The prices actually have dropped hugely: last year cheapest Model S used was in 60-70K range, now it's 39K with not that bad mileage. I guess that's understandable: nobody's buying used S when new 3 is available for similar or lower price. Although some S features are better (and you get free supercharging).

 

Tesla does not list used Model 3's yet. Either they don't have used inventory (yet) or they don't want to list them or who knows what.

 

Yesterday, Tesla has slashed prices accross the Board. Here in Belgium, I can now buy:

- A Model S P100D for €98k

- A Model X P100D for €103k

 

I presume people that paid 150k for those cars last week will not feel that great nowadays.

 

For the Model 3, if my memory serves me well, there have also been 3 price drops over the last 6 months. Those actions definitely hurt resale values.

[meiroy]

TSLA(PUT) CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY 299,800 $99,773,000 5.78

 

Druckenmiller as per 13F.

[Spekulatius]

Maybe the scheme here is to get a bunch of people to do a “free” test drive — which requires a $40k upfront payment but don’t worry it’ll be fully refunded ... in 90 days.  I.e., the greatest float business known to mankind.

 

Once foot goes on to the pedal at price point proposed; no one may return it. If you haven't pressed the pedal, may welcome to join all California streets which are daily flooded with these cars. Completed; 1 year with 24000 miles , drove on road trips on autopilot .Nothing close to this car exists in the market.  May want to check out how many second/used available, which indicates proposed returns.

 

There are tons of Model S used available: https://www.tesla.com/inventory/used/ms

The prices actually have dropped hugely: last year cheapest Model S used was in 60-70K range, now it's 39K with not that bad mileage. I guess that's understandable: nobody's buying used S when new 3 is available for similar or lower price. Although some S features are better (and you get free supercharging).

 

Tesla does not list used Model 3's yet. Either they don't have used inventory (yet) or they don't want to list them or who knows what.

 

Every time, the price of New car goes down, the price of used cars will go down with it. Since resale values determine the cost of ownership, it seems that Tesla cars are very expensive to own as long as the new car prices are falling so quickly.

[Spekulatius]

Here comes real competition. I still think they have some work to do to catch up to Tesla, but a 260 mile range for 36k is a real competition for the Tesla. Moreover, you can order this car now:

 

https://thenewswheel.com/2019-hyundai-kona-electric-named-edmunds-editors-choice-for-best-ev/

[ZenaidaMacroura]

TSLA(PUT) CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY 299,800 $99,773,000 5.78

 

Druckenmiller as per 13F.

5% of his money is in Tesla puts?

 

In previous interviews he mentioned he had no position but fired a PM for shorting without driving the cars (albeit the story is from 2012).

 

very interesting.

[Gregmal]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/feds-investigating-deadly-friday-tesla-crash-in-florida/

 

And this kind of stuff is why autonomous driving won't get adopted nearly as fast as people think. Imagine seeing this? Elon's death machine drives straight through the under belly of an 18 wheeler, most likely decapitating its passengers, and then STILL driving another quarter mile before stopping?? Although I'm sure the company will try to spin this. Maybe its part of a newly featured, auto-convertible mode?

[Spekulatius]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/feds-investigating-deadly-friday-tesla-crash-in-florida/

 

And this kind of stuff is why autonomous driving won't get adopted nearly as fast as people think. Imagine seeing this? Elon's death machine drives straight through the under belly of an 18 wheeler, most likely decapitating its passengers, and then STILL driving another quarter mile before stopping?? Although I'm sure the company will try to spin this. Maybe its part of a newly featured, auto-convertible mode?

 

Tesla uses a cheapskate approach to autonomous driving, unlike GM and Waymo. Tsla’s  approach is very unlikely to lead to lead to autonomous driving in the foreseeable future.

[randomep]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/feds-investigating-deadly-friday-tesla-crash-in-florida/

 

And this kind of stuff is why autonomous driving won't get adopted nearly as fast as people think. Imagine seeing this? Elon's death machine drives straight through the under belly of an 18 wheeler, most likely decapitating its passengers, and then STILL driving another quarter mile before stopping?? Although I'm sure the company will try to spin this. Maybe its part of a newly featured, auto-convertible mode?

 

LMAO, this thread is reminding me of Biglari :)

[DTEJD1997]

Hey all:

 

If TSLA was opening dealerships/stores as late as December of last year, and now they are shutting them all down, then they truly have no plan.  OR the plan is OMG, we are losing $$$$ bigly, what can we do to slow this down?

 

I was in Cleveland the other day and saw a TSLA dealership/store for the 1st time.  There was NO shortage of vehicles for sale.  They had them parked in EVERY conceivable spot.  Easily 100+ vehicles available for sale.  That+ mechanics + sales people must require a tremendous amount of capital.

 

Cleveland also might have a LOT more TSLA vehicles than Detroit does.  I saw at least FIVE TSLA cars when I was driving around and even had one pass me on the freeway!

 

In the Detroit area, I'll see 1-2 a day.  Sometimes zero, sometimes 3-4.

 

Closing all your stores?  #notbullish

[walt373]

It seems like Elon has once again bet the business, this time on an online-only sales model. At the very least, they should have tested online-only in select locations to see how much it would affect sales. Elon said 78% of buyers ordered online - ok, by that simple logic, why are they willing to risk the other 22%? How much can they save on stores compared to that chunk of sales, especially considering sales are expected to explode from here?

 

The timing is also very curious - they're doing this AS they roll out their mass market model. It's the worst possible time for a hugely risky experiment that is impossible to undo. Once you close all your stores and fire everyone, there's no going back. The way I see it, the decision is either incredibly dumb or it's because they are in a cash crunch. And if they are in a cash crunch, that suggests they can't raise.

[Gregmal]

I wonder if Dalal will chime in and tell us how Tesla has more dead EV customers than BMW, Jaguar, and GM have total EV customers combined. And that he's still eating popcorn.

[Liberty]

I really wish they would get it together operationally and financially, because as someone who's interested by the tech of EVs (couldn't care less about the investment angle for this industry), I think it's great to have a new company selling hundreds of thousands of EVs and pushing all other automakers to move faster and make better vehicles than they otherwise would have (otherwise we'd get a bunch of weird-looking low-volume compliance cars, because they really don't want to cannibalize their other sales or sell a lot unprofitably for a while, having huge sunk costs in legacy tech and dealers that make most of their margin on ICE maintenance).

[Jurgis]

(otherwise we'd get a bunch of weird-looking low-volume compliance cars, because they really don't want to cannibalize their other sales or sell a lot unprofitably for a while, having huge sunk costs in legacy tech and dealers that make most of their margin on ICE maintenance).

 

Even with Tesla present, we are getting mostly that.

 

As much as I'm concerned about Tesla service, I'd be doubly/triply concerned about pretty much any conventional manufacturer electric car service. Since they don't give a crap about their electric models. (It might be different in Europe, I don't know).

[Liberty]

(otherwise we'd get a bunch of weird-looking low-volume compliance cars, because they really don't want to cannibalize their other sales or sell a lot unprofitably for a while, having huge sunk costs in legacy tech and dealers that make most of their margin on ICE maintenance).

 

Even with Tesla present, we are getting mostly that.

 

As much as I'm concerned about Tesla service, I'd be doubly/triply concerned about pretty much any conventional manufacturer electric car service. Since they don't give a crap about their electric models. (It might be different in Europe, I don't know).

 

Yeah, but we'd get more of that, and dragged out over a much longer period of time... The incentives are all wrong.

 

Musk truly has changed the course of things here, whatever else happens. Other things that could've done it would've been much higher oil prices for much longer and with no foward expectation that they'd come down much (but fracking has mostly stopped that) or a high carbon tax (probably combined with gov fuel economy standards that ratchet up fairly quickly). Without those, everything is pushing carmakers to stretch out the transition to EVs for as long as possible...

[Leverage Capabilities]

Out of curiosity if anyone knows, how do trade-ins work if you order online? How does tesla assess / confirm the value of the trade in? When you trade the car in, where do you take it or does someone come and pick it up?

 

Seems like a lot of logistics from the customer's end vs. just going to a dealership...

[rb]

I think you just take your old car to Carmax lol.

[Spekulatius]

I think you just take your old car to Carmax lol.

 

The issue with the rapid technical advance with electric cars is rapid loss in value and that means high cost of ownership. This hasn’t been considered much, but given the number of customers screwed by Tesla’s price cuts, I think it will be in the mind of potential customers. Leading might be a better option, if the offers are good.

[JSArbitrage]

I think you just take your old car to Carmax lol.

 

The issue with the rapid technical advance with electric cars is rapid loss in value and that means high cost of ownership. This hasn’t been considered much, but given the number of customers screwed by Tesla’s price cuts, I think it will be in the mind of potential customers. Leading might be a better option, if the offers are good.

 

That's much more of a problem for ICE cars (or really any mechanically complex machine.)  The more "electric" the car is, the more it's essentially a software update issue that doesn't require a new car purchase.  I expect electric cars to have a MUCH longer ownership timeline than ICE vehicles historically have had.

[JSArbitrage]

Once you close all your stores and fire everyone, there's no going back.

 

Says who?  Most of their locations were leased in major malls and other areas.  They could get back into those locations in less than 6 months if they wanted to.  Their entire Telsa "store" was just a few cars for test drive and t-shirts on a wall. 

[Spekulatius]

I think you just take your old car to Carmax lol.

 

The issue with the rapid technical advance with electric cars is rapid loss in value and that means high cost of ownership. This hasn’t been considered much, but given the number of customers screwed by Tesla’s price cuts, I think it will be in the mind of potential customers. Leading might be a better option, if the offers are good.

 

That's much more of a problem for ICE cars (or really any mechanically complex machine.)  The more "electric" the car is, the more it's essentially a software update issue that doesn't require a new car purchase.  I expect electric cars to have a MUCH longer ownership timeline than ICE vehicles historically have had.

 

It’s not just software that changes, it’s the battery, engine, sensor etc that’s evolving faster for electric cars than for ICE‘s, hence I expect a faster loss in value. The buyers of Tesla cars seeing their used car values plummet already. It won’t happen with the Subaru I own.

[JSArbitrage]

I think you just take your old car to Carmax lol.

 

The issue with the rapid technical advance with electric cars is rapid loss in value and that means high cost of ownership. This hasn’t been considered much, but given the number of customers screwed by Tesla’s price cuts, I think it will be in the mind of potential customers. Leading might be a better option, if the offers are good.

 

That's much more of a problem for ICE cars (or really any mechanically complex machine.)  The more "electric" the car is, the more it's essentially a software update issue that doesn't require a new car purchase.  I expect electric cars to have a MUCH longer ownership timeline than ICE vehicles historically have had.

 

It’s not just software that changes, it’s the battery, engine, sensor etc that’s evolving faster for electric cars than for ICE‘s, hence I expect a faster loss in value. The buyers of Tesla cars seeing their used car values plummet already. It won’t happen with the Subaru I own.

 

It's literally the opposite.  Websites track this.  The Model S depreciates far less quickly than sedans in the same class (and as an owner of the Mercedes E350 who is looking to buy a Model S, this is very real.)  The Model 3 recently won a "best in class" depreciation award. 

 

https://www.autolist.com/news-and-analysis/tesla-model-x-model-s-depreciation

[meiroy]

 

If Tesla goes down, what will happen to SpaceX? That's what worries me the most.