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TSLA - Tesla Motors


Palantir

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Tesla's current (and future) valuation rest pretty heavily on their ability to raise capital (equity, debt, deposits) in order to fund their operational and technological advancements. (In engineering parlance, this would be the breakpoint for the system.) This is, of course, because they are unable to fund their plans via internally generated capital -- which is a very different situation than Amazon, which IIRC only raised equity once and (arguably) has lots of internally generated capital to plow back into their investments.

I agree 100%.

 

Any comparison of Tesla to Amazon is just nonsensical. As you correctly pointed out, Amazon only came to the markets for equity once. While it was rocky at first for Amazon, after 4 years the losses stopped. The next year it was profitable and from that point it was clearly self-sustaining. What foxed people for so long was that people looked at the bottom line number, but with hindsight, there were very clear owner earnings that were being generated. Hindsight also delivers another kick in the teeth, because back in 2002, when it looked like Amazon might actually have started to look like a real business, the share price was close to all-time lows. Of course, that's an aside 8)

 

Going back to Tesla, the contrast with it and Amazon could not be more different. We are in year 6 of Tesla, but yet the company is losing even more money than ever, and has come to the market for new equity for the umpteenth time. Free cash flow is sharply negative and I see no evidence of internally generated owner earnings. Sure we have revenue growth, but it's only possible because of all the new equity that is getting generated.

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I did post some other ideas that will probably do a lot better than 25% CAGR over similar time frames. 

 

A LOT better than 25% CAGR over 10 years? That seems optimistic! :o Care to elaborate?

 

Btw, thanks for your contributions and ideas lately, much appreciated!

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I had an interesting discussion with an economist about gold recently. He said that selling gold nowadays is a bad idea, but he doesn't really have a strong opinion about buying gold. I thought it was interesting that he said that.

 

I think TSLA has some parallels, but in reverse.

Is it a good idea to have a concentrated long position in Tesla at current prices? No, clearly.

Is Tesla among the most attractive risk-rewards in tbe market today? Doubtful.

So why go long?

 

In fact, I am short but on such a small scale that a massive move up woudln't really hurt me.

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The other thing is that every time a stock has dozens of articles on SeekingAlpha per month, with tons of comments that go like "Yaaaassss, come to mama" each time it beats by a penny, along with 50+ pages on COBF, it might be worth to take the foot off the gas if you are long.

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The other thing is that every time a stock has dozens of articles on SeekingAlpha per month, with tons of comments that go like "Yaaaassss, come to mama" each time it beats by a penny, along with 50+ pages on COBF, it might be worth to take the foot off the gas if you are long.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150513142008-most-popular-stocks-list-780x439.png

If you adjusted ownership by market cap, I imagine Tesla would probably have come out first.

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$200/kWh for battery, probably much less for Tsla already. So incremental cost of new version $2000, selling for $10,000.

 

S.

 

This P100D is unbelievable! Acceleration as fast as a Bugatti Veyron  :o

 

Quack

 

I just figured what my license plate will read when I buy a Model 3.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just started to look into Tesla today. I am surprised that the operating lease assets are more than the inventory of the cars, and the YoY increase is huge. This makes inventory turnover rate to be very hard to calculate. Lease is more like a loan in the bank. You can twist the numbers and pretend to be great for a while.

 

But even if TESLA's numbers can be trusted, which I strongly doubt, the inventory + operating lease is now 3 bn vs last year's 1.7 bn. Gross profit is only 923 m vs last year's 881 m. SOMETHING has to be wrong here.

 

 

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Just started to look into Tesla today. I am surprised that the operating lease assets are more than the inventory of the cars, and the YoY increase is huge. This makes inventory turnover rate to be very hard to calculate. Lease is more like a loan in the bank. You can twist the numbers and pretend to be great for a while.

 

But even if TESLA's numbers can be trusted, which I strongly doubt, the inventory + operating lease is now 3 bn vs last year's 1.7 bn. Gross profit is only 923 m vs last year's 881 m. SOMETHING has to be wrong here.

 

I believe TSLA is overvalued here, but I'm not shorting because the future outcome is likely to be extremely binary. If the Model 3 is delivered close to on time, close to the $35k price, and can ramp up quickly, then TSLA will probably be up 50-100%. If they can't deliver, then it probably falls under $100, even $50.

 

I know the market hates the SCTY transaction, but I'm of the opinion that it is actually synergistic, and that the price is right, given TSLA is using their overvalued stock to buy a company that has over 2.3GW of installed solar that will produce cashflows for the next 20-30 years, to say nothing about any future installations.

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Interview with Elon released today:

https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/

 

Takeaways:

Musk spends 80% of his time at SpaceX and Tesla on engineering and product design.

The Tesla production line in Fremont runs at 5 cm/sec. He's confident the factory can run at 1 m/sec, a factor of 20 increase. (The factory is currently producing cars at a rate of 100k / year. A 20x increase puts it at 2 million / year.)

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From another thread: Chanos' thinks SCTY is gonna be the end of TSLA: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000554841&play=1

 

I'm all for Elon, but IMO buying SCTY in current situation is rather irresponsible. As a separate company SCTY can sink just itself. As a part of TSLA it could sink both companies. I understand the big visions and everything, but IMO at this point it would be more important for TSLA to get through Model 3 launch without having to deal with SCTY financing issues...

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From another thread: Chanos' thinks SCTY is gonna be the end of TSLA: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000554841&play=1

 

I'm all for Elon, but IMO buying SCTY in current situation is rather irresponsible. As a separate company SCTY can sink just itself. As a part of TSLA it could sink both companies. I understand the big visions and everything, but IMO at this point it would be more important for TSLA to get through Model 3 launch without having to deal with SCTY financing issues...

 

I agree. If the purchase of SCTY goes through, I will seriously consider canceling my model 3 reservation to recover my $1,000.  :(

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Personally, I am planning to make Model 3 deposit soon. I won't withdraw it if merger comes through. I know that I may lose it.

 

I will vote my very small position in TSLA against merger if/when we get the vote.

 

I plan on purchasing a Model 3 as soon as possible without putting down the deposit.  I reason that by the time you can just order one outright without having put the deposit down enough time will have passed for the bugs in the software to have been worked out and enough will have been written about it that I will have a good idea if people are happy with their purchases.  I don't like the SCTY acquisition either. Like you I think they should remain separate entities where each can sink or swim on their own.  No reason to tie two insanely risky endeavors together so that one has the ability to sink the other.

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My Model 3 deposit would be Elon support payment the same way my very small TSLA stock position is.

 

I completely understand people who would rather wait to buy Model 3 when it comes out to everyone and not make a deposit now.

 

I took a look at Model S, but decided that I am too cheap to make that level of Elon donation.  8) I see pros and cons of getting Model S now vs getting Model 3. :)

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I plan on purchasing a Model 3 as soon as possible without putting down the deposit.  I reason that by the time you can just order one outright without having put the deposit down enough time will have passed for the bugs in the software to have been worked out and enough will have been written about it that I will have a good idea if people are happy with their purchases.  I don't like the SCTY acquisition either. Like you I think they should remain separate entities where each can sink or swim on their own.  No reason to tie two insanely risky endeavors together so that one has the ability to sink the other.

 

rkbabang - you do realize that is most likely going to be around 2019 right? so you have a long wait ahead of you...

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