TSLA - Tesla Inc

Today's high is $2003.

Every time I refresh our portfolio spreadsheet it goes up by a lot and it's all Tesla. My gawd. lol!

I'm posting this so I can scroll back and see that I was joyous and doing well, at one point, after the stock crashes and there is a charred stump where the economy used to be.


[Edit: It's now comfortable over $2000/sh]

 

I find it interesting that we are starting to hear talk about automaker bailouts, as is tradition in every down turn, and many people have specifically cited Tesla as not needing a bailout.

 

Tesla closes above $2,000 per share for the first time, now worth more than Walmart (TSLA)

https://markets.businessinsider.com...rth-more-walmart-market-cap-2020-8-1029522064

 

The problem with being a Tesla long is controlling the giggling. People around me must think I'm some sort of ninny.

 

And trying not to annoy my friends or just anyone around me, every time i see one on the road. Doin my little fist pump and “yeah baby!”

 

funny thing about that. A friend sent me this just yesterday. I think ol Elon was trolling. This Statement in the caption is true. I looked at the time stamps....well it was 10:11am for me, but im two timezones ahead of cali. .I think he was being a cryptic troll more than really thinking his company was overvalued...

 

I think of him more as bradly cooper from limitless. The hopped up cooper. Always 6 steps ahead of.....everyone else

 

I pray that Elon does not tweet that the SP is too high again. Most likely he is too busy with all more important stuffs (instead of thinking of the SP), such as getting their Starship for the next milestone test, focus on reducing the overall costs so that Tesla is more affordable to fulfill Tesla's mission and etc.



I sold one of my Jan 15 2021 2050C this morning and now playing with the house money.
SP needs to take a breather as it sustains longer term bullish momentum. Still holding my TSLA shares purchased at $283.

 

When $TSLA first crossed $200, Elon mentioned in interview he was in disbelief at the 22x multiple at the time, humbled and a bit worried about it, and stated he would do everything in his power to grow into that valuation. He used to be tremendously likeable and brought sincerity and humility to interviews.

These days, I think he is humility challenged. It's not ideal for a front man to show so much hubris but the entire Tesla show works, as is, so I suppose it's all good. I doubt he is worried about the valuation, though.

I'm pretty confident he thinks he is going to take over the world and I think he is very likely correct in his line of thought.

 

If I thought Tesla was 2 years ahead of the pack, I would sell the entire position.

 

IMO, production volumes are not the most relevant metric, once they pass a couple of hundred thousand. VW has not passed this volume metric while Tesla has gone beyond double that number.

In order of importance: Cell production capacity, charging network, cell cost, FSD software, cell energy density.

Nobody is within 2 years of Tesla on any of those metrics.

It's basic scale manufacturing. Tesla makes more per unit so can scale more quickly. Actually, VW is losing a ton of money per unit, at the moment, but that will change. Being able to scale more quickly enables Tesla to drive costs down further. Even lower cost allows them to scale more quickly.

This sort of non-linear production scale is a situation where it is nearly impossible to catch up to an incumbent, unless the incumbent makes a critical error.

Tesla can either harvest a lot of money for their war chest or they can cut the price on cars, which we have been seeing lately, and cause other manufacturers to widen their losses. Tesla's margin is increasing also, interestingly.

Plans are not reality. Time will tell if VW can scale. I hope so but bodies in white are the least of the problems of scaling an EV company. Time will tell how long VW can scale aggressively while haemorrhaging cash. Time will tell if VW can get enough cells to fulfil their scale ambitions.

What happens if they have problems with early copies that reduce pack longevity or somehow give them a bad reputation? I put the chance of early problems at 100%. I mean more problems than we've already seen, which are already a lot.

Then their comes their dismal efficiency, with Audi being the worst in the business.

They have smaller packs than Tesla so, already, their packs are going to get hotter under load and while charging than a Tesla. If they have the same chemistry as Tesla, their packs will not last as long by quite a bit. I know people only think for the moment but in 5 years, Tesla's reputation will dominate, even though their cells are only incrementally better. Better cells and larger packs yields a significant longevity advantage.

I will believe someone is within 2 years of Tesla when I see it. What I see is other companies about 5~7 years back with the gap widening rapidly. Talk is not action. Tesla is moving like a jack rabbit.

Meanwhile, the Tesla SuperCharger network is right around 20K charging points with more coming online by the day. That does not include level 2 chargers at hotels, restaurants, etc. which are about another 4500 (estimated by Tom).

 

TSLA is the stock that you don’t need to chose an entry point. You just buy and then be rich.

 

Cramer/Maurer: Wedbush $3,500 Bull Case, Growth in China, Tesla Battery Day
https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/new...a-bull-case-growth-in-china-tesla-battery-day

 

I'm intimidated by the current valuation as much as anybody but consider this.

In very early 2017, Tesla was struggling to scale model 3 production, they had some cash, and they under media attack from industry players, feeding negative Tesla stories into various media outlets. Total forward production was around 100K units per year.

The narrative of the moment was: they don't produce many cars, they have never made money, they will go bankrupt soon.

When that narrative failed, they moved to "demand problem".

The industry and a few key market players (preeminently Jim Chanos, David Einhorn, Mark Spiegel, et al.)

It was brutal. Tesla bought NEMA at Fremont which was producing 350K cars annually, when Toyota owned it. Tesla started building the largest battery plant in the world. Tesla was expanding the Hell out of their SuperCharger network to prepare for a rather huge stream of new Teslas.

Media coverage became ignorant to the idea of ROI. After making huge investments and before production scaled, Tesla was declared insolvent.

Fast forward to today....

Tesla is producing cars at a rate of roughly 600K units per year. They have a huge amount of near cash on hand. There continues to be demand for every car they produce. Their only inventory consists of used cars.

Now we're in a recession that looks to be long and deep. Tesla could kill the other car makers by cutting price more aggressively and continuing to scale. Tesla has to be careful because they will wind up in jail if they choke the other car makers too much. The rest of the automotive industry is now competing with Tesla, where three years ago Tesla was competing with the industry.

Once Tesla passes through the FSD singularity, other makers will be irrelevant. They will be able to subscribe a fleet of 1M+ cars to software that will sell for $20K per year with a stream of additional cars rolling out of production every day at a sharply increasing rate. How many cars will subscribe to FSD? At first, I speculate 5~10%. Within two years, I speculate 85% will subscribe.

In three years, Tesla should have roughly 5M FSD capable cars on the road. If they get an 85% subscription rate, that is $85B of annual income above and beyond other sources.

Considering how long it took Amazon has been given to grow into it's valuation, Tesla continues to be under valued at $400B market cap.

For those who chose to deny FSD, continue the negative narrative....

 

There is a rumor that Tesla has a working prototype of a lithium battery with silicone anode. If that's true, the current valuation could be way low.

Battery rumours have mostly been bunk. I wouldn't invest on them. Still...