S/X sales are getting killed. These discounts make sense as they only have months until Etron/Taycan arrives, these are 2018 models which they have a ton of, M3 cannibalized sales in markets where the enormous size of the subsidy makes cross shopping S vs 3 sensible (this effect isn't very strong in the US, EU it is), they are cash strapped, and they fired/cut commissions for the sales staff. I think they had to go this deep just to move things, these have been sitting since 2018. Imagine it is Fall and Etron etc are out with $7500 off vs 1850, 2020 models vs 2018 models. These discounts had to come at some point, so may as well try now as much as possible.

This one had 1k miles on it as a 'demo'. I think the collapse in S/X alone is enough to tank it below 240 and wherever that leads, even if M3 volume is held with the base SR+ coming out.

He certainly pushed the conversation forward from a media awareness and consumer education standpoint. And while he might have wasted billion$ creating crap cars under a circus tent, it agitating the industry enough to accelerate the majors prioritizing their individual and collective investments. He had cool ev's in his back pocket, all he had to do was partner with a real car company...

I would be willing to admit musk made the world realize how many virtue signalers with 100k there are in the world

EV growth was an exponential curve growing at 40%/year no matter what Musk did.

EVs become cheaper than ICE cars at sufficient range for much mainstream use in 2021-2022. Every year after that they get cheaper and cheaper which flips the economics and desirability. This was always inevitable and known, and the major carmakers were always going to ramp massively into this flip with increasingly compelling offerings.

Saying Tesla is responsible for moving this industry is a bit like saying that Apple or IBM in the 80s is responsible for the personal computer revolution. That's completely absurd. Had neither existed we'd still have had an explosion in PCs on the same trajectory. The rise of PCs was driven by:

- Moore's law and miniaturization of circuitry, which had been in effect since the 60s
- Storage capacity and speeds
- Screen resolutions

For example, this is global transistors produced per person by year:



One company introducing a slicker personal computer - and not even the first - made no difference to this graph. Ubiquitous personal computers were inevitable simply by what the underlying technology curve made possible. The same is true for televisions/screen size and lots of other industries. It's exactly the same thing for electric cars. Tesla are completely irrelevant for global electric car adoption because they're not moving the underlying technology curve. They're a meaningless blip in what is a certain exponential driven purely by battery cost (itself under a less steep version of Moore's law). Tesla wasted $10 billion to basically make a minuscule very early blip in this exponential. Nothing they do moves the curve forward faster because the curve is determined by basic battery tech of which Tesla has done nothing to move forward - that R&D is happening and funded elsewhere in the billions/year and moves at its own pace driven by the same kind of technological improvement fundamentals that limit chip growth to something close to Moore's law. The later years of the graph below would look identical if Tesla didn't exist at all:

So if it wasn't apple, or if it wasn't tesla, it surely would have been someone else to achieve the same or similar results in their respective markets?

Is this better?

No, what I'm saying is that the development of most technology fundamentally based on a complex manufactured substrate follows the curve of the advancement of the underlying substrate, which is time limited no matter how much money you throw at it. It's a bizarre quality of technological improvement that I don't fully understand the reasons for.

For electric cars that complex manufactured substrate is the battery and the limiting quality is its cost and its improvement in cost seems fundamentally limited by time.

You can lose vast sums of money making consumer products that act as is they're using technology 3-5 years more advanced, but in the long or even medium run you change nothing by doing that except waste large amounts of resources. The end-user experience conforms to the curve of the underlying substrate and the timing of curve is close to independent of the end user units manufactured at any given time. The tail never wags the dog, basically.

Is that clearer? It's a strange quality I don't fully understand. I'm not sure anyone understands why Moore's law has been close to followed rather than large leaps happening. Same for pixels/inch, storage, memory, transistors, nearly every base quality in tech.

Cliffs: Musk hasn't moved anything forward because the driving force of EVs is far more fundamental.

Change thread title to TSLA Doing Crack.

The Internet was the largest catalyst. But it's a bit of a chicken and egg story.

Tooth - doesn't someone have to make the investment to move the technology forward? Making that company potentially a good investment?

If I understand you, you're saying Tesla isn't actually moving technology forward. So then you would say the battery company is the place to invest in EVs?

In your computer analogy, what made Apple or IBM turn out better than you believe Tesla will? I think what you're saying is Apple just packaged the tech and marketed it well for profits, isn't that what Tesla trying?

Thanks for the explanation tooth. To keep this enlightening discussion moving forward, enjoy:

• https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/25...auto-industry/
• https://ark-invest.com/research/wrights-law-2

Yes that second link comes from Kooky Kathy inc

Yes they already are in massive amounts. That company isn't Tesla. $111 billion got spent on batteries last year. The laptop, phone, storage, etc etc business are what drove global battery demand. Tesla was and is a drop in the ocean and spend also next to nothing on R&D, which is the only thing which moves it forward.

The major autos are spending billions in battery research, dwarfing Tesla. Are you saying they're a good investment?

There is no place to invest in EVs. EVs are an orderly switch for existing manufacturers, not a disruption. If you must pick a winner, BMW are currently taking the lead in EVs in Europe quite strongly and without needing their shareholders to subsidize them. They have great manufacturing processes and German talent...it's possible EVs will give them a nice boost.

Apple didn't turn out well. They went to the brink of bankruptcy and basically ceased to exist as the computer manufacturing company they were. If Tesla played out like Apple they'd go sub $10 before rebounding. Except the car industry doesn't let you do that.

IBM has been around for a very long time in basic research and technology, they weren't a startup or purely a consumer brand.

Anyway, my point merely is a response to the claim that Musk is moving the EV world forward or that he's responsible for lighting a fire. It's all nonsense. EVs will follow a predictable path of economic sense on a substrate trajectory unrelated to the consumer products. They always have been and always were going to. Just like 4K TVs and 1080p phones where always inevitable and on a substrate trajectory and no individual manufacturer mattered to that.

The flipping point is a mere 2.5 years away on cost parity for good range. 100 new mainstream EV models are coming out in the next year! As mentioned, already we see budget offerings like the Renualt Zoe ramping from 150km to 400km in one model as the economics suddenly make sense. There will be far more of that, in performance too. In fact the commoditization of the bottom part of the car is inevitable and very different to ICE cars. Everyone will have "the Tesla experience" as standard because everything good about "the Tesla experience" has nothing to do with Tesla - the experience is actually that of a performance, long range electric drive which by their nature feel cool and sexy and futuristic, providing a much nicer driving experience than ICE. This is why Tesla have no long term advantage.

This analyst takedown is as good a summary of the TSLA trainwreck as I've seen:

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/46269...al-3-19-19.pdf

Totally agree and have wondered about the AR and PPE increases, both so sketchy

Tesla delaying standard range M3 deliveries.

http://www.thedrive.com/tech/27150/t...-range-model-3

“The fact that not a single Standard Range vehicle has been reported delivered, or even confirmed seen in the wild, suggests that Tesla may not have even built any. Since every trim level other than the base Standard Range is being delivered, including the so-called Standard Range Plus, customers are calling the move a "bait and switch" and wondering if the Tesla ever planned on delivering Standard Range cars this quarter. "I got the same delayed delivery text today after a call asking if I wanted to upgrade to a SR+," reported one relatively forgiving customer on TMC. "I don’t blame them but looks like they sent those dates to try to push some upgrades." "I assume its a tactic for last minute upgrades to SR+ or another version," says another.”

lol

Was always a bait-and-switch to get people the SR+ or others, they don't even have the new SR interiors and were of course caught off guard by Elon and months behind.

Judge Nathan set oral argument on contempt motion for April 4th at 2:00 p.m.

Not sure whether this is a positive, negative, or neutral development.

I don’t think anything meaningful will happen in this April 4th hearing or in the decision thereafter. No one wants to be held responsible for the coming collapse.

Agree, the hearing will not have much impact. Either he gets fined/stricter twitter sitter or he wins.

The big news for the stock will be the Q1 deliverables which I expect to be pretty good - 3 years of pent up euro demand + massive discounting + bait and switch on 35k Model3 roped in a bunch of people.

I don't even mind, because that makes Q2 even harder: europe is not growing, they just delivered nearly all the backlog. China is tiny. Margins in the usa are now tiny and there are not that many people left to bait and switch. The Model Y deposits have saved the cash position but what lever can they use in Q2 ? Semi + Roadster + Y already done as far as deposits. Will be fun.

Could the stock pop when he gets a slap on the wrist or no slap?

Yeah probably a small pop. But deliveries are coming before then and that's the big one and will drive the trading in the days after. All this did is take SEC surprise off the table before earnings which is of course bullish.

Roughly what delivery numbers are you expecting for model 3 and models S/X?

Anything specific that made you think model Y deposits are significant? Seems like sort of a flop to me. How big a number do you think they got?

I expect 85k total deliveries reported in Q1 (real number maybe 65k). Down from Q4 but not as bad as some reduced estimates. But it sets up Q2 to be horrible because 20k europe backlog is now nearly gone.

Also the heavily marked down S/X models will not be moving as fast as the initial sales that happened in Q1, as the motivated people already got them. There are still 2k+ REDUCED S/X in inventory in the USA just waiting still.

I don't think Model Y deposits are huge or elon would've tweeted it. But every bit of cash helps - 50Mil or so can pay a lot of bills.

I think they might turn a small profit based on getting rid of a lot of 2018 cars at a discount, Autopilot sales/revenue recognition, and the Model Y not-a-deposit-deposits. As a bear I hope they juice the numbers as much as possible because it sets up to make Q2 look worse.

But, even with pumping the numbers it's a sequential decrease from Q4, once again showing this is no longer a growth stock, it's a cut-expenses-to-the-bone company trying to survive. The stock will reflect that eventually.

New site I like using for reference. The future is just so clear, the bars will go down each quarter, and it will be game over.

https://evsalestracker.com/




Agree with proton that an SEC slap + Q1 rigging combo pump would setup what is now the best possible long term short entry. Waiting any more would simply be risking missing out on an unseen factor crash, or waiting for a pump that can no longer come.

I agree with that site, the real number is probably 65-70k - but Q1 report will be much higher - "fleet sales", "in transit/paid", "re-sold returned cars" (same VIN sold multiple times but never registered).

Anything higher than 85k would sound absurd to most, so I expect them to go right around 80-85k.

Is it a fact/confirmed that the "not a deposits" will now count toward income? Can they actually get away with that?