Quote from: MrH on July 19, 2021, 02:17:37 PM
Yeah, you need some sort of steady supply to supplement.  You can't have the massive amount of variation of just renewables, along with the massive amount of demand variation.  It's just too much of a delta.  You would need an insane amount of batteries, and a HUGE amount of excess capacity on the renewable side to handle the peaks and valleys.

This is why I think we need nukes - a nice steady stream to meet base load.

Quote from: NomisR on July 19, 2021, 10:58:16 AM
I guess it depends on where you live and the price of your utility.  But you're right for most of the country, you will likely never recoup or get a good ROI because either it doesn't generate enough power or the electric prices are so low that it's not worth it.  Sadly the case for me in California, it likely is.. since ROI i've calculated is around 7-8 years, and you're looking at 10 years of life for the solar panels before the power generated goes down significantly... it may be a better deal than most.

Yes, across the entire US on average - it doesn't equate for most households. 7-8 years could be generous practically speaking, taking into account issues such as moving.

Quote from: NomisR on July 19, 2021, 10:58:16 AM
I guess it depends on where you live and the price of your utility.  But you're right for most of the country, you will likely never recoup or get a good ROI because either it doesn't generate enough power or the electric prices are so low that it's not worth it.  Sadly the case for me in California, it likely is.. since ROI i've calculated is around 7-8 years, and you're looking at 10 years of life for the solar panels before the power generated goes down significantly... it may be a better deal than most.

No, a decent solar panel is good for 20+ years at >85 or 90% output

Quote from: GoCougs on July 19, 2021, 08:06:41 AM
lol no. SFH solar + PW install literally has no payback (or, an average like 20 years = no payback). Solar has never been economically viable and Tesla doesn't rewrite that math.

Magally uninformed

Tesla's doing okay - good Q2 numbers. But having jut read C&D's marathon review of EV offerings, their quality is wildly inconsistent. Superior basic engineering - inferior  assembly line performance.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q2-2021.html

Quote from: Morris Minor on July 27, 2021, 05:39:45 AM
Tesla's doing okay - good Q2 numbers. But having jut read C&D's marathon review of EV offerings, their quality is wildly inconsistent. Superior basic engineering - inferior  assembly line performance.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q2-2021.html

Interesting, about 800 million of profit even excluding the regulatory credits. I think that might be a first?

Looks like they may stay in business after all. Now just need MrH to explain why this is all fraudulent and actually they will be crumbling any day now. 

The 10Q just came out like an hour ago, I haven't read through it yet.

The biggest thing that's stuck out so far:  $800 million in profit, but yet they generated -$600M in cashflow, all while cutting R&D by $100M.

Their accounts payable is now bigger than their total cost of automotive sales for the quarter.  And accounts receivable cracked $2 BILLION.  Please SJ, keep your accounting hat on and try to explain this away

They've likely hit escape velocity.  They're so big, they can continue to raise to fund operations.  It'll be a slow death, but it's still coming.  This company is a zombie feeding on capital raises and subsidies. 

I will agree their accounts payable seems absurd to me. Our company's accounts payable is roughly ~10% of our quarterly sales (or roughly a third of our monthly sales). Their AP is closer to ~70-80% of their quarterly sales (or ~200% of their monthly sales). My experience with big companies is that they love to use their vendors as a way to finance operations, but that seems extreme.

Quote from: Morris Minor on July 27, 2021, 05:39:45 AM
Tesla's doing okay - good Q2 numbers. But having jut read C&D's marathon review of EV offerings, their quality is wildly inconsistent. Superior basic engineering - inferior  assembly line performance.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q2-2021.html

I just sat in a Model Y.  Definitely a big step up in terms of materials and fit and finish.  Still a few rough edges (figuratively) with body panel fit and assembly, but way better than the first model S and X.

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 27, 2021, 08:24:23 AM
I will agree their accounts payable seems absurd to me. Our company's accounts payable is roughly ~10% of our quarterly sales (or roughly a third of our monthly sales). Their AP is closer to ~70-80% of their quarterly sales (or ~200% of their monthly sales). My experience with big companies is that they love to use their vendors as a way to finance operations, but that seems extreme.

How about the $2 billion in accounts receivable?  That's the more egregious one.  Everyone knows Tesla doesn't pay their bills, that's nothing new.  But how do you get $2 billion in AR?  You make cars.  You receive money at the time of sale.  How do people owe you $2 billion dollars?

There's a lot of fuckery going on with how they're doing lease accounting.  They move a ton of off-lease Teslas through Carvana, and the numbers have consistently been whacky.  List prices substantially higher than new prices (and this was happening pre-pandemic, so that's not really the cause).  They all get marked as pending, and then come back up for sale at a later date.  There is a lot of smoke around booking the residual value of off-lease cars at abnormally high prices.  Are they continually doing that, on the assumption that FSD makes them "appreciating assets" as Elon claims ?  And they mark all these off lease vehicles at inflated values as AR, until they're sold, and then write off the difference as they see fit?  Who knows.  None of it makes any sense though, and they won't directly answer any questions about it.

AR balances make sense when you have a captive auto lender financing vehicles for people.  Tesla doesn't have this at all.  It should be really straight forward from an AR standpoint.

Sounds like a short would be a sure bet... You should try that again

I'm sure currently building 3 factories also has nothing to do with a high AR.

People pay you to build factories these days?  Well shit, I'm in the wrong business.

Quote from: MrH on July 27, 2021, 08:54:27 AM
How about the $2 billion in accounts receivable?  That's the more egregious one.  Everyone knows Tesla doesn't pay their bills, that's nothing new.  But how do you get $2 billion in AR?  You make cars.  You receive money at the time of sale.  How do people owe you $2 billion dollars?

FWIW, that is roughly ~20% of their quarterly sales.

Our AR is roughly half (50%) of our quarterly sales. That equates to roughly ~45 day payment terms on average.  We would of course like it to be closer to 30 days, but that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

Their AR equates to roughly ~18 day payments terms on average. That is actually really good IMHO. That means that are getting paid within 2-3 weeks of shipment.

Quote from: Submariner on July 27, 2021, 08:33:25 AM
I just sat in a Model Y.  Definitely a big step up in terms of materials and fit and finish.  Still a few rough edges (figuratively) with body panel fit and assembly, but way better than the first model S and X.

I've heard the Y is a step down from the 3, in terms of build fit & finish.

Quote from: CaminoRacer on July 27, 2021, 09:46:17 AM
I've heard the Y is a step down from the 3, in terms of build fit & finish.

It's a huge step up from the early model 3s.. it's not saying a whole lot though but i think it's slightly worse than the most recent model 3s.

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 27, 2021, 09:28:30 AM
FWIW, that is roughly ~20% of their quarterly sales.

Our AR is roughly half (50%) of our quarterly sales. That equates to roughly ~45 day payment terms on average.  We would of course like it to be closer to 30 days, but that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

Their AR equates to roughly ~18 day payments terms on average. That is actually really good IMHO. That means that are getting paid within 2-3 weeks of shipment.

Are you not following what I'm saying? Their payment terms are paid in full at time of delivery. How does anything more than a day make sense here?

Quote from: MrH on July 28, 2021, 12:14:43 PM


Are you not following what I'm saying? Their payment terms are paid in full at time of delivery. How does anything more than a day make sense here?

Yet everyone is looking at this saying.. no problem here..

Quote from: MrH on July 28, 2021, 12:14:43 PM


Are you not following what I'm saying? Their payment terms are paid in full at time of delivery. How does anything more than a day make sense here?

Clearly not everyone pays in full at time of sale. A quick google search shows GM has ~34 billion in AR (yahoo finance) on quarterly sales of ~32 billion.

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 28, 2021, 12:28:15 PM
Clearly not everyone pays in full at time of sale. A quick google search shows GM has ~34 billion in AR (yahoo finance) on quarterly sales of ~32 billion.

Quick... Contact the SEC...

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 28, 2021, 12:28:15 PM
Clearly not everyone pays in full at time of sale. A quick google search shows GM has ~34 billion in AR (yahoo finance) on quarterly sales of ~32 billion.

They have a captive finance arm.  Tesla does not.

Quote from: MrH on July 28, 2021, 12:42:22 PM
They have a captive finance arm.  Tesla does not.

Which would explain why Tesla has only 20% of the AR as GM (relative to their sales). 15 days of AR is minimal. For most companies receiving payment within 10 days is basically the same as "due upon receipt of invoice."

Why do they have any? Their payment terms aren't 10 days after invoice.

You're looking at the AR balance as a percentage of sales to determine the scope of it.  Look at AR balance as a proportion of income.  It's a very, very meaningful number when they're trying to squeeze into profitability.

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 28, 2021, 12:57:34 PM
Which would explain why Tesla has only 20% of the AR as GM (relative to their sales). 15 days of AR is minimal. For most companies receiving payment within 10 days is basically the same as "due upon receipt of invoice."

But Tesla sells cars, currently, you have to pay for the car in full either through financing or cash for you to be able to unlock the car via the apps and sign for the docs.  Even if the money is paid via financing through 3rd party banks, does that still count as AR? 

Quote from: NomisR on July 28, 2021, 01:08:36 PM
But Tesla sells cars, currently, you have to pay for the car in full either through financing or cash for you to be able to unlock the car via the apps and sign for the docs.  Even if the money is paid via financing through 3rd party banks, does that still count as AR? 

No.  When 3rd party banks provide an auto loan, they wire the money to purchase the vehicle.  There aren't payment terms on cash wires for vehicles.

If you guys think there is fraud you should report them to the SEC I guess.

Do the banks wire the money on the exact date? I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla doesn't receive the money through the archaic banking system until 10 days after it was "sent".

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 28, 2021, 01:15:08 PM
If you guys think there is fraud you should report them to the SEC I guess.

You don't think countless people have been doing that?

Tesla is still under DOJ investigation btw.

We'll see if there's a restatement of numbers in the next year.  I think the chance of that happening is very high.

Quote from: CaminoRacer on July 28, 2021, 01:17:35 PM
Do the banks wire the money on the exact date? I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla doesn't receive the money through the archaic banking system until 10 days after it was "sent".

Wire transfers have to be instantaneous. ACH transactions can be anywhere from 1-3 days.

I doubt I could convince you that there isn't fraud...and really there could be fraud for all I know...but the notion that just because they have any AR at all as proof of fraud is silly.

1. We don't know that all of their cars are sold as cash upon delivery. Note that while they might even be the case in the US, they have global sales. Payments terms outside the US are notoriously long.
2. They have significant revenue from things other than selling cars.
3. If it was such obvious fraud all of their accountants would be in jail yesterday.

MrH I think you have a very distorted view on how flexible accounting can be.

Quote from: SJ_GTI on July 28, 2021, 01:21:15 PM
Wire transfers have to be instantaneous. ACH transactions can be anywhere from 1-3 days.

IME they're not always.