HeadButterBot (Hider of COGs) Profile picture
Nov 6, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read Read on X
1/n $tsla, $tslaq

The update to Russ Mitchell's story clues us in on what actually helped drive TSLA's miracle quarter...

Tesla spokesman told The Times that a large receivable from one of its partner banks for loans issued to US customers is the 10% entity noted in the 10-Q
2/n
1) We know it's 1 entity. So this has to a lease partner for whom TSLA is providing a residual value guarantee (RVG).

2) The increase in AR must be due to TSLA accepting Model SX from customers who leased w this bank. It's likely vehicles were turned in early.
3/n
3) TSLA would have received some cash from the customer and accepted the used model SX for the rest of the purchase price.

4) The partner bank still has a loan out to the vehicle buyer that must be paid. They can either take the used car and sell themselves OR
4/n
4) Get cash FROM tesla for the balancelet TSLA deal with selling the car.

This has important implications for Tesla and addresses a few questions ....
5/n
We now know what drove the spike in AR, But we can also infer why finished goods did NOT go down despite selling far more cars than produced in the quarter. Tesla INCLUDES used vehicles in finished goods. Boom! They are now sitting on a bigger pile of used Model S and X
6/n
The bank either took the cars to sell on their own, or more likely, stuckTesla w the cars. Either way, once the decision is made, The AR would be "settled".

If Tesla gets stuck w the cars, we'd never know and losses on those sales likely get booked in Services segment
7/n
Why did Tesla choose to book these sales in 3q?? It seems that the accounts were not settled, cash had not been delivered (may never be actually); wouldn't it make more sense to wait for 4q?

But shorts must be punished, so into 3q it goes....

One more interesting tidbit
8/n
Reconciliation of recent accnting change shows tesla booked far more RVG related sales this quarter than last.... (its complicated to explain on Twitter) For the financially minded, I've attached the numbers. Bottom line, 113m (roughly 10% of AR..... hmm) was RVG related.
I should have said a partner for whom TSLA provided an RVG instead of saying just leasing. Hard to get everything in.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with HeadButterBot (Hider of COGs)

HeadButterBot (Hider of COGs) Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @4xRevenue

Oct 29, 2019
1/11
$TSLA's mysterious FX gain.

Reader's digest version: There is nothing wrong with the accounting applied, it's just there was no gain. Roughly 100m of $TSLAs reported income in the quarter never happened.

If you want the details, continue....
2/11
$TSLA's FX balance at the end of 2q was about 600m, it grew to 616 in 3q. Over that time, FX moved adversely in each of their major currencies. The moves implied an impact of about negative 25m.

This was knowable prior to the 3q report, and most were estimating a negative
3/11
hit to other income. Makes sense. Hard to argue with.

$tsla, being tsla, instead showed an 85m GAIN in other income. So, WTF?!

Well, IMO, there is only one explanation that fits the available information.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 27, 2019
THEORY regarding Q3 '19 miracle COGs quarter.

$TSLA may be allocating higher costs to existing inventory and artificially lowering reported COGs to sales in the current period.

This would overstate gross margin and massively inflate profitability this quarter.

(more)
we saw similar in q3 '18 and to a lesser extent q4 '18.

A reconciliation of reported inventory levels since the start of last year shows an unexplained increase in inventory values for just 3 quarters.

The last 2q's of '18 and now the 3rd q of '19
Stated differently, if the COGs per unit shown in these 3 quarters were applied to production recorded as inventory in the period, the reported inventory balance would be far lower at the end of each. Other quarters balanced reasonably well.

Interesting to note that
Read 4 tweets
Apr 12, 2019
1/n
A quick thread on why this lease announcement from $TSLA last night is so absurd.

First, there was no leasing partner announced. Nor did they expand their warehouse line setup for leases
2/n

If we don't see either of those things soon, this basically can't happen, because it would be a near-term cash flow negative event for $TSLA

If $TSLA receives 10% down and $500 a month for a lease, they can't pay back the ABL (assuming 85% borrowing against $30K COGS)
3/n

The lease pricing itself is a joke. Would you be willing to buy a $TSLA with 30K miles on it for $13k?

In other words, this is the inverse of pricing being offered to lessees. The proposed leases by $TSLA are not priced competitively
Read 4 tweets
Feb 1, 2019
$TSLA
1/n Going to ramble a bit, but wanted to share my thoughts and hopefully hear feedback from rational investors / skeptics / traders. I'm struggling with this situation. Nothing I say regarding trading is advice, everything I say is my opinion.

Quick background
2/n I was a professional investor (retired now), ran money for a long time at the biggest and best. I loved the people and i loved the meritocracy. Results were/are all that matters. BUT, as an analyst becoming a PM, i also learned there is a difference between conviction and
3/n making money. Being smart, sounding smart, count for ZEROOOOO. Making money does. Getting lucky doesn't hurt either (looking at you @GerberKawasaki ). I wasn't as cocky as Elon, not even close, but you can't lie to the market gods, they don't care, it won't matter. So I
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(