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This will be a key event. We have had no earnings warnings for "material events" (major cancelations, delays, cost/production issues, etc) leading up to this earnings call so there should be no surprises.

There should be announcements like details on test drives, SuperChargers, new stores (e.g, Fashion Valley, San Diego) and lots of other goodies ... shorts hold on to your pants!

Today! If/when you listened to the conference: What is you favorite news? Which are your most pressing concerns?

The First Quarter 2012 Shareholder Letter just went online. Great stuff. I started off to quote some passages, but you should actually read it in its entirety:
http://ir.teslamotors.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=ABEA-4C...

Elon: "If we wanted to we could build a 500-mile battery pack now."

Have you noted the new blog post?
"Model S Efficiency and Range"
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range

Elon: "The Model S has been classified as 89 MPGe initially, but we hope to further improve on the value by improving the charger efficiency later."

Elon: "We expect to start delivering in Europe early next year. [...] Pricing in Europe will be similar to pricing in the US. It will be a little higher to accommodate for currency exchange uncertainties and the cost of bringing things over there etc., but the gist of it will be very similar to the US prices."

Well received Q1 earnings call. TSLA up 6.5% in after hours trading.

I wonder if we should have a side secret forum about what to sell Tesla at this round (this quarters peak). Then it will drop again until the Q2 meeting at which point it will go back up again.... lol

The blog post is certainly well times from an investor relations point of view.

Here's the transcript of yesterday's call:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/576141-tesla-motors-ceo-discusses-q1-201...

I guess that "Pricing in Europe will be similar to pricing in the US" means before VAT & other assorted taxes that most of us need to pay for cars.

I like that Elon and company went directly into Q&A on their call - that was refreshing. The prepared remarks are always a drain - we can read that for ourselves - the Q&A is always the most interesting part of any analyst call.

I guess that "Pricing in Europe will be similar to pricing in the US" means before VAT & other assorted taxes that most of us need to pay for cars. (Timo)

Your guess is correct. Elon was explicit that they are not going to take advantage of the tax incentives that some countries (prime example: Norway) offer for electric cars. On the other hand, this seems to imply that they are also not going to reduce their price to compensate for egregious taxes in other countries (like Finland).

Elon made a point that it is important for Tesla to offer consistent and "fair" prices in all markets. If Elon keeps his word, then that's much better than the German premium brands which are cheaper in the US and charge a premium in their own home market!

Yes, he seems to be clear that while TM is not going to compromise its margins, neither is it going to try to inflate them at the expense of customers and it's reputation as a "fair dealer".

What is this exciting announcement in July for charging the Model S that Elon spoke about? Any thoughts?

Liquid electricity: a couple of squirts, and you're good for 500 miles? <8-0 !!

- What is this exciting announcement in July for charging the Model S that Elon spoke about?

My guess is that he will unveil the locations of the superchargers and maybe even have fifty in operation. I sure hope there are some where I travel--but I'm not counting on it.

As far as the chargers go I think they may be announcing a deal with some vender like, "We will be working with Walmart to install chargers at all their locations!".... ok maybe not Walmart but you get the point.

what if they are going to announce battery changeout stations instead of charging stations? Insert a new, fully charged battery pack for you in 5 minutes, and quick chargte yours for the next guy. They only need to inventory one pack for the 60 and one for the 85. Hey, I can dream can't I? ;-]

That would be nice, but it would also be way more expensive to implement.

There's no way I'm trading my shiny new battery for whatever random battery they have at some station.

@brianman--

Ditto.

Brianman/Teoatawki
I would think the state or age of your battery doesn't matter as long as some sort of "Battery Warranty" period is still maintained. As a matter of fact, if such a model is applied, it could be to your advantage.

If they had a network of locations that worked for me, I would be perfectly happy to buy the Model S for $20K less and lease the battery from a battery swapping company.

http://www.betterplace.com/

jackhub, no way. First of all, as you can see from the comments, a "Better Place" scheme only works if all the batteries are owned by the provider. It is plain unacceptable if batteries are owned by the individual owner of the car, which is obviously the case in Tesla's business model (so far).

Second, Elon has gone on record stating that he does not think that the "Better Place" scheme is viable, for a number of reasons. I did not look it up right now, but you should be able to find more than one interview with statements in this direction. He probably doesn't refer to Better Place explicitly, look for keywords like "battery swapping".

"Number of reasons" has one quite obvious: Too few customers for huge infrastructure cost.

Even if we change all cars as BEV:s in this instant it would still not pay out, because long range travel is so tiny portion of all driving. People charge at home, and on occasional longer road trip fast charger here and there solves that problem nicely.

I too look forward to the "exciting announcement" about charging the Model S. Assuming Elon is talking about DC quick charging (they already have an adapter for Level 2 J1772) will he announce:
1) Capital expenditures for installing numerous TM Superchargers nationwide?
2) Licensing of the TM proprietary charge connector to other vendors of DC quick charging? Makes sense to leverage what is already in place.
3) Adapters to allow us to connect to other vendor DC quick charging stations?

Oh, the suspense!

I'm confident that he will reveal at least one long-distance corridor in the US that is equipped with high speed charging stations (built and operated directly by Tesla) at least every 200 miles. It's only a guess, but to me this seems the obvious thing that has been announced and is still missing. I do not yet expect a coast-to-coast corridor. I could easily imagine California State Route 1 electrified with 4 to 6 Tesla super chargers.