Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[dhanson865]

Do not under-estimate how AI and automation in order fulfillment will transform the company away from labor. Like it or not, it's the future and I don't see anyone else as well positioned to take the lead. Hopefully, Rivian is successful in the first stage of this transformation, electrifying the ground delivery fleet, because I can smell the fumes when I accept deliveries. I'm looking forward to the delivery fleets of USPS, Amazon, FedEx being fully electrified in a big way. They have huge pollution footprints.

It might be fun to see pictures of Tesla Robots in Amazon Fulfilment centers at some point.

 

[EVDRVN]

Providing "shore power" to a deluxe trailer, such as an Airstream, is a legit use case and offers an entree into a nice, if niche, market.

Might even be worth Tesla’s while to touch base with Airstream to coordinate and, who knows, maybe even have a ‘Special Edition’ as Pottery Barn has done. This special edition could, for example, offer a practical induction stovetop instead of propane burners by relying on the battery capacity of the Cybertruck.

This might give Tesla an ‘in’ with a community that may not be initially inclined towards buying Cybertrucks. These are likely mostly older and more conservative folks but they’re also likely concerned about their descendants’ future and are, at least for Airstream’s customer base, probably relatively affluent. Of course, Tesla should not spend tons of bandwidth on this.

Ford, GM, or Chrysler might also partner with Airstream on a BEV-centric edition. However, it seems doubtful that they’d like to push the trailering public away from ICE pickups towards battery electric pickups as these companies won‘t actually have the latter available to sell in any quantity anytime soon, imho.

edit: I’d also guess that Airstream has already been noodling on this subject.

Pottery Barn Travel Trailer Overview

Travel in the Pottery Barn Special Edition Travel Trailer while always feeling at home

www.airstream.com

A silver ST towing an Airstream would be sweet. I would just offer a shore power connection from the CT. If I had the space and stock goes big I would get this. Modern and old Airstreams are amazing inside!

 

[Boomer19]

I like Dan Ives. In more recent quarters, he really seems to have a better understanding of what makes Tesla tick and a better grip on the month-to-month happenings of all things Tesla than your typical analyst. At the end of the interview, he mentioned his appreciation of the "Tesla loyalists" who clued him in originally and helped him understand what sets Tesla apart. And I think he has a great ability to ignore all the noise, which is important.

That said, he comes at issues in a very conventional manner, and I'm not sure he understands the dynamics of disruption, regardless of how many times he calls Tesla a disruptive tech company. I don't think he fully understands how quickly this disruption will happen and how much carnage it will leave behind. And this makes sense when you think about it. Why would a professional analyst, one who had to be clued into the Tesla story by amateurs, have a better understanding of the dynamics and how they will likely play out then the very people who clued him in in the first place?

His story that everyone will play happily in the sand box, with everyone in their own happy corner, will be true at first, maybe looking out as far as 5 years even. But he seemed blissfully unaware of what will happen a little further down the road, once there are more than enough EV's for all. The EV's with the most value for your dollar will start displacing sales of competitors with lower corporate efficiency, lower manufacturing efficiency and lower sales efficiency while Tesla will continue to sell every one they make.

yes, earlier in the conversation he mentioned he doesn't like to get too ahead of the projections, or set too high a bar (like 2m cars FYE '22, for example). much about F and GM is probably just hedging on his part...its more likely a professional courtesy to appease others in his sandbox, whereas us individual investors have the luxury of NGAF about the corrupt entrenched auto and financial industries. nonetheless...he's a good interview, and helpful to the masses that don't get it yet.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Just got assigned a VIN for our MYP....looked at $TSLA SP...should i go back and decline the order??

 

[thesmokingman]

Finally I see a green bar on the horizon.

**Crap, that was short lived...

 

[betstarship]

I'm going to riff because I think we're getting to the point a market reversal is possible:

Social dynamics wise: So, I’ve been paying attention to various dynamics about how people are responding to the pandemic … and especially now in year 3. Socially - Jan 6 2021 needs to be resolved and there’s going to be far reaching consequences. NBC news was running a report that there are now entire towns and districts that are literally “Trump” country where houses are painted patriotic colors and filled with trump signs. People have invested their and their families lives into Trumpism and they have guns. Further, there’s massive violent social unrest in practically every country around covid restrictions, inflation (due to gas price rises and trickle down effects from that), school instability, vaccinations, climate change, etc.

Climate Change wise: its becoming obvious this is a growing problem across society and battery factories are being built, but in order to transition the entire world over to renewable (Norway is almost there), its going to take over a billion cars in the worldwide fleet to be reconciled and replaced with whatever EV solution makes sense. That requires a ton of batteries where most factories are popping up over the next 7 years. Climate change is causing a lot of mental health issues and instability in regular living (compared to the old 10 year old bull market we were in). Personally, I think COVID is a part of climate change.

Market wise: the fed printed a ton of money and many people are retiring, who are incredibly capable, in order to spend more time with their families and friends rather than focus on society focus areas like climate change and health. We have a massive amount of workers, but there’s many that are leaving the job market or changing jobs out of dangerous and shitty jobs that no one wants to work. USA is based on immigrants routinely coming in to, eventually, make their way through generation(s) of their families to get better work. Unfortunately, things are changing a lot where many are just retiring because people made so much money in the markets. I think robotics is going to be necessary (mostly in agriculture and logistics) in order to supplant labor supply issues. Now, the significant amount of money in the markets and cash on hand right now are likely going to need to be moved to outside USA countries because that’s where the supply chain is at and people are incredibly tired. Wages are likely going to need to increase to stop the labor bleeding.

In general: I do think Starlink becoming available and more EVs (outside of Tesla) becoming available this year may usurp this trend (hopefully) as many more workers get access to the internet than before and can become better workers because they have so much better internet access and build up so many more businesses and knowledge workers quickly. Who knows what surprises lay in store though, no way to know how the environment is going to logjam logistics and change priorities in many, many people as the year progresses…and its going to be powerful alongside social unrest everywhere unless the unit economics of living a good life gets better for each individual/family on the planet soon (more $$, more infrastructure).

My 2 cents...

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Thanks for that link. Finally, a decent looking Tesla competitor IF: 1) it’s not just a proof of concept test car, 2) they actually produce it and in quantities greater than 1000/mo, 3) it’s available worldwide, not just Germany, 4) less than $100,000, and the nationwide charging network rivals Tesla’s SCs. Interesting decision to NOT liquid cool the battery, which might actually make some sense. With an actual 600mi range (not EU standard), there would be less fast charging needed (nobody except college kids actually drive that far in one sitting). On road trips, one might drive 300mi, stop for lunch and charge at 150KW, then drive another 300mi and charge overnight at 10KW. The biggest problem might be heating the battery in cold areas (unless equipped with resistive heaters to preheat on shore power). Still, seems like heat pump would be necessary.

Remember the 2013 MB SLS AMG Electric Drive? They could have contributed to the future of motoring then but they made 9 of them (yes, NINE) and gave up until they were forced into making EVs by you-know-who.
Now they try and grab headlines and clicks with this sort of stuff which will never see the light of day.
I say "STUFF 'EM"

 

[Boomer19]

fed pulls the strings

 

[Featsbeyond50]

Just got assigned a VIN for our MYP....looked at $TSLA SP...should i go back and decline the order??

I don't see any reason to. If you cancel you P, I doubt it will move my LR up in the cue.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I expect once $1,100 breaks that'll trigger enough stops to take us right back to the 10-day Moving Avg:

EDIT: Done'n'Dusted. New intra-day Low: $1,092.00



Only $10.00 left to 'close the gap' to the pre-P&D SP..

Yeah, hedgies...

 

[tivoboy]

I'm going to riff because I think we're getting to the point a market reversal is possible:

Social dynamics wise: So, I’ve been paying attention to various dynamics about how people are responding to the pandemic … and especially now in year 3. Socially - Jan 6 2021 needs to be resolved and there’s going to be far reaching consequences. NBC news was running a report that there are now entire towns and districts that are literally “Trump” country where houses are painted patriotic colors and filled with trump signs. People have invested their and their families lives into Trumpism and they have guns. Further, there’s massive violent social unrest in practically every country around covid restrictions, inflation (due to gas price rises and trickle down effects from that), school instability, vaccinations, climate change, etc.

Climate Change wise: its becoming obvious this is a growing problem across society and battery factories are being built, but in order to transition the entire world over to renewable (Norway is almost there), its going to take over a billion cars in the worldwide fleet to be reconciled and replaced with whatever EV solution makes sense. That requires a ton of batteries where most factories are popping up over the next 7 years. Climate change is causing a lot of mental health issues and instability in regular living (compared to the old 10 year old bull market we were in). Personally, I think COVID is a part of climate change.

Market wise: the fed printed a ton of money and many people are retiring, who are incredibly capable, in order to spend more time with their families and friends rather than focus on society focus areas like climate change and health. We have a massive amount of workers, but there’s many that are leaving the job market or changing jobs out of dangerous and shitty jobs that no one wants to work. USA is based on immigrants routinely coming in to, eventually, make their way through generation(s) of their families to get better work. Unfortunately, things are changing a lot where many are just retiring because people made so much money in the markets. I think robotics is going to be necessary (mostly in agriculture and logistics) in order to supplant labor supply issues. Now, the significant amount of money in the markets and cash on hand right now are likely going to need to be moved to outside USA countries because that’s where the supply chain is at and people are incredibly tired. Wages are likely going to need to increase to stop the labor bleeding.

In general: I do think Starlink becoming available and more EVs (outside of Tesla) becoming available this year may usurp this trend (hopefully) as many more workers get access to the internet than before and can become better workers because they have so much better internet access and build up so many more businesses and knowledge workers quickly. Who knows what surprises lay in store though, no way to know how the environment is going to logjam logistics and change priorities in many, many people as the year progresses…and its going to be powerful alongside social unrest everywhere unless the unit economics of living a good life gets better for each individual/family on the planet soon (more $$, more infrastructure).

My 2 cents...

Two things
1) I love how Norway is so close to being able to rely solely on renewable energy production for domestic power needs, and yet the largest contributor to their domestic GDP and economy is OIL AND PETROLEUM exports.. by nearly a factor of two compared to the next highest contributor which is tourism and..
2) I took a screenshot of your post above to read more of it later, since it will most likely be gone in about five minutes.. ;-). Bah dump dump.

 

[betstarship]

Two things
1) I love how Norway is so close to being able to rely solely on renewable energy production for domestic power needs, and yet the largest contributor to their domestic GDP and economy is OIL AND PETROLEUM exports.. but nearly a factor of two compared to the next highest contributor which is tourism and..
2) I took a screenshot of this post above to read more of it later, since it will most likely be gone in about five minutes.. ;-). Bah dump dump.

It's an internet forum about a company about building a sustainable future.

Share your thoughts - learn something new - help efforts to do so. That's the only reason why I'm here.

 

[Accident]

Elon delivering on his promise of recession in 2022

 

[bkp_duke]

Did I miss something about the Fed minutes? Didn't Powell already mention all of this in his address a week or two ago? Is there something new in the minutes that doesn't line up with what he said, and it's all doom and gloom because of this?

EDIT - just saw the 10 yr treasury crossed 1.700% . . . that certainly isn't helping either.

 

[BornToFly]

TSLA is down slightly more than GM at this point.... Just wow...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1478736682480730118

 

[Bet TSLA]

You're much more patient than I am. On December 28-31 I sold 40 TSLA 1055 Jan 7 puts at an average of $32.40. I think they'll expire worthless ($1.98 now), and so I'll keep the ~$129.5K I got for selling them. Taxes will take about half eventually, leaving about $65K to pay for the Model Y that I took delivery of on 27 December.

Best way to raise cash I know of.

My predictive model (my nose) says we'll never see $1100 again, barring a split. But I get surprised all the time. As I see it, Elon delivered on waypoints, and what is the old all-time high but a waypoint on the quick run to $1400/share?

Gotta get my nose checked. That "never" held for all of two days, actually less.

But I did get out of those puts for $1.70, so I won't need to agonize over whether I should get out before TSLA runs back down below the 1055 strike price.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Stock outperforms the macros in the first half and then proceeds to gradually underperform the macros by a multiple of 2-3. Yesterday from being 1 to 1 with the Nasdaq to down 3X the Nasdaq by the end of the trading day. Today, it's pretty much well on it's way to doing the same thing. We might even get the test of the 50-day and fill the gap.

 

[kbM3]

Those are very interesting observations. I’ve watched that video too and also have the impression that they are (way) behind Tesla’s FSD technologically.

Disclosure: I bought MobilEye stock many years ago when I became aware that they provided (part of) the autopilot V1 and wanted to own a pure-play autonomous driving stock. I sold my Mobileye stock for a nice profit when Intel acquired Mobileye, using the proceeds to buy more TSLA (not a bad decision in hindsight )

Apart from the technological aspect visible in this video, I see a couple of interesting business aspects surfacing in this video.

Mobileeye may not be the technological leader, but they’ll probably be (actually ‘remain’ is probably a better word) the volume leader. As such, they may extract a lot of value and profit from the driving assistance market. It’s clear that neither Ford nor Volkswagen have the desire or capability to build their own system, and are content with buying a system from Mobileye. Smaller car manufacturers have even less capability here. When Mobileye IPO’s again sometime this year, I’m considering buying some as they will probably give a nice return over the next decade, and as a hedge in case something goes terribly wrong with FSD.

The video also makes clear why Mobileye and Tesla stopped their cooperation. There were rumours that Tesla didn’t want to give away their driving data to Mobileye, and it’s exactly that what Mobileye is now selling in their cloud based mapping product. It‘s such an essential part of Mobileye solution (high definition mapping, kept up to date via crowd sourcing) that Mobileye couldn’t continue without that data. Tesla has come to the conclusion that high def mapping doesn’t work because you still need excellent computer vision. And Mobileye probably wouldn’t have a product that worked without high def maps. We’ll see who will be right technologically, but both Mobileye and Tesla have made a choice that can make them a lot of money.

MobilEye is not using hi-definition maps in the same sense as the Lidar Generated cm-level 3D maps used by Waymo et al.

These are probably in between the detail of Tesla’s maps and Waymo’s, much closer to Tesla’s.

 

[Nocturnal]

Just got assigned a VIN for our MYP....looked at $TSLA SP...should i go back and decline the order??

Mine changed from Feb estimated date to mid/late March.

TSLA is down slightly more than GM at this point.... Just wow...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1478736682480730118

After Tesla record high sales and GM record low sales.

 

[Phobi]

Looking out only a month…we’re still up $70 (~7%)

The grass is looking plenty green.

Can’t wait.