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

[CLK350]

There is also a 2 hour discussion with Chunk on this unprotected left turn with obstructed view. Chunk is a retired commercial pilot with strong technical background making the analysis fairly interesting. I watched the first 30 minutes.

Key point from that video for this forum is that Chunk feels the geometry of the driver side B pillar camera placement is inadaquate to remove the driver at this stop sign due to the obstruction on the left. The angle and placement of the camera, the obstruction on the left, the distance on how far to safely creep forward, and especially the high speed of the traffic all challenge FSD. For human to make the turn, the driver must lean forward past the steering wheel to get a slight glimpse of the traffic on the left. He hopes he has not shown Tesla a problem Tesla cannot solve as that is not his intent.

other points:
- responding to the question on how would he solve this given unlimited budget, his solution is to add more cameras
- since Elon tweeted to Chunk, that is most likely the reason the ADAS team has been there months ago, and returned recently
- these 6 lane unprotected left turn road design are not just in Florida, but also common in Texas
- with respect to make a right turn then make a U at the next light, he avoids that because in the 30 years he has lived there, there has been many times more accidents there than going for the left due to people running the red.
- cars regularly can go 85 mph on this stretch with some motorcycles going over 100 in the night.
- back in v9 days, FSD beta used make 4 right turns, but it just ends up at the same stop sign.

As a subset of my previous suggestion, all these left turn (and many other FSD) issues would be easily resolved if the US passed a requirement for all vehicles to have V2V transmitters - meaning a small radio or WiFi local signal sending position, speed and when available real time steering and acceleration/ braking actions.

Would likely be very cost effective in reduced accidents and help for all driver assist systems. Maybe Tesla could design/ propose this kit for other cars, to nudge whatever US agency do their taxpayer funded job properly.

 

[dhanson865]

 

[Thekiwi]

Anecdotal, but inline with Walmart recent guidance change:
A person twice removed from me who works in middle management at Walmart lamented last month that they were inundated with excess inventory. They also mentioned containers would arrive and Walmart would discover what they received only upon opening the containers. It was all they could do to find places to park containers until they could liquidate the oversupply of inventory.

Heard other anecdotes anoungst retail industry that the inventory buildup is so bad that containers of new stock are turning up at west coast ports and being redirected straight to third party liquidation wholesalers and never even make it to the original store.

But the Walmart warning was not just due to excess inventory - they called out specifically saying consumers are spending more on food and less on other discretionary items.

 

[Singuy]

Heard other anecdotes anoungst retail industry that the inventory buildup is so bad that containers of new stock are turning up at west coast ports and being redirected straight to third party liquidation wholesalers and never even make it to the original store.

But the Walmart warning was not just due to excess inventory - they called out specifically saying consumers are spending more on food and less on other discretionary items.

Perhaps they missed the American Express earnings call. Americans are spending a lot on entertainment and travel, not just food. AE actually guided for higher than expected revenue growth for 2H as they saw that trend to continue. Retail stores see recession while credit card companies see red hot economy.

 

[ZeApelido]

Shorts getting burned again confirmed?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1551789833340817408

 

[Maarten]

As concrete is very good at resisting compressive forces, but pretty bad at resisting tensile forces, rebar is placed in areas where tensile forces will occur.
Without any complex calculations, my estimate is that the main mechanical function of batteries in the battery pack is not that of rebar, but of something that is able to take both tensile ànd compressive forces.
The bending and torsional strength and rigidity of the pack will for a great part be derived from the outer layer, so the metal top and bottom.
For the optimal working of this the cells must be glued with great strength to the outer metal layers, so the fact that these layers are difficult to remove is logical.

Apologies to all here, after re-reading the engineer in me says I should have written differently what I meant.
Not going to dive deeper into it: this thread is not appropriate for that.

However, the fact that Tesla fundamentally researches and implements all this new technology shortly afterwards, is really quite impressive.
Especially in combination with their relentless show to improve the fabrication processes.

All the FUD that we see rising day after day is only logical: it must be quite scary for other car companies to have to compete with Tesla.
It doesn't only mean having to change to new technology, but much, much more difficult: to have to change the mentality in a company.
With feet in thick union syrup. Just look what happened at VW, for example.
Man, I do not envy them.

 

[MC3OZ]

Shorts getting burned again confirmed?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1551789833340817408

Maybe shorts are reducing their retail spending, while Tesla investors are spending a lot on entertainment and travel?

 

[DrChaos]

However, the fact that Tesla fundamentally researches and implements all this new technology shortly afterwards, is really quite impressive.
Especially in combination with their relentless show to improve the fabrication processes.

All the FUD that we see rising day after day is only logical: it must be quite scary for other car companies to have to compete with Tesla.
It doesn't only mean having to change to new technology, but much, much more difficult: to have to change the mentality in a company.
With feet in thick union syrup. Just look what happened at VW, for example.
Man, I do not envy them.

I think this is also why the Chinese companies, BYD, NIO, XPeng predominantly, are also going to thrive. BYD has a little legacy ICE business, but not too much. The others, none. I'm very impressed with BYD and CATL battery engineering.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Bullish
View attachment 832765

I give Elon about 3 days before he can't help Tweeting out a new meme...

 

[Buckminster]

Plan for Elon to roast the shorts:

Roast 1 - minimal squeeze but would require shorts to double down to hold the line

1. 29th Sep confirm split will be 18th Oct
2. 30th Sep AI day #2 including Optimus unveiling + announce V11 FSD released to all US users tonight
3. 2nd Oct P&D

Roast 2

1. 17th Oct (would normally be the Wednesday) Q3 ER including deferred tax valuation allowance & deferred FSD kraken release
2. 18th Oct Split

3 more market days before the weekend to let the squeeze run.

 

[mars_or_bust]

It was last week's rise in the stock market that was probably more of an anomaly. With persistently high worldwide inflation, with an imminent official recession, there is no real reason for the market to not be bearish. For a true change in sentiment on the stock market, the inflation has to drop, for that to happen oil has to drop significantly (say to 70-80 dollars per barrel). Oil price should drop once recession hits in full force, perhaps in a few months.

Am waiting with couch cash for more TSLA for that, in a very naive and misguided belief I will be able to time the bottom

I know dollar cost averaging is the way to go, and in general I practice it. However, all these macro headwinds have me spooked a bit, compounded by both the Ukraine war and a lack of vision/long term economic policies from the governing bodies. So am now keeping cash just in case things go much more downhill than anticipated.

Also, on a more sinister level, I am located in the eastern part of EU, and to be honest, here one can never be sure if the Ukraine war will spill over, with Russia attacking its formed Soviet Union minions - if that happens it is a very good policy to have cash in hand, so I can get my family out west.

Well, broke my own strategy.

Screw waiting for the economy to bottom, screw timing the bottom, screw waiting for the Russian invasion.

Last week I put all my couch cash into Tesla

May god have mercy upon me

 

[Featsbeyond50]

Plan for Elon to roast the shorts:

Roast 1 - minimal squeeze but would require shorts to double down to hold the line

1. 29th Sep confirm split will be 18th Oct
2. 30th Sep AI day #2 including Optimus unveiling + announce V11 FSD released to all US users tonight
3. 2nd Oct P&D

Roast 2

1. 17th Oct (would normally be the Wednesday) Q3 ER including deferred tax valuation allowance & deferred FSD kraken release
2. 18th Oct Split

3 more market days before the weekend to let the squeeze run.

Sorry Buck, any Optimus unveiling will cause a stock drop. Not a gain. Money managers want plans and execution of the automotive business, not new business models they don't understand and probably consider crazy.

 

[JupiterMan]

Sorry Buck, any Optimus unveiling will cause a stock drop. Not a gain. Money managers want plans and execution of the automotive business, not new business models they don't understand and probably consider crazy.

which is why investors should never listen to money managers.

By the time they price in any new product or service it is too late.

 

[Mengy]

Sorry Buck, any Optimus unveiling will cause a stock drop. Not a gain. Money managers want plans and execution of the automotive business, not new business models they don't understand and probably consider crazy.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

If Tesla shows an actual working prototype with the potential to be a general purpose worker bot suitable for hundreds of applications, and if they talk about their mass production plans for such a robot, the market might react extremely favorably to this. The virgin market available for such a product is IMMENSE and many investors would certainly want a part of that market at ground zero.

 

[UncaNed]

What does this mean.

• Improved lane position error by 5% and lane recall by 12% with a [obscured]

We have three intersections in town where it get in the wrong lane 100 percent of the time.

I'm not thrilled that they have to work on an intersection at a time... Tens of thousands more of them across the country, and don't we need to get them ALL right all the time?

 

[mongo]

I'm not thrilled that they have to work on an intersection at a time... Tens of thousands more of them across the country, and don't we need to get them ALL right all the time?

It's only an intersection at a time if they are overfitting the NN or directly coding the situation.
Otherwise, it's generalized validation of:

• Positioning for visibility
• Crossing three lanes of medium-high speed traffic
• Pausing (if needed) in narrow median while positioning for visibilty
• Merging onto three (multi) lane medium-high speed road
• Along with all transitions between situations

 

[2daMoon]

I'm not thrilled that they have to work on an intersection at a time... Tens of thousands more of them across the country, and don't we need to get them ALL right all the time?

The impression I get is they are trying to solve tough problems, and are happy to find a specific one that can easily be duplicated for testing. Once solved it won't just apply to one intersection, but will be integrated into all the strategies available to the AI.

Doing so adds more viable options to the quiver of possibilities. It isn't learning an intersection, it is learning a strategy. When facing the real world, having a choice is always better than not having a choice.

Addressing a problem that is repeatable is much easier than dealing with an intermittent problem. Having an army of drivers isolating repeatable problems is a huge advantage.


Edit: just another way of saying what @mongo wrote above.

 

[UncaNed]

Bullish
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If only politicians thought like this.

 

[Knightshade]

As a US taxpayer, I'd rather give that money to Tesla to accomplish something. GMs track record with subsidy money isn't very good. Seems like after this investment, we'll still be on the hook to save them from bankruptcy later...

I guess we can add "asking for government loans" to the list of EV-related things GM is 10-15 years late on.

 

[Nocturnal]

I'm not sure I agree with that.

If Tesla shows an actual working prototype with the potential to be a general purpose worker bot suitable for hundreds of applications, and if they talk about their mass production plans for such a robot, the market might react extremely favorably to this. The virgin market available for such a product is IMMENSE and many investors would certainly want a part of that market at ground zero.

Depends if they show a basic bot walking around a staged factory floor carrying a box or if they spend 20 minutes talking about AI and Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa, but then the stupider students analysts would be in here complaining, furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation.