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

[XPEL FTW]

Let me get this straight. There's this feature on Teslas that differentiate them greatly from their competitors and has the potential to be both life-saving and life-altering. It's been in development for nearly a decade. The CEO says the company is worth zero without this feature. They figure it's close enough to being out of beta that it's time to demonstrate the feature to everyone who drives a Tesla, so they give everyone a one month free trial of this amazing feature.

Many go the whole month without even giving the feature a try.

WHAT THE HECK TESLA!?!?!?

You've got this big @$$ screen that's the only thing to look at on the inside of the spartan interior and you don't have a message that pops up every time someone sits inside the vehicle proclaiming "You're on day 17 of your 30 day free trial of Full Self Driving. To activate, press down on the right stalk." (customized by model) "If you activate before your trial expires you'll receive the next 6 months of FSD for the price of 5. Click here to subscribe".

Heads should roll. I'm not even sure if I'm kidding or not...

I have FSD on both my vehicles so wasn't aware that there was little/no marketing to Tesla drivers w/o FSD already purchased/subscribed until now.

Now I'M confused. All I heard in response to Tesla skeptics was "you just need to drive one." So they drive a Tesla, love the experience, and buy one. And now that they just want to keep driving it - instead of using FSD - it's somehow baffling. Pretty funny.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Non Union plants can breathe a little easier............

UAW loses unionization vote at Alabama Mercedes factory - Autoblog

UAW loses union vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama. It follows on the heels of a big win at VW's Chattanooga factory.

www.autoblog.com

 

[2Pearls]

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts was 69% today, I've never seen it that high. Also, the stock price got away from the big option sellers even with that effort and closed more than $2 above their 175 line in the sand. Bullish!

@dl003 called this a few days ago and today…now we can watch TSLA have a very good first couple of days next week, until a possible retracing.

 

[EQC_]

Or just catch a flight that's 1.5s hours for something that's safer than driving? Even if FSD is safer, there are many bad drivers on the road as we probably all can agree on. I checked Southwest and there are flights as cheap as $46/1 way. You still need to charge on the way there as well as charge after arriving which isn't free (and expensive in CA).

Having a car at your destination is nice, especially if it's your own car with all your stuff, but I am not sure I agree with you that there will be many takers at $300/trip, add in all the charging/time/higher risk driving vs. a flight, even for a small family.

Honestly, I'd probably balk at $300 too... but with my personal location relative to airports, I'd probably be debating driving manually versus paying for a hypothetical temporary FSD overnight pass.

There's lots of gray areas and uncertainties, and everybody does different calculations. Many people are much more fearful of flying than driving, even though statistically flying is safer per passenger-mile. Admittedly, even if the data shows that a future, true FSD car is 10x safer than driving manually, there will still be many people afraid to let the computer take the wheel.

And of course, many people still have to drive a considerable distance just to get to an airport, so flying still requires a lot more time than the flight itself, and still includes a good deal if that driving risk anyway.

Not sure if you read my rambling "spoiler," but there can be a lot more time associated with flying than just the flight itself. If you live a reasonable distance from the airport, and your true destination on the other end also isn't super close to the destination airport, then when you add up all the ground transportation and airport logistics, and what always feels like a lot of time waiting for the plane to board...waiting for departure from the gate...taxi...take off...fly...land....taxi again...deplane...more airport logistics....it adds up. For many folks, taking a short flight still means that it took them 5-6 hours or more from when they left home to when they actually arrived at the place they were trying to get to, and it all had to happen on the airline's schedule. In that case, a 7 hour drive doesn't look so bad, especially if you've got kids to wrangle. And that driving option gets even better if there's a magical future car that you can use daily, but that a family can also sleep in while the car just drives itself overnight.

Again...just crazy far future hypotheticals. But I'd love the option of just hopping in the car after dinner, watching a movie with the family, then going to sleep and waking up far far away. If trains were more plentiful in the US with stations all over the place, that would also be a good alternative...but I think the nearest train station for me is even farther than the nearest airport, and the train probably has even fewer departure time options and takes longer than driving for most routes.

 

[Usain]

Don't agree with this... I only fly if I have to due to environmental issues, plus I just dislike the whole experience. My wife Will only fly if she has no other option, she's terrified of flying. So we drive pretty much every where. If I had a car that could do that while I slept, or read a book, that would be extremely valuable to me

But I'm in Europe, we don't have FSD, just an old version of EAP, so can't judge the progress

Same here. Flying is terrible for the planet. And the whole experience has just gotten worse and worse. Even first class doesn't make up for the annoyance of airports and delays.

I've pretty much stopped flying altogether. Only once in the last 5 years.

Hate flying. Love traveling via FSD.

 

[Linkmeup]

Fantastic!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791606155719966982

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791606155719966982

 

[DarkandStormy]

Tesla must face fraud suit for claiming its cars could fully drive themselves

Lawsuit targets 2016 claim that all Tesla cars "have full self-driving hardware."

arstechnica.com

"Although Tesla contends that it should have been obvious to LoSavio that his car needed lidar to self-drive and that his car did not have it, LoSavio plausibly alleges that he reasonably believed Tesla's claims that it could achieve self-driving with the car's existing hardware and that, if he diligently brought his car in for the required updates, the car would soon achieve the promised results."

Tesla is apparently contending in court that full self-driving needs lidar to be achieved.

 

[GatorMeat]

With all the talk of the vote of the comp plan, I was curious of the result back in 2018:

Tesla shareholders approve pay plan for Elon Musk worth up to $55 billion over 10 years

Tesla Inc. shareholders have approved a mammoth 10-year pay package for Chief Executive Elon Musk.

www.latimes.com

Looks like Tesla was worth $56 billion back then and 73% approved.

"Two major firms that advise institutional shareholders — Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services — had advised clients to reject the plan, mainly because of its large size and questions about whether the pay package would provide real motivation for Musk."

Was this quote part of the litigation? Seems these 2 points were a big part of the Judge's ruling

 

[GatorMeat]

You are 100% sure he won't leave, and, you are 100% sure TSLA will crash should he leave. Got it. I agree. That's not what I'm talking about now.

How does repeating this over and over in an investor's forum without initially emphasizing a "market sentiment" context help you and your family avoid financial ruin?

Do you presume those reading will share your perspective and immediately grok this unmentioned context?

What if that assumption isn't true, and taken out of context your words affect a sliver of market sentiment toward the very thing you want to avoid? This is how it looks from where I responded.

I'm sincerely sorry that you are unable to see things from more than one perspective.

You may now have the last word.

comments on this forum are not moving the market. get a grip

 

[willow_hiller]

Tesla must face fraud suit for claiming its cars could fully drive themselves

Lawsuit targets 2016 claim that all Tesla cars "have full self-driving hardware."

arstechnica.com

Tesla is apparently contending in court that full self-driving needs lidar to be achieved.

It's a lawsuit from a guy who had HW2 and was upset that Tesla wanted to charge a fee to upgrade his cameras to HW3.

The judge seems to be of the opinion that lidar is needed for autonomy:

The ruling said: Those statements were allegedly false because the cars lacked the combination of sensors, including lidar, needed to achieve SAE Level 4

And the quote you've pulled out is likely to be this judge misunderstanding the technology and Tesla's arguments.

 

[SPadival]

I just voted my 5000 shares. I didn’t expect it to be so easy.
They’re held by IG.com in Australia. I’ve inquired about voting in past meetings and was told “not possible”.
Turned out they had emailed me the control number for proxyvote.com two weeks ago. Tesla greased some wheels is my assumption. They got this. Elon will get paid. Relax.

I hope they can do the same for CMC Markets. My SMSF shares are with them via ebroking.com.au with BNP Paribas as custodians. I have already voted my personal shares held with Schwab.

 

[dhrivnak]

Sure- for folks who already own such a vehicle it'd probably ding air (and rental car) revenue a bit.... Right now if I'm going anywhere much more than 400-500 miles I just fly and (if needed- but sometimes it's not) rent a car on arrival. Actual L5 self driving could replace that for sure.

I don't think anyone's running out to buy a new car based on they can save a couple short-haul plane tickets a year though.

Unless you live in a smaller town with virtually no connecting flights, and you are flying to a smaller town (650 miles distant) that is 2 hours from the closest airport. So add in a an hour to check in with security, another 1.5 hour with a transfer layover, and 3 hours to get a car and drive to the final destination. I find driving the 650 miles faster than flying. If you are in a major city with direct flights, then I would agree with you. But that is a SMALL portion of my travel.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I don't think that's a realistic scenario. People aren't going to spend 24+ hours on the road only stopping to charge every 2-4 hours. It's just not comfortable. Most will still get hotel rooms, but with less stress and more road time than usual.

Over time I'd expect there to be some differentiation in the model for short distance vs long distance travel. I could see long distance robotaxis being somewhat larger and having a setup more akin to business/first class seats (i.e. seats that can convert from upright to lie flat) so you can comfortable enjoy the longer trips. you'd still want to stop for food / use the loo, etc - but you could do an overnight trip comfortably.

There's no reason you couldn't just ask the car to pull over at the next toilet / steakhouse / place of interest if you wanted a stop along the way.

 

[insaneoctane]

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts was 69% today, I've never seen it that high. Also, the stock price got away from the big option sellers even with that effort and closed more than $2 above their 175 line in the sand. Bullish!

I f#&ing HATE these SOBs. I long for the days where they move their greedy attention away from Tesla towards a new shiny thing....

 

[SPadival]

Probably one of the reasons why Drew Baglino had to go.

 

[uscbucsfan]

Unless you live in a smaller town with virtually no connecting flights, and you are flying to a smaller town (650 miles distant) that is 2 hours from the closest airport. So add in a an hour to check in with security, another 1.5 hour with a transfer layover, and 3 hours to get a car and drive to the final destination. I find driving the 650 miles faster than flying. If you are in a major city with direct flights, then I would agree with you. But that is a SMALL portion of my travel.

Unrelated, but you are flying wrong. With small airports, you can show up 10 min before boarding and choose your layover time. My layovers are never longer than 30 min unless there's a delay.

I fly all over the SE (at least once a week) and there's no where in the Southeast that 650 miles would be faster driving.

Basically anything over 350 miles on the interstate is faster to fly.

 

[Skipdd]

Unrelated, but you are flying wrong. With small airports, you can show up 10 min before boarding and choose your layover time. My layovers are never longer than 30 min unless there's a delay.

I fly all over the SE (at least once a week) and there's no where in the Southeast that 650 miles would be faster driving.

Basically anything over 350 miles on the interstate is faster to fly.

I think a use case not being considered is travelling with family. When our kids were young, we’d visit family that was ~500 miles away. Buying tickets for 4 people was too expensive, plus the hassle of traveling with all the accoutrements. Enter FSD, we would have definitely taken more trips. I suggest in general, that we broaden our perspectives on possible use cases for FSD. I have been considering this and doing some research - not yet ready to share just yet.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Same here. Flying is terrible for the planet. And the whole experience has just gotten worse and worse. Even first class doesn't make up for the annoyance of airports and delays.

I've pretty much stopped flying altogether. Only once in the last 5 years.

Hate flying. Love traveling via FSD.

You live in the ATL, home of the world's busiest airport (in passengers and ops) and you choose not to fly.

One less person in the Centurion Lounge.

 

[alexxs88]

Competitors take Nvidia hardware and then repackage it with their software so inherently it's being sold for more. If every Tesla's FSD board was made by Nvidia, then it'll definitely be a different cost wouldn't it?

That's not true for the vast majority of the cars sold now. For several reasons:
1. Most legacy manufacturers don't run latest Nvidia chips or even Nvidia chips at all. They prefer older processor designs as they're cheaper due to volume.
2. The integration required to run a car autonomously means any FSD addition will require a complete project, started from scratch with a full redesign of all the electronics architecture of the car.

If they start TODAY, any FSD enabled car coming from a legacy manufacturer won't come sooner than 4-5 years. And that rests on the assumption that Tesla is able to GUARANTEE unsupervised FSD is doable in most conditions just with the current sensor stack, their specs and their positioning.