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May I suggest the Super Bulls Only Thread? 50%??? Tesla dropped the 50% language for a reason. This year looks slightly down followed by two years of maybe 10-20%. That's not a bear thesis (I just got called a KoolAid drinker on Reddit, fwiw). It's a neutral interpretation of Tesla's recent ER...

Yeah, high mileage drivers aren't the target market. Robos will initially target urban, where annual miles average more like 500-800/month and parking can easily hit $1/mile by itself. 2nd/3rd cars in suburbia is the other big target. In the US depreciation alone is close to 33 cents a mile...

Tony Seba's model has TAAS cost at 14 cents a mile. But he ignores ...... well, a lot. In theory TAAS has four main cost advantages over private car ownership: Amortize $30k vehicle cost over 500-1000k miles instead of 150k Electricity instead of gasoline (for society at large, not this...

The Q4 to Q1 comparison is kinda silly. China's auto market in general and BYD in particular are highly seasonal. BYD would have down Q1s even back when they were growing >100% y/y. Tesla's China revenues were down 25% sequentially in Q1 vs. BYD's 30%. Perhaps BYD's segments are even more...

His TAAS forecasts were anchored on 2020 approval, which did happen, and complete takeover by 2030 with TAAS providing 95% of all passenger miles, the US car fleet down to 44m cars, etc. Those two dates are in the "ReThinking Transportation" summary, so you don't even need to download the full...

Remote monitors (not drivers) don't "intervene". They respond to requests from the vehicle, approve the suggested path or specify a new one. Sometimes they do more harm than good. Waymo is moving from Jag to Zeekr and cheaper lidar. They indicated the Gen 5 Jag was ~100k so look for Gen 6...

I also laugh at this thread's title. That said, Tesla's Q1 sales were down 7.8% y/y in Cali, a bit less than their global 8.5% decline. They still managed to sell 11.6% of all new vehicles in the state and are the #2 overall brand. Not quite a "demise".

If you plan carefully and do enough pre-production you can start regular production at a good clip. When Ford switched the F-150 to aluminum they stopped production on August 24, 2014. They stripped the factory down to the studs, installed all new equipment, tested the new line, built...

The term disengagement is really only useful when there is a safety driver. A driverless car doesn't disengage itself, it might pull over and call for assistance but it stays in autonomous mode. Roadside assistance can manually disengage it when they arrive, that's what your spreadsheet reports...

Unless it's Munger or Buffet :)

In the earnings call they said "The savings generated are expected to be well in excess of $1.1 billion on an annual basis". Despite the odd phrasing, I interpret this to mean a bit less than 300m/quarter. The savings should be a bit less in Q2 since the cuts didn't all happen on Day 1, but it...

I agree it's all guesswork. My guesses: 1. TSLA was 171 before Reuters 4/5 Model 2 story, relief rallied back after Tesla's vague "new vehicles including more affordable models" statement 2. Robotaxi also helped, even traders who don't drink the KoolAid believe Elon will put on a killer demo in...

It won't be built. Instead they will bring "new models" to market sooner, built on 3/Y production lines. They said almost nothing about these new models, except they'll combine some new stuff with some old stuff which is too obvious to be meaningful. Some new models will be more affordable, some...

I can't imagine Alphabet is the least bit pleased with Waymo's progress. But they're stuckvestors. And it's best to preempt analyst questions vs. dance around "how many more billion are you willing to lose?" or "how will you counter Tesla's imminent Robotaxi rollout?" :) Thinking further on...

The first "off-road" variant would only expand breadth a little, but could get to market quickly. It could have a different name, despite the similar sheet metal underneath. The SUV-shaped variant would expand breadth a lot. Similar to a jump from RAV4 over Highlander all the way to Grand...

I agree. It'll be built in Shanghai, which serves Europe and Asia. Shanghai serves the whole world, for that matter, except the US which doesn't buy small cars anyway..Shanghai has the lowest costs and doesn't need unboxed, so it's the obvious choice for a lower cost vehicle. Shanghai can also...

Europe had sky-high gas taxes for decades, yet EVs were only 3-4% of the market until EU 95g mandated an overnight ramp to 20% in 2020-21.

This is along the same lines as my thinking yesterday. Today is a new day, so time for a new theory :) IMHO Tesla will build multiple new models starting in early 2025: Early 2025 - "off-road" variant of Model Y. Little/no sheet metal changes, mostly lift kit and plastic cladding. Costs more...

Yes, China wants to beat Japan, Korea and the West as the third world's preferred auto supplier. But the main motivation behind China's EV push is to eliminate oil imports. They don't need 100% EV sales for that, but do need >50%. It's not about climate, just economics and geopolitics. Often...

Ford Q1 US BEV sales were +86% y/y, to 20k+. But that's sales to end customers. These revenue charts are based on wholesale to dealers. They barely shipped any Lightnings to dealers in Q1 2024. Partly due to production issues, but mostly dealers needed to clear out old inventory before stocking...

1. Interest rates aren't high, they were just low for a freakishly long period 2. Monthly payment on 30k loan for 5 years - 6% interest = 579.98 3% interest = 539.06 It's not nothing, but most people got raises. ICE sales are doing fine. Tesla's main issue was a limited, aging lineup. Which...

Shortened/lengthened wheelbases and different bodies are pretty common. Mercedes Factory 56 line builds S Class and Maybach in varying wheelbases. Honda and Toyota are especially known for multiple models on the same line. Here's a 5 year old article about a new type of line Toyota was playing...

I have to think all lenders require gap insurance.

50% is wildly optimistic for 2025 IMHO. Great point. I expect to first see something like an "off-road" Model Y with the same sheet metal but different name. More rugged fascia, lifted, all-terrain tires, maybe plastic cladding a la Cybertruck wheel wells and options available for roof racks...

"This would help us fully utilize our current expected maximum capacity of close to three million vehicles" The stated capacity today is greater than 2,350,000. How much greater? We don't know, but they lowball Shanghai by at least 100k and the existing ">125k" Cybertruck line is designed for...

I've seen more examples of Waymo bad driving recently than ever before. Part of this is because they're driving more miles, but I also think they dialed up the aggressiveness. Maybe too much.

Brad is on Reddit, you could ask him. It could be in AZ, as you say, or I think it also could have been in San Francisco under Waymo's deployment permit instead of their testing permit.

Maybe, I don't have a good feel for that. Yeah, I probably should have said "mothballed". They can call anything a Model 2, of course. But IMHO they won't build the Model 2 they spent the last couple years designing in 2025 (or 2026). Their 3/Y manufacturing lines are pretty hardwired. It'll...

I think it's smart. Other OEMs have long built many different "models" from the same basic car. If they use different model names it could knock Model Y from the #1 spot, though. Polished body dies take a long time, that's why I think any new model that starts production before 2H25 as...

It means they won't build any new factories for a while. I think the market is interpreting this as 3m/year soon. But that depends on how the new 3/Y variants sell.

It means Model 2 is dead, instead they'll build lower cost 3/Y variants on existing production lines. These variants might have some newer features, like 48V. They won't be 25k, but probably a few thousand less than current 3/Y. I expect some variants will have body mods, e.g. maybe a Y with a...

Tesla has a negative cash conversion cycle. Operating assets generate FCF during growth, drain cash when they shrink. It's the opposite of most companies. Q1 exacerbated this with a huge inventory build.

Yeah, it's not next-gen, just stripped-down 3/Ys built on existing lines.

Every millisecond? Are you sure? I think their lidar is 20 Hz, i.e. 50 ms. Video is usually 24-60 fpg, so 16-41 ms. I don't know about radar, but overall I doubt they recalculate more often than once every 20-30 ms. Note that 30 ms is about one meter on the highway, only about a foot in city...

I gave timestamps from that video, so I obviously watched some of it (first ~5 minutes + a couple snippets). I don't agree. We don't know what it describes. NNs produce guesses based on coefficients defined during training. We don't know how they trained this NN. If it's truly E2E there may be...

Here is some of the worst Waymo driving I've seen. The unicycles (plus a couple scooters) were moving fast enough that Waymo should have just stayed in the lane and followed them. Instead it crossed the double yellow and drove toward oncoming traffic for 40 seconds! It only got back in the legal...

Ford plays accounting games. A classic MBA 101 method divides products into 3 groups: Dogs - low/no growth, low profit Cows - low/no growth, high profit Stars - high growth, (eventual) high profit The prof then profoundly says "kill the dogs, milk the cows and invest in the stars". Ford told...

My point is an E2E system doesn't "know" anything. It doesn't know there's a bike or a car or a lane to the right or whatever. It's just a huge equation with a billion fixed coefficients. This language engine, for lack of a better word, simply makes stuff up. Here's a question: how do you train...

I wouldn't say with each drive. More likely that cars flag potential map issues and alert HQ, which then has a process to decide if a map update makes sense. If they dynamically updated maps then six Waymos wouldn't have followed the first one into trouble when construction cones forced all...

Also says road is clear at 5:03 despite pedestrian crossing. Also says "Reducing speed for the cyclist" at 0:19 when 1) it doesn't reduce speed and 2) the cyclist has moved safely behind some parked cars. And "Moving to right lane" at 0:53 when there's only one lane (except oncoming traffic...

You're right. Had one dealer tell me his 2015 85D did not originally come with free Supercharging. "Only 2013s came with it"! I suspect the same. Unfortunately that limits me to private sellers. Used Tesla prices fell so fast many private sellers are actually asking MORE than dealers, which is...

Your chart proves my point. Waymo grew very fast from the 10x/year statement until October. Then they slowed drastically to a 2.5x/year rate. I wonder what could have happened in October? Oh yeah, their only competitor self-vaporized. The pressure to grow is gone.

Yes, very weird. The visualization shows a red traffic light at 3:40. It switches to green at 3:47 then disappears after a few seconds. Then a red stop sign symbol appears out of nowhere! There is no actual stop sign I can see, not even a hand-held one or a T-shirt or store ad or something. The...

Elon will show a Robotaxi operating in traffic without a safety driver He'll also claim: 1. Tesla Robotaxi Network in 10 cities in 2025, 100+ cities in 2027 2. Austin will build 1+ million Robotaxis in 2026 3. A multi-trillion dollar market by 2030 4. Competitors have 12-18 months to match...

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm looking at some 85D/90Ds and have questions. I required FUSC. Private sellers generally know if their car has FUSC or not. Some dealer ads will say FUSC or no FUSC, but most dealers have no idea even when you ask. Works great for private party sellers...

Yes, with chase car and/or passengers in car with big red stop button. Yandex did empty driver's seat / big red button demos in Vegas years ago. No lengthy permit process required. Keep the speeds low so any accident is minor. Throw out lots of AI jargon to impress the gullible. Announce...

That's a lot slower than the 10x/year growth they talked about last summer. More like 4x/year. IMHO they slowed dramatically when Cruise got sidelined. At 4x/year they reach Uber size around 2030.

I believe he'll demo a podcar driving in traffic on public streets without a safety driver. Not in California, but a state with lax regulations like NV or AZ. At this point a static podcar display combined with more staged videos and a rehash of five year old promises from Autonomy Day 2019...

Breaking out leased cars and assuming ASP and margin carry over from Q4, I get Auto Sales Revenue: 16.5b, COGS 13.75b Leasing: 500m Rev, 300m Exp Reg credits a crapshoot, as usual, so 500m ASP is helped by CT but hurt by a slight mix shift away from S/X/CT toward 3/Y. Discounting maybe picked...

IMHO Tesla will never do Robotaxis. Outside the back of an envelope the business model sucks. Musk has moved on. Fembot is his new love. FSD sales to end users is much more lucrative than Robotaxi. Empty seat is a huuuuge leap. It has to be 1000x safer than a sober driver because liability...