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Were it really a master class he'd have taken these steps almost a year ago when he himself began the warnings. He DID see these developments, but did not take action as soon was he might have, were he not distracted. OK, not an investor right now, but an interested party and now hoping for...

Obviously investors and capex were the two most significant components. Intel is a really good example, although they were not really diversifying but simply advancing more quickly than competitors could do. I hope your more optimistic view is correct. You often have better insight than do I.

That really might work! There are even services, like nurses, labs doing medical sampling house calls, every kind of skilled delivery. They would not need to dive, but could solve the 'last mile' problem, with a little help. smart idea!

No not as a shareholder. Yes as a buyer.

Have you conversed with present BYD owners? I rode in an Uber this morning in a BYD Dolphin. The new owner gushed about regenerative braking (apparently not as good as Tesla's), cheap electricity compared with gasoline in his previous Chevrolet, no maintenance schedule and, above all according...

These offerings are proving to be very popular in many countries, by observations only, it seems these are much more prevalent in middle income countries where delivery became ubiquitous during the Covid-19 crisis. One of my nephews invested in one of those in 2020, and it has been highly...

Oops, you did not go to the bottom: second to last line item: Free cash flow: -2531 you showed 'from operations', were that not have been negative it would have been catastrophic. when including Capex, a crucial line item and the basis for future expectations, the reality is that for the first...

Of the items that triggered my review the dissolution of the advertising department was a positive. I never in my nightmares imagines negative cash flow. Never. The sudden layoffs make more sense, although most fundamentals deteriorated. If the bet on Robotaxi works out there will be a swift...

Nearly all the foundation of my opinion is based on that legislation from last year. Note the judges are appointed for only two years and are 100% political appointees every time. That certainly will keep them 'in line'. Would you have your business depend on those courts?

The Delaware Chancery Court reorganization effectively destroyed their advantage. OTOH, betting on a new State without an established record and with a distinctly negative attitude towards Tesla from the rarely meeting Texas legislature. That move is done without anything offered from Texas to...

I am inherently optimistic, despite all that experience. In a way, because of it. In the worst situations (more than three civil wars during my tenor in odd places, and still can imagine most humans actually want to be better than they appear on the surface. Exacerbating optimism is that...

From time to time @mongo sets us all straight with few words. This is such a post. It has, in my opinion, Particular Merit.

C After too many years as an investor I have tried things that ‘should’ work and do work…until they don’t. The deeply analytic approaches are all fundamentally schochastic, so use historical patterns to forecast the future. Highly capable people have made fortunes, and many of the same people...

You persist. There are no First Principles by your definition in Physics. Fundamental 'Fact' is limited to human understanding and all science evolves. First Principles are the most basic we can actually think we understand. Perhaps you need to study particle physics or astrophysics. Then you...

You may be so constrained in your thinking but Elon is not. Elon to begin with states he is an engineer rather than a physicist, anyway, and he applies the concept to engineering solutions, as we famously know. First Principles is a philosophical construct, which can be applied in many areas...

In fact the comparison is evident in several categories. The differences appear in every step that is done by dealers in others and done internally by Tesla. Among those are several items that are often treated in different accounting categories. Naming the items: -warranty expense; -advertising...

OTOH, they've just eliminated the referral program if reports are correct. What will replace it? Such are among the directly quantifiable promotional benefits, lacking one an evaluation of how many incremental sales that program has made.

Only a slight few additional points. Poring over the fine print notes to financials for publicly held auto dealership groups will reveal, lo and behold!, warranty repair work is a major profit center. Look again and note that service income, where directly declared, is a high profit center too...

Seriously, the answers are not so simplistic as a single line item. There are far too many components to be assessed simplistically. The answers come from actually learning accounting. That cannot be done in this forum.

Please, please study basic accounting prior to making such posts. Warranty reserves are credited with expected expenses for warranty service at the time of sale. Incurred warranty costs are debited to reserves. You assert in completely incorrect. As you say, ‘…no real digging”. Speculation is...

Keep in mind those are People who support the ones implicated in insurrection. If deemed political, this will be deleted. In fact this is a major factor in prevention of Brazil Tesla/SpaceX permitting, and threatened X and Starlink limits. We cannot avoid the direct consequences of such events...

For supporting evidence check out Iraq War and Humvee. A close friend was injured seriously that that Humvee vulnerability.

It really is not a major factor at all. Nearly everyone with capital gains knows better how to handle finances than that. Those who do not don’t have enough shares to move a market. This is not a prediction. I am reticent to ever assume anything about short term markets. Even the best...

The last I heard they can collect data from vehicles equipped with the hardware and software even if they're not subscribers to FSD. Is that not true? Since hearing that I wonder how they evaluate the relevant cases for data use I have no idea. I don't remember where I understood that so I...

Excellent! Please send me the shipping details!

This is a superb example of absence of critical thinking. Reducing price on FSD is really a waste. It could and should be a Premium feature. Reducing the price of a fundamentally revolutionary product actually diminishes the perceived value. The idiotic idea that a revolutionary product is...

One needs to be very careful on this subject. All too often people misunderstand the reality that Price does matter greatly, it’s part of Positionng. So, for example: LVMH products do sell partly in price, that is High price is part of the product. In cars: Both Ferrari and Porsche have for...

I strongly disagree about some of the stated facts, since he ignores distribution and seems to imply, incorrectly, that Tesla has nearly pure commodities so broad indiscriminate advertising fixes all. He disdains price cuts while wanting a cheaper car. Were he to have used responsible, diligent...

Nice summary, Cliff. It’s good to remind all of us that Tesla is not present at all in a number of major automotive markets, that Tesla is not even well represented in all areas of the US, much less in any other physically large country. The historical model of simultaneously delivering vehicles...

Well, I put one down for a Model 3 for Brazil delivery dated April 1, 2016. It was allegedly not a joke. Perhaps I’ll be able to configure prior to the ten year anniversary. It still is there, patently, in my Tesla account.

“Too lazy to double check” makes some gigantic errors. I won’t bother to give detail because you absolutely will not really learn without doing the work to understand yourself. As a hint: auto dealers in most countries, including the US, do not make the majority of their profits from the stated...

FWIW you’ve seriously understated the costs for dealer distribution. We probably could discuss the details elsewhere, but for typical EU OEM this runs around 20% or so and US higher around 25%, due mostly to finance margin and dealer-added equipment. As for Tesla manufacturing efficiency, there...

Check VAG shareholder concentration to begin to understand.

Yes, but far too many variables to discuss in this thread. In general both have had quite excellent marketing tactics and strategy, with SpaceX perhaps the single most effective one thus far. Tesla was outstanding for several years, with quite specific approaches to each major country. Tesla...

Speaking only on this point. Actuarial analysis takes into account claims frequency and severity (actually all insurance underwriting follows that two element evaluation. How it is done can become devilishly complex, conceptually it is simple). Extended warranty on known performance items such...

For entirely different reasons I sold SpaceX almost a year ago. The reasons had nothing to do with anything other than the implications of the shareholding method. It just added too much reporting complexity for my two countries of residence.

I'm hearing that after the 'reform' of Delaware Chancery Court, anti-corporate rulings ahem become more frequent causing some large corporations to reconsider. The real problem is identifying the domicile that is predictable in probable treatment. Texas, for example, is very new at this and has...

I admit your phraseology triggered a slight chuckle. There might have been some terrorism effects in Q1 might there not? Perhaps the majority of the investors community may have poor short term event recall!/s

That is doubtful Delaware Chancery Court decisions are rarely overruled, although it famously happened in a 2021 Leow's decision that has some logical comparison to the Elon compensation decision. However, their decision forcing Elon to buy Twitter stood, and that one seemed similar in some ways...

There is another actuarial side to this that seems to be ignored: Accident frequency is lower with FSD already, and with art will be much lower still; Accident severity will be higher, maybe much higher, because of the notoriety attached to automation will make payouts higher when accidents...

Your perspective is mine. I have both FSD and the primitive lane keeping plus emergency warning on a Volvo. Both have interceded in ways that have averted accidents. Both have identified vehicles that were headed towards mine, allowing me to avert accidents. That includes two incidents in while...

I find these realities very irritating too. By v4 they should have had better training and inferences. Personally I have given up for now, except for some highly technical unambiguous things, most are essentially complex searches, but unambiguous.

Chat might not understand auto finance accounting rules. The subvention (I.e. interest rate subsidy) generally is debited to cost of sale.For clarity warranty reserve in included. Every cost related directly to making a sale is so charged. Chat needs to learn sales accounting rules.

I’ve explained that in recent threads. I simply realized they’ve stopped the superb marketing expertise they once had, displayed to excellent results in China where the practices were most advanced but in much of EU and NA too. Recent attacks on numerous regulatory and influencers did not augur...

So what does Tesla Energy place such great emphasis on 65+ countries? https://www.tesla.com/utilities The first major TE commercial placement was in South Australia, the Hornsdale Power Reserve. Tesla has huge emphasis on global energy placements Utility and Commercial.

Both CATL and Jinko (largest global Solar Panel maker) have been in this market for some time as has Huawei and BYD, and others. Most of those are competitors in many markets, but mostly in parts of Asia, South America and Africa. It is interesting also that they often enter ne markets in...

Because some time has passed since the action, I should report that I am now no longer a TSLA shareholder. That action is generating some major capital gains, so no fiscal pain, other than taxes. I hope very much that this will prove to have been a mistake. I plan to continue to post here, if...

These two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

I hope you mean "targeted marketing..." since that includes the entire range of potentially cost effective and precise solicitation of actual qualified purchasers/lessors and their primary influencers. They do NOT need generic non-precise publicity-style advertising. 'overall customer service...

That obviously is possible but there are significant subsets of lessees and buyers who wealthy enough to be cash buyers and, for some brands, as much as 25% of lessees use prepaid leases (I.e. tax benefit lessees not finance lessees). Interest rate subvention does generate more sales to poorer...