General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[sundaymorning]

This is a great software upgrade Tesla added, lots of parents with teenagers will be using this.

Tesla's mobile app can turn on top speed limits from anywhere

 

[Earlian]

@Sparky
Read this two times, getting goose bumps.

Thx for sharing.

 

[Foghat]

Timing seems everything here since we are at such a monumental time in the company. Does anyone have any idea how all these Elon “everyone” emails are being leaked fairly consistently lately, especially before the big 5k ramp expectations are to be realized. Are the leaks by the same disgruntled employee(s)? From what I’ve read, Tripp has worked at Tesla for under a year (October 2017 start). Such a short timer to have such animus toward Tesla with such deep of purpose in his actions. Is it possible they are working for a third party?

I’m curious if this is just some tin foil, or actually plausible. I mean, many are willing to do anything if enough money is on the line and time pressure bearing down.

 

[avoigt]

Fox Business Network - this afternoon: Germany's largest automakers back abolition of EU-U.S. car import tariffs

The association of German Auto-Industry who supposed to had that conversation at an event in Berlin did put a dementia out.

Its likely that they, in loose coordination with the German Government/ EU, started an attempt to get into a negotiation with the US authorities. This is what the EU is trying ever since. I doubt that this attempt is a coincidence.

However lets be realistic, tariffs are a fine balanced matter between trading partners and include many goods and products. If statistics are correct the balanced tariffs between US and EU are across all of those equally 2.6%. Changing just one part of it won't help as its a win-loose approach the EU will likely not agree to. If they still do they take the risk that Trump is just moving to the next product or service and starts over again.

 

[RobStark]

EV Sales: Australia December 2017

 

[justvisiting]

Man oh man did this reply to my post age really badly in just one day. Yikes.

and why is that?
the fact that
- no law enforcement was called
- no 8k was filed
- no criminal charges were filed, only civil
- the defendant seems to be pretty sure about his case

all make my post look better, not worse.

And to the guy being proud of his son working at GA4: Your kid seems like a great guy, and you are surely right to be proud. But i hope you realize that the things he tells you do NOT shine a good light on Teslas manufacturing capabilities at all. what a chaos

 

[schonelucht]

The guy is obviously not a whisteblower and he deserves everything that he is going to get. But

1) Why the hell is Elon Musk mailing this guy when they are in litigation? Let the lawyers handle this. That's just super basic.

2) Not sure how a court case is going to help Tesla. Whatever they'll recover from this guy is going to be peanuts compared to the damage he caused. And his defense is going make to make hay of everything they find trying to spin it as Tesla is indeed a malicious company. Media will report as such and when after months and months it all turns out BS no one cares about it anymore. Tesla as zero leverage over this guy : he already lost everything anyway.

 

[RobStark]

Changing just one part of it won't help as its a win-loose approach the EU will likely not agree to. If they still do they take the risk that Trump is just moving to the next product or service and starts over again.

TTIP was not likely to pass toward the end of the Obama administration as is far less likely now with more opposition in Germany and a weaker Merkel.

Then there is the rise of 5 Star-Brotherhood in Italy. And we have British support for TTIP becoming close to irrelevant.

Peace in the Middle East is more likely than TTIP.

 

[SPadival]

Just a bit OT

You are kidding right??. This is valuable information from the trenches for a long term investor. Thanks for sharing the general vibe without violating any NDAs.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

The guy is obviously not a whisteblower and he deserves everything that he is going to get. But

1) Why the hell is Elon Musk mailing this guy when they are in litigation? Let the lawyers handle this. That's just super basic.

2) Not sure how a court case is going to help Tesla. Whatever they'll recover from this guy is going to be peanuts compared to the damage he caused. And his defense is going make to make hay of everything they find trying to spin it as Tesla is indeed a malicious company. Media will report as such and when after months and months it all turns out BS no one cares about it anymore. Tesla as zero leverage over this guy : he already lost everything anyway.

1) Musk didn't mail the guy, he mailed the whole company, so nothing wrong with that. Edit: Note that Tripp was identified only in the lawsuit, not Musk's e-mail about a saboteur.

2) This is a civil case, meant to ferret out the rats. Although there's no financial benefit to Tesla, there isn't any benefit to Tripp staying quiet either. If he names his outside party, then the civil suit can be expanded to include the outside party and lessen the burden on Tripp. There's value to knowing who that outside party is. Afterall, Tripp's script sent the info somewhere, and that would mean a "someone" received them.

 

[wdolson]

The declassified Soviet files show that they developed their A bomb on their own. The declassified US files show that they were right to fear a US unprovoked first strike nuclear attack, so they had good reason to. :sigh:

Those who attempted to give US nuclear secrets to the Russians (things Russia already knew) were, in some cases, motivated by fear of an out-of-control US government -- essentially noble motives.

Until the 1960s, nobody in power in any world government seemed to understand the dangers of radioactive fallout -- they just thought of nuclear weapons as large bombs. We know this from the declassified documents. They should have known better, because the Radium Girls cases are from the 1920s and were front-page in the NYT and Marie Curie was killed by radiation, but they never consulted the biologists and didn't remember the NYT headlines. I guess.

Only when the evidence of radioactive isotopes in children's baby teeth was brought to the attention of JFK and Khrushchev did world leaders start to understand the true nature of the horror they had created, leading to the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Even then, deranged factions in both militaries tried to blow up as many nukes in the atmosphere as possible before the treaty went into effect, poisoning a generation of children even more,

I'm not sure what the conclusion of this is.

There were a few people who died of radiation poisoning during the Manhattan Project and the survivors of the nuclear attacks had been tracked. It was initially thought that if someone survived the initial radiation poisoning, they would be OK. It wasn't until long term research on the attack survivors and others exposed to fallout from nuclear tests came in they realized there was a significantly higher cancer risk from radiation exposure. That was what they began to realize by the 1960s.

One sad statistic from the nuclear attacks on Japan was I believe every kid under 12 exposed to the radiation died young.

Well, technically Tesla does not pay the 10% EU tariff.

That is why it has the assembly facility in The Netherlands, to avoid the tax.

They could save on this expense and pass the saving on to the customer.

Maybe they could use the facility in The Netherlands to manufacture Model S Shooting Brake and Model 3 Estate for European markets instead?

I would think there would be a market for a wagon in the US. As the sedan is dying, wagons are making a comeback. The Subaru Outback is their best selling car in the US. If a shooting brake S had been available and the range hit wasn't significant, I would have gone for that over the standard S layout.

 

[RobStark]

Tesla Brings on Former Enron Prosecutor to Go After Ex-Employee Accused of Hacking | The Recorder

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Tesla Brings on Former Enron Prosecutor to Go After Ex-Employee Accused of Hacking | The Recorder

Looks like that's their favorite law firm, since they've represented Tesla in both the Sterling Anderson (former director of autopilot) and Todd Katz (oil executive vp who impersonated Elon in a phishing scheme) cases.

 

[mrdoubleb]

The guy is obviously not a whisteblower and he deserves everything that he is going to get. But

1) Why the hell is Elon Musk mailing this guy when they are in litigation? Let the lawyers handle this. That's just super basic.

2) Not sure how a court case is going to help Tesla. Whatever they'll recover from this guy is going to be peanuts compared to the damage he caused. And his defense is going make to make hay of everything they find trying to spin it as Tesla is indeed a malicious company. Media will report as such and when after months and months it all turns out BS no one cares about it anymore. Tesla as zero leverage over this guy : he already lost everything anyway.

1) Musk didn't mail the guy, he mailed the whole company, so nothing wrong with that. Edit: Note that Tripp was identified only in the lawsuit, not Musk's e-mail about a saboteur.

2) This is a civil case, meant to ferret out the rats. Although there's no financial benefit to Tesla, there isn't any benefit to Tripp staying quiet either. If he names his outside party, then the civil suit can be expanded to include the outside party and lessen the burden on Tripp. There's value to knowing who that outside party is. Afterall, Tripp's script sent the info somewhere, and that would mean a "someone" received them.

With regards to #2... also acts as a deterrent to others. Yes, if we sue you and win a million bucks, that`s not gonna help us much, but will punish you big time.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

With regards to #2... also acts as a deterrent to others. Yes, if we sue you and win a million bucks, that`s not gonna help us much, but will punish you big time.

That's not even really a concern for Tesla. The real concern now is to find out where Tripp came from and who he is working for.

I doubt anyone at Tesla buys his story that he's just a disgruntled employee. It's too convenient that he would just start working at Nevada right about when the most important time to sabotage operations would be. He also had a completely unbelievable story planned in addition to plans to talk to the Washington Post claiming to be a "whistleblower". He was coached on what to do when he was caught.

So the question becomes, who planted Tripp?

Some would argue maybe it's one of the big shorts, like Chanos. This seems unlikely. Chanos is a blowhard but he's not really in the class of Tom Clancy. It's actually quite possible that a state actor like Russia is actually the one planting moles inside Tesla to attack from the inside. Using Russia as an example: Russia's entire economy depends on petroleum exports and we all know how much Russia enjoys interfering with the affairs of other nations. This is something that's right up their alley. Sabotaging an American corporation that could threaten their economy is pretty much exactly the kind of thing Russia would do.

If Tripp suddenly gets a mysterious high-grade dose of radiation poisoning in the next week or so, that will be our answer as to who's responsible for this.

 

[neroden]

There were a few people who died of radiation poisoning during the Manhattan Project and the survivors of the nuclear attacks had been tracked. It was initially thought that if someone survived the initial radiation poisoning, they would be OK.

My point was that this thinking was asinine levels of incompetence, because the Radium Girls cases had been reported in the New York Times in the 1920s, and radiation had given Marie Curie aplastic anemia. The long-term cancer risk and other long-term risks from radionuclide exposure was *known*. But they ignored it until the 1960s.

Sort of reminds me of the people in power ignoring the global warming risk, which has been absolutely clear since the 1990s, if not the 1970s. :-(

It wasn't until long term research on the attack survivors and others exposed to fallout from nuclear tests came in they realized there was a significantly higher cancer risk from radiation exposure. That was what they began to realize by the 1960s.

One sad statistic from the nuclear attacks on Japan was I believe every kid under 12 exposed to the radiation died young.

 

[AudubonB]

Let’s dial way, waaay back this conspiracy talk. There is more than enough in the way of unsubstantiated malarkey being disseminated by those who want Tesla to fail; there really isn’t any benefit in those who are Tesla boosters in going all pulp fiction.

And this is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to post at 3 in the A.M. But it’s solstice now. Happy Summer Solstice, all you north hemisphere folks. It’s light outside! On the other hand, from today on, the days start getting shorter. Ugh.

 

[22522]

There were a few people who died of radiation poisoning during the Manhattan Project and the survivors of the nuclear attacks had been tracked. It was initially thought that if someone survived the initial radiation poisoning, they would be OK. It wasn't until long term research on the attack survivors and others exposed to fallout from nuclear tests came in they realized there was a significantly higher cancer risk from radiation exposure. That was what they began to realize by the 1960s.
.

A lot of folks on that project died of pancreatic cancer in later life. I substitute taught for one of my professors who was dying of that... and later conversed with another dying man who reflectively shared, about a dog barking in the background, "We get a lot of enjoyment out of that dog."

Since then, have always tried to have an ears up herding dog in the family.

 

[Todd Burch]

Let’s dial way, waaay back this conspiracy talk.

Agree. It’s important we take the high road and not make unsubstantiated claims, as that will look just as nutty as the claims of shorts.

Just wait for the facts to come out. If Tripp is an alien sent by Martians to stop Elon from colonizing Mars, we’ll find out about it as the case evolves.

 

[schonelucht]

1) Musk didn't mail the guy, he mailed the whole company, so nothing wrong with that. Edit: Note that Tripp was identified only in the lawsuit, not Musk's e-mail about a saboteur.

Musk also mailed the guy individually unfortunately. From here :

Emails provided to The Post appear to reveal a testy exchange between the two men Wednesday morning, with Musk saying, "You’re a horrible human being," and Tripp responding, "Putting cars on the road with safety issues is being a horrible human being!"

Luckily I haven't had many dealings with the American legal system but we've always been advised to not communicate directly with the other party, no matter how innocent it may seem.

2) This is a civil case, meant to ferret out the rats. Although there's no financial benefit to Tesla, there isn't any benefit to Tripp staying quiet either. If he names his outside party, then the civil suit can be expanded to include the outside party and lessen the burden on Tripp. There's value to knowing who that outside party is. Afterall, Tripp's script sent the info somewhere, and that would mean a "someone" received them.

Makes sense. Still a big risk to Tesla. It's uncertain the outside party did anything wrong so it's not a given that they can be succesfully included in the case. I would have expected for Tesla to have tried to resolve this without going public that soon.