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

[GOVA]

No winter in TX will help with outdoor work IMO. Berlin is much colder then. We will see

 

[Prunesquallor]

...

To anyone planning to hold their shares till 2030, I recommend to start looking right now for islands for sale on realtor because we will all be buying them in 2030 with our TSLA stock.

Or...

 

[generalenthu]

Consumer Reports is slowly coming out from under a rock.

Pay Less for Vehicle Maintenance With an EV

 

[bzbee]

Start at 5:48... enjoy

 

[Green Pete]

I may be wrong, but I feel like the pages per day count on this forum have dropped. I take that as a sign that everyone just knows Tesla is going to succeed and the need to discuss it seems to have melted away. That might be the wrong take. But its funny how it's at the point where I don't really worry about the future of Tesla. Its a definite when now and not an if anymore.

 

[Big Time]

I think it was the S&P fluke followed up by poor reception of battery day people drifted away. Crushed a lot of good energy. I’ve started parting out the spanking machines. As promised my new eSpank electric belt drive power spankers are showing up on the 16th. I’ll be able to get them assembled and spanking by Q3 ER. The have new rubber power paddles. Gordo has another thing coming when I get these bad boys Choppin’

 

[gabeincal]

Start at 5:48... enjoy

Wow, thank you for sharing. Puts things into perspective.....

 

[Bet TSLA]

As with all things Tesla, you can never tell if something that starts as small potatoes will become a genuine profit center of significance. Examples include Tesla service. Currently operating "at cost" and I think Elon is on record of saying it will never be a for-profit operation. I don't know if this is true and suspect even with EVs stellar reliability, due to the shear number of vehicles Tesla will have sold that there will be plenty of profit to make on service, battery upgrades and more if Tesla chooses to. The Solar City acquisition garnered a lot of nay sayers, but had arguably springboarded Tesla Energy to potentially parallel automotive. FSD did not exist on the original MS, but now (arguably) has huge upside when/if it works. Insurance has legs. Initially I agree it was a hedge because Tesla had exceptionally safe cars, but the insurance industry was sticking owners with high premiums. Less so for the premium MS/MX but more down stream for the M3 on down, If unchecked that could seriously impact sales. Combine this with the persuit of level 4 and level 5 autonomy. Tesla is claiming to release FSD software this year that is "capable" of zero interaction. Granted, the driver will still be 100% responsible, but what are insurance companies going to do once that's out? Nothing? Maybe. Insurance could be a single point of failure for FSD...once Tesla convinces government agencies that level 4 or level 5 is ready and Tesla wants to hit the switch, what do you think insurance companies will DO? If they all sat around and waited for the data it would be chicken and the egg. Could be a stalemate. I'm uncertain how the industry will handle FSD when it first arrives. I think Tesla insurance was born as a result of these uncertainties. With Tesla insurance available, Tesla is in more control of their own destiny, they can ensure fair rates for their customers and they have the fleet size and data collection beyond the insurance companies dreams and just might revolutionize/disrupt that industry too! Tesla fully expects FSD to be much much safer than human drivers. Would the conventional insurance companies recognize that and pass that along to the customers? Tesla insurance can ensure that this happens.

Lastly, ask yourself this: The 3-6 months after Covid hit, how much less did you drive? Do you think the ~15% credit your insurance gave you (or whatever they gave you) was commensurate with the reduction of the liability and payouts that they experienced? Hmmm.

Just an FYI. Wall of text = unreadable. I wanted to read it, but didn't.

 

[Bet TSLA]

I keep seeing people talking about Tesla Insurance (not picking on you DurandalAl - just a starting point), as if it's a serious business for Tesla -- either now or in the reasonably near future.

Can anybody point me to anything that suggests that Tesla Insurance is viewed as a serious business for Tesla, either now or in the future?


My understanding is that today it isn only available in California. My belief is that this will never be a serious business for Tesla - that biggest outcome intended would be Tesla acting in the role of a referral and bundler of a large number of new customers to an existing auto insurance company (i.e. - negotiating a special rate for "Tesla" insurance through State Farm, and then referring Tesla buyers to the "Tesla Insurance operated by State Farm" insurance policy).

I DO see this idea as something of a threat or nudge / motivation to the current auto insurance industry - start taking the improved safety and lower overall claims levels from Tesla vehicles into your premiums, or we'll just start up a competitor (or work with one of your competitors that IS doing this) and take your Tesla auto insurance premiums away from you.


In the meantime, the barriers to entry for Tesla as an insurance provider are very high. State by state licensing. Reserves so that Tesla can pay claims when needed. Building up a new division with the insurance business processes and expertise. It's this last point I see as a particularly large barrier - the Tesla insurance legal entity is going to need a fair bit of cash to get started, and will need to retain some reasonably large amount of reserve to be certain of being able to pay claims. Stuff that insurance companies do routinely and do well.

I imagine there are others here with a lot more insurance industry experience than me (who has ~none) and can articulate these barriers to entry better.


In the end, I see Tesla insurance as a money loser or break even for Tesla outside of a situation in which none of the current auto insurance providers see lower claims insuring Teslas and thus Tesla decides to go into competition by charging lower insurance premiums to insure Teslas.


Also worth adding, again MHO, is that it isn't completely clear to me that Teslas actually ARE cheaper to insure. Factors in favor of cheaper are fewer accidents, and reduced medical bills for the people in the Tesla when it does get in an accident.

Factors in favor of more expensive are that Teslas are totaled more frequently (I believe - don't have data to back this) and that seemingly minor damage leads to much larger repair bills (again - my belief, not data). Also that Teslas are more expensive on average than other cars on the road.

I think that the balance of those factors, mostly because of the medical bill side, DOES make Teslas cheaper to insure. Is it enough cheaper though for a standalone insurance business to flourish and generate significant profits though? I am firmly of the opinion that this is no, at least today and the foreseeable future. Get 10M Teslas on the road in the US - maybe then.


(and in the meantime, Tesla referring customers to a particular provider with typically good deals on auto insurance for Teslas - totally)

As was pointed out, Tesla said it is working on Insurance 2.0 and will implement that before rolling out all over. I'm sure they've learned a lot about how to implement the business for real and scale it worldwide.

Now, as to why insurance.
1. Tesla insources everything, because they believe they can do it better.
2. Insurance is an information game, and they have way more information about their cars and drivers than anybody else.
3. Like every ICE idiot, insurance company people don't understand EVs, and compensate by overcharging.
4. Tesla perceives insurance (same as service) issues as trivial compared to engineering issues, so why not do it?
5. As autopilot gets better, accidents become fewer. Only Tesla is equipped to notice this in realtime.
6. Getting better information on repair costs allows Tesla to improve their vehicles faster.
7. Tesla can make good money off the business, while not letting their owners get cheated.

This is all so obvious, I'm not sure why there's any question about it. Even though, just as with service, Tesla will have a lot of trouble admitting that their perception of #4 doesn't reflect the real world. Insurance, like service, is messy. But only in the transition, because with full self-driving the need for either becomes drastically less. And, in the end, Tesla will have a sales model where you get the car and everything is taken care of -- no hassle.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I may be wrong, but I feel like the pages per day count on this forum have dropped. I take that as a sign that everyone just knows Tesla is going to succeed and the need to discuss it seems to have melted away. That might be the wrong take. But its funny how it's at the point where I don't really worry about the future of Tesla. Its a definite when now and not an if anymore.

There's just less news now. Battery day, stock split, giga locations, s&p hype are all out of the way. Casting machines are operational. The stock has stabilised too. Shortseller shenanigans are less influential.

The major unknown items are less important than they were a couple of months ago.

It's natural for the volume of posts to decrease as big news items are revealed. But it will pick up again as we get closer to new events.

 

[Causalien]

I may be wrong, but I feel like the pages per day count on this forum have dropped. I take that as a sign that everyone just knows Tesla is going to succeed and the need to discuss it seems to have melted away. That might be the wrong take. But its funny how it's at the point where I don't really worry about the future of Tesla. Its a definite when now and not an if anymore.

The media narrative seems to be turning around. And clean energy stocks are on a rip.

The turning point seems to be the california wildfire.

Now I am watching out to see if we reach a point where there are no critics. And if we get to an over exuberance beyond that.

 

[Green Pete]

There's just less news now. Battery day, stock split, giga locations, s&p hype are all out of the way. Casting machines are operational. The stock has stabilised too. Shortseller shenanigans are less influential.

The major unknown items are less important than they were a couple of months ago.

It's natural for the volume of posts to decrease as big news items are revealed. But it will pick up again as we get closer to new events.

I guess maybe nobody believes itll be a big update, but I feel like the next autopilot update could be as significant as battery day. Im really looking forward to it.

 

[pz1975]

I guess maybe nobody believes itll be a big update, but I feel like the next autopilot update could be as significant as battery day. Im really looking forward to it.

I think Tesla owners will have a major edge against Wall St. when/if FSD reaches level 5 and a Robotaxi network becomes inevitable. It will likely take weeks for Wall St. to come to this realization as YouTube videos and reports trickle in. Us Tesla owners will see it, be amazed by it, and wonder why TSLA isn’t going up like it should be. We need to remember this and use that lag time to load up on more TSLA (and call options if one is educated in them) before the inevitable valuation increase happens.

I look at this like the way TSLA floundered between 2018-2019 when it was so obvious to me (and most here) that Tesla had turned the corner and the stock price didn’t reflect the obvious profitable future for the company. I was frustrated and confused by it many times, but just kept loading up more TSLA and it has paid off handsomely now.

The FSD jump won’t take as long as that IMO but I am quite confident there will be some period of time when the real TSLA valuation based on FSD achievement and the actual stock price will disconnect until Wall St. wakes up. Many more Teslanaires will be made in that period.

 

[Runarbt]

Why wouldn't it work out? Even if you had one or two people dedicated full time to constantly survey say a 10 square mile block each day for issues, and a "remote driver" team to take over occasional disrupted rides, if that enables removing drivers from dozens/hundreds of taxis in that area then it stacks up financially immediately vs a human driven taxi fleet, especially in high density population areas.

How many 10 square miles with road will be needed to bd durveyed in the world?
Can slmrone do a quick estimate? ;-)?

 

[FireMedic]

Start at 5:48... enjoy

Ouch! that’s worse than I was expecting for sure. Any reason why he mentions the (coming ‘soon’) Ford Mach-E but doesn’t mention the X or the Y? Are TESLAS not available RHD in the UK?

 

[ZsoZso]

Ouch! that’s worse than I was expecting for sure. Any reason why he mentions the (coming ‘soon’) Ford Mach-E but doesn’t mention the X or the Y? Are TESLAS not available RHD in the UK?

Did mention X at the beginning, he said he test-drove 3 cars: the turd, jag I-pace and tesla X, then decided to buy the turd because it had such a large cargo area I kid you not, thats what he said, methinks the X has much larger cargo area but nevermind

* this shows some people deserve what they get

 

[printf42]

Ouch! that’s worse than I was expecting for sure. Any reason why he mentions the (coming ‘soon’) Ford Mach-E but doesn’t mention the X or the Y? Are TESLAS not available RHD in the UK?

Because only Android user would watch reviews, iPhone users would just buy the one that fits the budget and spend their time elsewhere.

 

[Tslynk67]

I hope it's bullish and I expect good earnings, but it's only one day earlier than last quarter.

I don't see it as being "early", if it were the 14th, yes; 21st, no, it's the logical date:

2019: Oct 23rd
2018: Oct 24th
2017: Nov 1st
2016: Oct 26th
2015: Nov 3rd
2014: Nov 5th

 

[CLK350]

As was pointed out, Tesla said it is working on Insurance 2.0 and will implement that before rolling out all over. I'm sure they've learned a lot about how to implement the business for real and scale it worldwide.

Now, as to why insurance.
1. Tesla insources everything, because they believe they can do it better.
2. Insurance is an information game, and they have way more information about their cars and drivers than anybody else.
3. Like every ICE idiot, insurance company people don't understand EVs, and compensate by overcharging.
4. Tesla perceives insurance (same as service) issues as trivial compared to engineering issues, so why not do it?
5. As autopilot gets better, accidents become fewer. Only Tesla is equipped to notice this in realtime.
6. Getting better information on repair costs allows Tesla to improve their vehicles faster.
7. Tesla can make good money off the business, while not letting their owners get cheated.

This is all so obvious, I'm not sure why there's any question about it. Even though, just as with service, Tesla will have a lot of trouble admitting that their perception of #4 doesn't reflect the real world. Insurance, like service, is messy. But only in the transition, because with full self-driving the need for either becomes drastically less. And, in the end, Tesla will have a sales model where you get the car and everything is taken care of -- no hassle.

Nicely put. I would also add that (7) it is a *necessity* for Tesla - otherwise unjustifiably high insurance rates could become its Achilles heel, a vulnerable point. Not counting on the industry to be fair is smart.

Tesla does attract / have some to the brightest minds working for them!

 

[MC3OZ]

No winter in TX will help with outdoor work IMO. Berlin is much colder then. We will see

Where Berlin buildings are weather tight they can still do a lot of work inside...

A lot of the Berlin buildings don't look far off "dry in" or as we Aussies call it "lock up stage". I'm worried about what that phrase implies about the honesty of our citizens...

I think the Semi project is in the fast lane. I still think Berlin Model Y will easily beat Austin Model Y.