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

[MC3OZ]

You guys have to be realistic.

$40,000 stock price? LOL... A market cap of $40 Trillion by 2030? C'mon guys.

IMO the discussion should happen in the Super Bulls thread.

Stellar numbers based on conservative projections are more impressive than stellar numbers based on optimistic projections.
Stellar numbers based on conservative projections are possible, basically 50% YOY growth until 2030, whatever that number is.

The thing is, we don't really care, 50% YOY growth until 2030 is more than enough.

 

[Krugerrand]

Wow! I wonder how many countries Krugerrand will own if that happens.

No desire to buy a country, not even an island country. But Mt Kilimanjaro —

 

[Buddyroe]

What I'm confused about is what will a robotaxi do when a situation arises that even a human does not know what to do. e.g. crash ahead in the rain and police signalling to go some other direction than planned. Will they have someone in the mothership connect to the car and resolve as a remote driver? Can someone explain the plan?

I just encountered that exact situation in my AP1 car and was asking myself the exact same question. Essentially, the cars that wrecked had been moved to the side of the road, but debris was still in one lane. There was no officer directing traffic, but everyone was just driving into the emergency lane to avoid the debris. Obviously, I had to disengage AP, but my thoughts were the same as yours - there are no programmable rules for this situation. I just followed what everyone else was doing. How will a computer ever know how to make that decision?

 

[StealthP3D]

I have seen a liquid washer cleaning aperture on the rear camera on the Porsche Taycan.
I will be really happy when I see it on the future Teslas too, however it is not there on my Model 3 and might have trouble robotaxiing during these months of the year. And might be problematic for potholes. But we could Ben surprised.
Do you have faith it can be retrofitted?

Anything can be retro-fitted, it all comes down to cost. In the case of robo-taxi it will be worth the few hundred bucks - most regular applications - probably not

 

[dl003]

You guys have to be realistic.

$40,000 stock price? LOL... A market cap of $40 Trillion by 2030? C'mon guys.

Not like I'm gonna go take out a 60 year mortgage to buy a Bel Air mansion, but...
You gave Elon Musk $100M to make EVs amid the Great Recession and we got a 130 bagger. What would have been realistic 10 years ago was TSLA withering and dyeing.
Now he's comfortably sitting on $15B and half a dozen factories. Let's see where that takes us this time.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I have seen a liquid washer cleaning aperture on the rear camera on the Porsche Taycan.
I will be really happy when I see it on the future Teslas too, however it is not there on my Model 3 and might have trouble robotaxiing during these months of the year. And might be problematic for potholes. But we could Ben surprised.
Do you have faith it can be retrofitted?

No idea, but I am very confident they will figure it out. I think they are bright enough to realize that people do drive in less than ideal conditions from time to time.

Pretty sure they've got this.

Dan

 

[BornToFly]

IMO the discussion should happen in the Super Bulls thread.

Stellar numbers based on conservative projections are more impressive than stellar numbers based on optimistic projections.
Stellar numbers based on conservative projections are possible, basically 50% YOY growth until 2030, whatever that number is.

The thing is, we don't really care, 50% YOY growth until 2030 is more than enough.

Watch the video. 50% growth to 2030 gets you to $40,000/share.
I recommend watching the whole thing, but you can try to start at 26:22:

 

[Artful Dodger]

At least they were smart enough to pull the plug (so to speak) before things got more out of hand.

Apple electric car project - Wikipedia

"In June 2019, Apple acquired autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai"

 

[Boomer19]

While I can't say what variables and methods Tesla can use in their pricing, the biggest savings will come from having a safer insured pool. I'm an actuary in a different field, so I'm not privy on the regulations in auto insurance.

Tesla may still have to price by group characteristics such as age band, but as claims overall will be lower the premiums will also be lower.

similar to what i have heard as well. thanks for info.

 

[ammulder]

Is the FSD price going up tomorrow? Or is it Thursday like someone said? I’m seriously thinking about pulling the trigger. I think it would add at least $4000 of value to my car, so it’s really only like spending $4000 instead of $8000. As an investor I need to be able to watch firsthand how Tesla is progressing, and to me that seems like a good enough reason to blow some money I’ll probably never miss. I especially won’t miss $8,000 if the stock price is at $40,000 in ten years.

Thursday. Elon relented and said everyone will have a week to decide (from when the beta is release in their geography).

Meanwhile, a stock price of $40K is just a fantasy. I mean, it's not like nobody wins the lottery, but come on, it would be absurd to make financial decisions on that basis. You'd skip having cereal for breakfast because, you know, if you just go hungry, the 50 cents would buy you a full steak dinner later. My mind will be blown if it "only" gets to $4K, and I'm not even making decisions on that basis.

Other than that, I'm in pretty much the same boat. In principle, I will definitely want FSD when it's widely available. I don't really want to spend $8K now, when I won't get the beta release anyway -- and I still don't trust that there will be fleet-wide release this year. But there's no telling how many more times they raise the price before it's done and widely released. I am guessing, without any evidence (so perhaps hoping is a better word) that the stock will appreciate enough to cover the price increase between now and the wide release. Won't a wide release of working FSD be worth at least 25%? But then, I would have said for sure battery day plus the Q3 deliveries plus the Q3 results plus a surprise FSD beta release would have been worth 25% to the stock price. ...so really I have no idea.

Since my spare cash is in TSLA, though, it seems more reasonable to wait until cash replenishes to buy FSD, rather than actually selling shares -- which would just feel so wrong. On the other hand, what are they there for if not to use? Why count on stock appreciation when we all know you can't time the market?

Bottom line, I can't convince myself of anything.

 

[MC3OZ]

Apple electric car project - Wikipedia

"In June 2019, Apple acquired autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai"

Hypothetically speaking, if Apple was still pursuing a stealth FSD solution, it isn't clear where they would get their data, or what stage the project is at.

Seems to me Mobileye/Cruise are further advanced, have more data and more relevant experience.
So forgetting Tesla, I find it hard to see how Apple can overtake Mobileye/Cruise, unless their product is truly innovative.

Drive.ai - Wikipedia

Seems Drive.ai is geo-fenced high definition maps, probably using Lldar and similar to Waymo.

We may get intense Robotaxi competition on high value pre-mapped routes, for example City Center to Airport. That kind of Robotaxi is more like a bus, it just runs a pre-mapped route, so maybe lots of solutions can do it.

 

[Andy O]

Ye of such little faith.

I am also of little faith that Tesla will address the blocked camera problem in a reasonable length of time. Reasons? The multitude of experiences we who live in the cold have had with products that fail at genuinely cold temperatures. The broad tendence to misapply California solutions to other places.

Tesla is not immune to this. Although my model 3 that was outside unprotected all last winter (& was therefore possibly the world's coldest Tesla) drove fine but charged slowly, Tesla corp. has not published anything that I could find on cold weather trials. I hesitated at purchasing mine because it looked and still looks to me like Tesla is little concerned with this extreme climate.

Another example is in solar roofs. I have not seen a solution from Tesla (or anyone) to the problem of perpetual long-lasting snow on roofs.

On snowy days drivers here drive in the paths made by preceding cars, which often do not fit nicely between the snowed-over lane markings. What will FSD do? Try to fit in the "proper" lanes and plough along with its tires in the slush ridge? or give up? So much for robo-taxis every bad weather day.

I am impressed by the recent successes of the beta version, but I am not expecting such a high level of capability where I live.

 

[Zythryn]

Thursday. Elon relented and said everyone will have a week to decide (from when the beta is release in their geography).

Meanwhile, a stock price of $40K is just a fantasy. I mean, it's not like nobody wins the lottery, but come on, it would be absurd to make financial decisions on that basis. You'd skip having cereal for breakfast because, you know, if you just go hungry, the 50 cents would buy you a full steak dinner later. My mind will be blown if it "only" gets to $4K, and I'm not even making decisions on that basis.

Other than that, I'm in pretty much the same boat. In principle, I will definitely want FSD when it's widely available. I don't really want to spend $8K now, when I won't get the beta release anyway -- and I still don't trust that there will be fleet-wide release this year. But there's no telling how many more times they raise the price before it's done and widely released. I am guessing, without any evidence (so perhaps hoping is a better word) that the stock will appreciate enough to cover the price increase between now and the wide release. Won't a wide release of working FSD be worth at least 25%? But then, I would have said for sure battery day plus the Q3 deliveries plus the Q3 results plus a surprise FSD beta release would have been worth 25% to the stock price. ...so really I have no idea.

Since my spare cash is in TSLA, though, it seems more reasonable to wait until cash replenishes to buy FSD, rather than actually selling shares -- which would just feel so wrong. On the other hand, what are they there for if not to use? Why count on stock appreciation when we all know you can't time the market?

Bottom line, I can't convince myself of anything.

I don’t necessarily see the stock hitting those heights that quickly.
Consider though, Coca-Cola hit about $46k/share when stock splits are taken into account. It took them about a century. However, they didn’t move into the automotive and energy markets.

 

[dc_h]

Watch the video. 50% growth to 2030 gets you to $40,000/share.
I recommend watching the whole thing, but you can try to start at 26:22:

Like Elon said, sooner or later you need another planet with 50% year over year growth. 50% annual growth would lead to 1.7 trillion in revenue (30 billion * 57). Toyota is about 275 billion. I can see at least double that and with higher margins, but who knows, ride sharing/mobility is a bigger market then auto sales. Energy is also a huge market. If Tesla had 500 billion in revenue, dividends could be 25-50 billion annually and still buy back shares. The growth story has to change at some point though. A 50% YOY runway will be shorter in 2025 then it is in 2020. As growth eases after 2025 or whenever, future value multiples will decline. I don’t see us finding a date when growth slows for a while. 50% for 5 years, which seems reasonable gets us to almost 300 billion in annual revenue. Mobility services should be kicking in and auto-bidder energy revenues will be picking up as well and could be the second leg of growth, but that will be higher margin, lower revenue businesses.

 

[MC3OZ]

On snowy days drivers here drive in the paths made by preceding cars, which often do not fit nicely between the snowed-over lane markings. What will FSD do?

This sport of problem is easier than keeping the cameras clean.

When you drive, you are training the car, Tesla will capture vision and probably replicate what drivers are doing.

In terms of keeping cameras clean, a solution will eventually be found, and it will continue to improve overtime.
As to the timeliness of the solution, and the ability to be retrofitted, that is an open question.

If I needed working FSD in a snowy location in 5 years, time, I would probably budget to upgrade the car in 5 years time.

Keep in mind a current Tesla will work as a Robotaxi in many other locations, or in the warmer months..

 

[Bet TSLA]

FWIW I think true global FSD is years and years off. We recently nearly hit a cow in a dark lane on a bend in heavy rain. No road markings, narrow road, hedges both sides... basically FSD hell...

Not sure at all why you think this. Drivable space is completely obvious and very limited. That makes it a relatively easy problem. I don't think you are thinking about the problem properly.

 

[Bet TSLA]

That's right. They kept it real quiet. It's almost like they knew from the get-go they didn't have the required technical expertise or the amount of innovation required to develop their own EV inhouse (even with hiring outside help from the industry). At least they were smart enough to pull the plug (so to speak) before things got more out of hand. The number of people who argued Apples' foray into EV's would be a huge success was mind-boggling to me. It's as if they thought EV's were easy, you just hook the red wire to "+" and the black wire to "-" and off you go! LOL!

We will see how competitive their autonomous driving software becomes (or if they ever release anything). My guess is it will never amount to anything that could be considered even remotely competitive with Tesla and it too will die a quiet death. In fact, the latest FSD beta release from Tesla might save Apple billions if it causes them to give up sooner rather than later. It would make more sense for Tesla to make a move into the smartphone market than for Apple to have aspirations about being competitive in the EV/Autonomy space.

Sigh. Still have no idea what you're talking about. Context matters. "They kept it real quiet." is a bizarre statement. Most research projects Apple keeps to quiet that you never hear about them. This one was relatively loud and public. So given that your initial "fact" is completely wrong, let's ignore the rest of your logical inferences, okay?

In my view, Apple is likely looking to eventually own the mobile living room. They have lots of relevant expertise in that area. Whether they are successful at that we won't know for a long time. But there will be lots of automotive manufacturers looking to buy a solution from somebody. Apple's CarPlay is a small start.

 

[vikings123]

You guys have to be realistic.

$40,000 stock price? LOL... A market cap of $40 Trillion by 2030? C'mon guys.

+1. I think some of the projections from YouTube influencers are crazy for example Warren posted something on Twitter that Tesla will have 120 million cars sold in 2030. LOL what? Why not!

Not even Elon can be so pumped up. C’mon guys.

I love the general bullishness in this forum but make sure you also think independently about the risks in the short term and long term.

Also seeing a lot of posts comparing buying FSD to investing in TSLA. I get it’s natural to make those comparisons but life is short. If you can afford it just buy it and enjoy it.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

On snowy days drivers here drive in the paths made by preceding cars, which often do not fit nicely between the snowed-over lane markings. What will FSD do? Try to fit in the "proper" lanes and plough along with its tires in the slush ridge? or give up? So much for robo-taxis every bad weather day.

I am impressed by the recent successes of the beta version, but I am not expecting such a high level of capability where I live.

Machine learning can handle this quite easily, it'll be the learning curve that's a bit..... interesting.

I imagine a connected Tesla with live mapping will have no problem traversing roads that are merely 2 sets of tire treads once it's mature. A computer can know and see everything we can know and see, difference being it doesn't make "mistakes".

All that being said.....it'll be a while til these situations are fully automated.

 

[Mo City]

+1. I think some of the projections from YouTube influencers are crazy for example Warren posted something on Twitter that Tesla will have 120 million cars sold in 2030. LOL what? Why not!

Not even Elon can be so pumped up. C’mon guys.

I love the general bullishness in this forum but make sure you also think independently about the risks in the short term and long term.

Also seeing a lot of posts comparing buying FSD to investing in TSLA. I get it’s natural to make those comparisons but life is short. If you can afford it just buy it and enjoy it.

The person you responded to expects a $20T valuation for TSLA if legit FSD is achieved.