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

[brianhn1]

Montana Skeptic articulates the bull case pretty well in the comments. I wonder if it’s the same Montana Skeptic?

I thought the same until I looked closely, missing the K. Montana Septic (Tank?)

 

[H Mak]

Don't know if people have seen this

 

[Runarbt]

Montana Skeptic articulates the bull case pretty well in the comments. I wonder if it’s the same Montana Skeptic?

Nah.. that's just me, with my Twitter alter ego. Septic without the k

 

[Bouboule]

Mobileye has no vehicles on the road with their full sensor suite (even vision only) collecting data. And they will have very little this year.

Lots of miles of sensor data from a single forward camera doesn't count for FSD data.

I agree that the quality of the data is definitely not the same, but the fact that they are working with multiple OEMs at the same time shows that they could be ramping faster than we think if things go well. I haven't seen much info on what car they have integrated their hardware.

 

[capster]

There is a difference between having a system that works all over (Mobileye is not there yet either) and being competitive with Tesla. Mobileye uses more expensive power-hungry lidar and computers. I'm not sure how many watts it consumes but, if it's too high, it could limit it's use to gas cars only.

Even if they get the power low enough to make it practical on EV's, you have the problem of cost. Integrating roof-top lidar into the bodywork so it doesn't cause excessive aerodynamic drag is not cheap or convenient. The lidar is not cheap. Cost is typically an important consideration when determining competitiveness as well as it's suitability to be used on EV's in actual commercial service.

Putting lidar into the roof likely affects design and passenger comfort as well in an EV with a skateboard or in floor battery position.

Batteries in the floor raise the passenger cabin. If you want to preserve headroom, you could raise the roofline. This increases drag. It also adds another challenge for the designers beyond dealing with the lidar helmet.

Alternatively, you could use a glass roof to avoid the padding and insulation of a metal roof and get a little headroom there. Of course then you probably couldn’t have a lidar helmet.

If an organization isn’t comprised of silos and folks communicate, it might go to greater lengths to avoid lidar.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Would love to see Tesla build a reimagined Gigafactory in India that's not vehicle focused. Primarily a cell manufacturing operation with several lines of different vehicle packs and finished energy products. That's what the Indian market needs and would fit the mission most. Just building Model 3's(or even 2's) would be silly and far less impactful IMO.

 

[boonedocks]

It is far more than the gas tax I use to pay on my daily commute ~25 miles a day. GA gas tax is one of the lowest in the entire country and the yearly fee is generally more than majority of drivers would pay.
Using an average 25mpg, GA drivers would have to drive more than 16,930 miles per year for them to have the yearly EV fee be less than gas tax.

Applying your example....I am MUCH better paying the EV tax vs per gallon tax as it is much less for me.

 

[thx1139]

View attachment 627199
Link to Twitter thread by Tesla Facts

Am I understanding this right?

Tesla making $585 million betting against bets made against Tesla

 

[SOULPEDL]

Some EV taxes should go towards Boring Tunnels and real Chargers IMO. We don't need to rebuild past infrastructure, we need to rethink it completely.

Like abundant office space, roads can maybe even downsize to focus on transport efficiency/costs overall. Do we need to replace a rusty bridge, or can we just put the river back the way it looked before and just Bore underneath it? Remove height limits on waterways, just open em up. How well do boring tunnels recover from floods I wonder?

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

I found this video relevant to understand some of Tesla’s competition for FSD:

Mobileye seems to have gotten pretty far, at least in development. With Intel behind them, they will be a very serious competitior to Tesla.

Not sure ...
At 09:14 they show 1/5 of the trunk filled with hardware: How is that ever going to scale?
Also, the complexity of doing a generalized FSD across multiple vendors/carmakers, all with individual differences in built-tolerances for placing sensors and motors seems difficult and error prone.
As discussed at length at various times in this forum, traditional automakers are not really digital in their mindset. They don't understand version control or full-stack hardware-software integration.
So, if Mobileye wants to do a FSD solution with high quality for all (or a lot of) automakers, they pretty much have to assume the burden of understanding each automakers internal stack of hardware, drivers and tech, to the level of tracking individual versions of suppliers of the smallest element of the automakers tech stack, for example a steering wheel controller and/or motor.
They have to do this version control management in close to real time for all manufacturers. And then also in real time adjust their multiple branching code to reflect changes in hardware or software of any sub-component in the tech stack.

Alternatively, Mobileye have to sell each manufacturer a fully integrated chip-sensor-software-motor-control-braking package. If they can get the OEMs to sign up for that, great: Mobileye will then have one more unit in the world doing fleet learning. And they can charge a lot for the FSD hardware-software package.
But, the OEMs agreeing to such terms will be reduced to at metal-box makers. What is left for the OEM to set themselves apart in the market if they sign away control of self-driving including motor response and driving 'feel'?
Interior design? Branding?

 

[winfield100]

Largest at 83 mW are you serious??? China just brought on line a 2,200 mW solar farm. World’s largest solar plant goes online in China We are not even in the same ball park.

@dhrivnak apologies for being confusing
2 seperate projects,
one west of Charlottesville, Va, 83 megawatt PV farm
one in Ventura California is battery project
(BUT this is OT and i don't want the hammer of ghod descending upon me)

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Very good. I get into this all the time when people say X is making Y electric car. Look into it and X is making 50K of them to sell in 2021 to compete with the Model Y. Really Tesla going to sell upwards of 500K and X is going to sell 50K. That is competition that is compliance.

Or that X is “planning to make” Y electric, shows the concept but never actually builds it or sells it in your state/country. We’ve seen this since the 1980s. The only difference today is that Tesla proved it was possible and so various governments around the world started creating specific future goals around emissions. With my TSLA gains, I’m planning to buy the model Y for a family member who will soon need a car. This person has now spent time reading about various EVs and concluded that the Nissan Ayria is better because the Y is made in China, and there’s a local Nissan dealership. It was a hard two hour phone call explaining that almost NONE of those phantom EVs will be available within five years or even available in a non-CARB state.

 

[Cult Member]

Largest at 83 mW are you serious??? China just brought on line a 2,200 mW solar farm. World’s largest solar plant goes online in China We are not even in the same ball park.

Careful, please.
1 W = 1000 mW
1,000,000 W = 1 MW

 

[2daMoon]

Or that X is “planning to make” Y electric, shows the concept but never actually builds it or sells it in your state/country. We’ve seen this since the 1980s. The only difference today is that Tesla proved it was possible and so various governments around the world started creating specific future goals around emissions. With my TSLA gains, I’m planning to buy the model Y for a family member who will soon need a car. This person has now spent time reading about various EVs and concluded that the Nissan Ayria is better because the Y is made in China, and there’s a local Nissan dealership. It was a hard two hour phone call explaining that almost NONE of those phantom EVs will be available within five years or even available in a non-CARB state.

Maybe it would be easier to say, "Let's go test drive both and see which one you like better."

 

[Tslynk67]

Montana Skeptic articulates the bull case pretty well in the comments. I wonder if it’s the same Montana Skeptic?

Larry the Fossil has always been very articulate and speaks well, just that what he's actually saying is complete nonsense...

 

[Tslynk67]

Am I understanding this right?

Tesla making $585 million betting against bets made against Tesla

Yes indeed. We discussed it in quite some detail back in the day (a couple of years, I think), when Fact Checking (=Truth Tesla) was a regular here. I had totally forgotten about it, but has been known for a long time

 

[phantasms]

Told you not to hit the red button.

 

[StealthP3D]

Actually Mobile Eye is working on a vision based solution with no lidar. They also are not the least bit power hungry - their power levels might be lower than Tesla's. What they don't have is the vast real-world driving data (and ability to collect same) that Tesla does.

Did you watch the recent Mobileye presentation? They call their vision-only system Supervision and it's a Level II driver-assist. They say they need lidar, HD mapping and radar to reduce MTBF to an acceptable level. But even with reducing the cost of lidar to a minimum, it costs 10 times as much as radar. So they are trying to develop leading edge radar capabilities because the high cost of lidar is at cross-purposes to competitiveness.

Their current test system has an entire PC in the trunk. Before they try to commercialize it they will need to transition to a specialized, low-power FSD computer. Basically, they are taking a shot-gun approach to FSD and they are looking at a 2025 target. If Tesla succeeds in creating a FSD within one to two years, there will be no real competition for at least a couple of years, probably more.

 

[hobbes]

https://twitter.com/garyblack00/status/1349342118515503105

Lot of chatter in credit markets that Moody’s could upgrade $TSLA to equivalent of S&P’s BB rating (Moody’s at B2, two below S&P), given 2021 leverage ratios (Debt/Ebitda), operating metrics (GM%, Ebitda growth) and massive equity-to-debt all imply investment grade status by Y.E.

 

[Discoducky]

Expect Tesla's solar margins to go up in the near future due to more vertical integration. Confirmation from a Tesla advisor that new installations will use a Tesla branded inverter instead of third party (SolarEdge/Delta): Solar advice

Huge news! This development is no joke as a whole new inverter for solar would be a 2 to 3 year endeavor. I would expect much greater efficiency as well as lower cost of parts; hopefully hight quality and longevity as well.