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

[Paul_SF]

Ok I watched it, I had watched it once before but really delved in more this evening. Yes they have some pretty smart people as part of the team, and it is exciting to see them try to get engineers working on the issue (this is sorely needed), but the real value at this point is that Elon is the only person actually capable of inspiring people to take it seriously.

I am someone who likes this research and subject, but I respectfully think they don’t have a serious group of researchers yet. My hope is that they will one day. There are some fantastic neuroscience researchers at the University of Texas. we need a Karpathy equivalent but in neuroscience and medicine and the problem is that person is going to be a weird mix of of a neurotologist and an academic. I love the idea and the mission of neuralink but they need to be building a wing of a major university and incredibly strong at basic research. I think the reason I care about neuralink being the weakest of Elon’s projects is because it’s the most important, and I don’t want it to be written off by real scientists that understand the challenge. I’m very thankful they are trying but want it not to suck or die an early death. Or worse, that it be associated with something like Theranos where engineers are tasked with solving a basic science question.

You read some of Max’s writing?

Max Hodak

 

[MP3Mike]

The article states prominently that Rivian plans "at least 3,500 fast chargers at 600 sites and at least 10,000 slower-charging “waypoints” at campsites, motels, hiking trailheads, and the like — all installed by 2024."

I'll probably get some pushback on this, but I hope that when Tesla opens up their Supercharger network to other vehicles, via an adapter, that they put a restriction on it that it can't be used by vehicles for which the manufacturer has a closed private charging network.

I think we need to be encouraging interoperability, and if Rivian owners are going to take advantage of the public CCS network, and Tesla Superchargers then their charging network needs to be open to everyone as well.

I suspect that Rivian owners will end up pissed about the "Rivian Waypoint" chargers, because unless they price them way too high I suspect they will get dominated by Teslas...

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Their headline is: Rivian Will Go Where Even Tesla Doesn’t Dare Care

FTFY

 

[TradingInvest]

I wonder if Burry has made the same amount of research on TSLA as he has done on the housing market prior to 2008. being a contrarian and betting on GME when it was way undervalued, I would have expected him to do the same when TSLA started the production hell of the Model 3 and the title was undervalued. I still don’t get why he is comparing Tesla to other auto manufacturers with all the software, hardware, energy, insurance divisions of TSLA.

I think Burry is way overrated. Shorting housing market was not that special. A lot of people saw the housing collapse coming in 2008. I closed my stock positions by end of 2007 anticipating housing and stock market crash in 2008. Soros even wrote a book about the crisis and how to prepare for it.

Going long GME was an easy case if anyone paid attention. Ryan Cohen was very clear he was going to takeover and transform the company, yet short position was at 140% on such a tiny company. I went long too. But Burry sold all his GME shares in December 2020, before the big rally. That shows he didn't understand the GME case at all.

I looked at Burry's reasons why TSLA is a good short. He is not better than the other TSLA shorts. He is worse in some sense because he wants to stay short when the stock goes against him. I guess he will be margin called at some point.

 

[Thekiwi]

VW sold 10.7M cars from 118 factories around the world in 2019 with a capacity of ~13M units.

This allows

1) VW to get behind many tariff walls/customs unions.

2) Engenders widespread political support, even within countries.

3) Protects against natural disasters in one location. One earthquake, tornado, tsunami etc won't wipe out your production.

4) Protects against manmade disasters like labor strikes or nationalizations in one particular country.

5) The one VW factory that is only producing BEVs previously made combustion engines. Many of the others can/will be converted to BEV/battery cell manufacturing in the future.

I think the majority of VWs plants will be able to produce EVs with various levels of retooling, so I dont think they can be called stranded assets at all.

Even Tesla factories have plenty of assets that you will also find in a standard ICE plant: The external structure itself that houses the lines, the surrounding warehousing/holding areas, the BIW assembly, Stamping presses, the general assembly lines filled with reprogrammable automation, the paint shops etc, the parts of the plants handling electricity/water/HVAC etc, the seperate plants dedicated to wheels/seats etc, the logistics and distribution facilities, the actual land itself, the consent rights to the environmental resources it uses. It is much easier/quicker/cheaper to retool these existing plants than it would be to acquire land, get building consents, build/order and install entire new production facilities.

 

[buttershrimp]

You read some of Max’s writing?

Max Hodak

Smart young man! I sure hope my criticism of the status of neuralink isn’t perceived as hating on it. The folks at neuralink are some bright and amazing individuals, but I also know enough about neuroscience to know what neuralink is trying to do is infinitely more complex than solving something like autonomous driving. i hope they get the support they need to go to a new level.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I think Burry is way overrated. Shorting housing market was not that special. A lot of people saw the housing collapse coming in 2008. I closed my stock positions by end of 2007 anticipating housing and stock market crash in 2008. Soros even wrote a book about the crisis and how to prepare for it.

Going long GME was an easy case if anyone paid attention. Ryan Cohen was very clear he was going to takeover and transform the company, yet short position was at 140% on such a tiny company. I went long too. But Burry sold all his GME shares in December 2020, before the big rally. That shows he didn't understand the GME case at all.

I looked at Burry's reasons why TSLA is a good short. He is not better than the other TSLA shorts. He is worse in some sense because he wants to stay short when the stock goes against him. I guess he will be margin called at some point.

Well Burry is one of those shorts who got one right, and got it right big. Much like Thanos before him, he has an ego to nurse now. He will ride his short into the core of the Earth the same way Thanos did while spouting nonsense about how balance is how it should be. At least he has self-banned from Twitter now so we don't need to hear about it anymore. If he's going to take his short to a 300% loss before he capitulates he can do it quietly and no one will care. Now that's balance and how it should be.

 

[30seconds]

I don’t think Tesla will deliver 1m cars this year but I do think Q4 production will be over 250k

And next year will be easy 1m

 

[Mo City]

I don’t think Tesla will deliver 1m cars this year but I do think Q4 production will be over 250k

And next year will be easy 1m

This time next year (or probably much earlier), we'll be talking about 2M in 2022 the way we are about 1M in 2021 now.

(In fact, I already did 6 months ago).

 

[MC3OZ]

I don’t think Tesla will deliver 1m cars this year but I do think Q4 production will be over 250k

And next year will be easy 1m

It is hard to factor in the expansions at Shanghai, the construction at Berlin and Austin and how soon it will result production.

If we add in 25K Model S/X to Q1 we are easily over 200K per quarter.

But for 1m to be in play I think we need a substantial lift in production from Shanghai in Q2. So something like 220 or more cars produced in Q2, then it definely needs some production from Berlin in Q3.

I agree 1m is no walk in the park.

 

[mickificki]

I think Burry is way overrated. Shorting housing market was not that special. A lot of people saw the housing collapse coming in 2008. I closed my stock positions by end of 2007 anticipating housing and stock market crash in 2008. Soros even wrote a book about the crisis and how to prepare for it.

Going long GME was an easy case if anyone paid attention. Ryan Cohen was very clear he was going to takeover and transform the company, yet short position was at 140% on such a tiny company. I went long too. But Burry sold all his GME shares in December 2020, before the big rally. That shows he didn't understand the GME case at all.

I looked at Burry's reasons why TSLA is a good short. He is not better than the other TSLA shorts. He is worse in some sense because he wants to stay short when the stock goes against him. I guess he will be margin called at some point.

Been a long time. Good to see you posting.

 

[Mich]

It appears that we are excited about the opening on Monday morning. Hopefully we will see a bounce back over $700. Does anyone have experience with watching the premarket trading value on mornings after a surprise beat on P&D or earnings? Is there a opportunity to purchase some additional shares prior to the market opening and hopefully what turns out to be a 10%+ day.

It's tsla. When you expect it to pop, it will drop

(To be clear, I expect it to pop as well. )

 

[Jack6591]

ADAS Operator?

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Tesla’s FSD Announcement Points To Future Robotaxis Cities | Torque News

Tesla has posted many job offers in major cities where workers will be testing out Tesla's FSD software capabilities. This means Tesla could be planning on having their own Robotaxi fleets.

www.google.com

The next few weeks should prove very interesting.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Had a chance to do just that. Not seeing much progress and factory was dead quiet with not much to see. No S&X visible in the delivery yard and it was mostly empty so I didn't fly there today. Here you go, enjoy:

Also, thought this was funny...

View attachment 650663

Thanks - Kato Rd is looking more finished to me compared to the previous video. There is less of the parking lot allocated to construction material. Given that Elon said at battery day that full volume production wouldn't be achieved at Kato Rd until 2022, the progress seems to be well on track. I'm hoping to see a big box sitting outside the factory with 4680 written on the side but that's probably too much to hope for.

One thing I'm curious about is where the raw material is kept. Presumably they need to hold many tonnes of annode/cathode powder and rolls of aluminium on site as part of the production process, but I haven't seen any storage silos or rolls of aluminium. I thought that might be another indicator of volume production - the more cells they are making the more material they would need at hand. Have you seen it on site? Perhaps it's small enough just to be held inside the building?

 

[CorneliusXX]

I'll probably get some pushback on this, but I hope that when Tesla opens up their Supercharger network to other vehicles, via an adapter, that they put a restriction on it that it can't be used by vehicles for which the manufacturer has a closed private charging network.

I think we need to be encouraging interoperability, and if Rivian owners are going to take advantage of the public CCS network, and Tesla Superchargers then their charging network needs to be open to everyone as well.

I suspect that Rivian owners will end up pissed about the "Rivian Waypoint" chargers, because unless they price them way too high I suspect they will get dominated by Teslas...

I think a better way would be for Tesla just to charge a punitive rate for electricity to charge vehicles with their own closed charging network. That way Tesla makes more money, doesn't alienate part of the EV community, and gets the customers of the relevant OEM to complain to the OEM to open up their network.

 

[insaneoctane]

Let 'em all try their best, it'll just wind the spring tighter even if they do manage to suppress any breakout. We can wait...

Not to tempt fate, but I think the spring is too tight now for the MM to do more than weigh the movement down some...

Next question is of course.....when is the split coming? Share price should probably cross $1k in the run up to 4Q earnings. Time for another 5:1 split IMO, and if I get a vote.....a CASH RAISE. You can never have too many gigafactories.

Last split was around 1,500. I really think splitting anywhere near 1,000 will benefit the stock because while some brokers allow partial shares, not all do. Young investors can be very excited about Tesla, but with limited means, may not be able to purchase TSLA at $1K. As they save up for days, weeks, or even months to get ONE share, maybe they buy ETSY or SHOP due to temptation to invest....

For Tesla to become the world’s largest company in the next few years, FSD is required.

Elon’s comment on becoming the world’s largest company was made on an FSD thread...

You need to think bigger. Much bigger.
Continent, yes I think it might be possible.
New Zealand or maybe Australia if I stretch it a bit.

You people and your island talk must have WAY more TSLA than me...

 

[insaneoctane]

Here’s a fun weekend challenge to get us to Monday sooner.....
Who has the largest spread between their cheapest shares and their most expensive shares purchased? Please always adjust the prices for the split to make the math easy...

I’ll go first. Can anyone beat $705.05 ?
lowest is $17.80
highest is $722.85

 

[Xepa777]

Here’s a fun weekend challenge to get us to Monday sooner.....
Who has the largest spread between their cheapest shares and their most expensive shares purchased? Please always adjust the prices for the split to make the math easy...

I’ll go first. Can anyone beat $705.05 ?
lowest is $17.80
highest is $722.85

adjusting for split, my cheapest shares in 2013 were at $11. And I bought shares at $880. So that’s a $869 difference lol.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Off topic for weekend - UK Family EV car convoy/charging/efficiency video

They seemed to get EPA/better type ranges (warm day, convoy, some roadworks)

Charged to 95%, then off to Gridserve & then timed

1) how long to get enough juice to drive back
2) get back to original 95%

Good mix of 7 year old S85, X75, new 3LR, Hyundai Kona, Kia e-Nero, ID4, Etron 55 (owned by EV dealer & friends/clients)

Hyundai/Kia efficient but slow charge, Audi opposite. M3LR best

Includes Gridserve visit (charging hub with their own 350KW + V3 Tesla chargers but Tesla ones were not available)

About 160 miles (2.5-3 hours according to google on a quiet Sunday). The M3LR could have done return trip (just about) - ie 5-6 hours travel time!

Spoiler: Timings from video description

Recharged to get home;
1st. 7 minutes - Tesla Model 3 LR
2nd. 16 minutes - Audi e-tron 55
3rd. 16 minutes - Kyundai Kona
4th. 19 minutes - Kia e-Nero
5th. 19 minutes - VW ID4
6th. 44 minutes - X75D
7th. 57 minutes - 2014 Tesla S85

Recharged to replenish ALL used.
1st. 27 minutes - Audi Etron 55
2nd. 35 minutes - Tesla Model 3 LR
3rd. c. 48 minutes - VW ID4
4th. 60 minutes - Hyundai Kona

The rest didn’t quite replenish. Too slow/had to leave etc.
Kia e-Nero stopped after 60 minutes at 92%
Model X stopped after 54 minutes at 91%
S85 stopped after 57 minute at 84%

Most expensive car to refill: etron £14.98 to charge to 100% (I spent more in the shop)

 

[aubreymcfato]

I have the view opposite of yours: Neuralink has the most profound and consequential potential of the litter—though it‘ll play out as a dark horse.

Perhaps it is easier to see its value as a multiplier of human potential. If you were ten, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand times smarter than others, how well would you do in, say, the market? The one eyed man or woman rules in the land of the blind as Elon has amply demonstrated.

Also, solving aging will not be enough, we’ll need upgrades to compete and survive. It isn’t just AI that we’re in competition with. Mutants of extraordinary capability are cropping up (only slightly exaggerating here, for example: Who Are These Kids, and What Are They Doing to Jazz? from the NY Times).

Further, the internet enables an unprecedented ability to winnow. Who’s to say that the Western Liberal tradition will prevent breakaway and fragmentation of human civilization as we reach into space, even with just baby steps into this solar system?

Say that Neuralink ‘only’ solves addiction and sensory-motor control issues, that is a big deal and a big business.

In the larger picture, the pandemic may have made things seem like they’re slowing down, but technological changes are gathering speed and power.

I must say that Neuralink worries me. If what you says happens, there are dangerous possible scenarios ahead of us.
I hope (but optimistic) that Elon thinks about that. A device that lets you be 1000x intelligent than others must be distributed with care. You don't want WS sharks to be the first to have it, nor dictators or serial killers.

Both intelligence and economic resources are already unevenly distributed in the world, but right now there is a difference: "intelligence" (whatever we wanna call it) follows a "bell curve", which is the natural distribution related to randomness. When nature is involved, bell curves occurs.
But economic resources follow an exponential/Pareto/power law/long tail distribution. The shape of the curve is completely different, which means that the "distance" between maximum and minimum values is completely different.
In a power law the distance between a mean value and the max van be staggering. It's the difference between Bezos/Musks and the middle class: we are talking hundreds of billions.
The mechanics are the same: if you are much more intelligent this changes everything, like a World Chess champion playing against first-time beginners. You can basically win all games at the same time without effort.

Elon is a libertarian, but he is pro-regulation regarding AI: this is not by chance.
I hope he will be pro some kind of regulation regarding a true Neuralink intelligence-multiplier device.