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

[MartinAustin]

It's 276 miles to Vinton, Louisiana just across the border. Teslas delivered to Houston (Texas' biggest regional market) don't have to get driven all the way back to Austin, so there's that.

Tesla charges $1200 for "destination+doc fee" so I'm gonna assume $1000 per vehicle for the federally-mandated delivery fee which, in an alternate universe where you pick up at the Gigafactory after having a factory tour... Tesla just pockets.

If you have to drive a vehicle transporter with four vehicles on it for $4,000 is that so unprofitable? Or... 5 vehicles on it for $5,000?

Perhaps Tesla will put in a Megacharger station at some point across the border so that their Semi trucks can re-charge and head back to the delivery location in Texas.

To deliver to Dallas, they could drive up to Thackerville, Oklahoma. And so on.

I mean the whole thing is a complete waste of time and energy (literally as well as figuratively) - but I think as Tesla's slice of the Texas car market increases, and the idiocy of that law becomes more apparent, it's going to be the Legislature with egg on their faces, not Tesla looking dumb for not using dealerships.

 

[Frank Einstein]

I was surprised to see a positive informative article for once on the BBC. (Although they could have stated that it’s because of Tesla that the transition is happening)
Nothing new for people on this forum but for the general public this could be an eye opener.

Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think

The BBC's Justin Rowlatt explains why we are accelerating towards an electric car future.

www.bbc.co.uk

Justin Rowlatt is a journalist I have a lot of time for. He's made some interesting documentaries, including one in Antarctica that was amazing and truly brought home the threat of climate change.

He's written a bit about Tesla, always fairly (not uncritically, but not FUD either). He deserves to be better known.

 

[InDaClub]

OT:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1399551910135336970

https://twitter.com/x/status/1399555549121875968

 

[SOULPEDL]

You think Tesla could just intentionally and blatantly break the law and that would generate positive press? There are LOTS and LOTS of dumb laws, but corporations are still obligated to operate in accordance with them.

It's a nice fantasy to imagine the "little guy" standing up to something unfair, but get real: the rest of the world is going to see a $600 billion dollar corporation headed by one of the richest men on Earth just blatantly defying the rules because he simply doesn't wanna follow them, and he's too rich to be held accountable. It'd be a disaster, and an incredibly dumb move on Tesla's part.

I think you're describing Elon sometimes. Yes, I think he would do that, and yes I think it would be a black eye for the state.

You thought I was kidding. Did the FAA keep him on the ground? When rules are DUMB, anything can happen with Tesla.

Kinda surprised it was del.

(Edit: FAA not FCC, re SpaceX)

 

[jerry33]

Tesla remove stuff that people don't use or want all the time. I have a model S 85D with a sunroof. Try getting that now. You can't. Why? My wife was the only person in the world who wanted one.
If cars contain every feature wanted by everyone they cost 10x as much and look like they were designed by homer simpson.
I'm glad I'm not paying for a feature nobody uses.

I used the pano roof almost every day in the long summers we have here to keep the car cooler (remember, there was no cabin overheat protection in 2013). I still vent the windows in the new X to save energy on the cabin overheat protection, but it's not nearly as effective as the pano roof was.

 

[Unpilot]

Man any buying pressure and the SP shoots up.
We are so primed for a breakout.....not advice.

 

[JRP3]

But it's funny that Tesla is ponying up for extremely expensive RDNA2 GPU's which are in one of the worst shortages of any semiconductor product due to being made in very limited quantities on TSMC's most advanced process, while at the same time removing the dirt cheap chips used to inflate a little air bladder that creates lumbar adjustment in the passenger side seat.

Elon said Tesla data showed it was rarely used on the passenger side. See below.

I'm so dumb I just now realized my car even had a lumbar support button thingy.

This means the entire mechanism no longer needs to be purchased or time taken to install.

 

[CLK350]

Re AMD's Ryzen and GPU in Tesla's infotainment system - note, AMD's CEO spilled the beans first, great too from an advert not an advert POV, as AMD is the new disruptor in tech, bypassing nVIDIA and burying Intel (lower power envelope, adaptive power consumption and super high compute power, bested only by Apple's M1).
Elon acknowledged the Tweet : " Yeah, new Model S & X have PS5 level entertainment computing power" - confirming the S/X models will have these for games. But I am scratching my head, as I suspect he's sandbagging the possible/ already implemented applications specific to the cars. For one, these CPU/ GPUs enable a near perfect rendition of landscapes/ terrain with their vector or is it ray processors ... and can be accessed remotely on your Mac/PC laptops ...couple that with the 8 cameras, the already available high def rendition of buildings and bridges in Google*'s (or Tesla's) databases, the data recognition algos for license plates with auto lookup of vehicle brand /history and you can well imagine how many projects are being worked upon. We'll probably see the best of them when the 4860 MY and M3's are out.

(*) Google, who announced on May 13 a joint partnership with SpaceX's Starlink project, to provide the cloud infrastructure part to internet coverage everywhere.

 

[22522]

The whole Tesla has to ship cars out of Texas before selling them situation is an annoyance, but its a non-issue. Sure will cost a little more to deliver to texas customers, but probably no more than it costs today to deliver from California to Texas. But logistically it will just mean keeping a few thousand cars extra in a large inventory lot over the state border in Louisiana or Oklahoma for Texas customers. So new orders get taken from that inventory daily, and Tesla replenishes it with new stock daily. Seems pretty simple logistics wise. It will mean a one time bump in inventory level, but then it will be steady state.

How does the sales tax work in Texas? If these vehicles are technically purchased out of state, does that mean Texas stands to lose tens of millions in sales taxes annually with this situation?

Not sure of all the details, but I do know that when I registered mine I paid Texas some money. There might be a little leverage there.

 

[Nocturnal]

They need 0 GOP votes to pass it- and they're not going to get any no matter what is in it anyway, so that's irrelevant.

We've seen this show before. Multiple times. We know how it turns out.

This is a re-run of the ACA. Or the last stimulus bill.

Weeks of asking for GOP input in order to put on a show of bipartisanship even though everyone knows the GOP has no interest in ever actually voting for it regardless of content, then the democrats pass it entirely on their own with every single republican that votes voting no in both houses.

That doesn't mean stuff in it won't change- a few democratic senators may require further bribing- but how anyone in the GOP plans to vote has nothing, at all, to do with the outcome.

It won't happen, mark my words. Just because they need zero GOP votes doesn't meant they want to wade into that crap storm just to appease a small piece of the base. Let's make it a friendly wager.

 

[2daMoon]

Not sure of all the details, but I do know that when I registered mine I paid Texas some money. There might be a little leverage there.

I think that if you pay tax in another state on a vehicle purchase, what you pay there goes toward whatever tax they calculate for Texas.
If what your receipt shows is less than, you pay the difference at registration. If it shows you paid equal or more than the Texas rate, you pay no tax, only the registration fees.

 

[lascavarian]

Not sure of all the details, but I do know that when I registered mine I paid Texas some money. There might be a little leverage there.

I think one possible pain point would be if some (even a small amount) money went to another state vs TX.

 

[Pezpunk]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1399555549121875968

Super excited about that CPU/GPU. It's really an absurdly impressive piece of hardware to be embedded in a car. Gaming will be fun, for sure, but also maps and UI and web pages and so forth will be butter smooth forever.

(side note, i've seen people confusing it with the FSD board -- that's a completely separate component. i'm sure we all get that, but i've seen confusion on Twitter)

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Tesla remove stuff that people don't use or want all the time. I have a model S 85D with a sunroof. Try getting that now. You can't. Why? My wife was the only person in the world who wanted one.
If cars contain every feature wanted by everyone they cost 10x as much and look like they were designed by homer simpson.
I'm glad I'm not paying for a feature nobody uses.

lumbar support is pretty critical to seat comfort, and since it's usually the same passenger, it would make sense why it doesn't get adjusted often after that initial adjustment.

 

[jerry33]

lumbar support is pretty critical to seat comfort, and since it's usually the same passenger, it would make sense why it doesn't get adjusted often after that initial adjustment.

Given that the lumbar support isn't hooked into anything (not part of driver profile), I doubt Tesla knows how much it's actually used.

 

[willow_hiller]

Given that the lumbar support isn't hooked into anything (not part of driver profile), I doubt Tesla knows how much it's actually used.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1399502851034869765

 

[elasalle]

Headline only ..(no content)

Tesla (TSLA) Gets Earlier German Approval for Start of Functional Tests - Bloomberg

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Gets Earlier German Approval for Start of Functional Tests - Bloomberg

www.streetinsider.com

+

https://twitter.com/x/status/1399734581985742860

 

[ThisStockGood]

Tesla remove stuff that people don't use or want all the time. I have a model S 85D with a sunroof. Try getting that now. You can't. Why? My wife was the only person in the world who wanted one.
If cars contain every feature wanted by everyone they cost 10x as much and look like they were designed by homer simpson.
I'm glad I'm not paying for a feature nobody uses.

Well. Your wife and me. Actually it's one of the reasons I keep my old MS2015. We love it. Just the two of us.

 

[elasalle]

lumbar support is pretty critical to seat comfort, and since it's usually the same passenger, it would make sense why it doesn't get adjusted often after that initial adjustment.

OK for most of the time (80-95%), when car is driven without any passengers (daily commute etc)

More uncomfortable for long family trips, for one more passenger.


Material world is full of items we do not use Tesla going Mary Kondo in aesthetics.
If enough people go FSD and stop touching the steering wheel, Tesla is gonna throw it out as well.

 

[Nocturnal]

If you had told me 2 weeks ago that "passenger seat automatic lumbar support" would be a topic as large as "bitcoin", I would have laughed in your face.