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

[tivoboy]

Are you timing for sub $1100 or $1000 according to a previous post of yours?

At this point more the sub $1000 level

 

[JustMe]

At this point more the sub $1000 level

We will definitely see sub $1,000 again this year, but it’s hard to predict when since the next split hasn’t been announced yet.

 

[jbcarioca]

Bjorn Nyland bought a Model 3 in Thailand. It wasn't properly configured for Thailand at the start (Hong Kong import via big dealer).

Even so, autopilot was working without maps. Can't remember if FSD (unlikely I guess).

There are a few dozen Teslas operating in Brazil. Street and road markings are 'inconsistent'. I understand that they operate with autopilot quite decently.
By contrast my Volvo with lane keeping and ACC is generally too dangerous for me to use.
I have no personal experience with Tesla here in Brazil.
I have used Autopilot on some horrible roads in the NYC area and numerous other locations as bad as or worse than those in Rio de Janeiro.
Autopilot and the Tesla approach IMO is the only one with possibility of working without specific mapping. From an immediate investment perspective I cannot imagine income recognition anytime soon so I value it as zero. As a human, I expect them to solve for level 3 within the next few months, For level 4 by early next year and for Level 5 eventually, but level 5 represents such a huge leap that I really don't expect it for at least a few years.

The advances thus far are becoming economically valuable, but are nothing approaching Full Self Driving. That many of us pay for that, including me, three times, is a function of desire to accelerate these capabilities.

There are copious reason for a high TSLA valuation. FSD need not be one of those. OTOH, that will be rather like reusable rockets. Impossible until it happens.

 

[ggies07]

Maybe. There would have to be a whole lot of recycled cell phone and laptop batteries for it to be very significant. When EV's are growing exponentially, recycling batteries from 10+ year old EV's will simply not provide a meaningful amount of material, relative to production volumes that have been growing exponentially for a decade or more. On the bright side, many of those older batteries will be particularly rich in certain elements (like cobalt) that have been drastically reduced in more modern formulations.

Of course, every little bit helps.

That's true, but I thought right now JB said there is enough material in old phones/electronics that it could be useful to the industry...so I'm thinking that supply will maintain Tesla's lead/sales until 10 years hit.

EDIT: replied before seeing @nativewolf response.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The only correct way to do redundancy is to have 3-fold redundancy, and work with a vote. But that would mean each stack should be identical of the technology, since 2 stacks of vision and one stack of radar will never result in 3 identical results, nor will there be a chance where one stack of vision and one stack of radar will agree, and the 2nd stack of vision will disagree.

Clearly, driving does not require redundancy or else drivers would have 3 eyes and wait to hear from the back seat before deciding what to do next. /s

No, the only practical solution is computer vision, and just slowing down when faced with uncertainty in the path or obstacles. This simple heuristic is fundamental to keep new human drivers safe, and should be practiced in any new technology for autonomous driving.

IMO, Tesla has the right approach to FSD because they aren't afraid to stop barking up the wrong tree. It just takes time, because there are a lot of trees to bark at...

Cheers!

 

[nativewolf]

Clearly, driving does not require redundancy or else drivers would have 3 eyes and wait to hear from the back seat before deciding what to do next. /s

No, the only practical solution is computer vision, and just slowing down when faced with uncertainty in the path or obstacles. This simple heuristic is fundamental to keep new human drivers safe, and should be practiced in any new technology for autonomous driving.

IMO, Tesla has the right approach to FSD because they aren't afraid to stop barking up the wrong tree. It just takes time, because there are a lot of trees to bark at...

Cheers!

Doesn't require redundancy...hmmmm...so that's what my dad was telling my mom all those years. He didn't explain it quite like that.

 

[Electroman]

Ironically he was actually pretty smart but somehow turned into a moron.

That is what blind visceral hatred (and anger) does. Makes them stupid.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Shanghai factory looks a lot more finished, so I would be a bit surprised to hear Texas starting production this week.

The outside appearance of the buildings reveals very little. Giga Shanghai production began with the bare minimum of locally produced parts. Battery packs and drive units were all imported from Nevada for at least the 1st 6 mths of production. LG Chem battery cells weren't produced locally for nearly a year.

Further, its Phase 2 of Giga Shanghai which is the comparable factory, since that is where the Model Y is produced. It required extra production units like the Gigapress building before Model Y production could begin.

No, the fair comparison isn't in pictures of the "candy wrapper", its in Permits issued by local governments. Giga Shanghai got their Final Inspection permit in Oct '19 (it was discussed here at the time), and trial production began in November, with 1st deliveries occurring at a special event which Elon attended at the end of Dec.

Giga Texas got its inspection permits last month, and we already know that trial production has begun from numerous pictures of finished Model Y cars inside the plant at Giga Texas. Production is imminent. I do expect that there will be some sort of recognition of the first Model Y delivered from Austin.

Tesla is already compiling the paperwork necessary for Giga Texas’ smooth opening

It appears that Tesla has learned some lessons following the delays that have plagued Gigafactory Berlin’s launch. In a recent report, the Austin Business Journal noted that Tesla is already gathering the necessary paperwork to ensure that Giga Texas could be launched smoothly. While there has...

www.teslarati.com

Cheers!

 

[StealthP3D]

I think TSLA might confirm the recent move up very soon, perhaps as soon as today.

 

[Xd85]

I think TSLA might confirm the recent move up very soon, perhaps as soon as today.

i'm curious to know what your definition of "confirm" is.

 

[NicoV]

Here is the latest:

I am not impressed. In the drive they did the car was not very consistently centered and to be frank(pun intendend) they showed very easy scenarios. And the way they talk is so lacking anything that would make talent want to join them compared to Tesla AI Day.

7:50 the question from Herbert Diess is lol, would Elon ever ask that kind of question? And the answer is also so weird. What’s that all about?

9:58 he says that it would be impossible to drive without the map. I think Tesla can do it without a map.

13:05 you can see cars flickering out as they are occuluded showing they don’t have memory in the neural network as Tesla showed during AI day. Nor do I think they are doing camera fusion in the neural network as it struggles with larger vehicles visible over multiple cameras seen a few seconds later.

Calling their camera SuperVision is pretty lame given that in machine learning already uses the term supervised learning and the driver is supposed to supervise the system in lvl4.

Those are very interesting observations. I’ve watched that video too and also have the impression that they are (way) behind Tesla’s FSD technologically.

Disclosure: I bought MobilEye stock many years ago when I became aware that they provided (part of) the autopilot V1 and wanted to own a pure-play autonomous driving stock. I sold my Mobileye stock for a nice profit when Intel acquired Mobileye, using the proceeds to buy more TSLA (not a bad decision in hindsight )

Apart from the technological aspect visible in this video, I see a couple of interesting business aspects surfacing in this video.

Mobileeye may not be the technological leader, but they’ll probably be (actually ‘remain’ is probably a better word) the volume leader. As such, they may extract a lot of value and profit from the driving assistance market. It’s clear that neither Ford nor Volkswagen have the desire or capability to build their own system, and are content with buying a system from Mobileye. Smaller car manufacturers have even less capability here. When Mobileye IPO’s again sometime this year, I’m considering buying some as they will probably give a nice return over the next decade, and as a hedge in case something goes terribly wrong with FSD.

The video also makes clear why Mobileye and Tesla stopped their cooperation. There were rumours that Tesla didn’t want to give away their driving data to Mobileye, and it’s exactly that what Mobileye is now selling in their cloud based mapping product. It‘s such an essential part of Mobileye solution (high definition mapping, kept up to date via crowd sourcing) that Mobileye couldn’t continue without that data. Tesla has come to the conclusion that high def mapping doesn’t work because you still need excellent computer vision. And Mobileye probably wouldn’t have a product that worked without high def maps. We’ll see who will be right technologically, but both Mobileye and Tesla have made a choice that can make them a lot of money.

 

[jerry33]

Bjorn Nyland bought a Model 3 in Thailand. It wasn't properly configured for Thailand at the start (Hong Kong import via big dealer).

Even so, autopilot was working without maps. Can't remember if FSD (unlikely I guess).

FSD should work the same way it does now when you turn it on without using the Nav.

 

[StealthP3D]

i'm curious to know what your definition of "confirm" is.

A reversal of yesterday.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

They're not gonna execute, but at least both Ford and GM have now capitulated to the fact trucks will need to be EVs or you're dead.

It's gonna be ugly and slow but this was the plan. Tesla forces the entire market to electrify.

CNBC just had a segment on EV trucks, and Queen Mary will be on later today revealing the EV Silverado, they're at least openly admitting EV is the only future.

 

[ZsoZso]

One less thing to deal with…

Nikola drops $2 billion patent infringement lawsuit against Tesla

After recently settling with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and agreeing to pay $125 million over federal security law violations, Nikola Corp. has dropped its $2 billion patent infringement lawsuit against Tesla. According […]

driveteslacanada.ca

This should cause the SP to rise at least 2%, right ?!?
I do not remember how much it dropped when the law suit filing was reported, but I'm sure it had a negative impact, so logically that should be reversed now.
Yeah, I know who am I kidding looking for logic in the market...

 

[ZachF]

Well in Amazon's case, the reason the stock has flatlined for the past couple of years and really only up 66% in the last 4 years or so is because the promise of those giant profits hasn't really materialized. The idea was that once the ecommerce business grew to such a scale, profits would just suddenly start pouring in. That hasn't really happened and investors have started to question just how much profit will actually be rolling in and when.

Whereas it's been difficult to really tell how much profits should be expected of Amazon in the future, Tesla's future earnings and profits are so easy to see.........except that Wall St just choses to ignore them.....oh well good for us now that Tesla's at scale to force the issue

Labor costs are gonna eat more and more into Amazon, because at their turnover rate they’re going to run out of people who haven’t worked there….

 

[StealthP3D]

That's true, but I thought right now JB said there is enough material in old phones/electronics that it could be useful to the industry...so I'm thinking that supply will maintain Tesla's lead/sales until 10 years hit.

EDIT: replied before seeing @nativewolf response.

Right. That's why I acknowledged it would take a whole lot of cell phones/laptops to put a dent in this. My main point is the volume of batteries in the timeframe of 2025-2027 will be so astronomically large relative to all the batteries produced a decade or more earlier, that the contribution of raw materials from the recycling stream will be truly miniscule, relatively speaking. It's absolutely necessary to start recycling now, but the ratio of reclaimed/virgin materials will not be very large until after 2030 due to the long useful life of batteries and the exponential growth rate. It's only after battery production curves start to level off that the reclaimed materials percentage (of new production) can climb above 2-3%.

Do not under-estimate the magnitudes of difference in battery volumes between the two eras (2010-2017 vs. 2025-2027 and beyond). Anyone who takes issue with this point does not understand how quickly battery production will ramp and how large production volumes will be.

 

[nativewolf]

Yep. Tesla has succeeded. As long as they keep pressure up by finishing the Shanghai expansion, Berlin, and Austin the rest of the world will have little option but to race to catch up.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

They're not gonna execute, but at least both Ford and GM have now capitulated to the fact trucks will need to be EVs or you're dead.

It's gonna be ugly and slow but this was the plan. Tesla forces the entire market to electrify.

CNBC just had a segment on EV trucks, and Queen Mary will be on later today revealing the EV Silverado, they're at least openly admitting EV is the only future.

 

[ZachF]

Stockpiling cash with potential inflation fire is not exactly a safety measure is it?

How do we interpret the 'roaring 20s' references Elon keeps flaunting?

Well, the 20s did start out with a pandemic, harsh recessions, and inflation crises….

 

[StealthP3D]

Labor costs are gonna eat more and more into Amazon, because at their turnover rate they’re going to run out of people who haven’t worked there….

Do not under-estimate how AI and automation in order fulfillment will transform the company away from labor. Like it or not, it's the future and I don't see anyone else as well positioned to take the lead. Hopefully, Rivian is successful in the first stage of this transformation, electrifying the ground delivery fleet, because I can smell the fumes when I accept deliveries. I'm looking forward to the delivery fleets of USPS, Amazon, FedEx being fully electrified in a big way. They have huge pollution footprints.