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

[insaneoctane]

The day to day, hour to hour, minutiae obsessionon with the TSLA share price here on TMC is discouraging, the chaff. Yet I keep coming back to TMC for the wheat, the informative and compelling posts by many here on why Tesla is a keeper and deserves our investment. Thank you for those that don't post the TSLA price in German market opening, pre-market, % increase/decrease throughout the day, market close, and post-market. We all know where to find these and this would cut down on 50% of the posts making this thread far more manageable. I remember when I could read through this thread daily in 10 minutes.

I'm into my forth year as a Tesla Model 3 owner and today, for only the 2nd time, I had range anxiety. Not having plugged in my garage for a couple of weeks, I did not notice until I was out for a drive today far from home that I had 25km range left. I asked my Tesla to "Navigate to nearest SuperCharger Station" and was directed to one 19km away that showed 4 charges available, 1 charger not working and 15 chargers in active use. So off I go, travelling at 110km/hr hwy driving, with outdoor temp of -4 degrees Celcius and I arrived with 1km remaining. I have no idea how long my Tesla will drive once down to zero km however glad I did not have to find out. I arrive at the SuperCharger fully knowing that I have working chargers availalble, plug and play simplicity, very fast and reliable charging, and a safe environment with other like-minded Tesla owners. A relaxing 15 minutes later I left with 192km of charge and was off to the races, all for $7.68 CAD (while Regular gas is $1.49/litre CAD and Premium gas is $1.74/litre CAD). Tesla's SuperCharger Network is vastly underrated. Tesla's SuperCharger Network is an absolutely brilliant move and sets itself vastly apart from all the other EV manufacturers and their customers whom have to suffer through the vast uncertainly of spontaneous, hit and miss, charging far from home. There really is no competition. Period. Yes, Tesla deserves my investment. Thank you Tesla.

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I guess the new V11 GUI doesn't change the battery icon color like V10 did....it used to go yellow then red, yours shows 1km remaining and still green???

Glad you made it!

 

[Cult Member]

I guess the new V11 GUI doesn't change the battery icon color like V10 did....it used to go yellow then red, yours shows 1km remaining and still green???

Glad you made it!

I guess the car was already plugged in and the color changed from red to green immediately?

 

[Words of HABIT]

I guess the new V11 GUI doesn't change the battery icon color like V10 did....it used to go yellow then red, yours shows 1km remaining and still green???

Glad you made it!

Yes, the charging icon colour went from green to yellow to red. I took the photo immediately after plugging in the Charger so it had turned to green for charging.

 

[Christine69420]

I’m guessing you weren’t old enough to be around for 2008 and 2000…

I am old enough... I had nothing invested but i worked creating websites and applications. So the problem in 2000 was that many had good ideas for how to make money off the internet. They were just a bit early. And investors saw everything trough rose tinted glasses. If you had an idea about selling pet food online then you were suddenly worth billions.

This at a time when decent online infrastructure we now take for granted did not exist. And many people were not online. But many of the ideas were decent enough. They were just bought up and triggered stock rallies giving valuations they could not defend when they had little or no revenue. So the bubble burst.

This time we have the infrastructure in place. And many of the new(ish) companies are making money. Having decent revenues. And making a profit. So it's really unfair to compare them with the Dot Com era.

 

[Krugerrand]

During my own lifetime there are been episodes of mass hysteria, none of which actually needed conspiracy, only ignorance and fear of the unknown.
Here are TMC we have tended to be a rational bunch, biased in favor of our passion, to be sure.
Recently we've tended a trifle towards conspiracy visions to justify negative views of TSLA.
We need no conspiracies to understand these views:
1. Auto dealers cannot be expected to be favorably disposed towards a company that does not use them;
2. Petroleum companies might not favor entities which are devoted to excluding use of fossil fuels.
3. Can anybody imagine why an operator of a gasoline vendor would favor an entity that seeks their demise?
4. Should union leaders and advocates favor entities that do not have unionized workforces?
5. Why should rating agencies favor a company that does not issue new ratable securities?
6. Why would investment bankers favor entity that does not regularly issue new securities of any kind?
..and this list goes on.

No conspiracies required. All these and more are entities that are threatened directly by the business model and plans of an entity that thrives by unsetting the status quo.

We really should stop imagining coordinated action and simply understand that many parts of the commercial world are threatened by greater or lesser extent by Tesla, SpaceX and what they represent. They need not coordinate for their common interests are obvious to all of them.

It is transparently obvious that the massive TSLA derivatives are a successful attempt to make money when conventional means will not work. Gullible, ignorant and/or greedy speculators greatly ease their efforts. Importantly institutional investors can 'innocently' engage in securities lending that lets them reduce carrying costs from non-dividend-paying security while incurring little risk.

SO, what do they need to conspire? Obviously, they do not. It's less risky to just understand their shared interests.

Every time we berate volatility, understated that volatility keeps the whole marker thriving, for the major players.
Retail ones can never thrive in this environment, if they try to play the market makers.

OK, throw brickbats! Please, please think!

So, you’re saying it’s a conspiracy.

 

[Krugerrand]

This will go OT quickly, but the TSLA price volatility stems from shared goals of numerous parties whether they do or do not commit illegal acts to achieve their goals.

I’m going to break this to you gently. *They*, those many varied parties who benefit from Tesla/Tsla failing, being slowed, being volatile etc… are 1,000,000% on the phone to each other, emailing and texting back and forth, zooming each other and attending the same events ALL the time. They are conspiring for all they are worth. Mark my words.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

I’m going to break this to you gently. *They*, those many varied parties who benefit from Tesla/Tsla failing, being slowed, being volatile etc… are 1,000,000% on the phone to each other, emailing and texting back and forth, zooming each other and attending the same events ALL the time. They are conspiring for all they are worth. Mark my words.

Whenever there is a FUD hit piece that comes out about Tesla and China relations, I pretty much chalk it up to "They" being scared poop-less by China and Tesla's relationship and trying very pathetic attempts to make it seem like the Tesla/China relationship is souring (including the staged supposed "consumer" complaints that China cracked down on in a very public way")

Say what you want about China, this is not a post to say anything negative or positive on China. But China won't be bought off by any lobbying groups/parties or industry titans. China sees the benefit of supporting Tesla. It's a mutual relationship. One that can't be influenced by outside forces like we see in the US/Europe and that clearly very much worries "them".

Their worst nightmare is Shanghai ramping to 1 million annual production and given the latest data....Shanghai is well on it's way to that number

 

[mblakele]

Here’s a story in the Atlantic about sales restrictions in USA states. Old news to us, but the fact that this is mainstream news is… progress?

The Simplest Way to Sell More Electric Cars in America

Decades-old laws that protect car dealers are keeping the U.S. stuck in the gas-powered past.

www.theatlantic.com

[…] From 2019 to the middle of last year, Florida residents bought nearly 59,000 new EVs while New Yorkers bought only about 35,000.​

​

What explains the difference? Floridians, it’s true, drive more than New Yorkers. But the clearest explanation is that Tesla, which sells more EVs than any other automaker, has opened 17 stores and galleries in Florida, from Miami to Jacksonville. In New York, it has only five stores, and it is forbidden from opening more. “In 2020, New York’s nearly 1,000 franchise dealers collectively sold less than two EVs per location,” James Chen, Rivian’s vice president of public policy, told me. But Tesla sold nearly 1,890 vehicles for each of its New York stores.​

​

This picture scales to the national level. Across the country, three out of four EVs sold since 2019 have been sold by a direct-to-consumer automaker—which is to say, Tesla. And a recent Sierra Club blind-shopper study found that legacy car dealerships nationwide were totally unprepared to sell EVs. Many didn’t even have a charged EV on the lot. “There were lots of untrained salespeople who couldn’t answer questions about the technology,” Hieu Le, the author of the study, told me. “In the worst case, the volunteer was urged by the salespeople to buy a gasoline vehicle.” […]​

​

The economist Mancur Olson believed that as national economies grew, their richest industries and interest groups acquired more and more political power, allowing them to implement laws and rules that hindered the country’s productivity and growth over time. That is what the dealership-protection laws are starting to look like. Not all climate fights can be answered easily by markets, but this one, the question of whether dealerships or EV automakers can more quickly sell EVs to America, the market is eminently qualified to decide. Car dealers might seem like an immovable feature of American life, but Manhattan once had plenty of horse veterinarians. Perhaps one day, dealerships will go the same way.​

 

[kbeckley]

There is a question on 'say' for the q4 conference call about a stock split. I agree with Rob Mauer, this is embarrassing. Short-termism at its worse. Frankly I hope it does not get asked. Let's ask questions about how the company is doing not 'how can I get a short term financial dopamine hit'. Sheez. /rant.

Also where is Rob Stark? He always injected a little dose of reality in here when things got frothy. Miss his contribution.

 

[Big Time]

Soon we win. Good day to take a walk in the garden.

Just some fun facts about this. Produced and Engineered by a wonderful guy I talk to Shel Talmy, probably the greatest early R&R producer other than George Martin. Jimmy Page and I believe Dave Davies on guitar, song wrote by Dave, before the Kinks became a band I believe.

 

[Discoducky]

After this past week, I felt the need to write a bit about how I see Tesla and how this next earnings is a huge step in the transition to, what I would call a 'AI native companies', direction. Not my full thoughts, but as much time as I have today...

TL;DR - We are witnessing the increasingly fast transition to AI focused/native companies from **even** companies that are digital native.

The longer version...

Anyone remember this? DeepMind AI Reduces Google Data Centre Cooling Bill by 40%

6 years ago and that was just the first public iteration of infrastructure AI optimization. Imagine all the ways that Google is now implementing AI throughout the company. And you probably haven't even scratched the surface. DeepMind is pursuing AGI, but is solving many other issues along the way. Google is saving some serious money as they operate way more data centers than you think and owns, yes owns, soup to nuts, the entire supply chain of the internet, and continues to grow the percentage of cables and connective HW they own. They own most of the internet infrastructure. Yes, AWS has a bunch of data centers as well, but Google owns most everything in-between them.

This is just an example, but AWS, MS and FB (Meta) are all taking their respective pieces of the 'AI pie'. And I can talk to these, but it simply pales in comparison to what Tesla is solving.

Where does Tesla fit in? The AI pie is big and Tesla has made it bigger as no other big AI native company is going after labor. I didn't see that coming and I don't expect to see a prototype in the wild for at least 3 years, but when, not if, Tesla solves FSD, I'd bet the AI needed for the bot is close behind (1 to 2 years). Just owning FSD is enormous, but throw in AI for the grid and storage, energy generation, worldwide charging network...etc and it is bonkers. AI is at the core of how these systems will emerge, grow and flourish.

So wait, what happens to other traditional companies and other digital native companies? Well, their abilities to grow as fast as they used to is going to get much harder and they will feel the affects of 'sunk costs' and 'legacy thinking'. We'll continue to see these large AI native companies start swallowing up market share, increasing profits, economies of scale and all other non-AI native companies. This will happen stunningly fast (less than 10 years) IMHO. As the economy will require help over the next several years to recover from the pandemic, we'll see so many more companies go the way of the dodo.

Hold on, what? Yep, this is happening fast. AI is being integrated at the lowest levels of large tech companies that is enabling such immense economies of scale that it enables them to achieve profound ROIC relative to other tech companies. As we enter earnings season, this might be apparent to folks on this thread, we'll continue to see this story unfold, but it is AI that is at the heart of this. Don't be distracted with AR or VR (which is still 5 to 10 years away for TAM explosion; and will continue to be IMHO for at least another 5 years due to chip design but that is another discussion). AI makes so many formerly hard coding tasks, into a goldmine, **IF** you can acquire the talent to do it. Machine Learning Experts and Data Scientists on top of having the massive hardware to scale your models. These folks are all clamoring to work at Tesla for Elon. I get a lot of people interested in knowing about this from my network. But it is simple: Elon doesn't care about anything except one thing for Tesla and one thing for his other endeavors. Uh, it is such a breath of fresh air for an engineer to have that as a constraint and then go guns-a-blazing toward the finish line.

 

[tslagreen]

During my own lifetime there are been episodes of mass hysteria, none of which actually needed conspiracy, only ignorance and fear of the unknown.
Here are TMC we have tended to be a rational bunch, biased in favor of our passion, to be sure.
Recently we've tended a trifle towards conspiracy visions to justify negative views of TSLA.
We need no conspiracies to understand these views:
1. Auto dealers cannot be expected to be favorably disposed towards a company that does not use them;
2. Petroleum companies might not favor entities which are devoted to excluding use of fossil fuels.
3. Can anybody imagine why an operator of a gasoline vendor would favor an entity that seeks their demise?
4. Should union leaders and advocates favor entities that do not have unionized workforces?
5. Why should rating agencies favor a company that does not issue new ratable securities?
6. Why would investment bankers favor entity that does not regularly issue new securities of any kind?
..and this list goes on.

No conspiracies required. All these and more are entities that are threatened directly by the business model and plans of an entity that thrives by unsetting the status quo.

We really should stop imagining coordinated action and simply understand that many parts of the commercial world are threatened by greater or lesser extent by Tesla, SpaceX and what they represent. They need not coordinate for their common interests are obvious to all of them.

It is transparently obvious that the massive TSLA derivatives are a successful attempt to make money when conventional means will not work. Gullible, ignorant and/or greedy speculators greatly ease their efforts. Importantly institutional investors can 'innocently' engage in securities lending that lets them reduce carrying costs from non-dividend-paying security while incurring little risk.

SO, what do they need to conspire? Obviously, they do not. It's less risky to just understand their shared interests.

Every time we berate volatility, understated that volatility keeps the whole marker thriving, for the major players.
Retail ones can never thrive in this environment, if they try to play the market makers.

OK, throw brickbats! Please, please think!

This conspiracy and/or collusion against Tesla has been going on since Tesla's inception (or at least soon thereafter). This is old news. Tesla, thanks to Elon and team, has made it out of the wilderness. The time to kill the baby has passed. There are still obstacles to overcome, but Tesla surviving and succeeding is a moot point now. It is now by how much Tesla will dominate.

 

[15Peter20]

TSLAQ: We knew it!! They are transporting those to secret parking lots we have not discovered yet!

Dumping them in the sea, off the Swiss coast.

 

[AudubonB]

MODERATOR:
There is an unseemly and irritating amount of mission creep ===>NO!<=== occurring in this thread. It must end. That means -

* NO discussion of the appropriateness of investing in, or the foreseeable future for "NFLX", "FAANG" "PLTN" "BTC"....or any other such NON-Tesla company. Acceptable exceptions, with restraint, can be other EV manufacturers and, with even more restraint, other automotive firms; and BTC to and only to the extent that Tesla's balance sheet is so exposed.

* NO attempting to use "But TSLA is affected by how ____X___ fares in the market." Violators trying that may find themselves with especially raw knuckles.

 

[woodisgood]

I’m going to break this to you gently. *They*, those many varied parties who benefit from Tesla/Tsla failing, being slowed, being volatile etc… are 1,000,000% on the phone to each other, emailing and texting back and forth, zooming each other and attending the same events ALL the time. They are conspiring for all they are worth. Mark my words.

Personally I think only the dumb ones get their hands that dirty. The most powerful interests simply hire modern-day PR firms (whose array of services go far beyond the antiquated term) to craft messaging, interact with media, run psy-ops online, and do other dirty work where it needs to be done.

 

[PeterJA]

After this past week, I felt the need to write a bit about how I see Tesla and how this next earnings is a huge step in the transition to, what I would call a 'AI native companies', direction. Not my full thoughts, but as much time as I have today...

TL;DR - We are witnessing the increasingly fast transition to AI focused/native companies from **even** companies that are digital native.

The longer version...

Anyone remember this? DeepMind AI Reduces Google Data Centre Cooling Bill by 40%

6 years ago and that was just the first public iteration of infrastructure AI optimization. Imagine all the ways that Google is now implementing AI throughout the company. And you probably haven't even scratched the surface. DeepMind is pursuing AGI, but is solving many other issues along the way. Google is saving some serious money as they operate way more data centers than you think and owns, yes owns, soup to nuts, the entire supply chain of the internet, and continues to grow the percentage of cables and connective HW they own. They own most of the internet infrastructure. Yes, AWS has a bunch of data centers as well, but Google owns most everything in-between them.

This is just an example, but AWS, MS and FB (Meta) are all taking their respective pieces of the 'AI pie'. And I can talk to these, but it simply pales in comparison to what Tesla is solving.

Where does Tesla fit in? The AI pie is big and Tesla has made it bigger as no other big AI native company is going after labor. I didn't see that coming and I don't expect to see a prototype in the wild for at least 3 years, but when, not if, Tesla solves FSD, I'd bet the AI needed for the bot is close behind (1 to 2 years). Just owning FSD is enormous, but throw in AI for the grid and storage, energy generation, worldwide charging network...etc and it is bonkers. AI is at the core of how these systems will emerge, grow and flourish.

So wait, what happens to other traditional companies and other digital native companies? Well, their abilities to grow as fast as they used to is going to get much harder and they will feel the affects of 'sunk costs' and 'legacy thinking'. We'll continue to see these large AI native companies start swallowing up market share, increasing profits, economies of scale and all other non-AI native companies. This will happen stunningly fast (less than 10 years) IMHO. As the economy will require help over the next several years to recover from the pandemic, we'll see so many more companies go the way of the dodo.

Hold on, what? Yep, this is happening fast. AI is being integrated at the lowest levels of large tech companies that is enabling such immense economies of scale that it enables them to achieve profound ROIC relative to other tech companies. As we enter earnings season, this might be apparent to folks on this thread, we'll continue to see this story unfold, but it is AI that is at the heart of this. Don't be distracted with AR or VR (which is still 5 to 10 years away for TAM explosion; and will continue to be IMHO for at least another 5 years due to chip design but that is another discussion). AI makes so many formerly hard coding tasks, into a goldmine, **IF** you can acquire the talent to do it. Machine Learning Experts and Data Scientists on top of having the massive hardware to scale your models. These folks are all clamoring to work at Tesla for Elon. I get a lot of people interested in knowing about this from my network. But it is simple: Elon doesn't care about anything except one thing for Tesla and one thing for his other endeavors. Uh, it is such a breath of fresh air for an engineer to have that as a constraint and then go guns-a-blazing toward the finish line.

This is a good counterpoint to folks who predict doom and gloom based on history from recent centuries or decades or even a few years. As Ray Kurzweil observed, technology is changing the world in a nonlinear way. The rate of change is increasing.

The world has never seen an economy based on abundant decentralized energy and machines replacing nearly all of human labor. But it is coming soon, if civilization survives the transition.

If doom and gloom arrives, it will be a new kind.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

go talk to someone if life is weighing on you

I thought that was what TMC is for when $TSLA stonk goes down for no reason

 

[AudubonB]

...
The phrase "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" is only meant for short sellers while long term investors sleep well at night. ...

No. That post is an example of wearing blinders in dangerous enough a fashion as to prompt a reply.
The phrase correctly applies to anyone, bullish or bearish, who is reckless in using leverage. Most of the time, it refers to anyone using derivative securities other than for their sole appropriate use, which is to hedge against losses - NOT to try to amass wealth. The especially apposite term is seeking return OF capital as opposed to return ON capital.

 

[Singuy]

No. That post is an example of wearing blinders in dangerous enough a fashion as to prompt a reply.
The phrase correctly applies to anyone, bullish or bearish, who is reckless in using leverage. Most of the time, it refers to anyone using derivative securities other than for their sole appropriate use, which is to hedge against losses - NOT to try to amass wealth. The especially apposite term is seeking return OF capital as opposed to return ON capital.

Long investors have the choice of not using leverage, as for anyone with a retirement account. Short selling requires leverage, it's part of the contract.

 

[WADan]

So, you’re saying it’s a conspiracy.

I don’t think it needs to be a conspiracy. Each of them see what is beneficial to their own interests, and then act accordingly (perhaps independently or in cahoot).