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

[inconel]

It just dawned on me…bots making bots is the ultimate “machine that builds the machine”. Mind blown.

But isn't it much deeper with bots? It is the machine making the machine making the machine making the machine making the machine...

 

[nativewolf]

As Shanghai ramps even more, Tesla can still flood the market with model Y’s. In fact, they can intentionally flood the German market with 3/Y’s.

If German officials don’t get their act together soon, I expect Tesla to do just that. Then German officials will have to answer as to why all of these sold Tesla’s in Germany are made in China instead of Germany. Germany has zero leverage

Not only do they not have enough 4680 cells to run Germany properly but they didn't even file the complete set of paperwork til December. Just last month. Why do posters on this board keep thinking this is some conspiracy of the German govt? Tesla knew it was going to be a slow slog. Everyone knew it. So if Tesla wanted to get going sooner maybe they should have submitted the final paperwork back when they were having a party. THEY DIDN"T FILE THE PAPERWORK. This means TESLA IS NOT READY.

Tesla just does not have whatever supply constraint is worse at the moment, 4680, chips what have you. So there is no reason to push things. Remember that based on the production numbers given during the call that both Austin and Shanghai are hardly required to produce for Tesla to hit the 1.6 million unit production number. Why rush opening the factory and having a full team sitting around to make a tiny fraction of possible production? Tesla does not have many 4680 cells. They don't have any extra chip supply. They have a sufficient amount of 2170 81xxx and other cells to produce the 1.5 or so. Lets put all the Berlin conspiracy & inanity to bed. It is not impacting the investment thesis. The Germany govt is not the supply constraint. It's chips and 4680.

 

[ZachF]

It may be possible with the current bleeding edge technology to create a robot, which could fetch materials from a warehouse. But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD. Why would you rather not pay someone $ 10/hour to do that?

Depends on economies of scale. Make millions per year and you could make it for far less.

Also, you aren’t going to find anyone to do anything for $10/hr in 2022.

 

[Ipe]

It may be possible with the current bleeding edge technology to create a robot, which could fetch materials from a warehouse. But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD. Why would you rather not pay someone $ 10/hour to do that?

Will you volunteer for the job? PS please bring your offspring as well

 

[mongo]

It may be possible with the current bleeding edge technology to create a robot, which could fetch materials from a warehouse. But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD. Why would you rather not pay someone $ 10/hour to do that?

Paying someone $10 costs the company more than $10 an hour. But let's ignore that for now.
$100k/$10hr = 10,000 hours equivalent human labor
24*365*80% = 7,000 hours
Robot is cheaper after two years.
Shift basis: 2,000 hours a year. 5 full time shift year equivilents. Again, 2 years to ROI at 84% utilization. Or 5 years if it can only be used one shift with no chance of dual function.
Added savings: no hiring costs, no supervisor, no HR, no worker's comp, reduced climate control, noise abaitment, and lighting requirements. No onboarding/ learning curve (after first unit).

 

[Matias]

Paying someone $10 costs the company more than $10 an hour. But let's ignore that for now.
$100k/$10hr = 10,000 hours equivalent human labor
24*365*80% = 7,000 hours
Robot is cheaper after two years.
Shift basis: 2,000 hours a year. 5 full time shift year equivilents. Again, 2 years to ROI at 84% utilization. Or 5 years if it can only be used one shift with no chance of dual function.
Added savings: no hiring costs, no supervisor, no HR, no worker's comp, reduced climate control, noise abaitment, and lighting requirements. No onboarding/ learning curve (after first unit).

Yes. If that robot lasts two years without any maintenance. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that with 100k you get two years free maintenance and free back up copy during the downtime.

 

[Sancho]

As to bots, Tesla is already on the leading edge of deploying robots in useful ways. It’s already a core competency. And having a robot in a humanoid form, capable of human movement, has already been accomplished. Adding cameras to a bot? Trivial.

But, if you can get the bot to really see, then you’ve unlocked an enormously new use case for them. Not everything Tesla is doing for FSD will be applicable to a humanoid bot’s needs, but most of that expertise should be transferable.

I doubt this will be monitized fast enough to impact the SP over the next few years, but long term, the market for “seeing bots” is massive.

A seeing car is just one subset of seeing bots.

A seeing bot in humanoid form is just another subset of seeing bots.

There will be flying seeing bots, digging seeing bots, exploring seeing bots.

FSD is the tip of the iceberg. Giving sight to mechanical objects is ….big….no, huge…no, godlike.

 

[Unpilot]

If you ever feel down that the market doesn't get Tesla, I suggest putting this search into Google:

site:https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/ tesla

To see how much Tesla lives rent free in the minds of the market space, search:
site:https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/ tesla adam jonas

Spoiler: And, if you ever need a quote to take out of context, here's a doozy:

"From a consumer perspective, you're going to be judged on and compared with Tesla's Cybertruck, and that means certain requirements around battery size, powertrain efficiency -- they're going to be difficult to compete with. "
...
Mark Reuss -- President GM
"So I don't think there's anything inside GM that's going to compete with that either."

General Motors Co (GM) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript | The Motley Fool
In context isn't much better:

I get a 404 error on both the fool links.

 

[jerry33]

It may be possible with the current bleeding edge technology to create a robot, which could fetch materials from a warehouse. But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD. Why would you rather not pay someone $ 10/hour to do that?

Let’s say the robot costs $60,000 (Model Y price). At $10 / hour, that’s 6,000 hours. At 24 hours a day, that’s 250 days. Of course it won’t make that, but even at 50% usage that’s still only 500 days. If the robot has a five year before major overhaul life, it’s easy to see the economic advantages.

 

[Unpilot]

Thursday's volume in TSLA was 49.0M shares (with 2.2M in the bloddy pre-Market). That's well above the TSLA 10 Day Average Volume of 32.6M shares.

In fact, based on YTD volume stats, Thursday's trading was 2.0 Standard Deviations above average. That was more than enough to kick the ball rolling downhill, especially with asymetric market assess for Retail during the pre-Market.

This was a bear raid, pure and simple, conducted by Wall St. thugs who were on the wrong side of the trade, knew that in advance, planned for it, and fleeced naive retail investors in the event (Options, Stop Losses, Margin Calls...) "Thanks for playing. Ready Player 2." Paging @Unpilot

The following 2018 article is from the Warton Business school where Elon attended: (8-min audio podcast included)

'Bear Raid' Stock Manipulation: How and When It Works, and Who Benefits

When Bear Stearns collapsed in March, some insiders argued it was wrong to blame the firm's risky bets on mortgaged-backed securities. They had another culprit: malevolent traders working together in the upside-down world of short sales -- making money by knocking down Bear's stock. There has...

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

You also made this comment:



TSLA was hardly up in the pre-Market (big players intent was signalled early to all). The brief upswing 15-min before the Market opens is a common way for large investors to get out of the way w/o a loss, but notice the SP tanks well before ANY retail investor who is restricted to trading off-hours could sell. Here's the Realtime Pre-Market chart from NASDAQ

View attachment 762116

Very good first comment BTW. Welcome to TMC, and looking forward to your contributions in the future!

Cheers to the Longs!

Yep, I was warned ....did it anyway.
Not blaming a soul but myself.

Only regret is it may delay my mountain conquest plans for a smidge.
But then again, it is a cat...so probably no delay.

 

[2daMoon]

Lars has coined a new term. "Mary emBarrassing"

Much more data and EV reports in his weekly News show. Including BP and Shell's growing EV charging initiative.

 

[15Peter20]

All those bots hired out (to get to a $1000T market cap) will be working on energy and every other industrial sector from here to the asteroid belt.

What a thought! It’s actually possible that a Starship full of TBots could be mining asteroids by mid-decade.

 

[Sancho]

It just dawned on me…bots making bots is the ultimate “machine that builds the machine”. Mind blown.

Right. The thought has probably not escaped Musk that once a bot can make a bot, then an entire civilization can be started on any celestial body with the right raw materials, merely by transporting there two fertile humans and one bot.

 

[Mengy]

It just dawned on me…bots making bots is the ultimate “machine that builds the machine”. Mind blown.

Exactly. Imagine how much Tesla's productivity will explode once this ball gets rolling. It will be unprecedented.

 

[mongo]

Yes. If that robot lasts two years without any maintenance. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that with 100k you get two years free maintenance and free back up copy during the downtime.

The robot numbers already include 20% downtime (80% utilization)

I get a 404 error on both the fool links.

Ack. Both those lines are supposed to be plain text that you paste into the Google search bar. Forum SW changed it on me, requested mods to edit.
AJ version as a link:
site:https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/ tesla adam jonas - Google Search
Tesla only:
site:https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/ tesla - Google Search

 

[JRP3]

But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD.

What's in the 120lb robot that would cost 100K vs a 4,000lb Tesla which only costs $60K?

 

[mongo]

What's in the 120lb robot that would cost 100K vs a 4,000lb Tesla which only costs $60K?

Profit.
Price point is based on utility, not COGS.
(Like FSD car that is no longer $60k)

 

[Artful Dodger]

Added savings: no hiring costs, no supervisor, no HR, no worker's comp,

No $163M Jury awards for trash-talking co-workers....

 

[Sancho]

Bottom line, here is why Elon should not be on earnings calls:

The people asking questions are interested in next quarter’s margins, and Musk is interested in multiplanetary civilizations.

 

[Matias]

What's in the 120lb robot that would cost 100K vs a 4,000lb Tesla which only costs $60K?

As I said, it is WAG. But mainly because we have mass produced cars over 100 years and first robots will be hand built.

But I believe that Musk is the best person in the world to mass manufacture robots economically.