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

[Don TLR]

I want to see an analcyst with a track record of successful upgrades/downgrades that were never made public so the market didn't have the chance to react to them.

THAT's the dude I want telling me what to buy and sell.

Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) | Twitter

Tasha Keeney (@TashaARK) | Twitter

Andrea S. James (@AndreaSJames) | Twitter

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I am assuming that the 3rd day of the 31st month is after the end of Q1, right?

(I kid, I kid).

It's an EU thing...you wouldn't understand. LOL!

Dan

 

[Remus]

Interesting, but that has essentially nothing to do with EVs, its all about autonomous vehicles. I believe it was also in 2017 when Toyota responded to a question about their EV progress that they merely re-iterated that it was a 10-year program. In other words, they won't say a word about how they are doing for EVs. The lack of progress is demonstrated by looking at patent applications. Toyota is betting on a miraculous breakthrough in solid state batteries and there have been some notable patents developed, but the fundamental problems remain.

A lot of his talk is attacking Tesla's driver assistance using false equivalency. The specific research he cites uses monitoring a clock for an infrequent jump which research shows that accuracy in detecting these jumps falls considerably as time goes by. Of course, overseeing autosteer or NoA is equivalent to sitting in a room with nothing but the clock and watching it as closely as you can manage.

Its as if the sentry problem was not known before the 1970s and ignores other operating modes -- such as driving a car without any assistance. Driving for long distances is another monotonous task and he even brings up truck drivers and speculates freely without any evidence that truck drivers use "secondary tasks" to sharpen their attention.

In short, the video only illustrates that Toyota has a well funded AI/FSD program, that they take swipes at Tesla (without ever mentioning Tesla by name), and gives no insight into how well their patently stalled EV program is doing.

Toyota's autonomy program started decades ago, even from Japan's "fifth gen computer" years. they were hiring self driving related personnel back in 2000, so many years past, they have absolutely nothing to show for. Just pathetic.

 

[NicoV]

I checked the Swedish Tesla club's forum, where one poster has a (preliminary) delivery appointment on Sunday.

That forum has quite a lot of individuals uncertain about their delivery date and the exact, current location of their car, with delivery appointments for today, tomorrow and some next week.

TeslaClubSweden.se • Visa tråd - Nu släppte det igen

I am unsure whether the mostly catholic EU countries will deliver on Sunday, here you can't even go to a car wash on a Sunday.

I’m pretty sure Elon’s word will have more weight than God’s word next sunday (for Tesla employees).

Edit: I should probably say ‘sunday’ instead of ‘next sunday’. In any case, you know which sunday.

 

[humbaba]

Toyota's autonomy program started decades ago, even from Japan's "fifth gen computer" years. they were hiring self driving related personnel back in 2000, so many years past, they have absolutely nothing to show for. Just pathetic.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say its pathetic as I feel that it is demonstrative of the difficulty of the problem and they seem to have fallen into the common trap of LIDAR vs camera based autonomy. But the fact that he was focused on attention deficit (e.g., using secondary tasks to sharpen attention) rather than cognitive load suggests that he may be leading their autonomy effort poorly which would certainly contribute to their lack of progress.

Interestingly, to the extent that attention deficit is a problem for driver assistance system the driver confirmation methodology currently employed by Tesla helps to keep the driver engaged. So Tesla's system reduces cognitive load -- for which there is plenty of research to show can be reasonably expected to lead to better outcomes -- and reduces attention deficit issues.

In other words, Tesla is doing just fine.

 

[lklundin]

I’m pretty sure Elon’s word will have more weight than God’s word next sunday (for Tesla employees).

Edit: I should probably say ‘sunday’ instead of ‘next sunday’. In any case, you know which sunday.

But it is not "God's word", it's the legislation that determines whether the delivery center is allowed to be open on (any) Sunday.

I could very easily imagine that in a number of EU countries, there cannot suddenly be a Sunday where a Tesla Service Center can be open - per the license that they have to operate that business.

 

[schonelucht]

But it is not "God's word", it's the legislation that determines whether the delivery center is allowed to be open on (any) Sunday.

I could very easily imagine that in a number of EU countries, there cannot suddenly be a Sunday where a Tesla Service Center can be open.

Tesla doesn't care. There are also reports of employees 'volunteering' to help with delivery. Ie, working without pay which is obviously also a big no-no. But as long as Tesla isn't called out on it, they'll do it and ask for forgiviness later (ie, pay a fine and/or backpay is the employee brings it before a labor court)

 

[lklundin]

Tesla doesn't care. There are also reports of employees 'volunteering' to help with delivery. Ie, working without pay which is obviously also a big no-no. But as long as Tesla isn't called out on it, they'll do it and ask for forgiviness later (ie, pay a fine and/or backpay is the employee brings it before a labor court)

In the EU?

PS. But OK, if they are going to close a store anyway, then I guess the damage of losing its license is zero...

 

[Mokuzai]

Two downgrades on options expiration day? Must be trading above max pain.

<checks opricot>

yep

 

[Todd Burch]

Something like that;
But in Europe we’re contrarian and consider it the 31st of the third month. Or is it the USA that is contrarian?

But January is month 12, right? I dunno. I've only been to Europe a few times .

 

[mongo]

There are also reports of employees 'volunteering' to help with delivery. Ie, working without pay which is obviously also a big no-no.

Is that really what 'volunteering' means in this case, or is it Tesla asking for people to volunteer to work extra hours with pay on the weekend/ evening? aka optional overtime.

 

[NicoV]

I’m pretty sure Elon’s word will have more weight than God’s word next sunday (for Tesla employees).

But it is not "God's word", it's the legislation that determines whether the delivery center is allowed to be open on (any) Sunday.

I could very easily imagine that in a number of EU countries, there cannot suddenly be a Sunday where a Tesla Service Center can be open - per the license that they have to operate that business.

In Belgium there are certainly rules that allow to be open exceptionally on sunday. E.g. big retail stores are open during the very busy december holiday period sundays. Smaller stores are even open every sundaymorning. I’m not sure if car dealers would even fall under this kind of legislation.

 

[Sudre]

I always laugh when people think that Toyota could not compete in the EV space when they choose. I saw prototype EVs from the a big German automaker before there was a Model S or any production EV on the market. Many companies have had development for a long time but various reasons kept them from entering "all in".

I don’t think I have ever seen a reasonable post explaining why all these legacy car makers can be making literally BILLIONS selling EVs but they have decided to let Tesla have all the profit. Since you are sure Toyota can jump in today maybe you know why they do not want billions in profits? Is it because they are making that (and more) with gas cars so there is no need to bother with EVs?

Also out of curiosity since like Toyota I have been told GM could jump in whenever they want with an EV that blows Tesla out of the water, maybe you could explain why the Bolt is not smearing the Model 3 since it beat Model 3 to market? Is GM holding back to be nice and let Tesla get a solid footing?

 

[S3XY]

Elon farted. Happens all the time...too much fiber in the diet.

Dan

Making it even worse is that Tesla didn't review it first.

 

[Causalien]

Making it even worse is that Tesla didn't review it first.

Your fart has not been preapproved by the SEC

 

[ZsoZso]

Toyota is am important company. Here is a link from Toyota at CES in 2017. Their research head starts talking at 14:30 in. It is worth a view it you want to see how serious Toyota is. Make your own conclusions.

Yet Another Dream Automobil - YADA, ... yada yada yada
If I may venture a bet: there will never be anything remotely similar to this contraption ever coming out of a Toyota production line and going on the market. Just like all other futuristic "concept" projects of the main stream automakers
(e.g. Mercedes Biome

) it is not an actual practical design that they ever intend to market. Lots of smoke and mirrors...

 

[printf42]

Just read in China news Tesla started offering 30% discount on Model S & X to China corporate customer and leasing company, is such huge discounts normal to clear inventory cars at quarter end? or it means S & X Refresh coming very soon?

Any thoughts?

Tencent news link: 特斯拉Model S及Model X在华降库存 七折甩卖 (in Chinese, pls use Google translate)

Model S100D: tesla.com list price rmb 783k (usd 116k), after disc rmb 550k (usd 81k)

Model X100D: tesla.com list price rmb 794k (usd 118k), after disc rmb 560k (usd 82k)

The link credits this article as the source:
特斯拉Model S及Model X在华降库存 七折甩卖-网上车市
But I found another one that has earlier time stamp:
https://bbs.nga.cn/read.php?tid=16767510
Which itself still looks like a copy paste job.
Neither of these or any other copy I found on-line provided any credible source or proof of such an discount.

If I have to guess it might be referring to new inventory cars, for example they still have a few S75 listed at 630k, which is close to the claimed sales price of 550k.

But, we will never know until some definitive evidence surfaces.

 

[VValleyEV]

I did just that, and added a few more names for good measure: Lex Fridman on Twitter

View attachment 391472

Thanks!! I Looked through the twitter feed and hit the like button on yours and some others.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Making it even worse is that Tesla didn't review it first.

Never know, maybe it passed the vetting process.

Dan

 

[lascavarian]

It is worth a view it you want to see how serious Toyota is. Make your own conclusions.

I have to say, if you go through this presentation it answers a lot of questions. Toyota, one of the top 3 largest auto corps, carefully lays out why they have no intentions of really doing ANYTHING that might risk their profitable position.

They present the horrible/impossible challenges of each level of autonomous driving in a very professorial fashion (Beuller, Beuller, clock, clock). Some levels just too dangerous to attempt it sounds like (it is a pretty sure bet they heavily participated in developing the SAE levels in the first place).

He makes (with a straight face) that it requires 15 seconds to recover situational awareness of a driving situation (say your texting or reading). He says that at 65mph 15 seconds of recovery time means 5 football fields (his words at 24:30) of advance notice that the car must provide. He is presenting with a straight face that the car must know 500 yards in advance that another car (or whatever) is going to pull out in front of you so you can plan for 15 seconds what to do. It is a completely laughable. My goodness you could completely stop by then (345').

Fear, fear, fear, uncertainty, uncertainty, doubt, doubt, doubt, not responsible, not responsible, humans bad, humans bad. Level 2 bad, bad, level 3 bad, bad. World war II bad, bad. Level 4 decades away (31:10), so many lives at risk.

He suggests that drivers will be required to maintain awareness like truck drivers (29:55) by talking on a radio, dodging speed traps or even engaging with a little bot like "Clippy" (34:05) to keep your mind from drifting lest you weak emotional human fail to be vigilant and the machine fail you. You all want to talk to Clippy on the CB don't ya watchin for smokey?

TLV The bottom line here is that Toyota in 2016 started a research center in Silicon Valley by hiring a Michigan college professor and only 100 people to find reasons why nothing should change in the auto industry and to "educate" the media why nothing will change for 10 years or decades. And it is all the fault of humans because they are emotional and have attention problems so I guess we will have to let those 35,000 people die every year. If this is not selling FUD and arming the shorts, I don't know what is.

Sorry a bit. Just tired of the LIFT IPOGASM etc