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

[slacker775]

Completely unrelated to Elon's recent twitter messes.... I can't say that I've ever seen it discussed, but it seems like if/when Tesla gets FSD to where it needs to be, a whole new business segment they could dominate would be trucking. As we've seen this year with all of the supply chain issues and trucker issues and all of the insight into how completely screwed up the trucking industry is, it seems like its another one of those areas that's ripe for an overhaul. Obviously, Tesla would be able to utilize such capability themselves to get all of the cars they are producing to where they need - which also demonstrates some amount of having the logistics component needed for such an industry. 10-15 years ago, it would have been laughable to think Amazon could put together a delivery capability to rival UPS/Fedex, but they have done exactly that. I don't see why Tesla couldn't do that as well.

 

[Ogre]

Look at this not a TESLA burst into flames after stalling on the highway.

Explains the share price today.

Proposed headline: "Tesla's AutoPilot may be responsible for multi-vehicle freeway collision"

I mean... it could be responsible. Who knows?

 

[Discoducky]

OT: meanwhile beta 10.12.2 has totally solved my left hand turns. No more unusable stuttering.

I wish I could say the same, but both my X and 3 have the same issues as with the previous build.

The visualizations are so much better that I'm hoping with the next few code drops we'll start to see better control and path planning. And to be clear, I think we need unified vector space to really see a step change.

And now back to watching macros eat my lunch today...

 

[UltradoomY]

Completely unrelated to Elon's recent twitter messes.... I can't say that I've ever seen it discussed, but it seems like if/when Tesla gets FSD to where it needs to be, a whole new business segment they could dominate would be trucking. As we've seen this year with all of the supply chain issues and trucker issues and all of the insight into how completely screwed up the trucking industry is, it seems like its another one of those areas that's ripe for an overhaul. Obviously, Tesla would be able to utilize such capability themselves to get all of the cars they are producing to where they need - which also demonstrates some amount of having the logistics component needed for such an industry. 10-15 years ago, it would have been laughable to think Amazon could put together a delivery capability to rival UPS/Fedex, but they have done exactly that. I don't see why Tesla couldn't do that as well.

Check out some other threads - the Semi thread is pretty in depth on this as well as the FSD thread.
Cheers fellow Tampanian!

 

[Singuy]

24k is actually about right.

55-60% are factory workers
20-25% are in service/delivery centers

15-20% in salaried office workers

The number of salaried office workers is way smaller than people think it is. I know some of the headcounts of their software dev teams and they're relatively small. Then when you add in the % of salaried workers that are off limits such as FSD team, I'd put the number of workers at risk for being laid off to be around 15,000-20,000

Tesla doesn't give us data on the number of hourly vs salary workers. However if we look at GM, they employed 83,000 (53%) of hourly workers and 74,000 salary workers. Given the higher automation/vertical integration rate and more software engineers at Tesla, I would actually assume Tesla at least stick to those ratios or if not having MORE salary workers than GM.


The caveat is legacy auto over hire managers so...

Tesla hired more than 28,500 full-time employees in 2021

Tesla Inc. undefined hired 28,533 employees in 2021, to boost its workforce by 40.3%, according to the electric vehicle maker's annual report. In a 10-K...

www.marketwatch.com

 

[StateoftheArt]

It's incredibly poor judgement to say, "Good luck with the trip to the moon", when the moon mission involves American taxpayer dollars and real American astronauts with real families at home! It's actually despicable beyond words and un-American. And it's unclear what he thinks a moon trip has to do with how Elon thinks the economy looks.

If recent events can cause me to no longer self-identify as a democrat, and I no longer do, something tells me it's the democrats that have imploded, not the republicans! This is exactly opposite what I expected after the last administration, I am not happy to report this. And Elon has firmly positioned himself as a political force to be reckoned with.

Please don't use this comment to launch into political debate, I'm just making an observation that I think has a lot of relevance to Elon and his companies going forward. I am not asking whether you think my changing political identity is justified or wise, it's just a data point that I think must apply to many other life-long democrats who are similar to me.

Slowly but surely we will all (mostly) awaken to the truth. Some earlier than others and many at different points along the spectrum. Propaganda is nice, shiny, appealing to the emotion...it is good for a quickie and controlling the masses. The truth is slow, logical and methodical...but bulletproof once it rises for all to see. Drip drip drip....FLOOD.

Trump says Elon Musk is like Thomas Edison: 'He's one of our great geniuses'

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is "one of our very smart people and we want to cherish those people," the president told CNBC's Joe Kernen from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

www.cnbc.com

 

[MikeC]

I suspect we aren’t seeing the “super bad feeling” email because it went to a smaller number of people, all who are probably aware that Elon has individualized emails in the past to identify leakers.

 

[growler23]

If it is just responding to POTUS what you said makes sense. But how do you react to the whole Dem party taking jabs at him and undermining him day in and day out?. Some of these scums are not even worth addressing & responding directly for each of those directed jabs.

Tesla has been approved as a Texas energy producer.
Also from this article, Tesla is putting in a 250MW(h?) battery at/near Giga Austin.

Tesla Energy Texas

Tesla has also requested that ERCOT make some technical changes to their requirements for generators, so that Virtual Power Plant (distributed Powerwalls acting in concert) can supply the Texas grid. I have not heard ERCOT's response yet. This would also be game changing once the 4680s are flowing en masse.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

There's already a race to increase battery storage in TX. A total of 7,095MW have already been approved, and the projects are expected to be completed next year.

In addition there are projects in the study and planning phase totaling 38GW of storage. Not all of these projects will come online, but it seems to me that Ercot is on track to flatten the "duck curve" within a few years.

In my opinion, Tesla needs to ramp up battery deployment by next year in order to be a relevant player in TX.

Also, not sure if the size for the Giga Texas project was previously discussed, but according to Ercot it will be a 131MW project.

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Here's my problem with Tesla deploying in Texas, how much are we getting paid?

The value of battery storage is far beyond storage. It does most ancillary tasks automatically, tasks for which gas peakers and utilities are paid millions and millions every month. Who gets to monetize this improvement?

We cite the big Australia battery as a huge victory for Tesla, and it is, but the money don't flow so easy. Turns out once Tesla solves a problem on the grid(like frequency regulation), utilities are hesitant to kick down the cost avoided to Tesla. I believe we went to court over this a few years back.

I could see Texas undervaluing battery storage dramatically to protect utility profits or keep peakers viable.

 

[ZsoZso]

Tons of non-management folks are also salaried... most relevant to advancing Tesla products would be a large % of IT staff, programmers, sysadmins, R&D folks, AI folks, etc...

So, you are saying Elon wants to cut the people who used to develop FSD, implying they are so close to the finish line, they no longer need so many !?
In other words, FSD is getting close to commercial wide scale release !?

Such implications... Bullish AF!

 

[The Accountant]

 

[Curt Renz]

It’s Friday, which implies a weekly TSLA options expiration. Put buyers appear to have been the most aggressive, especially at the $700 strike. Large option writers with the ability to manipulate the share price may want a close above $700, perhaps at least $710.

 

[Cherry Wine]

I wish I could say the same, but both my X and 3 have the same issues as with the previous build.

The visualizations are so much better that I'm hoping with the next few code drops we'll start to see better control and path planning. And to be clear, I think we need unified vector space to really see a step change.

And now back to watching macros eat my lunch today...

I have seen no improvement either with my X on the latest build, unfortunately.

 

[bkp_duke]

I suspect we aren’t seeing the “super bad feeling” email because it went to a smaller number of people, all who are probably aware that Elon has individualized emails in the past to identify leakers.

Yeah, I wonder if someone just got culled from their position b/c the leak can be traced.

 

[bkp_duke]

Here's my problem with Tesla deploying in Texas, how much are we getting paid?

The value of battery storage is far beyond storage. It does most ancillary tasks automatically, tasks for which gas peakers and utilities are paid millions and millions every month. Who gets to monetize this improvement?

We cite the big Australia battery as a huge victory for Tesla, and it is, but the money don't flow so easy. Turns out once Tesla solves a problem on the grid(like frequency regulation), utilities are hesitant to kick down the cost avoided to Tesla. I believe we went to court over this a few years back.

I could see Texas undervaluing battery storage dramatically to protect utility profits or keep peakers viable.

Tesla monetizes the improvement. They are now a registered power producer in TX.

Win Win.

 

[Drax7]

The magnitude of todays decline is absurd, that’s what really
annoys me. Why is there not more support for the stock.

 

[jerry33]

I have seen no improvement either with my X on the latest build, unfortunately.

Looks as if it depends on the particular road. Most of the roads I travel, there is a big improvement in the display. A few are still a bit flakey. It's consistent from road to road. Still no school zone intelligence and stops and starts in chill mode are best seen on the track.

 

[ZsoZso]

"Lots of luck on his trip to the moon." - Biden

Elon doesn't forget. Remember the stuff he's tweeted back to Russia's Space group in the past after thoroughly embarrassing them in rocketry? I can't wait to see what he does here.

Since Elon wants to go to Mars, not the moon, it is clear that Biden was referring to TSLA stock in his "trip to the moon" comment...

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

The magnitude of todays decline is absurd, that’s what really
annoys me. Why is there not more support for the stock.

Because they're all in on it? You think it's a coincidence that the stock as sat just above the uptick rule all day?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Tesla monetizes the improvement. They are now a registered power producer in TX.

Win Win.

That's peaker revenue, which is delightful, but what are we getting paid when the whole production system poops the bed again? And what about the stuff that's extremely difficult now, but don't exist with enough storage interconnected?

These are my worries. I'm just sayin I could see Texas being like an Australia or India. These folks can wiggle out of paying certain bills once the massive infrastructure is in place.