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

[Ogre]

I know there's a bunch of smart people in this thread and all, but I'm still doing my own research and finding that solar panels are going to kill us all. Not sure if TSLA is a smart investment.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1569450216709066754

Yeah, my neighbor across the street installed solar panels and now it doesn’t get as bright around here in the summer time. His panels just suck up the sunlight. I turned on my flashlight the other night and it just sucked that up too.

It’s like a little mini blight now. I’m afraid if everyone gets solar I’ll need to keep my lights on even during daylight hours.

 

[Krugerrand]

Both Musk and Rawlinson aren’t wrong. Rawlinson appreciates great design engineering and frankly, he‘s a bit insufferable about it. But he is right that Tesla frequently doesn’t have the best engineering designs. For instance, their battery pack cooling was never great and is what limited initial Model S cars from being able to race on the track.

On the other hand, what Elon rightly values is efficient manufacturing design. Lucid is in a pickle because they can’t ramp manufacturing. That’s the painful lesson Tesla learned first with the Model S ramp, and then even more so with the Model 3 ramp. Beautiful engineering designs that are oh so efficient aren’t worth crap if you can’t cheaply make them at high volume.

In that video (thanks), Rawlinson scoffs at the string that is used to tie the motor wire bundles. But that string bundled wire is manufactured at very high speed using a machine that Tesla developed back in 2012 or so. It obviously works, so no need to change it.

Until Lucid can prove it can manufacture at scale cheaply, they really don’t have much of a leg to stand on.

Tesla has been able to find the balance between all the elements that allows for speed of mfg, efficiency of costs and spending, AND overall product quality, design etc….

Rawlinson et al are going to nitpick themselves into bankruptcy. Note that Elon did this kind of nitpicking early on with the roadster, but in the end realized that’s how you kill the company.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

 

[Drumheller]

That's a bogus point imo regarding the cooling. Race cars are race cars. Street/production cars are production cars. They require two very different requirements. And on the point of cooling for the track, look at the Porsche Taycan which was specifically designed to be able to handle track use, specifically a lap of the Ring (or 13mins roughly). In reality a lower end M3P will out run a Taycan because it's cooling system is gobs better than the Taycan. You can see the results of the All Japan EV Grand Prix, once the Taycan overheated it throttled to hell and even the stock Model 3's passed the Taycan. Anyways my point is Tesla's cooling is pretty good and more than capable for its intended use.

Tesla Model 3 modified by UP wins race against Porsche Taycan Turbo S

A Tesla Model 3 modified by Unplugged Performance (UP) has won a race in the All Japan EV Grand Prix...

electrek.co

Tesla's cooling has improved over time. My 2013 model s would limit power quite quickly when floored. I could get that hashed orange line in seconds if I were having some fun.

 

[thesmokingman]

Tesla's cooling has improved over time. My 2013 model s would limit power quite quickly when floored. I could get that hashed orange line in seconds if I were having some fun.

Yea, no doubt they have improved and evolved a lot over the years. It makes Rawlinson's point even more silly. If he has to point to the early cars... as if it is somehow representative of current cars/tech.

 

[Ogre]

Lots of Rawlinson chatter....

Does Musk need advice from a guy who just made a big production push to get production up to 50 cars per day?

It's sort of like the guy who won the local tennis tournament giving Serena Williams tips on improving her swing.

 

[Xepa777]

Why do I get the "Trevor Milton" vibe everytime I hear their CEO talk. Not to the same degree (they ARE in production, lol), but I still get that vibe.

Milton was an actual con artist / fraudster and pedophile. Come on.

Rawlson is just like many CEOs that over-inflate their products and have a huge ego. I see that often among my MBA classmates and corporate clients when I was in consulting.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

This might have been my favorite TSLA trading day of all time. Tremendous strength.

We should be buried. Anyone who's been following Tesla long enough knos that on days like this we go down at least double the NASDAQ.

Yet we had a clear pivot to the EV sector holding us up. And some fat legitimate buying chunks near the afternoon low.

When I saw CPI so horrendous, I was thinking minus double digits for certain. I have some 9/30 BPS I'd certainly need to roll at the open if that was the case. I gave it a few minutes and TSLA held strong. Stayed way above water all day.

Let's hope we get to ride this wave back up when the dip gets bought tomorrow or Thursday. Looks like we're setup for a $299 close Friday, no? That's astoundingly bullish IMO.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

This dynamic is something that I have only seen get significant air time and insight from Cathy Woods / ARK. Renewable / sustainable energy has, effectively, a capital cost to install and then ~0 ongoing operating costs (compared to fossil fuels which have both. In time with enough renewable energy installed (think 3-10x of current actual energy needs, as opposed to simply replacing current energy needs), our world will have both abundant energy and at a lower total cost to global GDP than today's fossil fuel based energy system. The number I've seen previously, but have no link to support my memory, is that about 10% of global GDP goes into energy.

Imagine a world where 1/2 of that is freed up for other uses? Whatever will we do with it all? Everything gets cheaper when the energy inputs to make that anything gets cheaper.

As a sidebar, I anticipate that we will see, this century, a residential electricity model in some areas that is similar to today's internet access model; pay your monthly bill for access to the electricity grid for your house, and then use as much or little electricity as you need / want. Maybe you'll also need a home battery to buffer your consumption for this rate plan - electricity will be so cheap for enough or all of the day that it will cost too much to meter it. Sort of how our home internet service is now, at least in cities, a flat monthly fee and use as much as you'd like. Talk about deflationary.

This is at least one reason I have great hope for our future - that's a future that I want to see and be a part of.

Apparently Elon was discussing his concerns about deflation at the exact time we were yesterday.

Good to see we're all in sync.

Elon Musk has gone from worrying about inflation to worrying about the opposite awfully fast

“A major Fed rate hike risks deflation,” Musk tweeted on Friday.

fortune.com

 

[CHGolferJim]

Yep. and I am just hoping there will be an aftermarket 'wedge" camper top to make it into a low slung van, or a high-top station wagon.

Since I'll be traveling alone or with 1 other person, I hope to be able to keep gear and luggage in the back seat and sleep in the truck bed on a roll in platform bed -- either under a tent or with the top closed (with a pass-through opening from back seat for heat/AC).

 

[MC3OZ]

For real, he said it out loud. I don't want to start another extended argument on this, but it's pretty clear there's no "$25k car" coming. And that's even before all this "inflation" impacted raw materials and parts.

Model 3/Y can simply be smushed down to a base model at $38k if the market absolutely demands it. Other than that, it's robotaxis and $50k+ sedans.

Legacy auto will soon be fighting Chinese startups over the $25-45k segments, all making zero margin. That's literally perfect. THe mission gets accomplish AND Tesla gets all the profit.

I think we are answering the wrong question here.

The real question is :- What does it cost to build a car?
Not :- What will the car be sold for?

Model Y currently costs less to build than Model 3, the obvious play is to build a Model 3 in the same way. Maybe that gets the cost of building a Model 3 down to around $25K, perhaps less.

When a Model 3 costs $25K to build, that doesn't necessarily mean Tesla will sell it for $35K.

For a Robotaxi hitting a $18K-$20K cost to build would be ideal, again that doesn't necessarily mean Tesla will sell the car for $25K.

Hitting the right cost target needs to be baked into the Robotaxi design, my ideas are:-

• 4 seater - no centre console.
• Narrower frontal area, and smaller car - more efficient, less weight, smaller battery.
• LHD/RHD steering wheel and pedals installed (if needed) after the car leaves the factory.
• Metal roof (if this saves money)
• No frameless glass on door windows
• HW4 cheaper and more efficient than HW3.
• Built with cheaper smaller 4000 ton casting machines, probably faster run-rate, possibly cheaper alloy.

Only a minority of taxi trips are for more than 4 people, 1-2 people is more typical. Model 3/Y/S and in particular X can accommodate larger groups.

IMO Tesla definitely wants to build the Robotaxi as cheaply as possible, with a minimum of raw materials, optimised to transport a typical number of passengers as efficiently as possible.

I think a wheel and pedals can be fitted to the Robotaxi for LHD/RHD as needed after the car leaves the factory. This de-risks the project, because if FSD is delayed, the car can still be sold to private buyers, and the mix of Robotaxi/private and LHD/RHD can be varied as needed, at short notice.

I also think getting the price of the FSD hardware in the car lower and reducing the amount of energy FSD consumes are important targets, Benefits from optimising FSD for Robotaxis will flow on to the wider fleet.

 

[jerry33]

I also think getting the price of the FSD hardware in the car lower and reducing the amount of energy FSD consumes are important targets, Benefits from optimising FSD for Robotaxis will flow on to the wider fleet.

But the real question is: Will they paint them yellow?

 

[Paul_SF]

But the real question is: Will they paint them yellow?

Unpainted stainless steel.

 

[Ogre]

Unpainted stainless steel.

I still think Tesla’s “Generation 3” of vehicle production starts with the Cybertruck. The Robotaxi will inherit from that lineage. This is why Musk calls it his Magnum Opus.

Sides are folded stainless just like the Cybertruck.

No frameless glass on door windows

Do the windows even need to roll down in a taxi? At that point each door only had a single button control to open the door. No motor for opening the window. Heck even the door release button could be removed, it could just pop the doors when it stops.

Get rid of all the parts.

 

[jw934]

S&P Global published the latest survey results on brand loyalty for luxury cars. Tesla not only came out as the leader by far, as expected, but also improved on its previous best result (in 2020) by 12 percentage points.

Tesla loyalty and market share soar, but dominance of EV segment could wane

Tesla Motors has not just thrived in the first six months of 2022; it has reached new levels of success based on two metrics -- record-high brand loyalty rates and significant brand loyalty among Model 3 owners.

ihsmarkit.com

 

[Big Time]

Someone turned the spanking machine on backwards.

Whooops my bad

 

[elasalle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1569654682334949376

 

[woodisgood]

Whooops my bad

So we should assume it will be in correct working order tomorrow?

Or does it need a rewire or something?

 

[PeterJA]

Dylan claims exclusive insider info that Tesla will redirect resources from Giga Berlin to Giga Austin to rapidly ramp up cell production at Austin to benefit from the new incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.

 

[printf42]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1569823898442829826

Seems CyberWhistle is back in stock, or was it always in stock?

 

[BornToFly]

Big red Spike at the end of a sucky day.

Can't wait for AI Day, P&D numbers, and 3rd qtr financials! Should be an epic October!

1st Quarter should have been epic after Q4 numbers. 2nd Quarter should have been epic after Q1 numbers. I'm hoping, but definitely no longer saying it "should" be epic....