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

[BioSehnsucht]

I don't see a nuclear exchange in the works. Russia has too much to loose, first internationally; they will be a worldwide pariah, with a gutted economy (assuming other countries don't start lobbing nukes back, a thought too horrible to contemplate). Lets not forget that Russia is also downwind of Ukraine. Granted Putin has been behaving increasingly irrationally so I'm not putting money on that.

I'm less worried about Ukraine getting nuked to "win" the war than Putin just going "F IT" and taking the rest (or at least, the west) of the world with him, if he can't have what he wants. If he launches nukes, I would expect his targets to be NATO members and so forth (perhaps prefering further targets to minimize collatoral fallout if he gets lucky and the west fails to follow through with their half of MAD). This would pretty much require a like response, and Russia would be ended as far as a functioning country goes, along with probably millions of dead elsewhere, and many other nations struggling to survive due to damaged infrastructure. Much of the west would end up decimated along with Russia, and I would expect in that scenario the US is hit too (unless our missile defense manages to shoot them down).

Hopefully he's just a psychopath and not a sociopath.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

That doesn't change the fact that the way he presented his 'idea' has been my major problem with this fiasco. Which you would know if you had actually read any of my posts.

We'll endeavor to lay out everything precisely how you'd like it tomorrow.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

No, it was the $4B Hertz fleet purchase. Tesla gapped up the next day, and did not close that gap for over 7 months. Now, we're back below the SP during the Hertz announcement.

Wall St. lives off the churn, and is shameless about doing whatever they need to achieve it.

I still say that Hertz announcement has little to do with the SP action. It might've been the match that lit the fire, but we rocketed due to the same reason we always rocket....long running spring loading by hedge fund and MM shenanigans.

 

[Gigapress]

The Porsche-Piech family got their wealth from Ferdinand Porsche. You know, that guy who came to Germany from Czechoslovakia because Hitler wanted him in Germany, who worked directly with Hitler to start VW, who joined the Nazi Party and became a high-ranking SS officer, who helped massively with Nazi weapon design and manufacturing, who received the SS-Ehrenring award from Heinrich Himmel, who oversaw the slave labor at VW during the war, and who after the war leveraged his blood money and connections to grow his personal car company, and whose descendants still own 50% of Porsche and 100% of the voting power, as well as 53% of the voting power of Volkswagen AG? They never wiped their hands clean of the inheritance they received from this legacy, did they? Ferdinand Porsche was an extremely smart and hardworking engineer who directed his efforts towards evil when the opportunity arose and kept the dirty money. This family controls the VW board that fired Herbert Diess for pushing EVs and put Oliver Blume in charge.

Even so, people still bought 11 million cars per year (pre-COVID) from these guys, more than any other car company. For Elon Musk, is the standard that much higher for how good of a person the CEO/owner needs to be before people feel comfortable buying their company's product? I doubt it.

 

[Bet TSLA]

I'm sure you meant 'missing delivery numbers' which were inflated by the usual suspects.

By "the usual suspects" I take it you mean everybody. I didn't see anybody who had models published with deliveries as low as were reported by Tesla.

I'm a little surprised, and maybe people want to explain, where they thought the huge numbers of vehicles being put on ships in Shanghai at the end of September (as shown by Wu Wa) came from. It was clear they weren't going to be delivered until Q4, but I didn't see anybody counting them and lowering their Q3 delivery numbers, despite it being right out there for all to see. And that includes me, in my own personal estimates.

 

[Discoducky]

My thoughts from AI day 2022 (I'll expand on topics if you tag me in the engineering thread)

TL;DR - As a tech nerd, 25 years in leading engineering teams at leading tech superpowers; I'm super pumped. The critical path to bot production is NOT hardware, nor is it manufacturing, it is recursive reinforcement human-out-of-the-loop Dojo learning to get to a viable launch product. Tesla is currently building out these pieces and a part of this is the single stack vector space occupancy. They demonstrated AI's ability to walk slowly on a hard floor; this is huge. Demonstrated that the AI can water a plant; this is even more impressive. When, not if, tasks like this can be trained to production quality on Dojo in a few minutes, which Dojo will handle, the world is going to change very quickly. Feels like 2 to 3 years.


Longer version...

Why is a walking bot so impressive? Well, they did it with AI. This hasn't been done before.

What does this represent? A fundamental step change to programming robots. Now, the world of robots has been literally turned upside down. Hard programming is OUT. AI is IN. Very similar to AlexNet in 2012 with NNs. The entire robotics industry is now going to absolutely scramble into the AI space. Tesla has a huge lead.

So, why hasn't another company gone down this path? Short answer is that NO OTHER company has sought to actually make a mass production robot with viable human level functional ability. It's like Microsoft making BASIC vs Apple. MS made it mainstream

Path to production

Development bot HW - Tesla is showing this is progressing very well. Their in-house actuators are super impressive and the power requirements are going to drastically improve with each iteration moving to production. I expect at least one more development bot prior to a larger batch build of 100 to 1000. The next version will be tighter tolerances, higher MTTF to ensure that every movement is millimeter accuracy for over 10 years of constant daily indoor environmentally controlled use. Timeline seems to be 1 to 3 years.


Biggest things left to solve for FSD and the bot- (They are all AI and software and this is driving critical paths to MVP)


Predict the future behavior of other agents on the road and understanding lane connectivity - Still not good enough and has safety issues. Remarkably better in 2.2 (I'm still seeing 1 of 10 safety failures at 90 degree simple high stop signed traffic intersections and 1 out of 2 failures at non-90 degree complex traffic signed intersections. Also, near zero success at complex 2 lane roundabouts. Simple 2 lane roundabouts are much better. This helps improve lane change inconsistency, inconsistent/late/no turn indication and smoothness of control through more stable path planning.

Dojo fast training of NNs - Realize the hardware chip is baked/finalized, the hard part remains of making it stable at nominal and peak power/workloads. The software stack and support tools are the critical path. Timeline looks to be 6 months to 2 years.

Non-real-time trusted ground truth used to augment control and path planning. -We saw some of this being demonstrated, but not enough to convince me that we'll see a step improvement prior to end of year. I define a step improvement of getting 'another 9' in "the march of 9s".

Human-out-of-the-loop training - Holy grail and does not mean that this is done locally, but rather on Dojo. The robot does some task to completion, it realizes it was inferior, marks the inferiority, sends it back to Dojo for training, result comes back in minutes, eventually seconds, so it can try again. And to be clear, the human first demonstrated a minimum success threshold.

So, yeah, HODL

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Was just taking a peek at Megapack pricing and availability. Ordering one today gets you delivery in 3Q24 at the earliest.

If you think the margin expansion around Model 3/Y has been wild the last year.....wait til you see how a 2yr waiting list impacts Energy margins.

 

[trayloader]

Just curious if anyone thought today's drop could be Credit Suisse selling some or all of their 4.8 million TSLA shares

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/institutional-holdings

I'm just trying to justify this drop with record breaking P/D numbers released. If 'analyst' couldn't correctly identify that there would be logistical challenges with worldwide deliveries shouldn't that reflect an error in their research and not a problem with Tesla's growth potential? Maybe I'm still in shock/denial phase

@BrownOuttaSpec
Could you please provide a proof or is it just a claim that CS sold all of their TSLA holdings, othwerwise I have to report it due to being „Fake News“ with a clear interest.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

It’s time for the pure geopolitical/military discussion to move to our dedicated thread: Russia/Ukraine conflict

 

[BrownOuttaSpec]

@BrownOuttaSpec
Could you please provide a proof or is it just a claim that CS sold all of their TSLA holdings, othwerwise I have to report it due to being „Fake News“ with a clear interest.

It wasn't a claim, it was a question. In hindsight I did forget the question mark at the end of the sentence so maybe that made it difficult to understand.

 

[Buckminster]

Should Elon employ a think tank to polish, communicate and defend his political views? Something like the Tony Blair institute. Could be linked to his foundation to go beyond politics to proactively seek and fund the world's issues.

 

[MABMAB]

When investing, one of the things I've keyed in on is the need for a company to expect future earnings. If future earnings are to be good, invest, if not, sell or avoid. Owning or buying TSLA at this point depends upon what one expects in the future.

In the near term future, several things exist to drive sales and earnings. TSLA pushes for cost savings. CT, Semi, and Roadster can all be brought out and sold soon. Wide release FSD allows them to recognize revenue. Solar, batteries (home and mega). Margins can improve as factories gear up.

I think it was Zach that said they are no longer battery constrained.

Where did the following come from?
-story of Hertz/fleet deliveries. Surely they could have finagled 30K deliveries on last day of Q if they wanted/needed
-story of >490K push in 4th q
All of the above just in the week before numbers. Coincidence? Manipulation?

Are the geopolitical, ecological, and "this is the best car" demand drivers still present?

For owner investors, does your car not still kick AR$E on the road? Can you not whip every fancy pants ego ICE at the light next to you? When you launch from the light, leap to the lead, and then obey the speed restrictions, does your car not still create the urge amongst the ego ICE owners to break the speed restrictions to overtake you, albeit a mile off the light? Tell the truth, they can't handle the ego smashing. They will all end up paying for an EV rather than admit they overpaid for the fancy badges.

Is this company laying out the path to achieve the future? Have they failed to execute on plans? Are they sitting on their haunches or doing things like shopping for factory locations, designing their own batteries, starting a lithium refinery, building a computer to improve FSD, engaging in R&D for exciting future products? Are they innovating? Are they stiffening up as a corporation or are they limber and adaptive?

Have they changed the narrative of predicted 50% average growth per annum?

Do you not want insurance that evaluates you as an individual?

In 2021 TSLA delivered 936K cars, thus far they have delivered 907K cars in 2022. If EPS and sales numbers came from cars alone, they only need 497K more cars at end of quarter for 50% growth YoY. Aren't they selling other things also?

Have sellers looked at wait times for orders? End of quarter 2022 delivery not guaranteed if one orders a couple lower priced versions (3,X).

If there were a company with expected future sales and earnings growth of 50%, with a decent product roadmap for the future, in high demand, with great energized driven leadership, engaging in R&D for the future, and taking over entrenched staunchy businesses, then I'd want to be a long term investor. Are there other such companies?

What about you?

What would Peter Lynch do? What would big money WS firms do?

 

[WarpedOne]

It is not about winning, it is not about doing the good thing.
It is about surviving another day without nuclear detonations.

 

[H Mak]

So I should sell.... have I read the last few pages right?

 

[mars_or_bust]

Moderator:
ONLY so that other “what got posted overnight” readers do not miss this Edit: This and its antecedent post DO NOT BELONG in this thread. No more sych.

The Porsche-Piech family got their wealth from Ferdinand Porsche. You know, that guy who came to Germany from Czechoslovakia because Hitler wanted him in Germany, who worked directly with Hitler to start VW, who joined the Nazi Party and became a high-ranking SS officer, who helped massively with Nazi weapon design and manufacturing, who received the SS-Ehrenring award from Heinrich Himmel, who oversaw the slave labor at VW during the war, and who after the war leveraged his blood money and connections to grow his personal car company, and whose descendants still own 50% of Porsche and 100% of the voting power, as well as 53% of the voting power of Volkswagen AG? They never wiped their hands clean of the inheritance they received from this legacy, did they? Ferdinand Porsche was an extremely smart and hardworking engineer who directed his efforts towards evil when the opportunity arose and kept the dirty money. This family controls the VW board that fired Herbert Diess for pushing EVs and put Oliver Blume in charge.

Even so, people still bought 11 million cars per year (pre-COVID) from these guys, more than any other car company. For Elon Musk, is the standard that much higher for how good of a person the CEO/owner needs to be before people feel comfortable buying their company's product? I doubt it.

All true. Still very dissapointing. In any case, I hope he is wise enough to learn from this fiasco not to take foreign policy advice from the extreme right wing nut jobs he seems to listen to on this matter.

 

[carterm2]

Futures are up... and $TSLA is up!

 

[Artful Dodger]

TAKE NOTE: MOVE YOUR WAR/POLITICS TO THE PROPER THREAD!

c.f. Today at 02:43 AM for directions:

It’s time for the pure geopolitical/military discussion to move to our dedicated thread: Russia/Ukraine conflict

 

[aubreymcfato]

We're already off the rails so I'll say my bit.
Elon's brain is great at many things, but my impression is that he's greater *inside the realms of physics*. The more he works in a "factual" universe, where things are clearer and more deterministic, the better he fares.
This is where his First Principles mindset thrives. I'm sure his neuroatypical brain is really happy in those domains, he's like Kal-El from Kripton.

He's really good also in more blurred realms a bit outside that. Economy, communication/marketing, design (link in "make things pretty", engineering is his forte). Socially he's a bit awkward but he can be highly effective as well.

But I would stay away from real, dirty politics. When you have 107M followers on Twitter, is just dangerous to state "facts" about history of a country you probably visited once or twice. History of Soviet Union is literally one of the most complex theme of the planet. You can call every major expert in the world and their statements would be wary and devoid of absolutes. They will know they know a little part of the whole. There are no *literal facts*. It's just too complex: it's billion people fighting each other for a century. There is no easy solution, no silver bullet, no clear definition of boundaries. War is messy, it f**ks with your brains, destroys all rationality. What we see now is the consequence of decades of war, cold and hot.

And weighting with a few tweets, well, it's a recipe for a s**tstorm. I know his heart is in the right place on this one but he's not "speaking truth to power", but damaging an already damaged discourse, IMHO.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

@BrownOuttaSpec
Could you please provide a proof or is it just a claim that CS sold all of their TSLA holdings, othwerwise I have to report it due to being „Fake News“ with a clear interest.

I suspect you are having a language barrier problem. He clearly states that he is wondering if CS could have sold. Not claiming it.

I think it's solid logic. From what I've heard, CS probably should be trying to raise as much cash as possible (I know close to zero about these sorts of things), however, since plenty of members of this board were predicting a ten percent drop, I think think yesterday's drop was not CS related but entirely due to deliveries.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/institutional-holdings

Does anyone know how up to date these figures are? It looks like there could be up to a 45 day lag.