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

[Todd Burch]

Source?

I for one would love that. Analyst/Wall St would have to stop gaming their delivery estimates and their EPS estimates.......like we just saw in the past week where they dropped delivery estimates or dropped their PT and yet increased their EPS estimates.

Also, as Energy becomes a larger part of revenues, it either needs to be added to the P/D report or Tesla just not do the P/D report.

Just conjecture from Hiro's Tweet a few posts above. No idea if it will happen--just trying to get inside the mind of Hiro.

 

[Nocturnal]

Source?

I for one would love that. Analyst/Wall St would have to stop gaming their delivery estimates and their EPS estimates.......like we just saw in the past week where they dropped delivery estimates or dropped their PT and yet increased their EPS estimates.

Also, as Energy becomes a larger part of revenues, it either needs to be added to the P/D report or Tesla just not do the P/D report.

I have always found it strange that auto companies do this separate P&D from earnings. Its not like Costco shows it's total sales the week before earnings because why would they?

 

[Gigapress]

I just read the 10b5-1 rule and I found no restrictions on blackout periods for selling or buying securities. It looks like insider sales are legal in general as long as they're not made on the basis of material nonpublic information, which can be established for the courts if the transaction was performed pursuant to a plan specifying the amount, price, and date of the transaction before the person learns the material nonpublic information.

I'm not a lawyer and this is the first time I've actually read this regulation.

Federal Register :: Request Access

 

[nvx1977]

Source?

I for one would love that. Analyst/Wall St would have to stop gaming their delivery estimates and their EPS estimates.......like we just saw in the past week where they dropped delivery estimates or dropped their PT and yet increased their EPS estimates.

Also, as Energy becomes a larger part of revenues, it either needs to be added to the P/D report or Tesla just not do the P/D report.

Ultimately though, it's only consequential to short term traders. Reaction to P/D has no impact beyond a few days. A week if generous.

 

[Paul_SF]

OT:

I just want to say my “Ignore” list grew this past few days.

Thank you all that showed yourself and made it into that list!

 

[mongo]

"Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible."
-Elon Musk, 2013
The Mission of Tesla

"Tesla’s purpose is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy."
-2021 Impact Report

 

[thx1139]

Source?

I for one would love that. Analyst/Wall St would have to stop gaming their delivery estimates and their EPS estimates.......like we just saw in the past week where they dropped delivery estimates or dropped their PT and yet increased their EPS estimates.

Also, as Energy becomes a larger part of revenues, it either needs to be added to the P/D report or Tesla just not do the P/D report.

I have to agree. It would force analysts to have to do more work. It was pretty damn clear that Fremont/Berlin/Texas was about 160K cars produced. We already knew Shanghai July and August was at about 115K. So a total of about 280K with only Shanghai September production to be added. We knew July was about 75K. Analysts should have known that 100K werent going to be produced in September. Yet some predicted 380K production. I suspect they didnt even do the math I just did.

 

[printf42]

Yup, some people will spring for a bespoke plant watering robot at $200K. I'll use Optimus, who I'll tell "Water the plants while I'm gone and try not to kill anything." It will cost me nothing because I already have Optimus for some other necessary tasks. And yeah, Optimus probably won't get it exactly right the first couple of times. So what?

In any case, this is all well in the future.

Why people are so fixated with using Optimus at home?

I think that use case will come far later and at that stage Optimus would have changed economy so much that it doesn’t matter how much it cost to have one around.

My thinking is Optimus would be first used in factories, farms, installing solar panels, wind turbines, boring tunnels, laying power lines, building pre-fab homes etc.

These use cases doesn’t require much more than a good perception of surrounding objects, find and then manipulate some well known objects in a predefined way, which Tesla FSD can almost do, but normal industrial robots usually can not. These alone would lead us into “age of abundance” then we can work on improving the AI for other cases from there.

I think people often underestimate the complexity of household tasks, and when they see what’s really needed for a robot to be useful at home, they quickly dismiss the idea of humanoid robot as impossible or not worth it, forgetting other use cases.

 

[rallykeeper]

Upgrading a car with FSD that was developed in-house at Tesla's own expense is not "double-dipping" unless you are as illogical as the people who identify as TSLAQ. It costs millions of dollars of employee time to develop the software. Would it be "double-dipping" if Tesla detailed the car, put new tires on and repaired some dents so they could sell it for more? When my daily driver was a Volvo, Volvo charged me too much money to download software patches to get the car to run properly (in warranty). That was a scam and could loosely be called "double-dipping" since they sold me a car and wanted to charge more to make it work properly.

The price of FSD is what is funding development of DOJO which is, ultimately, what will enable FSD. Further, if it is determined a hardware upgrade is needed to fully implement FSD, Tesla will use revenues received from FSD sales to pay for the upgrades. Double-dipping is TSLAQ FUD.

Since you accused me of illogic or TSLAQ FUD for mere glib word choice (did you not notice the qualifying word "nice"?), I guess I have to reply?

To answer your question, of course it's double-dipping for them to sell a single car two different times with a profit each time. It doesn't matter whether that improvement was detailing, repairing or adding features.

I like double dipping!

When I double dip my pretzel into my beer cheese, I get more beer cheese and my tummy is happier!

Tesla investors should like double-dipping too since it's pretty unique to a software business model. It's a good thing for Tesla to make a profit again on the manufacture of a single car -- particularly when they are so supply constrained.

And, while we don't know the exact margin on FSD, we do commonly accept on TMC that FSD has some positive margin. By requiring the purchase of FSD in order to buy a used Model 3, Tesla might be making just as much profit on these cars as they did the first time given the added bonus of a hot used car market.

Yay!

 

[Rarity]

You are asking for perfection that even human can’t do. I would be ecstatic if Optimus can water my plants when I am away!

Perfection or even very good isn't yet part of customer expectations. After all, iRobot sells a ton of Roombas even though the actual utility of the thing is quite modest.

I have no doubt that if Tesla came out with hardware with promises of future software, there would be no shortage of buyers.

 

[philw1776]

Why people are so fixated with using Optimus at home?

I think that use case will come far later and at that stage Optimus would have changed economy so much that it doesn’t matter how much it cost to have one around.

My thinking is Optimus would be first used in factories, farms, installing solar panels, wind turbines, boring tunnels, laying power lines, building pre-fab homes etc.

These use cases doesn’t require much more than a good perception of surrounding objects, find and then manipulate some well known objects in a predefined way, which Tesla FSD can almost do, but normal industrial robots usually can not. These alone would lead us into “age of abundance” then we can work on improving the AI for other cases from there.

I think people often underestimate the complexity of household tasks, and when they see what’s really needed for a robot to be useful at home, they quickly dismiss the idea of humanoid robot as impossible or not worth it, forgetting other use cases.

An easy Optimus home use case which my wife would like would be to watch the garden and shoo away rabbits, deer, woodchucks, etc. They have destroyed the yard & neighbors' yards this year worse than ever. Neighbors' dogs are useless and wife won't let me get a fierce barn cat like a Maine coon cat.

 

[Usain]

Just one quibble: Optimus demonstrated it can pour water from a watering can into a planter that has houseplants in it. That’s a fantastic start, but not sufficient.

Properly watering a houseplant requires judgement. The waterer should keep an eye on the turgor of the leaves and how dark/dry the soil is. Then, the waterer should decide whether to water and how much to water. The frequency of watering is a function of the conditions which can vary, even indoors, especially if the plant is exposed to direct sun some days and not others.

Often it is nice to water a bit, let that water soak in and then water again. It is good to avoid getting water on the floor or to mop up an overflow. No doubt there are edge cases to consider as well.

I doubt Optimus was demonstrating that level of competence. This is not to say that Optimus wouldn’t be a superior waterer to most people: People more often overwater than underwater.

Indeed a simple algorithm—provide this much water to such-and-so sized plant that often—might be sufficient for Optimus to outperform often negligent human houseplant caretakers; this assuming Optimus can gauge the rate of water flow from the can and fill it competently. There are plant identification apps out there so Optimus might readily identify the plant (though the app I use, which also identifies mammals, identifies my Standard Poodle as a domestic sheep ).

Still, we should be clear about Optimus’s level of competence in performing a task. Alas, I suspect we cannot yet check off the box that says Optimus can water houseplants.

Of course I agree that we should HODL.

In five years you will just purchase the "Water my plants" app from the Tesla Store and load it to your bot. This is where the real money will come from for TSLA. The bots could be sold at cost and Tesla will still make a mint off software.

It's a great example of why Tesla is building a humanoid robot rather than, say, a dog robot. The potential for software revenue is much larger because a humanoid can do a wider variety of tasks in the human world.

 

[JustMe]

In five years you will just purchase the "Water my plants" app from the Tesla Store and load it to your bot. This is where the real money will come from for TSLA. The bots could be sold at cost and Tesla will still make a mint off software.

It's a great example of why Tesla is building a humanoid robot rather than, say, a dog robot. The potential for software revenue is much larger because a humanoid can do a wider variety of tasks in the human world.

This is a good point.

Like the internet, the first use cases will be noble, helpful, and productive. But we all know it won’t be too many years before the inevitable …

**What are you doing? Bleep! Blorp! I am not programmed for that!**

 

[Usain]

Source?

I for one would love that. Analyst/Wall St would have to stop gaming their delivery estimates and their EPS estimates.......like we just saw in the past week where they dropped delivery estimates or dropped their PT and yet increased their EPS estimates.

Also, as Energy becomes a larger part of revenues, it either needs to be added to the P/D report or Tesla just not do the P/D report.

I would also like to see them wait for earnings to report P&D.

But I think the best argument for continuing the early report of P&D is that it reduces Tesla's liability. Today, there is nothing that has more material effect on quarterly earnings than P&D. So if they wait until the earnings call and the info got leaked, it could be strong grounds for a shareholder suit.

 

[Usain]

Even if Elon has enough cash on hand for the purchase (I think he does), I don't think we will see him put the surplus back into TSLA. TSLA is self-sufficient and growing. If he puts money anywhere, it would be SpaceX. But I expect him to keep a significant amount of cash on hand for future endeavours.

Elon did promise that he would buy back TSLA shares with unneeded cash. I don't know how strictly he will hold himself to that promise though.

 

[bkp_duke]

Elon did promise that he would buy back TSLA shares with unneeded cash. I don't know how strictly he will hold himself to that promise though.

Have my doubts. Elon also promised to not sell more shares, if memory serves me, and we know how that turned out.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Even if Elon has enough cash on hand for the purchase (I think he does), I don't think we will see him put the surplus back into TSLA. TSLA is self-sufficient and growing. If he puts money anywhere, it would be SpaceX. But I expect him to keep a significant amount of cash on hand for future endeavours.

Since Elon very publicly said that he would buy back into TSLA if the Twitter deal fell through, if he has billions left over and doesn't put it back into TSLA, he will (rightfully) be called out in a very public way

 

[Electroman]

In five years you will just purchase the "Water my plants" app from the Tesla Store and load it to your bot. This is where the real money will come from for TSLA. The bots could be sold at cost and Tesla will still make a mint off software.

It's a great example of why Tesla is building a humanoid robot rather than, say, a dog robot. The potential for software revenue is much larger because a humanoid can do a wider variety of tasks in the human world.

Similarly, I am thinking of another app named, 'Find my things". Where it keeps tab of common items in the house and helps me retrieve it. I often keep my phone (in silent mode) and glasses somewhere and end up spending a good amount of time looking for it. As the bot walks around the house for various chores, it keeps tab of an item last seen and helps fetch it for me.

 

[Usain]

Have my doubts. Elon also promised to not sell more shares, if memory serves me, and we know how that turned out.

He said no more sales were planned. And I take him at his word on that. But it's true that there is always wiggle room. So he could decide to wiggle out of his buyback promise as well.

I believe that if Elon has a significant amount of cash when the deal closes then he will use at least some to buy back TSLA shares. That was his stated intent.

 

[Xepa777]

Well, someone correct me if I'm wrong, the terms of the deal have to be disclosed and so I would assume we'll see who all put money into the Twitter buyout besides Elon

Elon's closer to probably needing to sell more shares than to do a buyback with leftover money after the sale lol. This is wishful thinking.

Also who cares? Tesla's going to be rolling in so much cash in 5 years it will be initiating its own buybacks. And buybacks only matter in the short term if you're planning to sell. Are you planning to sell?