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

[gaswalla]

If Lucid is trying to win the battle for "high end EV that is not a Tesla" - they have no chance against Porsche who has done a fantastic job of pivoting to that market. Mercedes is trying to fight for that market too, but in their efforts to also gather the mid-level market, they are diluting the high end EV market. From Lucid's perspective, they are taking on Tesla, Porsche, and Mercedes --- that requires more than perfect execution

 

[Prunesquallor]

Got my FSD Beta for the first time today. The graphics are:

 

[DFibRL8R]

Ooh, got an invite

 

[Singuy]

Both Rivian and Lucid has no chance and I'm sticking to this.

A good example of a company that stand a chance is Polestar. Manufacturing in China, has 2641 employees, and managed to pump out their 100k car while hitting profitability.

Rivian has like 14k employees making a fraction of the cars in the U.S. The distance between all these crazy wasteful U.S EV startups and Polestar is not even on the same planet.

I'm not a polestar shareholder so I'm not shilling for them here, but their cost structure is more Tesla like when Tesla was young than the U.S ev startups that's for sure.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Both Rivian and Lucid has no chance and I'm sticking to this.

A good example of a company that stand a chance is Polestar. Manufacturing in China, has 2641 employees, and managed to pump out their 100k car while hitting profitability.

Rivian has like 14k employees making a fraction of the cars in the U.S. The distance between all these crazy wasteful U.S EV startups and Polestar is not even on the same planet.

I'm not a polestar shareholder so I'm not shilling for them here, but their cost structure is more Tesla like when Tesla was young than the U.S ev startups that's for sure.

I’m down for a Tesla takeover of Rivian and Lucid..

 

[Gigapress]

Most unfortunately, today someone attempted to violate TMC’s Terms of Service by using this thread to direct traffic toward his own blog.

A large part of the “unfortunately” is because extremely recently I had a very pleasant meet-up with him, at which time I most specifically asked whether such a blog was a part of his long term plans. “Probably eventually” is the gist of his response and, lamentably, I then let the discussion lapse, thus kicked the can down the road rather than alerting him to the specific fact that it would be a serious TOS violation.

So I hold myself to blame for pussyfooting around, but there it is. There is NO REASON to post further comments about this topic. I.e.: don’t.

I should’ve known better. I’m sorry. Until now I’ve never read the TMC Terms. If my account belongs in timeout for this violation that’s ok.

When we talked about it a couple weeks ago, I had already shared the blog here a few times without reprimand so I gained the impression that that was acceptable. Also since the content is free I thought it would be helpful to share the link here because evidently a majority of regular forum participants are interested in having it. If I had been asking for money I definitely would not have advertised the ex-TMC content here. I was thinking of it as putting the mega posts in a more easily digestible format and linking here, much as Dave Lee did on TMC a few years ago. In fact both the blog and YouTube were specific requests I received from some members of the TMC investment community.

Also I am wondering the appropriate way to handle this moving forward to maximize value for the thread here without violating TMC policy. Many of the blog-length posts are so long that they don’t work well in a TMC format without gratuitous usage of spoiler buttons and even then it’s still awkward to read an essay here, and videos are even less practical, but I can go back to doing that if it’s the only option. Or should others link my posts if they want to share them, just as with any other outside content? On the other hand, I see the terms say TMC administrators can give permission to do this. Should I contact them to ask?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yeah. Rivian were smart, they entered the markets Tesla were not in. Van and Trucks. Their window on the truck market is rapidly closing with Cybertruck out in the next year, but maybe that was enough time for them to get started. Van they can saturate Amazon's needs and no Tesla there for another few years it seems. Btw does Amazon still not want to support Tesla even without Jeff Who?

Tesla doesn't make a delivery van, so it is academic what Amazon would do. I have little doubt that if Tesla decided to enter the market, UPS, USPS, Fedex and everyone else would be tripping over themselves to give them orders. Other than lack of ability to grow faster, I don't know why Tesla wouldn't enter the van delivery market. If I was doing a startup, that's what I would be targeting, general commercial vehicles. Field reports are showing that even at just 150 miles range, the Rivian EDVs have more than enough range for the routes. Those batteries could probably be even smaller.

Elon has a habit of being lucky with his early strategies.

I do not believe it is luck. Starlink is an example of very advanced strategic thinking that very few people would have conceived.

First, grant me that the only executive at SpaceX that really cares about creating a Martian civilization is Elon. The rest care about keeping SpaceX running as an on-going business and they are doing a great job at that. OK, so Elon, and only Elon, pushes for the creation of the Interplanetary Transporter (initial name), or later, the BFR, for the sole purpose of building a civilization on Mars. The problem he faces as a strategist is how to pay for it. SpaceX profits on a $3B to $4B per year revenue company (which is what SpaceX is minus Starlink) might fund a small annual outlay program that would take 20 years to develop a first version of the required huge rocket/spaceship.

I think it was during Elon's second talk to the interplanetary society when he introduced the BFR concept for the first time (updated from the previous Interplanetary Transporter). In that talk he said one line which was very, very important: "I think I've figured out how to pay for its development". About a year later, we hear about SpaceX's Starlink idea. At the time, people (me included) were wondering why the heck would SpaceX get into a side business that competed against 60% of their customers (satellite telecom companies).

Well, the answer is in two parts. First, Starlink is a HUGE concept. 40,000 or so satellites requires a LOT of lift capacity. So Elon has basically increased SpaceX revenue from $3.5B a year to something a lot bigger through this "side business", which, when fully operational, will dwarf OG SpaceX's revenue to the tune of $30B or so of annual revenue for just Starlink. You can't manufacture money out of thin air, but if you propose a 10X revenue profitable company, you'll be able to raise investment capital to fund it. Which is what SpaceX has easily done. Since Starlink came out, SpaceX has rapidly increased its valuation through successive over subscribed funding rounds.

Second, Starlink will be a massive user of Starship/Super Heavy, so it justifies investment in that big rocket/ship that, oh gee, just happens to be the perfect vehicle/system to also create a Martian civilization. The fact that SpaceX also got NASA money to develop Starship for HLS is just icing on the cake.

So, yeah, really good HBR case studies could be written about many of Elon's strategies. The fact that people don't recognize that he even has strategies is a reflection of most people's general lack of ability to think strategically.

 

[GOVA]

Well, it is Thansgiving in the beautiful US of A.

I've decided to "unignore" all that I've ignored. The number is ..... 64.
I am amazed that I still had something to read here. What a place this is!

 

[Cosmacelf]

I’m down for a Tesla takeover of Rivian and Lucid..

I’m down for a takeover of their markets and vehicle segments, not necessarily the companies themselves except at fire sale prices.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I’m down for a takeover of their markets and vehicle segments, not necessarily the companies themselves except at fire sale prices.

Yes and yes.

 

[nativewolf]

Tesla doesn't make a delivery van, so it is academic what Amazon would do. I have little doubt that if Tesla decided to enter the market, UPS, USPS, Fedex and everyone else would be tripping over themselves to give them orders. Other than lack ability to grow faster, I don't know why Tesla wouldn't enter the van delivery market. If I was doing a startup, that's what I would be targeting, general commercial vehicles. Field reports are showing that even at just 150 miles range, the Rivian EDVs have more than enough range for the routes. Those batteries could probably be even smaller.



I do not believe it is luck. Starlink is an example of very advanced strategic thinking that very few people would have conceived.

First, grant me that the only executive at SpaceX that really cares about creating a Martian civilization is Elon. The rest care about keeping SpaceX running as an on-going business and they are doing a great job at that. OK, so Elon, and only Elon, pushes for the creation of the Interplanetary Transporter (initial name), or later, the BFR, for the sole purpose of building a civilization on Mars. The problem he faces as a strategist is how to pay for it. SpaceX profits on a $3B to $4B per year revenue company (which is what SpaceX is minus Starlink) might fund a small annual outlay program that would take 20 years to develop a first version of the required huge rocket/spaceship.

I think it was during Elon's second talk to the interplanetary society when he introduced the BFR concept for the first time (updated from the previous Interplanetary Transporter). In that talk he said one line which was very, very important: "I think I've figured out how to pay for its development". About a year later, we hear about SpaceX's Starlink idea. At the time, people (me included) were wondering why the heck would SpaceX get into a side business that competed against 60% of their customers (satellite telecom companies).

Well, the answer is in two parts. First, Starlink is a HUGE concept. 40,000 or so satellites requires a LOT of lift capacity. So Elon has basically increased SpaceX revenue from $3.5B a year to something a lot bigger through this "side business", which, when fully operational, will dwarf OG SpaceX's revenue to the tune of $30B or so of annual revenue for just Starlink. You can't manufacture money out of thin air, but if you propose a 10X revenue profitable company, you'll be able to raise investment capital to fund it. Which is what SpaceX has easily done. Since Starlink came out, SpaceX has rapidly increased its valuation through successive over subscribed funding rounds.

Second, Starlink will be a massive user of Starship/Super Heavy, so it justifies investment in that big rocket/ship that, oh gee, just happens to be the perfect vehicle/system to also create a Martian civilization. The fact that SpaceX also got NASA money to develop Starship for HLS is just icing on the cake.

So, yeah, really good HBR case studies could be written about many of Elon's strategies. The fact that people don't recognize that he even has strategies is a reflection of most people's general lack of ability to think strategically.

most I've met don't care about starlink business stuff and were all about going to mars. Long time ago but yeah, mars was the goal. Starlink just funds getting to mars....brilliant..simple and something you could not do without the lift vehicles needed to go to Mars.

 

[ZeApelido]

I would post about my YouTube channel Local Memeitization but don’t want to suck all the traffic away from TMC.

 

[TrendTrader007]

What are some of the biggest dangers to true do it yourself at home Tesla retail investor today: in my personal experience as an investor since 1998 it is highly unlikely that majority of investors are right for prolonged periods of time. Exceptions are always there like apple, Amazon, Berkshire, Walmart, chipotle, Microsoft, google, which were painfully obvious to anyone who cared to pay attention and there is much to be said for wisdom of crowds. So only a cynical egotistical person would easily discard wisdom of crowds.
Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with the phenomenon of Tesla influencers and Twitter personalities as well as YouTubers whose major preoccupation seems to be singing praises of Tesla and Elon. I may be out of touch since I had to deactivate my twitter account and stop listening to YouTubers etc because noise to signal ratio got way too extreme. I was also disconcerted about Elon being featured on Time cover in December 2021- reminded me of Jeff Bezos on Time cover in December 1999.
However, all these are secondary or tertiary indicators and insufficient to form a long term contrary opinion. It’s always bad sign when investors want to retire on basis of a single stock.
Why? Suppose you turn out to be one of the luckier retail investors and end up with $100 million in Tesla. You decide to retire on that basis, fast forward 1 year and you’re down a cool $60 million. Not enough to bring you out of retirement but enough to cause needless anxiety. And everyone knows or should know that 50 to 60% corrections every few years are the norm and not exception for high beta growth stocks. For those on margin it’s much more painful. So only those who have discounted potential drawdowns of 50 to 60% or more in their portfolio every few years and have adequate funds for survival consistent with their lifestyle have the luxury to retire.
It would be pretty hard to get used to flying netjets and then give it up
Long story short, there is a real risk that Tesla could go sideways for quite a while until all these influencers and YouTubers pretty much give up. There is another real risk that Tesla may just take off 9X over next 3 years like apple did in 2009 to 2012 etc while you’re too cautious or bearish. There is of course clear risk of Tesla the stock severely underperforming for a very long time (I highly doubt it)
So what is a retail investor to do:
#1 minimize noise to signal ratio: just focus on Tesla fundamentals
#2 not form a definite short to intermediate term bearish opinion and even worse act on it which could cause missing out on the great growth stock that Tesla is. In other words, not outsmart self. Best to stay overly optimistic and suffer steep corrections when underlying business is so strong.
#3 retirement on basis of a single stock is probably not the greatest idea in the world but for those can accomplish that feat I’m very impressed
#4 not a brilliant idea to die by the sword and not live by sword. So being highly leveraged on way down and not on way up is portfolio countertherapeutic. (For the record, my amazing wife notes nobody dies by the sword in 2022). Okay I’ll state it another way: getting religion at exactly the wrong time is not very profitable
I could go on and expand further on my disdain toward YouTube and Twitter charlatans and con artists but my lovely wife puts swift end to this evening’s post
Not financial advice and hopefully I’ll stay off expounding my opinions on fellow Tesla investors for the foreseeable future

 

[wipster]

My $0.02.

I feel watching 20 minute narrative YouTubes somewhat tedious. I prefer written content with graphics so that I can reread something I didn't catch the first time around and study the graphics until I’m sure I grasp the message.

If YouTube is something you want to get into, then go for it. Personally, I would prefer a link to your mega-posts that are formatted to be more reader friendly.

I too far prefer the written word to the spoken word of the talking heads. Now, Connecting The Dots has a great concept on YouTube... must be a lot of work putting the posts together, but extremely informative and entertaining. I know you've read and watched them. Might be a great concept to emulate.

 

[OrthoSurg]

I had a bit of an epiphany from Orthosurg banning himself from buying more on margin last night- I'm banning myself from more margin as well. I'm not buying more LEAPS or common stock either. It's TSLL only for me as funds trickle into my cash acct. At least until we get back to 400. I think it will compound much more than it's 1.5x daily leverage from this low zone over the next couple of years. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

No
More
Margin
Ever

 

[CLK350]

I’m down for a Tesla takeover of Rivian and Lucid..

Their 2D factories would be deadweight for Tesla*. Maybe just wait and Tesla can buy the interesting patents and hire their best engineers after they implode.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

What are some of the biggest dangers to true do it yourself at home Tesla retail investor today: in my personal experience as an investor since 1998 it is highly unlikely that majority of investors are right for prolonged periods of time. Exceptions are always there like apple, Amazon, Berkshire, Walmart, chipotle, Microsoft, google, which were painfully obvious to anyone who cared to pay attention and there is much to be said for wisdom of crowds. So only a cynical egotistical person would easily discard wisdom of crowds.
Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with the phenomenon of Tesla influencers and Twitter personalities as well as YouTubers whose major preoccupation seems to be singing praises of Tesla and Elon. I may be out of touch since I had to deactivate my twitter account and stop listening to YouTubers etc because noise to signal ratio got way too extreme. I was also disconcerted about Elon being featured on Time cover in December 2021- reminded me of Jeff Bezos on Time cover in December 1999.
However, all these are secondary or tertiary indicators and insufficient to form a long term contrary opinion. It’s always bad sign when investors want to retire on basis of a single stock.
Why? Suppose you turn out to be one of the luckier retail investors and end up with $100 million in Tesla. You decide to retire on that basis, fast forward 1 year and you’re down a cool $60 million. Not enough to bring you out of retirement but enough to cause needless anxiety. And everyone knows or should know that 50 to 60% corrections every few years are the norm and not exception for high beta growth stocks. For those on margin it’s much more painful. So only those who have discounted potential drawdowns of 50 to 60% or more in their portfolio every few years and have adequate funds for survival consistent with their lifestyle have the luxury to retire.
It would be pretty hard to get used to flying netjets and then give it up
Long story short, there is a real risk that Tesla could go sideways for quite a while until all these influencers and YouTubers pretty much give up. There is another real risk that Tesla may just take off 9X over next 3 years like apple did in 2009 to 2012 etc while you’re too cautious or bearish. There is of course clear risk of Tesla the stock severely underperforming for a very long time (I highly doubt it)
So what is a retail investor to do:
#1 minimize noise to signal ratio: just focus on Tesla fundamentals
#2 not form a definite short to intermediate term bearish opinion and even worse act on it which could cause missing out on the great growth stock that Tesla is. In other words, not outsmart self. Best to stay overly optimistic and suffer steep corrections when underlying business is so strong.
#3 retirement on basis of a single stock is probably not the greatest idea in the world but for those can accomplish that feat I’m very impressed
#4 not a brilliant idea to die by the sword and not live by sword. So being highly leveraged on way down and not on way up is portfolio countertherapeutic. (For the record, my amazing wife notes nobody dies by the sword in 2022). Okay I’ll state it another way: getting religion at exactly the wrong time is not very profitable
I could go on and expand further on my disdain toward YouTube and Twitter charlatans and con artists but my lovely wife puts swift end to this evening’s post
Not financial advice and hopefully I’ll stay off expounding my opinions on fellow Tesla investors for the foreseeable future

Why do I feel a sense of foreboding?

 

[ElectricIAC]

Their 2D factories would be deadweight for Tesla*. Maybe just wait and Tesla can buy the interesting patents and hire their best engineers after they implode.

I heard somewhere that they have a fairly large amount of employees.

 

[CLK350]

I should’ve known better. I’m sorry. Until now I’ve never read the TMC Terms. If my account belongs in timeout for this violation that’s ok.

When we talked about it a couple weeks ago, I had already shared the blog here a few times without reprimand so I gained the impression that that was acceptable. Also since the content is free I thought it would be helpful to share the link here because evidently a majority of regular forum participants are interested in having it. If I had been asking for money I definitely would not have advertised the ex-TMC content here. I was thinking of it as putting the mega posts in a more easily digestible format and linking here, much as Dave Lee did on TMC a few years ago. In fact both the blog and YouTube were specific requests I received from some members of the TMC investment community.

Also I am wondering the appropriate way to handle this moving forward to maximize value for the thread here without violating TMC policy. Many of the blog-length posts are so long that they don’t work well in a TMC format without gratuitous usage of spoiler buttons and even then it’s still awkward to read an essay here, and videos are even less practical, but I can go back to doing that if it’s the only option. Or should others link my posts if they want to share them, just as with any other outside content? On the other hand, I see the terms say TMC administrators can give permission to do this. Should I contact them to ask?

@AudubonB @ggr Maybe exceptions can be made at the discretion of the mods? After all, rules were put in place for a reason. But we can't forget the rule's original intent.

Edit: I can see how this could create a burden for the mods if posters start breaking the rule following his example. So maybe a good workaround might be to allow some TMC'ers to have TWO handles; for example GigaPress_2 and that handle would be free to quote GigaPress' blogs.

 

[spacerfc]

I do not believe it is luck. Starlink is an example of very advanced strategic thinking that very few people would have conceived.

First, grant me that the only executive at SpaceX that really cares about creating a Martian civilization is Elon. The rest care about keeping SpaceX running as an on-going business and they are doing a great job at that. OK, so Elon, and only Elon, pushes for the creation of the Interplanetary Transporter (initial name), or later, the BFR, for the sole purpose of building a civilization on Mars. The problem he faces as a strategist is how to pay for it. SpaceX profits on a $3B to $4B per year revenue company (which is what SpaceX is minus Starlink) might fund a small annual outlay program that would take 20 years to develop a first version of the required huge rocket/spaceship.

I think it was during Elon's second talk to the interplanetary society when he introduced the BFR concept for the first time (updated from the previous Interplanetary Transporter). In that talk he said one line which was very, very important: "I think I've figured out how to pay for its development". About a year later, we hear about SpaceX's Starlink idea. At the time, people (me included) were wondering why the heck would SpaceX get into a side business that competed against 60% of their customers (satellite telecom companies).

Well, the answer is in two parts. First, Starlink is a HUGE concept. 40,000 or so satellites requires a LOT of lift capacity. So Elon has basically increased SpaceX revenue from $3.5B a year to something a lot bigger through this "side business", which, when fully operational, will dwarf OG SpaceX's revenue to the tune of $30B or so of annual revenue for just Starlink. You can't manufacture money out of thin air, but if you propose a 10X revenue profitable company, you'll be able to raise investment capital to fund it. Which is what SpaceX has easily done. Since Starlink came out, SpaceX has rapidly increased its valuation through successive over subscribed funding rounds.

Second, Starlink will be a massive user of Starship/Super Heavy, so it justifies investment in that big rocket/ship that, oh gee, just happens to be the perfect vehicle/system to also create a Martian civilization. The fact that SpaceX also got NASA money to develop Starship for HLS is just icing on the cake.

So, yeah, really good HBR case studies could be written about many of Elon's strategies. The fact that people don't recognize that he even has strategies is a reflection of most people's general lack of ability to think strategically.

Need to put some correction on this: SpaceX started working on LEO constellation in 2014 (which later becomes Starlink). Initially they worked with Greg Wyler who proposed LEO constellation to Google then to SpaceX, then Elon Musk and Greg Wyler had a fallout and went separate ways, Elon started Starlink (formally unveiled in a private event in January 2015 at Seattle, though it didn't get its name "Starlink" until 2017), and Greg Wyler started OneWeb.

Elon's first public Mars presentation happened in 2016, which unveiled ITS (Interplanetary Transportation System). ITS is very much focused on Mars, little other use for it were mentioned, even though back then some of us realized the only way he can pay for it without government support is using ITS for commercial missions too. Then in his 2nd public Mars presentation in 2017 he renamed ITS to BFR and said "I think I've figured out how to pay for its development", which is basically using BFR to replace Falcon 9/Heavy to launch satellites, servicing space station, doing lunar missions and Point to Point (P2P) travel.

So when he said "I think I've figured out how to pay for its development" with regard to BFR, Starlink (or what will eventually be named "Starlink") has been in development for a few years.