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

[AlMc]

Any demand shortfall would end by opening more service centers. I know dozens of people who would buy the car today if the nearest service center was only 100 miles away instead of 250. That is literally the only thing stopping purchases. Management seems blind to this dynamic though.

You only know of those people because you’ve gone out of your way to tell them not to buy a car based on what YOU believe reality needs to be. You’ve gone out your way to convince them they need a service center within a certain distance. There are thousands and thousands of Tesla owners that have proven otherwise.

I agree with the basic premise that Tesla would sell more vehicles IF more service centers were available. In a conversation recently with a 'Tesla friend' (name/ position removed to protect the innocent) that appears to be what might be happening. Smaller service centers. Maybe two bay sized for 'major repair' but also more hubs for mobile service to stock up on parts. Currently, our local mobile service person drives 'often' to the local Service Center to pick up parts a couple times a week that is a 1-1.5 hour drive from his base of operations/territory.

My suggestion to my Tesla friend: Why not FedEX needed parts to each mobile tech's home? Overall probably saves time/thus saves money. Got a nod of the head on that. we'll see.

EDIT: based on a couple of other posts I realize the 'multiple small service center' idea is limited in some locals by current anti Tesla laws/regulations.

 

[jbcarioca]

He's pledged a fraction of his Tesla stock (not SpaceX; SpaceX is private) as collateral (can't remember the fraction, but it's a fairly small fraction), which is used to back a loan that's 25% of that value, some unknown fraction of which is spent and the rest unspent.

He's hardly struggling.

SpaceX shares, although private, could still be used as borrowing collateral. There is also a fairly reliable equity pricing guide, even including the $1 billion capital raise that is being completed right now that serves as a current valuation.

 

[KarenRei]

SpaceX sharers, although private, could still be used as borrowing collateral. There is also a fairly reliable equity pricing guide, even including the $1 billion capital raise that is being completed right now that serves as a current valuation.

Could be. But aren't, AFAIK.

Also, I'm not sure how much an institution would feel about loaning money against a corporate asset that only gets its value assessed, what, twice a year? I'd expect much higher interest rates due to the lower transparency and liquidity.

 

[PhaseWhite]

Any demand shortfall would end by opening more service centers. I know dozens of people who would buy the car today if the nearest service center was only 100 miles away instead of 250. That is literally the only thing stopping purchases. Management seems blind to this dynamic though.

++++

The only car I've ever purchased without test driving it first is the Model 3, but that's only after I purchased a Model S and had been obsessing about a 3 for 2 years.

Normies (Who don't drink the koolaid) don't realize how different a Tesla is until they drive one. They also (rightfully) won't buy a car if they can't get it serviced conveniently.

Getting more regular people (who haven't considered a Tesla before) is going to be key for growing demand to BMW levels in the US, and for that Tesla will need more service centers and other store locations. A google search turned up BMW has about 341 car dealerships in the US.

 

[bhtooefr]

Ha, I love that final graph! Bugatti's fine will end up costing more than their revolting cars...

View attachment 398854

Would Skoda, Audi, SEAT, Volkswagen, Porsche, Bentley, and Lamborghini not be pooled in with Bugatti's numbers? (And, as Bugatti is so low volume, it won't drag them up by much, either.)

 

[Beaver]

Model 3’s show up in the new inventory section on the site now.

Will be interesting to track over time. 45 show up under my zip code, most of them SR+.

Also as to Neroden’s point, sales growth has helped by expansion of stores and service centers. Slowing expansion down has the opposite effect imo.

There were 32 in Chicago last night, almost all SR+. Now there is 31. I will check again Monday. I am very interested to see how many they can move in a weekend.

 

[jbcarioca]

Could be. But aren't, AFAIK.

Also, I'm not sure how much an institution would feel about loaning money against a corporate asset that only gets its value assessed, what, twice a year? I'd expect much higher interest rates due to the lower transparency and liquidity.

As a past participant in that market I have a couple observations:
1. the loan to value bases are substantially lower for non-public securities;
2. Pricing is highly variable and relies deeply on overall financial structure and company financial stability.
3. SpaceX has a vey well established and well-documented customer base, financial structure and performance track record.
4. Were Musk care to borrow against those shares he most certainly could do so on very attractive terms.

Does he? I have no information so won't even speculate. OTOH, I put in a decently sized bid for SpaceX shares this week, well above the minimum, but was too slow so missed out on the deal. Of course, if some investors fail to fund, I might still get in.

 

[goinfraftw]

So, this is off-topic, but I just turned officially into an Angel Investor this week.

 

[CorneliusXX]

That doesn't mean anti Elon. Board members can and should be supportive of their CEO. That doesn't make them yes men/women. Contrary to popular belief, the word "no" is not a reflection of support one way or the other. Just that person's view of a given situation. Just like Vegas, what happens in the board room stays in the board room. They can still go have a beer together...or whatever.

Dan

Dan

Congrats on achieving your second dan.

 

[traxila]

As a past participant in that market I have a couple observations:
1. the loan to value bases are substantially lower for non-public securities;
2. Pricing is highly variable and relies deeply on overall financial structure and company financial stability.
3. SpaceX has a vey well established and well-documented customer base, financial structure and performance track record.
4. Were Musk care to borrow against those shares he most certainly could do so on very attractive terms.

Does he? I have no information so won't even speculate. OTOH, I put in a decently sized bid for SpaceX shares this week, well above the minimum, but was too slow so missed out on the deal. Of course, if some investors fail to fund, I might still get in.

SpaceX raising 500 million for second time in four months and you could not get in with an overbid? How does that even work?

OT posted a poll on SpaceX thread regarding market cap and whether it is a buy. Thanks.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Ha, I love that final graph! Bugatti's fine will end up costing more than their revolting cars...

View attachment 398854

There must be some pretty clever engineering involved in fitting the firebox and ashpan into those things.

 

[traxila]

So, this is off-topic, but I just turned officially into an Angel Investor this week.

Rocket company? BEV startup? Tunneling? AI?

I forget. Are there any other choices?

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Congrats on achieving your second dan.

?
What did I miss?

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Congrats on achieving your second dan.

Never mind, just saw it. lol!

Dan
Dan
Dan
Dan...

 

[traxila]

Never mind, just saw it. lol!

Dan
Dan
Dan
Dan...

See, they always say the second one is the toughest.

GodSpeed to your Dan Empire!

 

[goinfraftw]

Rocket company? BEV startup? Tunneling? AI?

I forget. Are there any other choices?

lol, fintech .

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Rocket company? BEV startup? Tunneling? AI?

I forget. Are there any other choices?

Twitter?

Dan

 

[azaz]

Model 3’s show up in the new inventory section on the site now.

Will be interesting to track over time. 45 show up under my zip code, most of them SR+.

Already at 39

 

[SW2Fiddler]

NOCC Oceanic en route to Pier 80, after having passed through the Panama Canal:
Walter MacVane on Twitter

Should get there after Glovis Captain, which is currently southwest of Eugene, OR

Ugh, cue the edgy TwitShorts...

Shorty McCoastGuard on Twitter

Who’s up for “running out of fuel” in the path of a Glovis to make its journey just a little more ...interesting? Honk honk if you love wooden shoes

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Having seen the progress made by e.g. Google's AI that taught itself to run in a simulated human body and OpenAI 's similarly self-training networks such as OpenAI Five, I am more optimistic.

Professional Dota players at a level reached after years of intensive playing - competitively with multi-million dollar prizes - were beaten by OpenAI software that had only been given the rules of the game and then just for three weeks blindly played _many_ concurrent games against itself to learn what worked and what did not.

Compared to five-player Dota, the written and unwritten rules of driving are not that many and not that complex.

I am also optimistic because there is no particular hurry with these pesky FSD corner-cases. Get the AI to work on the large fraction of easy cases, then in maybe a few years when the time is right because regulations start recognizing autonomous vehicles in certain places, there will be massive amounts of training data and real world experience.

At that point and similar to the Dota exercise I find it entirely possible that over some months Tesla could let their FSD AI simulate e.g. 10k person-years of driving, to make sure it learns what works and what does not.

Then, regarding the uncountable set of corner cases the FSD AI will become similar to a human, except better, i.e. driving somewhat tentatively taking extra care in the rare event of never before experienced circumstances - that it classifies as such much faster than a human.

Thinking about this more: since reinforcement learning is almost certain to give the best safety results, it could lead to some pretty strange situations.

Current traffic laws are based on what people believed would produce the best safety outcomes. What we've seen with learned algorithms previously is that the optimal solution often involves some steps that go well away from conventional thinking. It’s fully possible(and probable) that a system trained for optimal driving doesn’t necessarily always follow the rules of the road.