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

[Remus]

I actually had this discussion with a collegue many years ago. He claimed that nobody is interested is self-driving cars. When I told him it meant the car would drive him safely home when drunk, he instantly changed his opinion. (TBH, that guy was maybe drinking a bit too much than what was good for him).

I think the wall street understand the value of robotaxi, just see the valuation of waymo.

I don't think they believe Elon though. I don't see anything today would change that.

 

[Curt Renz]

MarketWatch - 8 minutes ago: Nvidia says Tesla 'inaccurate' in self-driving comparison

 

[Nocturnal]

I think the wall street understand the value of robotaxi, just see the valuation of waymo.

I don't think they believe Elon though. I don't see anything today would change that.

He had an excellent point when he basically said "I'm not always on time, but I do what I say I will".

 

[Artful Dodger]

I got a ray of hope after watching that clip. Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be a palpable slight shift in CNBC's heretofore constant bashing of Tesla. It may be that as TSLAQ and their handlers escalate the seriousness of their crimes, the media might just at some point say--"we were OK with spinning and creating FUD for which we could never be held responsible, but now that we are talking about felonies, we're not going to be on board". We can hope. JMO.

Here's the CNBC clip on YouTube:

"Here's why some think the Tesla explosion video is suspect"

 

[RobStark]

That's still above the TCOO that was quoted in the presentation ($0.62). They can probably do that at first though as they take over the trips people are going to spend more for convenience (like going out on the town and not having to worry about a DWI) as their capacity will be limited.

You'll also want to *eventually* beat the TCOO of a fully paid-for car, which will mostly be insurance, gas, and maintenance (Probably about $0.20 per mile).

Remember though, if they can eventually produce 1 million cars a year for the US market, and each robotaxi can do the work of 5, Tesla would be adding about 1/3 of the US's new capacity in passenger miles!

Take the meatiest lowest hanging fruit first, which is Uber/Lyft miles.

People here don't want to hear it but Tesla Robotaxi will also take miles from public transportation.

As $1/mile drops to $0.20/ per mile many people will prefer to be driven in a private Tesla than share a bus or train with shady characters.

 

[Remus]

Looks like Elon is betting the farm on self-driving. As far as owner cars in the Tesla fleet it was a bit confusing. So, I CAN purchase 3-4 cars and just run them on the Network? is that correct? Gross Revenue per car is approx 30K/Yr...is that what I heard?

The only questions I have, is that in the unfortunate event that this is delayed for 5 years, how would Tesla be?

 

[Cloxxki]

Yes, with Tesla taking 25%-30% off the top.

Tesla can make individuals partners or raise Billions and put company owned cars on the road. Or likely a combination.

It's my belief that the first company to make Level 5 (empty cars or just taxiing children to and from school and soccer practice), will be able to sell the software to just anyone at just any price. A sensor array is the easy bit and this can even be retrofitted to cars of any kind, even petrol fueled ones. In high labor markets, the driving profession would quickly die.

Level 5 in some countries will only happen when all the cars are interconnected or turned into actual bumper cars. Countries cannot afford to overhaul the whole road system and the way people drive just to accept a few modern cars without drivers, in economies where drivers are a significant part of the population.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Would be interesting to see what would happen if you had an M3 BMW with a great human driver and a model 3 performance Tesla without a driver compete on a racetrack. Kind of like Deep Blue and a human playing chess.

Place your bets!

The car would win hands down. Of course, you’d have to create a racing specific NN, but it wouldn’t be too hard

 

[PhaseWhite]

Arg I had to cut my watching short and now it looks like the YouTube link is no longer working... anyone have a working link?

 

[MarcusMaximus]

That would make personal transportation like the next big brother. You could not go anywhere anonymously. Would one be allowed to sit in the back of the car with a ski mask on while another person paid for the ride?

Can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to. I also don’t see personal ownership going away completely. Maybe to some degree in the cities but not elsewhere. You’ll just personally own a car that autonomously drives you around. More about safety than anything else.

 

[Nocturnal]

Arg I had to cut my watching short and now it looks like the YouTube link is no longer working... anyone have a working link?

Same happened to me. I just searched for "tesla investor day" and got it.

 

[Fred42]

Umm... so did he say that Tesla was not going to make any money until the robotaxi thing can start?
That's what I heard... Sounds like a change to the business model to me ...

So a path to prevention of financial success for Tesla is to prevent legislation that allows autonomous cars. This may be do-able for years. And it's a good fit with populist politics.

 

[Sean Wagner]

- never mind -

 

[mblakele]

I missed a portion of the presentation. Was there anything about how they can collect edge/similar data from the fleet ? I know they said the car does some compute and then sends the filtered data ...

Triggers. By the sound of it they can remotely configure cars to watch for "similar images to X" and upload the results.

Tangentially: shadow mode is real — but it sounds like it's used to pre-flight specific features rather than always running.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I'm not so sure. For thinking they will have ride sharing next year Elon seemed monumentally unprepared to answer any questions about it. Just a hazy 20-30% cut for Tesla, no certainty as to insurance, no answer to steering wheel, etc.

He was just doing that by the seat of his pants. Someone should've reined him in (can't believe I'm joining those who've been saying that...)

This isn’t particularly unusual for Tesla. They always do everything last minute. They weren’t even prepared for the logistics of delivering 5,000 cars a week until it happened. It’s just the way the company rolls.

 

[Causalien]

Just quickly glanced in shorts gathering places. At least none of them are saying that FSD is fake.

Now we are back to financial fraud.

What did Adam Jonas estimate TSLA to be a couple years ago when he asked about TSLA taxi? Was it $500 valuation?

 

[Spacemanspliff]

where’s my refreshed model S&X at?

 

[humbaba]

MarketWatch - 8 minutes ago: Nvidia says Tesla 'inaccurate' in self-driving comparison

Which is why he shouldn't have mentioned nvidia, outside of the system they were replacing. I realize that he was trying to drive home the point about why it was the right thing for Tesla to do, and in the grand scheme I think he made bigger mistakes, but it seems like a simple one to have let lay. nvidia would still have been compelled to save face, but at least he wouldn't've been caught out with a mistake about the marketing specs.

[and apparently nvidia isn't contesting that their system draws a heckalot more power]

 

[PhaseWhite]

MarketWatch - 8 minutes ago: Nvidia says Tesla 'inaccurate' in self-driving comparison

Lol and how much power does the Nvidia system pull and how much does it cost... googling didn’t turn up cost but I’m guessing 10-15k and 500watts seems to be ballpark for a dual high power GPU board.

 

[Cosmacelf]

But then why would they sell you a car and gain 10k profit when they could use it for their network and make 50k/100k profit? Why let Joe Blow buy 20 SR+s when you still have demand for robo taxis?

Basically they need to take out economic profits from the model so that it's worth their while to EITHER sell you a car and receive part time revenue share or keep it themselves and use it for their fleet.

Because they can’t finance it. Tesla, for now, MUST sell or lease cars because they need the cash. After car owners start delivering tons of free cash to Tesla as part of the Tesla Network, then they can start financing their own cars...