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

[Matias]

This is the first time I have ever thought about trimming a significant portion of my shares. It almost seems if you are not on the FSD/RT bandwagon there isn't much else to get excited about (maybe optimus?) for future growth. I am still hesitant to do so as I keep thinking that I am missing something and that this could be hugely profitable for Tesla. The timing would also suck with the SP being down so much. If it was still at $200+ I think I wouldn't be hesitating on trimming my shares.

I'm afraid RT is a

Wunderwaffe​

 

[Linkmeup]

I actually spat out morning tea watching that video

 

[Usain]

Why would they need to be inductive?

That's a good thought. If Optimus can be trained to clean the cars, it can easily be trained to plug them in.

But I still expect most robotaxi charging to be inductive. It just makes things so much simpler.

 

[Linkmeup]

Btw, with this recent run down in TSLA...any chance it becomes a benefit to hiring new employees for the next run-up?

 

[sunwarriors]

It seems like a lot of posters here don't have any experience working with the general public. Why would we want Tesla to sell many low-margin vehicles instead of focusing on the much higher RTs? The more low-margin vehicles sold, the more headaches.

We don't know what the margins/profits will be for a non-existent RT product. I think the only way RT works is if it's all owned by Tesla. Hertz was a good example of that where you can't get cars fixed/repaired/parts/etc so I doubt the math for individual owners will ever pencil out to buy a fleet of RT when Tesla can out compete you in that market.

 

[hitchhiker]

I'm also starting to wonder if the layoff is indicative that Optimus is ready to start in-house deployment.

 

[Discoducky]

Why would they all need to be inductive?

Pretty sure @Knightshade is referring to inductive charging so that they can autonomously charge 1000's of times in any environment quickly.

 

[unk45]

Yes, there are other players in stationary storage, however, one has to be aware of the "transparency" of the markets where CN companies thrive. In a lot of countries kick-backs, even in commercial entities are the way of operation. Even non-government entities are susceptible to bribery of decision-makers. I wish every company success in stationary storage ramp-up, however, I can totally understand how TSLA might want to prioritize domestic market and not even bother with other markets till they have to.

So what does Tesla Energy place such great emphasis on 65+ countries?

Utilities | Tesla

Every year, electrical grids around the world add more renewable energy. Learn more about how Tesla utility-scale batteries and software controls can dispatch this energy, lower lifecycle costs and create a more stable and sustainable grid.

www.tesla.com

The first major TE commercial placement was in South Australia, the Hornsdale Power Reserve. Tesla has huge emphasis on global energy placements Utility and Commercial.

 

[rentierparasit]

The issie is that your posts seemed to indicate the layoffs were indicative of doom and gloom (dark and stormy?) in terms of Tesla's business, whereas this Tweet indicates a change in organization that is likely positive in terms of positioning Tesla for moving forward.

Not really what you were saying all along, IMO.

Hi, Scaesare --

Why not both?

Yours,
RP

 

[elasalle]

Lease

https://twitter.com/x/status/1780604590213501167

 

[2daMoon]

I think the talk of $4000/share price is insane. The company would be valued at $12.8 trillion (with the 3.2 billion float), more than anything else out there and larger than Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, nVidia combined.

Would you have said the same thing in 2019 about a $2250 share price five years later?

$150 x 15 split = $2250
or, let's go with the ATH in October of 2021, $400 x 5 split = $2000, over a three year span

 

[Gigapress]

I don’t necessarily want to come off as disagreeing with this post as I respect all your contributions here.

No problem

However, I have seen some of these arguments for RT written here before as if they are a fact but I am having a hard time wrapping my small brain around some of these. Where is everyone getting these “facts” for RT?

To be clear, it was a prediction based on facts. It could be wrong. Also a few big wildcards here are:
1) Boring Co tunnels
2) How much will robotaxis cause an increase in amount of transportation consumed?
3) What are the difficult-to-predict, second-order consequences of this huge societal transition?

I admit this is based on my bubble of the world but I don’t see myself or anyone I know giving up there car. Seems like way too much of an inconvenience.

Probably some will and some won’t. And many more will own a car but also use robotaxis some of the time rather than taking their own vehicle. Bear in mind that the demographics on this forum, and I think probably in the broader investment community, skew old and rich. In the US at least, Gen Z has shown the lowest interest in car ownership since the beginning of the mass-market automobile era and the percentage of young adults and teenagers getting driver’s licenses has been gradually declining. Might be true elsewhere but I haven’t looked. The affordability aspect is important for a lot of people who can barely afford their own current car-dependent lifestyle. Plus it’s not necessarily about picking the cheaper option, but also the opportunity to upgrade to something nicer than one could afford for a personal vehicle. If you can get Mercedes luxury at Kia prices, that will attract a lot of people. At every level of size and luxury, robotaxis will be more affordable thanks to the superior economic efficiency.

Speaking of age, when you go from old to elderly, driving becomes increasingly difficult and hazardous. Every developed wealthy nation in the world has a rapidly growing population of seniors. They will be less interested in personal car ownership if robotaxis present an open that’s easy, convenient and physically accessible (in a mobility and pain sense of the term).

Also, why would there be a large elimination of parking spaces? Assuming people give up car ownership (I don’t see that happening but), Commuting into my city for work would need a lot of RT. Wouldn’t they need to be parked somewhere near everyone’s home to be ready at any moment? Then won’t most of them need to be parked somewhere near all the commuters coming home? Also, how would it work when you have 1000s of people requesting RT all within the same hour to come home. Wouldn’t they need to be parked nearby for people to find them or at least be ready to pick someone up?

Today, the car follows the person. Almost every destination has much more parking than it actually needs most of the time. I’ve read somewhere that in the US it’s a regulatory rule or something like that. As a result, cities have significantly more parking spaces than vehicles. My guess for the US is about 2-10x more parking than vehicles, depending on the city. Most parking spaces are unoccupied at any given time. In a robotaxi city, the overflow parking rules could be relaxed and there could instead be fewer, larger lots for idle robotaxis.

Additionally, a bunch of the area of a parking lot isn’t actual parking spaces. About half of it is the travel lanes between rows of spaces, plus a bit more for the entrance/exit roadways that connect the lot to the surrounding streets. A parking lot for robotaxis doesn’t need all those lanes between rows. Current parking lots only need that because people want to be able to get their particular car in and out. In contrast, robotaxi storage can be treated more like a “stack” or “queue” data structure, where only the cars on the end of a column can move while the bulk of the cars in the middle of each column are trapped. Since one vehicle is as good as any other, it doesn’t matter that most of the cars aren’t accessible. Just add or pull from the edges as needed. And if there are fewer, larger parking lots in a robotaxi world, then fewer entrance/exit roadways are necessary in aggregate across a city.

Also, robotaxis reduce the amount of parking area needed per vehicle. So the spaces could be smaller. Most robotaxis will probably be two-seaters with about half the footprint of the average vehicle today. Plus there won’t be side mirrors which reduces the width of every vehicle model relative to a human-driven equivalent. Also, when parking is done with the precision of a computer and when there are no occupants who need to open the doors for ingress and egress, less clearance would be needed between the sides of two adjacent vehicles. I’m not sure whether I’m missing something but in principle I could see the side clearance being only a couple inches.

Same with carpooling, why would it make it easier and how would that even work and why would anyone want to carpool anymore than they do now?

I doubt it will be a big difference in the rate of carpooling. However I have personally used Uber Pool many times to save money. Uber doesn’t offer that option anymore but the attraction was that the fares were lower. Some customers would be price sensitive.

Also carpooling via Uber Pool helped solve a coordination problem with a software platform. It helped effortlessly match people in real time who had similar origin and destination points.

 

[stealthyc]

Pretty sure @Knightshade is referring to inductive charging so that they can autonomously charge 1000's of times in any environment quickly.

I understand what it means but I don't really see why it would be a necessity. The cost to pay a person minimum wage to man a robotaxi supercharger site to plug and unplug them has to be relatively low.

 

[AndrewZ]

There was also an Investor’s Day. That also went over like a ton of bricks. Let’s be real, people aren’t necessarily the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes accidentally.

That one was all about recruiting the top investors

 

[SO16]

Lease

https://twitter.com/x/status/1780604590213501167

The biggest gripe I hear about Tesla leasing is supposedly you cannot buy the vehicle at the end of the term.

 

[scaesare]

Hi, Scaesare --

Why not both?

Yours,
RP

Because one does not necessarily indicate the other, yet that was the basis D&S used to validate his previous posts.

 

[Matias]

. Why would we want Tesla to sell many low-margin vehicles instead of focusing on the much higher RTs?

 

[elasalle]

The biggest gripe I hear about Tesla leasing is supposedly you cannot buy the vehicle at the end of the term.

Ya not sure what the logic here is. maybe time to change this.

 

[Knightshade]

Pretty sure @Knightshade is referring to inductive charging so that they can autonomously charge 1000's of times in any environment quickly.

Exactly that

Why would they all need to be inductive?

Because the alternative is hiring a massive # of people to manually charge cars. Though as I mention they might need to anyway to keep the interiors cleaned out regularly. Then they'd also need some kind of shelter/booth for that person to remain on-site all shift in bad weather. The ideal case is using Optimus I suppose (a weatherproofed one). But none of that is FAST to get done if you're talking deploying millions of cars, and including induction capability means you don't have to RELY on having someone to plug/unplug RTs. Of course it relies on installing a ton of inductive chargers- but you will need to add a ton of chargers ANYWAY to support a fleet of millions.

Name the ‘many’ states. Dare you to. I’ll start you off:

Texas. And now tell us just how difficult this has been and what size of market Tesla has in the state. And nobody from Texas with a Tesla help this fictional storyteller out.

Your turn. And remember the definition of many.

Not the OP, but...

Alabama, South Carolina, and New Mexico ban not just direct sales, but also service centers. WV, Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Connecticuit also ban direct sales (CT allows direct leasing however).

Another 9 states allow direct sales, but heavily limit the # of allowed locations to do so.

In a few cases Tesla has done an end-run putting a sales center on a Native American reservation, in others as you suggest they conduct the "sale" out of state and a customer still gets their car-- but at greater effort and cost to at least Tesla, and sometimes the consumer (lots of stories about added time/effort/etc around registration and other paperwork stuff on this in various delivery threads here)- and of course the states that also ban service centers directly worsen customer experience.

 

[SOULPEDL]

It seems like a lot of posters here don't have any experience working with the general public. Why would we want Tesla to sell many low-margin vehicles instead of focusing on the much higher RTs? The more low-margin vehicles sold, the more headaches.

I don't think folks get this fully. Chinese BEVs are already well under $25K. No, they can't import to US yet, but the rest of the world is fair game. And if we somehow envisioned everyone buying the Gen 3, why bother when there's that RT right around the corner and inflation is insanely high (which is just a hunch)?

This could be a race to the bottom for margins there. There might not even be an economy standing where people could afford them. But RT are future-proof.