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

[Chartered321]

Closing price at $175.00 it's a demonstration of what any guy with 9 shares can do in the US. Which among the other effects can lead to huge market manipulation before a binary event like the 13th of June's one. It's crystal clear that at the moment Tesla is literally uninvestable by institutions and people responsible for other people's money. So that's why we're witnessing to this price action. The more the other stocks do well the more Wall Street can short Tesla. It's all about the vote. Without Elon TSLA will go down to $75 (PE of 25), with ELON it will jump to $200 and progress the more the AI unfolds into new products. Place your bets but don't complain because we all know everyone hates Musk at the moment (Media, Incumbents, wall street, people not holding Tesla stocks, ...), and the only way to win it's that the compensation package passes. EV are the future, all the other potential verticals too. But without the vision of Musk we all know it's not gonna be the same..

 

[Singuy]

Blah blah blah "not close to being robotaxi ready" and I'm here like...meh. It's more than enough to be license worthy as a selling feature for any car at 1 intervention every 5k miles. It's like people are saying "EVs will not reach million sales until there are same number of superchargers stations as gas stations ".

Currently every car company are licensing trash.

 

[chillerjt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798472011678966221

4680 update

 

[UncaNed]

Many posts on this page refer to FSD and Nvdia/AI.

For what it's worth, I'm using the contact link at the bottom of the page requesting the TMC developers/ site editors provide us with selectable options to:

A- hide/unhide replies to our Ignored posters
B- show ignored posts only for easier editing of our ignore list
C- hide posts containing any specific text/phrases we want to add to our personal library of things we aren't interested in seeing posts about (like the never-ending "FSD revenue" discussions before each earnings report, or certain political phrases)

And perhaps even provide us with a way to select specific posts that we want to see even if they are otherwise being ignored or hidden for whatever reason.


-And I'm hoping that other supporting forum members do likewise, for what it's worth. Please DM me any other ideas like this, also if anyone knows how much the programming time to do what I'm suggesting likely costs, because I don't know how much I'm asking and I'm curious about that.

Edit- I'm suggesting added things we can opt-into, yet I see I've already gotten a Disagree; why not add optional tools to streamline this forum?

 

[GhostSkater]

Troy who?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798472011678966221

 

[Christine69420]

Not really. Vehicle sales are up YTD in the US and Europe and forecast to grow a percent or two this year. China and ROW are forecast to grow even more.

There seems to be an increasing level of channel stuffing going on. Which does not count as a sale in my book. And it's not only Stellantis either.

 

[Carl Raymond]

I choose not to be cynical about Musk’s FSD projections. He has eyes on these next three versions. He knows the bugs, knows if they are fixable and clearly thinks ‘yes’.

At a year between interventions, some thoughts.

- it won’t stay there, 10 years, 100 years soon follow
- it’s prob “interventions due to FSD when visibility is decent”. Mud on cams, impenetrable fog, torrential rain, will cause more FSD downtime than FSD itself
- at a year between interventions it’s the nature of the fail that matters. A pull over to verge and call for help is a world away from career at speed in random direction
- I think it’s awesome that Elon’s mind has already transitioned to the validation problem. The better it is the harder to validate. We just learned that Giga Austin cluster includes 20k HW4 computers. Presumably this allows gazillions of simulated tests before the software gets near your car for the longer feedback loop. Tesla/Musk is already at robotaxi implementation planning phase. Second place with a works-anywhere, cheaper-than-driver system, air.
- Waymo/Cruise (can’t recall which or both) intervene remotely in car-stuck situations. When Tesla reach very-rare-intervention, and fail SAFE, the numbers stack up, it’s robotaxi go for launch time. A Tesla obviously has remote drive capability wherever there’s internet. This happens in China in 2024. Change my mind.

 

[MountainRatMat]

It's crystal clear that at the moment Tesla is literally uninvestable by institutions and people responsible for other people's money.

Isn't Tesla in the S&P 500, one of the most institutionally invested funds?

 

[RHJP]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798472011678966221

4680 update

On June 17, 2023 Giga Texas announced that it had produced 10 million 4680 cells
On Oct 11, 2023 Giga Texas announced that it had produced 20 million 4680 cells
On June 5, 2024 Giga Texas announced that it had produced 50 million 4680 cells

That must be over a million cells a week now.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Blah blah blah "not close to being robotaxi ready" and I'm here like...meh. It's more than enough to be license worthy as a selling feature for any car at 1 intervention every 5k miles. It's like people are saying "EVs will not reach million sales until there are same number of superchargers stations as gas stations ".

Currently every car company are licensing trash.

Every 5000 miles. Not even close to that. In the city maybe 3 or 4 mikes at best, and that’s assuming no traffic lights with a flashing green signal (so most of them in Canada). Your robotaxi ride is over at the first one. Get out and order another taxi because it’s not going any further.

When we got 12.3.6. three additional intersections that it could not do before were all of a sudden possible with the new download. Very cool. Now all three have dropped off one at a time. It selects the wrong lane on all three now and requires intervention again. In a single 15 minute drive thru our town it would generate thousands of dollars in fines if a cop followed it and ticketed accordingly.

 

[sunwarriors]

Sorry if this has been debated to death already. But I'm thinking of the shareholder meeting. What strategies are folks thinking about?

I expect the compensation vote to end at not paying Elon what he's owed. There's no longer a critical mass of principled shareholders that are independent thinkers and believe in what Tesla is doing. This will piss Elon off in a big way.

Expecting the consequence of that to be that Elon will at the very least shift his personal initiative on AI-related efforts out of Tesla and into xAI. FSD will stay and eventually succeed. Optimus...kinda unsure on that; not convinced that Elon will pour his soul into it.

I don't expect Elon to quit Tesla.

Net: I still think Tesla has significant upside until FSD is priced in. After that? Well, in principle, there's insane potential in electric transportation still. But will Elon want to pour his soul into it, with no material recognition from the majority shareholders and the spit-in-your-face reaction that not holding up an agreed-upon bargain implies?

And what if, when, Elon eventually quits? Can Tesla continue on momentum, the way Apple has after Jobs?

I want to take a stand right now as to what to do it Elon quits. I'm not convinced that I'll sell. But Tesla won't dominate the world. It's a major carmaker, that minus software, FSD, AI, growth, is worth far less than its current market cap.

Curious to hear what people have decided around this.

It's really unlikely Elon would leave in a huff if he doesn't get his comp vote I feel. He already owns 13% of Tesla, which used to be 20% if he didn't buy Twitter or sell so many shares. This is not counting any additional comp package. Jensen Huang ONLY owns 3.6% of Nvidia, Zuck owns 13% of Meta. Thinking he won't get his comp vote and he'll leave is the wrong view. When your stake is worth billions, a bit more isn't going to change things on how much you/a person should care as you have major skin in the game.

I have stated this before, but I think any AI development is already going to move away from Tesla. He has a company called xAI. Just started in 2023. It's worth $24 billion or so. What is the upside when the valuation is so small? What more do people need to see for him to keep AI anything at Tesla? xAI is private, he has full control, Twitter owns 25% of xAI from that last article so more upside for a private company/Musk.


If someone like Shotwell of SpaceX (who has 21 direct reports) was in charge of Tesla, maybe it would be ran much better and wouldn't be in the state it's in now. I don't think many people would disagree that Elon was distracted with Twitter/X in 2022/2023. Having an operator 100% dedicated/focused on the Tesla mission (whatever that is), could be an improvement.

As for yourself and independent minded investors, you either believe in the FSD/RT story or you don't. Musk said as much. If you do, you have folks like ARKK which think Tesla can hit $2000/share. People who are selling now don't buy it since Musk has been hyping FSD From LA to New York since 2015, 2016, 2019, every year:

Elon Musk is once again promising Teslas will drive themselves in the near future — a claim he's been making since at least 2015

Elon Musk has been promising that cars are about to be fully autonomous for years — a promise he made once again on the Tesla's latest earnings call.

www.businessinsider.com

"We'll be able to do a demonstration guide of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York...from home in LA to Times Square in New York. And then have the car go and park itself," Musk said in 2016.

""This year...the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention," Musk said in 2019. "I would say that I am certain of that. That is not a question mark.""


This reminds me of, I think that Cheers episode where Sam wrote on a piece of paper that he knew he was going to go out with Diane at a specific date. She was surprised...not so surprising is that he writes a new note everyday.


To save yourself/everyone time, if you buy the story, just ignore anything posted/articles/FUD/forums and check back in 10 years or something. No need to waste your time/headache here/anywhere.

 

[Captkerosene]

Just had a thought: It's not TSLA that should be worried about NVDA but NVDA that should be worried about TSLA. Does anyone here understand NVDA's competitive advantages well enough to explain why TSLA can't catch up on chip design and production? More and more it seems to me like both companies are converging on the same spot.

 

[sunwarriors]

Just had a thought: It's not TSLA that should be worried about NVDA but NVDA that should be worried about TSLA. Does anyone here understand NVDA's competitive advantages well enough to explain why TSLA can't catch up on chip design and production? More and more it seems to me like both companies are converging on the same spot.

If only it was that simple:

Musk Says Tesla Would Buy More Nvidia AI Chips, If Only Nvidia Had Enough of Them | The Motley Fool

Elon Musk just surprised shareholders by admitting Nvidia might be better than Tesla in one key area.

www.fool.com

All the traditional chip makers: AMD, Intel's complete existence depends on chips. Is Tesla willing to spend many more billions trying to play catchup with all the other pressing needs? Maybe it can be "good enough" for their own use case, but they seem to still need a ton of Nvidia chips currently so from the reports, D1 is just not as good.

Nvidia’s R&D Expenditure Record a 73% Jump in Just 5 Years

Nvidia, the trailblazing semiconductor company renowned for its graphics processing units (GPUs), has recently marked a significant milestone in its fiscal journey

ai-techpark.com

"The chipmaker spent $8.68 billion on research and development (R&D), showcasing a substantial surge from the $2.38 billion allocated in 2019. "

NVDA had almost 40 billion in FCF trailing 12 months:

https://www.financecharts.com/stocks/NVDA/growth/free-cash-flow

Do you really want to try to compete here with the massive $$/resources NVDA currently has?

(not a TSLA nor NVDA shareholder).

 

[MP3Mike]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798472011678966221

4680 update

Summary of the progress:

• 10 Million: 6/16/2023
• 20 Million: 10/11/2023 (Average of 85,469 cells per day)
• 50 Million: 6/5/2024 (Average of 126,050 cells per day)

Above based just on calendar days assuming no downtime.

That must be over a million cells a week now.

Based no the average over the last period ~882k per week. But we know current rate is most likely higher than that, so yeah, probably over a million cells a week at this point.

 

[dhrivnak]

Closing price at $175.00 it's a demonstration of what any guy with 9 shares can do in the US. Which among the other effects can lead to huge market manipulation before a binary event like the 13th of June's one. It's crystal clear that at the moment Tesla is literally uninvestable by institutions and people responsible for other people's money. So that's why we're witnessing to this price action. The more the other stocks do well the more Wall Street can short Tesla. It's all about the vote. Without Elon TSLA will go down to $75 (PE of 25), with ELON it will jump to $200 and progress the more the AI unfolds into new products. Place your bets but don't complain because we all know everyone hates Musk at the moment (Media, Incumbents, wall street, people not holding Tesla stocks, ...), and the only way to win it's that the compensation package passes. EV are the future, all the other potential verticals too. But without the vision of Musk we all know it's not gonna be the same..

While I think the person with 9 shares should be behind bars, I personally think he has little to do with the share price. Bigger factors include in no particular order:
A) Flat or declining sales, WAY different than 50% average growth a year.
B) Margins are in decline.
C) CyberTruck is behind schedule
D) Semi - Behind schedule
E) Mexico plant in slow mode
F) More affordable Model 2 - indefinite hold
G) Model 3 lost tax incentive
H) Roadster 2 - Indefinite hold
I) SuperCharger team all fired - most people think this will at least slow the rollout of their crown jewels.

BUT FDS is right round the corner. Which I could swear I have heard every year since 2016.

So I think the stock price is more than than just the payment lawsuit. Just my humble opinion.

 

[Zaddy Daddy]

Blah blah blah "not close to being robotaxi ready" and I'm here like...meh. It's more than enough to be license worthy as a selling feature for any car at 1 intervention every 5k miles. It's like people are saying "EVs will not reach million sales until there are same number of superchargers stations as gas stations ".

Currently every car company are licensing trash.

Well I focused on robotaxi because that's what the CEO said to value the company on. I'm parsing the words carefully because this is the key technology that will affect investors returns.

In terms of subscriptions, I agree it should provide some boost. Here's a basic analysis, assuming $100 subscription rate: We can look at sensitivity to fleet size, take rate, and subscription price. Starting with $100 price it looks like this. At that level, assuming FSD becomes available in China and Europe by year end (prob not in Europe), we will have over 6 million cars that could in theory subscribe to FSD. I would assume the take rate could be 20%. This is higher than it is now, but I think it's important to be cautious about how much people are willing to spend, especially in China and Europe. $100 / month is like another 1/5 to 1/4 of a car payment.

Based on that, I get $0.42 in annual marginal earnings contribution.

Subscription Price
$100	per month
		Fleet Size
	Take Rate		10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%
		1,000,000	$0.04	$0.07	$0.11	$0.14	$0.18	$0.21	$0.25	$0.28
		2,000,000	$0.07	$0.14	$0.21	$0.28	$0.35	$0.42	$0.49	$0.56
		3,000,000	$0.11	$0.21	$0.32	$0.42	$0.53	$0.64	$0.74	$0.85
		4,000,000	$0.14	$0.28	$0.42	$0.56	$0.71	$0.85	$0.99	$1.13
		5,000,000	$0.18	$0.35	$0.53	$0.71	$0.88	$1.06	$1.24	$1.41
		6,000,000	$0.21	$0.42	$0.64	$0.85	$1.06	$1.27	$1.48	$1.69
		7,000,000	$0.25	$0.49	$0.74	$0.99	$1.24	$1.48	$1.73	$1.98
		8,000,000	$0.28	$0.56	$0.85	$1.13	$1.41	$1.69	$1.98	$2.26
		9,000,000	$0.32	$0.64	$0.95	$1.27	$1.59	$1.91	$2.22	$2.54
		10,000,000	$0.35	$0.71	$1.06	$1.41	$1.76	$2.12	$2.47	$2.82

I believe if you cut the price in half, you will increase subscription rate by over 2x. Let's say take rate goes from 20% to 60%. I believe that's quite optimistic.

The annual earnings contribution goes to $0.64 in EPS.

Subscription Price
$50	per month
		Fleet Size
	Take Rate		10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%
		1,000,000	$0.02	$0.04	$0.05	$0.07	$0.09	$0.11	$0.12	$0.14
		2,000,000	$0.04	$0.07	$0.11	$0.14	$0.18	$0.21	$0.25	$0.28
		3,000,000	$0.05	$0.11	$0.16	$0.21	$0.26	$0.32	$0.37	$0.42
		4,000,000	$0.07	$0.14	$0.21	$0.28	$0.35	$0.42	$0.49	$0.56
		5,000,000	$0.09	$0.18	$0.26	$0.35	$0.44	$0.53	$0.62	$0.71
		6,000,000	$0.11	$0.21	$0.32	$0.42	$0.53	$0.64	$0.74	$0.85
		7,000,000	$0.12	$0.25	$0.37	$0.49	$0.62	$0.74	$0.86	$0.99
		8,000,000	$0.14	$0.28	$0.42	$0.56	$0.71	$0.85	$0.99	$1.13
		9,000,000	$0.16	$0.32	$0.48	$0.64	$0.79	$0.95	$1.11	$1.27
		10,000,000	$0.18	$0.35	$0.53	$0.71	$0.88	$1.06	$1.24	$1.41

Since Tesla already derives some earnings from the current user base, the additional contribution to earnings will be a bit smaller than calculated.

I think in 2025, it is reasonable to assume EPS could be $0.50 higher due to FSD.

Assign a generous PE ratio of 50 to that contribution, and that means an additional $25 in share price value.


Edit: I think you could certainly argue at $50 / month, if FSD gets pretty good, demand for the vehicles in aggregate could go up a bit, additionally raising ASPs.

 

[Musskiah]

If you realize a year of driving for some people is 5-10k miles, not 15k...

In 2022, the average American drove 14,263 miles per year, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

 

[Zaddy Daddy]

In 2022, the average American drove 14,263 miles per year, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Yes but my point is Elon is stretching assumptions as obvious with the other parts of that tweet, I think realistic to assume he's stretching this part too.

 

[cusetownusa]

Thought you guys may appreciate this. I have yet to see a CT in person but my brother just took this photo when picking up his Y in the central NY area. When I asked how it looked in person, he said “incredible”.

 

[willow_hiller]

Yes but my point is Elon is stretching assumptions as obvious with the other parts of that tweet, I think realistic to assume he's stretching this part too.

I don't think he's stretching; the way in which Tesla is estimating future FSD version performance was answered by Ashok in the Q1 earnings call. Long story short is that they have measured the scaling rate of FSD performance as compute, data, and architecture scales. Here's the long story long:

Ashok Elluswamy -- Director, Autopilot Software

Yeah. In terms of scaling loss, people in the community generally talk about model scaling loss where they increase the model size a lot and then their corresponding gains in performance, but we have also figured out scaling loss and other access in addition to the model side scaling, making also data scaling. You can increase the amount of data you use to train the neural network and that also gives similar gains and you can also scale up by training compute, you can train it for much longer and one more GPUs or more dojo nodes that also gives better performance, and you can also have architecture scaling where you count with better architectures for the same amount of compute produce better results. So, a combination of model size scaling, data scaling, training compute scaling and the architecture scaling, we can basically extrapolate, OK, with the continue scaling based at this ratio, we can predict big future performance.

Obviously, it takes time to do the experiments because it takes a few weeks to train, it takes a few weeks to collect tens of millions of video clips and process all of them, but you can estimate what is going to be the future progress based on the trends that we have seen in the past, and they've generally held true based on past data.