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

[cheqsgravity]

I like it, except that robotaxis do not do much for sustainable energy in that miles driven are miles driven, regardless of whether it’s a taxi or my own car. So instead of driving my car 10k miles i take a robotaxi 10k miles ans you take the same robitaxi foy your 10k miles. 20k miles are still driven, plus more miles to go from me to you and back to me. Robotaxis may be a profit play, and a way to covert parking lots to some other use, but they are not a sustainable energy play. If universal- robotaxis would drasticly reduce private cars. I worry that the resistance to THAT would dwarf the resistance to EVs and as a result delay the transition- not accellerate it. But just another opinion

Robotaxis will be AEVs (Autonomous EVs). EVs are more energy efficient per mile than gasoline. Confused why you would think they wouldn't reduce the fossil fuel footprint. As world progresses, the total energy used will go up but as long as its from renewable/sustainable sources its good. As the world transitions away from fossil into solar, nuclear, wind the sustainability play will become evident. Like my city Austin TX already gets ~52% of all its energy from renewable sources [4]. So it will be sustaiable since we will be using more sustainable energy.
As far has why EVs will be used for robotaxi's, the reason is cost. Cost to operate a EV is substantially lower than ICE. Also robotaxi networks will be owned by fleets not individuals. Tony Seba's video explains this well [1]. In the Robotaxi network, an AEV is not going back between you and me. Uber eg, starts routing the next drive for a driver when 90% of the current drive is done. Usually the next drive is close to current drive. So you keep doing drives w/ a downtime of 2-3 minutes/around 1-2 miles away. Most cars in the robotaxi's will be owned by fleets. Its skewed to individuals at this point b/c of Tesla cars. But when robotaxi is approved, day 1, people with Teslas's will get offered their car current price + $10K-$15K by fleet companies for their cars [2]. So again Tony's company rethinkX has done research on this topic. This is why also ARKK gives a huge price target. Their reserach [3] also concludes the same.

Robotaxi is a new field. Luckily there are people that have already done lot of the thinking about it. And many more will since this is a huge $10T+ market. I read up on this stuff since I am invested (considerably) in companies like Tesla since the opportunity going forward is huge. I have to or else I stand a lot to loose.

[1] :

[2]:

(whole video is good to see how robotaxi financials will work)
[3]: https://assets.arkinvest.com/media-...002a9d191/ARK-Invest_Big-Ideas-2024_FINAL.pdf
[4]: Renewable Power Generation

 

[sunwarriors]

Robotaxis will be AEVs (Autonomous EVs). EVs are more energy efficient per mile than gasoline. Confused why you would think they wouldn't reduce the fossil fuel footprint. As world progresses, the total energy used will go up but as long as its from renewable/sustainable sources its good. As the world transitions away from fossil into solar, nuclear, wind the sustainability play will become evident. Like my city Austin TX already gets ~52% of all its energy from renewable sources [4]. So it will be sustaiable since we will be using more sustainable energy.
As far has why EVs will be used for robotaxi's, the reason is cost. Cost to operate a EV is substantially lower than ICE. Also robotaxi networks will be owned by fleets not individuals. Tony Seba's video explains this well [1]. In the Robotaxi network, an AEV is not going back between you and me. Uber eg, starts routing the next drive for a driver when 90% of the current drive is done. Usually the next drive is close to current drive. So you keep doing drives w/ a downtime of 2-3 minutes/around 1-2 miles away. Most cars in the robotaxi's will be owned by fleets. Its skewed to individuals at this point b/c of Tesla cars. But when robotaxi is approved, day 1, people with Teslas's will get offered their car current price + $10K-$15K by fleet companies for their cars [2]. So again Tony's company rethinkX has done research on this topic. This is why also ARKK gives a huge price target. Their reserach [3] also concludes the same.

Robotaxi is a new field. Luckily there are people that have already done lot of the thinking about it. And many more will since this is a huge $10T+ market. I read up on this stuff since I am invested (considerably) in companies like Tesla since the opportunity going forward is huge. I have to or else I stand a lot to loose.

[1] :

[2]:

(whole video is good to see how robotaxi financials will work)
[3]: https://assets.arkinvest.com/media-...002a9d191/ARK-Invest_Big-Ideas-2024_FINAL.pdf
[4]: Renewable Power Generation


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A lot of those slides are from ARKK investments. We all know how I feel about ARKK and Ms. Wood. She sold NVDA at literally the worst time in Oct 2022 and missed out on over a billion+ profits already (and counting).

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest missed out on more than $1 billion in returns by selling Nvidia stock too early

"I've watched Nvidia all my career, actually, since it's gone public. It's a very cyclical stock," Cathie Wood said in defense of her firm selling shares.

markets.businessinsider.com

Her track record is horrendous and nearly all her picks have been down in any 5 year period. I'd not put much faith/trust from her investment analysis case when her record is so bad. Look her up. Research if she'd done anything other than destroy her investor's wealth. They are leaving:

MSN

Find better data/analysis from someone (anyone) else, really. If anything, I'd be more tempted to sell anything she buys with how she's been performing short/long term.

I saw a comment from someone else that she's like that coach who won 1 game, and think she's all that, but her record speaks for herself.

 

[Favguy]

Irrespective of his pay packet, he should be more selective about what he shares with the world on X... It's not a trait I admire him for, but for better or worse it's part of his DNA.

I can't work out if he's playing up to the right for tactical reasons or he really is one of them. I do hope it's the former, some of his current rhetoric is appalling to us early investors of a centrist to left leaning persuasion. I suppose it absolutely makes business sense to cosy up to Trump as there is a significant possibility he may yet get power and his regime in general would most likely be extremely hostile to EV's and renewables. Being seen as a friend may be the only valid option to avoid Tesla getting targeted.

 

[Favguy]

If you voted no in 2018(which they did), even before Elon bought X etc etc, then mind likely already made up then.

I don't expect too many people who voted no in 2018, to change votes to Yes.
But a good chunk of people who voted yes in 2018, likely to change to no, based on all the stuff/antics Elon has been upto since then. Some can let it pass, many can't. To each their own. cheers!!

Shareholders should be voting for whatever is most likely to increase the value of their holdings over the long term, period. Personal feelings be damned! Politically, I can't stand the bloke anymore, but I sure as hell don't want him getting pissed off and leaving. That'll most likely see TSLA halve in value in short order and stunt growth from that point onward to a fraction of what it could be. Let him have his obscene pay deal, if it passes, TSLA will be up over double the cost of it over a few days, just by losing the uncertainty.

 

[Singuy]

I had some pixel phones, google assistant, Nest products, cameras, etc. 40 million phones sounds like mass production. And a sensor array is basically electronics + cpu + i/o, and certainly not rocket science.



I never compared camera costs to LIDAR, so not sure why you brought it up. I said the cost of LIDAR is not a significant factor because its amortized over the life of the car. They're only $1k now ($4k for 4), and only getting cheaper in the future.



In June 2024, Tesla had 0 robotaxies...

Anyway, if you're bagging on LIDAR because Elon said it was too expensive, that only applies to Tesla. Tesla is selling cars to consumers, so adding $4000 of LIDAR sensors would destroy sales and margins.

Waymo has a different business model and can absorb the cost. They only make dedicated robotaxies, the sensors will always be used for generating revenue, so they can amortize the cost over the revenue generating life of the vehicle.

Currently Waymo's business model is to be the most negative net income software company in the history of software companies. They don't make the cars or the sensors. They are an app and navigation company that cost daddy google over 2B a year. Google would make 2B a year more from my tesla robotaxi fleet that doesn't exist.

 

[capster]

A comment worth a response; thank you.

Two reasons:

First, as I wrote yesterday, I consider Tesla to be the ascendant corporation of our time. Second, but intertwined: if I sold - and paid many, many millions in taxes - to where would the moneys next go?

Tesla wouldn’t be ascendant corporation of our time without Elon. I agree that Tesla shares are something to be bequeathed rather than sold though I also believe that that entails some obligation on the part of such shareholders to support Elon.

And I don’t think there is anyone who could do remotely as well as Elon running the company.

Given what he has done and what he will continue to do, it’s a sound move to vote "yes" to restore his package.

Not to mention that it will besmirch our collective integrity as Tesla investors if we reneg on the package regardless of how we voted the first time.

And, yes, I voted "yes" both times.

 

[chillerjt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799622560935780655

Looking good! LFG!!

 

[Robertj]

FSD Updates

Tesla Software FSD Timeline V 12

12 Jan to 10 Feb 12.1. 24 days. , 2 iterations , one every 12 days

10 Feb to 12 Mar 12.2 30 days. 2 iterations , one every 15 days

12 Mar to 20 May 12 12.3. , 69 days , 6 iterations ,one every 11 days

20 May 12.4
9 June. 12.4.1 20 days

Estimate 5 more iterations , 50 days

12.5. 50 days is 29 July

In time for 8/8

 

[dl003]

did my part, all 9 shares voted Yes.

 

[aswami]

did my part, all 9 shares voted Yes.

Are you the 9 shares guy?

 

[aswami]

I can't work out if he's playing up to the right for tactical reasons or he really is one of them. I do hope it's the former, some of his current rhetoric is appalling to us early investors of a centrist to left leaning persuasion. I suppose it absolutely makes business sense to cosy up to Trump as there is a significant possibility he may yet get power and his regime in general would most likely be extremely hostile to EV's and renewables. Being seen as a friend may be the only valid option to avoid Tesla getting targeted.

May be there is a simpler possibility: he feels compelled to speak the truth as he sees it. Especially when the truth is suppressed everywhere else. I could quickly list half a dozen things that he said which appalled those of "a centrist to left leaning persuasion", especially when our favorite sources had us convinced that they were untrue, conspiracy theories... and we can't deny their truth now. But I will not do so lest my post be nuked by a mod. Sure, there is a (shorter) list of things he said which turned out to be not true. But he is the first to admin that no one can be 100% right. Being less wrong is the point. Regardless of where our persuasions lie, it would be best for us to adopt that attitude too: of being less wrong, of seeking the truth with an open mind, being open to the possibility that the truth might not align with our cherished opinions.

 

[SPadival]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799646232559899098

 

[SpaceNuts]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799646232559899098

Amazing, this post makes me happy. Elon truly is a visionary, even though he is always late.

 

[cheqsgravity]

Weekend slightly OT...
I greatly appreciated all the Culture novels, and their description of benevolent AI that is orders of magnitude, nay, dimensions of magnitude, beyond our brains' capabilities. The AI's described in those books (there are myriad AI individuals, often idiosyncratic) tend to see us humans as beautiful pets, worthy of protection (including, for the most part, of our free will), but in many cases nowhere near their equal. The worlds described in those books are worth aiming for for many reasons, although the books are interesting just because those worlds are not perfect either! That said, the AI's try to do a suitable job of balancing human basic needs, freedom of expression (lots of that in those books), freedom of travel, against often competing goals of safety and security and, on perhaps occasion, even privacy... Add in the fact that various human factions, planets, other groupings don't always get along, and you have a rich field of plots to draw from.
HOWEVER, there is very little in our current AI landscape that makes me think we are headed there. The big guys (the only ones who can afford to train AIs today) seem to have the default idea to use AI in combination with/as an extension of Big Data to intrude even more into our personal lives/finances, for their own monetary gain. We don't have to envision a HAL 9000 to see how badly that turns out; AI at scale might just be an ever more precise scalpel enabling giant corporate control of our commercial, social, and mental worldscape.
I don't know if Elon could help shape the course towards something more beneficent for all humankind, but I sure don't trust OpenAI given what they did. At least Tesla looks to be harnessing AI with the goal of decreasing harm to the planet's climate and decreasing vehicle collisions/deaths. I admit I am not sure what xAI is up to other than their LLM.

Weekend slightly OT...
I greatly appreciated all the Culture novels, and their description of benevolent AI that is orders of magnitude, nay, dimensions of magnitude, beyond our brains' capabilities. The AI's described in those books (there are myriad AI individuals, often idiosyncratic) tend to see us humans as beautiful pets, worthy of protection (including, for the most part, of our free will), but in many cases nowhere near their equal. The worlds described in those books are worth aiming for for many reasons, although the books are interesting just because those worlds are not perfect either! That said, the AI's try to do a suitable job of balancing human basic needs, freedom of expression (lots of that in those books), freedom of travel, against often competing goals of safety and security and, on perhaps occasion, even privacy... Add in the fact that various human factions, planets, other groupings don't always get along, and you have a rich field of plots to draw from.
HOWEVER, there is very little in our current AI landscape that makes me think we are headed there. The big guys (the only ones who can afford to train AIs today) seem to have the default idea to use AI in combination with/as an extension of Big Data to intrude even more into our personal lives/finances, for their own monetary gain. We don't have to envision a HAL 9000 to see how badly that turns out; AI at scale might just be an ever more precise scalpel enabling giant corporate control of our commercial, social, and mental worldscape.
I don't know if Elon could help shape the course towards something more beneficent for all humankind, but I sure don't trust OpenAI given what they did. At least Tesla looks to be harnessing AI with the goal of decreasing harm to the planet's climate and decreasing vehicle collisions/deaths. I admit I am not sure what xAI is up to other than their LLM.

Yes completely agree. Future is nebulous from this point looking outward. It could go either way.Currently I put the chance of this hitting at a mere 5-10%. But I tend to agree with Elon that keeping AI implementations truth seeking and curious will help orient them in with a nurturing/symbiotic alignment. Also agree that with openAI we are very far from a guarantee that will happen. As we get more into implementations of AI/AGI we can better sense the direction. I am also more optimistic with EMs ventures and their success on a positive outcome of AI helping humanity. xAI will go toe to toe with openAI and Tesla will pickup the bot mantle.

 

[Singuy]

Amazing, this post makes me happy. Elon truly is a visionary, even though he is always late.

Late according only to his own projections. Relatively speaking compared to others, no one has said his projects are late or 2nd place because someone else was first to market. In fact his projects are known to be many years and some a decade ahead(rocketry, charging infrastructure, fsd via vision, EV profitability, 48v infrastructure and internet constellation)

 

[insaneoctane]

Several of our regular and high SNR contributors are missing lately. I miss them and feel this thread has suffered.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I'm in a similar boat. I agree with each of @AudubonB's arguments in isolation but most definitely want Elon at the helm - preferably spending more time at Tesla than he does now. My key reasons for it are:

• Non autonomous EVs will never be a consistently huge profit and margin centre again - The Chinese are too competitive. Same for BESS. Both will be a solid earners for a long time but wide margins can't be protected so huge scale is needed at modest margins.
• Tesla has to bring new technology to market to drive the multi trillion valuation we all want to see. Elon is unparalleled in bringing new technology to market.
  • Elon attracts the best and brightest to Tesla - I have no doubt this would be diminished if Elon wasn't CEO. Those he does attract will kill themselves to reach the objective via 100hr weeks.
  • If we get a more conservative CEO its far less likely that appropriate investment is made at the right time to lead autonomy, optimus, etc. (see Apple and Tim Cooke - they make a lot of money but only by extracting incremental value from existing innovations and creating a walled garden - neither of which would work on Tesla's existing technology). It's not just about the science/engineering itself but having the conviction and vision to see it through.
  • Elon has a reality distortion field as strong as anyone which drives innovation and unlocks opportunities that others don't have (China factory as a prime example) - that is likely to become even more important as the AI / robotics regulation debate hots up.

He says things that turn out to be horribly wrong, but they are in service to the above IMO - motivating his team, getting people to start changing their mindset on what the future looks like, what is possible and acceptable, etc.

I'll add a short video from Andrej Karpathy on what Elon brings to the table which probably say more clearly what Elon offers than I can.

Now Ashok is saying the same thing as Karpathy said in his video. We consistently hear from people on the ground in Tesla how critical Elon is to progress while those further removed from the situation seem to disagree.

@elonmusk
has been the key driver of AI and autonomy at Tesla. He has always pushed us to achieve great things, even when such ideas were seemingly impossible at the time. Some examples:

• Back in 2014, Autopilot started on a ridiculously tiny computer that only had ~384 KB of memory and puny compute (didn't even have native floating point arithmetic). He asked the engineering team to implement lane keeping, lane changing, longitudinal control for vehicles, curvature, etc. Many, even in the team, thought that the request was crazy. Nonetheless, he never gave up and pushed the team to achieve this very difficult goal. In 2015, beyond all odds, Tesla shipped the world's first Autopilot system. The second closest such product only came to market many years later.
• In 2016, Tesla started doing all of the computer vision required for Autopilot in-house instead of depending on external vendors. Many people thought it was insane to bet the product on developing the vision system from scratch within a few months, which had taken other companies a decade or more. Yet, we achieved this target within eleven months. This was a strategically important move that started the development of a strong AI team at Tesla.
• Not only did he push for strong AI software, but also for powerful AI hardware. Tesla, which others thought was just a car company, was making custom silicon to run neural networks efficiently. This hardware that was originally designed in 2017, came to production in February 2019 and remains extremely competitive with hardware coming out to date. For reference, this five year old AI computer has roughly 8x the AI inference compute as the state-of-the-art Apple M3 chip. It is still able to run the latest end-to-end neural networks built on top of the latest AI technology.
• He was the one who bet on vision and AI to solve autonomy instead of relying on sensor crutches and high-definition maps. For anyone who has experienced the latest versions of FSD, it might be obvious that it can see all the important things and drive the car based on pure vision. However, back in 2020 and earlier it wasn't obvious to most. In fact, many "experts" in the field ridiculed Tesla and Elon for these choices. We have proved them wrong by shipping supervised FSD to millions of cars and shown that with good AI software, the car is able to handle the complexities of city driving such as making turns, handling intersection, yielding to pedestrians etc., just by seeing outside. In fact, we even removed the radars and ultrasonics to just really focus on the heart of the problem, which is AI. Today, it's almost paradoxical that, Teslas have the least amount of raw sensors, yet have the most autonomous capability compared to any production car. Pulling off such a contrary bet was only possible because of his extreme conviction and deep understanding of this problem.
• He kickstarted the work on humanoid robots at Tesla in 2021, again before any ChatGPT or other obvious examples of the rise of AI. Just like the vehicle autonomy, Optimus is also being developed to be competent, scalable, and cost-effective in order to widely serve the world.

I could go on, but plainly, Elon is critical for Tesla's success in AI. It is his combination of deep technical understanding, insane perseverance and relentless hard work that have positioned Tesla to be a leader in real-world AI. Elon's technical intuition to make these important decisions way before others see it is unmatched. If not for Elon's ambition, Tesla might have dwindled to become just another car company. In the future, fully autonomous cars and useful household robots will be common place and the world will think that this was how it was always supposed to be. Until then, we need Elon Musk to push the frontier, because he sees it already.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799646232559899098

 

[CaliBear1]

Rob Maurer shares both his contemporaneous and present thoughts on Elon's compensation package, and why he's voting for ratification:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799536504412205175

Rob Maurer shares both his contemporaneous and present thoughts on Elon's compensation package, and why he's voting for ratification:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799536504412205175

100% agreed! Thank you for weighing in Rob Maurer.

This may be my last post here because I am directly assailing some of the powers that be on this site and that may result in my excommunicaton or virtual "defenestration." Yeah, I know what it means.

I'm astounded and appalled that any investors, retail or otherwise, will let their current concerns about Elon's politics or X antics affect their decision to ratify a compensation package that Musk earned with blood, sweat and tears to take Tesla from the cliff's edge to a fantastically successful company. A company that has fabulously rewarded those who invested in his vision when the future was seriously in doubt and continues to promise a bright future with a deep war chest in no small part due to Musk's wisdom and leadership in a turbulent present marred by war, economic woes and political division and relentless attacks designed specifically to destroy Tesla.

The package was pie in the sky and yet somehow Musk miraculously achieved it in the face of extraordinarily complex manufacturing and logistics challenges made even more difficult by supply chain sabotage, unprecedented shorting and relentless widespread FUD no doubt financed by the many industries Tesla was disrupting. And now comes a chancery court judge motivated almost entirely by political ambition to unilaterally strip the one CEO who put EVERYTHING on the line of a compensation package that most found absurd and foolish because it was perceived as being laughably unattainable! And what was the vehicle for this decision? An avaricious law firm using a shareholder with 9 shares (9!) to undermine the vote of 73% of shareholders and has the audacity to seek billions of dollars of compensation in, ironically, Tesla stock, for its "work." Seriously?! That alone is reason to vote a resounding "YES!"

Do those of you voting "no" not see the irony in the fact that this is the very crescendo of FUD you've pushed back against for years? It's as if you wish to bring the Götterdämmerung sought by the forces aligned against Elon Musk and Tesla?!

Finally, for those of you who unwittingly (or wittingly!) believe removing this and maybe ANY century's greatest visionary and industrialist from Tesla will benefit the company, take a long look in the mirror, because it's painfully obvious to me and many others here that you are letting your politics and personal bias unduly influence your decision in this vitally important vote. Use some other vehicle to push back against Musk for what you perceive to be a loss of focus or direction for the company. This vote is not about that! Nor is it a vote of confidence in him. It is a vote to reward him for what he accomplished in the face of unreal and unprecedented challenges and attacks!

Take a snap shot of this post of you agree with it, because it might not be up for very long.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I can't work out if he's playing up to the right for tactical reasons or he really is one of them. I do hope it's the former, some of his current rhetoric is appalling to us early investors of a centrist to left leaning persuasion. I suppose it absolutely makes business sense to cosy up to Trump as there is a significant possibility he may yet get power and his regime in general would most likely be extremely hostile to EV's and renewables. Being seen as a friend may be the only valid option to avoid Tesla getting targeted.

I feel you, but don't delude yourself. Musk is not playing. He deeply feels he has the right to say whatever he wants, and just does it. I personally think his politics game is far from being 4d chess but it's just extremely naive and some times very disinformed. There may be some tactics but in the end he's trasparent to a fault.

 

[NicoV]

France is solving its availability issue with its nuclear power and its electricity export to the neighbouring countries is peaking again. This causes lower electricity prices and lower natural gas usage: https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20240607_96110991

Our local electricity prices become negative almost all weekend days now, and I have charged our 2 Teslas at negative or zero prices for the last couple of weeks now. I expect this will keep occurring until fall.
This afternoon the price drops to -5 eurocents/kWh for several hours.