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

[Zaddy Daddy]

Sure, its very reasonable to say the conservative opinion is to ignore FSD until robotaxi is 99.9999% reliable and is operating across an entire nation with no steering wheel or safety driver. Thats very fair, and very true.
But as an investor, waiting for that to be a the case is like watching the iphone announcement, but waiting until ten million are sold before deciding to buy AAPL. Very conservative, and sensible, but not a way to make serious returns.

When I first bought Tesla stock, the company was losing money, had very few superchargers, and only 2 models of car (S/X, roadster was trivial). They were definitely not a conservative investment. But I thought the product was awesome, and more importantly their rate of improvement and growth was amazing.

When I am in the mood to be a conservative investor, I buy global equity ETFs, government bonds, and solid dividend stocks like pharma companies. TSLA is not a stock for the conservative of mind.

I think you went off a tangent here. We are talking about realistic estimates of what it will take for robotaxis. The conversation was thinking about robotaxi being enabled by the end of the year and waiting for the next version of hardware for it to be enabled.

Not "bro I'm aggressive in my investments so there!" which has nothing to do with it.

Waymo and LIDAR feels like Toyota with Hydrogen from where I'm sat. It seems they are both VERY VOCAL that those things are the solution, and it doesnt matter how much evidence mounts against them, they will not change.
This is an underappreciated plus point of Elon. He frequently admits he was flat wrong, and then immediately changes direction. Its happened a lot, and he gets a lot of flak for it, but its way better than going down the pit deeper and deeper refusing to accept that its not working.

This is really just flat wrong, and of course a terrible comparison to Toyota / Hydrogen. Spending resources on Hydrogen meant Toyota was not spending time and money on BEVs.

Waymo using LiDAR is not stopping it at all from developing the same sort of NNets Tesla is using. LiDAR is not stopping Waymo from doing exactly the same thing as Tesla, just with LiDAR too. Even if LiDAR doesn't provide much incremental accuracy value, the cost amortized out over many years might not be a big deal.

It's a red herring.

 

[GhostSkater]

If semi will use 4680 cells, wouldn't it make more sense to build a semi factory near where 4680 cell production, instead of right next to their 2170 supplier is?

That will be the case, 4680 production in Nevada should dwarf 2170 one if Tesla still go ahead with it

Things might have changed now that we have a oversupply of cells

 

[EQC_]

btw: one thing I can't seem to get to work, is having FSD enter my driveway. It always "arrives at my destination" in front of my house. I've seen videos of FSD taking the car right into the driveway but so far unsuccessful for me.

Have you tried activating your turn signal?

For me, FSD sortof slows and pauses as it approaches my address. If I do nothing, it seems like it might try to go a bit farther and parallel park on the street (I usually intervene or disengage at that point...so it's just a guess).

If I activate my turn signal at the right time, toward my driveway, the car will often proceed to park in my driveway. It doesn't work every time, which might relate to the timing of how early or late I hit the turn signal.

I have only done that a few times though, because I prefer to park in the garage...and the car's driveway position doesn't usually line up well with my preferred garage spot.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Have you tried activating your turn signal?

For me, FSD sortof slows and pauses as it approaches my address. If I do nothing, it seems like it might try to go a bit farther and parallel park on the street (I usually intervene or disengage at that point...so it's just a guess).

If I activate my turn signal at the right time, toward my driveway, the car will often proceed to park in my driveway. It doesn't work every time, which might relate to the timing of how early or late I hit the turn signal.

I have only done that a few times though, because I prefer to park in the garage...and the car's driveway position doesn't usually line up well with my preferred garage spot.

Oh, interesting, I'll try it!

Mine has always been comical. At the end of a cul de sac, it follows the curb around, then up the rolling curb right onto the sidewalk in front of the house. It appears to want to negotiate with my fire hydrant. It would have to go around it so it gets confused. So maybe it's actually trying to pull in a bit early but the hydrant is messing it up. Thanks!

 

[advocate8]

I know the source will trigger some here, but damn, this rings true to me, especially in light of what Xpel FTW and Mike C just shared. So outrageous!!! So brazenly Anti-American!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1752967434439663935

Can we not post this sort of thing here? Neither the president nor his son had anything to do with the judge's decision.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I think that won't be the case when volume production starts on complexity alone, a 50k cell battery pack has huge assembly time for a single vehicle vs a 10k cell pack, that obviously depending on 4680 ramp

50k Semis a year half LR and half is 24 GWh/y, or a full 4680 line, or a bit more, dedicated to it

Most Semi will be LFP.

 

[dhanson865]

Refigure it with $40,000 as the figure and a life expectancy of 5 years for me along with no tax advantage. Hurricane proof is 165 mph here.

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope your doctor can make your last 5 years pain free.

At least the solar panels will last 30+ years so maybe your family could have use of them after you are gone.

 

[MP3Mike]

Most Semi will be LFP.

Doubtful. LFP is too heavy for the energy needed. (As Tesla alluded to in their slides on battery day.)

 

[Fred42]

The recent vote on Elon's compensation took place when Tesla was incorporated in Delaware. Does this mean that a legal challenge would have to be filed in Delaware?

 

[Fred42]

I just priced three Powerwalls to be added to existing solar and discovered the price has gone up $1,000/PW since last time I priced it, which wasn't more than a few months ago.

 

[Tony73]

Most Semi will be LFP.

The 300 mile version possibly. 500 mile no way

 

[Doggydogworld]

Folks, this is exactly what Tesla is avoiding when NOT doing sensor fusion, NOT relying on planning/control heuristics and NOT relying on HD maps.

Tesla avoids all manner of problems by requiring a human driver. Driverless is a completely different ball game.

Would bet the camera identified the object and classified it as an obstacle, LiDar did the same and then somehow 'forgot' about it at the planning software layer and then controlled it into the obstacle.

No need to bet. Just go to the Waymo thread and follow the link to Waymo's recall and (incomplete) explanation. Along with our discussion.

Then, Waymo sent another vehicle to the exact same spot! Why? They should have known the first vehicle struck an object due camera, LiDar, wheel speed sensors and the accelerometer profile data.

Waymo's back office infrastructure has multiple departments which don't seem to talk to each other. Maybe Tesla will do it better, but for now they avoid it entirely with human drivers.

This suggests they do NOT have a way to detect, react and control for obstacles and impacts of this nature. Would they have been able to detect a person standing still on that street? And what if it had hit a human and they did NOT react with notifying medical assistance **AND** sent another car.

People in the street are a common occurrence, telephone poles are not. Again, I refer you to the Waymo thread.

I'd also think the city of Phoenix would want an immediate investigation for Waymo to turn over video and sensor data to understand how something like this happened.

NHTSA needs to thoroughly investigate. Wrecks will happen, but this kind of fundamental mistake should never happen. Thou shalt not hit large stationary objects is the First Commandment. Including stopped fire trucks and police cars, ha.

 

[CaliBear1]

I just priced three Powerwalls to be added to existing solar and discovered the price has gone up $1,000/PW since last time I priced it, which wasn't more than a few months ago.

How much is each PW including installation? TIA

Here in Thailand the price for a PW (including installation) is $10881.

 

[aubreymcfato]

BYD is selling a lot of PHEVs,
but regarding pure BEVs Tesla is still ahead at least from Jan to Apr.

 

[cliff harris]

I think its comical how people are so determined to cheerlead waymo here. Feel free to sell Tesla stock and invest in GM and Google in the hope that their dumpster fires of cash suddenly miraculously turn around.
Because we all know that GM are masters of software, and that google, never, ever just suddenly cancel a project. Like, they are famous for having never done so...

The chances of me here, in the UK, getting the option of cruise/waymo before Tesla robotaxi are about a trillion to one. And when robotaxi is US-wide, waymo will still be bragging about the 2 or 3 cities they are running loss making pilot programs in.

 

[SPadival]

This was the most disappointing part of the presentation. Elon was saying that remote control is probably the solution. It means they haven't worked it out yet. They haven't thought about it that much.

I had asked this question some time ago in the FSD thread: whether it is feasible to remotely control the car via just the 4G connection, given the bandwidth limitations to stream 8 cameras back to the base. It turns out there is another company already doing just that, with some fallback.

They seem to have 4 separate 4G modules with 4 different operators as fallback. But they say they use only one in active mode. So I guess it’s possible. Thanks for that.

 

[jerry33]

I had asked this question some time ago in the FSD thread: whether it is feasible to remotely control the car via just the 4G connection, given the bandwidth limitations to stream 8 cameras back to the base. It turns out there is another company already doing just that, with some fallback.

Presumably, at this time the car is stopped, so bandwidth doesn't enter into it. The remote person just needs to see the surrounding area, which is now static.

 

[SO16]

Presumably, at this time the car is stopped, so bandwidth doesn't enter into it. The remote person just needs to see the surrounding area, which is now static.

Traffic and pedestrians can still be moving around the vehicle.

 

[unk45]

Most Semi will be LFP.

Why do you think that?

 

[unk45]

The recent vote on Elon's compensation took place when Tesla was incorporated in Delaware. Does this mean that a legal challenge would have to be filed in Delaware?

Yes