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

[RobStark]

Maybe from your US perspective: do you think Tesla would have done equally well if Fremont (or GF1) was located in Mexico?

Last year Americans bought 61k Made in the USA BMW X3s.

And 70k Made in Mexico Audi Q5s.

As you go up the price scale people care more about origin of Manufacture.

Model S, Model X, and Roadster should remain in California.

Model 3 and Y are less relevant. Model 2 origin of manufacture is irrelevant.

I wouldn't buy a Model 3 Made in Moldova but it doesn't have to be one of the most expensive regions in Europe either.

 

[RobStark]

Tesla.com website visits continue to spike higher around the world. : teslamotors

USA ranks according to Alexa.com

Tesla.com 442
BMWUSA.com 1873
MBUSA.com 2277
AudiUSA.com 2742
Lexus.com 3693

 

[alloverx]

Windows CE is still around
-I was working on it 2 years back.

 

[Artful Dodger]

So... Why haven't you guys hooked up a water pipeline to Canada yet?

Everytime a toilet flushes in Victoria, the Governor General phones the Queen.

But yeah, it'd be better to export water instead of dilbit.

Cheers!

 

[Tslynk67]

Question: Investor or Trader?:

1. Cathie Wood
2. Ron Baron
3. Ross Gerber

I'd say neither, they are managing funds, which to my opinion requires an approach between the two

 

[Fact Checking]

Windows CE was released in 1996. Symbian 1998, and iOS was as late as was 2007

Before you laugh, I need to remind you at that time windows was still the King. And symbian was used in Nokia phones.

Neither Windows CE nor Symbian created a new market: they competed in the established phone market.

The iPhone and iOS created the new market of smartphones with touchscreens, and Apple has enjoyed the fruits of the resulting first mover advantage, all one trillion pieces of it.

The new market of smartphones was inaccessible to Windows CE and Symbian, and by the time Microsoft and Nokia released their own smartphones it was too late: Apple captured 90% of the smartphone market profits for the next 10+ years.

So in that sense Windows CE and Symbian are like ICE car makers: they are established players in a dying market Tesla is not competing in.

Tesla is dominating the newly created EV market, where the late coming ICE makers have trouble competing.

To go back to the original argument:

This is the key point - Tesla's superior business model. In terms of actual on-road performance Tesla is 9 years behind Waymo, but tech history teaches us that being first to develop a new capability doesn't matter. The better business model almost always wins.

Yes, it's the first product in a new high-tech market segment that gains the "first mover advantage", not the first technology.

This is why Microsoft won their PC monopolization war: they were businessmen first, technologists second.

This is why Apple eventually bested Microsoft: Steve Jobs was a product architect first, businessman second, technologist third.

This is why I think Tesla is going to prevail over the ICE industry, Elon is like Steve Jobs with empathy. "Product first" is written large in all companies of Elon, and a product by Elon always has to come with a top notch, first principles business plan.

I'm super excited about Tesla Insurance, not primarily because of the effects on Tesla's finances and SP (it will take years to take off), but because this is the first time since PayPal that Elon is launching a major high-tech financial product.

If the past is predictive, we might see something special - maybe not in the offering itself (which might look deceptively conservative, like a Model S), but under the hood.

 

[Tslynk67]

That’s actually a parody account

Ah, I wondered why BabyCharts has suddenly unblocked me...

It's difficult to differentiate between the real TSLAQ accounts and the parody ones...

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

I find it laughable that people would refer to waymo as in any way a competitor to tesla with a serious face. Sure, they have robotaxis now! and if you want to go from one point in downtown pheonix arizona to another point in downtown pheonix arizona, they can do that! oh yes!
But what (gasp) if you want to go somewhere else in pheonix? or (double gasp) somewhere outside pheonix! or (treble gasp!) somewhere in another state!

As a humble computer programmer who has worked on large projects, I can understand that coding a quick hack for a specific situation is an order of magnitude easier than a general solution that works in every circumstance. Waymo are doing the former, and shopping it around investors who are too dumb to know better, and selling a stock price as their product. Tesla is doing the latter, and actually selling a product as a product.

The moment you are geofencing, you put a hard limit on the scale of the system, and totally destroy any adaptability on a day to day basis. The waymo system is a *nice trick*, but it is not even in the same product category as what tesla are working on.

Personally I'm not *that* excited by driverless cars as an investment, but people who value waymo at > 1% of TSLA are just unaware of how things actually work.

 

[Tslynk67]

The decision on where to build the Model Y may be made in a couple weeks. We are well aware of the labor situation affecting Panasonic right now, but there are other factors which may influence the site selection. So here's some insight into how water rights/availability in the GF1/Reno area may affect that decsion, written by a long-time Carson City, NV resident and GF1 "outsider" 'carsonight':

carsonight * 2 days ago

"I'm not trying to win an argument or put you down. I'm simply explaining how things work out here in the driest state in the nation.

"The industrial park has a certain quantity of water rights. Understand that water rights are bought and sold in acre feet. One acre foot is enough water to cover one acre to the depth of one foot, and is considered sufficient water for two residential dwellings or four apartments. The current price of an acre foot of water rights is something between $50k and $100k. This assumes that somebody has them and is willing to sell them. Before somebody can get a building permit they have to present proof that they have the water rights, even in town.

"The difference is that once that building permit is given the town takes responsibility for providing water, whereas those outside the city limits are subject to junior status as a holder of water rights. This means if there is a severe drought and the water table drops too far, they will be the first to not be allowed to pump water out of a well anymore. The industrial park has senior water rights, but if the drought is severe enough they too could lose their right to pump water.

"Both Reno and Sparks have acquired water rights by acquiring ranches peripheral to the city limits. The water rights came with those. There is very little in the way of additional farms or ranches to acquire. Reno tried to acquire water rights in the Honey Lake Valley in California, 60 miles north, but California put the kibosh on that. Las Vegas is trying to acquire water rights from northeastern Nevada, 400 miles away, something that is bitterly opposed there.

"You mentioned collecting water off of roofs. Understand that between April and September or October there is very little rain. Most precipitation falls in the winter and the snowpack in the mountains is very critical, because that determines if there will be water enough in the summer. Lake Tahoe has a dam that holds water to a certain elevation above its natural rim, which is determined by federal law. Reno has storage enough through Lake Tahoe and reservoirs for 3 years of no snowpack. I've seen droughts that lasted that long.

"Sparks would be the one to decide if they want to acquire property 10 miles east of the city limits to build residences there. That would mean that Sparks would have to extend full city services that far, and would not gain any water rights by so doing. Honestly I do not see that happening.

"Water rights here are critically important and most people in the know are conversant on them. I remember a few summers ago when the owner of a ranch in Carson City tried to sell 30 acre feet of water rights to Douglas County, the next county to the South. There was a storm of controversy! You would have thought Benedict Arnold had risen from the dead and walked again! The sale was rescinded."​

Cheers!

"acre feet" - how quaint and archaic!

 

[SPadival]

Done via tweet.

Marcus Maximus on Twitter

I have a pinned tweet since Apr 7

S Padival on Twitter

Couple of people close to Musk follow me.. so hopefully, it has been brought to his attention.

 

[Artful Dodger]

"acre feet" - how quaint and archaic!

Indeed, especially when we need seven league boots right now. But I think the new S is already sporting 6 league boots.

Cheers!

 

[CorneliusXX]

I disagreed because I feel it’s no way to treat one of the top minds and greatest contributors to this century. Elon gets off on Twitter, it’s his reward. Take it from him and why should he bother? It has to be spontaneous.

Further, I’m tired of people failing to recognise the thousands of positive tweets versus two questionable. Let he who has never posted an error cast the next stone.

As Elon said: if you **** one horse

Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[SebastianR]

I'm super excited about Tesla Insurance, not primarily because of the effects on Tesla's finances and SP (it will take years to take off), but because this is the first time since PayPal that Elon is launching a major high-tech financial product.

If the past is predictive, we might see something special - maybe not in the offering itself (which might look deceptively conservative, like a Model S), but under the hood.

I like this piece of speculation. And I'm sure there is money/value in it. Think about it, if even a (traditional, conservative) Danish insurance company gives you a 5% discount on your car insurance if you have Autopilot (and they don't have access to the data), then a player that has access to the data will for sure be able to make a killing with it.

See the two prices with and without Autopilot here:
InsureMyTesla

 

[lklundin]

"Meet the rebel mechanic opening up his own Tesla repair shop"

I have seen that man work, I would never let him touch my Tesla.

But for a salvaged car I guess he could be OK.

 

[lklundin]

Wait what? Is this going to be an official Tesla tow bar?

Yes, both the Model 3 and the Model Y will have an optional tow bar.
For the Model 3 tow bar option it is unknown if this only applies from a certain build date.

There is a couple of reasonably reliable sources here:
Tesla Model 3 - Wikipedia

 

[Matias]

Here in China, FUD is at the peakest level ever. When I open my market newsfeed (in Chinese) in the morning, of the 30-50 news worldwide I got 6-10 negative Tesla pieces, that's 20-30% of all market news, just insane, most hit pieces on US media and SeekingAlpha got translated into Chinese and pushed to me.

But luckily nobody dare to publish anything against EV industry in general, since our communist government is so pro-EV and control all media very tightly.

That is probably mostly linked to the algorithm thinking you’re interested about that kind of news. Someone other, who isn’t interested about Tesla, would get different news feed.

Filter bubble - Wikipedia

 

[Pras]

Related to the insurance launch: An old (2016) article (see the link below) that talks about the benefit highly autonomous (AV) cars have on insurance cost and claims.

Key points:

1) Advance AVs accident rate is expected to be 45% lower on highway and 30% lower on other roads.
2) other expense advantages are: underwriting using more data, actively promoting safer routes, claims processing and reduction of fraud (sentry mode and accident videos).
3) not in article but my points about Tesla: minimal acquisition cost, higher take rate for FSD feature, accurate claims cost using Tesla body shop (mobile ranger etc), and overall reduction in premium will improve car cost of ownership and hence sale. Also it will be easy to prove in court if the Tesla driver is not at fault.
4) some offsetting points could be that while accidents may be lesser, the mix will shift to bigger accidents than petty accidents (I disagree with this point but only time will tell).

https://www.the-digital-insurer.com...16/05/737-HERE_Swiss-Re_white-paper_final.pdf

PS: I don’t expect Tesla to generate lot of profit and revenue from insurance (compared to say car sales or robotaxi). I would put this idea more as promoting FSD take rate and making car ownership attractive.

 

[HG Wells]

Any Pier 80 updates ?

Only one model 3 in inventory within 200 miles of Atlanta !

 

[TradingInvest]

Except that accessing the biggest and arguably most important market in the EU as a foreign (US....) marque, and EV at that - will greatly improve consumers acceptance if the factory is located there.

Think: to the general consumer a great EV by the Apple of EVs actually built in Germany to perceived German quality standards and by German workers will enjoy significantly better acceptance than the same great EV by the Apple of EVs built in the neighbouring low-cost production economies. There is a reason (in addition to the political one) that the Big 3 (BMW, Daimler, VW Group) still build the majority of their cars in Germany, instead of running for the low-cost countries.
Of course don’t look too closely to their supply base.....that has long spread all over the world.

Maybe from your US perspective: do you think Tesla would have done equally well if Fremont (or GF1) was located in Mexico?

Apple devices are produced in China, seems to be pretty successful.

 

[TheMrX]

Yes, both the Model 3 and the Model Y will have an optional tow bar.
For the Model 3 tow bar option it is unknown if this only applies from a certain build date.

There is a couple of reasonably reliable sources here:
Tesla Model 3 - Wikipedia

I see today my delivery have been delayed to may 17th, will try to push to have same paperwork than lklundin. Will let you know how that goes.