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

[Cobbler]

Uh, no. The fact that you can reliably flash the headlights does not show it's not a connection issue. Smart Summon uses different criteria and protocols to determine if the connection is robust enough to perform the desired action. Flashing the lights is a simple one-time command that is not dependent upon signal strength. The command either gets through and is executed or there is no connectivity. Smart Summon only works once it has verified the connectivity is robust enough to safely perform the summon.

You're sure of that? Isn't it just a simple heartbeat bit that needs to be toggled by sender/receiver every 100ms (or less) to check if the connection is alive? If not, simply abort every movement.

 

[HG Wells]

Uh, no. The fact that you can reliably flash the headlights does not show it's not a connection issue. Smart Summon uses different criteria and protocols to determine if the connection is robust enough to perform the desired action. Flashing the lights is a simple one-time command that is not dependent upon signal strength. The command either gets through and is executed or there is no connectivity. Smart Summon only works once it has verified the connectivity is robust enough to safely perform the summon.

Not only that you can easily be on two different carriers.
Four bars on your phone (Verizon) may not work well with a single bar on your car (ATT I think).

I know, I know its much more than this, just a quick example

 

[StealthP3D]

Is it any surprise that Musk is content to see the stock price flounder below $300?

That's just another way of saying Musk has the patience of an adult?

As a long-time, long-term buy and hold investor, I'm surprised at the low level of patience exhibited by so many Tesla investors. If you want quick, invest in a company that manufacturers popular widgets that are the rage of the moment. Musk is a visionary, not a pop culture faddist. These things take some time but offer much higher rewards.

 

[Unpilot]

Not only that you can easily be on two different carriers.
Four bars on your phone (Verizon) may not work well with a single bar on your car (ATT I think).

I know, I know its much more than this, just a quick example

Plus if your phone (like mine) constantly seeks WiFi...and you connect to you car ...then the phone switches back to cellular..it drops.
I have to remember to turn WiFi off when I summon.

 

[KarenRei]

In China all satellite phones require a permit (i.e. it's illegal to possess one without a permit), and in addition to that SpaceX almost certainly won't connect to China based receivers unless that specific receiver was permitted by China - and then one of the conditions of a frequency license would be for all traffic to go through a China ground station.

Exactly this. The ground stations Starlink uses will plug straight into the Great Firewall.

 

[StealthP3D]

You're sure of that? Isn't it just a simple heartbeat bit that needs to be toggled by sender/receiver every 100ms (or less) to check if the connection is alive? If not, simply abort every movement.

Summon and Smart Summon both require a more robust connection than flashing the lights. This is something the system appraises before beginning the command and continues to appraise throughout the summon process.

 

[humbaba]

You're sure of that? Isn't it just a simple heartbeat bit that needs to be toggled by sender/receiver every 100ms (or less) to check if the connection is alive? If not, simply abort every movement.

and how much latency is acceptable? Does every packet have to be delivered in a timely and sequential manner?

Even without knowing the particulars it is clear that flashing headlights could be fault tolerant (send until it gets a positive response) and even a simple protocol would prevent excessive flashing. Ensuring a prompt and timely stop if the button is released can be hard to guarantee -- and if you go for the safety side (which I'm confident Tesla has) then you would have interruptions any time something wrong happens (e.g., out of order, dropped packets, overly delayed packets) which would lead to exactly the observed problem: connectivity issues.

There's a reason gamers avoid wireless: even if bandwidth is high the latency and reliability are not there. And games are typically quite fault tolerant (e.g., out of order isn't a problem, they are just ignored).

The explanation makes a lot of sense though it does nothing to relieve the frustration level. I get offered "come to me" when I open the app and am inside a building, but when standing next to the car it doesn't work. In my case I suspect some of the problem is when I leave work my phone switches from the building wireless to cellular and the hand off causes extended handshake issues. I don't have enough data yet to make any strong statements about it, but preliminary indicators are that the connectivity issues (for me) do correlate with cellular/wireless hand offs.

 

[Paracelsus]

That's just another way of saying Musk has the patience of an adult?

As a long-time, long-term buy and hold investor, I'm surprised at the low level of patience exhibited by so many Tesla investors. If you want quick, invest in a company that manufacturers popular widgets that are the rage of the moment. Musk is a visionary, not a pop culture faddist. These things take some time but offer much higher rewards.

Respectfully @StealthP3D - I think @jhm is suggesting that the lingering low share price is good for accumulation - perhaps by TSLA &/or Elon. Great things have happened recently, and great things are in the works, yet TSLA & Elon are as quiet as ever. I am wondering what percent would have to come out of the float for TSLA to 'stabilize' the price and return the price to its previous long-term trajectory instead of being totally taken private. The enthusiasm most everyone seemed to share regarding the dream of TSLA being placed on the SP500 was for that very reason........a large portion of short positions can become long positions. Perhaps Elon/Larry/TSLA have found there is a path to buying back only a portion of the shares for stability and then plowing ahead with rabid reinvestment in growth while reducing the threat to stock price from Short positions.....without going completely private. Thus, share price lingering at these levels for so long could help pave that path - as I am interpreting @jhm to suggest (but would most welcome his clarification here). Maybe tomorrow will tell us more. Private or Public, $420 will become the floor at some point on any path. Elon would not have it any other way IMHO
.

 

[Unpilot]

My Yahoo feed has several positive sounding titles about Tesla.
Pump and dump?

 

[StealthP3D]

It's always best to start with a friendly audience before widespread deployment.

You think Tesla owners are a "friendly audience"? To me, the majority (at least the most vocal) seem like spoiled rotten brats! Maybe you should watch this:

 

[StealthP3D]

Respectfully @StealthP3D - I think @jhm is suggesting that the lingering low share price is good for accumulation - perhaps by TSLA &/or Elon.

Aha, I missed that implication. I agree, Musk would probably like a higher ownership share of Tesla - that could be very good for his planned Mars colony. I understand those don't come cheap!

 

[humbaba]

although I don't do twitter myself I troll it (alex voigt, elon musk) and noticed it went down. Then up, then down. Probably Elon Musk's use of starlink. Out camping in Montana and he tried to summon his roadster from orbit. See, everyone has intermittent connectivity issues with summon

 

[Dan Detweiler]

You think Tesla owners are a "friendly audience"? To me, the majority (at least the most vocal) seem like spoiled rotten brats! Maybe you should watch this:

LOL, I hadn't seen this before. Gotta admit, the guy has a point...several of them in fact!

Dan

 

[AlexS]

Since it was so widely discussed yesterday:

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Analyst Ratings, Estimates & Forecasts

Consensus revenue is 6,34B, not 6,4B. That's $10M less than Q2 - not more than Q2. This implies that a consensus revenue beat means (Energy Gains + Service Gains + Credit Gains + FSD Recognition - ASP-Decline Losses > ~$80M). One could of course invert any of those parameters - e.g. Credit Losses or ASP-Rise Gains. Plug in your own values.

Also, looking ahead to Q4: consensus revenue estimates imply - assuming no price change, and that growth is even across divisions - about 104k vehicles if pricing were flat. After accounting for the recent entry price rises (assuming that they don't affect mix, and are simply a response to the current excess of orders they're facing vs. their production capacity) and FSD (assuming that it maintains a roughly even take rate, balancing out the extra sales due to Smart Summon), that goes down to 102k vehicles. Not at all ambitious. Guidance in the letter/call could easily lead to Q4 estimates being revised upwards, with a corresponding effect on the SP.

@KarenRei you have been here for a while and you should know that publicly available yahoo finance estimates do not apply to TSLA, only hard to get FactSet estimates counts and usually they get changed last day before earnings. So "real" consensus you will get tomorrow before earnings if you have access to FactSet data, if not then after earnings you will know what was consensus.

 

[jerry33]

You think Tesla owners are a "friendly audience"? To me, the majority (at least the most vocal) seem like spoiled rotten brats! Maybe you should watch this:

The majority are not whiners, even though posts in various groups can make it appear that way. You don't get a 50% YoY increase by having dissatisfied customers.

 

[Unpilot]

LOL, I hadn't seen this before. Gotta admit, the guy has a point...several of them in fact!

Dan

That.......is......not......watchable.....to me.

 

[Nocturnal]

and how much latency is acceptable? Does every packet have to be delivered in a timely and sequential manner?

Even without knowing the particulars it is clear that flashing headlights could be fault tolerant (send until it gets a positive response) and even a simple protocol would prevent excessive flashing. Ensuring a prompt and timely stop if the button is released can be hard to guarantee -- and if you go for the safety side (which I'm confident Tesla has) then you would have interruptions any time something wrong happens (e.g., out of order, dropped packets, overly delayed packets) which would lead to exactly the observed problem: connectivity issues.

There's a reason gamers avoid wireless: even if bandwidth is high the latency and reliability are not there. And games are typically quite fault tolerant (e.g., out of order isn't a problem, they are just ignored).

The explanation makes a lot of sense though it does nothing to relieve the frustration level. I get offered "come to me" when I open the app and am inside a building, but when standing next to the car it doesn't work. In my case I suspect some of the problem is when I leave work my phone switches from the building wireless to cellular and the hand off causes extended handshake issues. I don't have enough data yet to make any strong statements about it, but preliminary indicators are that the connectivity issues (for me) do correlate with cellular/wireless hand offs.

Much of that is out of Tesla's hands of course, but don't forget that this will be moot at some point. As soon as we start edging closer to true FSD then this connectivity crap won't matter.

- City street autopilot
- smart summon without the dead man switch
- smart summon without being in line of sight
- Hands free autopilot on the highway
- Hands free autopilot on city streets
etc.

 

[KarenRei]

LOL, I hadn't seen this before. Gotta admit, the guy has a point...several of them in fact!

Dan

Yeah, the title turned me off, but... he's got a point

 

[Zaxxon]

That.......is......not......watchable.....to me.

Sure, keep whining.

 

[UncaNed]

Not only that you can easily be on two different carriers.
Four bars on your phone (Verizon) may not work well with a single bar on your car (ATT I think).

I know, I know its much more than this, just a quick example

So if my car often seems to have streaming music buffering problems or something indicating a carrier problem, that's likely what causes the troubles I have with Summon?