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

[bhtooefr]

So, given this product's only reason to exist is to circumvent a Federal vehicle requirement (FMVSS 141), how long till they get a cease and desist letter? (See also Autopilot Buddy).

It's circumventing a European mandate, not a US one yet.

Also a surefire way to face criminal negligence charges if you happen to hit and kill a kid (or an elderly person) at the relevant speeds, and the vehicle inspector finds this device that circumvents a safety feature.

Really bad idea IMHO.

Realistically, as far as I'm aware - IANAL, though, so this is not an advice - this would happen in the civil domain if anything, through insurers, not the criminal domain. Not having the speaker wouldn't be considered criminal negligence because cars aren't yet required to have it.

Granted, I actually turned the pedestrian warning on my Prius up and enabled it whenever the vehicle is in gear (not just in motion), so I wouldn't install such a product on any future Tesla I'd own. But...

 

[CorneliusXX]

The elephant in the room that nobody seems to see possible, is at what point does making cars for public sale become a costly liability?

If a true self driving Tesla fleet of robotaxis becomes viable, then it becomes far more profitable to simply manufacture enough vehicles to maintain/expand the fleet and reap the revenue from the taxi service, no? Retail sales becomes a thing of the past and the world transitions to renewables faster by simply not owning vehicles anymore and relying on an electric fleet of corporate owned Tesla taxis to get them where they want/need to go.

In 10-20 years does Tesla even sell personal vehicles to the general public or have they created an entirely new transportation infrastructure?

Crazy?

...maybe, maybe not.

Dan

If you take this line of reasoning to its extreme, where Tesla wins a significant portion of the robotaxi market, would they have to pay for a substantial portion of the upkeep of the national road network?

 

[mongo]

Your calculation is correct but I have not heard of a $0 down/40-year mortgage ever.

Typo, should say 30 year. Putting money down reduces the effective monthly payment by that percentage and improves monthly impact..

Yes, I am disagreeing with that.
You’re going to seriously quote/reference a news outlet to make your point? Have we not been through so many “faux news” arguments, such as regarding the presidency and TSLA? I see that you’re from MI (Go Blue btw). I don’t expect someone from outside out of CA to know the details.
Here’s a tip: read the text of CA CEC Title 24, then come back and let me know if you still believe what you read.

From their FAQ:

Question 1: On the average, the new PV requirements will add about $8,400 to the cost of a single-family home. Wouldn’t that make homeownership less affordable at a time where California’s home prices are already out of reach?
Answer: No. A home with solar costs less to own than one without. Put another way, the benefits of solar outweigh its costs, such that the new homeowner is saving money from day one in the home. That family will save thousands of dollars over the first decade of ownership. Home affordability includes both the first cost and operating costs, which include utility bills. The PV requirement actually makes homeownership more affordable: the reduction in energy bills exceeds the corresponding increase in mortgage payment by around $35 per month on average.

You can talk about sizing and such, but they do require solar for most construction (exempt shaded and such).

What is new to the 2019 standards? The standards require solar photovoltaic systems for new homes.

2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards

Happy to hear your interpretation.

It looks like they are selling bog-standard automotive connectors with plugs to cover the ends where the wires would enter. Clever - but I doubt they have very much skin in the game, and can always sell them separately as “repair parts” to be used if the speaker plugs are “damaged” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more).

Other than they advertise it to circumvent the system.

 

[Thumper]

Wow. Just met Greta Thurnberg at the Grants Pass, OR supercharger.

 

[HG Wells]

CNN Business has a nice article up on the model Y, with a few exceptions.

"While Tesla has yet to give any details on Model Y pricing,
it is expected to eventually be available for just under $40,000,
far closer to the Model 3 than the Models S and X."

Tesla's Model Y could be a game changer for the company - CNN

The world is built on unintended humor.

 

[Remus]

While that scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility, to make it happen would require the service to be two or three orders of magnitude better than current taxi service. People don't want to take five minutes to schedule the ride and then wait another 45 minutes for the ride to get there (or in Uber's case, not to arrive at all some percentage of the time). The entire process from starting to schedule the service to the robotaxi's arrival should be no greater than five minutes. If not, it won't appeal to many who don't already use Uber or Taxi services--of course, those people will flock to it because of the lower rates, so there's certainly going to be a good market for robotaxi. Also, depending upon the city, some who now take public transit will instead opt for robotaxi assuming the price and travel times are right.

This is simply a very very narrow point of view. Not all people are like you.

Plenty people can't drive out there would be happy to schedule rides well in advance, this includes blind folks, people with brain or heart conditions, etc. Uber is simply way too expensive for their daily use.

Just teenagers going to sports and robotics clubs is a huge market by itself.

 

[Fact Checking]

Serious question, how did we get from here:

Rivian Electric Truck Spied: On Sale Late 2019

And here:

"Rivian purchased a Mitsubishi factory fully loaded capable of producing 240k ICEv per year that was active in 2015 and has $500M in the bank."

"Edit: Just checked, Rivian didn't purchase equipment when they purchased the factory. Rivian did say they will be stamping parts for other OEMs out of Normal IL in 2019."​

To this in just a year:

Rivian doesn't start production til a year from now.

There's something IMHO weird about Rivian.

Why don't they ever seem to be doing anything?

They're a company with billions of dollars in cash, and yet look at that place - it's like a ghost town. They've had the factory for two whole years - much of one year while they've been stuffed to the gills with cash - but they're not expected to complete demo work until the end of this year?

But then suddenly they're supposed to tool for mass production in half a year?

Look at what GF3 has looked like all past year, a constant hive of activity, inside and out. Even when you couldn't see the inside, there was a constant stream of cars and delivery vehicles coming and going, people swarming everywhere. Rivian? You expect to see tumbleweeds blowing by.

Check them out on satellite. I know the imagery isn't realtime (all we know is that it's from 2019), but still:

There was literally one car in the parking lot. We drove around the whole place....it's a big factory.

Looks abandoned to me.

 

[Fact Checking]

CNN Business has a nice article up on the model Y, with a few exceptions.

"While Tesla has yet to give any details on Model Y pricing,​

Yeah, clearly Tesla's fault, it's not like you can configure and order the Model Y, with Tesla guaranteeing the price:

Design Your Model Y | Tesla

​

 

[BornToFly]

My favorit tidbit from the earnings call was the announcement of an improved Smart Summon rollout in the next weeks in combination with possible "feature complete" FSD by EoY.

I love my autopilot V3, but I have a hard time believing feature complete in two months when my car still can't drive 30 miles on the highway without slamming on the brakes at least once for no reason....

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

I love my autopilot V3, but I have a hard time believing feature complete in two months when my car still can't drive 30 miles on the highway without slamming on the brakes at least once for no reason....

Are you in the early release program for FSD with HW3 hardware?

 

[bhtooefr]

"Feature complete" just means it's allowed to slam on the brakes at least once for no reason in other scenarios, too.

(Less tongue-in-cheek, it means it has the features necessary to work in all scenarios, not that it actually does, as I understand.)

 

[Cosmacelf]

I love my autopilot V3, but I have a hard time believing feature complete in two months when my car still can't drive 30 miles on the highway without slamming on the brakes at least once for no reason....

FWIW, I'm on the get updates frequently program as well as early smart summon path. Anyways, my AP used to slam on the brakes a lot, but as of a few weeks ago, isn't doing that anymore. I'm on 2019.32.12.2 58f3b76

 

[Fact Checking]

At the Autonomy Day, when asked about the funding plan for a fully owned fleet of robotaxis, Musk said something like “we’ll do all the things you’d expect us to”. I’d say it’s very likely that Tesla has a further equity raise, in between paying for vertical integration of battery cell inputs and a huge fleet of on balance sheet vehicles.

The context matters though: Elon certainly couldn't answer with "we'll be self-funding", right after they had Q1'2019 with a massive loss and cash outflow, and right before a big equity raise ...

After Q2 and Q3 financials, with GF3 built and Model Y lines being constructed right now, I'm sure his answer would be quite more specific ...

 

[Fact Checking]

FWIW, I'm on the get updates frequently program as well as early smart summon path. Anyways, my AP used to slam on the brakes a lot, but as of a few weeks ago, isn't doing that anymore. I'm on 2019.32.12.2 58f3b76

That's really encouraging if it's fixed for others like @rdalcanto too, "phantom braking" was IMHO one of the most serious Autopilot rough edges, and I only expected it to be gone after HW3 activation.

They are getting a lot more out of HW2 than I thought they'd be able to.

 

[printf42]

OT

I love my autopilot V3, but I have a hard time believing feature complete in two months when my car still can't drive 30 miles on the highway without slamming on the brakes at least once for no reason....

What is AP V3?
My experience with NOA since last year is the phantom braking is much less in recent updates.
It used to brake for overhang bridges but not anymore, nowadays if it brakes it’s usually for a good reason, probably one even I haven’t notice yet, like 2nd car in front slows down, or car in adjacent lane drift etc.
What’s your experience and what are the scenarios it would brake?

 

[Fact Checking]

Are you in the early release program for FSD with HW3 hardware?

Btw., does anyone know if current Early Access builds have activated HW3 already?

AFAIK it's still on HW2 - with "Early Access HW3 first light" maybe in late December...

 

[RobStark]

According to the last interview, they don't expect to even complete demolition until the end of the year. But it hardly even looks like they're doing demolition. Apparently their "production ready factory" needs to be almost completely demolished inside because it was geared for building vehicles that were too small.



1) That would be 9 months after Tesla took possession of the site. Rivian took possession of this factory in January 2017.

2) As of June 2011, Tesla had already built 20 pre-production release candidates at the factory ("Model S Alpha").

3)

Friday, 20 May 2011:

View attachment 470464

Saturday, 6 August 2011:

View attachment 470463

Visible work going on outside between these two shots. For example:

Friday, 20 May 2011:

View attachment 470465

Saturday, 6 August 2011:

View attachment 470466


Or here:

Friday, 20 May 2011:

View attachment 470471

Saturday, 6 August 2011:

View attachment 470472

And remember, Tesla had a small fraction as much cash as Rivian has.

I don't know, I just find it weird how little they seem to be doing, vs. their claimed schedules and how much cash they have.

So we are starting the Rivian Shorty Air Force?

Rivian said they will start installing equipment in this Dec or January.

Tesla did start earlier because they went shopping for used equipment during the Great Recession when a lot good condition used equipment was available.

Here are Rivian prototypes spotted by EV enthusiast testing in Argentina.

Rivian R1T Prototypes Spotted Testing in Argentina's Tierra Del Fuego

 

[PhaseWhite]

We've been surprised by the ER results to the downside and the upside over the past 2 quarters. You have to tip your hat to Tesla on their ability to keep quiet with no leaks. You often hear about the whisper number (the real number people are expecting...not the published consensus numbers). Often this comes from someone, who knows someone, who know someone who knows something. Sometimes it is the spouse of a lower level accountant at the company. He/She overhears the spouse on the phone say something about the quarter to a co-worker. He/She innocently shares the information with their sister-in-law ...who then tells....etc....making its way to Wall Street.

There had to be at least 50 people at Tesla that knew about the blow-out quarter and nothing leaked. That's pretty good.

I’m not so sure it didn’t leak just it didn’t reach us. There was a ton of strong buying in the weeks heading into the earnings report and we know from reporting on short interest that it increased slightly over that period so it wasn’t short covering. It’s possible a big institutional buyer knew something and just made bank.

 

[KarenRei]

Here are Rivian prototypes spotted by EV enthusiast testing in Argentina.

Rivian R1T Prototypes Spotted Testing in Argentina's Tierra Del Fuego

Nobody is casting any doubt on Rivian's ability to handbuild prototypes.

Nor, for that matter, the ability of individuals in their garages to make handbuilt EV prototypes, nor the ability of small teams with some angel funding to make really good handbuilt prototypes.

The car is not the difficult product. The factory is the difficult product.

 

[Fact Checking]

So we are starting the Rivian Shorty Air Force?

Unlike most of the SAF "evidence", @Unpilot's and @KarenRei's photos are not cropped in a manipulative fashion and don't come with bad logic either. Nobody here is questioning Rivian's ability to create hand-built prototypes or their ability to secure funding.

These are honest, probing questions about Rivian's mass production capabilities and their factory, based on real data, with no satisfactory answers so far.

Maybe Rivian is going to answer these, but comparing these questions to the TSLAQ scammers is disgraceful and insulting...