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

[StealthP3D]

That's the sharpest looking Ford Focus I've ever seen! It's kind of reminiscent of a Tesla Model S!

If I didn't know better, I would say that Bill Gates drives a Tesla!

 

[MC3OZ]

You know Nvidia exploded because people were pricing in robotaxis using their chip because the CEO said so. Then it fizzled out as it's unlikely to happen. But there are still a good portion priced Nvidia with the slight chance that it may. This is what I mean by robotaxi priced in. Elon had some slides, people were skeptical..but hey throw in some bones just incase.

Now I get your general point, you are right, shorts are going to cling to any lifeboat in a storm.

However, I thought the Tesla "Autonomy Day" presentation was fairly impressive, but it was overshadowed by the Q1 results and certainly did not attract a lot of additional buyers, or if it did they were out numbered by sellers...

Relative to the price of Nvidia and Waymo, robo-taxis don't seem to currently be adding a lot to the Tesla share price..

Broadly there are 3 camps....

1) Those who trust and always trusted Tesla and Elon to deliver eventually - no change to this camp..
2) Those who think others like Waymo are ahead, and being first is a big deal, or who don't think the Tesla solution will work - no change in this camp...
3) Those with no strong opinion.. would not be pricing anything in...

When I say no change, most have already make up their mind, if "Autonomy Day" didn't significantly shift opinions, nothing will..

And those in the camp that trust Elon and Tesla to deliver are mostly expecting it to be late, again I think it will take a lot to shift opinions...

So shorts might think those with no strong opinion have priced in FSD, that is on par with most of their logic...

 

[Singuy]

You keep trying to argue that this accident is going to help define the trading Monday morning. How about we watch what happens and then we can analyze it. Because I don't think a single Tesla crash is a net negative. If anything, the fact that he rear-ended a State Trooper parked on the Interstate and didn't cause a single injury is a testament to the crash safety of a Tesla. Did you see the rear end of the trooper's car? It was totaled. And it happened in the wee morning hours of a Saturday. Chances are he had been drinking excessively and just used the Auto-Pilot as an excuse so they wouldn't suspect impaired driving. I mean, how else do you miss a flare in the roadway and flashing lights on the parked trooper's car? Not by "checking" on your dog in the back seat!

There hasn't been that many bad news lately. Elon won the court case, Cybertruck is preordering like gangbusters, GF3 is delivering cars..nothing but one good news after another. The manipulators need something and I'm just saying they finally got something. A 5% rally now turned into a 1% rally, who knows. Short term we always see exaggerated drops from stupid news.

Hey I would be ecstatic if AP crashes doesn't affect SP anymore. That to me is better news than anything I can think of because I constantly worry about on some random day AP causes some kind of serious accidents when now there are over 500k Teslas on the road. It'll be a freaken huge win if CNBC doesn't pick up the story at all!

 

[JustMe]

I, for one, welcome our new RoboTaxi overlords.

This is going to remake urban life in unexpected ways. This is not just about a cheap ride. In a few short years we could be witnessing:
- mass job losses among professional drivers
- drop in new car sales
- streets filled with empty cars whizzing by, communicating with each other and traffic signals
- dropping demand for inner city parking
- deployment of charging infrastructure that enables cars to self charge
- intense public debates about robotaxi-related fatalities even as overall road fatalities fall
- robotaxi related crimes that I can’t even think of
- gas stations going out of business

 

[ClimateOptimst]

Good video of a holiday discussion about CybrTrk among 4 longtime & current truck owners in the Midwest. Almost all of the participant's discussion focused on the vehicle's capabilities rather than the looks and all were intrigued by CT. If Tesla delivers on what they've promised, they'll be selling as many trucks as they can make for a long, long time. Note that the M3 is serving as the gateway drug here because the video maker is a family member that owns one & that's generated a basic level of familiarity for the other family members.

 

[StealthP3D]

Short term we always see exaggerated drops from stupid news.

If you want to believe that is still the case, be my guess. I've noticed a distinct inability of recent crashes to have any significant effect on share price.

Hey I would be ecstatic if AP crashes doesn't affect SP anymore.

What? We don't even know that the car was on AutoPilot. All we know is the driver who crashed in the wee morning hours of a Saturday told the trooper he rear-ended him because the car was on AutoPilot. That driver was lucky he was only charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. People lie to troopers all the time when they are in a serious situation. If I was a trooper I would have given him a breathalyzer or drawn blood to test for impairment from drugs.

In either case (AP or not), the days that news like this could move the market are long gone. No one even got hurt.

 

[AZRI11]

No I don't get it. You do realize that Tesla has this type of valuation with a portion of it priced in for some kind of FSD by year end or early next year right?. AP crashing into police cars shake the confidence of people who are betting on features complete coming soon.

It doesn't matter if the guy used AP or not. Headlines will be created as such because he said so.

Musk winning the trial and news about M3 getting the green light in China did NOTHing to the stock Friday. So I don't know how you are expecting short covering on Monday when CNBC and Reuters will be blasting AP crashing headlines.

Again, we are just arguing about Monday price action, not long term Tesla.

The problem is legacy auto company lobbyists with the UAW's help are trying to stop FSD. Democrats are leading the charge against Tesla despite Uber and Lyft's problems with sexual assaults, not to mention this whole climate change thing going on right now enemies are at the gates, and Musk needs to "lobby" really hard if you know what I mean

 

[wipster]

Don't count your chickens just yet. My Signature X sat in my delivery center for over a month before they finally let me take delivery.

I'm sure it just took a while to get the signature...

 

[agloutney]

There were three competent, experienced pilots in the AF 447 cockpit, and all of them were trying to avoid the stall as any pilot would, but a nasty software bug tricked all of them into causing a stall until it was too late:

Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia

"this led to a perverse reversal that lasted nearly to the impact: each time Bonin happened to lower the nose, rendering the angle of attack marginally less severe, the stall warning sounded again—a negative reinforcement that may have locked him into his pattern of pitching up", which increased the angle of attack and thus prevented the aircraft from getting out of its stall"​

This "Pull up! Pull up!" loud human voice warning is what convinced them to maintain the stall:

That aggressive "pull up!" warning sounded every time they were pitching down.

Just try out how good of an AF 447 pilot you'd make: play the above recording, turn up the volume, listen to that voice, imagine you are in pitch black dark conditions, falling into a bad thunderstorm with dangerous downdrafts, you are responsible for 228 lives, you are in the middle of the ocean where even an emergency landing is probably not survivable, you have conflicting computer screen output and very low air speed readings and fast dropping altitude, other human voices nearby trying to help you, and try to ignore the "pull up!" human voice command!

Even with the benefit of perfect hindsight it's hard, and they were the first ones to run into this particular stall scenario...

I’ve been flying Airbus 320s for years so done it in the simulator plenty of times. Been flying seaplanes forever. No matter what you’re flying the physics are the same. The wing stalls at an angle of attack. There’s three different AOA sources so even if one fails you have two good ones. You put the automation aside and revert to bush pilot mode. Seems to be a lost art nowadays but pilots need to re watch “children of the magenta”

 

[graphilwar]

I've been following Bill Gates on twitter for years, he is one of the first people I added when I first decided to use it, along with James Cameron and some others LOL.

Bill has sounded very noble with his humanitarian efforts and interest in renewable energy and stuff. But when it comes to Tesla, he has been very quiet. In fact I can't remember him ever tweeting about Tesla or even re-tweeting someone else's comments about Tesla. It's as if he wants to ignore they exist. Then when he starts tweeting about these other forms of renewable energy, without even mentioning the 800lb Gorilla in the room - solar+battery (and by implication, the leading player in that space, TESLA) - something has made me wonder what his motives are. I hasten to jump to a simple-minded conclusion that it's simple vanity - preventing another successful billionaire trying to save the planet from getting the spotlight. I tend to think it's something else, perhaps rooted in Bill's investments.

I have wondered about Bill Gates’ opinions of Tesla. As I recall it, I saw a car interview Bill Gates did with the author of Seveneves (great book!). In it, you can see that Bill Gates does drive a metallic blue Model X. So he should be familiar with the cars and the company.

Bill Gates Drives A Tesla Model X - Video Interview With "Seveneves" Author Neal Stephenson

 

[EVNow]

Bill Gates still drives an old Ford Focus(?) when he retires, he doesn't care about cars all that much

You are probably confusing BG with Balmer. Balmer's father used to work in Ford and he is still loyal to Ford. Ofcourse he has other cars too (he bought an early Leaf, for eg.).

You saw the video of BG in a Tesla.

Even earlier, Gates had fast sports cars. He would drive crazy too.

ps : Do you guys remember the ice bucket challenge that Musk did with his kids ? The challenge was given by Gates to Musk - considering he gave the challenge to only 3 celebrities, ofcourse they know each other.

pps : Whatever little respect I had for Gates vanished after the revelation about his multiple contacts with Epstein.

ppps : If you saw Gates in a Ford, its probably a Microsoft shuttle. They used to have Prius shuttles, but replaced with Ford hybrids.

 

[TNEVol]

It was renamed Tesla v Benson with the last elections (secretary of state was Johnson). Exhibits are pay walled.

Docket for Tesla, Inc. v. Benson, 1:16-cv-01158 - CourtListener.com


Just down the road from me. Humm...

That says bench trial so no jury. This is not a damage case as I remember. It is an interpretation of state law and federal constitutional provisions. Not issues for a jury. I was concerned when Curt said it was for a jury because these.are legal issues. I am not aware of factual issues but in some cases a jury could be empaneled to decide the facts and the court apply the law. However suits of this kind against a state are usually decided by a judge.
Caveat I only recall some of the issues when the case was filed so I may not be up to date
FC can likely update

 

[FreqFlyer]

There were three competent, experienced pilots in the AF 447 cockpit, and all of them were trying to avoid the stall as any pilot would, but a nasty software bug tricked all of them into causing a stall until it was too late:

Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia

"this led to a perverse reversal that lasted nearly to the impact: each time Bonin happened to lower the nose, rendering the angle of attack marginally less severe, the stall warning sounded again—a negative reinforcement that may have locked him into his pattern of pitching up", which increased the angle of attack and thus prevented the aircraft from getting out of its stall"​

This "Pull up! Pull up!" loud human voice warning is what convinced them to maintain the stall:

That aggressive "pull up!" warning sounded every time they were pitching down.

Just try out how good of an AF 447 pilot you'd make: play the above recording, turn up the volume, listen to that voice, imagine you are in pitch black dark conditions, falling into a bad thunderstorm with dangerous downdrafts, you are responsible for 228 lives, you are in the middle of the ocean where even an emergency landing is probably not survivable, you have conflicting computer screen output and very low air speed readings and fast dropping altitude, other human voices nearby trying to help you, and try to ignore the "pull up!" human voice command!

Even with the benefit of perfect hindsight it's hard, and they were the first ones to run into this particular stall scenario...

Or try basic airmanship, like getting out off a Six million dollar simulator and try some rudder and stick rudimentary flying in a slow Cessna. It’s called “feel” and seat of the pants sensation where one learns flying skills that could save one’s life and others. Air France was dinged for its training by the way after the accident. No Freaking Competent pilot pulls back yoke or stick at thin air cruising altitudes. Sorry, but as an aviation enthusiast and pilot in training this crash still pisses me off.

Read the article below for a sad synopsis.

Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves?

Take it this topic came up because of FSD, my feelings, there is a lot of naivety and trust in a system that has to make split second decisions at ALL times, or you and your family or my family is hurt or worse.

 

[Bladerskb]

That value is not really "FSD value", it's the value of AutoPilot the Level 3 driver assistance feature that is tied to car sales and improves margins from 20% to maybe 24%.

Autopilot isnt level 3...

 

[agloutney]

Yep, lots of parallels between early automation accidents in aviation and our AP in our cars. I think the initial post about it was a reference to a flight where the autopilot got kicked off when the crew accidentally nudged the controls. That’s why there’s a chime now when it’s disengaged. The crew was fixated on a $1 light bulb that was burnt out and no one flew the plane which they thought was still on autopilot.

 

[sundaymorning]

With the recent jobs report being good I think we’ll have a positive week ahead for the overall market:

Dow surges more than 300 points on blockbuster jobs data, S&P 500 erases losses for the week

It also doesn’t hurt to have such strong Black Friday retail numbers posted:

Black Friday sees record $7.4B in online sales, $2.9B spent using smartphones – TechCrunch

With strong deliveries going forward, I think Tesla will likely have some tailwind blowing us into 2019. I’ve never felt this much confident about TSLA’s future as I do now. Having Shanghai is really heaven sent during times like these.

 

[scaesare]

I used MS up till 1991 when I got tired of restoring from tape every other day. Went to Unix, haven't looked back.

Then you were doing it horribly wrong.

 

[Buckminster]

In the Twitter app you can also report tweets directly, by tapping on the small corner widget next to the tweet.

You can also select multiple tweets to report, and you'll get notifications about the review process.

Two abusive users got banned in the last two days that I (and probably others) reported this way.

Important: if you want to report TSLAQ abusers too, then you need to visit the TSLAQ block list owner and block him:

Machine Planet (@Paul91701736) | Twitter​

This way he cannot put you on the TSLAQ block list and won't be able to hide their abuses from you.

​

New thread:
Anti TSLAQ Tactics

 

[printf42]

What? We don't even know that the car was on AutoPilot. All we know is the driver who crashed in the wee morning hours of a Saturday told the trooper he rear-ended him because the car was on AutoPilot. That driver was lucky he was only charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. People lie to troopers all the time when they are in a serious situation.

Serious deja vu right there.

 

[Buckminster]

Minor updates following Elon tweets:

New thread Dirt Bike

Smaller Cybertruck

ATV!?