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

[1101011]

Friend had car accident and was exploring buying car, I suggested Tesla, January normally slow month in US, I thought car would be easily available, nope, 5-8 weeks wait in NJ. With China volume Tesla actually can go above Q4 volume in Q 1, that would be epic.

Inventory is bloody out. US has to wait for the overseas pipeline to get filled. And the overseas backlog is huge.

BTW, your case is far from the first I've heard like that. We even had someone the other day believing that "the factory will be down for 8 weeks" because they wouldn't be able to get their car until then.

Explored ordering a new Model S to replace my current 2014 version. "Minimum 4 - 7 weeks at best. Perhaps longer." Demand problem? Ha ha ha!

 

[jerry33]

Cars already don't make economic sense to own, and yet everyone wants one. A lot of American psyche is wrapped up in freedom and the things that go along with that. You think these people that drive a Ford F-250 for their solo 25 mile commute each day are going to give it up because it is cheaper to take a robotaxi? Do I rent a robotaxi to tow my boat to the lake? Is there an option to rent one with a bike rack so I can go out to the mountains to ride my mountain bike?

For that matter do you really think Tesla will all of the sudden just close their doors and stop selling cars? If so I have a twitter hashtag for you.

Agreed. What I think will happen is that there will be fewer commuter cars and more specialty vehicles. The Cybertruck seems uniquely situated to take advantage of this.

 

[printf42]

This (8:44 .. grr. forum replaces auto-start-timecode....) is what the beginning of producing and storing 20,000 cars you don't have software for looks like..

One day this will become a classic software engineering case study.
In a not very good way though.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I think when the official short numbers are released you will see that the number of shares short has dropped considerably. But will probably be surprised how many still remain.

Think the dollar amount shorted might actually still be higher than when SP was at $212? Craziness.

 

[canoemore]

I do think this is true. I also think that it's simplified.

I think that this is easy for business travelers, and anybody that's single and / or hasn't started a family yet.


Mobility is more complex as people glob together into families. It's a lot easier to get the car loaded with a group of people and kids going somewhere together, when it's their own car. Some people can go out to the car first to get the herd moving, others will straggle in later. Car seats already in place. You know where the bag of soccer balls gets tossed. All those little details of stuff happening.

Then when you arrive at your destination, there's a bunch of stuff you can leave in your own car because you'll need it for the next stop in the errand run. Are you going to fully unload this robotaxi, carry that stuff around, and then fully load everything back into the next robotaxi? Or are you going to keep the current robotaxi there at the soccer game with the meter running?

My only point is that there are good reasons for having one's own car IN ADDITION TO there being good reasons for some people going carless and relying fully on robotaxi services. In the early days, many people will use robotaxis they way I use Lyft today - a trip or 3 per month because I have a particular transportation need where hauling along my car creates some extra logistics.
- going to the airport (I'd rather not leave my car in airport parking for a week while I'm out of town) and returning from the airport
- taking my car into service (getting back from service; and then returning to service to pickup my car)


Or as @KarenRei says - because people want them

I think you and @KarenRei are right that even in a FSD world there are compelling reasons for personal car ownership. You both summarize the reasons why I still want to have my own car in the future if I can. But, instead of keeping two cars, I might just keep one. I think robotaxis will make folks think more carefully about how large of a personal car fleet they really need, and I bet that a lot of them will opt to trim it down if they decide they can get by with fewer.

 

[Rashomon]

In

I think you and @KarenRei are right that even in a FSD world there are compelling reasons for personal car ownership. You both summarize the reasons why I still want to have my own car in the future if I can. But, instead of keeping two cars, I might just keep one. I think robotaxis will make folks think more carefully about how large of a personal car fleet they really need, and I bet that a lot of them will opt to trim it down if they decide they can get by with fewer.

The unbundling of the automobile will diminish, not eliminate, car ownership. Rural and far suburban car ownership will continue largely as is. But for urban residents, with many new options and increasing penalties for car ownership (particularly in the EU) car ownership will plummet. Paris is going to look a lot more like Amsterdam in just the next 5 or 10 years. We may have already hit peak automobile sales in many countries.

 

[JustMe]

This is a brief article on a Tesla solar installations. V3 solar glass roofs are being installed now, but apparently not at a high rate yet. Hopefully that will change this year.

Earth Accounting on Twitter

 

[Artful Dodger]

If Robo taxi is really are a thing (big if and when...) then many more ICE cars would be taken off the road by using them as such and allowing people to simply never purchase a car because it is too cheap to summon them instead.

Next generation not care about cars so much. Want mobility.

Yes, but there will be enough of us old guys around around with money and the inclination to buy and operate POMVs for decades to come. So do we want those to be new-style Teslas, or old-style gassers?

Personally, I think a Tri-motor Cybertruck can easily outlive me, and still be in use by the next generation of old farts. Is that enough '3-Rs' to be worth doing?

Cheers!

 

[Nocturnal]

In places where there is very good public transportation which has been available for a long time people still have cars for vacations and such. They don't put many miles on the cars (or travel vans and similar) but they still have them. When going on vacation, it's not only the cost of the car, but the cost of the rooms, which a robotaxi won't reduce (even if the robotaxi allows it, which it might not).

That's because public transit isn't flexible. It goes from fixed point to fixed point.

Think the dollar amount shorted might actually still be higher than when SP was at $212? Craziness.

I wish I could tell if that interest was "I think the stock will dip to 440" vs "I think it's a fwaud and will go to 0". ​

 

[lklundin]

I talked to them about that... asked ‘em if they saw the day coming where the cars would drive themselves off the trucks, park themselves, wait, and then form a line and drive themselves over to the ship, up the ramp, and onwards to a designated spot on some deck of the ship. Maybe with on-board mobile robots (think: Boston Dynamics “dog” bots... creepy) to do the final lashing to strap down the cars for the voyage. My host laughed, acknowledged it had come up in conversations about the future, but the feeling is, “very unlikely.” A LOT can and will go wrong during this work. And I agree with the workers on this. There are a lot of little decisions to make, and it takes an experienced, coordinated crew to keep the operations moving at a crisp pace. Often something comes up suddenly requiring moving cars around after they’ve been put in place on a deck, etc. Complex operation. Hey anything is possible in the future but I think at least for a long time to come this kind of work will best be left to humans to do and not timid, hesitant robo-cars.

That's was a very good question you asked - this bodes well for your book.

And the answer sounds exactly like one where Elon Musk will yet again say:

"Really? - let me try to understand what actually constraints the speed here..."

 

[jerry33]

In


The unbundling of the automobile will diminish, not eliminate, car ownership. Rural and far suburban car ownership will continue largely as is.

If robotaxi actually works well (Works well means that it's 100% reliable if an appointment is made--Uber certainly isn't--and ad hoc rides arrive within about five minutes), a lot of suburbanites could eliminate the commute only car. So it's not just urban dwellers. (I don't know of any suburban locations that couldn't be classified as "near". They are all far in some sense.)

 

[Todd Burch]

Explored ordering a new Model S to replace my current 2014 version. "Minimum 4 - 7 weeks at best. Perhaps longer." Demand problem? Ha ha ha!

But you live in Ohio. Wouldn't that include shipping logistics? Plus factory scheduling giving priority to international orders toward start of quarter.

Those time estimates don't really mean much WRT demand one way or the other.

 

[lklundin]

How many tens of thousands of hours of autopilot developer time and how much tied up (and occasionally damaged) inventory do you think it would take to get to that point?

I would be very surprised if Tesla is not already writing a platooning module for the Semi and it can't be too hard to write it so it works for any Tesla. That would allow 1 driver to move N vehicles.

Further, doing platooning in a closed environment be it the factory gate, a harbour or a delivery center should not add complexity to the task.

PS. I can see from various posts on this topic that my failure to clearly write the word 'Platooning' when I first described the idea with just a single driver up front seems to have caused my idea to not get across.

 

[Cherry Wine]

The numbers by @Prunesquallor assume a 50%/50% split of the credit benefits between FCA and Tesla, which I think is a good default to use.

While Tesla was under pressure in Q1 2019 when the deal closed, it closed well before the pooling deadline was due to eclipse, IIRC, which to me suggests that the terms were at least 'fair' to Tesla and they didn't wait until the last day for more favorable terms. Also, since Tesla didn't disclose any payments from FCA under this agreement so far, there might not have been any cash advance for closing the deal - which would increase the likelihood that the deal is fair to Tesla.

Arguably all this is pretty tenuous speculation only, with very little basis in cold hard facts.

Is there a point at which we will learn more about the FCA arrangement? Or will the details be difficult to untangle even as the income is recognized by Tesla and disclosed in its financials? Will we even know if income from the arrangement is being recognized, or would we have to speculate?

Friend had car accident and was exploring buying car, I suggested Tesla, January normally slow month in US, I thought car would be easily available, nope, 5-8 weeks wait in NJ. With China volume Tesla actually can go above Q4 volume in Q 1, that would be epic.

Inventory is bloody out. US has to wait for the overseas pipeline to get filled. And the overseas backlog is huge.

BTW, your case is far from the first I've heard like that. We even had someone the other day believing that "the factory will be down for 8 weeks" because they wouldn't be able to get their car until then.

Explored ordering a new Model S to replace my current 2014 version. "Minimum 4 - 7 weeks at best. Perhaps longer." Demand problem? Ha ha ha!

No leads in my backburner search for an inventory X yet, either online or from the Tesla sales rep with whom I've been paired.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Not sure what to make of this: Panasonic warns US solar installers of Tesla designated panels on the market with no warranties

Very weird. Do they also not warranted craftsman power tools? Why would Panasonic announce that they don’t warranted tesla solar panels? Are we to assume they will warranted any product they don’t specifically identify as not waranteed by Panasonic?

 

[jerry33]

That's because public transit isn't flexible. It goes from fixed point to fixed point.

I just have difficulty in seeing how a robotaxi would be feasible for a week or two vacation.

 

[Nocturnal]

Cars already don't make economic sense to own, and yet everyone wants one. A lot of American psyche is wrapped up in freedom and the things that go along with that. You think these people that drive a Ford F-250 for their solo 25 mile commute each day are going to give it up because it is cheaper to take a robotaxi? Do I rent a robotaxi to tow my boat to the lake? Is there an option to rent one with a bike rack so I can go out to the mountains to ride my mountain bike?

For that matter do you really think Tesla will all of the sudden just close their doors and stop selling cars? If so I have a twitter hashtag for you.

How do you figure? I have no other option to commute currently.

And what Mr F250 wants is not relevant to anything I've said. Of course there will be weirdos or car enthusiasts that still want their own car. This does not impact Tesla's business decision to sell cars vs robotaxis. And yeah, why not have a robotaxi CT show up at your house Saturday morning, hitch it to your trailer, and have it pull you to the lake?

I just have difficulty in seeing how a robotaxi would be feasible for a week or two vacation.

I rarely rent a car while on vacation as it is. When I'm in a city it's ubers, hotel shuttles etc. If I'm in the mountains of CO? Then yeah, but that's an issue of availability, not practicality.

I suppose we should call it a day on these conversations though lest we bring down the wrath of the mods. Good points all around. We shall see. ​

 

[jerry33]

Very weird. Do they also not warranted craftsman power tools? Why would Panasonic announce that they don’t warranted tesla solar panels? Are we to assume they will warranted any product they don’t specifically identify as not waranteed by Panasonic?

They would like to sell solar panels directly rather than have Tesla deliver the ones Tesla has already purchased. There's no additional income from the ones they've already supplied to Tesla. (A more cynical view is that they cheaped-out on the panels sold to Tesla and expect a high failure rate).

 

[RobStark]

SK Innovation plans second EV battery plant in U.S., expansion in Hungary

 

[jerry33]

How do you figure? I have no other option to commute currently.

And what Mr F250 wants is not relevant to anything I've said. Of course there will be weirdos or car enthusiasts that still want their own car. This does not impact Tesla's business decision to sell cars vs robotaxis. And yeah, why not have a robotaxi CT show up at your house Saturday morning, hitch it to your trailer, and have it pull you to the lake?

Presumably it will cost additional for every minute you are out in the boat.