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

[AlexS]

Irresponsible. Gutsy, if it was only the M3 on the road but, IMO this driver put several lives in danger. Best I can tell is the AP managed as well as it did by the contrast between the black pavement and the white snow edge. Yet is still failed several times. Also, I've seen many cars [right in front of me] drift into the slush at the edges and get thrown into a nasty spin-out. No thanks. I'll probably use AP only on interstates, and only in clear road conditions.

Don't forget it is currently Level 2 driver assistant, I think it did really great considering conditions. No other Level 2 system can come close, OK I have not tried Mercedes, but I guess they are on the VW level.

But I agree it was dangerous thing to do.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

What in the flying F is this bozo driving with Autopilot activated on non-freeway roads and, worse, in those snowy conditions!? Holy crap. Why doesn't Autopilot take a glimpse at its GPS location, realize it's on a road with intersections and traffic lights, and tell the driver, "No, you can't use Autopilot on this road"? Tesla drivers keep cheating and using this technology where it's not supposed to be used.

There’s no current restriction on using AP only on freeways. In fact, AP2+ originally had this restriction, but it was explicitly removed(and noted as being removed in the change list). Whatever else the guy did wrong, using it on surface streets is perfectly in line with what the system allows.

 

[M3Rider]

Somewhat side topic: I find the use of percentages in this discussion funny. 99.999% of what, exactly? Frames? Seconds? Intersections?

I think we have trouble coming up with an actual good measure of performance for this, so we just use some subjectively really high percentage. Note that I’m not actually picking on you, specifically. It’s a common refrain, and even Elon did it on the Q4 ER.

Any metric, really. From low-level recognition of road signs, traffic lights, road markings with this precision to completing entire trips successfully out of some big number of trips.

 

[Lucky_Man]

Actually, a good radar could do so. You need a wavelength on the scale of some large fraction of the potholes' size. A weak return means "smooth" and a strong return means rough, aka "you have a pothole". You also need sufficient angular resolution. An easy way to do this would be with dual-antenna interferometry (one antenna on the left side of the car, one on the right), to create a large virtual aperture without needing a physically large antenna.

If they could adjust the wavelength over a wide range they could probe everything from potholes to road surface composition to ice and snow coverage, well ahead of the vehicle. Aka, having much better data than a human. You still wouldn't match LIDAR's angular resolution, but the usefulness of the data you could collect would be vastly superior (and not particularly weather-degraded).

Uh-oh! Hypothetically the car's AI just discovered it's on an intersecting course with a humongous NJ-style pothole. How will AI respond? Sudden stop? Swerve into another lane? Elevate over it using jet-packs?

Can't wait for 3D FSD driving - Fifth Element style ;^) Oops - edited

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Did you account for the time shift? Unless I missed something crucial (always a safe bet) that loss of revenue is only contingent on the transit still occurring during the period of accounting, ie end of quarter day. I'm sure this has been beaten to death too here, but as long as all the ships have delivered their cargo to customers before that date, revenue is in the bank.

Sure, it will be a problem once deliveries do happen continuously regardless of quarterism and before steady-state is reached. But not until then. (Note caveat above.)

Also, high mix ASP is reset on virgin markets.

Yes. I was just illustrating the time-shift, and how much it affects q1 but won't affect q2. I see from the responses that I've done so poorly.

 

[TradingInvest]

Maybe a long fund used short position to hedge their long position, and closed both near year end.

Another possibility is a big short switched from shorting shares to holding Puts. A few years ago Achman did this switch on HLF at the time he was worried about a big squeeze.

 

[generalenthu]

Indeed. The price action after the ER is odd. It looks almost like a patt situation where bulls and bears are kind of in balance. Hard for me to imagine who does sell other than shorts. There is not a lot to see on the technical part too other than $300 is the new floor for now.

Still with the FUD in decrease (will change), good ER report, deliveries starting in EU and China and an Elon Musk that does not give any surface to attack him I am surprise that we do not see any uptrend building.

Some say the shares Baillie Gifford sold has been used by shorts to cover which create the situation we are in but for me that does not add up.

Others might argue that the uncertainty about Q2 results may hinder people to go in maybe in speculation to find some good entry levels but that is not convincing to me as well.

Recession concerns are piling up but there is no better place to invest than Tesla if we would get one. Both Trump as well as May (UK) work hard to create a recession like situation with a ton of political uncertainty in front of us and uncertainty is poison for markets.

Either way Tesla is in a great position and as often in life to have patience is hard....

Have you seen this news that T Rowe cut it's stake from ~10% to half of that.

This is in Q4. I wouldn't be surprised if this continues in q1.

One of Tesla's largest institutional shareholders cut its stake in half during the 4th quarter

 

[mongo]

We're not talking about ranging, we're talking about return intensity.

Since I'm talking about what SAR is, I figured others might like to hear the whole story.
Not that roughness is the major metric anyway, it just makes the surface reflect in more directions.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with here. I merely pointed out that the virtual aperture is relative to the distance that the satellite moves during the time between transmission and reception of a photon. If you want to add a technical explanation on top of that, that's fine, but it's not a disagreement.

But it isn't, the aperature is the distance the satellite travels while transmitting and receiving multiple pulses that are then post processed into an image. A single pulse where where the sat moves is no different in terms of total information than a pulse when it is stationary. The only difference is the slight shift in timing due to the movement. For LEO 100m/2000km.

The key issue is that your beamwidth is the beamwidth factor times the wavelength over the aperture width. Whether you're dealing with a single antenna, a phased array, multiple correlated independent antennas, or SAR.

For the illuminated area, yes, but for azimuth resolution in SAR, that is not a critical parameter.

The above equation suggests that a short antenna yields a fine azimuth resolution. This appears surprising on the first view. However, it becomes immediately clear if one considers that a radar with a shorter antenna “sees” any point on the ground for a longer time (the illumination time can be approximated by /Trvdilla0), which is equiv-alent to a longer virtual antenna

http://www2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mdisney/teaching/PPRS/PPRS_7/esa_sar_tutorial.pdf

Misleading. Bearing resolution is an angular resolution (degrees, radians, etc). So yes, said angular resolution is constant, but the further away you are, the larger of a physical size that corresponds with. You give the impression that you'd get the same map resolution from a satellite orbiting 100km over the moon as you would a satellite moving at the same 5000km from the moon. This simply is not the case.

It is in fact totally the case and why satellites use SAR and can produce such high resolution images.

The achievable azimuth resolution of a SAR is approximately equal to one-half the length of the actual (real) antenna and does not depend on platform altitude (distance).

Radar Basics - Synthetic Aperture Radar

Geometric resolution independent of the distance

https://earth.esa.int/documents/10174/642943/6-LTC2013-SAR-Moreira.pdf

Edit: typo

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I like how analysts will rip on Tesla for each and every flaw in their execution, while simultaneously assuming that any random EV startup will execute perfectly and become fierce competition.

 

[sparcs]

Have you seen this news that T Rowe cut it's stake from ~10% to half of that.

This is in Q4. I wouldn't be surprised if this continues in q1.

One of Tesla's largest institutional shareholders cut its stake in half during the 4th quarter

I would bet the reverse. They sold high and now can buy shares cheaply ever since Q4 ended.

 

[anthonyj]

I would bet the reverse. They sold high and now can buy shares cheaply ever since Q4 ended.

Yes. And they probably used the profits from the swing to add to their core holdings (they may have added at $280ish). TSLA's SP doesn't reflect reality. A few weeks ago the SP was at the same price as 2014 despite Tesla's amazing revenue growth and less risk of bankruptcy. It is currently an amazing swing trade until something major happens... it will not naturally break ATH on it's own

 

[EVNow]

Yes. And they probably used the profits from the swing to add to their core holdings (they may have added at $280ish). TSLA's SP doesn't reflect reality. A few weeks ago the SP was at the same price as 2014 despite Tesla's amazing revenue growth and less risk of bankruptcy. It is currently an amazing swing trade until something major happens... it will not naturally break ATH on it's own

The problem is - just as most of the people here - longs assume the price will come down to 29x, when they can buy. So, why buy at 312 ? That is why some news has to come (Tesla related or macros) that makes people feel SP will go up soon.

BTW, most large investors add over a period of days in small numbers to move the market as little as possible. So, they don't necessarily add at the lowest points, unless they luck out and add on those 2 days SP was below 290 YTD.

 

[SPadival]

My tweet to Needham's Raj S Gill (They have a SELL right now)

Hey @RajvindraSGill, How about a $TSLA upgrade to BUY, based on the information revealed at your own Needham Growth conference by Maxwell Technologies?

Mr Gill is not active on twitter. Can one of you "connected" people send the message across

Not sure if this has been linked before - Needham Growth conference webcast by Maxwell Technologies - provides lots of context around both ultracapacitor application as well as dry battery electrode tech (proof of concept developed with a major global auto OEM ) .

There is even a Q&A in the end. Transcript available for $125 (no thanks!!) - any volunteers?

 

[EVNow]

And yet growing numbers of people realize that climate change is a real concern. The FUD/bots become less effective in the face of reality.

But not ineffective enough to actually affect policy outcomes.

US is still one of the few countries to rank ISIS as a bigger threat than Climate Change.

 

[AlMc]

Here is a nice summary, including mention of the Needham Conference: Worth the 15 minutes:

 

[Krugerrand]

How do you know?

Dan

Fine. No point for you.

 

[Toolsmack]

I stumbled on a TeslaQ daily countdown tweet of the days left of the VWAP period and the daily moving average of VWAP. So there is a subset of shorts that still think the bond conversion will cause the beginning of the end of Tesla. I would assume there is some money behind that mindset that will fight the share price rising in February, and is currently affecting the share price action we have recently seen. Unless something MAJOR happens before conversion I don’t expect much from the share price

 

[Krugerrand]

Has Moody’s still not upgraded Tesla? Any theories on when that should finally happen?

Seems a bit ridiculous at this point. Maybe they are watching to see how the next product rollouts are funded still even though it’s widely accepted the March convertibles are no longer an issue.

The upgrade is coming between the day MS grows a brain and never. So any day now, eh?

 

[Toolsmack]

But it would be sweet to see something major happen to take the share price near 380 and watch all the teslaq panic on Twitter

 

[heltok]

My tweet to Needham's Raj S Gill (They have a SELL right now)



Mr Gill is not active on twitter. Can one of you "connected" people send the message across

Not sure if this has been linked before - Needham Growth conference webcast by Maxwell Technologies - provides lots of context around both ultracapacitor application as well as dry battery electrode tech (proof of concept developed with a major global auto OEM ) .

There is even a Q&A in the end. Transcript available for $125 (no thanks!!) - any volunteers?

Thanks! Found this enlightening, especially some of the Q&A answers. It seems that Tesla first wanted a non exclusive agreement with them until Tesla realized how good the technology was. Given that Tesla ended up buying the company it seems that either Tesla really wanted that non-exclusivity or they wanted to speed up the timeline for implementing a manufacturing line.