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

[JustMe]

I’m gonna say it. I think the FSD project hit one of those roadblocks Neroden warned about (endlessly).

This sudden recruitment drive does not gel with “clear path to self driving” as discussed on Autonomy day. Further evidence of a delay was in the third row podcast part one where they talk about a rewrite to hand more of the primary decision making to the neural net.

It’s reassuring that ARKs targets are pretty good without FSD. I also like the talk of launching a human driven Tesla network without waiting for robo-taxis.

I see this differently. If Tesla FSD was in such a crisis mode, Elon Musk wouldn’t be casually chatting about the initial release being within the next few months on the third row podcast. He also said they were in the midst of a significant foundational rewrite of the code. What he described sounded like a stronger approach made possible by Tesla’s FSD team and custom high-power processing chips.

Elon also mentioned that the initial rollout of FSD would give cars “a chance” of navigating a city without intervention. Tesla is not claiming FSD will enable full autonomy in all situations - yet.

It seems to me that Tesla has been working to establish a strong foundation for Their FSD architecture. But undoubtedly there is a huge amount of work left to handle edge cases. It may be that the FSD rollout will be used to identify and classify the most important edge cases to tackle. Perhaps that’s something new AI recruits will work on.

 

[qphan79]

Just saw the much hyped Taycan commercial during the Super Bowl. It honestly didn’t impress me much. I can imagine that many people at loud Super Bowl parties had no idea that it was an electric car that was being promoted as opposed to Porsche in general.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Hilarious, this letter from toiletboy: “
Despite our significantly reduced (in December) Tesla short position, that stock hurt us again this month as it was up another 56% in January, and roughly half of this month’s negative performance was due to a major hit we took on January 2021 TSLA $690 calls that I’d shorted in the $17s back in 2018 when the stock was in the low $300s. Coming into this month they comprised just under 5% of the hedge fund and were priced at $14, and when the stock rocketed in early January I stopped them out at $25 to $35 (they finished the month at $108!), and the bulk of this month’s damage was done. Now our only TSLA short position is straight equity that currently comprises around 5% of the fund.

I continually ask myself what I’ve learned from this disastrous Tesla experience, and how I’d handle it differently in the future“

Also, his fund's short position is now smaller than my long position.

Sounds like he’s moved to Stage 5.

 

[Todd Burch]

Just saw the Taycan commercial for the first time. I think they put all their ICE cars in the commercial because they can’t commit.

Just like when I bring my wife on a first date with another woman. She’s there as a backup in case things don’t go well with the date.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Just saw the much hyped Taycan commercial during the Super Bowl. It honestly didn’t impress me much. I can imagine that many people at loud Super Bowl parties had no idea that it was an electric car that was being promoted as opposed to Porsche in general.

Agree. Now the Jason Momoa one was hilarious.

 

[mblakele]

I’m gonna say it. I think the FSD project hit one of those roadblocks Neroden warned about (endlessly).

This sudden recruitment drive does not gel with “clear path to self driving” as discussed on Autonomy day. Further evidence of a delay was in the third row podcast part one where they talk about a rewrite to hand more of the primary decision making to the neural net.

It’s reassuring that ARKs targets are pretty good without FSD. I also like the talk of launching a human driven Tesla network without waiting for robo-taxis.

You may be right, of course. But these days any AI team should be in recruitment mode all the time, because they can expect continuous attrition. Tesla's brand and goals no doubt help retain talent, but there'll still be a steady trickle of departures due to poaching and burnout.

I wouldn't be surprised if Karpathy brought this up in a post-mortem of why FSD feature complete didn't happen by the end of 2019, with the result that Musk agreed to help with recruiting.

 

[Krugerrand]

Quick! Patent it! Oh, too late now, the cat's out of the box ...

 

[StealthP3D]

I see this period 2025-2030 as likely to be "peak pain" for the ICE and oil industries, just barely hanging on, with you eventual fate certain, and facing massive staff redundancies, and a sea of red ink is painful.

I see "peak pain" hitting a bit sooner than that. Because once it's clear what is happening, and that there is a glut of gasoline cars on the roads and in dealer lots with dropping prices, people will become very skeptical about the wisdom of putting $30-$50K into a new ICE car, even if they are not ready (or can't get) an EV yet. They will hold onto their ICE car an extra couple of years so they don't end up in the sad position of trying to sell a 3-year-old, barely used ICE car that only bargain-basement shoppers are willing to put up money for.

Institutions that provide car loans will become shy of finding themselves in the situation of having millions in outstanding loans that are all underwater. So it will be more difficult to get a car loan for new or used ICE cars. Actually, the financial sector is so backward-looking, they probably will end up so underwater, with so many loans in default, they won't even bother to repo them.

 

[qphan79]

Just saw the Taycan commercial for the first time. I think they put all their ICE cars in the commercial because they can’t commit.

Just like when I bring my wife on a first date with another woman. She’s there as a backup in case things don’t go well with the date.

Also, were those car keys that they were passing to each other? Who uses car keys anymore??

 

[Carl Raymond]

Just saw the Taycan commercial for the first time. I think they put all their ICE cars in the commercial because they can’t commit.

My suspicion is that the brief to the ad company was “paint a world where EVs are the exception, not the norm”. They can’t afford for people to imagine a world where ICE use is frowned upon, or where ICE is considered obsolete and inferior (and soon, more expensive).

 

[StealthP3D]

on the other hand, it’s refreshing to have a boss that actually understands what you are working on.

Yes, if you actually know what you are doing. If you're a poser with a degree, you would prefer a company where you can hide your lack of talent.

 

[SarahsDad]

New Wuhan hospital opens tomorrow. They broke ground Jan 23. And we thought GF3 went up fast

Huoshenshan Hospital ready to join in battle against coronavirus - Xinhua | English.news.cn

 

[Curt Renz]

Just saw the much hyped Taycan commercial during the Super Bowl. It honestly didn’t impress me much. I can imagine that many people at loud Super Bowl parties had no idea that it was an electric car that was being promoted as opposed to Porsche in general.

Indeed, the only hint was the word electric embedded in a written sentence that appeared for less than two seconds as the commercial ended. They appeared to be hedging their bet by making it appear to be a general promotion for Porsche rather than simply Taycan. Gotta keep the ICE money rollin' in as long as possible.

 

[qphan79]

Indeed, the only hint was the word electric embedded in a written sentence that appeared for less than two seconds as the commercial ended. They appeared to be hedging their bet by making it appear to be a general promotion for Porsche rather than simply Taycan. Gotta keep the ICE money rollin' in as long as possible.

On the other hand, I fully expect that the shorts will point to the Hyundai commercial touting “smart park” to be fully comparable to Tesla Smart Summon.

 

[SO16]

I see this differently. If Tesla FSD was in such a crisis mode, Elon Musk wouldn’t be casually chatting about the initial release being within the next few months on the third row podcast. He also said they were in the midst of a significant foundational rewrite of the code. What he described sounded like a stronger approach made possible by Tesla’s FSD team and custom high-power processing chips.

Elon also mentioned that the initial rollout of FSD would give cars “a chance” of navigating a city without intervention. Tesla is not claiming FSD will enable full autonomy in all situations - yet.

It seems to me that Tesla has been working to establish a strong foundation for Their FSD architecture. But undoubtedly there is a huge amount of work left to handle edge cases. It may be that the FSD rollout will be used to identify and classify the most important edge cases to tackle. Perhaps that’s something new AI recruits will work on.

Also FSD to robotaxis is a bit of a jump. Many more variables to account for. So these additions could be for Robotaxi and beyond.

 

[anthonyj]

Hilarious, this letter from toiletboy: “
Despite our significantly reduced (in December) Tesla short position, that stock hurt us again this month as it was up another 56% in January, and roughly half of this month’s negative performance was due to a major hit we took on January 2021 TSLA $690 calls that I’d shorted in the $17s back in 2018 when the stock was in the low $300s. Coming into this month they comprised just under 5% of the hedge fund and were priced at $14, and when the stock rocketed in early January I stopped them out at $25 to $35 (they finished the month at $108!), and the bulk of this month’s damage was done. Now our only TSLA short position is straight equity that currently comprises around 5% of the fund.

I continually ask myself what I’ve learned from this disastrous Tesla experience, and how I’d handle it differently in the future“

Also, his fund's short position is now smaller than my long position.

This is why I love Mark Spiegel. Don’t understand why he gets so much hate

 

[Zythryn]

My suspicion is that the brief to the ad company was “paint a world where EVs are the exception, not the norm”. They can’t afford for people to imagine a world where ICE use is frowned upon, or where ICE is considered obsolete and inferior (and soon, more expensive).

I thought it was a great commercial.
The sound of the car was very apparent.
They showed the electric car could only be caught on a narrow bridge from the front.
They showed that people wanted to drive the EV over all the ICE cars.
It showed that EVs aren’t odd or different, just better and more desirable.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Just saw "Hummer EV" ad....and all I know is that LeBron needs to sound more enthusiastic.

 

[StealthP3D]

Grandpa you lived when tesla was starting?

yeah...

And did you bought shares?

Grandpa: Yes, I did buy shares back in 2017 when they were only $375 each.

Grandson: You're so smart, grandpa! So cool! How many did you get?

Grandpa: Oh, only 400 shares.

Grandson: That's so dojo! Let's see, every original share is now 16 shares. Wow! That means you have six-thousand, four-hundred shares! You're rich grandpa!

Grandpa: Errr, no....You see, they went up real fast back then so I sold them for $540 back in 2020.

Grandson: So you only made $165/share? For only 400 shares? But grandpa, that's only like $65,000 profit or so? Now they would be worth over $3 million dollars.

Grandpa: Err...yes, well, I was going to buy them back for less so I could buy your grandma a vacation but they just kept going up. Higher and higher. I kept thinking they would come back to earth but they just kept rising. Sure, they had some pullbacks but I just couldn't justify paying so much more than I had sold them for. Hindsight is 20/20 grandson. It's hard, you will see....

Grandson: No, I would have NEVER sold them until AFTER they had become the biggest company in the world!

 

[MC3OZ]

You may be right, of course. But these days any AI team should be in recruitment mode all the time, because they can expect continuous attrition. Tesla's brand and goals no doubt help retain talent, but there'll still be a steady trickle of departures due to poaching and burnout.

I wouldn't be surprised if Karpathy brought this up in a post-mortem of why FSD feature complete didn't happen by the end of 2019, with the result that Musk agreed to help with recruiting.

Another consideration is Elon is doing this for a reason and that reason is something they can achieve via the party, the most logical guess is "talent recruitment".

Outside of "talent recruitment", if it is a specific problem they want to crack, then they think a weekend is long enough to make progress.

Otherwise it is marketing and or testing....

If could even be all of the above...

But this kind of party is typically something you do closer to the finish line, not when you are back to square 1.