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

[jhm]

Let's suppose Tesla is price capped at $300 through the end of the year. That still makes buying a $270 a nice price to buy. $250 has even more upside potential.

 

[Tenable]

I cant seem to recall. Is the SEC meant to respond by the 19th?

 

[EVNow]

Ok, that sounds right. The distance thing. I still feel Tesla’s China operations will dwarf all other operations in 4 to 5 years. Growth so fast, you don’t need time lapse.

Not just distance - I don't think it would be easy to convince US customers to buy cars made in China. Not sure about EU - but probably similar.

Then, there is the tariff thing.

All in all, better to make cars in the same continent (and within trade deal zone). That's why Toyota makes cars in US/Mexico for US - not China.

ps : Not to forget the political angle.

 

[humbaba]

And, even more incredibly, AlphaZero became the best chess playing entity on the planet, not by being taught chess strategy, but rather by only teaching it the rules of chess, and then letting it play itself in order to develop winning strategies. It did this in 4 hours, and then crushed the previous best chess playing programs (which in turn can beat the best humans).

So as not to be too far off-topic: I think the salient point here is that there can be a radical shift in capability once some fundamental items are accomplished... in full self driving there may be a point where allowing the AI to develop driving strategies to deal with unexpected events may produce result vastly superior to what humans might often do in similar circumstances.

While it is possible that there might be emergent benefits, don't count on it. Chess, go, etc., are utterly trivial when it comes to rules... and yet the AI beats humans not by being able to out-think them, but by being able to work out possible futures further out than any human could hope to do. Applying this to driving might seem plausible at first: get a driver's ed manual and program in the rules of the road.

Except that driving occurs outside of those rules. And those rules are broken all the time. Consider for a moment what would happen to AlphaZero if you used the pawn as a queen from the outset? Well, either it would lose every time to the rule-breaking human player, or it would learn to break the rules itself.

Yesterday I had multiple occasions where other drivers did not do what they were supposed to do. Because I was using NoA, I was using proper signalling -- which other drivers not only were not doing themselves, but simply ignored the signals I was making. If you argue for it learning how to drive ad hoc then I see no reason it would not use strategies similar to human drivers -- which would not make the road a safer place to be. In fact, one of the dangers of using machine learning is that you cannot really say why certain decisions are made. I say danger, because -- unlike Chess or Go -- having predictability is very important with a self driving car.

I have seen no indication that Tesla is using AI for anything more than vision. I sure hope they aren't using an unbounded learn-by-itself machine learning algorithm for the actual driving. With vision it isn't so important why it detects a blob of pixels as a car, but that it does so in a repeatable fashion. With driving, it is very important to know why it started to steer left.

Relevance to market action: anyone wondering why FSD isn't baked into $TSLA should just consider the range of opinion here. Should Tesla trumpet their FSD achievements? I think they are -- they just aren't living up to some people's expectations, and in general the media (and perhaps public at large) is only interested in the shock of full FSD, while Tesla's step-by-step allows everyone to get used to the idea of what it can do without any real shock to the system and thus a tendency to rank it less than the (currently failed) attempts at full-on FSD.

 

[KarenRei]

I cant seem to recall. Is the SEC meant to respond by the 19th?

Yes. Their response could drop at any moment, today or tomorrow. Of course, the market expects that.

 

[Radpioneer]

Good news! You can one day buy a two year old Model Y for half the price of a new one!!!

True....but it may look like my car...

 

[Tenable]

Yes. Their response could drop at any moment, today or tomorrow. Of course, the market expects that.

I'm getting my face smashed in with options. I need a miracle SEC announcement. Sadly, I'm not optimistic they will bow down, announce they are purchasing a P100DL for every employee and apologize.

 

[Steve m]

Couldn’t believe the first sentence didn’t start with... “a town in Florida”

Fire Away!

In other news.... Poorly located deer crossing signs are encouraging deer to cross roads in dangerous locations and causing accidents.

 

[EVNow]

Let's suppose Tesla is price capped at $300 through the end of the year. That still makes buying a $270 a nice price to buy. $250 has even more upside potential.

Tesla was at 320 just the other week.

TSLA always seems to hang around at a price level and you feel its not going to move - but suddenly it will move to a different price level.

In the last 2 months - it has spent time in 310s, 300s, 290s, and 280s.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Share price is still stuck in it's near-term falling wedge...

What happens to the up/down lines when the across lines cross over?

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

What happens to the up/down lines when the across lines cross over?

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria

 

[jerry33]

In other news.... Poorly located deer crossing signs are encouraging deer to cross roads in dangerous locations and causing accidents.

That's why several infrared cameras are also needed at various locations. Front bumper, rear bumper, and long range side of the road (it would make spotting kids and animals easier as well).

 

[anthonyj]

I'm getting my face smashed in with options. I need a miracle SEC announcement. Sadly, I'm not optimistic they will bow down, announce they are purchasing a P100DL for every employee and apologize.

SEC miracle won’t reverse the downtrend. Market is worried about demand, cash on hand, and profitability

 

[Tenable]

SEC miracle won’t reverse the downtrend. Market is worried about demand, cash on hand, and profitability

Good chance you're right, should provide a short term pop though.

 

[ZeApelido]

Let's suppose Tesla is price capped at $300 through the end of the year. That still makes buying a $270 a nice price to buy. $250 has even more upside potential.

A reasonable assumption, giving the low-volatility TSLA has shown the last few years. 10% range is high.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Just realized that my 2019 MR is gonna be a bit of a unicorn

 

[EVNow]

SEC miracle won’t reverse the downtrend. Market is worried about demand, cash on hand, and profitability

My take is - while on the whole this true - why the SP would be at 270 and not 310, is not because of fears of demand, but because who is more afraid - bears or bulls. Since it is a sentiment thing, it can change because of SEC.

BUT, I'd definitely not count or bet on it.

The only thing that could fundamentally move the market now is Q1 delivery numbers and then Q1 ER.

 

[Compton]

What happens to the up/down lines when the across lines cross over?

 

[Antares Nebula]

"Seeing more and more "considering buying a Tesla" posts on reddit. Early Adopters --> Early Majority This is how it happens ..."

Groggy T. Bear on Twitter

Am I thinking about this correctly? Input needed. Debating a Model 3 purchase : teslamotors

 

[Carl Raymond]

Not just distance - I don't think it would be easy to convince US customers to buy cars made in China. Not sure about EU - but probably similar.

Then, there is the tariff thing.

All in all, better to make cars in the same continent (and within trade deal zone). That's why Toyota makes cars in US/Mexico for US - not China.

ps : Not to forget the political angle.

All true. I like to focus on things that are real (distance), in the naive hope that things artificial (lines on maps) diminish over time.