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

[elasalle]

WTF with the headlines? Why couldn’t they say “Battery Startups are Raising Millions to Enter The Huge EV Market Pionerred by Tesla”?
Battery start-ups are raising millions in the battle to crush Tesla

Of course the word “crush” appears nowhere in the article. In fact the article body talks about how difficult it will be and how long it will take to improve battery technology.

A highlighted company is “Sila”, founded by ex-Tesla employee Gene Berdichevsky, who is quoted as saying their technology will need 5 years to scale up to automotive requirements, and that they are working with BMW.

So to compete it is required to “crush” Tesla, while the global EV market is huge and growing rapidly? Isn’t BMW in huge trouble if they have to wait 5 years for a battery technology to compete with that of Tesla from 5 years ago?

The mind boggles.

EM said in MY reveal, like GF makes half of all batteries worldwide. Add the Panasonic 2170's from Japan and maybe CATL for china and that could make it 60% of worldwide. Now this is for all products.

So just for EV's it could be even higher like 65-70%. ...

 

[scaesare]

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.

You made some good points in the rest of your post, but I chose to highlight this, because I think the distinction between these two for the type of tasks we are talking about may be closer to one and the same than not.

What "thinking" does a human do than to determine what the best possible method to implement a desired outcome given the variables at hand? And isn't that what "working out possible futures" really boils down to? In other words, isn't that what a strategy and approach really is... aiming for the desired outcome having taken our best shot at modelling the situation and then implementing and reacting?

Example: The AlphaGo (trained using strategy demonstration, unlike AlphaZero with self-taught) AI didn't just beat the human master at the time, it did so with a unique strategy that the AI had never seen. The team was initially baffled at the initial moves and thought there was a flaw somewhere. In actuality, it was making moves that forced the other player to compromise their position, and gained the win.

Upon post-analysis, it was determined that the AI had determined that even though the stragegy reduced the margin of victory (in terms of points), it increased the likelihood of the win. In other words, the computer could care less about the "degree" of the win, as long as it got the win. It was a counter-intuitive approach to the human Go masters.

We may find similar sorts of items uncovered... while a human may be "more comfortable" with a course of action in a predicament (perhaps braking when an unexpected event occurs), it may be that statistically speaking the AI may determine that a seemingly "riskier" approach (accelerating in to an empty oncoming traffic lane) may produce a better outcome more often.

As to the remainder of your post, while I agree that generalized driving AI is not a slam dunk that we'll necessarily have solved "soon", my point is that once we get to a point where a number of the foundational items have been "solved", the resultant competency may have comparatively fast rate of capability development.

 

[dgodfrey]

The car dealer association pays the legislators. The way to get this to fail is to pay the legislators more than the car dealer association does. In Texas it's easy.

I'd prefer to get this to fail by putting the dealers out of business and the legislators legislate based on doing the right thing. Replacing graft with even more graft just seems sleazy and so un-Tesla like.

 

[anthonyj]

WTF with the headlines? Why couldn’t they say “Battery Startups are Raising Millions to Enter The Huge EV Market Pionerred by Tesla”?
Battery start-ups are raising millions in the battle to crush Tesla

Of course the word “crush” appears nowhere in the article. In fact the article body talks about how difficult it will be and how long it will take to improve battery technology.

A highlighted company is “Sila”, founded by ex-Tesla employee Gene Berdichevsky, who is quoted as saying their technology will need 5 years to scale up to automotive requirements, and that they are working with BMW.

So to compete it is required to “crush” Tesla, while the global EV market is huge and growing rapidly? Isn’t BMW in huge trouble if they have to wait 5 years for a battery technology to compete with that of Tesla from 5 years ago?

The mind boggles.

 

[larmor]

Yes, how crazy of Texas to regulate the automotive industry. I see no reason why anyone should need a license or plates or insurance to operate a motor vehicle on the roads. Freedom!!

Interesting choice for an example. Having moved from california to Texas, in order to get a driver's license, had to get car registered, but to do that car had to be insured and inspected. Lots of regulations here in texas, unlike california, did not have this much trouble just to get a drviers license.

Texas is great for business if you are a fortune 500 business, for example car insurance rates are higher despite the great business climate, because there is no regulation on how much auto insurers can charge or use from the premiums for their own profit/investments. California auto rates were about 25% lower than texas, since CA auto insurers are stipulated on the amount of their premiums or profits that they can allocate for investments.

As always, pls feel free to correct me, however i called over 6 different auto insurers to get a semi decent rate, nowhere near that in california...

 

[Sean Wagner]

Wow, I didn't realize that Texans are opposed to American free competitive enterprise, innovative capitalism and individual consumer choice. Their legislators must be among the most extreme socialists seeking total government control over their economy. Perhaps Texas should have been allowed to peacefully secede from the union when it politely asked to do so in 1861.

This is conclusively proven by their unassailable lead in wind generation, and now they're gunning for solar too. [They did this smartly: investing very massively in transmission first and letting the market do the rest, which is a little easier there because federal authorities cannot easily meddle with the closed system, unlike any other State's].

 

[ReflexFunds]

Bullish AF but the market doesn't seem to have caught onto it:

Tesla is asking employees to volunteer and help deliver 30,000 cars before the end of the quarter

An email from Tesla to employees states: "We need your help to make more progress in volunteer sign ups. We have to deliver 30,000 more cars in next 15 days."

Even if you want to pretend that was 30k globally in half a month, that'd be bullish. But Tesla's employees who don't already work on delivery are overwhelmingly in the US. This may well be a 30k domestic delivery goal by the end of the quarter.

I think this has to be global delivery really, It seems unlikely Tesla could have built up such a bottleneck in US delivery given many of the MR/LR cars ordered immediately upon the price cuts should have been delivered quickly. Still a positive sign for Q1 deliveries. Q1 end inventory/transit could well end up lower than guided.

It looks like Sanjay Shah has been promoted. There were reports he was heavily involved in the plan to close down the store network.
Good chance he is now global head of sales and delivery i think. Perhaps Robin Ren has transitioned back to head of Tesla China?

 

[mongo]

How many times does Tesla have to state that this is exactly what they do, before people start to believe it?

Teslas are no longer built to order. They are built to localized inventories, with the most common configs at the various regional inventories, and larger, more diverse inventories at various hub points (such as Zeebrugge for Europe, since that's where everything arrives through).

It'd be nice if people would stop acting as if every Tesla order was for some custom-built car specifically for that person. When you order a Tesla today, it's almost assuredly already been built; the only issue is how to get it to you.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me that Tesla in the US would not have gotten behind in delivering ordered cars or disagreeing and saying they built up a stockpile even though they had buyers lined up.
Or is it a mix of the two where they did have a lack of buyers and developed inventory, but, due to recent price changes and Y reveal, demand went up and now they have a delivery backlog?
My real point/ question: how much of that 2 weeks is new production, and how much is inventory? IOW what's the build rate?

 

[Remus]

Retail investors use more than one brokerage firm. This claim is as ridiculous as finding one institution that bought recently and saying "Institutional investors are buying TSLA like crazy, so it's not institutions selling."

One institution's buying behavior is controlled by a few people. I don't know how you can compare that with the number of retail investors on Robin Hood. Unless you can show the retail investors there are different from other platforms in a statically significant manner, I don't buy this nonsense of yours

 

[jerry33]

I'd prefer to get this to fail by putting the dealers out of business and the legislators legislate based on doing the right thing. Replacing graft with even more graft just seems sleazy and so un-Tesla like.

I didn't say that was how it should be done, I just said that was the easy way. Oops. Rereading my post, I didn't type easy.

 

[mrdoubleb]

I think this has to be global delivery really, It seems unlikely Tesla could have built up such a bottleneck in US delivery given many of the MR/LR cars ordered immediately upon the price cuts should have been delivered quickly. Still a positive sign for Q1 deliveries. Q1 end inventory/transit could well end up lower than guided.

It looks like Sanjay Shah has been promoted. There were reports he was heavily involved in the plan to close down the store network.
Good chance he is now global head of sales and delivery i think. Perhaps Robin Ren has transitioned back to head of Tesla China?

The question is how much damage the "we are firing everyone... oops sorry, just kidding" limbo did to morale? Will they now work extra hard to make sure their store does not close, or will they say "FU, you are going to fire me anyway once the Q end push is over"?

 

[KarenRei]

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me that Tesla in the US would not have gotten behind in delivering ordered cars or disagreeing and saying they built up a stockpile even though they had buyers lined up.
Or is it a mix of the two where they did have a lack of buyers and developed inventory, but, due to recent price changes and Y reveal, demand went up and now they have a delivery backlog?

It's all by design.

My real point/ question: how much of that 2 weeks is new production, and how much is inventory? IOW what's the build rate?

We don't know the production rate. The last we heard was a news article claiming that they're "not yet consistently producing 7k battery packs per week" at GF1 (which should correspond to Model 3s, not counting S+X). We also know that VIN registrations this quarter have been monstrous. That said, we need to assume a higher unused VIN ratio this quarter than in previous quarters due to the greater variety of VINs - but even accounting for that, the rate is impressive to say the least. THAT said, I can't imagine it's incredibly high, due to paint shop limitations.

But as for accurate, specific numbers? Don't know who has them, but I sure don't, and AFAIK nobody else on this forum does either. We lost our "leakers" like Vicki during the last round of layoffs.

 

[Smokey4141]

TMC, 3 hours ago:
There's very little inventory, NO WAY thousand's of cars are sitting in lots around the country! (just ask Jerry, he'll tell you) ;-)
(and in fairness to Karen, she HAS been telling you there is - props to her)

TMC right now:
30 THOUSAND cars, still need to be delivered in the next 10 days! Woo hooo!!! Look at all those EOQ deliveries!!

Relax.....I'm kidding!!


But seriously, anyone really think there are 30k cars just sitting right now??
Just waiting on "volunteers" (these ~are~ employees, right?) to deliver them?

Why not have some "owners" roll up their sleeves and pitch-in too??
Show some solidarity with your un-paid employees (now called volunteers), k?

Good grief... What a circus...
Only thing missing is the bear running around in circles on the tricycle, with a monkey on his shoulders banging the cymbals...

 

[Garlands]

TMC, 3 hours ago:
There's very little inventory, NO WAY thousand's of cars are sitting in lots around the country! (just ask Jerry, he'll tell you) ;-)
(and in fairness to Karen, she HAS been telling you there is - props to her)

TMC right now:
30 THOUSAND cars, still need to be delivered in the next 10 days! Woo hooo!!! Look at all those EOQ deliveries!!

Relax.....I'm kidding!!


But seriously, anyone really think there are 30k cars just sitting right now??
Just waiting on "volunteers" (these ~are~ employees, right?) to deliver them?

Why not have some "owners" roll up their sleeves and pitch-in too??
Show some solidarity with your un-paid employees (now called volunteers), k?

Good grief... What a circus...
Only thing missing is the bear running around in circles on the tricycle, with a monkey on his shoulders banging the cymbals...

Yes, i can see another 10k each in Europe/China/USA, with all current production being delivered to US locations.

 

[omarsultan]

How do you account for the synchronized timing of at least some of it?

It's more a function of how stories propagate these days. Someone writes an initial piece and either it gets syndicated through other channels (often automated) or other folks write derivative pieces off the original. Look how many stories are typically spawned from a single Electrek. The net result is that the same story appears to show up in multiple places at about the same time.

Look at it from the writer's PoV. Every morning they start with a blank screen and they need to fill it with something click-worthy that will pull in readers. Like everyone else, they are sorta lazy and will take the path of least resistance. I good PR team will feed them raw materials that they turn into stories because they recognize if writers don't get something from the PR team, they'll go looking somewhere else.

That "somewhere else" can be a shadow advocacy group that is set up to propagate counter-messaging such as bogus reports, industry experts, etc. If you ever want to get depressed/mad, watch Merchants of Doubt. But, note, the coordination is coming from the advocacy group, not amongst the media outlets.

Doesn’t some of it seem more venomous than necessary to just drive clicks?

Agree. Some folks relish being mean. The are not looking to inform, they are looking to entertain. They get clicks. They do it some more. It's self--reinforcing.

Even papers that I believe strive to be factual, such as the New York Times, have some coverage that is so highly spun you can get whiplash reading it (not just referring to their coverage of Tesla and Musk in the case of the NY Times)

Every media source has a POV and associated spin. There are certain outlets that have staked out editorial positions and it will take a lot before they reconsider that. NYT is one of the most egregious IMO. While I am a subscriber, I swear I consider cancelling at least once a week. All you can really do is try and ascertain their PoV and make sure you are getting news from multiple, diverse sources to get a fuller picture.

 

[elasalle]

TMC, 3 hours ago:
There's very little inventory, NO WAY thousand's of cars are sitting in lots around the country! (just ask Jerry, he'll tell you) ;-)
(and in fairness to Karen, she HAS been telling you there is - props to her)

TMC right now:
30 THOUSAND cars, still need to be delivered in the next 10 days! Woo hooo!!! Look at all those EOQ deliveries!!

Relax.....I'm kidding!!


But seriously, anyone really think there are 30k cars just sitting right now??
Just waiting on "volunteers" (these ~are~ employees, right?) to deliver them?

Why not have some "owners" roll up their sleeves and pitch-in too??
Show some solidarity with your un-paid employees (now called volunteers), k?

Good grief... What a circus...
Only thing missing is the bear running around in circles on the tricycle, with a monkey on his shoulders banging the cymbals...

30K cars are not sitting, some are swimming
Tesla Carriers

For US, TSLAQ parking lot + 2 weeks production can also be > 20K

 

[humbaba]

You made some good points in the rest of your post, but I chose to highlight this, because I think the distinction between these two for the type of tasks we are talking about may be closer to one and the same than not.

What "thinking" does a human do than to determine what the best possible method to implement a desired outcome given the variables at hand? And isn't that what "working out possible futures" really boils down to? In other words, isn't that what a strategy and approach really is... aiming for the desired outcome having taken our best shot at modelling the situation and then implementing and reacting?

Example: The AlphaGo (trained using strategy demonstration, unlike AlphaZero with self-taught) AI didn't just beat the human master at the time, it did so with a unique strategy that the AI had never seen. The team was initially baffled at the initial moves and thought there was a flaw somewhere. In actuality, it was making moves that forced the other player to compromise their position, and gained the win.

Upon post-analysis, it was determined that the AI had determined that even though the stragegy reduced the margin of victory (in terms of points), it increased the likelihood of the win. In other words, the computer could care less about the "degree" of the win, as long as it got the win. It was a counter-intuitive approach to the human Go masters.

We may find similar sorts of items uncovered... while a human may be "more comfortable" with a course of action in a predicament (perhaps braking when an unexpected event occurs), it may be that statistically speaking the AI may determine that a seemingly "riskier" approach (accelerating in to an empty oncoming traffic lane) may produce a better outcome more often.

As to the remainder of your post, while I agree that generalized driving AI is not a slam dunk that we'll necessarily have solved "soon", my point is that once we get to a point where a number of the foundational items have been "solved", the resultant competency may have comparatively fast rate of capability development.

I think you make a good argument. I still disagree but realized that at 500 words and climbing that I was maybe taking off topic over the cliff, so I'll end here.

 

[mongo]

It's all by design.



We don't know the production rate. The last we heard was a news article claiming that they're "not yet consistently producing 7k battery packs per week" at GF1 (which should correspond to Model 3s, not counting S+X). We also know that VIN registrations this quarter have been monstrous. That said, we need to assume a higher unused VIN ratio this quarter than in previous quarters due to the greater variety of VINs - but even accounting for that, the rate is impressive to say the least.

But as for accurate, specific numbers? Don't know who has them, but I sure don't, and AFAIK nobody else on this forum does either. We lost our "leakers" like Vicki during the last round of layoffs.

Yah, I get inventory management, what I don't get is why they would not have delivered a lot of cars to ready buyers such that they end up needing to move 10k-15k per week, assuming these are domestic numbers.

Either,
There were buyers that they did not delivery existing cars to (internal slowness).
Buyers but no cars (in which case Fremont is building like crazy).
Or lots of cars but no buyer previously, but lots of buyers now (high inventory moving due to price shifts/ Y reveal).

Global helps the numbers make more sense, esp with one ship arriving today and another yet to dock (if I followed the updates correctly)

 

[SebastianR]

But seriously, anyone really think there are 30k cars just sitting right now??
Just waiting on "volunteers" (these ~are~ employees, right?) to deliver them?

Why not have some "owners" roll up their sleeves and pitch-in too??
Show some solidarity with your un-paid employees (now called volunteers), k?

Good grief... What a circus...
Only thing missing is the bear running around in circles on the tricycle, with a monkey on his shoulders banging the cymbals...

I hate to destroy your little FUD party. But if Tesla is truly at some 7k Model 3 run-rate for the time being, this implies that 12-15(?)k of these 30k cars don't exist yet. Remember, Tesla also runs production sprints. And I'm sure they want to end the quarter with an announcement that they have been solidly above 7k cars a week.

So do I think that a few thousand cars are in these hub locations? Yes. Do I think that Tesla stops production today and has inventory of 30k cars? No. Plain and simple. Good grief... What a circus...

 

[Nocturnal]

Dying to see numbers for Q1. Anecdotal info looks good.

Can someone speculate how high can the seating go? i.e if I push the seat to the top position, how many inches will it be from the ground for the standard 19" wheels.

For me that is all that matters. Nothing else. Will it be the same as Rav4, or CRV or Higlander?

Coming from a highlander before my 3, I don't imagine the Y will be able to go that high.

Wow, I didn't realize that Texans are opposed to American free competitive enterprise, innovative capitalism and individual consumer choice. Their legislators must be among the most extreme socialists seeking total government control over their economy. Perhaps Texas should have been allowed to peacefully secede from the union when it politely asked to do so in 1861.

Wait, you think conservatives believe the stuff they say about capitalism?