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

[EVDRVN]

And really the only "bad side" is so frustratingly easy to fix vs. the hyper complicated other amazing stuff he does. It just sucks that the few moments a day he gives to a certain social network totally undermines everything else...and he doesn't(nor apparently anyone else on the board) see this.

You beat me to it, I see it in their company all the time and it's like it's woven into their management culture. It's uncanny and trickles from the top down. Not a Tesla exclusive, many companies have this issue. I think the issue is that manny companies in the valley are poorly managed and many people have not worked for companies with good vertical leadership.

 

[bhtooefr]

Just short a few shares of Ford. It will make you feel much better.

Personally I prefer shorting Lyft.

...my Ford options position is looking awful right now.

To be honest, the thesis that I used to buy Ford puts is less true now, with the VW and Rivian deals... I'll be looking for an exit on that one.

You can install a charger in the garage. You can literally force your landlord to let you -- it's California law. Consider talking to them about it.

Although, AFAIK, your landlord can require hiring an electrical engineer to design the installation, as well as require you to carry a $1M umbrella policy over the installation.

The decision on where to build the Model Y may be made in a couple weeks. We are well aware of the labor situation affecting Panasonic right now, but there are other factors which may influence the site selection. So here's some insight into how water rights/availability in the GF1/Reno area may affect that decsion, written by a long-time Carson City, NV resident and GF1 "outsider" 'carsonight':

...how many trucks would Tesla have coming into and out of GF1? Could Tesla design some sort of hybrid water/car carrier truck, to make the trucks useful in both directions?

Alternately, is there space to do something with GF2 instead? Water rights wouldn't be an issue at all, there, and they need to get employment up in the area anyway...

 

[AcesDealt]

When Tesla says the model 3 was ~20% gross margin, are they allocating GHG to the model 3 revenue before this calculation?

 

[AlMc]

Bailee Gifford had a standing offer to fund additional capital if Musk needs it. He will have to re-confirm if the offer still stands. Them and Ron Baron are my preferred institutional investors. Note that SP is pretty close to the avg price that Baron funds bought at ~ $230. They were the Johnny come lately and may have an appetite to load up further

Tesla backer ready to put more money behind Musk : teslamotors

A lot has happened over the last 6 months. It would be nice if BG reconfirmed their willingness to fund additional capital today.

 

[bzbee]

So if we are talking about 10+ years long term outlook: income will only be as high if Tesla's solution is going to become a de-facto monopoly, and they can price their taxi services to around the pricing of human driven taxi services.

Otherwise if there's competition then robotaxis will set the price of taxi services to below that of human taxi services, human taxi services will gradually die out and robotaxi services will conduct a usual race to the bottom, prices somewhere around the price of expected capital returns.

I.e. the very long run lower price target for a $50k capital investment will be ~5% of the capital, $2.5k/year, or $25k over 10 years.

But in the initial phase they will track taxi services pricing, and will generate 10x higher returns - especially if Tesla becomes the dominant leader in the segment, which they have every chance to achieve.

Regarding Autonomy... I would like to suggest two lectures I found to be very informative. Both are By Shasua (MobileEye CTO) and were presented at MIT’s Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM).

The 1st lecture is a little old (2017), but provides a great no-nonsense overview (imho) of Autonomous Driving.

The 2nd one is a month old (March 19, 2019) and in my opinion promoted Musk to Do the Autonomy event.
In the recent talk Shashua reviews MobileEye's implementation of Level 4 Autonomous Driving, the logic behind the implementation, and presents examples from current testing phase of level 4 in urban environment.

Apparently VW and MobileEye have a contract to deploy Autonomous EV Ride-Hailing Service in Israel 2022, starting in Tel-Aviv
Volkswagen, Mobileye and Champion Motors to Invest in Israel and Deploy First Autonomous EV Ride-Hailing Service


* CBMM site includes transcripts

1. Great no-nonsense (imho) overview of Autonomous Driving
(link is to CBMM... timed links are youtube) "The Convergence of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Towards Enabling Autonomous Driving"

** Introduction by host:

** Beginning of talk
3 pillars of Autonomous Driving: (1) Sensing (2) Mapping (3) Driving Policy

** Lidar (+HD Map) vs. Camera (or Map-Heavy vs Map-Light)

** Driving Policy
(interesting to see how their view evolved... when reviewing the more recent talk)

https://youtu.be/b_lBL2yhU5A?t=1990

** Summary, QA

​

2. Current state of 'Map-Light Autonomy' at MobileEye
(link is to CBMM...) SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES IN MODERN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

** Beginning of talk

** Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Statistical Learning (nice over view)

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence


** Solving the Driving Policy Challenge... How to Guaranty Safety
How to define danger, Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (Regulatory model)
Worst case Analysis,

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence


** Short comment on Joint Venture with VW to commercialize robot-taxis to go live in 2022 (in Tel-Aviv, Israel)

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence


** The Driving Policy Model
Removing the decision out side of the statistical ML domain(!), Perception Challenge(!), Examples

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence


(End of Autonomy talk... talking about Wearable AI:

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence)


** QA(!)

Successes and challenges in modern artificial intelligence
​

----

My take-

Disclaimer first:
1. Don't have education or professional experience with Auto, AI or Investment industries.
2. Have a long position in TSLA, although relatively new in the game.

A. It appears that LIDAR(+HD Map) vs Cameras System is a media hype. Both solution are feasible today, Industry leaders recognize both, and there are working examples for both systems (Waymo/Cadillac vs MobileEye/Tesla). Industry players will probably choose their preferred stacks without consulting CNBC analysts.

B. In my opinion Tesla might be a little behind MobileEye. However I believe they can catchup, and still are well positioned to win a substantial piece of the automotive and/or autonomy pie (not talking about the potential of Tesla's other businesses):
Tesla are the only car manufacturer that have their own Autonomy solution. While MobileEye provides it's service to the whole automotive industry. In worst case scenario, Tesla can use MobileEye's solution... Tesla has a huge lead in electrical vehicles, and a growing business while other combatants have a declining business and still didn't figured out electrical cars.
In regards to Waymo, it is my belief that Tesla positioned better, but google cash and support cannot be taken lightly.

Would like to hear other members take on this... Also noticed that there are several member that have formal education/ experience in Autonomy field... @hershey101 @MarcusMaximus @heltok

In any case, hope this information is useful.

 

[kelly]

Disagreers are either delusional or don't hold as much TSLA as I do

Yep, no other conclusion possible.

 

[Aieukl378]

Apparently it is.



Probably also depends on what a person really wishes to construct. With Elon being Elon, that's probably also bit difficult to value.



To me it isn't, unless survivability of Tesla is at stake. There can be more reasons to invest then immediate monetary gain,

Tesla survivability isn't guaranteed and Tesla, right here and now, is in a very precarious situation. Would you hold your shares to zero? Would you like to help prevent them from going to zero? I should add TSLA has dropped from the 420 high until now about 40%. There are no stock market rules I'm aware of that it can't drop another 40% then another....

 

[Remus]

So we have talked alot over the past week about how NN-based computer vision will enable autonous driving.

Would any of our computer science experts share their opinion how Tesla can use their newly developed computer vision technology to aid manufacturing at GF3/Shanghai and for Model Y in a space/labor constrained environment?

Elon has hinted that manufacturing at GF3 would be 'more advanced', and 'best in the world'. Could this be robotic vision grafted onto automated assembly?

Does Tesla have the chops to integrate it's computer vision technology into existing manufacturing lines to replace labor while minimizing space? How big an 'ask' is this?

Elon dropped another hint during the Q1 conference call that the autonomous charging 'snake' is now possible with NN based computer vision. How big a jump is it from plugging in a charging cable to plugging in a wiring loom?

If possible, I think that would be a huge factor allowing the Model Y to be build at one of Tesla's existing facilities. Perhaps the new Tesla FSD computer will be in more demand than we initially thought?

Same hardware, different training. Train the NN with camera images, then it can drive a robotaxi. Train the NN with manufacturing process movies, then it can BUILD the robotaxis.

I bet computer vision based robots could relieve some production bottlenecks due to 'scare' labor on Panasonic battery cell lines at GF1 too. Jus' sayin'.

Cheers!

This, is a huge potential for Tesla. And we saw evidence that they are working on it. But it's not slam dunk.

The problem is slightly different, computer vision takes cars of "eye" part. But the arm and leg part of the robot are sometimes not straight forward. For example, seeing a cable vs grabbing it and attaching it to the right place are two different things. The precision of the environmental perception and the eye hand coordination are difficult problem.

I remember Tesla filed patent to make the cable semi regid to make the robot's job easier. I take this as an evidence that they are definitely working on this.

Andrew Ng. has a start-up landing.ai in this exact area. They work on the simple stuff like using image recognition for quality control, that doesn't require hand eye coordination. I guess Tesla is more advanced than that

 

[EVNow]

Otherwise if there's competition then robotaxis will set the price of taxi services to below that of human taxi services, human taxi services will gradually die out and robotaxi services will conduct a usual race to the bottom, prices somewhere around the price of expected capital returns.

Assuming no regulations.

Taxi services all over the world have been regulated to guarantee minimum wages/returns. At least in the beginning I expect regulators to set the minimum price so that human drivers can survive.

 

[Aieukl378]

I know but doesn't Telsa have intelligent/savy board members? Forget it just answered myself...see Theranos board of directors.

FYI Larry Ellison was on Theranos board.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Regardless of his restrictions on Twitter, the PR battle is over and Tesla lost in a resounding beat down by all major sources of media. It really wasn’t much of a battle as Tesla never had a serious PR stance. They still don’t and from what I can tell don’t plan to have one. The “the cars will sell themselves” approach is pure amateur on every level. Tesla made a beautiful bright candle and then put it under a pot. If Tesla fails the companies that pick up the pieces will correct this first. And then make a killing with the same car....because they are that good...just no one knows it.

Family members know we drive only electtic vehicles and that we would like to get a Tesla someday. More and more are considering and planning their next vehicle to be an electric but not one of them would touch a Tesla with a ten foot pole. “No service, constant breakdowns, continuously catching on fire, death traps, 70,000 dollar cars with 50,000 dollar batteries that need replacing minimum every three years” and on and on and on. I see their point, it’s what they read in the media, every day, from every source. Most are gravitating to the Leaf (they know ours hasn’t had a problem in 4 years) or a bolt. Both available for test drives at any time. If Tesla ever releases a Chademo or CCS adapter and we in turn buy a model 3 (LR AWD white on white FSD sport rims) they will all think we are complete nut bars. Why would we buy a car from a company months away from going bankrupt. My one brother who is a little more on top of the technology said to me, “where are you going to charge it when they go belly up? With no Supercharger network you are stuck with a level 2 car”.

And without any PR from Tesla this will just get worse. Total amateur show. It might be a good thing that we have delayed our purchase till this Chademo adapter thing is sorted out for the model three. Wait, am I starting to believe the negative hype myself. Good thing I hang around this board as much as I do, because there is essentially NO POSITIVE PRESS on Tesla, anywhere, ever...and if there is, the only place it can be found is here, in a link on this board.

Our national news network regularly takes a hit at Tesla, and again on the Sunday news this morning on TV. Saw a neat add on the Audi ETron though. There are about 5 Audi’s on our block, wonder which one will have an Audi in their driveway first.

I’m sure lots will disagree with this post from a frustrated pair of wannabeteslaowners. But here, this is the reality, nobody would touch a Tesla. The battle is lost on this front.

One of our neighbours came over to see our charge setup as they are getting the work done now for a car purchase in Summer. We talked and analyzed their needs and I recommended a model 3 LRAWD as they travel the main corridors only and wont be affected by the lack of Tesla infrastructure off the main routes in the province. The said “Tesla, didn’t they just go out of business??? I tried to clarify but to know avail, I think they are leaning towards the Jag.

Keep the faith brethren. The only reason we still do is because we make ourselves take a Tesla for a drive every 6 months or so, then we get that ohhh, yahhhhh...that’s why...and we carry on the faith.

Just sayin. Quit wasting your money on fart apps and higher a PR team, PLEASE.

 

[Aieukl378]

Yep, no other conclusion possible.

Scratch the "owns as much TSLA as me"

 

[Aieukl378]

Regardless of his restrictions on Twitter, the PR battle is over and Tesla lost in a resounding beat down by all major sources of media. It really wasn’t much of a battle as Tesla never had a serious PR stance. They still don’t and from what I can tell don’t plan to have one. The “the cars will sell themselves” approach is pure amateur on every level. Tesla made a beautiful bright candle and then put it under a pot. If Tesla fails the companies that pick up the pieces will correct this first. And then make a killing with the same car....because they are that good...just no one knows it.

Family members know we drive only electtic vehicles and that we would like to get a Tesla someday. More and more are considering and planning their next vehicle to be an electric but not one of them would touch a Tesla with a ten foot pole. “No service, constant breakdowns, continuously catching on fire, death traps, 70,000 dollar cars with 50,000 dollar batteries that need replacing minimum every three years” and on and on and on. I see their point, it’s what they read in the media, every day, from every source. Most are gravitating to the Leaf (they know ours hasn’t had a problem in 4 years) or a bolt. Both available for test drives at any time. If Tesla ever releases a Chademo or CCS adapter and we in turn buy a model 3 (LR AWD white on white FSD sport rims) they will all think we are complete nut bars. Why would we buy a car from a company months away from going bankrupt. My one brother who is a little more on top of the technology said to me, “where are you going to charge it when they go belly up? With no Supercharger network you are stuck with a level 2 car”.

And without any PR from Tesla this will just get worse. Total amateur show. It might be a good thing that we have delayed our purchase till this Chademo adapter thing is sorted out for the model three. Wait, am I starting to believe the negative hype myself. Good thing I hang around this board as much as I do, because there is essentially NO POSITIVE PRESS on Tesla, anywhere, ever...and if there is, the only place it can be found is here, in a link on this board.

Our national news network regularly takes a hit at Tesla, and again on the Sunday news this morning on TV. Saw a neat add on the Audi ETron though. There are about 5 Audi’s on our block, wonder which one will have an Audi in their driveway first.

I’m sure lots will disagree with this post from a frustrated pair of wannabeteslaowners. But here, this is the reality, nobody would touch a Tesla. The battle is lost on this front.

One of our neighbours came over to see our charge setup as they are getting the work done now for a car purchase in Summer. We talked and analyzed their needs and I recommended a model 3 LRAWD as they travel the main corridors only and wont be affected by the lack of Tesla infrastructure off the main routes in the province. The said “Tesla, didn’t they just go out of business??? I tried to clarify but to know avail, I think they are leaning towards the Jag.

Keep the faith brethren. The only reason we still do is because we make ourselves take a Tesla for a drive every 6 months or so, then we get that ohhh, yahhhhh...that’s why...and we carry on the faith.

Just sayin. Quit wasting your money on fart apps and higher a PR team, PLEASE.

Yes, all of that.

 

[EVNow]

When Tesla says the model 3 was ~20% gross margin, are they allocating GHG to the model 3 revenue before this calculation?

This is what they say "Automotive gross margin excluding SBC and ZEV credit – non-GAAP".

 

[guidooo]

Would you hold your shares to zero?

If we are on that trajectory and i didn't need the liquidity before that happening, probably yes. Think i'm more annoyed by the fact that i'm without dry powder at present moment then the actual share price.

I should add TSLA has dropped from the 420 high until now about 40%.

Think I noticed, although i don't remember the 420 price.

There are no stock market rules I'm aware of that it can't drop another 40% then another....

Haven't read a rule like that either.

Disagreers are either delusional or don't hold as much TSLA as I do

Cann't say i'm underinvested TSLA. So welcome in the illusion of life.

 

[Boomer19]

Regardless of his restrictions on Twitter, the PR battle is over and Tesla lost in a resounding beat down by all major sources of media. It really wasn’t much of a battle as Tesla never had a serious PR stance. They still don’t and from what I can tell don’t plan to have one. The “the cars will sell themselves” approach is pure amateur on every level. Tesla made a beautiful bright candle and then put it under a pot. If Tesla fails the companies that pick up the pieces will correct this first. And then make a killing with the same car....because they are that good...just no one knows it.

Family members know we drive only electtic vehicles and that we would like to get a Tesla someday. More and more are considering and planning their next vehicle to be an electric but not one of them would touch a Tesla with a ten foot pole. “No service, constant breakdowns, continuously catching on fire, death traps, 70,000 dollar cars with 50,000 dollar batteries that need replacing minimum every three years” and on and on and on. I see their point, it’s what they read in the media, every day, from every source. Most are gravitating to the Leaf (they know ours hasn’t had a problem in 4 years) or a bolt. Both available for test drives at any time. If Tesla ever releases a Chademo or CCS adapter and we in turn buy a model 3 (LR AWD white on white FSD sport rims) they will all think we are complete nut bars. Why would we buy a car from a company months away from going bankrupt. My one brother who is a little more on top of the technology said to me, “where are you going to charge it when they go belly up? With no Supercharger network you are stuck with a level 2 car”.

And without any PR from Tesla this will just get worse. Total amateur show. It might be a good thing that we have delayed our purchase till this Chademo adapter thing is sorted out for the model three. Wait, am I starting to believe the negative hype myself. Good thing I hang around this board as much as I do, because there is essentially NO POSITIVE PRESS on Tesla, anywhere, ever...and if there is, the only place it can be found is here, in a link on this board.

Our national news network regularly takes a hit at Tesla, and again on the Sunday news this morning on TV. Saw a neat add on the Audi ETron though. There are about 5 Audi’s on our block, wonder which one will have an Audi in their driveway first.

I’m sure lots will disagree with this post from a frustrated pair of wannabeteslaowners. But here, this is the reality, nobody would touch a Tesla. The battle is lost on this front.

One of our neighbours came over to see our charge setup as they are getting the work done now for a car purchase in Summer. We talked and analyzed their needs and I recommended a model 3 LRAWD as they travel the main corridors only and wont be affected by the lack of Tesla infrastructure off the main routes in the province. The said “Tesla, didn’t they just go out of business??? I tried to clarify but to know avail, I think they are leaning towards the Jag.

Keep the faith brethren. The only reason we still do is because we make ourselves take a Tesla for a drive every 6 months or so, then we get that ohhh, yahhhhh...that’s why...and we carry on the faith.

Just sayin. Quit wasting your money on fart apps and higher a PR team, PLEASE.

sad, but a lot of truth to this. i experience it myself and it frustrates the hell out of me. most people just don’t/won’t take the time to drill deeper and research a bit. they take the 5 min news approach... headline or blurb at face value, generate decision on that alone, without knowing anything in detail.

 

[capster]

I watched a few GM cruise and Waymo self driving video. To be fair they are probably better or equal to TSLA's FSD right now in terms of city driving. TSLA probably have a better setup for high waydriving due to the better range of detection. But city driving wise, it is still the Lidar solution that is shown to be better. On top of that, who is to say that they are not using cameras and NN learning as well.

I still stand in the middle. I believe both TSLA and Waymo will arrive at their own solution. The neural net learning technique can be applied to both sensor suits. Waymo's valuation is warranted. TSLA's valuation is zero now due to the market not believing Elon anymore.

Hmmm. A few perspectives I’ve developed over the years.

Usually, one technological approach will prove better in the marketplace, be it fuel cells vs EV’s or lidar-centric vs camera-centric autonomy, etc. Picking the right one isn’t easy and is a skill learned in the real world. Didn’t John Doerr say something like "Teaching a new venture capitalist is like training a jet fighter pilot. Every crash costs twenty million dollars."?

Group think by teams of engineers in large organizations can lead to embracing the wrong solution for novel technologies more often than you’d think, especially if management is providing poor or mis- guidance.

I take away credibility points when one side spends a lot of time arguing why the other approach won’t work, especially when things devolve into ad hominem attacks. Just tell me what you can do.

I have much more faith in people who have actually delivered real innovation to market more than once, e.g. Elon Musk.

Full disclosure: Fuel cells vehicles and lidar-centric autonomy have both seemed obviously less likely to succeed from the outset to me. So, Elon’s choices increased my confidence in Tesla and didn’t require me to extend trust where others might need to.

Tl,dr: The middle path is nice, but there are certain contexts where it often doesn’t exist. Recognizing when it doesn’t exist is crucial. Then, choosing the right side takes judgement, especially when you want to be early and yet have reasonably high confidence while using the least information possible.

 

[EVNow]

He does not want those 1% to get caught...therein lies the problem.

That makes ZERO sense.

The fact is - EM wants to interact with has fans on Twitter. He wants to give information, write hot takes. Just like a lot of celebrities.

He has no interest in suddenly moving the market during trading hours or anything like that. That is not his intention.

 

[Aieukl378]

If we are on that trajectory and i didn't need the liquidity before that happening, probably yes. Think i'm more annoyed by the fact that i'm without dry powder at present moment then the actual share price.


Think I noticed, although i don't remember the 420 price.


Haven't read a rule like that either.



Cann't say i'm underinvested TSLA. So welcome in the illusion of life.

$379.49...and I bought a little here, y'know cause the CEO said it was going private at $420...easy $40 right?

Oh, did I mention his Twitter account sucks?

 

[elasalle]

Yep, no other conclusion possible.

I think there is one conclusion that is starting to become obvious ...