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

[Zhelko Dimic]

It *is* a way to get the dev team focused, by publicly establishing the deadline. Elon knows they will work their asses off to avoid letting him down.

Nope, that works only couple of times. At this point, they just roll their eyes 'Elon being Elon'.
Don't get me wrong, they work hard, but public timelines is not a factor in it anymore, impossible goals motivate/pressure people even when they're only internal.
I've been on both sides of that coin.

 

[anthonyj]

Starting to give up following this stock for now. Too many lost brain cells. Still holding

 

[BornToFly]

Starting to give up following this stock for now. Too many lost brain cells. Still holding

I invested a lot of money in TSLA. I was hoping for an early retirement. I just need 3X from here. But at his rate, I'll be working until I'm 100...

 

[MarcusMaximus]

He made the coast-to-coast pledge immediately after they launched HW2.

I don't think coast-to-coast has much value at this point. Unless they did it with nobody in the driver's seat, of course. At this point "self driving" with a safety driver is just boring. That's why the Waymo One launch was so pathetic.

A demo of it would be boring. Simultaneously releasing an update allowing every Tesla driver to do the same absolutely would not be.

 

[shootformoon]

OT but maybe not:

Thread would be much easier to get through and pick out what you like, while retaining lots of different subjects, IF the platform were able to group post responses together, with a little “open/close” button, so I wouldn’t see any of the responses at all without another click. I get it that this doesn’t work with multi-quotes, but that is just fine. Getting all the plain “replies” in-line would be a huge reduction in clutter, and if a single quote could also be in-line that would be even better.

I quite enjoy a lot of the side discussions that start with something pertinent to TSLA value and then maybe drift away somewhat. I agree with @Krugerrand, that I have been delighted at the little gems I pick up about the wind in Iceland and the traffic light sculpture installation in the UK.

Exactly, this is why i like the interface of slack.

 

[ruralectric]

99 TeslaPoints to the poster who creates appropriate sub-threads for all those subjects that have 3/8 of 9/10 of ____X___-all to do about Tesla and the market....and gets those threads going.

OR.....send $999999 now to your favorite Mods and we'll do that thankless task for you.

Or just post this: "Deleted a bunch of off topic posts."

 

[K3jSe7Llp7]

Starting to give up following this stock for now. Too many lost brain cells. Still holding

hang on brother, it's killing me too but what are we going to do buy into exxon Mobil spreading anti science lies or maybe Peabody coal? It'll come round, I was going to say something about adding bonds but never mind.

 

[Sancho]

You’re no fun. This thread is like a box of chocolates. Scratch that. It’s like a gunnysack of chocolates and you got to stick your hand blindly in and hope you don’t pull out the fake jelly filled or tooth breaking one. But you can always throw those away and stick your hand in again. Once in awhile you pull out the cashew and caramel one. You can protect it like your first born or go to your closet and savor it all by yourself or cut it into pieces and share with your besties.

Anyone hungry? I’m suddenly very hungry.

I’m not into chocolates, so here’s my analogy:

This thread is like going to watch a college football game in a huge stadium where you’re rooting for the visiting team. There’s 90,000 people all rooting for the home team, but there’s 20 rows of people high up in one remote section who are all on your side.

You’re not friends with any of them, the only thing that connects you is that if you all cheer loud enough you can keep this fun and exciting for you and your little section, even though it has no impact on what the 90,000 home team fans are experiencing, or the game itself.

So, my fellow section seat mates, it’s still the first quarter, our quarterback just fumbled the ball (in Q1), but there’s a lot of game to play, and we know the coach has a great game plan. So let’s make some noise. Post away!

 

[Tslynk67]

Reminds me of the film Idiocracy.

Spoiler

BTW, somehow this President still looks more convincing as a leader than the one in the White House.

Top comment on that video: "This movie wasn't supposed to be a documentary...."

Says it all really.

 

[capster]

Bear in mind that way way way way wayyyy back on June 30, 2008 at a ceremony featuring then-Gov Schwarzenegger, Elon said that Tesla would build an under-$30000 car and that it would be out in no more than four years.

Off by a few years early on for such momentous change is pretty damn good if you’re familiar with the innovation biz at that level of change, especially in something like automotive.

Hey, I was early by decades getting a neural modeling doctorate, then later joining automotive. Worse was staying, thinking those leading the industry wanted and were capable of pushing real innovation. Returning to the trenches to do something concrete and useful elsewhere was preferable.

On the other hand, I did enjoy and learn from all the time I got paid to spend prognosticating about the future from the Olympian perspective of an auto OEM. Alas, the map of the future that I drew, while accurate, helped them not at all.

I expect Musk and his team have gotten better at forecasting, though it is always tricky. I’ll go so far as to say that they not only have a line on where they are going, they may actually have a reasonably accurate curve plotted for FSD given what they are saying and doing.

 

[Tslynk67]

All sound advice. BUT, why is it in this thread ?
You should have followed your #5 rule and post it in a new thread !

I think it was just an excuse to quote some Pratchett to curry favour with Vetinari...

 

[Tslynk67]

Starting to give up following this stock for now. Too many lost brain cells. Still holding

Nothing wrong with the stock this week, Ant, but everything wrong with your glorious leader...

 

[Tslynk67]

I’m not into chocolates, so here’s my analogy:

This thread is like going to watch a college football game in a huge stadium where you’re rooting for the visiting team. There’s 90,000 people all rooting for the home team, but there’s 20 rows of people high up in one remote section who are all on your side.

You’re not friends with any of them, the only thing that connects you is that if you all cheer loud enough you can keep this fun and exciting for you and your little section, even though it has no impact on what the 90,000 home team fans are experiencing, or the game itself.

So, my fellow section seat mates, it’s still the first quarter, our quarterback just fumbled the ball (in Q1), but there’s a lot of game to play, and we know the coach has a great game plan. So let’s make some noise. Post away!

Dude, we're already in the second month in the second quarter, jeeze, some people...

 

[Tslynk67]

So, price "action" today, as in Friday for those of you on the Pacific Coast... Seems #45 has implemented these extra tariffs. First of all, I don't really understand why you'd do that, given that there are talks about to begin, but it is what it is. Will this tank the markets more, is it priced in?

What would happen if an agreement was made, do we see a 10-15% rise across all stocks? Do we see most stock popping, but Tesla being held-down by shorty?

What if there's no agreement, China retaliates with their own tariffs - does it escalate from there, each side adding new stuff each week until every trade between the countries now cost double the price.

And remember that this is a consumer tax at the end of the day, so it will depress sales in general too as goods will become more expensive.

 

[Fact Checking]

I don't think coast-to-coast has much value at this point. Unless they did it with nobody in the driver's seat, of course. At this point "self driving" with a safety driver is just boring.

While I'd still expect the Autopilot sex tape to get at least an order of magnitude more views than the coast to coast trip, coast-to-coast is not boring at all with the qualifiers Elon used:

• That anyone who owns an FSD Tesla would be able to replicate it.
• The original coast-to-coast pledge in 2017 said: "we should be able to go all the way form a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York, no controls touched at any point during the entire journey."

Fleet-wide deployed FSD with zero disengagements coast-to-coast capability, if they manage to achieve it this year, is still pretty damn impressive with no geo-coding. (It also matters to the aspirational long term topic of this thread: the Tesla share price.)

'Coast to coast' brings in historic parallels with the First Transcontinental Railroad:

The First Transcontinental Railroad – StMU History Media

​

I believe fully self-driving cars will be similarly transformative as trains were 200 years ago.

 

[Fact Checking]

Many credible posters here are doubting what FSD progress the Tesla AI team could possibly have achieved in the 3 years since they split with MobilEye - an automotive vision pioneer with 30 years of history.

Here's a comparison of AP1 (the last MobilEye iteration) and AP2:

Tesla Autopilot 1 vs. AP2: Incredible Improvements On Difficult Road

The Tesla testing takes place on a two-lane road with plenty of sharp turns, blind curves, dips, and elevation changes. Most of the time, you can see by the lane markings that passing isn't allowed on this road, which generally indicates that it's a challenge. Later in the video, there's a complete lack of lane lines.

"As you can see, Autopilot 1 struggles constantly on this drive, and I can assure you, it used to be WORSE on this road. I have previous tests with AP1."

"On this test, AP2.x absolutely NAILS IT! Successfully navigated the test roads"
​

I believe that's what a grounds-up, first-principles approach and the "Tesla data advantage" of a fleet of hundreds of thousands of vehicles gives you in just 3 short years.

And this AP1 to AP2 comparison is still on a HW2.5 basis and not the very latest firmware - HW3 gives ~21x more processing power.

I believe we've seen nothing yet in terms of FSD magic ...

 

[saniflash]

despite the tariff implementation, limited to no movement in NQ futures.... good sign?
Nasdaq Futures Quotes - Investing.com

 

[JBRR]

Panasonic addressed Tesla battery production in today's call. Starts at 33:28, ends at 35:54 : teslainvestorsclub

"35 gWh initial investment has been completed and utilization as per Elon is 24 gWh currently. This year we want to increase this (utilization) rather significantly.

We have 3 fast/higher speed lines. When they become operational we will see improved efficiency. And we shifted tools (old to new tools) we were not able do sufficient verification; we saw disruptions (problems) and we (now) know the reasons and so in June we will start replacing the jigs, and therefore the yield will improve quite a bit.

And through localization of the workforce, which would mean we will have fewer Japanese expats. We will have more number of lines that can be operated only by local personnel and this can reduce the fixed costs. And of course, the demand from Tesla will be good enough for the full capacity, that is the assumption. If that assumption holds than the Tesla battery business can break even this year (for Panasonic).

As per demand, we need to clearly identify how much Model 3 demand will increase (moving forward). As per Model X (and S), last quarter, we saw decline but Tesla is already taking actions to revamp that demand; and we're talking with Tesla on this and there is upside potential there."

h/t reddit user /u/space_s3x

 

[Carl Raymond]

Panasonic addressed Tesla battery production in today's call. Starts at 33:28, ends at 35:54 : teslainvestorsclub

"35 gWh initial investment has been completed and utilization as per Elon is 24 gWh currently. This year we want to increase this (utilization) rather significantly.

We have 3 fast/higher speed lines. When they become operational we will see improved efficiency. And we shifted tools (old to new tools) we were not able do sufficient verification; we saw disruptions (problems) and we (now) know the reasons and so in June we will start replacing the jigs, and therefore the yield will improve quite a bit.

And through localization of the workforce, which would mean we will have fewer Japanese expats. We will have more number of lines that can be operated only by local personnel and this can reduce the fixed costs. And of course, the demand from Tesla will be good enough for the full capacity, that is the assumption. If that assumption holds than the Tesla battery business can break even this year (for Panasonic).

As per demand, we need to clearly identify how much Model 3 demand will increase (moving forward). As per Model X (and S), last quarter, we saw decline but Tesla is already taking actions to revamp that demand; and we're talking with Tesla on this and there is upside potential there."

h/t reddit user /u/space_s3x

Cool. Can’t see any way that GF1 can do 35 GWh and Tesla *not* be profitable. Scale away.

 

[Zaxxon]

9999999 TeslaPoints to the TMC staff if they enhanced discoverability of all the myriad threads we all wish existed outside this ginormous thread instead of being glommed into this one. Existing UI design affords only low thread discoverability, so people who try to start new threads on different topics quickly realize nobody sees the new threads which quickly get lost in the long tail of old and abandoned threads. This results in low participation, which discourages the creation of more threads, and a return to the mother-ship, this thread. I blame the software.

One relatively simple option would be to link off several of the most important related threads to the first post of this topic each year. Eg FSD progress/dev, GF3 thread, etc etc. That'd make discoverability of the 'biggest offenders' of clutter in this thread a non-issue, and therefore would remove all excuse for posting such gunk in this thread.

A better but slightly more involved option would be a sub-forum for this thread and its spawn. That'd be a bigger setup/maintenance hurdle for the mods, but would bring the advantage of also making it simple for us all to keep up with all related threads (since we'd have an actual forum view rather than a static link in a single post). Far less work than current moderation / janitorial duty, though, I'd think...