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

[MartinAustin]

I feel Rivian's situation is similar to NIO. Everything seems great, except one problem: how will they deal with competition from Tesla? Tesla spent 16 years to accumulate experience and knowledge in battery tech, drivetrain, chip, software, production scale, automation... If Tesla offers a great pickup truck at $50k, will Rivian sell well at $70k?

NIO did everything including lying to show they have been selling well with bright future, they can't change the fact Tesla will compete with them head on. The market can see that.

Sorry I'm 20 pages behind again... but had to answer/add to this. Rivian are not out to become a high volume manufacturer of those vehicles. Not with prices starting at $70,000. They are aiming at the affluent buyers of JLR, Ford Raptor etc. Haven't you seen the ads? They're all about vacations... nothing about work.

If Rivian were out to become a high volume manufacturer, they would still need to grow slowly, adding capacity as income permits. At some point they start to find the limits of the market for a primarily North America-focused $70,000 vehicle. They have to go downmarket to truly increase sales numbers.

Also Rivian's products currently follow the form factors of conventional ICE vehicles. Tesla's pickup truck promises to change that form factor significantly, perhaps resembling European-cab-over style (but with raking for aerodynamics since there is no engine), which may work to "age" the current form factors from GM, Ford and FCA... and Rivian. Unless Rivian pulls off a miracle by the time Tesla's truck is available, Tesla will enter the market segment with massive brand recognition, a significantly less expensive vehicle, potentially much larger manufacturing capacity, and potentially rob Rivian of some of its differentiation, namely the "upscale alternative powertrain approach." Buyers of Rivian's vehicles will still be out there, but sales will be diminished.

Rivian is certainly behind Tesla in experience, which is how they end up with such a low range on their largest battery configuration. Rivian are are in front of everyone else though... who isn't trying at all. It's a painful learning curve, and as you say, Tesla is 16yrs in front.

 

[anon]

Not this guy!

Tesla's going to have to restructure, says Blaine Capital

Apologies for posting a cnbc link, but this is actually incredulous that he could spout this nonsense without being called out for trying to crash the stock. I hope he tries to take it all the way to zero and suffers the consequences...

Claims that Model 3 is lower quality than Model S because "it is blowing up all the time" and "the batteries keep incinerating" - failed to notice that the fires have actually been in the S and not the 3!

 

[Krugerrand]

Oh and parking... the ability to get to a car park, then jump out and go to a bar/restaurant and let the flipping car find a space...oh yes please.

Right!?

I’m so looking forward to that. I’m just gonna let myself out at the door and send it off, then wait at the door and call it back to me. In fact, I may actually return to IKEA, which I’ve avoided going to for the last five years because who in their right mind wants to experience that more than once!?

At least until I gain 5lbs because my daily step count is way down.

 

[Tslynk67]

Why on earth are people bringing curbed wheels to tesla to deal with?
"This is utter nonsense."

Tesla have always repaired mine. I always get them sorted out when I swap winter/summer and it gives them +/-6 months to sort them out.

In the old days they used to sub-contract to a local firm, now they got the equipment to do in-house and hopefully make some money out of it.

I also had my winter wheels painted black done by Tesla with the same paint as my 22" Onyx's.

 

[EVNow]

What happens if a stop light is out? What happens if a stop light is out and a cop is directing traffic? What happens if there is a traffic accident and a cop is directing traffic? What happens if there is an event and a cop is forcing people to turn right when the AP route says to go straight? What happens if there is road construction and you have a stop/go sign-man off to the side? I could think of many more scenarios that happen every day and a single misstep could cripple the entire company. Am I missing something?

Most important thing to remember is that robotaxis will not happen until Tesla can handle all these common scenarios. I have a "feature complete" thread in this subforum you can take a look. Taking directions from cops and traffic controllers, I'd consider part of feature complete.

I'm more interesting in Tesla showing that they are as good as Waymo than actually running robotaxis.

Tracking FSD Feature Complete

 

[canoemore]

You are making a falsifiable prediction here -- do you want to stick to it or call it a poetic extravagance? I find you an interesting fellow because your mind summons evidence impressively but usually for obvious and predetermined ends and the conspiracy talk is frequent and always lingers nearest the shadows of most hopeful idols.

Speaking of poetic extravagance...

 

[neroden]

You have been around long enough to know better than to think that inventory displayed online is an indicator that’s worth a thing. For everyone else : it is not.

While Tesla's really weird about how they display inventory online, EV-CPO is actually pretty good at scraping up information about inventory.

The *massive* difference between visible Model S inventory and visible Model X / Model 3 inventory means something, even if it isn't the actual complete inventory list. It means that Model 3 / Model X inventory is moving fast, and Model S inventory not as fast.

 

[sixela]

Not this guy!
Tesla's going to have to restructure, says Blaine Capital

Translate: darn, if this stock goes up we're going to lose a sh*tload of money.

 

[BoerumHill]

Yeah but it also seems like this sets the ground for a reversal for a few weeks culminating in such expectations that the result is a miss come end of the quarter. Interesting to watch.

On another topic, with the launch of Starlink an initial success, has another possibility for TSLA peaked above the horizon?

You rang?

 

[neroden]

It's part of the regular Wall Street dump & pump scheme that is illegal for everyone except Wall Street analysts, who are exempt from regulations that make it illegal to trade on material information. @neroden called it a 'bear raid'.

Leading up to the Q2 delivery report I expect many of the analysts who (after Q1 consciously and deliberately tried to squeeze leveraged Tesla investors and tried to rattle long term holding investors) to find some excuse before Tesla's Q2 results potentially embarrassingly falsify the nonsense they've been spouting for months.

I noticed that my margin requirement for Tesla was jacked up to 75%. Since I'm intelligent about my use of margin, no problem. But it feels like the whole thing was orchestrated to induce margin calls in overextended TSLA longs. Definitely a bear raid.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

somebody comes up with another list of what ifs to try and illicit fear.

Welcome to the forum. Carry on, but I got my eyes on you.

That sounds like some medieval religious teaching... "don't question anything..."

The edge cases he mentioned are legitimate questions - I am not sure when curiosity became "eliciting fear", and the answer is that these things will eventually be solved but some of them will likely take many years, perhaps decades.

Early fully autonomous (driver-less) robotaxis will likely be restricted to certain routes, will likely have additional safety features so traffic cops can stop them or intervene in some way, and edge-cases will be addressed based on how often they occur, and their barrier to adoption.

 

[Krugerrand]

I told my wife that in 3 years when our lease expire - I will buy out the Tesla MX from the gains made from the stocks. She rolled her eyes and was like "whatever"....

I told my cat I think we should keep buying more shares, that I felt we don’t have enough and that in a few years we’ll have enough money to hire a full time personal cat petter for him.

The answer; ‘Whatever.’

 

[neroden]

You rang?

There's only one way to make the astronomers happy: Musk needs to build them a manned space telescope satellite for astronomy, far above all these other manmade satellites.

 

[Vaamo]

Wasn't there an EV rental thing going on that had to be canex'ed because of people destroying the cars?

They(E-car-club) were shutting down operations due to vandalism, but only in one town (Solihull, UK). Rest of the locations should continue further.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Not this guy!

Tesla's going to have to restructure, says Blaine Capital

Apologies for posting a cnbc link, but this is actually incredulous that he could spout this nonsense without being called out for trying to crash the stock. I hope he tries to take it all the way to zero and suffers the consequences...

He didn’t get the 180 memo.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

Most important thing to remember is that robotaxis will not happen until Tesla can handle all these common scenarios. I have a "feature complete" thread in this subforum you can take a look. Taking directions from cops and traffic controllers, I'd consider part of feature complete.

I'm more interesting in Tesla showing that they are as good as Waymo than actually running robotaxis.

Tracking FSD Feature Complete

Thanks for linking that thread!

 

[LN1_Casey]

Oh, I thought they built rockets, now you're telling me they're a hedge fund?

It's a very special, limited type of manufacturer company. Privets and yews, and hollys. Don't ask them for Shrubberies, however, unless you also have a herring nearby.

 

[tschmidty]

This seems like a big win.

Pretty annoying that the current system cannot tell if the door is open or closed, all it can do is send a signal that will open the door if closed, or closed it if opened. Or is there some upgrade to my garage door system that will allow the Homelink support in my MS to get more intelligent?

Man you just gave me a great idea. I use home assistant with a zwave switch and a garage door sensor to have a stateful garage door opener. When I got a home link adapter I hooked it up to directly to the garage door opener. But I could/should/WILL wire it into the existing zwave switch to allow the geo location homelink opener to function statefully.

 

[EVNow]

While Tesla's really weird about how they display inventory online, EV-CPO is actually pretty good at scraping up information about inventory.

The *massive* difference between visible Model S inventory and visible Model X / Model 3 inventory means something, even if it isn't the actual complete inventory list. It means that Model 3 / Model X inventory is moving fast, and Model S inventory not as fast.

Seems to me - Tesla puts something on the inventory when they ship the car to a particular destination. The idea being, you can go to your local Tesla store and buy it. Anything coming out of the factory that has not yet been matched to an order or they have not determined where to ship won't be in the inventory list. In other words if the car ownership has not been transferred to a local store, it won't be in the inventory list.

My guess is 3 inventory is mainly ones that were ordered but the sale didn't happen. Ofcourse, pre-raven S/X is something they are trying to get rid off. There is a long list of unfulfilled Raven S/X - so we won't see many of those in inventory (unless just like 3, a sales falls through).

 

[Prunesquallor]

There's only one way to make the astronomers happy: Musk needs to build them a manned space telescope satellite for astronomy, far above all these other manmade satellites.

Or on the moon.