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

[Foghat]

And the views just keep piling up... Now at over 25M views, Joe Rogan's most popular video of all time.

Joe Rogan Experience #1169 - Elon Musk
25,040,078 views
514K Likes

PowerfulJRE
Streamed live on Sep 6, 2018​

Tesla and Elon related video by popular YouTubers are also getting millions of views. This is the norm now.

I think their is a significant generational gap on the understanding of Elon.

Many of the most talented young engineers and smart minds *want* to work at Elon’s companies. The level human intellectual capital that Elon has raised and has a long line of applicants is beyond most, if not all other corporate entities, on the planet.

They vast majority of his twitter comments *are not* aimed at the investment community. They are clearly aimed at customers and potential talent and not just any talent, specific talent.

I knew a guy who used to play loud party music in the background when taking phone interviews of talent. If they hung up or were turned off by it, It weeded out a big number of applicants. The ones that liked it or actually showed up to the follow on in person interview, had the initial pass as probable employees that fit what he was looking for for his sales team. Some didn’t get it, but this specific method seemed to work as he developed a killer sales team that was very successful at what they did.

Some of us may have issues and cringe at some of the stuff Elon puts out there on Twitter but the targeted talent group gets it and loves him for it.

The results clearly are evident in the paradigm shifting products his companies deliver across the most entrenched industries on the planet. And it is just the beginning since this young talented brain trust is growing by the day and has many decades of multi industry leading innovation ahead of them.

Talent is everything when your very existence depends on innovation. Elon has his methods to this end and they seem to be working pretty well.

 

[LST]

Sure, where by “quite good”, you mean “can mostly follow lane lines”. AP actually handles the entire dynamic driving task. 99.9% of the time on my way to work and back I just leave my hand resting on the wheel and it handles everything.

I should have been more specific. Our experiences might differ drastically out of various reasons. Here in Switzerland the roads in general are narrower and turn a lot. This applies to freeways as well. We might have different regulations which do not allow Teslas AP to perform to the max.

The AP I have in our MS85D is only useful in more or less straight stretches of freeways. As soon as the road begins to turn AP can,t handle highway speeds. Lane keeping is still like a novice, drunken driver, lane changes are OK.
Tunnels are a pure horror, ghost braking every now and then. It almost never handles separators..

Fleet learning: what a joke, for years I drive along a lake, when the road goes straight, and there is the possibility to turn right into the village, every time I have to yank the steering to get it to go straight...and various other similar situations. It never learned !

AP in the M3 is even worse in every aspect. Lane changes are super slow, ghost braking even more often and more accentuated.

So: Compared to that the Volvo handles said situations flawless, since day one. Lane keeping is much more natural. You can take the wheel and nudge the car into a position in the lane which you prefer, without disengaging Pilot Assist.
Never ever had any ghost braking or almost crashes into a divider.

I am frustrated, that the progress of AP (at least for us) is just not there. For me the Volvo, now, leads by a wide margin.

Therefore my opinion, that TESLA is not the only one out there with a solution that works.

I‘m an investor in TSLA since the IPO and customer since 2009 (forgot to mention the Roadster Sig Edition). I follow the stock and the firm very closely. I think it would add to the discussion to also let critical voices to be heard. This board has become more and more one sided. Not every critical voice is a troll. I have been around here longer than most of you, meaning I see when things change.
Yes and while I‘m at it, the service issues here in Switzerland are real and not acceptable. Europe is a different beast, and the Californian way might just be a cul de sac. PM me if you‘d want to hear first hand experience.

 

[CaliBear1]

Phone, audio, and navigation information in front of the passenger??? What good is that?

It's like an old F-14 Tomcat. You need a RIO to operate the Taycan. A bit inefficient in this day and age. ;-)

 

[Cyrusis]

Tesla and Walmart have seemingly reached an agreement and dropped the lawsuits.

Dana Hull ‍ on Twitter

Considering this hurt the stock price by a large amount, I'd imagine the news will be quite bullish.

 

[Cyrusis]

 

[-=buzz=-]

The way I understood it, or any reasonable person would, is taking responsibility for fires that start in and around their solar equipment, which is their roofs - and that doesn't seem very unreasonable. Obviously this does not include fires from their kitchen or check out machines.

But Tesla's lawyer explicitly called out the demand for liability for all fires unrelated to the actual cause.
So apparently it wasn't a "reasonable" kind of request.
Or do you assume they still misunderstood that part of the request after negotiating this issue for months?

 

[SPadival]

However we slice and dice it, this will be seen as a failure by Tesla to make this deal work with Walmart. Tesla should have bent over backwards to make this work, in return for some very positive customer feedback. An endorsement from Walmart would be much more valuable than any number of advts, or Elon's tweets.

At this rate, we will have a crow supply pwoblem

Walmart, Tesla look to address issues surrounding solar systems - Reuters

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Interesting to see that neither VW-news nor Walmart-Tesla agreement have a significant positive affect on SP.

 

[Ocelot]

OT

Oh please let VW partner with tesla ..and make this electric.
(Currently for ethical reasons , (dieselgate) cannot buy an Audi....though this would be it)
2020 Audi RS 6 Avant is Coming to Canada

 

[Foghat]

Interesting to see that neither VW-news nor Walmart-Tesla agreement have a significant positive affect on SP.

Because the headline “Walmart backs out of lawsuit realizing they’d lose” is too long and people don’t read anymore.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

The Reuters article about Walmart and Tesla coming to some kind of peace reads like Tesla has caved - no mention of Tesla's grievances, only Walmart's claims, and mentions safety and reliability etc. It can easily construed however the shorts like to distort it.

I would actually rather that they destroyed Walmart in court, than to sweep it under the rug. This way Walmart (and the shorts) win, even if it's a smaller victory than they hoped for.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I can't see how a long term partnership with Tesla is in the interest of VW. They can't be dependent on Tesla, a competitor, if they want to compete in the EV market. I don't think any OEM now thinks competing in EV market is optional. It would have made sense 5 years back, may be.

What might actually interest VW is buying out Tesla. Then, they get the technology which they can use to electrify all their brands and models. But that would not interest Musk.

What might be of interest to Tesla is to provide sub-assemblies like they did for Toyota and Merc. Even this is iffy - as we know battery is the bottleneck. What might really interest Tesla is a large injection of capital which would help them to expand faster. So, a 10% stake for a substantial premium over the current SP might be of interest (say $6B at 50% premium). But, it would be better if that stake comes from someone else - like Apple.

BTW, I think it is more likely FCA would tie up with Tesla for technology help than VW. FCA has no electrification plans to speak of and are much more vulnerable in a recession. But I doubt they have the money to get a 10% stake in Tesla.

VW purchasing Tesla shares could just be a wealth management play for the families that own VW. If they think Tesla will be successful why wouldn't they want to own some of it?

 

[Prunesquallor]

OT

Oh please let VW partner with tesla ..and make this electric.
(Currently for ethical reasons , (dieselgate) cannot buy an Audi....though this would be it)
2020 Audi RS 6 Avant is Coming to Canada

A few design changes may be in order.

 

[LJS22]

The Reuters article about Walmart and Tesla coming to some kind of peace reads like Tesla has caved - no mention of Tesla's grievances, only Walmart's claims, and mentions safety and reliability etc. It can easily construed however the shorts like to distort it.

I would actually rather that they destroyed Walmart in court, than to sweep it under the rug. This way Walmart (and the shorts) win, even if it's a smaller victory than they hoped for.

Going to court drags this in the news longer. I’d like to see Tesla win the case too but this is the reasonable approach. Maybe Walmart will be buying into more of Tesla’s energy services and give them a chance to show off their new sector.

 

[hobbes]

Interesting to see that neither VW-news nor Walmart-Tesla agreement have a significant positive affect on SP.

I´m waiting for US market to open before jumping to conclusions here...

 

[Cobbler]

A few design changes may be in order.
View attachment 445420 View attachment 445421

I'm betting that the big grills in the front will remain so that they can offer the same model with a BEV and FCEV driveline so the big air-intake will have its purpose again.

When you're short on battery capacity, have already made partnerships for FCEV drivelines with Hyundai & BMW, and you need zero emission vehicles,... This is their way to go. Provide an e-tron, g-tron, h-tron version of the same model

Less known:
The irony with the current FCEV solution is that the required proton membrane performance drops because of air pollution. Hence the big air filters. The nasty small particles that 'clean diesel' still emits, gets through the filters (and also in our lungs), bonds with the surface area on the catalyst and the efficiency/performance drops after a while.
(Almost like smokers lungs)

Germany is one of the biggest importers of natural gas in the world. And a lot of companies would gladly convert a part of it into hydrogen.

The H2 mobility lobbiest already spit out fake studies how hydrogen vehicles are considered cleaner than BEV vehicles.

I remain skeptical.

 

[SPadival]

The Reuters article about Walmart and Tesla coming to some kind of peace reads like Tesla has caved - no mention of Tesla's grievances, only Walmart's claims, and mentions safety and reliability etc. It can easily construed however the shorts like to distort it.

I would actually rather that they destroyed Walmart in court, than to sweep it under the rug. This way Walmart (and the shorts) win, even if it's a smaller victory than they hoped for.

Tesla’s main grievance is that panels haven’t been re-energised after safety inspection. That is addressed in the statement. Also, Tesla will lose money until the panels start producing electricity.


“re-energizing Tesla solar installations at Walmart stores, once all parties are certain that all concerns have been addressed.”

 

[traxila]

The Reuters article about Walmart and Tesla coming to some kind of peace reads like Tesla has caved - no mention of Tesla's grievances, only Walmart's claims, and mentions safety and reliability etc. It can easily construed however the shorts like to distort it.

I would actually rather that they destroyed Walmart in court, than to sweep it under the rug. This way Walmart (and the shorts) win, even if it's a smaller victory than they hoped for.

Never seen you put a good spin on anything. If this was still going on you would have commented how bad it is for this to drag out in court.

I know, I know, you are a truly concerned Diehard Tesla fan with copious shares owned.

 

[Fact Checking]

The Reuters article about Walmart and Tesla coming to some kind of peace reads like Tesla has caved - no mention of Tesla's grievances, only Walmart's claims, and mentions safety and reliability etc. It can easily construed however the shorts like to distort it.

Tesla is between a rock and a hard place: do they want years of solar FUD until this lawsuit unfolds, their lawyers attacking one of their large customers via legal filings - or come to an amicable settlement?

The shorts will spin even positive news negatively, that's nothing new - and the replies of the Tesla lawyers are in the public record now, for any journalist who wants to report impartially.

I would actually rather that they destroyed Walmart in court, than to sweep it under the rug. This way Walmart (and the shorts) win, even if it's a smaller victory than they hoped for.

So this depends on Walmart - unless there's something more to this that wasn't reported so far, Walmart's position looks weak - but it's not good optics for Tesla to sue a large customer - and they'd have to counter-sue for breach of contract.

Anyway, none of this is Tesla's doing - Walmart either wants to create a stink or they don't want to - Tesla will have to adjust their strategy to whatever Walmart decides to do. They don't have the degree of freedom to make this go away unless Walmart wants that too.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Reuters out with a joint statement by Tesla and Walmart

Walmart, Tesla look to address issues surrounding solar systems - Reuters

That statement doesn't sound like Tesla is coming from a position of strength. If they were there would have been an independent statement from Tesla stating how difficult Walmart has been and they hope Walmart will pull their head in.