Just got done reading transcript from the earnings call. Some thoughts and feelings I got after reading between the lines.
- Elon has no plans of putting Tesla in “autopilot” he’s that kid in school that only functions when he’s working on something last minute. Tesla will continue to live on the edge because in some sick way that urgency to meet deadlines, deliver cars, build up production is a rush that makes everything work.
- this will continue to frustrate investors as we are nearing a time when it would seem so easy to relax, focus on what is making money and just keep putting out profitable quarters. However, that’s boring. Most of us invested in this because there is this belief that the company can change the world. I firmly believe only one man is capable of seeing that through so I’m willing to ride this roller coaster to the end.
- the last minute urgency Musk operates in is seemingly how he views our chance of beating global warming, it’s that sense of urgency that we all need to be part of.
Slightly exaggerated: the more innovation and rapid evolution is required, the harder it will be for putative rivals-without-a-mission to simply throw money around and scale. I prefer Elon and his team of extraordinary engineers to have some medium-heavy lifting to do. And yes, without a good challenge Tesla will lose Elon.
I do not suggest this is something he’ll do. I am positive that as an operator of Falcon and Gulfstream he is acutely aware of how hidebound the industry is today. The majority of SpaceX Hawthorne engineers had origin with Northrop, McD/Douglas, Hughes etc. Those people knew tradition and successfully upended with SpaceX.
Fascinating. Smart old hands given a challenge and scary decision-making powers.
Honestly, I'm not sure I want to tell at this point
It's market cap is 3 1/2 orders of magnitude smaller than Tesla's, averages one trade every day or so, and you guys could ruin my cost basis while I'm still acquiring.
First principles. Glad to hear such thoughts "being mulled", this is one direction I've been researching a bit. If Ni remains the cells' main material input, how would an Elon go about pushing prices down once gains from automation, chemistry, and scaling demand outsize efforts for diminishing returns? What critics fail to grasp is that Tesla is a literally technically-minded problem-solving juggernaut.
Quote/ Tesla will determine the battery purchase volume between July 2020 and June 2022, according to its own needs, CATL said in a stock exchange filing, adding the agreement does not impose restrictions on Tesla's purchase volume. /Unquote
Quote extraordinary. I presume TESLA and CATL have shared their thoughts on what the upper and lower bounds will be.
This is when I imagine many automotive executives exhaling in expletives, ideally sounding like Chrisjen Avasarala played by Shohreh Aghdashloo. How are they supposed to fulfill their EV quotas in China without paying through their nose for cells?
Just you wait when the big boy muscles in...