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

[canoemore]

I suggest it’s the company you keep.

Nobody I generally interact with says one disparaging word about Tesla. I choose to surround myself with intelligent, common sense people, who respect each other.

Of course it might be the T-shirt I wear that says: If you say one disparaging word about Tesla, I use the machete in my hand.



Meh. There’s always been people in financial jeopardy and there’s always been angry, upset people. Now there’s a few more.



Meh. Their attitudes are largely formed of their own making, in some case exacerbated by loudmouth media, politicians and the like. But make no mistake, they were like that long before they watched Fox news et al..



Meh. My BIL’s opinion is of no consequence to me and he knows better than to open his mouth in front of me to talk trash anything or anyone of importance to me.



Then they can go you know what themselves. That’s like me saying I need you to give me money to say truthful things about you, otherwise I’ll go around spouting lies and nonsense.

You going to give me money? No, I didn’t think so. And don’t think for a second I’m not resourceful enough to make your life miserable if I so desired - so that you somehow aren’t under the impression that the media by virtue of an existing audience alone can do harm, while an individual can’t. Oh, yes an individual can: Elon Musk.

What prevents a lot of people from being dicks are things like morals and ethics. The media profession just happens to attract its fair share of dicks.



Nope. My eggs are in the TSLA basket, which now includes 50,000ish people worldwide. By association that also includes the hundreds of thousands of people those employees know. It includes Elon Musk and his millions of Twitter followers and the millions more people they know. The basket includes Chinese people and soon a bunch of German people. See where this is going?

The basket is getting pretty big.

I agree with @Krugerrand 's sentiment, and would offer a pithy summary of my thinking: They'll like us when we win.

 

[Krugerrand]

I've been thinking about it for months. Unfortunately, that would be taken out of proportion and blown out for days by you know who.

Probably, yes.

Funny, not funny that question was posed as a negative worse case scenario instead of a positive: What might happen to TSLA when the launch is successful?

Yeah, humans just continue to love to drum up the absolute worst outcome possible from a try.

It’s okay to think about what could go wrong and reasonably plan for that - which I’m quite sure SpaceX has done. But the whole, ‘OMG! What will happen if it blows up???

Answer: Some people who knew the risk they were taking, died. No more, no less. Those people will be missed by their family and friends and life goes on; SpaceX trues again.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Hi @Jackl1956 ,

A lot of people disagreed with your OP - no shame in that though. The case in support of your suggestion, I think, is NOT for "fanboys". It's for the mainstream buyers who aren't excited by Elon's polarizing tweets (which they don't see anyway). A set of short ads for things like:

• Tesla's are the safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA. By far. Safer for you and your children and grandchildren than any other car on the road.
• Tesla's don't pollute at all. (video of person whiffing away burning oil as a truck pulls from a stop light, and clean Tesla revealed behind pulling away cleanly)
• Tesla's never need oil changes, mufflers, spark plugs, or (typically) brake jobs. Ever. In fact, there is no regular maintenance schedule. At all.
• Tesla's can come and get you in a shopping mall (video of Model S or X pulling up and presenting door, and woman inserting her shopping bags in the frunk)
• Tesla's can be driven in the rain. And sleet, And snow. Etc. (video of Tesla navigating past a stuck 2WD)
• Press a button and say:
  • "Drive to the closest Starbucks"
  • "Play 'Elton John' or "Play '70s disco'"
  • "Turn wipers to low" or "Set climate to 72" or "Set driver's seat to level 2" (video of the seat heater display changing levels)
  • "Text Sam"

No need to promote:

• Performance
• Wheels and accessories
• Market cap

In other words, Tesla has done a fantastic job of appealing especially to males age 20-60 (I'm generalizing of course). They have done a terrible job appealing to over half the other demographics in the world. Advertising would help, once, of course, they make fewer cars than they can sell, which we haven't reached yet.

Thanks, Jack.

You forgot one more: if Tesla ever starts advertising in the US - there’s no need at the moment - they should make a commercial about the fact that they are producing the ‘most American’ car:

- Highest percentage of US built parts.
- Highest percentage of US labor (not North American, as that includes Mexico).
- Most American powered car. Not powered by foreign oil, which makes the US dependent on middle eastern dictatorships and worsens the trade balance, but powered by home made electricity).

‘Buy a Tesla, the most patriotic thing to do!’

I’m sure it would be an eye-opener for a lot of uninformed haters.

 

[StealthP3D]

OT

Um, no not correct.

Mercury - launch escape system (tractor rocket)
Gemini - ejection seats (probably a bit dicey)
Apollo - launch escape system (tractor rocket)
Space Shuttle - ejection seats on early test flights (probably dicey), “intact abort” landings (engine out), bailout (probably dicey). Obviously insufficient.
Orion - launch escape (tractor rocket)
All Soviet/Russian and Chinese spacecraft employed launch escape systems (tractor rockets)

Dragon (and Starliner) are unique in that they use integral “pusher rockets”.

Did any of those ejection systems ever perform correctly and do their intended job of saving lives?

Because I remember the helpless Space Shuttle astronauts falling to their deaths and (was it Mercury or Apollo?) astronauts burning to their deaths because of a small fire in the capsule before launch. Space flight has never been particularly safe.

 

[Nocturnal]

China scraps vehicle purchase tax for all NEVs - Global Times

China on Wednesday scrapped the vehicle purchase tax on new-energy vehicles (NEV), effective in 2021 and 2022, in its latest efforts to lift car consumption in China, especially NEVs, at a time when the coronavirus epidemic has squeezed demand.

The new policy was announced by three government departments including the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration.

China has already scrapped the 10 percent vehicle purchase tax on a number of new-energy vehicles before, including some popular models like Tesla's Model 3s. It broadened the scope of cars applicable for the tax exemption to all NEVs this time.

[...]​

China is becoming increasingly tired of the petrol states holding that dagger over their head.

‘Buy a Tesla, the most patriotic thing you can do!’

I’m sure it would be an eye-opener for a lot of uninformed haters.

I would tend to agree but the kind of people who think that Tesla is an evil foreign liberal car company or an elitist rich guy scam company are not swayed by facts. ​

 

[LN1_Casey]

Do y'all think they're going to announce the Battery Day on the ER day?

 

[JRP3]

About AI and Stop signs:
Once FSD recognizes that it should stop at an intersection weather there is a stop sign or not then I think the stop sign problem has been solved.

There are plenty of intersections without stop signs so that doesn't work.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Did any of those ejection systems ever perform correctly and do their intended job of saving lives?

Because I remember the helpless Space Shuttle astronauts falling to their deaths and (was it Mercury or Apollo?) astronauts burning to their deaths because of a small fire in the capsule before launch. Space flight has never been particularly safe.

None of the US launches ever suffered a launch failure that required the as-designed escape system to save the crew.

The Russians have had to do it twice, once off the pad and once during ascent.

The Shuttle designers thought they could rely on system reliability/redundancy to land the whole Orbiter safely (albeit possibly at an overseas landing site) in case of failures. The Challenger and Columbia accidents were outside their planning.

The Apollo 1 fire was during a spacecraft test, not launch. But in any case, the fire was inside the capsule, so a launch abort system would not have saved the crew.

 

[pyromatter]

 

[Curt Renz]

Reuters - this afternoon: U.S. auto sales begin recovery from March coronavirus drop: J.D. Power analysts

 

[Curt Renz]

Link to the note: BofA downgrades Tesla to sell on valuation after recet rally TSLA - The Fly

Target drop from $500 to $485,
US premarket price down 0.25%.

Below is a link to the abysmal TipRanks rating given to BofA (nee Bank of America Merrill Lynch) analyst John Murphy.

https://www.tipranks.com/analysts/john-murphy

 

[smorgasbord]

Pulled this from Karpathy's presentation referenced upthread. Here's an algorithm for FSD software development:

Init new layer of annotation: CAUTION_LIGHTS (LANDMARK)
Label a seed set of images
Develop a seed set of unit tests
Train network head on current data
while QA does not sign off:
    while unit tests fail:
        Deploy a trigger to source more images in failing scenarios
        Label resulting images
        Retrain network on data
        Enrich/grow set of unit tests
    Deploy to run on the FSD computer
    (Optional) Deploy to the fleet in shadow mode
    Collect telemetry and evaluate the performance of the feature
Ship feature

And, of course, here's the new chart of S3XY CARS, using the first letter of all current and known future Tesla vehicles:

Although the ATV probably isn't real.

 

[MP3Mike]

Although the ATV probably isn't real.

Elon has said that the ATV is real and will be an available option for Cybertruck purchasers.

 

[willow_hiller]

Elon has said that the ATV is real and will be an available option for Cybertruck purchasers.

In Karpathy's presentation, he says the ATV was presented "somewhat jokingly." But I wouldn't put it past Elon to turn something originally made jokingly into reality given public demand.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Sudden jump from 708 to 722. Any news?

 

[adiggs]

Tesla's never need oil changes, mufflers, spark plugs, or (typically) brake jobs. Ever. In fact, there is no regular maintenance schedule. At all.

One terribly minor quibble. Like all cars, Teslas do need SOME regular maintenance. Namely, tires need to be changed periodically (and my experience in 8 years of driving Teslas, the tire changes are more frequent - must be all that torque and my joy of darting away from stop lights).

And wiper blades. At least Model X has special wiper blades that dispense the wiper fluid from the blade body - can't be found at automotive parts stores, and are going to cost me $85 to get them swapped.


So there is regular maintenance. It's just infrequent and really minor, and consistent with regular stuff other cars would need.

 

[Compton]

Tesla still doesn't have a consumer-facing method to detect speed limits using cameras. The assumption has been that this is due to Mobileye having a patent for camera based speed limit detection. Does someone know (or do everyone but me know) how they are going to solve this given that the patent expires in September 2030? It seems kinda necessary for FSD which elon was expecting to be in working order by the end of this year.

 

[davecolene0606]

Reuters - this afternoon: U.S. auto sales begin recovery from March coronavirus drop: J.D. Power analysts

Recovery based on subprime loans coupled with give away rates and $1.3 Trillion of debt backed by questionable asset value makes a body wonder. The article appears to be written to put some bright red glossy lipstick on a pig.

Fire Away!

"It's STILL the batteries, Stupid"

 

[jerry33]

Tesla still doesn't have a consumer-facing method to detect speed limits using cameras. The assumption has been that this is due to Mobileye having a patent for camera based speed limit detection. Does someone know (or do everyone but me know) how they are going to solve this given that the patent expires in September 2030? It seems kinda necessary for FSD which elon was expecting to be in working order by the end of this year.

Usually there are ways around those kind of patents. Or they can get the patent nullified because it's obvious.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Here’s a funny sign in my town. Car comes to an abrupt emergency stop since the update, gets very confused. Just an example of the many weird corner cases

Dude, ur cars brakes for GUN SHOPS?!