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

[Khamul]

Dunno if this is true or not but.....one more reason to love Elon:

I'm pretty sure it's for real. Elon is following the NSF guy who first tweeted about it, and he's met Austin Barnard, who's done a lot of photographing and stuff of the Boca Chica site.

 

[Rohan]

All of the models assume that Tesla solves robotaxi first and that we don't have any competition. What if 1) we aren't first 2) we aren't best 3) we have multiple deep pocket competitors. Too soon to crown a winner when the race has just started. Also, the models put big multiples on profits. Elon has stated that the RT software will be a commodity in ten years. If it was patentable, I'd feel better about paying $150B for it. I don't think it is.

Plenty of aspects of the RT implementation that will be patentable, including software aspects.

 

[CorneliusXX]

This one confuses me a bit too.

There's only a few hundred thousand taxi and limo drivers in the entire US right now.

Nobody needs, or wants, "millions" of robotaxis here.


Maybe, worldwide, there's like 4 millionish taxis.... but like 2/3rds are in India or other less developed countries where there's no superchargers and no Tesla presence at all... plus China- where both the fleet and the supercharger network will need a LOT more buildup to replace taxis.


Here in the US there's already more Teslas on the road than demand for taxis- let alone future sales between now and when robotaxis are actually ready.

I think it's not really fair to compare the current number of taxis/Ubers etc. to the number of potential robotaxis that would be required once electric autonomy is solved. There are 2 main reasons for this 1) price and as a follow on 2) availability

If the numbers are correct the cost to run an electric robotaxi will be around 10%-20% of current people driven taxis due to a reduction in fuel costs, salaries and maintenance. Suddenly when an individual is making their next vehicle purchase decision they will have an alternative that works for them financially - leading to far more people wanting to travel by robotaxi. Additionally, there are people that would use their cars more but don't because of the cost of fuel and time. Cheaper robotaxis will driver overall demand for transport miles.

In terms of availability, at the moment it doesn't make financial sense for an expensive taxi with high overheads to operate in areas with infrequent demand for trips because they won't cover their overhead and the price they need to charge is expensive enough that it dissuades potential customers from using taxis in the first place. The lower price will move that equation to a point where more customers will prefer to take a robotaxi which in turn makes the robotaxi company able to charge less as their utilisation goes up.

So a better comparison is what is the % of transport miles that a cheap robotaxi makes sense for. At a price of 10%-20% of current transport options the answer is a lot, and at the same time the total pie of transport miles is increasing.

 

[CorneliusXX]

All of that plus Elon has put more pressure on the Russians then the president has. He has robbed them of oil money, rocket engine money, space transportation money and more.

While Elon has not received a lot of unusual government help. But he is Worth every penny. If space becomes military, Elon’s value to the government will not be measurable. Just like if he developes L5 FSD.

Agreed, while we have the current democratic system which decides where tax dollars are spent we are always going to have mountains of pork. Where better to put it than solving global warming.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Pretty sure the WSJ subscribes to @Curt Renz 's TMC feed:

"How Robinhood Is Shaking Up Stock Trading" | WSJ (8:13)

Cheers!

 

[ZachF]

IMO Tesla will be first or 2nd.

But more importantly they will probably have the cheapest fleet cost, the largest fleet, and the most rapid ramp up.

Add they will be able to add 1M Robo-taxi capable cars to the fleet each year.

For competitor the following questions are relevant:-
1) Where are they getting the fleet?
2) How quickly can they scale?
3) How will the fleet be financed?
4) What are they doing about charging, insurance and cleaning.

For Tesla there is one simple question:-
1) What are you doing about cleaning?

The operating costs of a 1m mile robotaxi EV are stupid low. If self-driving happens everything changes real quick.

$40,000 amortized over a million miles is 4 cents per mile.
Electricity costs are 3 cents per mile.... at residential electricity prices. A fleet operator could buy at lower commercial or industrial rates.
If we assume maintenance is half of the amortized capital costs we're now up to 8 cents per mile.

Note, that's less than just the fuel cost of an ICE vehicle!

I always file self-driving under the 'black swan' category and don't include it at all in my valuations, because I think people don't know really how much work it will take to make it work... but when it does, everything changes. 1 Robotaxi EV could take the equivalent of 5-10 ICE automobiles off the road. Tesla easily, instantly, becomes a $1T+ company when/if this happens.

If a robotaxi EV service costs $0.25 per mile (which I think is easily achievable with 1m mile EVs), how many people are going to bother with owning a car? ....especially young people?

 

[Unpilot]

There's only a few hundred thousand taxi and limo drivers in the entire US right now.

How Many Uber Drivers Are There?.

That's the Market.

 

[ZachF]

How Many Uber Drivers Are There?.

That's the Market.

The market for robotaxis and Uber is not even comparable.

The operating cost of a million-mile robotaxi will literally be more than an order of magnitude lower than a human-driven ICE vehicle.

 

[Unpilot]

The market for robotaxis and Uber is not even comparable.

The operating cost of a million-mile robotaxi will literally be more than an order of magnitude lower than a human-driven ICE vehicle.

I agree.
I was pointing out the idea that just a few hundred thousand taxis is not comparable to the potential for Robotaxi's.

 

[Beezer_9]

Good morning

 

[jerry33]

Robo-taxis will displace some public transport use, and some private car use.

In theory each Robo-taxi takes up to 10 private cars off the road...but the number of trips take in Robo-taxis will be much higher.

My expectation is that the ten private cars that Robo-taxis will replace are mainly going to be older ICE cars with questionable maintenance. This will be a good thing.

 

[Singuy]

Pretty sure the WSJ subscribes to @Curt Renz 's TMC feed:

"How Robinhood Is Shaking Up Stock Trading" | WSJ (8:13)

Cheers!

Was going to move off Robinhood due to their server crash. The app is so sweet I decided to stay. It's scary to have 7 figures in an app mainly used by wsb autists.

 

[H Mak]

I wonder what will happen once Q3 is finished and Tesla posts their first profit ex-credits, because for the first time ever they will have had 2 factories both operating at full capacity. And then in less than 2 years, they will have doubled the number of factories to 4.

But I guess this is falling into the trap of "Tesla is a CAR COMPANY and should be VALUED LIKE ONE!" though, so that's probably the next goalpost movement that's coming up.

I wonder what my TSLA will be worth once Tesla is getting revenues from 4 factories. Hopefully a little more, my portfolio is not quite at the stage where I can think about retiring yet so maybe a little more share price appreciation would help me out.

I have a back-of-a-fag-packet ready reckoner. It's not scientific, it's not accurate, it's not verifiable, it's full of holes and it only includes vehicles, but I use it as a ball park estimate of value. You could call it my Adam Jonas model. 4 factories, 500,000 vehicles p.a. per factory, net profit per vehicle $4,000, P/E ratio 50 = market value $400bn. Or approximately 50% higher than today.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

View attachment 574104
Good morning

Another Canadian Cybertruck order. Wonder what the ratio is?

 

[ZachF]

Was going to move off Robinhood due to their server crash. The app is so sweet I decided to stay. It's scary to have 7 figures in an app mainly used by wsb autists.

I think Elon should eventually use Starlink to make an off-world global 24/7 stock/commodity/etc exchange

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I see lots of talk about robotaxis etc suggesting level 5 autonomy. I’m one of those who use FSD all the time, even in the city and find it both useful and even adding a layer of safety. But interventions are common and constant. Incremental improvements are regular though with each software update...most of the time anyway. But I’m curious if people are expecting some kind of big jump soon or before the end of 2020 (less than 5 months away). At the present rate of incremental improvements I would think even a level three experience is years away. I’m finding it hard to believe a level 5 robotaxi capability is anywhere close with the existing sensors and software platform. Is there some kind of new platform coming that I have missed the news on?

Sorry. Not up on this autonomy stuff.

 

[Tslynk67]

Could we discuss likely scenarios for S&P inclusion?

We can expect the various players to look after their own interests. The behavior of one party may have an effect on another party.

Once the announcement is there, sellers instantly want more for their chairs. Preferably the most. A squeeze is what they will like best. they will want to sell at the peak.

MMs will prefer to have multiple peaks. They know when they manipulate so they know that the SP going down is their own doing. They will scare sellers who think it is the peak to jump ship.

I would expect index funds to do dollar cost averaging. They could take advantage of an induced price drop, but if they are too eager there isn’t much of a price drop. So, I expect them to stick to their strategy.

this allows the MMs to allow the price to go up again. Now, will they let the peak price go higher than the previous peak? I’d think they would make the second peak lower and the third peak higher than the first one. The second peak is to shake out those that gambled that the first peak would be higher and Now have an opportunity to still make a nice profit. The third one to shake out the stubborn sellers that can pride themselves in getting a bit more out of it.

But what do I know.

Knowing our luck, the S&P will announce inclusion as of next Friday, but then add that they gave the heads-up to the funds immediately after the earnings call and they all acquired what they needed already.

Imagine how annoying that would be...

 

[gabeincal]

I see lots of talk about robotaxis etc suggesting level 5 autonomy. I’m one of those who use FSD all the time, even in the city and find it both useful and even adding a layer of safety. But interventions are common and constant. Incremental improvements are regular though with each software update...most of the time anyway. But I’m curious if people are expecting some kind of big jump soon or before the end of 2020 (less than 5 months away). At the present rate of incremental improvements I would think even a level three experience is years away. I’m finding it hard to believe a level 5 robotaxi capability is anywhere close with the existing sensors and software platform. Is there some kind of new platform coming that I have missed the news on?

Sorry. Not up on this autonomy stuff.

I think a full rewrite of the software is happening right as we speak.

 

[PeterJA]

I see lots of talk about robotaxis etc suggesting level 5 autonomy. I’m one of those who use FSD all the time, even in the city and find it both useful and even adding a layer of safety. But interventions are common and constant. Incremental improvements are regular though with each software update...most of the time anyway. But I’m curious if people are expecting some kind of big jump soon or before the end of 2020 (less than 5 months away). At the present rate of incremental improvements I would think even a level three experience is years away. I’m finding it hard to believe a level 5 robotaxi capability is anywhere close with the existing sensors and software platform. Is there some kind of new platform coming that I have missed the news on?

Sorry. Not up on this autonomy stuff.

Yes.
Tesla’s Rebuilt Autopilot Software Coming in Two to Four Months

 

[Tslynk67]

Was going to move off Robinhood due to their server crash. The app is so sweet I decided to stay. It's scary to have 7 figures in an app mainly used by wsb autists.

But those retards sure are funny on Reddit!