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

[TheTalkingMule]

I don't think people realize that even AFTER copying Tesla's homework, VW's ambitions are essentially to....continue to survive as an automaker.

That's a great way to put it. I would argue their ambition is to be a dominant automaker, but their strategy is capping them at survival.

 

[Nocturnal]

I don't think people realize that even AFTER copying Tesla's homework, VW's ambitions are essentially to....continue to survive as an automaker.

I'm just not sure why it's even discussed in the same breath.

That places them in second place with a bullet though. Of course Tesla has lapped them a couple times already, but still.

 

[asburgers]

Now ask yourself why so many P.Eng holders also obtain an M.B.A.

And you're aware that Elon doesn't hold an engineering degree; he has dual undergraduate degrees in physics and economics.

 

[Curt Renz]

Bernie Schaeffer was one of my regular guests on my TV show. He's a sharp guy. Here he offers some reassuring comments regarding interest rates and their effects on Nasdaq stocks: Schaeffer on Bond Yields

Excerpt:

One last caveat to all of the handwringing over interest rates. The table above curated by Schaeffer's Senior Market Strategist Chris Prybal notes the 10-year note rate during the 2008 signal was 3.83%. That puts this two-week tantrum over 1.6% in context, doesn't it? Inflation concerns are of course real, that shouldn't be dissuaded. But with the table above, there's at least some historical precedent behind the assurance that the sky is indeed not falling.

BTW, On Saturday I received my second Moderna Covid vaccine shot at a Veterans Administration clinic. Now less than two weeks before my year of home quarantine ends. Yippee!

 

[JRP3]

You want people to log in this morning and read all the crap that's been dumped here since Friday? That's a not a sustainable user experience.

I often skip pages if I'm far behind but that also means I'm not replying to old conversations. I also don't bother to post something if it's more than a day old assuming it's already been covered.

 

[Krugerrand]

All hail the TechnoKing!

I want to know who The Hand of the king is. That’s the influencer. Of course, when all is said and done it’s The Mother of dragons who has all the power.

 

[Pezpunk]

I want to know who The Hand of the king is. That’s the influencer. Of course, when all is said and done it’s The Mother of dragons who has all the power.

... unless @RobStark gets stabby. (er, spoiler alert)

 

[Dancing Lemur]

Of course, when all is said and done it’s The Mother of dragons who has all the power.

So...Gwynne?

 

[jeewee3000]

I want to know who The Hand of the king is. That’s the influencer. Of course, when all is said and done it’s The Mother of dragons who has all the power.

The Mother of dragons is obviously Gwynne Shotwell.

Edit: @Dancing Lemur beat me to it.

 

[Chenkers]

Depends entirely on the finance guy. But yeah, my bet would be on Jerome.

I'm less sure of this with Jeromes recent position change. He's gone from being president of all automative (presumably including heavy trucks) to just being president of heavy trucks. I would see this as a slight step back into what he's most comfortable with. He's previously taken time out from Tesla and the pace would be relentless so I can understand him wanting to focus on passion projects.

Drew, Zach and Jerome are named as Tesla leadership along with Elon but it's really hard to understand what the pecking order would be below Elon. There would also be a lot of other people presumably all reporting direct to Elon, eg Zhu Xiaotong for China, Karpathy for AP and David Zhang for S3XY models plus many others. Apart from the few we know the rest of the structure seems a bit opaque.

 

[Singuy]

I think the technology in the cells is not VW's to share. That is NorthVolt and QuantumScape tech.

6 40GWh battery cell factories is definably not marketing goals.

The 2nd half of Power Day was mostly about partnerships for charging networks and related fields like BES V2G.

My takeaway from 2nd hour is that Porsche will have an exclusive 350 kW charging network in Europe like the premium Supercharger Stations.

The chargers will be under canopies and their will be resting lounges. With bathrooms and coffee bars I suppose.

Interesting strategy. So they will build fancy charging stations to have them under utilized. Think volkswagen is going off the deep end and forgot how to generate a profit. Think they need more accountants than MBAs.

 

[woodisgood]

That's a great way to put it. I would argue their ambition is to be a dominant automaker, but their strategy is capping them at survival.

Replace "auto" with "widget." Every last one of these automakers, whether old or new, are simply wishing to create widgets and manage to sell them at a profit. And that's great, we need every last one of them because the clock is ticking. And yes, that story of survival for VW or GM and the journey of all of these upstart companies is fascinating or important when you put yourself in the automotive box.

But then people seem to get confused and start thinking Tesla is simply [another] maker of widgets as well. All you have to do is step back and ask yourself in the history books, who will have contributed the most to humanity? It's fairly clear that the answer to that question for every single automaker except for Tesla is "They sold X number of cars over Y years." Again, no small feat but it pales in comparison to what Tesla is aiming for and accomplishing.

At the end of the day the pawns are pawns and only the king and queen move in all directions.

 

[Nocturnal]

I suspect the employees that worked for him when he was CEO of an automaker cared.

Now ask yourself why so many P.Eng holders also obtain an M.B.A.

And you're aware that Elon doesn't hold an engineering degree; he has dual undergraduate degrees in physics and economics.

My weekend MBA program was chock full of engineers. Smart folks but they needed my help with their Economics homework. Intuitively and based on my professional career it seems that starting off technical and then learning the business side is a better approach than attempting the opposite.

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

I thought there would be more support at $700 on the way back down.

 

[lascavarian]

I don't think people realize that even AFTER copying Tesla's homework, VW's ambitions are essentially to....continue to survive as an automaker.

I'm just not sure why it's even discussed in the same breath.

This is not the message I got. This was not VW auto day, it was Power Day. Diess started off saying e-mobility has won. I took this as a complete capitulation of ICE. E-mobility has won and he is pleased with the VW design platform they have (MEB I guess and prismatic cells). He then focused on how VW can become a world player in battery power etc. Very little about automobiles etc as I saw it.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

It's my understanding the center-left Greens made some pretty good progress in the regional German elections last week. This could mean the policy of holding back the energy transition could be lifted soon. Does this also mean the VW's of the world will get pushed to transition more rapidly?

Merkel is a supporter of renewables/EVs in general, but quite rationally threw some water on the fire just as it was heating up in 2016. Maybe we'll see energy storage take hold there in a similar fashion to what we've seen in Australia. God knows the German grid could use it.

In general the greens in Europe has one major goal and that is to stop nuclear power. Damn the consequences. Cars in general is considered bad including EVs. Even though EVs are less bad they are still bad so the goal is to get rid of all cars, not give benefits that makes people buy more.

I see any green influence in Europe as generally bad for EVs.

 

[woodisgood]

This is not the message I got. This was not VW auto day, it was Power Day. Diess started off saying e-mobility has won. I took this as a complete capitulation of ICE. E-mobility has won and he is pleased with the VW design platform they have (MEB I guess and prismatic cells). He then focused on how VW can become a world player in battery power etc. Very little about automobiles etc as I saw it.

Fine, auto plus a dabble of energy, because you kind of need to have a plan with respect to energy if you’re making an EV. Let’s call it Widget+.

Still an order of magnitude “yesterday” in scope and vision compared to the combination of auto/energy/SaaS/AI that Tesla is developing at scale.

 

[Yuha]

Finance guy running an engineering firm, bad idea.

Zach actually studied in a dual degree program that combined Economics with Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. I suspect that Elon is not letting Zach lose touch with the engineering side.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I thought there would be more support at $700 on the way back down.

Support isn't at $700; it's at the mid-BB:

BTW, this is real progress because last week the mid-BB was the resistance level.

If we can hold the mid-BB through the lunch-lull (and vol doesn't collapse), we may have something to build upon.

As @Curt Renz told us earlier today, inflation fears as embodied in the 10-yr T-bill yield are starting to dissipate.

Cheers!

 

[lascavarian]

Still an order of magnitude “yesterday” in scope and vision compared to the combination of auto/energy/SaaS/AI that Tesla is developing at scale.

Absolutely, Tesla has been saying directly, "Follow us". VW is agreeing with them it seemed to me.