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

[EVMeister]

Literally other than that one possible issue the only reason I know of to not get the Y is the price difference between it and the 3.

Or the fact some people prefer smaller vehicles that aren't compact SUVs?

 

[Chenkers]

OK it's time for a WAG

My Wild Ass Guess is that despite Tesla on the Earnings Call not forecasting fast progress for the 4680 battery cell production they are ready and impatient to ramp up and just need a factory to do it in.

The reasoning behind my WAG: The steel work for the north western part of Giga Texas - where the 4680 cells will be made - has been put up in record time. Much faster than the steel work for the rest of the factory. And this is true for flooring and roofing for this part too.

Just as if they had a breakthrough. And suddenly the cell factory couldn't be built fast enough.

So I believe they need this part of the factory as soon as possible. Work on this part of the factory could have started much earlier - but for some reason it had not. Until the workers started putting up steel work in plaid mode.
Now it looks like this part of the factory has top priority. Just as if Tesla finally figured out how to make the batteries and decided they need the cell factory NOW.

Another item in support of this is from today's Jeff Roberts video. In the new Bobcat area (rumoured battery cathode plant) they haven't even finished leveling or laying out gravel and they've already started doing geopier work for column footings! This is much faster than anywhere else in the build and shows how in a hurry they are to get the 4680 batteries produced.

 

[NooB_cat]

So, based on typical Friday performance targeting best price for MMs, I'm expected the share price to land in the 680-682 range at the end of day close.
Market looking good so far so tailwinds there potentially. Some resistance expected from the 50 day MA around 681 level

Am I wrong?! I'm calling it, let's see!

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

How licensing FSD software may work and at the same time build brand loyalty and Tesla's bottom line:

1. Make the license available to purchase even if you don't currently own a Tesla vehicle.
a. Consumers not ready to purchase a vehicle but interested in locking in FSD at the current price can buy now.
b. Each purchase would come with a profile at tesla.com to manage your Tesla account.
c. Tesla gets paid to build a marketing database listing consumers very likely to buy a vehicle in the future in addition to other Tesla products.
d. Software license sales add to Tesla's bottom line; unconstrained by vehicle supply.
e. Refines the business of FSD license sales for use in future third party vehicles.

2. FSD is licensed conditionally to the individual and the first vehicle they apply the license to. Transfers to future Tesla vehicles or new owners upon the sale of the original vehicle may be done with a license transfer fee, i.e. 10% of the current FSD price.
a. Maintains promise of getting the full capability of FSD with consideration for what was paid into the program.
b. Current Tesla vehicle owners are less apprehensive to upgrade to new Tesla models like they are now without the ability to transfer FSD.
c. The decision to bring FSD vehicle trade-ins to Tesla loses some negative stigma associated with not getting good value for purchased FSD.
d. Tesla gets paid on the private and third party dealership transfer of Tesla vehicles every time new owners want an FSD feature.

3. Consumers with multiple Tesla vehicles would still pay for multiple licenses if they want FSD on more than one vehicle.
a. Continues a clean business plan of one license/one vehicle for development cost/risk.
b. They can afford it.

Great post: selling FSD without the car, love it!

Logical next step: Sell FSD as an NFT and allow people to buy and trade it freely.
One caveat: There is an activation fee of 10% of current whatever the cost of lifetime FSD the day you activate it in a specific vehicle.

Now, doesn't that leave a lot of money on the table: Why should Tesla sell a lifetime FSD subscription for the low price of 10-15-20K dollars ... ? When it may be worth 100 K$ - or more?

There are wild differences in the way people value FSD, largely because it is hard to value something that doesn't exist - yet. Abstractions are hard, it is easier to believe it when you see it. So, for the price of selling 'cheap' FSD tokens, Tesla can quickly discover and adjust the price of FSD in the future.

Remember that even if Tesla sells, I don't know 10s or even 100.000 of FSD tokens, it is still nothing compared to the 50-100 million FSD capable cars we expect to see, cumulatively, over the next decade. So, even the wild idea of selling 100.000 FSD NFT tokens is still only around .1 per cent of the around 100 million Tesla's we ('we' as in uber bulls) expect to see in 2030 - or at least in 2035, if delays occur.

People will argue that such sale would be pointless because the plan is to do subscriptions soon. Re. price discovery, there are standard models for converting a lifetime cost to a subscription .

The PR-effect of FSD NFT's could be huge: It could really raise awareness of FSD.
It's one thing to talk about massive, radical life-extensions and colonizing the solar system and other future-positive and nerdy issues: for 99.999 % of the population that is just science-fiction nonsense, with no bearing on their actual lives. Now, to witness lots of people suddenly invest their hard-earned money in a real - or soon-to-be real product, with real and transforming importance - that is another thing entirely. It might move sentiment.

Would selling FSD-NFTs still allow Tesla the flexibility of roiling out FSD for as many as possible in a subscription model?
I still think Tesla can maintain operational freedom there. The can still do introduction subscription very cheap (50/100 $/month) for a limited time, without 'hurting' FSD NFT buyers. (Or season-based: Is the Xmas or Thnnksgiving stressing you out with long drives back and forth to visit family: Buy a 'holiday' FSD pack, and rest while being transported.)
Also, for many the robo-taxi potential of earning money is the *big* opportunity. There might be ways for Tesla to sell subscriptions for people not really interested in robotaxi, but stilling willing to pay a medium amount for personal-use-only FSD, without being seen to step on the toes of people buying lifetimes FSD tokens for earning robo-taxi bucks.
And even if Tesla in their future iterations of subsequent changes to FSD policies with regards to subscription models should sometimes step on the toes of FSD tokens holders, that is just how the world is, and should be taken into account when you as an investor choose to invest in something like FSD-tokens: They could be very profitable, for sure, but they are also *risky* because the future of self-driving is yet to be written and unfolded.


TL;DR: FSD NFTs for the win!

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

OK it's time for a WAG

My Wild Ass Guess is that despite Tesla on the Earnings Call not forecasting fast progress for the 4680 battery cell production they are ready and impatient to ramp up and just need a factory to do it in.

The reasoning behind my WAG: The steel work for the north western part of Giga Texas - where the 4680 cells will be made - has been put up in record time. Much faster than the steel work for the rest of the factory. And this is true for flooring and roofing for this part too.

Just as if they had a breakthrough. And suddenly the cell factory couldn't be built fast enough.

So I believe they need this part of the factory as soon as possible. Work on this part of the factory could have started much earlier - but for some reason it had not. Until the workers started putting up steel work in plaid mode.
Now it looks like this part of the factory has top priority. Just as if Tesla finally figured out how to make the batteries and decided they need the cell factory NOW.


And a bonus observation; In Berlin they are digging out one deep pit for heavy duty machinery. In Texas they dug two similar pits. I guess this is while both factories will be making Model Y cars - in Texas they need additional batteries for the Cybertruck and the Semi. So one production line in Berlin - two in Texas.
BTW they have just started making concrete footers in Berlin for their cell factory. In Austin they started with footers for the cell factory area around 1st of March.


Yes - I am watching a lot of drone videos these days...

Yes, 'droning' is one of my hobbies too. And I welcome your observations and hope they are true.

Tiny note of caution: The recent (percieved) pickup in speed in Giga Austin could be just catching up: Weather events such as snow and rain has maybe caused more downtime than anticipated. Also, it may have taken time to get the whole building operation to run smoothly, in the same vein as ramping up a new factory just takes time, because everyone has to learn and iterate not only their own tasks but to coordinate in concert.

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

I’ll just drop this here…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1390474452148887559

Thanks.
Have been watching a lot of streaming standup over recent years. Above are two short clips but still: Wow! The joke-writing and delivery is quite *bad*. Laundry? Whaaaat?

Elon holds his own within the limits of the poor material, but ... just wow. Do people watching only traditional TV know how sad and empty their lives are?

(Who am I kidding, I am going to watch it regardless)

 

[Christine69420]

Yes, 'droning' is one of my hobbies too. And I welcome your observations and hope they are true.

Tiny note of caution: The recent (percieved) pickup in speed in Giga Austin could be just catching up: Weather events such as snow and rain has maybe caused more downtime than anticipated. Also, it may have taken time to get the whole building operation to run smoothly, in the same vein as ramping up a new factory just takes time, because everyone has to learn and iterate not only their own tasks but to coordinate in concert.

Definitely! My Wild Ass Guess implies a truck full of caution.

Edit: I posted my WAG about plaid speed cell factory buildout hoping to put the idea into our common subconscious. Thinking that over time we might find new info going against or confirming my WAG.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Logical next step: Sell FSD as an NFT and allow people to buy and trade it freely.

Great., We haven't successfully incinerated the companies mission for 'accelerating the transition to renewable energy' enough when we bought bitcoin. lets incentivise even more stupid burning of fossil fuels to do wasteful calculations with an NFT! Who cares about climate change anyway., Screw the mission! Doge! Memes!

 

[Drezil]

Watch this video to understand how annoying datetime is in programming.

Spoiler: OT about Computers & why things are hard

Wait until you hear about language... Like the Oghim-space-mark (a "space"-character that is also printable), the dozens of dashes, ligatures & combinations in unicode...
Did you know that when you remove the last characters from the "family with 2 kids"-emoji you delete the kids first and then the parents? Depending on the emoji they also lose their skin-color in the process..
It is basically: family-parent1+family-parent2+kid1+kid2+skin-color. where family-parentX can be male, female, other; same for kids. and the 6(?) different skin-tones..
And you have oddities: you cannot add the male-character to "dancing lady" as this is not a gendered character ..

And yes .. i have to deal with text at work ... and those things suck hard..

 

[lascavarian]

As a TSLA investor, I think one should always focus on the market leader of a new sector. I think SPCE is not a market leader, but barely a follower to SpaceX while targeting a specific niche (tourism).

You are missing the opportunity. SPCE has the ability to deorbit crew and tourist directly to convenient airports Worldwide. Tech still needs work but the opportunity is significant and far far beyond just spacehopper tourism. We will be needing to deorbit thousands of space crew/workers daily at some point.

Think of Starship as a freighter and SPCE as the skiff boat for moving humans to the dock of choice.

 

[StapleGun]

Yeah this is crazy. They don't have enough batteries to scale up their car business, so they are going to divert a significant amount of capacity to yachts???

It's the first part of their rebranding to Yachtswagen.

 

[AimStellar]

FYI: CNBC has the new SEC Chair’s first TV interview coming up at 8am EST.

 

[RobStark]

Tesla tells regulator that full self-driving cars may not be achieved by year-end

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology by the end of this year, a memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) showed.

www.reuters.com

 

[Singuy]

View attachment 660168

Tesla tells regulator that full self-driving cars may not be achieved by year-end

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology by the end of this year, a memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) showed.

www.reuters.com

What is new in this article? Seems like a rehash.

What Tesla didn't say about achieving l5 by year end now requires a new article?

 

[lascavarian]

View attachment 660168

Tesla tells regulator that full self-driving cars may not be achieved by year-end

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology by the end of this year, a memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) showed.

www.reuters.com

That is quite a zinger at the end of the Reuters piece with no context.

 

[mongo]

View attachment 660168

Tesla tells regulator that full self-driving cars may not be achieved by year-end

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology by the end of this year, a memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) showed.

www.reuters.com

link: Tesla tells regulator that full self-driving cars may not be achieved by year-end

Nothing new, rehash of the CA March 9th call where Tesla reiterated that current FSD is L2 (since it requires continuous driver vigilance/ interaction). Which, as previously discussed, has no bearing on future versions.

They are republishing for clicks due to recent Tesla vs semi fatality. Which is most likely explained by the article itself: the driver didn't.

The California Highway Patrol is investigating why a Tesla vehicle crashed into an overturned truck on a highway near Fontana, Calif., on Wednesday, killing the Tesla’s driver. The patrol did not say whether the Tesla was operating on Autopilot or not.

 

[EVMeister]

Great, another FUD article here without any summary. It mentions a leaked memo from PlainSite and doesn't seem to offer any substantial new information. It just looks to me like a thinly-veiled article to cast doubt on FSD and autopilot and another excuse to bring up a crash involving as Tesla. This "may not" and clutching at straws logic was a waste of time reading - others should save their time.

 

[MABMAB]

Bull Markets end when exuberance is high.
Bear markets are born with excessive pessimism.
Things don't always move in straight up and down moves.
Big moves come from shifts in demand. Moves of the past two or so years might have been from the changing picture of TSLA fortunes, now better known. Shorts got out, funds bought in. In order to have more of a move the story has to evolve further. Given the wide crazy price action there is no need for big funds to be in a hurry, in fact they can drop their bids if the want,

Current price is in the region of SP500 inclusion. I think it is safe to assume price could finish the year with this area reasonably well defended ceteris paribus.

It is important to consider the players involved in the market. Who is on the other side of your buying and selling and why? As GB mentioned on tweeter, perhaps some TSLA heavy funds could have some redemptions based upon under performance or here in the US based upon tax time. Retail buying with couch cushion coin will not drive the price up, there need be much larger volume moves. Wide loose price action needs time to tighten up. Large money does not buy all at once, they can accumulate over long periods of time without moving the price.

Those that have internet sites or channels incite eyeballs to view and consume more. Popular people online might be motivated by money and the fees that could be earned through money management. Because of this, I manage my own money, expectations, goals, parameters, thoughts, price targets, time targets. Consume media but be weary with discernment. I search out and listen to the merits of bearish arguments, temper them with my own views. Negative views are shouted down around here so one reinforce your own opinion.

If the crowd agrees with you there might be a problem.

Options work well in some environments but fail in others. I can't discern when they will work so leave them near alone. The leverage they offer is appealing, rewarding, and destructive.

Poor markets such as now offer attractive times to do Roth conversions. I am pondering doing some. Roth IRA conversion - Bogleheads

One has to sleep well at night. If not sleeping, sell to the point you can. Your positions are not proper if worrying excessively. I have planned well, planned for bad times and declining markets hence I am sleeping well.

Que sera sera!

 

[Mengy]

So, based on typical Friday performance targeting best price for MMs, I'm expected the share price to land in the 680-682 range at the end of day close.
Market looking good so far so tailwinds there potentially. Some resistance expected from the 50 day MA around 681 level

Am I wrong?! I'm calling it, let's see!

In pre-market it's down below 660 again. Not off to a good start this morning....

 

[Drezil]

could a neural net be trained on GME (strong case) and AMC (weaker case) to find this and other unknown at present stocks being abused

I still have doubts in his numbers. But we will see, soon. He reported GME-Shorting at really low rates (0.xx fee). Also he reported that AMC is supposed to be 40% shorted (with rates as high as 10-20% p.a.). If AMC squeezes soon & GME does not blink than there may be merit to his numbers. If they behave to the opposite than i would note that as another indicator that his numbers are flawed.

"Don't trust any statistics that you haven't manipulated yourself"