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

[StealthP3D]

TMC was down in Az all morning. It was aweful. I had no way to find out why the stock dropped. I tried generic searches and got lost in twitter etc...
At one time, I thought... could they be killing this forum because we're so darn good at snuffing out FUD?

I'm relieved TMC is up now, it's my only go-to for Tesla truth. Youtube is great, but not real-time. I had no idea how hard it is to find the real stories out there. TMC deserves more credit now; it really suck without it on days like this.

In other news, the FDA has opened an investigation into whether a popular online forum, Tesla Motors Club, needs to be regulated as an addictive drug. Acting Commissioner of the FDA, Janet Woodencock, told CNBC that "drugs extend beyond the chemical compounds we typically think of when we hear that word and the fact that it's masquerading as an online forum doesn't mean it falls outside our jurisdiction. Addiction is an insidious disease that can cause it's victims to lose all touch with the real world."

/s

 

[lafrisbee]

Smug.
That is what an MM must feel today. How easy was that given the "news".

 

[Yoona]

Why was the TMC forum down all morning?

Down on my Windows Edge but up on my Mac Safari. Strange.

 

[goinfraftw]

Did a follow-on chart calculating the run-rate for 3/Y vs. the total installed capacity for 3/Y:

View attachment 697246

Also, calculated an "error rate" between installed capacity and actual production on a quarterly basis to identify the gap:

View attachment 697247

They've definitely been getting better at maximizing their installed capacity utilization.

Wonder if someone, I guess I could give it a try, could potentially look at this and see revenue vs. expenses on the same quarterly basis to see any other insights?

Two more:

- green columns are share price on last week of each quarter
- blue line is 3/Y total run-rate

...haven't figured out how to add installed capacity to that chart. Also, here's another with the share price and basically what I consider to be line utilization or line "efficiency".

Eyeballing it suggests that WS is targeting share price on how many cars Tesla can get out, not how well its making the cars.

NOT ADVICE

 

[printf42]

MMs are not done yet, another FUD incoming:
A tragedy happened in an UK school parking lot, several kids were injured.

But the news have to put this in the article:

It is unknown if there was a driver behind the wheel at the time of the collision. Tesla Model 3 has autonomous driving capabilities.

Not leaving any link, and too tired to debunk it.
(Search Ardingly College if you have to)

 

[EVMeister]

MMs are not done yet, another FUD incoming:
A tragedy happened in an UK school parking lot, several kids were injured.

But the news have to put this in the article:

Not leaving any link, and too tired to debunk it.

No Model 3 in the UK has any capability to navigate parking lots autonomously. In fact you're not supposed to use Autopilot here on anything other than clearly marked main roads. And with Autopark it makes it clear the driver must be paying attention at all times. Not that this will be news to anybody here. I appreciate you not linking to this junk.

 

[Paul_SF]

Something funny on this fuddy day:

 

[jerry33]

Down on my Windows Edge but up on my Mac Safari. Strange.

This sounds very much like a DNS issue. It just depends on whether the DNS you happen to hit can answer with the proper IP or not.

 

[elasalle]

If TMC got a DNS attack at same time as FUD, just imagine how big the MM/short bear raid really is.

Lost the battle, but still winning the war Let them play short term ...

 

[JoRoMo]

Not like any DNS issue I ever saw, but then I probably have not seen them all. I would think that the HTTP Error 503 would indicate issues on the server(s) side, TMC staff will perhaps provide us with an update?

 

[Chunky Jr.]

This sounds very much like a DNS issue. It just depends on whether the DNS you happen to hit can answer with the proper IP or not.

I don't think it is DNS related because TMC servers responded with a 503 error. If a DNS problem, the browser wouldn't even find TMC and tell you it was unreachable. Unless there were multiple failures. I kept seeing 503 errors

 

[cbrigante2]

I don't think it is DNS related because TMC servers responded with a 503 error. If a DNS problem, the browser wouldn't even find TMC and tell you it was unreachable. Unless there were multiple failures. I kept seeing 503 errors

I was just going off the assumption it was still working for some...while others not. If it was TMC server related...it would have been 503 for everyone?

 

[jerry33]

I was just going off the assumption it was still working for some...while others not. If it was TMC server related...it would have been 503 for everyone?

Me too. I never saw an issue.

 

[petit_bateau]

The 10 year lead on casting is a rather arbitrary figure but StevenMarkRyan added an important point:

For the casting to make economic sense it can only be used on high-volume cars. So, not only would a manufacturer who is considering using large castings have to commit to learning the nuances of the technology (and there are many difficult learnings), they would have to commit to high volumes and everything that entails (having enough batteries, cutting deeply into ICE sales, etc).

The traditional way a manufacturer gains experience in situations like this is by scalping talent from those who have it. But, if I'm an engineer at Tesla who helped develop the mega-casting technology and I have a good stock options package, it's going to be pretty unlikely that I would want to switch to Toyota or GM considering the trajectory TSLA stock is likely on. Plus, I probably work at Tesla because I like the culture and being part of the change they are making happen.

This all means big OEM's have to make a major commitment to a new car platform (including designing it, but how do you design it before you have the mega-casting experience?), establish you have enough battery supply for a high-volume EV, order the mega-casting machine, install it and the rest of the production line while learning to use the casting machine effectively. Then you have to hope you have developed a car that you can sell in high enough volume to hit the targeted price point and that the targeted price point is high enough to make a profit. It's a strategy filled with risk every step of the way and I'm not sure any other OEM has the stomach for it. The risk for Tesla is not even comparable because they have a multi-year lead in all the other areas mentioned.

I don't think anyone has good visibility into what TSLA share price will do over the next year or so because markets can be fickle. But I'm more confident than ever that TSLA is an exceptional buy at current prices over a 3-4 year time frame. And I'm not using the word "exceptional" lightly.

You also need to be a manufacturer with factories that are large enough to be cost-effective to take the casting machinery. Most car factories are not actually that large - most are less than 300k vehicles/year (see here for a US list The 15 Top-Producing American Car Plants) . In contrast Tesla appear to be aiming for a minimum 2m cars/year from their plants. (Fremont could well be the US's largest car plant now, at a mere 500k or so). So even if a manufacturer has a high-volume car, the actual production may be spread across too many sites for it to be cost-effective to put in these casring presses (and learn/overcome both the design & production challenges). Tesla really are rethinking what it is going to take to be a minimum scale manufacturer in automotive and energy. I think this is part of a wider trend where the minimum scale to run globally-leading technology keeps on getting bigger. Just count the number of airframers now vs say 50-years ago. Or the number of leading-edge chip fabs. Etc.

 

[JusRelax]

Chuck Cook reported that unprotected left turns are seemingly actually worse on 9.2 than 9.1. My guess is that the FSD team focused on other improvements, not unprotected left turns.

As a follow up to this, when Chuck tweeted that, he was talking specifically about a special case of his unprotected left turns, where the computer gets confused and ends up turning right instead of left. More FSD Beta 9.2 videos have come out from others that do have some successful unprotected left hand turns. Overall, there are some mistakes here and there, but I believe that Beta 9.2 is overall a good improvement over 9.1. Here are some FSD Beta videos from today:

 

[StealthP3D]

No Model 3 in the UK has any capability to navigate parking lots autonomously.

This accident wouldn't have happened if the car had been able to use (and was under the control of) the auto features. Only under human control. Ooops, I thought that was the brake pedal!

Why doesn't the media ever blame the human?

Oh, that's right, because mistakes happen!

 

[redan]

Interesting technical analysis

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427368635383881729

 

[AZRI11]

No Model 3 in the UK has any capability to navigate parking lots autonomously. In fact you're not supposed to use Autopilot here on anything other than clearly marked main roads. And with Autopark it makes it clear the driver must be paying attention at all times. Not that this will be news to anybody here. I appreciate you not linking to this junk.

This is one of the misleading headlines.

Six injured as self-driving Tesla crashes in school car park in Southern England - Telegraph​

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

Its quite reassuring that despite the scary headlines about THE US GOVERNMENT investigating autopilot... that we end up just down about 4% in a day. This is the *big day* that *the story broke*, so its likely to fizzle out from now onwards. Its also worth repeating that:

• Bidens presidency might not be keen on the optics of slapping down the only US EV maker with any recognition as being a pure-EV company
• The US is just an ever-shrinking part of teslas global market
• Cars in general (let alone autopilot) is just part of teslas global market.

In other words, they are the safest company imaginable to be investigated for autonomy issues.

Plus... this is what happens on the cutting edge. People panic, especially regulators, and especially those concerning safety. Even if tesla showcased tomorrow a PERFECT full self driving robotaxi, people would still panic, because finding out that computers can drive better then we can is terrifying for most people, and absolutely an existential threat to every truck driver and taxi driver on the planet.

So given all that... a temporary 4% dip is very much a buying opportunity, and I enjoyed 24 shares at 680 . I expect to be comfortably in profit on those by the end of the week. AI day is a recruitment event, super technical and will NOT affect the SP, or reveal anything new, but I expect a gentle climb back to 700-720 within a week or two at most.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Its quite reassuring that despite the scary headlines about THE US GOVERNMENT investigating autopilot... that we end up just down about 4% in a day. This is the *big day* that *the story broke*, so its likely to fizzle out from now onwards. Its also worth repeating that:

• Bidens presidency might not be keen on the optics of slapping down the only US EV maker with any recognition as being a pure-EV company
• The US is just an ever-shrinking part of teslas global market
• Cars in general (let alone autopilot) is just part of teslas global market.

In other words, they are the safest company imaginable to be investigated for autonomy issues.

Plus... this is what happens on the cutting edge. People panic, especially regulators, and especially those concerning safety. Even if tesla showcased tomorrow a PERFECT full self driving robotaxi, people would still panic, because finding out that computers can drive better then we can is terrifying for most people, and absolutely an existential threat to every truck driver and taxi driver on the planet.

So given all that... a temporary 4% dip is very much a buying opportunity, and I enjoyed 24 shares at 680 . I expect to be comfortably in profit on those by the end of the week. AI day is a recruitment event, super technical and will NOT affect the SP, or reveal anything new, but I expect a gentle climb back to 700-720 within a week or two at most.

Added at $685 and $688....wish i had more $ but couches just would not comply.