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

[CorneliusXX]

Actually it's 1,000 Model Y per day. Assuming say 340 days production that's 340,000 per year. Although actual run rate would be less than peak production rate.

Here's the description from the video:
After four days of overhaul at Tesla's Shanghai plant last week, the production capacity of Phase II Modle Y has reached 1,000 units per day. This daily capacity has exceeded the number of Modle 3’s 800 units per day. It can be said that the Y-type production has entered High-yield stage. As previously planned by Tesla, the main production of Q3 is for export.

I expect we'll see front and rear casting Model Y's out of Shanghai once the newly installed casting machines are operational. We should also get a structural battery pack once LG or CATL start producing them. Based on recent rumours the latter could come from the soon to be built CATL Shanghai factory. This may be the longer range Model Y Tesla recently registered with Chinese authorities.

At 1,800 vehicle capacity per day, Shanghai has just overtaken Fremont and Tesla's largest factory.

 

[Congo Line]

Internet & Computers, calculators have replaced scores of jobs/businesses already. And yet here’s we are…. With new industries.. -Ordering stuff on Amazon, hitching an Uber, going into self checkout lines at Home Depot, zoombombing, TurboTax, watching Netflix instead of movies to name a few.

Don’t fear change. To fear the humanoid will be same as fearing that oil/gas companies will Be out of jobs too. I don’t hear complaints of legacy auto employees needing new jobs etc..

OT- Also I was talking to my PA yesterday and I don’t see why they can’t use neural network to train to read xrays/identify fractures, read CT scans to a relatively high accuracy. Would need thousands of labeling and training but could work. It would Displace some nighthawk radiologists etc. I definitely see some medical application to the dojo/aws training service too. Some urgent cares/docs offices are terrible at reading basic fractures. (Let alone hard patterns or dislocations - perilunate as an ex). This application/ software can be applied globally. Just random thoughts..

There is a fair amount of work being done and good progress in developing AI for radiology applications such as mammography. I warn trainees that radiology and pathology may not be the best specialties to choose for a future career.

 

[AquaY]

IMO a good place to start is factory cleaning, deployed internally...

They can then extend that to domestic cleaning, which is a app that would justify a Robot purchase for most people...

Speaking generically, I think cleaning is easier than FSD, but it still seems like a substantial development project.

Cleaning might initially be:-

• Dusting
• Vacuuming
• Cleaning empty benchtops
• Cleaning Windows
• Washing floors

The next upgrade might be:-

• Cleaning toilets, sinks and hand basins.
• Moving predefined objects

So it is possible they can avoid the need to recognise and move a lot of objects, by merely opting out of that initially.

How about cutting my lawn and weeding?
Actually, maybe tesla can make a garden division and build some lawnmowers, snow blowers, weedwhackers, leaf blowers etc with FSD!

 

[OrthoSurg]

View attachment 699461
I’m interpreting this post from Elon as sarcasm. Given that I like many of us am sitting on substantial capital gains in TSLA, I worry about the possibility of a black swan event. One of the primary worries is something happening to Elon. I know he’s had Covid once already but doubtful he is vaccinated. I seriously find myself worrying that he could get significantly ill or even die from covid. Maybe I just need to pull the trigger on some long-horizon $400-500 puts.

Difficult to estimate the impact level of a such black swan event. Probably similar to the magnitude of what happened to the aapl stock of the news of Steeve jobs pancreatic cancer and death. An immediate impact and then a recovery over the years. The Tesla Bot is the kind of things only a visionary CEO could take the chance of creating. Not the kind of orientation Tim Cook would have taken with Apple. Elon’s current vision and risk taking capability is probably the only person that can keep Tesla on a >50% YoY growth on multiple significant projects and make it the best stock out there.

He has delivery the Roadster, Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y however, wedbish only talks about the recurrent delays in their report and can’t envision the behemoth TSLA will be in 5-10 years with Cybertruck, Tesla semis, Robotaxis and Tesla bots on the road and in factories doing repetitive work. A Black swan could affect the latter but it is not values in t stock he stock price yet.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I have to admit. I felt pretty sure Tesla would unveil robot plans. I didn't expect it to look so human, I realize the final product could look much different though. But about 30 minutes after the presentation for the first time I really did have a little dread. Tesla's probably the only company that I have a high degree of confidence in them pulling off a mass production robot. And Im glad they plan to engineer in physical limitations so it can't beat you up. But just on the potential to take jobs its pretty scary. I realize that there are A LOT of people in the world. And Tesla would have to build A LOT of robots to take away any noticeable amount of labor opportunities. But it is unsettling to think how many peoples jobs are on the verge of being eliminated. Up until this point I have always regarded Tesla and its products as objectively great for the world. A robot in the product line makes that feeling a little more gray.

There's also an untold amount of labour currently not done due to lack of workforce or cost benefit analysis.

Thinking back to physical jobs I have experience with - I grew up on a medium sized farm in rural Australia and could easily have put 50 of these robots to work without laying off any of the existing employees. Some examples:

• There were over 1k km's of fencing that could employ 5-10 robots just walking them and recording issues. This was traditionally only done sparingly due to the cost/benefit - but 5 robots at 50k each, with a working life of 10 years ($25k/yr) would make it a no-brainer.
• Currently weeds and burrs are sprayed with herbicide where the spray can reach. You could use 20+ robots to work and weed 10's of thousands of acres that need to be weeded every couple of weeks to eliminate each germination. As a side benefit it would greatly reduce the number of chemicals required to run a farm.
• another 10-20 robots to live with and monitor the stock (1-2 for each herd) and monitor for predators, notify us of any animals are having difficulty giving birth (each saved ewe and lamb would be a min of $600 together - so it wouldn't take many to pay for the robots).
• Then still more robots could be used for other basic tasks - checking pipelines for water leaks, collecting soil samples, collecting samples for worm testing

These are just the simple jobs that could be done by robots that are capable of walking around, understanding their environment and picking up solid objects. If they get to the level where they could manipulate tools even more could be hired for cleaning/repairs/fabrication - and at $50k per robot with a 10 year life, doing these jobs with robots would be an economic decision. Although these more complex operations would likely reduce the human workforce.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Robots picking lettuce and weeding raspberry fields is more like it. No more immigrant farm labor which will be good and bad. The second gen is what has propelled USA forward.

I guess if we take it to the extreme, the lack of need for cheap labour could make countries more xenophobic - as there is less need for foreign labour. However if the same country has a UBI for citizens it might well do the opposite as there is no competition for cheap labour between citizens and immigrants.

 

[CorneliusXX]

won't work from home spending all day on TMC

Et tu, Brute?

 

[CLK350]

Elon confirms Mars terraforming: " hopefully "

Hopefully the investing folks see the shorter term impact on SP of Dojo/ FSD advances unveiled at AI day - looks like 20/80 really, a downer for me, but, c la vie! (that's life)

Best repartie in the thread

Harsh @HiHarshSinghal - Replying to @elonmusk and @RationalEtienne

"And the robots will become space faring and Earth will be plunged into thousands of years of chaos.

Sounds familiar. If only a brilliant sci-fi writer would've thought of this plot.

Wait.

He did. He was Asimov and he wrote the Foundation series. "

 

[kanweg]

There's also an untold amount of labour currently not done due to lack of workforce or cost benefit analysis.

• another 10-20 robots to live with and monitor the stock (1-2 for each herd)

oh, I thought you meant your TSLA shares. I was already impressed that you had so many shares that you needed 10-20 robots for that.

What I want to do when I have a Tesla with working FSD is to travel at night while sleeping in the car. Each supercharger station would have a Tesla bot that would plug in the charging cable and pull it out once done. Simple task, cheaper than automating each of the stalls. I would wake up at my destination fresh, and can enjoy the holiday.

 

[ammulder]

I knew Optimus Prime (hehe ... from the movies) and you Tesla (House) Bot are no Optimus Prime

I wish someone present had asked, once you nail the humanoid robot, will you please make an actual Transformer?

 

[CorneliusXX]

oh, I thought you meant your TSLA shares. I was already impressed that you had so many shares that you needed 10-20 robots for that.

What I want to do when I have a Tesla with working FSD is to travel at night while sleeping in the car. Each supercharger station would have a Tesla bot that would plug in the charging cable and pull it out once done. Simple task, cheaper than automating each of the stalls. I would wake up at my destination fresh, and can enjoy the holiday.

Perhaps I should have said livestock. Luckily we get more naturally without having to buy them.

 

[engle]

??? Show Tesla a place to purchase TPU v4 and then we will include it.

Later this year, Google TPU v4 will be available for rental in their datacenters. It will be incredibly expensive, as is Google TPU v3. Tesla is better off building their own silicon to precisely match their model training needs, with enough generalization capability that they can rent time on their virtually-sized D1 clusters later on to make big $$$ just like $GOOGL does.

Check the Venture Beat article on Google TPU v4. Specs are vague, but TPU v3 is fully released with specs. Tesla's version 1.0 effort with their D1 chip is very impressive for their 1st gen IMHO.

PS. Google does not "sell" any of their Tensor Processing Units for obvious reasons, and $TSLA will not sell their D1 or future D#'s, either. When Elon had to pause before answering that "will you open source any of your code" question (so we can steal your IP), as an investor I almost lost my dinner! Finally, Elon gave the correct answer: NFW!!

 

[engle]

The D1 is special not because it's the fastest, but for Tesla has brought the cost down by 75% vs buying from Nvidia. Not only that they can tailor everything to Dojo and build the software around it.

Elon said "we have succeeded if we turn off our gpu cluster"..meaning decoupling from Nvidia.

Google developed TPU v1 (inference only), followed by TPU v2, v3, and now v4 (for training) precisely to stop giving Nvidea boatloads of money to buy thousands of their GPUs, control their own performance and destiny, reduce power and datacenter space requirements, reduce cooling requirements, and sell it as a Google Cloud service.

 

[winfield100]

Internet & Computers, calculators have replaced scores of jobs/businesses already. And yet here’s we are…. With new industries.. -Ordering stuff on Amazon, hitching an Uber, going into self checkout lines at Home Depot, zoombombing, TurboTax, watching Netflix instead of movies to name a few.

Don’t fear change. To fear the humanoid will be same as fearing that oil/gas companies will Be out of jobs too. I don’t hear complaints of legacy auto employees needing new jobs etc..

OT- Also I was talking to my PA yesterday and I don’t see why they can’t use neural network to train to read xrays/identify fractures, read CT scans to a relatively high accuracy. Would need thousands of labeling and training but could work. It would Displace some nighthawk radiologists etc. I definitely see some medical application to the dojo/aws training service too. Some urgent cares/docs offices are terrible at reading basic fractures. (Let alone hard patterns or dislocations - perilunate as an ex). This application/ software can be applied globally. Just random thoughts..

OT @Nolimits
medically related boring, repetitious _very_ important job

scanning PAP smears for anomalies
1998, $20 - $40 to use computer to re-scan a pap smear (almost 1/4 century ago)
(pick a spot on the slide and scan for 3-10 minutes, then do again, and again)

Computer Checks of Pap Tests Worth It?

A study credits the technology with catching some mistakes. But money may be better spent ensuring women get a first test, expert says.

www.latimes.com

about 3 years ago, training computer vision to scan pap smear slides to be more accurate and faster

A pap-smear analysis tool (PAT) for detection of cervical cancer from pap-smear images - BioMedical Engineering OnLine

Background Cervical cancer is preventable if effective screening measures are in place. Pap-smear is the commonest technique used for early screening and diagnosis of cervical cancer. However, the manual analysis of the pap-smears is error prone due to human mistake, moreover, the process is...

biomedical-engineering-online.biomedcentral.com

 

[nativewolf]

I guess if we take it to the extreme, the lack of need for cheap labour could make countries more xenophobic - as there is less need for foreign labour. However if the same country has a UBI for citizens it might well do the opposite as there is no competition for cheap labour between citizens and immigrants.

This is actually something I've though quite a bit about, just that first sentence. It's a real risk in todays world where social media was exploited by those looking to create divisions instead of building a diverse society. I see tremendous opportunity for economic growth by having low skilled labor infinitely available. The risk and disruption to society will be...massive. We jumped into social media somewhat naively and our legal/social constructs were poorly prepared. At this point I believe we should spend just as much time and funding on that question and others rather than simply race to build the bot.

 

[tslagreen]

View attachment 699461
I’m interpreting this post from Elon as sarcasm. Given that I like many of us am sitting on substantial capital gains in TSLA, I worry about the possibility of a black swan event. One of the primary worries is something happening to Elon. I know he’s had Covid once already but doubtful he is vaccinated. I seriously find myself worrying that he could get significantly ill or even die from covid. Maybe I just need to pull the trigger on some long-horizon $400-500 puts.

Just sell and be done with it and then head to the bunker.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I'll say this, as a mental note to myself that can be helpful to others too:
Musk lives in a world with a lot more zeroes.
I've always been impressed by his fearlessness, probably his real "alien" trait. He just seems to not possess very human mental characteristic: being scared (by projects, problems, scale of things to do). I guess being Asperger helps him in this regard: it's like a superpower.

He lives in a mental world when he can do stuff we mere humans would just tremble at considering: hundreds of tons to launch in the space, billions of miles as data, exaflops in a supercomputer and thousands of amps needed to fuel it. A hundred billion dollar is a consequence of this thinking, and just another number in his mental database.
The rest is much more impressive.

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

Tesla Bot is a good chance for c-suite execs to cash out of Waymo, MobilEye, Cruise, etc.

Step 1: Change their bonus stipulations from 'developing' to 'delivering/providing/aquiring' technical solutions enabling self-driving.
Step 2: When Tesla Bots version-n are good enough to actually drive, purchase and stick a Tesla Bot in all their cars. Done.
Step 3: Cash out, and leave their doomed companies.

Same is true for stubborn ICE companies. They never have to lose face by actually buying self-driving hardware or software from Tesla. They can just ignore self-driving and let their customers solve the problem by buying a Tesla Bot to drive their cars.
/JK

(On the flip side: A Tesla Bot driving an old and expensive car, like Roll Royce or some such could *actually* become at status symbol for people who are into flauting their wealth. )

 

[Zero CO2]

You have some good points.
Yet...
Tesla has innovated wrt electric motors, battery management, chip-design, over-the-air-update of car software, car manufacturing (casting), fast charging, etc
Elon started a space company from scratch 18 years ago - now it is world-leading - by a wide margin.

How hard is chip manufacturing really?

it is " really " hard .. i am sure Tesla could do it but not sure why they would

building a fab is not in alignment with Tesla mission

 

[BrownOuttaSpec]

I really feel that Tesla is Apple 2.0.

Apple started with computers/OS and it now branched out into multiple devices, (computers, tablet, phone, watches), music/video, cloud storage, apps, other services.

Tesla started with cars and continues to grow every day into new industries and dominate while doing so. Not only did they just show extremely impressive FSD software progress (and their steps and iterations and issues along the way), and they also showed their in-house built hardware that is next-generation but then they revealed that they are moving into robotics since its the next logical step with everything that they have in place (NN software, manufacturing efficiency, batteries, cooling, motors, etc).

I think the TeslaBot ("Optimus Sub-Prime") is not only the next obvious step due to HW/ SW but also the next task for DOJO. It give validity of the cost of the design and manufacturing of the world's most powerful computer to have another project queued up in the pipeline for it to work on once FSD is solved. AI solved games (Checkers, Chess, and the hardest called "Go") -> solves FSD --> solves real world --> Live in a Tesla simulation.

I'd say TSLA stock still has some room to grow over the next few years/decade