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

[MC3OZ]

I'd recommend to all (re)reading the 1947 novelette “With Folded Hands” by sci-fi author Jack Williamson. Remarkable early imagination of the potential implications of humanoid robots and unintentionally misdirected AI.

Sci Fi often gives robots emotions and independent thought.

How likely is that?

Add emoitions adds nothing to doing the task, consciousness is unlikely to evolve in something mostly just processing arrays of numbers.

Considering CRISPR gene editing, this is a powerful technology that Sci Fi has got right.

The problem with technology is can people be trusted to use it?

When resources, food and energy are abundant and medicine has the power to cure most diseases, will humans still be greedy and will they still fight wars?

 

[JustMe]

The issue isn't the NN models. The issue is the hand... Look at what Boston Dynamics does. Boston Dynamics and others are full of really smart people...and they haven't solved the hand problem ...yet. Somebody will. I just would agree with that researcher that says in 20-50 years. But what does he know vs a poster on TMC?

Someone should tell Elon Musk about the hand problem. I’m sure he’ll be rightfully chastened when he learns that Tesla has no talent suitable to the task of developing a humanoid robot. After all, what does he know v a poster on TMC?

 

[MC3OZ]

Sure but small motors are much much cheaper. I'm just not seeing 100K or anything close to that once production gets going.

I would also question the number and type of sensors.

A bot definitely needs a balance sensor, but something like a spirit level or self-leveling legs might work.

For picking up objects a camera in the palm of the hand might help with relative positioning.

For the bot hand, interating on the design is expensive, raw materials trival snd assembly will be a production line process thst is progressively refined.

Any object that the robot is picking up is initially something that it is trained to pick up, with failures used to improve the training database. It is assigned tasks aligned to its proven capabilities, perhaps in a slightly modified work environment.

V1 of the bot will seem like a total joke when compared to v100.

 

[nativewolf]

You really don't even need the movie. Big oil did the following, quite blatantly and obviously:
1. - Deposed democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh, Premier of Iran because he had the audacity to nationalize The British oil holdings.

64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup

New documents reveal how the CIA attempted to call off the failing coup — only to be salvaged at the last minute by an insubordinate…

foreignpolicy.com

As this shows Kermit Roosevelt led the final solution. FWIW Kermit Was later an emissary to some Gulf States from The Chase Manhattan Bank.
David Rockefeller, Chairman of Chase at the time wandered the Gulf States.

64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup

New documents reveal how the CIA attempted to call off the failing coup — only to be salvaged at the last minute by an insubordinate…

foreignpolicy.com

The young Shah became deeply connected with the Rockefeller family and US oil interests.
2.- while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially is dated from 1932, the discovery of oil by Chevron which established a joint venture called Aramco. From that day forward deep involvement in Saudi political affairs was driven by Aramco. Much of that has been rewritten for public consumption.
The list goes on.
Any modestly inquisitive person during the 1960's and 1970's who also lived in the Gulf, Iran or the levant anywhere has tons of personal stories about those events.
Not much of the reality has ever been publicly reported except in fictionalized versions.
FWIW, the very creation of Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria were all post World Wa II spoils distribution. That included putting a foreigner with no connection to what was named Iraq, another one in what became Jordan. At the time the connection to the massively expanding oilfields were driving forces.

As we consider the resistance to Tesla just think that these forces stop at nothing to maintain the status quo, even selling 'clean' hydrogen extracted from natural gas. There is much more powerful opposition to clean energy than we really can imagine.

my apologies. I really try to avoid these discussions. They are, however front and center behind Tesla opposition.

I would add that if posters here have not read "The Prize" by Yergan you are missing out on a great read and a fascinating overview of the oil industry from inception to just before fracking really got going. Amazing stuff and everything that you are mentioning continues today, China in Sudan, Russia with Nordstream, Exxon in Kurdistan, etc. Lots of money.

Which brings up a great question. What happens to FX with Oil stops being the majority of FX?

 

[Blue horseshoe]

@DaveT is always one of the best Tesla YouTubers, but he's been knocking it out of the park recently with his bite sized 5 minute clips. Perfect for when you don't have a full 30 minutes to an hour to spend. If after a rough few weeks in the market you need to cut through the short term nonsense about the conference call and remind yourself why you've invested for the long term, you need to watch.

I like his most recent take that we are being given an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Elons latest startup. Had he spun this off into a private startup we would lose out on billions of dollars in valuation before having an opportunity to invest

 

[nativewolf]

Someone should tell Elon Musk about the hand problem. I’m sure he’ll be rightfully chastened when he learns that Tesla has no talent suitable to the task of developing a humanoid robot. After all, what does he know v a poster on TMC?

Lots of people told him about the FSD problem but ...look where we are. 1 year, 1 year, 1 year, 1 year, 1 year. AND...just last week...1 year. Eventually he'll be right but from an investments perspective it might matter. For real L4 driving, which is what interests me, it is a long ways out. I want a car to take me to work while i look out at the forests. Or read

On robots...it will surely not matter in the short to medium term. Just discount all that right off the model. Neat if it happens but it is so far out and so many twists and turns who knows.

 

[nativewolf]

I like his most recent take that we are being given an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Elons latest startup. Had he spun this off into a private startup we would lose out on billions of dollars in valuation before having an opportunity to invest

A great way to consider things. Very positive!

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

Bottom line, here is why Elon should not be on earnings calls:

The people asking questions are interested in next quarter’s margins, and Musk is interested in multiplanetary intergalactic civilizations.

FTFY

 

[PeterJA]

Yep lots of progress in the field of prosthetics. I saw the other one you posted as well. I sold corporate IG solutions and learned an amazing amount from many clients, from tunnel boring to tires, to fuel injectors to bananas to robots. t was then that I learned how hard it was. It's hard. Skin, it turns out, is amazing; combined with muscles and tendons and bone the hand is just amazing. That was my big takeaway over 7 years ago. If something had happened where a robot had practical hand movement, dexterity, partial speed, and tactile sense it would be ground breaking and well reported.

The issue isn't the NN models. The issue is the hand. Look at what Boston Dynamics does.
View attachment 762242


The hand has been a target for decades. Longer than NNs. The rubicks cube thing you posted was solved years ago by a robot...not using hands at blinding speed. The hands add complexity to the NN for sure but it is really the other stuff that I understand to be an issue...at least it was years ago.

You made me look but I'll stand by everything I've said on the bot.

One of the USA's leading researchers:

We Can Do Better Than Human-Like Hands for Robots

Robotic hands can take advantage of extra degrees of freedom to do all kinds of things human hands can’t

spectrum.ieee.org

That's just 1 approach, there are lots like it. We have lots of research in the USA at places like MIT, Carnegie, Stanford etc but not so much success at scale. Korea is full of robotic companies and I suspect actual practical solutions to emerge from there or China. It is not, as you intimate, a field in which I know nothing. I know enough to say...whoa. I don't believe it. EVs I believed in and spent $100k on studies to see if I should launch an EV firm back in 2006, thank goodness I stopped there. FSD I view as inevitable, I think Tesla will get there first but I don't think it will be so soon and I am not at all sold on robotaxis- the more I see Tesla challenges on getting sufficient SC up and going and on solar side of things the more I feel that robotaxi may best be done by a third party that is more service oriented.

Tesla has not revolutionized solar. I don't see that they have any particular competency in robotics to say they'll solve a problem others have struggled to solve. It's not rockets where we knew we could launch and land a rocket upright. It was doing so profitably. It's not EVs. The auto industry began with EVs. It is not boring where lots of companies can bore a tunnel, they just made really large tunnels. Boston Dynamics and others are full of really smart people...and they haven't solved the hand problem ...yet. Somebody will. I just would agree with that researcher that says in 20-50 years. But what does he know vs a poster on TMC?

Thank you for explaining that your opinion is based on nonspecialist observation from 7 years ago, and a brief web search today.

You appear to misunderstand the Boston Dynamics photo and linked article you posted. Grasping robots have been developed that are different from human hands not because emulating human hands is impossible, but because other robotic graspers work better for certain applications. Also, your admission of "lots of progress in the field of prosthetics" contradicts your claim that such progress in human hand emulation is 20-50 years away.

Also, you seem unaware that the video I reposted is from an organization that Elon cofounded: OpenAI. Tesla has access to the world's best robotics engineers, because most engineers want to work for Elon (for many reasons discussed previously) and because Tesla is actively recruiting them. So I don't share your pessimism about Tesla's new mission that Elon is mustering all his resources to tackle.

Edit: Upon reading your link more carefully, I see a researcher quote that supports your position:
"Anthropomorphic robot hands are still worth investigating, and still have a long way to go before they truly match the dexterity of a human hand."

However, truly matching human dexterity is not necessary for Tesla's Bot to be a colossal success. Lots of useful jobs need doing besides brain surgery.

 

[Discoducky]

A great way to consider things. Very positive!

Almost as positive as this gem (17:05) from Lex's interview with Elon.

Gee, I wonder if he is gonna get it done?

 

[Dan Detweiler]

It may be possible with the current bleeding edge technology to create a robot, which could fetch materials from a warehouse. But what would that robot cost? My WAG is that at least 100 kUSD. Why would you rather not pay someone $ 10/hour to do that?

Because it is getting increasingly difficult to find people willing to do that job...and forget $10/hour. You would have to pay at least $15, plus incentives, insurance, benefits, etc.

Dan

 

[Carl Raymond]

It just dawned on me…bots making bots is the ultimate “machine that builds the machine”. Mind blown.

Bots making solar panels and storage in solar powered factories.
Bots erecting solar PV installations, with everything delivered by Tesla semi, which of course was charged from solar with storage.
Bots mining materials to make solar PV, using only electric machines.

I get excited by how quickly everything spirals down to zero emissions. It’s been called the “Solar Singularity”. Happens with or without bots, but faster with.

 

[capster]

As I said, it is WAG. But mainly because we have mass produced cars over 100 years and first robots will be hand built.

But I believe that Musk is the best person in the world to mass manufacture robots economically.

My guess is that Optimus Subprime will be less than $25,000 to make.

Musk and his people were probably noodling about the $25,000 car and realized "Hey, we could build a humanoid robot for less and transform civilization." Yup, explains a lot.

 

[The Accountant]

Let's not forget to celebrate Tesla's 2021 Performance.

Wow! A $31B company grew revenues by 71% during a year with supply chain issues.

What? Revenues grew 71% but Operating Profits more than tripled from $2.0B to $6.5B? Amazing.

Is this right? GAAP earnings per share grew more than 7 times the prior year? Yep, I checked . . .it's true.

While they were busy driving operating results, they found the time to invest in the future by doubling their CAPEX spend from $3.2B to $6.5B.

Wait a minute! Tesla spent $6.5B on Capex and still had $5B remaining to paydown debt and increase cash balances? Are they printing money?

I could have posted another dozen charts but its clear to see that 2021 was a year we'll never forget.
Well done Tesla !!

 

[Dreadnought]

My guess is more like $20k - $10k hardware, $10k software.
Batteries 1/20 of a Model 3, Raw materials 1/50 of a model 3, assembly 1/5 of a Model 3.

Charge time 1 hour per day. Operational working like 23/365 x 10 years.

Tesla may own the bots, charging costs paid by user, Tesla chsrges $3-$5 per hour depending on the task.

My guess is that this might be profitable.

My rough calculation is that the bot cost Tesla around $0.24 per hour.

Maybe that is why Elon thinks there is no limit to the size of the economy.

"Spot", the Boston Dynamics robot dog, sells for $75k per a quick Google search. This just as a reference point for how much companies are willing to pay for a dog with an on/off switch that doesn't need feeding and a regular walk through the park.

Long before Tesla will sell Optimus as a product with warranty and spare parts and all the other strings attached to industrial use, it can leverage it for internal purposes, iterating and improving rapidly.

 

[OrthoSurg]

^^This^^

The auto industry works in a very predictable manner:

Manufacturer's reveal a future vehicle model, tell you it's name and it's specs with an announced launch date. You get to see what it looks like when they pull the sheet off the vehicle.

View attachment 761985

^^This^^ is not a reveal. You can tell because the car is still under a sheet. There are no specs, you can't see what it will look like because it hasn't even been designed yet. Any dates that Tesla may have mentioned years in advance are not launch dates. A car cannot be said to have been delayed until it's been revealed, and they have announced a date of launch. This will generally be a month and a date although sometimes it's just a model year. This is not what a reveal looks like. At a reveal, the sheet comes off the car, the specs are made public, and a date is announced. That has not happened. We don't even have a model name for this car.

I have always been baffled by the enthusiasm some tesla fans have shown for the $25K car. That's because I've always viewed the $25K car as the car of last resort. That's the car you have to build to increase sales when all the upmarket sales have been fulfilled. You are free to call it a delay if you want but since when does a delayed product signal a bullish development? Usually, a delay refers to a bearish thing, so I'm baffled by the insistence that anyone is sticking their head in the sand by not calling it a delay. It's silly.

The question I am asking to myself: Was the $1200 stock price pricing in the potential start of production of mass market $25,000 EV to destroy completely any new sale of ICE Corollas, Malibus, Golf, etc. Or is the -10% drop the following day just a reaction of wallstreet relative “deceit” of not having a instantly gratifying “roadmap update” from Musk announcing factories to be operational immediately and faster production like happened to the Model Y?

 

[capster]

Bottom line, here is why Elon should not be on earnings calls:

The people asking questions are interested in next quarter’s margins, and Musk is interested in multiplanetary civilizations.

It would not have made a difference who spoke or whether they massaged the language. The outcome would have been the same, imho.

Having someone else, such as Zach, deliver the same main points might have harmed that person’s reputation were the outcome the same. Elon’s reputation is secure.

Should the stock price rebound within the next couple or even six weeks, we can take that as evidence that this was a bear raid and not a true change of sentiment.

edit: I also think Elon directs his comments toward the owners of the company, that is shareholders such as myself, rather than, um, others. I’d prefer he continue to be on the calls when he sees fit.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Let's not forget to celebrate Tesla's 2021 Performance.

Wow! A $31B company grew revenues by 71% during a year with supply chain issues.

View attachment 762295

What? Revenues grew 71% but Operating Profits more than tripled from $2.0B to $6.5B? Amazing.

View attachment 762296

Is this right? GAAP earnings per share grew more than 7 times the prior year? Yep, I checked . . .it's true.

View attachment 762297

While they were busy driving operating results, they found the time to invest in the future by doubling their CAPEX spend from $3.2B to $6.5B.

View attachment 762298

Wait a minute! Tesla spent $6.5B on Capex and still had $5B remaining to paydown debt and increase cash balances? Are they printing money?

View attachment 762299

I could have posted another dozen charts but its clear to see that 2021 was a year we'll never forget.
Well done Tesla !!

Please forward this post to wallstreet for Monday morning opening session. Thank you.

 

[Tommy O]

The question I am asking to myself: Was the $1200 stock price pricing in the potential start of production of mass market $25,000 EV to destroy completely any new sale of ICE Corollas, Malibus, Golf, etc. Or is the -10% drop the following day just a reaction of wallstreet relative “deceit” of not having a instantly gratifying “roadmap update” from Musk announcing factories to be operational immediately and faster production like happened to the Model Y?

Nothing is monocausal or remotely this simple to explain. There’s a lot going on, and no one can tell you exactly why the stock does what it does day to day.

 

[petit_bateau]

My guess is that Optimus Subprime will be less than $25,000 to make.

Musk and his people were probably noodling about the $25,000 car and realized "Hey, we could build a humanoid robot for less and transform civilization." Yup, explains a lot.

Nah, you've got to get it down to $12.5k to have one at each end

Or was this your preferred design solution ?