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

[Big Time]

Rolling stops are for noobs. Nothing bothers me more than driving down the road at 50 mph and someone who's about to be turning into my lane rolls the stop sign. Are you stoping or are you just going to crash into me? It's called a stop sign for a reason. Hopefully Tesla never allows a rolling stop setting in the final release of FSD, just my opinion.

 

[CLK350]

This is false. The Federal Reserve System as
about_14986.htm

The Fed Explained

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

www.federalreserve.gov

Even a cursory lok demonstrates that. The Federal Reserve Banks, explained in the link, have shareholdings from each member bank within their district. They do NOT, repeat NOT control the district banks or the Federal Reserve System.
As with everything in the world, large institutions do have influence, some more than others.
The factual situation is important enough that people do need to understand at least the basics of the US monetary system.
I apologize if I am a bit strident. It is a bit irritating that we, usually well informed, do not do even basic research before quoting sources, well informed or ill-informed.
In this case the writer seemed to simply did not understand what he thought he saw.

Uh - please Google "Jekyll Island federal reserve 1913" of see this short recap or the TL;DR there among others

The Federal Reserve does not answer to the US public, its President (or head etc) is nominated by the US President. Said president really has never had a choice, all his Treasury Secretaries are mostly Goldman Sachs alums. So essentially the Fed serves its 7 or so constituent banks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan etc)

The key feature of the Federal Reserve is that the US Treasury has to borrow money from the Federal Reserve to create US currency, instead of simply printing its own money. The last President who thought it made more sense to have the Treasury print its own money was JFK (John F Kennedy); he started to make a move in that direction, but eh .. we know how that ended.

Sorry to make it so simple, and without the appropriate references. EMSK (Elon Musk) figured way back when he started his X.com bank that even the payment systems were archaic and lacked clarity/ efficiency. Probably a good thing, else he'd end up butting heads with the Fed Head FUDster JP Morgan and JP Morgan et al, financiers of the oil & gas companies


Edit: added later, this timely Feb 1st article spells it out so clearly:

"

New Questions Emerge: Is the New York Fed Working for the American People or the Wall Street Banks that Own It?​

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 1, 2022 ~

Adding to a very long laundry list of questions about exactly whom the New York Fed serves, is the help-wanted ad that was posted four days ago. The ad is for a Financial Planning & Analysis Expert to work at the New York Fed’s headquarters in lower Manhattan. One part of the job description is this: “modelling of potential investment opportunities.”

The New York Fed is supposed to be implementing monetary policy on behalf of the United States as mandated by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). As far as public FOMC records indicate, the New York Fed has not been assigned the job of seeking out “potential investment opportunities.” So for whom is it seeking out these investment opportunities? Is it looking for profit-making investments for the Wall Street megabanks who own it and whose CEOs rotate on and off its Board of Directors? Had the New York Fed not become so cozy with these megabank executives, one would not have to be asking that question.

Every time there is a massive Fed bailout of these megabanks, the New York Fed manages to be the entity creating trillions of dollars out of thin air for the bailouts; handing out no-bid contracts to manage the bailouts to the same megabanks being bailed out; and then locking up for two years the names of the banks that got all the loot so that the public’s attention has moved on when the shocking details are finally revealed.

Consider the chart below reflecting the largest secret borrowers from the New York Fed’s emergency repo loans that it funneled to Wall Street trading houses in the last quarter of 2019. These trading houses were receiving trillions of dollars from the New York Fed in cumulative loans, that morphed from overnight loans to term loans for as long as 42 days at a time, and yet neither the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. nor the New York Fed have offered any credible explanation for what this financial crisis was all about. Clearly, it was unrelated to COVID-19 because the emergency repo loans began on September 17, 2019 – months before the first case of COVID-19 was reported anywhere in the world.
< snip>
... "

New Questions Emerge: Is the New York Fed Working for the American People or the Wall Street Banks that Own It?

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 1, 2022 ~ Adding to a very long laundry list of questions about exactly whom the New York Fed serves, is the

wallstreetonparade.com

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Rolling stops are for noobs. Nothing bothers me more than driving down the road at 50 mph and someone who's about to be turning into my lane rolls the stop sign. Are you stoping or are you just going to crash into me? It's called a stop sign for a reason. Hopefully Tesla never allows a rolling stop setting in the final release of FSD, just my opinion.

Front brake lights fixes this....

 

[Discoducky]

Of course, it helps when you make the rules to favour your game.

Yep, Tesla is disrupting so many 'games' right now and why we see them more resolved the longer that the SP spring is compressed.

I believe that even though oil is powerful and tried to stop Tesla for years, they have nearly capitulated as legacy 'tries' to complete with BEVs. I think GJ and JP Morgan is the sad tail end of that game.

The biggest bout, IMHO, is with communication companies, which is playing out now and why we see many negative articles that are so vacant from reality. This will play out for at least another year or two as Tesla and Starlink takes market share away, legacy auto starts collapsing with a bankruptcy or major brand sell off. I think BMW will give up the ghost first as their Altman Z score demonstrates desperation and Model Y is soundly attacking their best selling car.

 

[BornToFly]

Rolling stops are for noobs. Nothing bothers me more than driving down the road at 50 mph and someone who's about to be turning into my lane rolls the stop sign. Are you stoping or are you just going to crash into me? It's called a stop sign for a reason. Hopefully Tesla never allows a rolling stop setting in the final release of FSD, just my opinion.

The purpose of the Stop Sign is to get traffic safely through an intersection that doesn't have a traffic light, or an officer directing traffic. Human drivers have their view partially blocked by the A-Pillar, have windows blocking sounds from other vehicles, and can only look at one direction at a time. The typical driver needs to come to a complete stop to accurately assess the intersection and then decide if it is safe to go through. Bicycles approach much slower (so they have more time to assess), don't have A-pillars, and can hear traffic - which is why rolling stops are legal for bicycles in many states. Autonomous vehicles that can safely evaluate the intersection with all their cameras shouldn't need to come to a complete stop either.

 

[larmor]

Rolling stops are for noobs. Nothing bothers me more than driving down the road at 50 mph and someone who's about to be turning into my lane rolls the stop sign. Are you stoping or are you just going to crash into me? It's called a stop sign for a reason. Hopefully Tesla never allows a rolling stop setting in the final release of FSD, just my opinion.

When FSD gets implemented, no one driving next to that car will be pleased because the car will be forced to follow the rules of driving.

Plus stopping at stop signs sounds like a government mandate and which curtails freedom of liberty and pursuit of happiness, just pouring some gasoline on the fire...

 

[lafrisbee]

Except tesla just had to issue an OTA recall because it is illegal (and that's just an L2 system it gets far more significant for L3+ under current law)

Again, a car maker can not put an L3+ system on the road in any US state legally unless they certify it will obey all current traffic laws

Including speed limits.

The idea any car maker would ignore the law and release a system in violation of such law, when they (not the driver) would be assuming all liability for it, is simply absurd.


This issue isn't "the car could get a ticket"

The issue is it's illegal to even put that system on the road with that capability under current law.

Yeeeah? you can't be right. My current vehicle is capable of breaking ALL speed limits in the USA. By your logic my vehicle is illegal.
The failsafe for the software will be to not break any laws, but the owner will have the ability to set "illegal" parameters.

 

[shrspeedblade]

Just did a quick glance through CA state speed limit laws and find no support for your suggestion that exceeding the posted speed limit is ever legal.

There's many examples given where driving below it is expected though if conditions support driving AT the speed limit to be unsafe which is as near as anything in the law gets to your claim from my reading.

Here's a CA traffic lawyer explaining this:

What are the Four Major Speed Laws in California? | Ticket Dismissal

There are four major Speed Laws in California: Basic Speed Law, Prima Facie Speed Law, Maximum Speed Law, and Minimum Speed Law. Let’s take a look at these California speed laws.

getdismissed.com

He also discusses the "basic" speed limit law, with specific examples of when due to that you might need to drive below the speed limit due to conditions.


if you have a citation to any CA law that says otherwise I'm always open to correction of course.

[/QUOTE]

I think there is a lot of talking past each other because traffic laws, especially in the U.S., are either utterly absurd or so infrequently enforced to make them only a mechanism for raising revenue by an enforcement officer. Case in point: you are not to exceed the speed limit when overtaking but it would often be lunacy not to do so. Another: how often is a driver actually cited for camping in the fast lane or slowing more than 5+ vehicles on a two lane road? Blue moons come far more frequently.

In my limited experience Europe is somewhat better, people generally keep right (slower lane) except to pass and will move over/slow down on two lane roads to let faster traffic by (as opposed to the U.S., where they speed up!). I drive for a living, and can say with utter certainty that the average American driver is selfish, egotistical, and often ignorant of traffic laws especially as in regard to right of way. I recently summarized for my teenage son soon to get a permit that my job mostly entails spending all day trying to keep idiots from killing me and my passengers. I deeply wish Tesla would hire some defensive driving consultants because it's clear their programmers fall into this 'average driver' category. Their cars will be interacting with human drivers for a long time to come. Yes, they will.

Yet, autonomous cars will absolutely be required to strictly adhere to these traffic laws for far longer than will be logical. It will be done by ignorant or unscrupulous politicians who will do so to try to slow their adoption as there will be so much on the line for their 'donors' to slow it being widespread. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be different, but it won't be.

(Probably better for Tesla from a liability standpoint, which is better for $TSLA and us. Besides, the reality as traffic congestion increases is that speeding rarely gains you much of anything except to sit behind the traffic up the road earlier, anyway.)

 

[Ogre]

About the last thing anyone wants is millions of vehicles on the road following traffic laws to a tee. I already get people frustrated with me when I’m on 2 lane highways using Autopilot which limits me to 5MPH over the speed limit (also breaking the law).

FSD should be engineered to be *** AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE ***. Often that means behaving like the cars around it so it doesn’t get rear ended. There is a huge amount of safety in simple predictability.

My only fear about this is the FSD will set an expectation among other drivers who don’t have always on, zero blindspot cameras that they can and should do the same. But if human drivers already commonly roll a stop sign, then it is not setting the expectation, it is blending in.

 

[Knightshade]

Yeeeah? you can't be right. My current vehicle is capable of breaking ALL speed limits in the USA. By your logic my vehicle is illegal.

....nope.

Because your vehicle is not autonomous.

Perhaps you missed I was specifically citing the laws regulating autonomous vehicles?

The failsafe for the software will be to not break any laws, but the owner will have the ability to set "illegal" parameters.

100% wrong.

It's actually a crime to permit that under these laws in an autonomous vehicle.



I think there is a lot of talking past each other because traffic laws, especially in the U.S., are either utterly absurd or so infrequently enforced to make them only a mechanism for raising revenue by an enforcement officer. [/QUOTE]

Ok, but that doesn't change the problem.

It's not "FSD might get a ticket"

it's that these state laws require the car manufacturer to certify the system obeys all traffic laws

In many cases under penalty of perjury and cash fines for every single violation to the manufacturer

Thus no manufacturer will release an autonomous system that does not obey all traffic laws. Including speed limits.

Yet, autonomous cars will absolutely be required to strictly adhere to these traffic laws for far longer than will be logical.

I'm not debating if it's "dumb" that they will follow all laws including speed limits. I'm just pointing out that's the reality of what will happen, because no car maker- tesla included- will take on the liability of certifying their system obeys all laws if it doesn't.

Further I agree as these systems enter real world use there'll eventually be reforms to the laws. But as you note that's rarely quick.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I can see $TSLAQ now: "This has been going on for years!!"

Tesla Australia admits its sales figures were wrong

A day after releasing incorrect data that showed the Tesla Model 3 was Australia's best-selling mid-size sedan – claiming to topple the Toyota Camry – the electric-car lobby group has admitted its numbers were wrong.

www.drive.com.au

 

[Drax7]

It's really a bizarre market at the moment. Some very distorted valuations on companies that are barely growing. Walmart only increased revenue 4% and their earnings/net income were DOWN Yoy in Q3 and it still get's a P/E of 56.

Simply unreal.

Bad example, must be a temporary distortion.

 

[dhanson865]

Wait a minute… are you suggesting Tesla build robots that could “transform” from vehicle to humanoid forms?

Interesting…

No I'm suggesting a humanoid form robot can just walk around doing different jobs without changing it's shape.

 

[NicoV]

So, max pain tractor beam?

 

[Cherry Wine]

So, max pain tractor beam?

Probably a little early to think we won't see any more volatility this week, although it would be nice to catch a breather.

 

[Cobos]

I thought due to all this discusssion of stop signs I'd give us all a break with Norwegian sales data.
Unfortunately there seems to be no sales of Tesla this January, which of course is not unusual.
But the crazy thing this month is there were sold 175 gasoline cars of all types out of a total sale of 7957 cars. That is almost as much as the number of Porsche Taycans sold this January which was 181.
So yes there were more high-end Porsche EVs sold than all the gasoline cars this month. That does show what can happen to ICE sales in other countries I guess in a few years.

 

[Big Time]

GM lead.....the company into the ground...... and it doesn't really matter.

Hopefully GM gets absolutely destroyed.
I'll be having popcorn.
Im expecting a huge loss, and than the stock goes up 12%

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Probably a little early to think we won't see any more volatility this week, although it would be nice to catch a breather.

I expect there to also be some FUD this week from demand care bears about Tesla's Jan China numbers until the actual numbers come out.

XPeng, NIO, Li Auto Report Lower Deliveries in January From Prior Month

By Sam Boughedda

finance.yahoo.com

They usually ignore Tesla_China_Analyst's twitter numbers when it doesn't fit their narrative. And if his numbers are accurate and Tesla exported at least 50k, then it means Tesla's demand in China is so strong that when their competitors sales dipped, Tesla's grew. The 19k number (if Tesla exported at least 50k), is a very strong number.

 

[X Fan]

Is there a consensus yet on when Berlin & Austin will be officially "open"?

 

[adiggs]

I read that Ford is going all in on EV manufacturing with a press release saying $10-$20B investment over the next 5-10 years (Reuters in my Fidelity portfolio feed). I think that works out to $1-$4B per year! That is a mix of factory retooling and R&D, and that sounds like R&D plus capital expenditures.

Looking back over the last year of Tesla's financials I see ~$6.5b capital plus ~$2.5B R&D. Of course some of that is for non-auto segments, but I'm treating those other segments as trivial enough to round to 0. Could make it $8B total and assign $1B to those though if you wanted.


Comparison - press release saying $1-4B per year over the next 5-10 years vs. actual ~$8-9B last year. I'm liking option 2.

I guess it is fair to point out that this is probably a promise of incremental expenditure on Ford's part relative to previous press releases. I don't have those other press releases at hand so I'm unable to add those additional future promises.