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

[petit_bateau]

Record-Shattering Heat at Both Poles Is Freaking Scientists Out

"Seeing more and more of these warm air events in the Arctic, in the winter, is definitely eye-opening as a climate scientist.”

gizmodo.com

Q: Outside of continuing to go all-in on TSLA and solar companies, what else can people with this new found wealth (thanks to TSLA) do to help spur the averting of climate change?

MODERATOR: FOR THE LAST TIME: WRITE THESE IS THEIR APPROPRIATE THREADS
- Apart from that, don't tell anyone else anything. By all means answer their questions, but don't force yourself on them. Except for telling the politicians early & often !

None of the above are hairshirt pathways. You don't have to do it all at once, just at the rate you can be comfortable with. Just imho.

 

[Oveeus]

Paging anyone with knowledge of robotics, artificial intelligence and Boston Dynamics.

What are your thoughts on Gary Black's thinking? I believe that Elon would not get into robotics and AI if he didn't think he could disrupt this industry as well. Does Gary have a fair point?

View attachment 786437'
View attachment 786438

What Gary doesn't seem to understand is the manufacturing prowess that Tesla has when it comes to mass-manufacturing robots with batteries and multiple sensors in them.

It doesn't even require any serious knowledge on robotics, just simple mass-production of anything.

Boston Dynamics' products cost the price they cost because everything is basically put together by hand with custom parts as their volume is so low. If BD can find a big market for their robots and somehow manufacture them at scale, it wouldn't cost the $75,000 that it's asking today. It can probably be less than half that if not substantially lower.

I don't even need Tesla bots to do much... just general clean up the house and put everything back where they should and dishes in the dishwasher, I'm willing to spend 20k+ for a robot like that. A housekeeper would cost easily $25 an hour or 4000 a month for 8hrs/day. A robot who's almost available 24/7 (other than changing) would be paid back pretty soon even if you consider the functions would be limited at the beginning. (less valuable than a human housekeeper at beginning)

Nevertheless, if M3 was any indication, where Tesla shipped with pretty much all the hardware necessary to stay up to date, the bot would just become more and more "human" as the software part expends.

 

[SN_8]

Min 20% income tax on people worth 100m or more. Also can go after unrealized income..whatever that is. Seems like this could pass as it hits no billionaires..lol. If it's exercising stock options, the income generated is way over 20%. If it's unrealized cap gains, then it's not taxed. I don't think any billionaire actually takes an income like a school teacher or firefighter. So I am really hoping something like this passes so we can get on with our lives about taxing billionaires.

MSN

Not so fast. It's all admittedly short on detail at this point, but if Frank's characterization is accurate, then you still have the same problem as with a wealth tax... Someone like Musk would need to liquidate holdings in order to pay the tax... Sorry, I mean "capital gains prepayment"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1507880625147105285

 

[nativewolf]

Actually... The mechanical parts of Optimus I don't see Tesla having any major issues with. Lots of dedicated, enthusiastic ME, good large scale manufacturing experience, etc. Again, don't see a problem.
The real problem with Optimus is the smarts. We're autonomous two-legged, two-armed entities that can roam the landscape and do multitudinous things, but we've also got ~3 billion years of evolution behind us. Things that didn't work didn't survive. Things that did work did. Hit or miss, lots of failures, but lots of time to get it all working.
So, how the heck does Tesla get something (ha!) simplistic like an autonomous car driving around? Answer is: No-kidding big neural networks (that's how we work..) and training, training, training. A lot of our training is built in; lots more is learned (nature vs. nuture), but, either way, it's in the wetware in our skulls.
The Thing That's Coming: Dojo. Dojo is a supercomputer for training neural-network based AIs. There's nothing like it on Earth at the moment; Boston Dynamics, despite their prowess, has nothing like it, and Tesla & Co. is bringing Dojo on line this year. They Have Plans for Dojo, the beginning of which is to flesh out FSD. But once they get past that: Well, one has invented a machine that can train other machines, and it's generic. And this is where Optimus will come into its own. Simple tasks by a human's lights, but capable of running, say, a paint shop, with oddball things happening.
First get FSD going; then switch gears for Optimus; and then make the Dojo platform available for others who want that kind of training. It's going to be a new world.

The big problem isn't the "smarts" per se but that no one has engineered working hands and wrists. There have been some challenges in modeling but I agree that Tesla can solve those. But the physical engineering...that's a challenge. Just as I look forward to a Cybertruck but understand it is still several years away for me. I look forward to Tesla solving the problem of hands and wrists- lots of disabled people would be so much better off immediately. I look forward to Tesla solving the problem. If they do so it will mean some incredible progress for hundreds of thousands with missing limbs. I'd pour some cold water on the expectation that Optimus is going to suddenly appear.

When Tesla was formed they did so because of the experimental work of others that showed you could combine small batteries into a larger pack and have an EV with lots of range and power. The electric EV itself was over a century old. Cars exist. They've put a lot of work into solving making it practical from a manufacturing POV but it was all in place. Everything. Tesla did not have to invent batteries. Nor invent Li batteries. No invent tires, etc etc. I know because I flirted with the idea of starting an EV company in early 2000s. Rocky Mountain Institute had even produced a full mockup and engineering study on the same.


I fear there is a long way to go to see anthropomorphic robots with working hands/wrists. I think Gary is right and it is worth remembering he's no less bullish on Tesla. He's been buying and holding from early on, he doesn't panic about MM like many on here, he doesn't trade, etc. He's just a long time believer. I don't even believe in the whole robotaxi valuation. I still think Tesla is a great buy.

 

[Singuy]

Not so fast. It's all admittedly short on detail at this point, but if Frank's characterization is accurate, then you still have the same problem as with a wealth tax... Someone like Musk would need to liquidate holdings in order to pay the tax... Sorry, I mean "capital gains prepayment"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1507880625147105285

Any tax on unrealized gains is a non-starter, especially now that we have a good example of what selling 10% of stock can do to shareholders to pay for taxes. Elon's demonstration was to prevent all tax on unrealized gains policy to die a quick death.

 

[heltok]

Trying to figure out how this works. Let assume I get 1M shares for $1. They go up to $100/share and I now have $100M and have to pay taxes. So I sell 20% of my shares and pay taxes. Now I have 800k shares worth $100 with no gain. Next year they go up to $1100. I now have 800k shares with $1000 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this gain. So I sell 160k shares and to pay the taxes with some spare change. I now have 640k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Compare this to my brother who bought 1M shares worth $1 of another company. In one year they went up to $1100/share. So he has made a $1099 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this. So he sells 20% of his shares, pays taxes and have some spare change. He now has 800k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Is this example correct?

 

[nativewolf]

What Gary doesn't seem to understand is the manufacturing prowess that Tesla has when it comes to mass-manufacturing robots with batteries and multiple sensors in them.

It doesn't even require any serious knowledge on robotics, just simple mass-production of anything.

Boston Dynamics' products cost the price they cost because everything is basically put together by hand with custom parts as their volume is so low. If BD can find a big market for their robots and somehow manufacture them at scale, it wouldn't cost the $75,000 that it's asking today. It can probably be less than half that if not substantially lower.

I don't even need Tesla bots to do much... just general clean up the house and put everything back where they should and dishes in the dishwasher, I'm willing to spend 20k+ for a robot like that. A housekeeper would cost easily $25 an hour or 4000 a month for 8hrs/day. A robot who's almost available 24/7 (other than changing) would be paid back pretty soon even if you consider the functions would be limited at the beginning. (less valuable than a human housekeeper at beginning)

Nevertheless, if M3 was any indication, where Tesla shipped with pretty much all the hardware necessary to stay up to date, the bot would just become more and more "human" as the software part expends.

Seriously? You think Gary doesn't know. You should read up on the history of robotic hands, you've got a long long wait for the machine you want. Mass production isn't the issue. Invention is the issue. They have to invent something that does not exist.

 

[nativewolf]

Boston Dynamics has no AI capabilities. No multi-billion dollar training supercluster. No ability to pick and choose from the most talented engineers across dozens of disciplines.

No chancee.

I agree on the no chance. They are a niche sort of prototype shop that has changed hands repeatedly. They have never really made a great useful product, they make cool. However, there are lots of robotics companies that do make useful products. Also Boston Dynamics does have AI teams. They are no dwarfed by Tesla but they have them. They make great prototypes. Fun to see what they do.

 

[new_sneakers]

How would it compress? How do P/E ratios compress to yield a lower share price than otherwise?

@Mengy is saying the share price (P) will likely not go up in line with the earnings (E) this year.

The P/E ratio, or share price divided by annual GAAP earnings per share, as shown on Yahoo Finance and elsewhere, is currently 206.21, which is $1010.64 divided by $4.90, the GAAP earnings of the trailing 12 months.

This year, the Earnings per share will increase perhaps by a factor of 2.5, from $4.90 to ~$12.25 (my guess). If the Price of a share doesn’t also go up by the same factor, to around $2500 in my example, then the P/E will be compressed: it will be a smaller number.

Many people would agree that Tesla’s P/E ratio will continue to compress, perhaps to around 70 over the next few years, as Amazon’s did between 2015-2020, as @The Accountant noted in this helpful series of posts:

Tesla Valuation Based on 5 Year Outlook

I am going to break up my valuation work into 6 posts. Please refrain from responding until I have completed the 6 posts so as to keep a continuous string. Edit - Done posting - feel free to comment

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[navguy12]

Muskagram?
MuskBook?
MuskChat?
MuskedIn?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1507907130124222471

An algorithm to prevent feedback loop echo chambers would be nice.

 

[Mengy]

@Mengy is saying the share price (P) will likely not go up in line with the earnings (E) this year.

The P/E ratio, or share price divided by annual GAAP earnings per share, as shown on Yahoo Finance and elsewhere, is currently 206.21, which is $1010.64 divided by $4.90, the GAAP earnings of the trailing 12 months.

This year, the Earnings per share will increase perhaps by a factor of 2.5, from $4.90 to ~$12.25 (my guess). If the Price of a share doesn’t also go up by the same factor, to around $2500 in my example, then the P/E will be compressed: it will be a smaller number.

Many people would agree that Tesla’s P/E ratio will continue to compress, perhaps to around 70 over the next few years, as Amazon’s did between 2015-2020, as @The Accountant noted in this helpful series of posts:

Tesla Valuation Based on 5 Year Outlook

I am going to break up my valuation work into 6 posts. Please refrain from responding until I have completed the 6 posts so as to keep a continuous string. Edit - Done posting - feel free to comment

teslamotorsclub.com

Thanks Sneakers, good explanation, I didn't see Sofie's question a few pages back.

If the P/E doesn't compress very much then we are ALL in for some very fantastic times in the coming years!

 

[Singuy]

Shanghai rules out total lockdown due to economic concerns.

Shanghai rules out citywide Covid-19 lockdown to protect economy

Health expert rejects calls for swift, broad action, urging residents to think of the big picture.

www.scmp.com

 

[JRP3]

Tesla have been doing robot prototypes for a long time. The snake robot was 6 years ago:

My recollection was that Tesla purchased the snake bot and modified it to plug in a charge cord.

 

[Knightshade]

As already stated here, he is completely ignoring the translatability (is that a word?) of FSD from driving cars to driving Robots. Vision mobility is vision mobility. The vehicle does not matter. Hardware is an afterthought.

I don't think that translates as easily as you suggest though.

As we know from the data from both autonomy day, and folks like Green measuring the data, the current system is "good enough" for measuring distances relevant to driving... a safely driven car should never be coming within an inch or less of another car- so single-camera vision distance guesses allow you to ditch the low-res radar and all the drawbacks that it had.

If you're trying to do fine motor work gripping objects, that's not nearly sufficient resolution.



Now, that's not an impossible problem-- and it doesn't need LIDAR to fix it either.... but the idea you can just bolt car FSD sensors and AI into a robot and it works generally is a vast oversimplification.

And if I may cast aspersions, wasn’t it bought out by Hyundai?

Yes, and they're already deploying those robots in their car factories-

https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/3396

They still aren't intended to be mass produced general purpose robots of course- that's not the business BD is even in, so it's weird people keep insisting that's who Elon is trying to "beat" but I guess it's the only robotics company most people know.

AFAIK nobody is trying to do with Tesla is with optimus- so they're not "disrupting" any existing business.... they're inventing one.

I suppose you can say they're disrupting the human labor business if it works, but that's about it.

I never got the message that BD was all about mass production. Seems they were always targeting niche markets.

Exactly.

In fact- SpaceX has even used one of BDs robots for safety monitoring around the launch pad.

Boston Dynamics has no AI capabilities

Absolutely false. I've noticed a significant increase in your posts being factually inaccurate.

About | Boston Dynamics

test

www.bostondynamics.com

This form of AI that we call “athletic intelligence” allows Spot to walk, climb stairs, avoid obstacles, traverse difficult terrain, and autonomously follow preset routes with little or no input from users.

Artificial intelligence software expands capabilities of Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot

Equipped with deep learning software, Spot turns image data into actionable insights.

www.vision-systems.com

the Spot autonomous four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics (Waltham, MA, USA; www.bostondynamics.com) now offers on-board artificial intelligence software to process data and draw insights out of the environment while keeping human operators out of hazardous environments.

That's not to say they're doing generalized AI on massive data sets- but they're absolutely using AI and have been for at least a couple years now.

But again, they are, intentionally, NOT designing general purpose robots. They're designing industrial robots that can adapt to some relatively narrow range of tasks and applying AI to aspects of those tasks that make sense (recognizing dangerous factory conditions, being able to navigate various types of terrain, etc)

 

[2daMoon]

Pontifications on a lazy Sunday morn.

Short Selling has origins in serving a legitimate purpose. It has been turned into a mechanism that is destructive to the market as a whole.

How many companies have failed, or been significantly slowed in their growth due to various manipulation techniques used by Shorty?

What if there were a rule that the only ones who can short a stock are those who own shares in that stock, and, they can only short a specified percentage (say 10%) of their holdings? This way bets can still be placed to offset losses on an expected downtrend without as significantly accelerating it, and, naked shorting would not be possible.

Would such a rule create an environment where rampant shorting is self-regulating, so that tactics such as spoofing and blind shorting would no longer be profitable if it results in shooting themselves in the foot?

When their greater holdings required for shorting would be negatively affected to a larger degree than they would gain from these strategies (which currently offer little risk, big rewards, and as a whole slows the growth of any targeted stock), would such a requirement discourage this predatory behavior in the market?

Would this result in a market that is more biased toward encouraging innovation, growth, and making the world a better place?

Where would TSLA (or so many other companies) have grown to by now if such mechanisms had built-in regulation that would discourage these carrion-feeders from being able to accelerate the untimely demise of a stock (short or long term) in order to feed upon them?

Granted, we all know this is a pipe dream within the current environment at the SEC, but recent DOJ pursuit of these despicable critters planted the seeds of hope in my mind. I don't expect this topic requires much discussion, just tossing a few seeds into the wind.

Some food for thought on a Sunday while waiting for the next trading day to arrive.

 

[mongo]

Trying to figure out how this works. Let assume I get 1M shares for $1. They go up to $100/share and I now have $100M and have to pay taxes. So I sell 20% of my shares and pay taxes. Now I have 800k shares worth $100 with no gain. Next year they go up to $1100. I now have 800k shares with $1000 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this gain. So I sell 160k shares and to pay the taxes with some spare change. I now have 640k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Compare this to my brother who bought 1M shares worth $1 of another company. In one year they went up to $1100/share. So he has made a $1099 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this. So he sells 20% of his shares, pays taxes and have some spare change. He now has 800k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Is this example correct?

Yep, same reason people advise not trading highs/ lows in a taxable acount. While the basis gets reset, you get no further gains on the taxes paid.

 

[betstarship]

Looks like Tesla is getting to work on the Texas power grid.

Tesla Has a Workaround for the "Potentially Unreliable" Texas Power Grid

The American EV manufacturer wants to make sure the Gigafactory will have enough juice to keep operations going always. Here’s what’s planning on doing

www.autoevolution.com

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Trying to figure out how this works. Let assume I get 1M shares for $1. They go up to $100/share and I now have $100M and have to pay taxes. So I sell 20% of my shares and pay taxes. Now I have 800k shares worth $100 with no gain. Next year they go up to $1100. I now have 800k shares with $1000 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this gain. So I sell 160k shares and to pay the taxes with some spare change. I now have 640k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Compare this to my brother who bought 1M shares worth $1 of another company. In one year they went up to $1100/share. So he has made a $1099 gain and have to pay 20% tax on this. So he sells 20% of his shares, pays taxes and have some spare change. He now has 800k shares worth $1100 with no gain.

Is this example correct?

and what happens if the stock goes from $100 to $50? Do you get to write off that "loss" even if you don't sell? Since a lot of people have been holding Tesla for a long time, and it is very volatile, it would impact most of us. I can only imagine what would happen at the end of the year as people try to wipe out paper gains for tax purposes. The whole idea of this tax is insanely stupid.

 

[nativewolf]

You have continuously repeated this falsehood even in the face of contrary evidence. Maybe try learning. Here's one example, from 3 years ago. There are many other examples.

I'm very cautious. I have seen all sorts of improvements since i first was sensitized following the gulf wars, they are all welcome and blessed. To me this is fairly emotional, I have volunteered with the vet groups from walter reed. Mostly my interest came from exactly that field. Due to work and relocation I had to stop volunteering but I had not yet seen something that makes me feel that Tesla can quickly deliver a robot with human like form and function. Not that it is required at all to be useful. The most interesting ag robots look nothing like a human. We might question whether or not we need robots to look like and perform like people. I don't know...I do know I don't see anything that makes me feel that Tesla can just apply a splendid NN approach and manufacturing scale and solve this challenge. I think, and this video demonstrates, that there are other fundamental engineering challenges remaining.

Believe me, I'd be thrilled to see Tesla solve them sooner rather than later. After nearly 10 years of volunteering I'd be cautious. Maybe also the challenges of human prosthetics may be greater than robotics. I'm not sure? In prosthetics there have been some neat improvements just not the sort of improvements that make me say it's a no brainer change investment hypothesis. Rather I would be prepared for a long slog and I'm fine with that. Previously this cautionary voice of mine was somewhat controversial - I'm not an optimistic echo chamber. Leave it at that I won't post again on this for a while.

 

[The Accountant]

on another topic that the accountant or others might chime in on:
This article Prices on Used Tesla Jumped 6% in Last 2 Weeks to $65,000 got some coverage on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslainvestorsclub/comments/toyuhm

with a top post of

View attachment 786488



They should make a pretty penny taking lease returns and adding FSD to them and then selling them for tens of thousands of dollars more than they sold them for the first time.

I hesitated responding to this because it's requires some accounting-speak and we're going to put @Krugerrand to sleep. He probably opted to watch paint dry at this moment.
The Reddit post is partially correct.
When Tesla enters into an Operating Lease with a customer, they estimate what the value of that vehicle will be at the end of the lease (the residual value).
If the residual value of the car changes (in this case it goes up as used car prices are rising), then they take the benefit of this increase over the remaining term of the lease, they don't wait until the car returns to take the benefit. So there is a financial benefit but it occurs sooner than upon resale of the leased car.
The biggest aha for me from the Reddit post was the claim that Tesla adds FSD to these returning cars. I believe that Tesla recognizes 60% of FSD upon sale. 60% of 12k is $7.2k of pure profit per car. 5,000 cars coming off lease and sold with FSD would be $36m in pure profit for a quarter.
I know 100% uptake on resold leased vehicles is not likely - so the number would be somewhere below $36m.
But more and more leased vehicles are coming off lease each quarter and the number will grow.
This is something I have not considered in my financial models.