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

[phantasms]

I think this move is to extract some useful chips out of the mobile connector for powewalls or other products. Awfully a stupid way to increase margins by a few hundred bucks when you can just do a 500 dollar price hike. Even with the backlash, Elon still doesn't want to freely hand them out.

With you 100%. Got to be supply chain disruption stuff, also considering the timing.

 

[Prunesquallor]

…

Of the people buying wall chargers, how many are doing it because they aren't informed about using an outlet?

…

I needed to run a 220 v line to my garage in any case. So making it 60 amp and buying a wall charger seemed best. Might as well minimize home charging time requirements.

 

[Singuy]

I think robotaxi adoption will vary widely based on mostly age.
So yes, most people above 50 will take a 'wait-and-see' approach.
My hunch is that the 20-50 group will be hard to predict - some will be early adopters, but most won't.

All the TMC anecdotes of Tesla-loving kids going back many years. leads me to believe that the now 10-20 year age group will simply *love* robotaxis. Over time that group just grows.
And maybe they can persuade their parents, uncles, aunts and even grandparents to try robotaxies.

Robotaxi is a logistics problem. Places where there's an abundance of Tesla training are low density areas. People tend to not own cars in high density areas, which means robotaxis are needed in high density areas vs suburbs and smaller cities. So then you end up with the waymo problem. No one cares to use them in easy low population areas in Phoenix when everyone owns a car.

Not having a car in low density areas is a chore. Anyone who lives in the suburbs will know what it's like to live with uber credits when your Tesla is in the shop. It takes half a hour sometimes just to find a uber car that service my location...so you need mass scale of Tesla cars to even make robotaxi competitive with having one in your drive way, accessible within seconds.

 

[Usain]

In the case where a friend or family member needs a charge while at your house, guess what?

If you live in the US, chances are, it's another Tesla!

On other Tesla forums I am constantly seeing self-proclaimed EV experts recommend that people install a charge solution from a third party vendor with a J1772 connector on it "because it's compatible with ALL EV's", but this is misguided thinking.

1) In the US, most EV's sold are Tesla's so an adapter would ne needed with most EV's. A Tesla Wall Connector can charge all EV's with a J1772 adapter.
2) The Tesla Wall Connector costs less and is higher quality than most 3rd party charge solutions.
3) The Tesla Wall Connector charges faster than most 3rd party charge solutions.

I think all three of your points are incorrect or a bit misleading.

1) The Tesla to J1772 adapter is very expensive and it is not included with your non-Tesla EV. The J1772 to Tesla adapter is cheap and you get one free with every Tesla. So if your goal is to install a universal charger in your garage, it's better to install a J1772 instead of the Tesla wall charger.

2) This is not true at all. There are plenty of high quality J1772 chargers at all price points. You will need to do some research to compare quality and features, but some are as good or better than Tesla's wall charger.

3) Again, there are plenty of J1772 wall chargers you can buy that charger as fast as the Tesla wall charger. But you almost certainly don't need over 40 amps anyway. That's plenty fast for L2. And the wiring gets expensive when you go over 40 amps.

My last point is that the Tesla wall charger does not have a plug for NEMA 14-50. Tesla used to offer this but now they only sell a hard-wired version. Having that NEMA 14-50 outlet is very convenient. It allows you to easily disconnect the charger or even take it with you when you move.

You might already have a NEMA 14-50 outlet. If you do, definitely get the third party J1772 charger because you won't need to hire an electrician.

 

[jerry33]

the Mobile connector used to be a necessity. People might remember the old day when EV owners went to camping sites in order to charge at a 14-50 outlet there.
I used to use it at home too

i think statistics showed that it is used less and less because superchargers are almost everywhere now. Nobody needs the mobile charger anymore on road trips and the mobile charger was never meant to be used at home anyway.

Except at campgrounds, B&Bs, or road trips in the Supercharger Desert. Almost Everywhere just means California and much of the East Coast. I guess if you never take trips, then you can get by with just a Wall Connector, but in the Plains States, just one Supercharger location out, or traveling in winter without a long range Tesla means your road trip relies on RV parks and L2 charging locations.

 

[mongo]

I think this move is to extract some useful chips out of the mobile connector for powewalls or other products. Awfully a stupid way to increase margins by a few hundred bucks when you can just do a 500 dollar price hike. Even with the backlash, Elon still doesn't want to freely hand them out.

Maybe? Likely not a lot of overlap unless the microcontroller is common to other modules.

I think it's more likely there are supplier issues in general for MC (out of stock in store) and it's a pain to deliver cars without a listed accessory and then delivery later. This helps prioritize MCs for people who need them and reduces waste for those that don't (crash replacement Tesla, two Tesla household with one traveling car,...).

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

The only way WS will give a 100 forward PE to TSLA at that point is if was still growing at 50% top line. According to your numbers that would mean 255 B for 2028. And forward looking as it is, WS would like to assume the same for 2029, or ~370 B.

Perhaps we can assume a lower PE in 2027, a premium to where AAPL is now.

I am hoping / planning for 3X but will be happy to receive 20X by 2030. This is not just about cars. TSLA continuing to explode in this fashion will require success and stunning growth in Energy, Optimus, and, dare I say, FSD.

$1111 is my per share non-split price target by 2030. That will allow me to retire comfortably, unless inflation continues at this pace. I hope I'm not disappointed.

And regarding mobile charging cables: I drive to San Diego once or twice a year. I don't plan on staying at an Airbnb that I can't at least charge at 120V. They have a few superchargers in San Diego, but it was still a pain in the ass waiting in line and then waiting for a full charge. During the road trip portion I look forward to charging, so I can eat, nap, or go for a walk.

I like @Stormy24 's idea of raising prices, but discounting the price of the mobile charger if the customer doesn't want it. Seems better psychologically.

I'm sorry, this is totally going to get deleted. Why am I spending so much time on this.

 

[Singuy]

Maybe? Likely not a lot of overlap unless the microcontroller is common to other modules.

I think it's more likely there are supplier issues in general for MC (out of stock in store) and it's a pain to deliver cars without a listed accessory and then delivery later. This helps prioritize MCs for people who need them and reduces waste for those that don't (crash replacement Tesla, two Tesla household with one traveling car,...).

Well it seems that they are still included for all grandfather orders according to people who called customer service so I'm not sure.

 

[The Accountant]

Shanghai looks to ease lockdown by Wednesday. That's the target; let's hope it happens.

Shanghai targets lockdown turning point by Wednesday, sources say

Shanghai has set a target to stop the spread of Covid-19 outside of quarantined areas by Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

www.cnbc.com

 

[nativewolf]

I think robotaxi adoption will vary widely based on mostly age.
So yes, most people above 50 will take a 'wait-and-see' approach.
My hunch is that the 20-50 group will be hard to predict - some will be early adopters, but most won't.

All the TMC anecdotes of Tesla-loving kids going back many years. leads me to believe that the now 10-20 year age group will simply *love* robotaxis. Over time that group just grows.
And maybe they can persuade their parents, uncles, aunts and even grandparents to try robotaxies.

They'll love a robotaxi until they have kids. It's a giant flaw in ARKs robotaxi model. Once your car resembles your house it is going to be hard to every use a robotaxi on a regular basis. Older teens may like them quite a lot, early twenty somethings, etc. OTOH I think elderly will uptake at much higher levels than people think. Just look at FB, basically old people are highest users. Things happen with age; balance, eyesight degradation, etc that cannot be overcome easily. I think elderly will become early users because it beats not being able to drive, it would let elderly eat dinner out at a friends house ( in rural american they all eat breakfast and lunch together but almost never dinner- driving at night is a terrible experience). However, i also think that JP Morgan and others have it correctly, it is years away. There is no magic switch to flip, it's just hard work and more hardware, and hard work.

We don't know what we don't know: I think we have seen a fundamental transformation of society and work. People are not going to offices as much, at least here in the Northern VA area and I think in most urban areas. I used to have an hour long wait in traffic for a ride that I can do now without ever going slower than 50mph, few 10mph crawls which used to be common on the beltway around DC (730 in morning I never went below 50 on two consecutive days- first time I had been on the beltway in 3 years and I showed up far too early both days). Amazon has 1000 and 2000 person buildings largely empty. 10 people in a building designed to office 1000. I don't know how that impacts the robotaxi model but it is a profound shift in work culture. I wonder about this trend and don't know what it means to society. My Amazon manager friends say it is same in all the major offices.

Overall I am very optimistic about the impact of Robotaxi type service in society, I feel it will enable a large number of socially disadvantaged people to participate in society- from elderly to functional alcoholics. I don't believe it will be financially momentous for robotaxi providers but great for the economic activity of society- GDP vs a company's PE multiple. Ride sharing companies have hemorrhaged monies from inception til now and they did so by attracting huge amounts of capital and blowing it. Competition is keeping margins negative and no GAAP profit in sight. I don't see the overwhelming need to compete for business in a space where others are bankrupting themselves and where competition is going to be very high.

For all these reasons I think FSD software sales are far more interesting. I think plenty of people will buy 10k in software to replace the drudgery of driving. Software is high margin. Services...historically low margins and scale is difficult.

As for me I wish Tesla would actually focus on products they announce rather than announce more products they can't ship. Tesla Solar Roof still doesn't exist in a meaningful fashion. The 4680 launch has been glacial and has delayed CT and Semi by years. FSD- no WS analyst puts any value on it because every promise has been broken and the end is still not in sight. All in all this is a worrisome trend to me. Is Tesla becoming another Xerox / PARC Labs? EM has said " manufacturing is hard " . Evidently so. I would say all the more reason to focus more on the ability to get products from idea to scale'd manufacturing. Love Tesla for pioneering electric vehicles. Loved the initial Powerwall applications, all the way to megapacks. I believe they need to drastically.

Love the idea of solar roof- the roof of every building in the world is replaced more often than we will replace an EV with a million mile battery. Consider that. But we dont have a simple way to make this surface appropriate for collection. it's a profound issue.

4680- the linchpin to all tesla growth going forward. Panasonic says late 2023. Tesla for all their headstart seems to be on about the same schedule.

 

[mongo]

Well it seems that they are still included for all grandfather orders according to people who called customer service so I'm not sure.

That makes sense given it was standard equipment at time of order. Supply chain management should provide availability forecast. If vehicle production scales faster than mobile connector (MC) production, that's a good thing. Which could be another bottleneck, MC production in general.

 

[EVMeister]

$1111 is my per share non-split price target by 2030. That will allow me to retire comfortably, unless inflation continues at this pace. I hope I'm not disappointed.

What do you mean by "$1111 non-split"? You mean you expect the share price to keep splitting by varying amounts every time it creeps up to that sort of level?

 

[ggies07]

Another successful SpaceX landing...."Like a glove!"

 

[GOVA]

I drive very little so I hope this solar roof kit becomes available for my Model 3 ordered for July delivery.

EV SOLAR KITS | Charge Anywhere

Solar Charging Kits for Tesla and Other EVs! Add range to your car with our portable rooftop charging kits. Clean, Mobile, and Free Charge!

www.evsolarkits.com

I am surprised they went this dead horse route. Good luck to them. I am surprised they did not offer front winshield solar cover if this is reliant on stationary charging.

removing charger might mean more people going to their local superchargers. save money on the kit, then make money on supercharging fees.

they removed HomeLInk as well, and that was annoying having to get that installed post purchase. just make all those kinds of things available at configuration time.

Homelink removal did happen because of licensing fees tesla has to pay. Why pay for 100% where not all will be utilized. This is typical Tesla not wasting money.

Stats with charging kit tell similar story. The overwhelming majority don't use this. If somebody needs one, it will be available to buy.

Simple stuff really.

 

[scaesare]

Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg wrote the book (literally) about how Google works. I'm reading it now and actually a bit disappointed because it's more about management principles than the history of Google. I picked the wrong book for what I wanted to learn about Google, but the book is insightful IMO.

Consider "In the Plex" by Levy. Good history of the company.

 

[GOVA]

Even Gali isn’t convinced about Robotaxi and FSD anymore

https://twitter.com/x/status/1515379863326126084

Even Gali? LOL. Color me convinced NOT.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

What do you mean by "$1111 non-split"? You mean you expect the share price to keep splitting by varying amounts every time it creeps up to that sort of level?

No, just based on the current number of shares that exist. I'm trying to keep my expectations low so that I'm not disappointed. My biggest fear is being in the poorhouse when I could have got out now, and probably lived comfortably for the rest of my life. I've had a lot of regrets in my life. I don't need another one.

 

[Mengy]

$1111 is my per share non-split price target by 2030.

So, uh, you essentially think TSLA will trade mostly flat.....for the next eight years? Uh, how?


P.S. I find this discussion much more interesting than discussing mobile connectors or Twitter.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I think Elon should use a Twitter poll when considering changes like removing the mobile connector. Seems better than making a decision then backtracking on it. Plus he could get some good feedback from comments.

 

[EVMeister]

No, just based on the current number of shares that exist. I'm trying to keep my expectations low so that I'm not disappointed. My biggest fear is being in the poorhouse when I could have got out now, and probably lived comfortably for the rest of my life. I've had a lot of regrets in my life. I don't need another one.

So you're happy with the current share price, you'd still be happy if that's where it ended up at your exit point. But higher would be a bonus for you?