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

[Usain]

There's a difference between YOU, as an individual, doing it and Tesla, the company.

Why aren't Tesla employees taxing home with no one in the driver's seat and posting about it?

Why doesn't Tesla have demo vehicles, even if just 100, driving around without a driver?

Why isn't Tesla getting the same autonomous network permits as Cruise and Waymo?

Even if the geofencing problem limits them to major cities, that's still a huge chunk of the overall ride share market. And they're claiming first-mover right now.

There is one important thing you are overlooking.

Do Waymo and Cruise have a clear path to profitability?

Their cars are extremely expensive to build and operate. And it's very unclear if they will be able to make a profit.

So the way I see the Robotaxi race is this:

Waymo and Cruise are proving that the technology can work in a geofenced area.
But we don't yet see when or if it will be profitable.

Tesla is proving it can be profitable because it's not geofenced and Tesla can make the vehicles at a much cheaper cost.
But we don't yet see when or if the technology will be ready.

They are all in a race, but they have different finish lines.

The real advantage Tesla has is time. Tesla can continue improving the technology indefinitely until they reach their goal. Waymo and Cruise can't continue losing money forever.

 

[Nocturnal]

If anyone says anything.

 

[Etna]

Liquidated my very small ARKK holdings at 60% loss and bought some more TSLA with it.
Now 100% all-in TSLA, up from 99.9998%.
That will teach me about diversifying.

 

[henchman24]

If anyone says anything.
View attachment 802517

I think this counted as saying something!

 

[15Peter20]

Ignore button is good...

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Funny to hear all these investment bankers and hedgies talk strategy this morning. IAC, Blackrock, etc....

"We're in cash"
"We've been waiting for multiple compression to now take considerable stakes in these tech firms at a reasonable price"

Oh really? Why didn't anyone think of that before? You can have your cake AND eat it! Got it.

We're gonna be insanely volatile for quite a long while. It sure sounds to me like these guys expect to buy huge chunks of QQQ for pennies and then go to the beach for 3 months.

I see a few holes in that strategy.

 

[BornToFly]

Liquidated my very small ARKK holdings at 60% loss and bought some more TSLA with it.
Now 100% all-in TSLA, up from 99.9998%.
That will teach me about diversifying.

I've been debating doing the same. I bought a bunch of different ARK for my mom after my father passed away suddenly 15 months ago. I thought I would be safe and put some of her money in funds managed by an expert. They are all down 60%. Can't decide if I continue to hold them or cut the losses and put all the money into TSLA now....

 

[Mengy]

These companies are demonstrating perfection. They are setting an extremely high bar.

.....

This isn't a publicity stunt. This is real.

Yep it's real.

I have two friends who live in San Fran and both of them have taken rides with Waymo, and both of their stories are hilarious! One got stuck behind an Amazon delivery van and couldn't get around it, the driver had to take over but couldn't get the autopilot to disengage so my bud had to get out and walk the rest of the way.

My other friend had his Waymo get stuck in a loop of sorts where it kept turning right around the same block.

Yep, sounds like it's ready for prime time!

 

[JustSaying]

I've been debating doing the same. I bought a bunch of different ARK for my mom after my father passed away suddenly 15 months ago. I thought I would be safe and put some of her money in funds managed by an expert. They are all down 60%. Can't decide if I continue to hold them or cut the losses and put all the money into TSLA now....

Just looked, my ARKK is down is down 68.6% probably gonna hold...

 

[Singuy]

There is one important thing you are overlooking.

Do Waymo and Cruise have a clear path to profitability?

Their cars are extremely expensive to build and operate. And it's very unclear if they will be able to make a profit.

So the way I see the Robotaxi race is this:

Waymo and Cruise are proving that the technology can work in a geofenced area.
But we don't yet see when or if it will be profitable.

Tesla is proving it can be profitable because it's not geofenced and Tesla can make the vehicles at a much cheaper cost.
But we don't yet see when or if the technology will be ready.

They are all in a race, but they have different finish lines.

The real advantage Tesla has is time. Tesla can continue improving the technology indefinitely until they reach their goal. Waymo and Cruise can't continue losing money forever.

Ever wonder why geo fenced transportations are always ran by government vs private companies? Because they are not profitable. Here are the amount of buses that are actually profitable...you don't see many above the line as 99% of them are under the line of profitability. Geo fencing style transportation has a hard time asking for high fares because their usefulness are limited where as anywhere style transportation (taxies) can charge the luxury tax for preventing you from walking to your final destination.

Do city buses in the US make a profit?

What cities have the most and least profitable public transportation services in the US?

blogs.sas.com

 

[Usain]

Yep it's real.

I have two friends who live in San Fran and both of them have taken rides with Waymo, and both of their stories are hilarious! One got stuck behind an Amazon delivery van and couldn't get around it, the driver had to take over but couldn't get the autopilot to disengage so my bud had to get out and walk the rest of the way.

My other friend had his Waymo get stuck in a loop of sorts where it kept turning right around the same block.

Yep, sounds like it's ready for prime time!

This goes to what I was saying about profitability. Not only are the cars themselves incredibly expensive to build, they are expensive to operate. Right now it appears to cost more to operate a driverless Waymo than one that has a driver. The reason is because they need teams of people in other cars nearby to come to the rescue when a driverless vehicle gets stuck.

I don't think anybody is particularly close to having a path to Robotaxi profitability. Again, I do think Tesla has an advantage because they don't have to worry about the mounting losses. FSD is already generating revenue.

But Waymo and Cruise will need to show a path to profitability before investors lose patience.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

unfortunately, this is changing fast as Elon does everything he can to spout right-wing talking points and firmly ally himself with Trump supporters, transphobes, and bigots.

Nothing is changing. Elon is the same as he has always been. If society's definition of left and rught has shifted beneath him that is not his responsibility.

Dan

 

[OrthoSurg]

Strange things happen to the SP , when strangers show up on this thread ... (desperate times/ desperate measures ... busy day for higher up's to close their short positions )
I'm calling a bottom based on this indicator

After StronGuy, we get a StrongBird

 

[Electroman]

Karen can sometimes be such a Karen...

While I do not miss Karen one bit gone from this forum, but I do miss our dear Fact_Checking.

 

[StealthP3D]

Karen was a great participant here. She did her research and was able to focus her efforts on things that actually mattered. She's not a bean-counter, she focuses on the big picture and was better at first principles thinking than most. I don't agree with all of her viewpoints put she did a good job of supporting them and had a very broad knowledge base from A to Z. Many people speak from ignorance which Is entertaining to see but not all that useful. Karen is not one of those.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

If Nasdaq resumes its sell off which looks quite likely right about now, oooph TSLA gonna drop like a stone since it’s underperforming it’s beta.

Curious to see how low wall st will let the TTM P/E go. Only Roughly a 4-5% drop before it’s P/E goes under 100 and it’s Forward P/E will be around 65.

What a surreal time to be living in. A company growing earnings well over 100% annually that has a forward P/E of 65

 

[cliff harris]

Why isn't Tesla running a demo fleet? So tourists and residents can "Oooooh" and "Aaaaah" and post about it on social media?

In case you have not noticed, tesla's CEO has 80 million twitter followers, and 3 million peoples tried to get a job at Tesla in the last year. If you think they are looking at their accounts and going 'hey guys, maybe we need some more attention on social media', then you are probably quite a bit wrong.

I didn't buy tesla shares because I thought they could pump up the stock on social media. I bought it because of the long term fundamentals.
Chasing 'cheap wins' on social media is not a long term strategy for investment.
These lidar/map based competitors are VERY good at winning over fund managers. Thats their goal, so they can juice the stock price, and retire in a year or two on a phat bonus. They care not one bit about the long term. I'm glad tesla is not run like that.

 

[SarahsDad]

We could have it worse. We could all be Rivian investors.

RIVN ATH 179
RIVN today 22

88% off it’s ATH

 

[scaesare]

Since other than tesla fsd seems to be todays topic, I ordered a home grocery delivery by this little guy.

Was very cute. He plans the route from the shop by himself, and it took only about 30min to come to my place from the shop. Which is 2 kilometers away. But there's a few streets to cross etc, I live in a city.

View attachment 802462

So, Starship IS operational!

 

[cricketman]

Just looked, my ARKK is down is down 68.6% probably gonna hold...

I really wanted some ARKK a year ago but my broker in Europe didnt offer it, so I bought more Tesla instead. Lucky me!

I cant believe they have bought GM, especially now they are down 70%!

I really like Kathy but apart from the Tesla big win, are there any other companies they support/invest in that are making fantastic progress financially?

Generally Ark is correct about the technology trends, but the difficult thing that will make money is predicting who the winners in the technology will be, and just as importantly, when.

I feel like ARK just invest in any company covering the new tecnhology, rather then thinking very carefully about the roadmap to proitability and thats a bad idea.