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

[Bobfitz1]

1. I used peasant class as shorthand. The more normal term in that part of the world is "the power of the street". Bottom line, there is a very large chunk of the population who cannot be supported at low oil prices, and crashing their standard of living will have political consequences. (ad in global warming and it could be pretty dire). Would you like to propose a term we can all relate to regarding who those people are ?

3. This is relevant to Tesla as part of understanding the bigger picture - where to prioritise and why; where there is likely to be socio-economic upheaval and whether to be exposed to that; etc.

Just a reminder that western countries will also have severe political consequences when the standard of living of large segments of their populations are crashed by autonomous driving AI technology. The relatively small number of anti vax truckers shutting down much of the shipping commerce from Canada to U.S. earlier this year is a preview of how this is likely to play out.

 

[CLK350]

Just a reminder that western countries will also have severe political consequences when the standard of living of large segments of their populations are crashed by autonomous driving AI technology. The relatively small number of anti vax truckers shutting down much of the shipping commerce from Canada to U.S. earlier this year is a preview of how this is likely to play out.

The problem with our standard of living going down when we as a group need to work less caused by FSD progress? What drink (vac uh no nnno ) do I have to take to believe this?

The problem is ourselves not responding to the same miscreants trying to keep ICE, traditional oil & gas and obsolete financial institutions running batch Cobol programs at night doing business as usual. For usual short term (and long term suicidal) profits.

 

[Nocturnal]

So, BYD is buying six lithium mines in Africa. Seems the real Tesla competitor is BYD…

China’s BYD Snaps Up Six African Lithium Mines to Get Ten Years' Supply of EV Battery Materials

www.yicaiglobal.com

Even with this I'm not convinced. BYD is the only other maker with in house battery production. If they could sell EVs at scale and at a profit, why aren't they rapidly expanding?

 

[scaesare]

No clue what this means, but it sounds good.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1532195571519430656

So is this the first time we've heard the name TRIP chip? Assume that's Tesla's custom NN chip.....

 

[jhm]

I wonder if the global auto fleet has become more fuel efficient over the last 5 or so years. I'd like to think so, but larger SUV style vehicles have grown enormously in popularity, and diesel passenger car sales have plummeted. At least we're at the stage in the growth curve where EVs are beginning to make a big contribution to reducing fossil fuel needs.

I'd expect there are enough EVs coming on the market that this is shifting the compliance burden from fuel efficient ICE to EV. So this could allow what ICE remains on the market to have a less efficient mix in recent years. Indeed, fuel efficient ICE is no longer cross-subsidized under fleet standards, this could lead to an overall all reduction in the number of new ICE sold. So policy set at a time when there were practically no EV in the mix could be a little out of touch with the present situation.

That said, from the point of view of total fleet fuel consumption, the old ICE falling into disuse is around 20 years old. So replacements have the benefit of two decades worth of efficiency gains. My analysis of global vehicles in use from 2005 to 2015 (before EVs had much of an impact) suggest that the generational (roughly 20 year) shift had a 43% gain in MPG, and that was inspite of consumer trends performing bigger vehicles.

So while I concede that year over year efficiency gains in new ICE could level off, the generation efficiency gains still impact the total ICE fleet in use and will continue to do so as EVs disrupt the new auto market. 2022 very well could be the peak for ICE vehicles in use. So even with no generational efficiency gains going forward, aggregate demand for motor fuels is likely to decline. So going forward whatever generational efficiency gains remain only intensifies the decline in motor fuel consumption.

Additionally, EVs are close to forcing a permanent decline in motor fuel consumption. My own analysis suggests that by 2025, BEV market share hits 27% and PHEVs could claim another 10%. EV growth beyond this point forces significant fuel displacement. So in view is that setting a new ATH for oil consumption in 2025 or later years has very low probability. Moreover economic headwinds suggest that oil will not set a new ATH this year, 2022. So 2023 and 2024 remain as the last best chances for the oil industry to post a peak higher than 2019.

The oil industry, however, does not appear to want to risk oversupplying the market just to hit a new high score. They'd rather suck maximal profit out of what remains of peak oil demand. We'll see how it plays out, but the oil industry has very little financial incentive to risk collapsing the price of oil.

Indeed, 2018 could stand a the peak year for the production of crude and condensate and 2019 for the peak production of oil (crude, condensate and natural gas liquids). If this holds, 2019 will also likely hold as the peak year for oil consumption. Increasingly, the distinction between peak consumption and peak production is becoming irrelevant. Oil has peaked in 2019.

 

[GOVA]

Even David Lee and Rob Maurer (aka Tesla Daily not portraying the WFH change positively, at least in the thumbnails for latest videos. David Lee on Investing "Do this or else". Tesla Daily last video title "Musk Blasts Remote Work, Tesla Employees Must Return Or Resign". Like I said previously saying hey we arent going to remain WFH company is one thing. The manner you say it is important and that is my biggest issue with the change.

Meh, Elon said work on-site as you should and I've done x 1 million or GTFO. Perfectly fine and clear to me.

Tone? LOL.

 

[ZachF]

I highly doubt that. I think its much more likely that Elon walked into the HR office in Fremont, and there was nobody there. He had to find the janitor to find out that everyone now "works from home". Well, used to...

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that much of the west is having negative productivity growth at the same time WFH increased dramatically.

In that vein, much of the current labor shortages are really just second order effects from the office class being much less productive.

 

[BrownOuttaSpec]

So is this the first time we've heard the name TRIP chip? Assume that's Tesla's custom NN chip.....

It's not the first time, but it's just something we don't talk about a lot in this thread.

Appropriate TMC thread: Tesla autopilot HW3
Additionally an old Reddit post from 2019: Link

Also, it appears there are some devices attached to this SoC. Obviously, there is some emmc storage, but more importantly there’s a Tesla PCI-Ex device named “TRIP” that works as the NN accelerator. The name might be an acronym for “Tensor <something> Inference Processor”. In fact, there are at least two such “TRIP” devices, and maybe possibly two per “side”

Edit: Wow, too funny how this WFH thing comes full circle. Elon responded back in 2019 to the reddit post and the person who posted it (greentheonly) said they did a good job and they responded about WFH.

 

[ZachF]

Productivity at some government institutions that allowed WFH is especially bad because the employees there are so hard to fire… I bet half of them do less than one hour of actual real work a day now. If you have to deal with these places it’s pretty evident compared to 2019.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

Just a reminder that western countries will also have severe political consequences when the standard of living of large segments of their populations are crashed by autonomous driving AI technology. The relatively small number of anti vax truckers shutting down much of the shipping commerce from Canada to U.S. earlier this year is a preview of how this is likely to play out.

Yup Robotaxis will be abused in the street by ex drivers. And caught on camera !

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

Even with this I'm not convinced. BYD is the only other maker with in house battery production. If they could sell EVs at scale and at a profit, why aren't they rapidly expanding?

I think you will find they are.

 

[thesmokingman]

And my guess is that the salesman didn't dare to complain about Tesla panel gaps?

View attachment 811707

But didn't you know, gaps only exist on Teslas?

 

[wws]

Even with this I'm not convinced. BYD is the only other maker with in house battery production. If they could sell EVs at scale and at a profit, why aren't they rapidly expanding?

GM has had in-house cell production for years with LG as partner. Originally built for the Volt, now the Bolt EV/EUV. Two more plants are also just coming on line for their Ultium cells.

Nissan has had in-house production since early Leaf days. IIRC, they tried to sell it off at one point, but still have it.

 

[thx1139]

$175 a barrel in Europe. It won’t get that high in the US since we produce it ourselves.

Oil prices are set globally. Very little difference.

 

[thesmokingman]

You can never be sure of that with any car. The recall affected all Bolts manufactured up to that time.

Out of about 140,000 cars produced there were about 15 fires. GM said the fires were caused by two manufacturing defects in the battery pack. Your pack had to have both defects to cause a fire.

GM said they fixed the problem and they offered replacement packs for all 140,000 affected cars. So far, none of the new packs have reported fires.

The problem with legacies is you don't know how they "fixed" it and if they actually even fixed it since they still outsource their batteries. These guys are closed sourced whereas Tesla is open sourced. We know exactly what level of tech and how it's designed and produced and what sort of safety systems are in place. With the others you are just left hoping.... waiting until Munro I suppose.

 

[henchman24]

The earlier 770 line in the sand showed zero resistance... is this really a 3 Shanghai shift bump? Seems like that catalyst wouldn't cause this level of disconnect.

 

[Usain]

Are you saying you STILL keep your original Bolt - and in your garage too... Pic or your post is hot air


View attachment 811772

Yes, I still have it and I intend for my daughter to drive it for another 5 years or so. It has a brand new battery supplied for free by GM. I'm not worried about it unless I start to see reports that the new batteries also have issues.

 

[Usain]

The problem with legacies is you don't know how they "fixed" it and if they actually even fixed it since they still outsource their batteries. These guys are closed sourced whereas Tesla is open sourced. We know exactly what level of tech and how it's designed and produced and what sort of safety systems are in place. With the others you are just left hoping.... waiting until Munro I suppose.

We don't really know that much about Tesla's design either until Munro tears it apart. Even then, there is a lot that Sandy doesn't share unless you pay for the reports.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

The earlier 770 line in the sand showed zero resistance... is this really a 3 Shanghai shift bump? Seems like that catalyst wouldn't cause this level of disconnect.

I don't think there's even much real buying or selling going on today, but sentiment movement shifting the options market to a higher max pain and MM's adjusting accordingly.

Was very surprised to see this week's call balance shift so much from yesterday's open to today's. I think max pain even shifted like +$35.

 

[thesmokingman]

We don't really know that much about Tesla's design either until Munro tears it apart. Even then, there is a lot that Sandy doesn't share unless you pay for the reports.

Wrong we know a lot dating all the way back to the first batteries released and their patents are open.