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

[TheTalkingMule]

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That lone maroon for in the southeast probably cost more than all the renewables and storage dots combined.

 

[Krugerrand]

Elon can have his own opinion. Tha point (this is simply a fact) is that he the richest guy in the world with 100M twitter followers and he's the best thing that happened in media/SEO since the invention of the internet. His name is all around the place and... he kinda likes it.
For better or worse, he likes the spotlight.
Now, many of us don't agree with some his political opinions but *moreover* that he states them apparently without much thought all the time on his channels. We think that *this* (along the memes and trolling etc.) plays directly along the plans of his powerful detractors, and so is detrimental to the mission.
We may be wrong but it's a reasonable opinion. As long as he does what he does, fine by me, but I see an issue nonetheless. He's gaining support from the right, apparently, but just on the political side, not sure on the environmental one. He's surely losing support on the left side. We'll see.
I hope this at least will make him sell a ton of Cybertrucks in red states. And Semis.

PS: "cancel culture" is a trigger word that's tossed around all the time, we would be better off not using it. It actually helps the discourse.

I understand stream of conscious coming via the ‘out loud’ voice can be jarring to those who are used to tempering that voice and refraining from saying a lot of things they’d like to. In the name of polite society and all that.

No surprise here for you; meh.

As with any approach in life, there are pros and cons. Myself, I much prefer and more highly value honesty and authenticity than dishonesty (which comes in many forms) and fakeness.

I’d much rather know what somebody really thinks than to be left wondering while they talk trash about me behind my back. But obviously, that’s just me and the culmination of my upbringing and life experiences. Having that information, the truth, allows me to make decisions important to me. I can change me if I know and want to.

Others place high value on being lied to, coddled, and being kept out of the loop. Ignorance truly is bliss.

Don’t give me the song and dance about there being a right way and a wrong way to voice an opinion on a difficult topic. Obviously, knowing your audience and framing in a way they can more readily accept difficult input will keep the waters less turbulent. However, sometimes shock and awe is just what the audience needs to wake them up out of their stupor.

Elon’s audience is vast. There’s not a chance in Hell, he could address that audience and make all the participants happy. Some people don’t want to be happy, some are looking to rip on him about anything from his political views to his hair cut. So your and others’ suggestion is for him to remain silent on certain topics so as not to ruffle feathers. Shame on you. Who are you to dictate to him or anyone for that matter? And now you know why he wants to buy Twitter. So that people who believe as you do can’t shut others up simply because their stream of conscious is distasteful. And that support for people coming from someone who generally dislikes people and doesn’t give a hoot about them.

No, I don’t like everything Elon says or puts on Twitter, but then I can’t even satisfy myself about everything I speak aloud or post on the Internet. And I don’t have any conditions that cause me to not understand social situations; I mostly just don’t give a .

 

[scaesare]

My personal opinion is the the internal combustion engine and burning of fossil fuel for other uses is not going to end because of climate change or politics. Burning of fossil fuel is going to end because EV's and renewable energy are cheaper and much better.

"The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil."

- Don Huberts, of Royal Dutch/Shell Corp.


In support of your point, not only are renewables rapidly improving from a cost standpoint, but oil is going the opposite direction. Even should we not "run out", extracting/refining will get progressively harder, and we've seen many factors contributing to scarcity.

 

[thx1139]

Not overblown at all. Look at the average age of av average westerner. Soon most of us will be pensioners - which would collapse civilization.

He never looks into why younger adults arent choosing to have kids or waiting longer. In this regards he doesnt understand the regular people. He has several children with multiple women. He seems to spend some time with his kids, but he and the women have all sorts of support to take care of the kids, to avoid the day to day taking care of kids, of getting them from place to place, cleaning up after them etc. Tesla is combatting Climate Change, but Climate Change that continues to occur has little chance of having any effect on his families lifestyle. Young adults and kids are afraid of the world that us older adults are going to leave behind.

I push back on the unrealized taxation ideas, but not higher income taxes and higher social security taxes, also expanding medicare and yes we all will pay more for it. Simply because we pay for it anyway. It isnt about paying more for healthcare it is about paying for healthcare in the most efficient means possible.

 

[unk45]

The Model S Plaid is crazy as well.

A base Model S is $105k
The Model S Plaid is $136k

$31k higher selling price for the Plaid. What are the increased costs? one additional motor, three carbon sleeved rotors, better brakes (?), interior upgrades . . .maybe $8k more in costs?

But...all that performance!

 

[growler23]

Or how utility companies in CA are trying to neuter and stop residential solar completely in its tracks...even though this proposal was temporarily defeated, it illustrates the disfunctional thinking the CA PUC shares with the greedy utility companies.

There are also plenty of counter-examples. A quick google search of anti solar state legislation reminds us that Florida (sunny red state) had a big effort to kill rooftop solar (currently defeated IIRC but could come back), as did Kansas (very red state), as does Ohio (red and getting redder).
I don't think it is simply a red/blue left/right thing.
I think in this instance, the nature of local, small-scale solar is so disruptive to the revenue model of the odd, semi-public, semi-private patchwork of utilities that exists in the US means that many utilities will fight it. Like all bureaucracies (private or public) they reflexively try to defend their turf when it is at risk of being taken away.
In addition, yes, NIMBYism exists and due to it being a local force (often applied against wind projects more than solar), it often outweighs the more-distant global good of fighting climate change ... regardless of the political leanings of the majority of people in a given area.
A lot of case-by-case work needs to be done to keep utility companies from stifling the renewables transition. I seem to recall these folks did a lot of research and work in that regard:

RMI

Not so directly Tesla-car-related, but I would still love to hear more Tesla solar discussed here. I have been waiting a long time to see that bust out bigger than it has.

 

[mars_or_bust]

The world is not the west, nor would it collapse civilization. No system can grow forever.

Things are rapidly going downhill in the rest of the world too. China is worse than the west, even India is starting to go below the sustainability level.

 

[JupiterMan]

Not overblown at all. Look at the average age of av average westerner. Soon most of us will be pensioners - which would collapse civilization.

agreed , the aging demographic is a huge problem for many developed countries.

Most countries rely on tax payers to pay pensions of the elderly... so when there is a switch with more elderly than workers you have a huge problem.

This can be helped by immigration from the emerging markets, and whilst politically difficult in many places, it may be the only way out longer term, although this just shifts the problem elsewhere......

 

[Krugerrand]

I don't even know who most of those leaders are or what they say about anything. Thus I can focus solely on the products they produce. Again I'll point out that until recently Elon had enough sense not to be overtly divisive. That has changed. I think it's a mistake. Other's think it's impossible for him to make mistakes.

That’s a big ole pile of beetle dung from you. If you don’t know who those leaders are, then you simply didn’t put in the effort to research them and follow them. And clearly the products they have to offer have little to no potential to change all our lives (or yours) significantly, or you’d be knee deep in it.

So, what you’re really not happy about is that the only corporate leader you feel was worth following and supporting, doesn’t always believe as you do. Yeah, that’s not a question.

 

[Singuy]

Ford has the largest charging infrastructure? Are they counting every 120v outlet at all of their dealers and factories?

(dealerships are stupid places for fast chargers)
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Not if you want to up-sale people stuff. These salesman will try to get you to trade up if they catch you even glancing at a new car due to boredom. Once this guy was trying to talk me into a prius while I was just there to pick up anti freeze and putting it in my car.

 

[SOULPEDL]

His overblown concern about population decrease which is not remotely close to happening nor would it be a negative if it did happen.

I have 2 data points: 2 kids, no grandkids. Seems real, and when you get a feel for what they think is important, whoa!!!

 

[gene]

We are selling our 2015 Model S 85D with 114K miles. Have had it listed for $44,900. A few months ago when we start looking to list it while waiting on our new S the highest price I saw for a similar car over 100K miles was $37,900. Just took a look at Carvana and see a 2013 Model S with over 100K miles purchase in progress for that $37,900. For yucks I just looked to see what Carvana would offer us and it is $18,900. What a ripoff they have a 2012 with over 105K miles for sale at $34,990.

Hey where do people think the best place to sell a Tesla is on the web? We have ours on AutoTrader and Facebook Marketplace.

I have sold a few Tesla cars for friends using this site: Only Used Tesla | A Place Exclusively Dedicated To Buying And Selling Used Teslas

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Ford has the largest charging infrastructure? Are they counting every 120v outlet at all of their dealers and factories?

(dealerships are stupid places for fast chargers)
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I was going to post this. To even put GM here seems disingenuous at best. & Ford has 20k chargers / 60k plugs now!?
I’ve never seen one, are they at every dealership and some? Is this even true.
& are dealerships in places anyone wants to go to charge? None that I’ve seen in CA are

 

[Singuy]

His overblown concern about population decrease which is not remotely close to happening nor would it be a negative if it did happen.

Wow. Tell that to the Chinese government because it's an national emergency over there trying to lift birthrate. From public shaming to government incentives for every birth, the Chinese sees this to be a major issue.

 

[oldTAVguy]

I don't even know who most of those leaders are or what they say about anything. Thus I can focus solely on the products they produce. Again I'll point out that until recently Elon had enough sense not to be overtly divisive. That has changed. I think it's a mistake. Other's think it's impossible for him to make mistakes.

And those business leaders (GM, Ford, etc...) are contributing to the problem more that they are solving it.

 

[Ogre]

"The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil."

- Don Huberts, of Royal Dutch/Shell Corp.


In support of your point, not only are renewables rapidly improving from a cost standpoint, but oil is going the opposite direction. Even should we not "run out", extracting/refining will get progressively harder, and we've seen many factors contributing to scarcity.

The cost of oil isn't going up due to supply.

Willingness to extract it is going down. Oil producers have lost faith in the future of oil so rather than invest in future production, they are returning money to their shareholders (and themselves) as quickly as possible. The longer and deeper this oil shortage is, the better off the people who own these assets are.

This is why Musk was pushing for more oil recently. Demand for EVs climbed way before this recent spike in oil prices. We're at a point where the oil price increase is destabilizing the economy far more than any positive effect on EV sales.

 

[Krugerrand]

His overblown concern about population decrease which is not remotely close to happening nor would it be a negative if it did happen.

So, we currently lost how many millions of people to the recent pandemic? Not just those who died, but also the ones suffering long term health problems, and those deciding life’s too short and retired early. And still others who packed up their lives and made significant changes leaving the entire world short a workforce and upending worldwide logistics.

What about North America’s aging population? How do you see that not affecting the future?

What do you think the Ukrainian population looks like when this war ends?

And I don’t have children and don’t like people and frankly think mankind needs to just disappear because we ruin everything we touch. Still, I understand as Elon does, what’s coming if things don’t change.

 

[Ogre]

Where are the moderators when we need them anyhow!

This morning's discussion...

 

[jerry33]

The Model S Plaid is crazy as well.

A base Model S is $105k
The Model S Plaid is $136k

$31k higher selling price for the Plaid. What are the increased costs? one additional motor, three carbon sleeved rotors, better brakes (?), interior upgrades . . .maybe $8k more in costs?

In almost everything, getting a bit more costs far more than the added utility is worth monetarily (e.g. double the price doesn't give you double the utility). Actually cars aren't too bad in this regard. The premium for Plaid is only 30%. As an example look at tripods: A decent one can be had for $100-$200. A professional level one is $2500-$3500. A really top end one can be $10,000.

 

[JRP3]

Probably further population discussion should be here Elon Musk