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

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Well I think everyone will know what type of mood I'm in today ;). All bullish trading is now gone and TSLA looks like it's about to dive hard if the macro's pull back. Looked like TSLA was finally ready to break out of the very long term downtrend (since November), but nope....right back in the downtrend. Pretty much continues the trend of underperformance overall since May 4th with each cluster of outperformance (2-3 days) quickly reversing.

I gotta say.......I'm so happy I sold off a majority of LEAPS, took the gains I had on them and just bought shares (with using a bit of margin to maximize the number of shares I could get without putting myself at any real risk). I have full faith in Tesla as a company, especially Zach and Drew. Simply can't trust Elon to not torpedo the stock at any time. Never seen a CEO kneecap their own stock time after time after time as I've seen in the past 8 months (since November). I'm not harping on Elon, he's his own person. He has a right to act how it wants........But I'm sure as hell not going to do any actions that requires the stock to be at a certain price by a certain time frame anymore.

Side note - I know a few of the guys over on the UI/Entertainment team at Tesla. One got laid off, though it was expected. There was some redundancy on that team. But I have heard for the first time some aggravation with Elon from them. Mainly that they feel they do good work only to have the CEO do something that tanks the stock.

And I can't really disagree with them. I'd feel the same way. Especially for those that started in mid-to late 2020. I think some of us here who were invested 8+ years ago can look at our total gains and be very happy even if though the stock was 1200 just 3-4 months ago. But for some of them, they're looking at RSU's/equity that hasn't really appreciated at all over the past 2 years.

Not that I'm really concerned about employee discontent at the moment. But I do think we're nearing a point where Elon's antics could be reaching a breaking point with employees. That latest interview being a classic example. It was unnecessary to say that, Elon knows the wall st media would run that quote non stop and sure enough, in every news feed, it plastered on the front page.

It's quite funny to listen to them though "Can Elon just shut up for one damn month???" 😅
If they are still working and able to accumulate shares, I’d d welcome low share prices.

I remember an employee ranting in a video a couple years back how she was upset with Elon, etc for knocking down the stock price. Within a handful of months, the SP was at new highs.
 
Deciding, since that RAV4 compliance car, to put out zero BEVs until 2022 and pushing hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell powertrains was smart?

Developing products secretly for years without putting them out in the real world or working out manufacturing challenges was smart?

The CEO saying in December 2020 that electric vehicles are “overhyped” and “The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets” was smart?

Attempting to scale 30 different models simultaneously between now and 2030, spanning four completely different powertrain architectures (battery, ICE hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell) is smart?

Officially targeting 3.5 million annual production of BEVs by 2030 is smart?

Lobbying against increasing emissions standards and EV mandates in all major worldwide car markets was smart and not anti-EV?

How could they even attract and excite engineering talent for BEVs to want to work for them when this is how they talk and spend their money? Let’s not beat around the bush here; the most generous interpretation of all this is that Toyota’s leadership team are incompetent morons and their insistence on slowing down the transition is killing people and risking the future of our planet. Let’s bear in mind that CEO Akio Toyoda is the grandson of the founder of Toyota, Kiichiro Toyoda. What are the odds that this CEO selection was based on Mr. Toyoda being the best person for the job instead of nepotism? By the way, he has a background in law and business administration, not engineering.

Toyota Motor Corp will be bankrupt or bailed out by the Japanese government in the next ten years. Mark my words.
Smart, who said that? They took the Hydrogen incentive money and chose a path to milk things but they had concurrent development and they were not ignoring EVs as many think. I've actually been present at some of these auto maker strategy meetings (scary). I'm not saying Toyota has taken the correct path but back at the start of production EVs things were different at Toyota but they got ugly over time. Even Daimler had a full S class EV before the Nissan LEAF was even a concept to the public. Some may be surprised to know what kept them from moving forward with their prototypes. Lot's of issues with traditional auto makers but not exactly what everyone assumes. Nissan was mostly crippled by their culture and many makers out of fear of EV adoption and the risk of heading in one direction and failing but not always the desire to make EVs. There will be much restructuring and some unexpected changes in the auto world we will not expect.
 

No surprise here. But, it takes only 3 years from the launch!
Not only the time that it took to get there, but they are EVs. It's absolutely astonishing to be challenging for outright sales in that time frame on a wholly different fuel source.
 
Side note - I know a few of the guys over on the UI/Entertainment team at Tesla.
Are they open to feedback? I've also worked with UI / UX development for years and the last major update at the end of 2021 was a head scratcher for me. I view it as a step backwards, making it harder to do things and hiding useful information. I question whether the team is testing in a vehicle while driving. I'd very much like the opportunity to choose older versions of the UI. And I still wonder why car "vision" display needs to take up 30% of my display when I'm driving my vehicle. A larger map would be much more useful. I can give more feedback if it is welcomed.
 
If I remember correctly you mentioned a couple months ago that you have a PhD in humanoid robot mechanical engineering.

Do you foresee any significant challenges going from simulation to actual movement?


There certainly could be significant challenges in getting a demo up an running if the prototype still isn't ready and they are only relying on simulations right now, but long term Tesla is at a severe advantage to others.

This Facebook AI research note talks about some of the issues I thought of, and some solutions.


However, a number of challenges emerge when these skills are first learned in simulation and then deployed in the real world. The physical robot and its model in the simulator are often different in small but important ways. There might be a slight latency between a control signal being sent and the actuator moving, for example, or a scuff on a foot that makes it less slippery than before, or the angle of a joint might be off by a hundredth of a degree.

The physical world itself also presents intricacies that a simulator, which is modeled on rigid bodies moving in free space, cannot accurately capture. Surfaces like a mattress or a mud puddle can deform on contact. An environment that’s fairly standardized in simulation becomes much more varied and complex in the real world, moreso when one factors the multitude of terrains that can exist in both indoor and outdoor spaces. And of course, factors in the real world are never static, so one real-world environment that a legged robot is able to master can be completely different from another.

There are going to be discrepancies between the simulator and actual robot initially, whether its incorrectly modeled lag between body parts, or more latency in signals being transmitted or actuators moving. There is also incorrect modeling of the physics of the environment. [These are all issues I had to deal with in my phd trying to make a humanoid show the same responses as an actual human being to say, jumping and landing].

But Tesla can win becuase they will have actual robots, and lot of them, to deploy, fail, and send back information about what happened.

This closed loop will allow the modeling to iteratively become more accurate to the true mechanical state of Optimus and the environment, making subsequent simulations more correct and deployable. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

Who else can do that? No one.

The rise in Optimus competency will be faster than FSD progress.
 
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I understand what a few have been saying here concerning waiting until another drop to accumulate more shares, however, everytime I’ve done that (even within the past 2 months), my target never hit. I never got those past shares until one day I just got fed up enough with the “waiting” and just submitted a market order. TSLA swings up down and around all day everyday. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It is what it is.
 
If they are still working and able to accumulate shares, I’d d welcome low share prices.

I remember an employee ranting in a video a couple years back how she was upset with Elon, etc for knocking down the stock price. Within a handful of months, the SP was at new highs.
Well you can't expect employees to "accumulate". These are RSU's given to them on their signing bonuses and RSU's they count on for income. Some not only are don't have the discretionary spending each month to accumulate shares on their own, but they also rely on the RSU's for making big purchases such as a home.

One aspect of TMC that does annoy me a bit is that there's a philosophy here that when you're making investments, you have to have a multi-year horizon and be ok with losing money. Which is true.......as an investor. The dynamic for employees who count on RSU's as big part of their current income, to make big purchases, or for their retirement is completely different. Employees don't have the luxury as investors because most of the time, the investor's money is money that has already been made and it there to gain in value. A investor has time on their side, an employee doesn't have that same luxury.
 
I really really hope it is more impressive than the robot in that clip that does nothing more than wag a finger....

I'm not being sarcastic. Lot's of companies have done impressive robotics - there are some pretty huge shoes to fill in this space. That being said - if they indeed do pull off something world class and truly innovative it will be a great day to be in TSLA.
What I see as the fundamental difference between Tesla's efforts and many other companies is scale.

Other companies will build a few handfuls of robots and test those to perfection. Tesla is going to build a robot factory that cranks out tens of thousands of robots. Those robots will stumble, walk into round tables, fall over, and generally fail a whole bunch. But Tesla is going to have the experience of thousands.

Musk never does one offs or small quantities. He always thinks in terms of building things at scale first. Optimus will not be the exception.
 
And I still wonder why car "vision" display needs to take up 30% of my display when I'm driving my vehicle. A larger map would be much more useful. I can give more feedback if it is welcomed.

Most likely because they believe everyone should be on FSD. It would be great if one could choose a larger right hand view because the left side when not using FSD is pretty useless, as you note the maps are very compromised because of this reduction. Also when in reverse why can't I get a much larger camera screen? I think Tesla does testing of these features with no real public usability testing and many of these changes are either reversed or have quite a bit of negative feedback.
 
What I see as the fundamental difference between Tesla's efforts and many other companies is scale.

Other companies will build a few handfuls of robots and test those to perfection. Tesla is going to build a robot factory that cranks out tens of thousands of robots. Those robots will stumble, walk into round tables, fall over, and generally fail a whole bunch. But Tesla is going to have the experience of thousands.

Musk never does one offs or small quantities. He always thinks in terms of building things at scale first. Optimus will not be the exception.
As long as it can reliably pull weeds in my yard and watch over package thieves I don't care.
 
Are they open to feedback? I've also worked with UI / UX development for years and the last major update at the end of 2021 was a head scratcher for me. I view it as a step backwards, making it harder to do things and hiding useful information. I question whether the team is testing in a vehicle while driving. I'd very much like the opportunity to choose older versions of the UI. And I still wonder why car "vision" display needs to take up 30% of my display when I'm driving my vehicle. A larger map would be much more useful. I can give more feedback if it is welcomed.
Should clarify, the team is very small. One person I know got let go because their role was redundant in terms of what the team's mainly focusing on. But the UI/Entertainment team is quite small, which limits their ability to react quickly on certain things. Especially when their main priority is moving on to other things. I actually wish they would increase the overall size of the team so that they could take on multiple things at once. But it is what it is.

Knowing Elon, I can imagine the mindset at Tesla is focus as much of open hire spots to FSD as possible and that once FSD has reached the point where UI/Entertainment because much more important, then the focus will switch to hiring for that team. I would think in Elon's mind, growing the UI/Entertainment team is just waste of cost/resources until FSD is ready.
 
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Smart, who said that? They took the Hydrogen incentive money and chose a path to milk things but they had concurrent development and they were not ignoring EVs as many think. I've actually been present at some of these auto maker strategy meetings (scary). I'm not saying Toyota has taken the correct path but back at the start of production EVs things were different at Toyota but they got ugly over time. Even Daimler had a full S class EV before the Nissan LEAF was even a concept to the public. Some may be surprised to know what kept them from moving forward with their prototypes. Lot's of issues with traditional auto makers but not exactly what everyone assumes. Nissan was mostly crippled by their culture and many makers out of fear of EV adoption and the risk of heading in one direction and failing but not always the desire to make EVs. There will be much restructuring and some unexpected changes in the auto world we will not expect.
I used smart as an antonym of stupid, which was the word used in the original post. Many people do think Toyota leadership is stupid, and I’m one of them. Either that or they’re shortsighted, greedy and unethical to the point that they are willing to effectively commit mass murder which is undoubtedly the net statistical result of unnecessarily perpetuating ICEV sales, especially considering their current position as the largest carmaker in the world.

Pushing for hydrogen fuel cells is also stupid. Last I checked, Toyota are the only ones still seriously pursuing this technology with plans to invest trillions of Yen into developing it. Engineering and management resources always have an opportunity cost. Toyota could have used those resources for BEV development instead of dividing their budget and attention.

Maybe Toyota weren’t ignoring EVs, but if they were spreading misinformation about EVs, running misleading ads about “self-charging” EVs (hybrids), and actively fighting legislation supporting EVs then arguably that’s worse than just ignoring.

Having top secret developmental prototypes for years and not mass producing them is worthless. Rivian did that too and look how that’s working out for them. Rivian at least is 100% in on EVs and only is doing two models; Toyota is taking this ill-advised strategy to the extreme with 30 models and four powertrain architectures while still planning to have the majority of their car sales include combustion engines in 2030.

It’s too late for Toyota and they are screwed. Some other legacy OEMs still have a chance at transitioning, but Toyota is done.
 
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Well you can't expect employees to "accumulate". These are RSU's given to them on their signing bonuses and RSU's they count on for income. Some not only are don't have the discretionary spending each month to accumulate shares on their own, but they also rely on the RSU's for making big purchases such as a home.

One aspect of TMC that does annoy me a bit is that there's a philosophy here that when you're making investments, you have to have a multi-year horizon and be ok with losing money. Which is true.......as an investor. The dynamic for employees who count on RSU's as big part of their current income, to make big purchases, or for their retirement is completely different. Employees don't have the luxury as investors because most of the time, the investor's money is money that has already been made and it there to gain in value. A investor has time on their side, an employee doesn't have that same luxury.

I don’t agree completely with this (as someone who had both stock options and RSUs). These days salaries are competitive in the marketplace, and RSUs are more like bonuses (unlike in the old days when one went to work for a startup with starting salaries way below the market rates). You don’t lose money with RSUs as they are given to you (as opposed to stock options with strike price). As with bonuses, one should not count on it if one is prudent with one’s financial!
 
There are going to be discrepancies between the simulator and actual robot initially
Do you think Tesla has any advantage from having dealt with this same problem in the cars with autopilot/FSD where the physics simulation of the driving dynamics isn’t perfectly accurate and with the factory robots that allegedly have a lot of AI control? Or is this more of a starting from scratch situation?

But Tesla can win becuase they will have actual robots, and lot of them, to deploy, fail, and send back information about what happened.

This closed loop will allow the modeling to iteratively become more accurate to the true mechanical state of Optimus and the environment, making subsequent simulations more correct and deployable. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

Who else can do that? No one.
Why do you think only Tesla will have actual robots for this feedback loop? Is it because of manufacturing prowess, or battery tech and the FSD computer, Dojo, or investing in mass production before it works, or something else?
 
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There's a reason why world-class cyclist sprinters like Mark Cavendish win the long, flat stages on le'Tour (and not the mountain stages). They sit in the middle of the pack for 6 hrs, then sprint to the finish line in the final 3 km. The race is usually decided in the final 200m, sometimes right on the finish line.

EVs in a Daytona 500 style race could work together the same way: Team cars rotate into the pits continuously to recharge, while always keeping some cars at the front of the pack so the Team Captain can draft. Then they uncork the beast for the final sprint to the finish.

EZ peasy, Lemon Squeezie. ;)

Do you know how much energy you save in the middle of the pack? 95%


When I used to race sometime on flat portions of the race I had to brake when in the middle of the pack at 55kph to avoid hitting the wheel of the cyclist in front. Weird feeling when you know the guy in front is pulling 800watts.
 

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