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

[TheTalkingMule]

I think older folks in manufacturing would probably say this is the worst time in recent history to attempt ramping up new factories. At least Tesla got them built before inflation started really going nuts, that's a big plus in terms of their cost, but ramping up factories in the current environment of supply chain issues etc is so far from ideal.

Other automakers' investment in future EV production is also at risk, since the nature of inflation means that costs already sunk into existing infrastructure are advantaged against that same infrastructure built in an inflated future. It will now cost far more to build an equivalent factory in 2022> versus <2019.

For others yes, but for Tesla? Elon has a very raw materials input mindset. All these other players are barely capable of assembling parts. Tesla has to source lithium and steel, General Motors has to work with a million existing suppliers to scale up an entirely new product they're not even qualified to design.

From a TSLA investor's perspective this is quite an effective moat. Not great for the overall mission to scale EVs across the entire market.......but wonderful for Tesla margins!

 

[henchman24]

The 11,000-11,100 range will be important to watch for the Nasdaq. If that doesn't provide much support, we'll be re-testing the 200 week MA and potentially market lows again (where the leg down below lows is ~10,100). If it provides support, a move back to the 150 week of 11,900 could be in the cards (next leg beyond that is 12,600 and falling so probably more in the 12,400 range by the time this momentum would hit). But likely going to wait until after this week with rebalancing happening this week.

 

[hobbes]

Another supplier for 4680 cells:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1541830884084645888

Wasn´t there another battery make we heard about preparing 4680s, anyone remember who it was? Wonder if they have the same issues as Tesla or as it seems to be just pilot lines, probably not as problems only show up when increasing speed?

 

[Nocturnal]

People are going to be absolutely shocked by the volumes that Tesla delivers in 2023/24.

 

[mickificki]

It was last week's rise in the stock market that was probably more of an anomaly. With persistently high worldwide inflation, with an imminent official recession, there is no real reason for the market to not be bearish. For a true change in sentiment on the stock market, the inflation has to drop, for that to happen oil has to drop significantly (say to 70-80 dollars per barrel). Oil price should drop once recession hits in full force, perhaps in a few months.

Am waiting with couch cash for more TSLA for that, in a very naive and misguided belief I will be able to time the bottom

I know dollar cost averaging is the way to go, and in general I practice it. However, all these macro headwinds have me spooked a bit, compounded by both the Ukraine war and a lack of vision/long term economic policies from the governing bodies. So am now keeping cash just in case things go much more downhill than anticipated.

Also, on a more sinister level, I am located in the eastern part of EU, and to be honest, here one can never be sure if the Ukraine war will spill over, with Russia attacking its formed Soviet Union minions - if that happens it is a very good policy to have cash in hand, so I can get my family out west.

There's a video going around of Macron pulling Biden aside and telling him the Saudis told him (Macron) that they are already at max output for oil, and that Biden shouldn't expect an increase in output from them. He was urging Biden to pump more oil out of the US. Biden appeared to ignore him and shuffled away.

Doesn't seem like oil will come down anytime soon.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Nice to see the nonGAAP estimate avg for 2Q down to $1.98 from $2.14 a few weeks back. That's what Yahoo is showing anyway.

 

[Gigapress]

You see all the downvotes I got this weekend for bringing up criticisms to the Tesla YouTuber fsd hype syndrome?

Internets a giant echo chamber.

I read through all of those criticisms from Reddit user u/whydoesthisitch. The comment history does not reflect mere technical criticism.

The user explicitly asserts that FSD is a fraudulent scam which Tesla has no intention of ever making into autonomous driving software, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is in the "cult". To be clear, they're saying not just that Tesla's approach will fail, but that Tesla isn't even trying to make it succeed at anything other than marketing.

Other wild claims include that:

• "Dojo is nothing. They haven't even built it, and the theoretical specs they gave are already years behind the leading AI training chips. And that's ignoring the fact that they still need an interconnect and a compiler. It simply doesn't make any sense why Tesla would actually build this thing, and I'm confident they never will."
• FSD is "extremely rudimentary" and college students could make software with better self-driving performance in 2007
• Tesla collects a "tiny amount" of data from customer cars
• The data collected in not in a format useful for training their model anyway
  • "Not even remotely suitable for training deep learning models"
• Even if the data were useful, Tesla has no backend infrastructure for using customer data
• "The variety and quality of sensor data collected by more advanced cars used by Waymo, Cruise, Nvidia, Mobileye and others is far more useful for actual training."
• "Tesla's claimed data advantage simply doesn't exist. Of actual usable training data, Tesla has far less than other companies in the field."
• Most of the AI industry views Tesla as a fraud and "Whenever one of our models vastly underperforms, or a test doesn't go as planned, people will all say to each other, 'at least we aren't Tesla.'"
• Tesla is "corner cutting in terms of ... processing hardware" (FSD computer)
• Tesla "doesn't follow standard design principles of iterating internally before a wider release"
• Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is less safe than subways
• Elon is not an engineer
• The cameras and hydranet Tesla is using can't possibly have resolution precision better than 1 meter for position and depth measurements with the available processing power

This person also claims to have recently received a job offer from Tesla but turned it down. How did they get a job offer? If this is how they feel about Tesla, surely they didn't apply. Is it really likely that Tesla would have sent them a job offer without applying despite clearly disagreeing with Tesla's approach? They further claim to know multiple AI engineers within Tesla who are saying they know the system won't work and are being micromanaged into working on a project they don't believe in while getting paid half what they could get elsewhere. This too makes no sense. Why aren't these supposed employees leaving to work for another company?

The fact that this account posts on r/RealTesla is not really a good sign of their critical thinking skills either. That's not a place where legitimate, well-reasoned criticism of Tesla can be found.

 

[henchman24]

There's a video going around of Macron pulling Biden aside and telling him the Saudis told him (Macron) that they are already at max output for oil, and that Biden shouldn't expect an increase in output from them. He was urging Biden to pump more oil out of the US. Biden appeared to ignore him and shuffled away.

Doesn't seem like oil will come down anytime soon.

Really the only way oil will come down is if demand comes down. There isn't really isn't a realistic a way for supply to open up in the near term. US can't produce that fast. OPEC is producing quite a bit already. Russian oil isn't likely to hit the open market anytime soon. Typically recession tends to cut demand quickly. If we do go into recession (and that is looking more likely by the day), I'd expect oil prices to fall fairly quickly after that declaration is made.

 

[mars_or_bust]

There's a video going around of Macron pulling Biden aside and telling him the Saudis told him (Macron) that they are already at max output for oil, and that Biden shouldn't expect an increase in output from them. He was urging Biden to pump more oil out of the US. Biden appeared to ignore him and shuffled away.

Doesn't seem like oil will come down anytime soon.

Yeah, I saw that... Depressing.

Unfortunately, this is a clear lack of visionary leadership. I am trying to avoid getting political, but it is very pertinent for the stock market price. US is now begging the Saudis for more oil, which apparently is not coming. The US should, and could, ramp up its production - the ramping up process will take time, but just starting it will ease the fear in the markets and bring down the price of oil. History will likely judge as a huge error the passivity of this administration towards ramping up oil production.

Even Germany, which for the last 10-15 years took every possible wrong step regarding energy production (closing down nuclear power plants, importing ever more quantities of oil and gas from Russia, encumbering wind and solar power with increasing bureaucratic steps, ...) is now starting to adjust to the new situation: probably will not close immediately (as was planned) the last 3 operational nuclear plants, and is starting up a coal powered plant.

I, like everybody in this forum, is all in for 100% renewable. But we have to survive today, this winter, the next 5-10 years where we still will depend to a large degree on oil and gas. And we also need to bankrupt Russia if we want peace in the world.

 

[mars_or_bust]

Another supplier for 4680 cells:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1541830884084645888

Wasn´t there another battery make we heard about preparing 4680s, anyone remember who it was? Wonder if they have the same issues as Tesla or as it seems to be just pilot lines, probably not as problems only show up when increasing speed?

Probably not same issues. I think only Tesla is using the DBE technique. The others are likely employing the tabless form - I don't know if Tesla gave away that knowhow for free, or if there is another arrangement that enables these companies to make practical 4680 cells.

 

[replicant]

There's a video going around of Macron pulling Biden aside and telling him the Saudis told him (Macron) that they are already at max output for oil, and that Biden shouldn't expect an increase in output from them. He was urging Biden to pump more oil out of the US. Biden appeared to ignore him and shuffled away.

Doesn't seem like oil will come down anytime soon.

Macron is being ridiculed in the French social media. That was so staged for the camera I'd bet there's nothing that Biden did not already know

https://twitter.com/x/status/1541539035931463681

 

[Ogre]

There's a video going around of Macron pulling Biden aside and telling him the Saudis told him (Macron) that they are already at max output for oil, and that Biden shouldn't expect an increase in output from them. He was urging Biden to pump more oil out of the US. Biden appeared to ignore him and shuffled away.

Doesn't seem like oil will come down anytime soon.

If you were a US oil producer, would you be investing in expanding capacity in the face of declining demand?

Oil suppliers have a bit of a sword of Damocles over their heads at the moment. Without knowing how long Russian sanctions are going to last, any capacity expansion could potentially backfire on them. It seems pretty clear overall demand is going to be lower in 10 years so any increase in production is going to be low hanging fruit type efforts.

 

[Matias]

Even Germany, which for the last 10-15 years took every possible wrong step regarding energy production (closing down nuclear power plants, importing ever more quantities of oil and gas from Russia, encumbering wind and solar power with increasing bureaucratic steps, ...) is now starting to adjust to the new situation: probably will not close immediately (as was planned) the last 3 operational nuclear plants..

Every article that i have read says, that they are not going to cancel or postpone the closing. Sadly.

 

[TN Mtn Man]

O.K, now let's do the same exercise with legacy auto. Unfortunately, we can lump them all together without taking too many liberties:

1) Crappy, ill-handling, unsafe, over-priced vehicles that have more buttons, knobs and switches than a nuclear submarine.
2) Greedy inefficient dealerships who recommend completely unnecessary work, upgrades and warranties at ridiculous prices for what you actually get.

But you are complaining that your favorite car doesn't come in enough colors and the service department doesn't view you as a lucrative source of additional profit?

Not sure how you figure "over-priced" when you can get a perfectly capable compact CUV ICE (Rav4, CRV, Equinox) for well under half the price of an MY. All with good safety ratings. Don't get me wrong, I want a Tesla, but you sure can't say they compete on price with common ICE vehicles.

 

[Electroman]

Please delete my account when @The Accountant asks for his account to be deleted, thank you.

Or @Gigapress. If only we can get @factchecking back

 

[Electroman]

Full interview drops Friday July 1st and her podcast is named after the fact that she normally talks about rocks and stones.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1541749448124022785

Johana Crider is a fan girl. Nothing wrong with it. Sometimes I think I am a fan boy too.

 

[viridi]

Same tricks as yesterday (and so many other days) being used to spoof/cap. The magic # right now is around $704 (seems they are protecting $705) - every time TESLA approaches or dares to exceed $704, the capping through spoofing starts - sell orders of 1,000 and 1,100 being used very effectively.

 

[AudubonB]

If it weren’t for the tenuous link that they are manufactured in Texas, I should relegate the following to a different thread, but…I’m not.

I have just purchased and received a new batch of PV panels; they’re coming from a company I’d not heard of before. 340W modules from Mission Solar Energy out of New Braunfels.

Has anyone any experience with or otherwise heard of them?

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

If it weren’t for the tenuous link that they are manufactured in Texas, I should relegate the following to a different thread, but…I’m not.

I have just purchased and received a new batch of PV panels; they’re coming from a company I’d not heard of before. 340W modules from Mission Solar Energy out of New Braunfels.

Has anyone any experience with or otherwise heard of them?

If only we had a mod who would see through subjects with this tiny relevance.

I mean seriously. It's pretty clear from recent posts that many are upset over your hapsard selection over what goes here and you find now to be a good time to go off topic yourself?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Really the only way oil will come down is if demand comes down. There isn't really isn't a realistic a way for supply to open up in the near term. US can't produce that fast. OPEC is producing quite a bit already. Russian oil isn't likely to hit the open market anytime soon. Typically recession tends to cut demand quickly. If we do go into recession (and that is looking more likely by the day), I'd expect oil prices to fall fairly quickly after that declaration is made.

Demand is considerably below pre-covid levels. US supply just cracked 12Mb/d two weeks ago and is still a good 10+% below pre-covid rates.

This is oil producers and oil traders(Wall Street/London) working in unison to keep oil futures artificially high. In other words, price gouging. There's no tangible shortfall in commercial supply of crude anywhere in the world right now. Just doomsday talk.

We've established a good strategic reserve release program in the US that's definitely working. Next I'd attack record profits of the oil majors with a windfall tax.

Should be an interesting day tomorrow as two full weeks of US commercial stockpiles data is released. EIA/DoE had a "systems outage" last week. We might see a double build in US commercial stockpiles tomorrow at 10:30am Eastern.