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

[InTheMiddle]

Did people notice how most of the presenters started off saying how many long years they’ve been working at Tesla? That narrative about Elon burning out top talent … busted.

Excellent point.

Another aspect being considered by some: This style of introduction is perhaps most commonplace in career interviews (whether consideration for promotion, introduction to new org after a lateral move, and especially career advisory board -style discussions). While none of the speakers came across last night as interviewing for the CEO role, the various presentations did provide additional insight into many of them being very well qualified candidates (a very good thing, to be sure) should that role open up. Even better, IMHO (and others' less-than-humble opinions ), Mr. Musk's presentation components and Q&A answers were a very strong return to the Elon-Musk-of-old that I have been hoping to see a return of, which greatly decreases the perception or actuality of reasons for that role to open up. It was an exceedingly good juxtaposition to simultaneously see A) the depth of talent available to step up internally and B) a significant decrease in the risk of needing that talent to step up.

 

[electracity]

I agree but, virtually everyone would like V2H. Another subtle reminder, Tesla prioritizes the mission over the customer.

The mission is best served by V2G. The vast resources put into seldom used personal vehicles is locked away without at least demand respense.

 

[MartinAustin]

Many have rightly expressed concern about "paint control" when the car is painted in separate sections, versus the body-in-white. I'm willing to speculate this won't be a concern. Consider this image:

The Unboxed parts can roll through a specialised paint shop, all lined up along a flat plane, like an identity parade, together. Probably held in a special frame from the interior sides. All painted in the same session. Those pieces all get attached to the same car. In conventional paint shops, we often see paint robots performing elaborate contortions to paint the various nooks & crannies of the BIW. This requires a lot of room... a lot of cubic volume. If the Unboxed car parts are on a relatively flat plane, the paint shop itself might be physically smaller, and require less programming and less elaborate paint robots. Undercoat dipping processes might take up less room. (not sure about the actual vagiaries of Tesla paint layers) But my key point is that if a factory paint shop can be optimised for Unboxed manufacture, it can be smaller, cheaper, waste less, and still produce a car that the casual onlooker has no idea about the revised processes.

Perhaps more than one Unboxed paint shop can be fitted into the space formerly occupied by one BIW paint shop. Meaning... higher production speed. All sorts of benefits

 

[Artful Dodger]

"We removed ultra sonic sensors from our vehicles since our data shows people have eyes and don't need them".

"I'll hold this nail, and you take this hammer. Then when I nod my head, you hit it".
-- Stanley

 

[2101Guy]

Did people notice how most of the presenters started off saying how many long years they’ve been working at Tesla? That narrative about Elon burning out top talent … busted.

Hmmm...scientifically speaking, this means..nothing..as it doesnt take into account total # of top talent hired over "x" period of time factored against "y" number of top talent that has left over "x" period of time, contrasted to remaining top talent.

In other words, your perspective is kinda like when a person buys a car model, then says "as soon as I buy a car, everyone else on the road has the same model"

 

[insaneoctane]

$30/month per car (I assume per car) is more than I'm paying for charging the X and the Leaf. A good deal in California though.

Yes, which is why they wouldn't be able to offer it in California

 

[electracity]

Many have rightly expressed concern about "paint control" when the car is painted in separate sections, versus the body-in-white. I'm willing to speculate this won't be a concern. Consider this image:
View attachment 912969

The Unboxed parts can roll through a specialised paint shop, all lined up along a flat plane, like an identity parade, together. Probably held in a special frame from the interior sides. All painted in the same session. Those pieces all get attached to the same car. In conventional paint shops, we often see paint robots performing elaborate contortions to paint the various nooks & crannies of the BIW. This requires a lot of room... a lot of cubic volume. If the Unboxed car parts are on a relatively flat plane, the paint shop itself might be physically smaller, and require less programming and less elaborate paint robots. Undercoat dipping processes might take up less room. (not sure about the actual vagiaries of Tesla paint layers) But my key point is that if a factory paint shop can be optimised for Unboxed manufacture, it can be smaller, cheaper, waste less, and still produce a car that the casual onlooker has no idea about the revised processes.

Perhaps more than one Unboxed paint shop can be fitted into the space formerly occupied by one BIW paint shop. Meaning... higher production speed. All sorts of benefits

Everyone has to track the doors now. The issue isn't paint, it's what replaces the welds. The attachment process changes radically.

 

[TrendTrader007]

Wall Street can sell off Tesla stock all day long. I couldn’t care less. I was so excited to see Optimus building Optimus. That is crazy and I agree with SMR of solving the money problem that Optimus will dwarf any auto or FSD or energy revenue and eventually Tesla will be worth trillions of dollars in market cap. Good luck competing with Tesla at any level.
This morning saw several Teslas on the road which simply tells me that Tesla products are in very high demand. Wait till Cybertruck hits the road. That should cause a huge spike in free advertising for Tesla and raise demand even more.
I fully expect this sell off to be short term only
Within 3 to 4 months we very well could be at $400+ stock price and $1000 within a year or so.
Not financial advice

 

[TesslaBull]

Wait a minute…people touting V2G/V2H are saying it’s cheaper and more storage than a Powerwall, so they want it instead of paying up for permanent storage. So no, that is not the use case being discussed.

Again, in an emergency, yes, it would be useful. So would simply having a converter from the 12v out to 120v to power essential appliances (refrigerator). The notion of driving back and forth during a blackout to a working supercharger to keep your house going is about as practical as using your ICE car as a generator during an outage to power your house from the 12v plug and refueling at the gas station as needed.

V2G might be great in a rare emergency, but the right infrastructure is not there for general use and the right infrastructure is not to enable the car to be a primary backup source, but to have permanent stationary storage. With or without solar. I wouldn’t want to risk not being able to leave the area if necessary because I was running my fridge, TV or whatever instead.

I think the point your argument does not take into account is that an EV isn't just an inferior backup to a power wall, but that rather it is in the most important ways....VASTLY SUPERIOR. Drastically higher capacity and drastically lower(0) cost. A single M3 has the capacity of 6 power walls. So a 2 EV household could have the emergency backup power of having 12 power walls, and at literally zero extra cost.

 

[scaesare]

Honestly tho, who uses a sun roof besides the first few days? It's the root cause for creeks and leaks but provide near zero value the customer pays for.

All the time when temp < 70F and not raining.

 

[Max Plaid]

Use mine on my 2013 S all the time as weather allows. Will miss it when I move on as well...

Aside the crazy RWD fun, the thing I miss the most about my P85 is the pano roof, it was open by default for me, regardless the weather

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Wall Street can sell off Tesla stock all day long. I couldn’t care less. I was so excited to see Optimus building Optimus. That is crazy and I agree with SMR of solving the money problem that Optimus will dwarf any auto or FSD or energy revenue and eventually Tesla will be worth trillions of dollars in market cap. Good luck competing with Tesla at any level.
This morning saw several Teslas on the road which simply tells me that Tesla products are in very high demand. Wait till Cybertruck hits the road. That should cause a huge spike in free advertising for Tesla and raise demand even more.
I fully expect this sell off to be short term only
Within 3 to 4 months we very well could be at $400+ stock price and $1000 within a year or so.
Not financial advice

I'm super skeptical about Optimus having any meaningful impact in the next 10 years, and Robotaxi for at least 5 years. I think just energy and cars are big enough, plus all the revenue from software and charging. Optimus and FSD are icing on the cake to me.

I think FSD will really take off when it is good enough (and legal) to drive people home from bars or take over when a driver is sleepy or bored on a road trip so they can watch a movie or whatever. I don't see a lot of people wanting to rent out their car when they're not using it.

 

[2101Guy]

This morning saw several Teslas on the road which simply tells me that Tesla products are in very high demand.

Teslas are in demand, for sure. But not sure this is the guage. On my street of 10 homes, 3 have Teslas. That doesnt mean 30% of all homes in America have Teslas..

 

[JupiterMan]

No need to V2H since in the near future, the most time efficient use of charging would be at work

I work from home?

 

[Gigapress]

Y’all, eliminating stuff that the data shows people generally aren’t using is rational. Of course some people won’t like it, but you can’t please everyone. The overall mission takes priority.

For vehicle-to-whatever, if it makes sense at some point the it’s not that difficult to add. The battery is already there and you need some new power electronics and a port. It’s no crazy tech and Tesla can pivot on this decision in the future if they want to. No point in rehashing the same old debates on it. Also, Cybertruck will effectively have this because it’s going to have onboard power outlets. The 240V outlet on Cybertruck could be plugged into your house, just as the one on the F-150 lightning can be. You know what that means? Tesla is working in some capacity on V2G and V2L designs already. The outlet doesn’t know what it’s connected to; all it sees is amps and voltage drop.

Furthermore, Tesla talked yesterday about shifting charging strategy to a focus on encouraging it to happen when electricity is abundant. This kind of load shifting serves much of the same purposes as V2G because it moves demand to match supply better, reducing the need for shedding power elsewhere or stressing the grid at 5:30 PM when everyone is running their stove at the same time as the sun is coming down.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Hmmm...scientifically speaking, this means..nothing..as it doesnt take into account total # of top talent hired over "x" period of time factored against "y" number of top talent that has left over "x" period of time, contrasted to remaining top talent.

In other words, your perspective is kinda like when a person buys a car model, then says "as soon as I buy a car, everyone else on the road has the same model"

I like to use the example of "As soon as I buy $TSLA, it goes down further" - Totally unrelated but true

 

[insaneoctane]

The same dynamic I saw between Elon and Drew on Battery day in 2019 played out tonight when the question of V2H came up. Drew said yes, in the next 2 years; while Elon is clearly not enthusiastic.

I think Elon is 100% wrong here, so I'm glad he has senior leads who are pushing the V2H agenda forward. To me it is obvious that people will charge the car at work, discharge some of the energy into the home or grid when they get home, and use the grid when disconnected. The EV fleet is a *massive* storage battery asset and currently unexploited value

Until Tesla offers "million mile batteries", how can V2H NOT be a warranty liability? If someone is cycling their stationary vehicle battery every day because they use their vehicle like a powerwall, it would cause measurable wear without a single vehicle mile. Seems like a liability that Tesla's not ready for?

 

[scaesare]

and now we observe Elon-relativity, i.e. how long is Elon-5-minutes for us mortals ?

Time dilation effect from speed at which Elon moves?

 

[gtrplyr1]

Wall Street can sell off Tesla stock all day long. I couldn’t care less. I was so excited to see Optimus building Optimus. That is crazy and I agree with SMR of solving the money problem that Optimus will dwarf any auto or FSD or energy revenue and eventually Tesla will be worth trillions of dollars in market cap. Good luck competing with Tesla at any level.
This morning saw several Teslas on the road which simply tells me that Tesla products are in very high demand. Wait till Cybertruck hits the road. That should cause a huge spike in free advertising for Tesla and raise demand even more.
I fully expect this sell off to be short term only
Within 3 to 4 months we very well could be at $400+ stock price and $1000 within a year or so.
Not financial advice

Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm! Not sure if I agree with your $1000 target but if it happens, I’m inviting you to my island for drinks!!!

Cheers to the longs!

 

[SOULPEDL]

My big question with respect to this new assembly sequence is exactly why no one else has done this before. Is it only feasible with an EV architecture? Are castings or structural battery packs required to make it practical?

Great question. When I saw that doors were (are) mounted for paint, then removed for assy, I about fell over. It makes sense for paint matching and to later get inside to install. But for legacy to break it up into sections for one final assembly, it would be the equivalent of converting both the entire factory and the product design - not feasible without a good reason.

The long frame is where legacy was stuck. Why would anyone break it up and risk structural integrity and safety. It would be seen as extra work to bolt or weld it back together. And without that dream team, where everyone's at the table at design, the frame people would have been ridiculed without manufacturing at the table. The long frame was the foundation of all of it.

As you pointed out, Gigacastings broke it down into 3 sections. That unlocked it IMHO. I wouldn't be surprised if the idea came after GigaCasting was born. After that point, the animator would have seen it just trying to clarify "So wait, you want me to put the doors on, paint it, then what?"

Your energy comment (sorry no quote handy) where you and others show an explosion of energy demand once available - Consider how Tesla calculated that Sustainable Energy needs will half (from not creating combustion heat loss and so on associated with Gas). So maybe not quite as bad as you described.