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

[JRP3]

To add realism. I also think it's quite possible that some of the shots were actually real but staged. CGI has made huge advancements in last 5 or so years. It's just a matter of time before even the most perceptive humans can easily distinguish reality from CGI.

To me seeing brand new unused nuts for presumably "new" assembly would be more realistic than used worn nuts that have obviously been used enough times to have wear marks on them. It's a "detail" that doesn't really make sense for a CGI but does make sense if they are repeatedly running the same actions over and over for testing. Plus there are other small defects on surfaces that you really need to look closely to find, and on a large screen. I'm sure CGI can do all of that but not sure they would bother in this case or make those specific choices. They would be putting in extra effort to fool people with CGI which they've never done previously.

 

[SmokyPeat]

And why have Optimus making mistakes if it was CGI? He appeared to miss the hole the first time, and the drill looked rather crooked on the nut he was installing. The whole thing looked rather clumsy. If they were using CGI to try to sell people on Optimus I think it would have been more fluid and flawless, like the fake CGI Acura EV commercial I've been seeing lately (which you have to look really close and squint your eyes to read "GCI prototype coming in 2025" in a tiny font).

Again, to add realism. Making things too perfect and flawless is a giveaway in its own right. Reality isn't perfection. Elon is a very smart guy- he probably just assumed most people could tell it was CGI. Or not. Hard to say.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Nothing had fundamentally changed with the company in that time frame yet Dan went full Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on all Retail investors.

So long as he doesn't go full Greg Wester...

Never go full Greg Wester.

Cheers!

 

[Singuy]

To add realism. I also think it's quite possible that some of the shots were actually real but staged. CGI has made huge advancements in last 5 or so years. It's just a matter of time before even the most perceptive humans can easily distinguish reality from CGI.

Careful, you are beginning to make similar arguments as those who thinks the moon landing was a hoax.

 

[UltradoomY]

Careful, you are beginning to make similar arguments as those who thinks the moon landing was a hoax.

Wait - you think the moon is real???

 

[Speedr117]

Yes. I agree. I've made the switch from ferrites to neos in a previous life. Nearest thing to a free lunch I've ever had in design terms.

That looked an awful small aperture for the magnet. One that would seem to be appropriate for a highly optimised neo design. So the implications of having a ferrite2 'chemistry' that can still deliver the job (and a key attribute of a Tesla is good performance) then, is that there is something outrageous going on there.

So ....... have there been any rumours out there of a new magic ferrite recipe ? (Because I'm no longer in that game). And if not, what else could it be, because I can't figure out anything else that it might be. It's not as if there is really much else left to do in the iron or the copper (or air gap) .... is there ?

Sandy talked at the after party that the local Tesla club put on that the new motor was some new-to-Tesla type that provided 30% more power. That might balance out the change noted above and still give good performance (but maybe not as good as current drive trains).

 

[Max Plaid]

Wait - you think the moon is real???

That's no moon!

 

[keydiver]

Wait - you think the moon is real???

Everyone knows that the sun and the moon are the same planet, right? One comes up, and the other goes down. And, we know it's too hot to land on the sun, so the moon landing had to be fake.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Careful, you are beginning to make similar arguments as those who thinks the moon landing was a hoax.

Careful of what? Are the flat earthers gonna team up with the optically challenged and hunt me down?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Imagine selling TSLA after 3 hours of incredible news for the company, just because it's not the exact incredible news you were expecting. It has to be algorithmic trading, right? It's hard to imagine a human watching that presentation and thinking they'd prefer to own less TSLA.

Whacha mean "after 3 hours"? Heavy selling started 15 seconds after Zack spoke his first sentence. This was always going to be a 'sell-the-news' event. Options traders were all set to do this no matter what came out the door on Investor Day...

Cheers to the Longs!

 

[Singuy]

Careful of what? Are the flat earthers gonna team up with the optically challenged and hunt me down?

Careful of being looked down upon from many random online strangers you don't care about.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Having watched several of these presentations over the years, it seems to me that they could provide a review at the end to highlight the key aspects of the event.

A summary was posted on Twitter a few minutes after the event by Tesla's Director of Investor Relations:

Martin Viecha on Twitter: "Summary for those who don't have 3 hours" / Twitter

1. Transition to sustainable energy is entirely feasible
2. global mining will *reduce* in this transition
3. next-gen vehicles will be manufactured very differently
4. no more rare earths in the next powertrains
5. transitioning to 48V
6. data powers everything, our factories, cars, service, decision making
7. simplification of all components in the chain
8. unlimited charging for $30/month in Texas
9. cost reduction is in our veins - a fundamental enabler of this transition

"Delivered by a phenomenal team that I have the privilege to work with."

 

[jabloomf1230]

A summary was posted on Twitter a few minutes after the event by Tesla's Director of Investor Relations:

Martin Viecha on Twitter: "Summary for those who don't have 3 hours" / Twitter

1. Transition to sustainable energy is entirely feasible
2. global mining will *reduce* in this transition
3. next-gen vehicles will be manufactured very differently
4. no more rare earths in the next powertrains
5. transitioning to 48V
6. data powers everything, our factories, cars, service, decision making
7. simplification of all components in the chain
8. unlimited charging for $30/month in Texas
9. cost reduction is in our veins - a fundamental enabler of this transition

"Delivered by a phenomenal team that I have the privilege to work with."

That's an accurate summary. But it shows that the presentation consisted of a few philosophical truisms (the transition to sustainable is feasible), a few engineering nuggets (no rare earths, 48v) and a few known facts about Tesla's production philosophy. All in all the day was a yawner and the market showed reflected that. No big deal though.

 

[Thekiwi]

Sandy talked at the after party that the local Tesla club put on that the new motor was some new-to-Tesla type that provided 30% more power. That might balance out the change noted above and still give good performance (but maybe not as good as current drive trains).

Although has to be said that Sandy by all appearances looked quite drunk during that meetup.

 

[kbM3]

Not "butthurt" in the least. I could care less what anonymous people I'll never meet think of my posts. I'm just surprised that so many here think that demo was actually a real recording of actual Optimus bots. I could tell it was CGI almost immediately.

Well a robotics expert disagrees with you and I’m gonna side with the expert.

 

[AndrewZ]

i think the only trickery in the Optimus video was editing and stitching together clips of more linear and narrow programmed movements. And of course doing enough takes to get the desired result each time, probably tweaking along the way.

Boston Dynamics also does a lot of takes before getting that perfect clip, and they have uploaded some blooper reels too

 

[kbM3]

I’m stunned by the obliviousness by many to todays presentation which contained some great new info.

For all those that were still expecting the next generation vehicle to actually be unveiled - shame on you. It was explained on numerous occasions by many people why that would be a terrible idea to do so far out from start of production (Osborne, osborne & osborne).

We got a giant amount of information on the next generation platform, including an announcement of a new factory in Mexico dedicated to it.

Nearly every presentation segment included a history of how they lowered costs over previous generations, and how they intend to lower cost again for “the next generation”. All those previews of future iterations of factories, powertrains, supply chains, cells etc - They were all parts of the next generation vehicle platform. Drew them summed up the economics of the next generation platform in his “financials“ segment at the end - including the very interesting “Total Cost of ownership” slide which I imagine one can back out to arrive at the ballpark retail price for the future product.

We also got a valuable update on the 4680 ramp during the Q&A: They are hitting their goals of increasing weekly pack production by 1k units every quarter. (Eg. 1k a week per quarter, followed by 2k per week the next quarter, followed by 3k per week the next quarter etc)

Also great to see the economics of the Charging network, and how big an advantage they have over competing charging networks - which to me now looks like it will play out much like the Apple App Store - a service initially designed to run not much above break even in support of a hardware product, but eventually becoming a huge profit centre in its own right.

There were numerous juicy tidbits all through the presentation and Q&A - I intend on rewatching it all, hopefully once someone has done a one hour supercut ha ha.

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I was actually disappointed with the 4680 ramp.

Tesla has been doubling or tripling output every quarter. So 2k / week in Q1 would maintain that pace, but 3k / week in q2 would be much slower.

I was hoping they could keep doubling every quarter until they started approaching the 100 GWh annual capacity. But that was probably too hopeful.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Careful of being looked down upon from many random online strangers you don't care about.

They'll get over it.

 

[betstarship]

Tesla's plan to slash silicon carbide use sends some chipmakers' shares down

Tesla plans to slash use of silicon carbide transistors 75%, powertrain engineering leader Colin Campbell told investors Wednesday.

www.cnbc.com

• Investors, worried that this may be a harbinger for the (automotive) industry, sent shares of chipmakers ON Semiconductor, ST Microelectronics and Wolfspeed down.

 

[Thekiwi]

Sasha does bring up good points.

Although the future looks bright, the amount of expansion going on right now (even with Giga Mexico announcement) are not enough and will take years to come to fruition which means the 20 million by 2030 is questionable.

There are another 8 years to ramp to the 20 million run rate figure.

A factory build and subsequent volume vehicle ramp takes 2.5-3 years.

Theoretically tesla could build no new factories for the next 4 years and then start to build all the new factories in 2027 needed to reach 20m run rate in 2030, so saying Tesla is running behind a target that is 8 years away is nonsense.

More likely there are concurrent plans for at least 4 new “next gen” manufacturing lines in the near term (Monterrey, Shanghai, Austin & Berlin), maybe more or in different locations, and after those factories are ramped (2025ish), learnings from those ramps will be applied to even more efficient production expansions with new lines at those same factories and even more locations (south east Asia, Brazil, India, Africa, Japan) which will come online around 2030.

Also have to factor in that the timeline for the raw materials needed to hit 20m are not going to come online in a linear fashion. RIght now there is a scramble for new mines for the minerals needed, and in most countries that is going to take 5 years plus for those mines to come online, so the manufacturing capacity expansion to hit 20m annual run rate by 2030 for Tesla is probably going to be heavily backloaded in the 8 year timeframe when the bulk of mineral supply comes online.