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

[SOULPEDL]

Where are those superchargers that you said were on the way to Lake Powell? Page is the only one that I have gone to. They need SC in Kanab, Utah and the north rim. Lake doesn't matter anyway. It's dead.

Oh yes, it's a destination charger in Tuba City. Icon was the same on google.

 

[Stretch2727]

I bought a CCS to NACS adapter and tried charging at several EA stations both in city and rural areas.

It was a MISERABLE experience, all around. The network sucked, but beyond that there were simply frustrations every time I tried to plug the CCS cable into the adapter. It was bulky, difficult to properly place, and . . . . the CABLES. Anyone else notice how CCS cables are like 3-4X the thickness of a V3 supercharger cable?

Respectfully, disagree on this one.

Had both as well. (VW e-Golf). I struggled to insert and remove the CCS connector the 4-5 times I DC fast charged the car. I honestly could not believe anyone would sign off on it as an acceptable solution just from this perspective. If you want broad EV adoption even for people with dexterity or strength issues my opinion is this is not the solution.

 

[unk45]

I bought a CCS to NACS adapter and tried charging at several EA stations both in city and rural areas.

It was a MISERABLE experience, all around. The network sucked, but beyond that there were simply frustrations every time I tried to plug the CCS cable into the adapter. It was bulky, difficult to properly place, and . . . . the CABLES. Anyone else notice how CCS cables are like 3-4X the thickness of a V3 supercharger cable?

Respectfully, disagree on this one.

Without doubt the US experience and that of a number of other countries differs. I've never successfully used CCS in the US because I never found a working charger so I gave up trying.

 

[unk45]

Are you speaking of no real practical difference strictly in terms of the connector, or also availability location, density, reliability, ease of payment, etc?

Good question. I am not, repeat not, making any reference to the US! As I just mentioned in the Us I have never successfully used CCS and in other countries I use native CCS. I've used adapters for CHAdeMO, a plethora of SAE connectors. Adapters are unpleasant at the best of times, in any DC they're horrible! level 2 a trifle less horrible, possibly.

 

[Buckminster]

Threads of the day:
Tesla to license Autopilot / FSD *NEW*
Tesla VR / AR Apple Vision Pro unveiled
Inventory Discussion Further cuts to M3

 

[hobbes]

Wonder where they got the idea

How Tesla Bent IRA Rules To Get Full $7,500 Tax Credit for Model 3 RWD

Tesla now lists all Model 3 variants eligible for the full $7,500 IRA tax credit, although the RWD base version is made with Chinese LFP cells, and here's why

www.autoevolution.com

 

[RHJP]

Are Native Americans still buying Chevy like they used to in the 80's?

Anecdotal as this sounds, when I lived in Flagstaff Az (a college town full of local natives) every single car stereo that I installed into a Native American vehicle was a Chevy Truck, no exceptions, Siverado of course! (This was so often that I learned to pronounce it like the Navajo's, just saying the first few letters of each word while sounding like a gut * punch - "Che* Tru*". No disrespect, it's their tongue, but it's how I remember this fun fact.)

Today, I can't find a single story to corroborate my findings from the 80's or today. But what I did find on Google is that people prefer the Silverado over the F-150 due to the longer bed. So transport capability may have been the winner for the Tribe, in the day. Remote homes, maybe for people or water and supplies vs just tipping a plywood sheet up on the tailgate per the Ford fans. I don't visit Northern Az as often and I can't find tribal sales data even on ChatGPT.

Anyway... I bring this to our attention because it would sure be a shame to see the Tribe leave GM as a key sales demographic right about when their newest Silverado's hit the market. /s

Do tribes generally support the TSLA mission, especially where Nature is concerned? (Edit: seems there's a big SC gap on the tribes in Northern Az). Also, major respect to the Tribes for wanting to preserve nature from the very start, sadly ignored.. still. Recalling the Crying Indian commercial (not an actual Indian is besides the point) and that was just because of littering.

"Do tribes generally support the TSLA mission, especially where Nature is concerned?"

I think the answer to that question (at least in New Mexico) is yes.

Tesla just opened a second store on tribal land in the Santa Ana Pueblo which is located 21 miles north of Albuquerque (21 miles south of Santa Fe). It's located next door to the Santa Ana Star Casino Hotel. The first store was opened in 2021 on tribal land in the Nambe Pueblo. That location is 14 miles north of Santa Fe.

Tesla builds 1st store on tribal land, dodges state car laws

Tesla has sidestepped car dealership laws by setting up shop on Native American land for the first time.

apnews.com

Tesla gets around New Mexico's direct sales ban again and opens second showroom on tribal land

Tesla is still not allowed to sell its electric vehicles (EVs) directly to consumers in several states in the US due to antiquated laws kept alive by dealership lobbying groups. One of those states is [...]

driveteslacanada.ca

 

[Singuy]

Agree. No market analysts are pricing in FSD as a Robotaxi service yet, not surprisingly. They can't see that far forward. None are pricing in licensing of FSD tech either--but that could happen *any day*. That alone is a reason to sit in TSLA regardless of the daily ups and downs.

Tesla doesn't have to have a level 4/5 driving system to license it to other OEMs. FSD as it is now still has more work to do--but it is already significantly better than any of the competition--by an (autonomous) mile. If other OEMS see the benefits as worthwhile enough that FSD will help them move their own vehicles, I think we could see automakers partner with Tesla for FSD tech just like Ford did with Superchargers.

After all, since Mobileye is not itself an automaker, its valuation is based purely on its ability to sell its hardware/tech to other OEMs. There's no reason why Tesla can't get a huge piece of that pie *any day now*.

So far Mobileye equipped cars are not beating Tesla when it comes to standardized active safety tests from NCAP. This alone should have OEM start thinking the future of their autonomy division.

Despite what distractors say, the competition are a lot more behind than what their powerpoint and company released videos suggest. When put to the real test they all fall apart.

 

[y_naught]

"Also happy to license autopilot/FSD..."

If we haven't already had our next big (Nvidia) movement, when the first competitor, hat in hand, makes this deal, It will be a hell of a moon shot.
It's coming, it's just a matter of how long the OEMs can hold out before crumbling. Most likely Ford will be the first since they already cracked that door open.

Elon can say he is willing to license FSD, but in practice (IMHO) it will never happen. While the value of the car will go to zero and all the value will be in FSD, you still need the tight hardware/sensor integration. So, what will we have, Tesla making parts and molecules and shipping them to Ford and others to assemble and rebrand? That would only make them more expensive than Teslas for the same (at best) self-driving experience. The only case where this might work is specialty/niche vehicles that Tesla has no interest in building. But, they would be expensive and still need to be integrated by the Tesla team for FSD to work.

 

[Opus BC fan]

Google finance has TSLA closing at 220.52.
That appears incorrect (unless I missed something?)

 

[Singuy]

Elon can say he is willing to license FSD, but in practice (IMHO) it will never happen. While the value of the car will go to zero and all the value will be in FSD, you still need the tight hardware/sensor integration. So, what will we have, Tesla making parts and molecules and shipping them to Ford and others to assemble and rebrand? That would only make them more expensive than Teslas for the same (at best) self-driving experience. The only case where this might work is specialty/niche vehicles that Tesla has no interest in building. But, they would be expensive and still need to be integrated by the Tesla team for FSD to work.

When you start licensing then you open the money crate of infinite possibilities. Just look at Microsoft and how they license out windows. There are 9 different versions depending on how you want to spend that money.

FSD has a plethora of on and off settings you can pick depending on how much you want to pay. At the very basic there's the world most reliable Tesla active safety system. Then you go up from there, AP, EAP, City....update length, fee for continuous updates...$, $$, $$$, $$$$, $$$$$.

 

[y_naught]

When you start licensing then you open the money crate of infinite possibilities. Just look at Microsoft and how they license out windows. There are 9 different versions depending on how you want to spend that money.

FSD has a plethora of on and off settings you can pick depending on how much you want to pay. At the very basic there's the world most reliable Tesla active safety system. Then you go up from there, AP, EAP, City....update length, fee for continuous updates...$, $$, $$$, $$$$, $$$$$.

That sorta makes my point. You can have the Microsoft Windows experience or the MacOS experience. I’ll grant you some lower flavors of FSD might work better, but what automaker wants to give a taste of the competition that only switching brands can fully satisfy?

 

[MartinAustin]

Elon can say he is willing to license FSD, but in practice (IMHO) it will never happen. While the value of the car will go to zero and all the value will be in FSD, you still need the tight hardware/sensor integration. So, what will we have, Tesla making parts and molecules and shipping them to Ford and others to assemble and rebrand? That would only make them more expensive than Teslas for the same (at best) self-driving experience. The only case where this might work is specialty/niche vehicles that Tesla has no interest in building. But, they would be expensive and still need to be integrated by the Tesla team for FSD to work.

Other automakers will license FSD and all the webcams and other parts that need to go along with it.

Tesla will make a profit from that hardware+software sale.

The other automakers will simply have to find ways to make their cars profitable... either with cheaper seats/materials/plasticky interiors or other ways to make the car cheaper e.g. small size. They are currently unable to make profitable BEVs [first problem] even now... and that's without fancy autonomy features [second problem]. Complaining about profitability due to licensing Tesla tech is ignoring their first problem.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Google finance has TSLA closing at 220.52.
That appears incorrect (unless I missed something?)

Yeah, you are missing something.....

 

[GhostSkater]

Someone commented earlier on this, but adding to it, my biggest surprise (the bad way) is the module being non potted and cells being just dropped in, held only by one end on the cold plate, honestly yikes

In the field I work we have had at least one company with problems (read or dead module) with something similar, cells not held together tightly so that over 100's of thousands of vibration cycles fatigue on wire bonds breaks them and either short stuff or kill the pack, and was products that see way less vibration than na EV

Will be interesting to see how that develops in a few years

edit: just some more thoughts, this wasn't meant to *sugar* on Lucid, if you look just as nice engineering porn, specially hardware wise, they have some truly nice stuff, so it was really surprising for them to skip also

But also, good engineering is designing something that does the job and can me manufactured at a price point you can make a profit, which obviously isn't the case, so at least in my point of view, it's awesome engineering and really bad engineering at the same time

 

[GhostSkater]

Ok, this is something new, I always though GA2 and GA3 would be a second Model Y and Cybertruck lines, Joe knows something we don't?

Read a few other tweets above and bellow this one

https://twitter.com/x/status/1665819374073131017

 

[capster]

Speaking of the legacy automakers and software, here’s Jim Farley on why it is so difficult for those automakers to write software:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1665609960577802242

 

[Cosmacelf]

Someone commented earlier on this, but adding to it, my biggest surprise (the bad way) is the module being non potted and cells being just dropped in, held only by one end on the cold plate, honestly yikes

In the field I work we have had at least one company with problems (read or dead module) with something similar, cells not held together tightly so that over 100's of thousands of vibration cycles fatigue on wire bonds breaks them and either short stuff or kill the pack, and was products that see way less vibration than na EV

Will be interesting to see how that develops in a few years

edit: just some more thoughts, this wasn't meant to *sugar* on Lucid, if you look just as nice engineering porn, specially hardware wise, they have some truly nice stuff, so it was really surprising for them to skip also

But also, good engineering is designing something that does the job and can me manufactured at a price point you can make a profit, which obviously isn't the case, so at least in my point of view, it's awesome engineering and really bad engineering at the same time

No one knows how to build a battery pack better than Tesla. From 2012 onwards, they would recover packs under warranty replacement (mine was warranty replaced in 2013), tear them down, and figure out how to build them better. I have seen lots of problems with other OEM packs.

 

[MartinAustin]

Ok, this is something new, I always though GA2 and GA3 would be a second Model Y and Cybertruck lines, Joe knows something we don't?

Read a few other tweets above and bellow this one

https://twitter.com/x/status/1665819374073131017

Wouldn't it make sense to start producing Highland Model 3 in Texas?

 

[Ogre]

Ok, this is something new, I always though GA2 and GA3 would be a second Model Y and Cybertruck lines, Joe knows something we don't?

Read a few other tweets above and bellow this one

https://twitter.com/x/status/1665819374073131017

I've kind of expected they had a Highland line coming on in Texas. Would not surprise me a bit.