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

[FastCompany]

Speaking of Bots, here's a silly prediction. Seems Tesla shows bots in groups of Prime numbers. (Recalling 3 in the Bot build scene, then 5 below). If so, next movie should have 7 bots. I'll be counting them of course. (It's a number thing, sorry.)

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Connecting the Dots is promising a video this weekend with Herbert Ong and Dr Scott Walker where they will dissect what they are calling "the biggest news ever to leak" regarding TeslaBot.

This, along with the 52 TeslaBot job postings is very promising. Can't wait to see what they've got to show and tell.

Will totally not be surprised if they get a call from Tesla to not go public with it.

 

[Krugerrand]

As this is a strategic move for a company it's hard to guess.
The first may be one that was first with adopting SC.. or the one who was last adopting SC and now wants to gain on the others?

Competitors have a big problem of a fleet that is incapable of FSD, only their new cars could become FSD-capable.
After a major internal redesign.... OTA is a necessity for FSD. Internal highbandwidht network is a necessity for OTA. Internal HBN is useless without consolidated car SW and controlers that speak same language. Controllers and SW that can speak to eachother need consolidated supplier network (or better yet - its own SW and mikroprocs). ETC...
After thinking a bit about this ... forget about it, it ain't gonna happen.
At best some company may reach a deal with tesla to start building model 3 the same way tesla does, using same suppliers as tesla does (and buying components from Tesla). Such a model results in a non-tesla Model 3 that is more expensive than Tesla Model 3.

Elon is just playing a nice guy... it's not his fault nobody else can implement tesla's FSD on their cars.

I hadn’t really thought anyone was ready for the new charging standard either - well, and they technically aren’t given that it won’t be at least another 6 months before anyone, let alone the first to adopt, will be using an NACS adapter. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a year+ from now until one of the OEMs starts offering the adapter to customers. Moving quickly isn’t really their middle name. I also expect some OEM cars to not be entirely happy and it to take a bit of time to iron out.

Adopting FSD -

I have conflicting thoughts. They should, but what a mess to untangle in their current vehicles and redo properly. Much more complicated and involved than a charging standard and adapter. Are they even capable? And if so, who?? ‍

What I think will be clear; if one OEM takes the leap - you think the market got excited about TSLA over NACS, you ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of excitement. The cascade affect will be off the charts; not just OEMs scrambling but also legislators and governments, local and otherwise. I think it would also mark the official start of The Empire.

 

[Puma2020]

Think about how close we came though to suffering with an inarguably inferior product.

That happens all of the time for various reasons.
The Amiga .vs. IBM PC
The 8086 .vs. 6800 CPU
Betamax .vs. VHS
Word Perfect .vs. MS Word
Borland C++ .vs. MS C++
GM .vs. anyone else...
The list goes on and on...

 

[Krugerrand]

Agreement of manufacturers in China (including Tesla) on pricing:

Preis-Frieden in China: Tesla und 15 weitere Elektroauto-Hersteller mit Fairness-Abkommen

Der Preiskampf bei Elektroautos in China könnte enden: Tesla und 15 weitere Hersteller haben ein Abkommen für fairen Wettbewerb unterschrieben

teslamag-de.translate.goog

Did not read even after translation. But isn’t agreements among companies about pricing of goods - illegal? Maybe if I’d read the foreign language article I wouldn’t be asking that question.

 

[Patrick66]

General economic comment... it surprises me that the market takes the strong jobs data as a negative; I get the whole fed risk, but what it really means, at least to me, is that the labor force is expanding. It might be seasonal, but the little things I see show an expanding pool more than they show a tightening labor market. There are certain positions we still can't hire for at my company still... but much more broadly there are people out there now.

 

[mongo]

Did not read even after translation. But isn’t agreements among companies about pricing of goods - illegal? Maybe if I’d read the foreign language article I wouldn’t be asking that question.

It says they will avoid "abnormal pricing", which to me sounds like agreeing to not underprice cars to drive competitors out of business akin to the illegal (in US) monopolistic tactic of predatory pricing/ dumping.
This is in contrast to price fixing at higher than the free market would support (which would also be abnormal).

 

[Tony73]

Did not read even after translation. But isn’t agreements among companies about pricing of goods - illegal? Maybe if I’d read the foreign language article I wouldn’t be asking that question.

Price fixing is illegal. You could certainly make an argument that is what this amounts to.

 

[Patrick66]

Did not read even after translation. But isn’t agreements among companies about pricing of goods - illegal? Maybe if I’d read the foreign language article I wouldn’t be asking that question.

Here is the translation of the agreement from Electrec:
First, we will abide by the rules and regulations of the industry, regulate marketing activities, maintain a fair competition order, and not disrupt the fair competition order of the market with abnormal prices. Second, we will pay attention to marketing methods, will not exaggerate or conduct false marketing, not to mislead consumers to attract attention and increase customer acquisition. Third, we will put quality first, use quality-oriented, high-quality products and services to meet the people’s needs for a better life. Fourth, we will actively fulfill our social responsibility, and take an active role in helping to stabilize economic growth, increase confidence and prevent risks, and work together to make a contribution to national economic growth.

 

[Skryll]

That happens all of the time for various reasons.
The Amiga .vs. IBM PC
The 8086 .vs. 6800 CPU
Betamax .vs. VHS
Word Perfect .vs. MS Word
Borland C++ .vs. MS C++
GM .vs. anyone else...
The list goes on and on...

Yep. And I do think CCS1 with VW Electrify America being 'fined' to build it out was an attempt to Betamax NACS.

It was *such* a relief for me when *finally* Ford came around, I though this was going to be played forever. I celebrated it by buying calls (no investment advice) the same morning

 

[Krugerrand]

General economic comment... it surprises me that the market takes the strong jobs data as a negative; I get the whole fed risk, but what it really means, at least to me, is that the labor force is expanding. It might be seasonal, but the little things I see show an expanding pool more than they show a tightening labor market. There are certain positions we still can't hire for at my company still... but much more broadly there are people out there now.

Do not be surprised by the fear-mongering; it’s how they make money.

 

[H Mak]

I hear there's supposed to be a nice Zero Sum forum somewhere too, isn't there??

There is but when someone joins, someone else has to leave

 

[Krugerrand]

Here is the translation of the agreement from Electrec:
First, we will abide by the rules and regulations of the industry, regulate marketing activities, maintain a fair competition order, and not disrupt the fair competition order of the market with abnormal prices. Second, we will pay attention to marketing methods, will not exaggerate or conduct false marketing, not to mislead consumers to attract attention and increase customer acquisition. Third, we will put quality first, use quality-oriented, high-quality products and services to meet the people’s needs for a better life. Fourth, we will actively fulfill our social responsibility, and take an active role in helping to stabilize economic growth, increase confidence and prevent risks, and work together to make a contribution to national economic growth.

Thanks for that. Some of that did make me laugh. Individual people aren’t that honest, certainly not entities. Tesla tries hard and I believe mostly succeeds; everyone else -

 

[Skryll]

My gut feeling is either Ford or Rivian are the most likely to adopt Tesla FSD first. Once it starts though I think it will go much like NACS has, the first domino will start a tidal wave of adopters.

Much harder problem that charge connector on the implementation side. Maybe that is really what they need dojo for in the future, to retrain on different geometry cars/camera systems, massive amounts of new data needed. What storage vendor does Tesla use?

 

[Skryll]

Wow, this is awesome. I told my wife and she said "Let me know when it can pull weeds"

Manufacturing is part of development per Elons philosophy , this is not a signal that production is near, but it is a signal that they are even more determined to make these eventually at amazing speed and cost efficiency. 'The machine that build the machine' probably quite literally.

 

[Artful Dodger]

U.S. Jobs market unbowed; fears of FED rate hikes return:

Private sector companies added 497,000 jobs in June, more than double expectations, ADP says | CNBC Television

 

[SOULPEDL]

Ark sure timed yesterday's sale pretty well. I almost followed suit, but it was too late. It will swing back in short order.

 

[robertvg]

That's incorrect.

NACS: port leads go to charger
Pack leads go to charger
Contactors bypass charger

CCS:
Port AC leads go to charger
Port DC leads go to contactor
Contactor and charger go to pack

The advantage of CCS is that it didn't impact existing AC only cars (pins were undersized for DC fast charging) and the charger input doesn't need to withstand full pack voltage.
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Afaik this is how they solved it later.
Early models with the Gen1 charger had a separate switchbox, later on they included the contactors to switch AC and DC in the OBDC.
I see that the early 40kWh Model S versions didn’t have that piece of hardware, they could only charge on AC.
Upgrade required hardware install of that unit.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Maybe that is really what they need dojo for in the future, to retrain on different geometry cars/camera systems

The "Occupany Network" was created to make FSD portable (that's what the "Planner" uses to make driving decisions, and how Tesla creates virtual training environments). Camera calibration is already part of Tesla's process to support their different platforms.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Thanks for that. Some of that did make me laugh. Individual people aren’t that honest, certainly not entities. Tesla tries hard and I believe mostly succeeds; everyone else -

What may have started out as some resistance to expand Shanghai (speculating), may have turned into a discussion on the value of these smaller Chinese made vehicle that require fewer batteries toward the overall mission on accelerating...

So a "price war" (aka, Tesla controlling demand) could put some of these others out of business or stifel growth. Meaning Tesla can't discount their products so deeply that it risks competitive failure and thereby limiting the overall # of people being transported in an EV globally. (If there's only so many batteries, smaller vehicles make sense globally).

I see this as great China PR, but risks some short-term Tesla growth if not played well. And by played well, I mean shift some battery production back to MegaPacks or other products not in direct competition with China (CyberTruck). So Tesla can shift it's growth, and not only avoid a China conflict but enhance the Shanghai relationship. This may not look so great on Delivery indicators since wall street is likely stuck on vehicles #s, but if the revenue keeps increasing due to Megapacks, why not make every battery count as much as possible, let China EVs grow.

Of course breaking those pledges would be difficult to prove as it sounds more like a trust like "blood brothers", but it would also provide relief to EV competition that another price cut is not likely right around the corner - as that would be disgraceful in Chinese culture.

Word.

 

[spacerfc]

Did not read even after translation. But isn’t agreements among companies about pricing of goods - illegal? Maybe if I’d read the foreign language article I wouldn’t be asking that question.

The agreement is created under the direction of the Chinese government (Ministry of Industry to be specific), if the Chinese government asks you to sign something, you sign it, or else...

The question is, now that Tesla signed this, does this mean the government will unblock the Shanghai factory expansion?