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

[Blue horseshoe]

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Auto press already picking up on the same excerpts from the book. Less than flattering synapsis and I bet the rest of the auto and financial media will pick this story up too over the weekend.

Tesla's $25,000 Car Will Have A Cybertruck-Like Futuristic Design | Carscoops

In an excerpt from Walter Isaacson's new biography of Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO is revealed to have been against the idea of building a sub-$25K EV, preferring instead to focus entirely on making an autonomous vehicle

www.carscoops.com

I know this isn't an official design from Tesla, but I think it'd be hugely popular

 

[jerry33]

I hope you're right, I'm not an EE so I don't have a technical background to judge from, but it seems like it would be easy to assemble batteries into megapacks.

As a prototype, that's correct. As a mass production item, not so much.

 

[Featsbeyond50]

As soon as FSD is good enough, the market will start believing that robotaxi WILL happen. The FOMO will be palpable. That's when TSLA takes off for the moon.

FSD is already good enough to see the Robotaxi potential and yet here we are; 40% off the all time high of two years ago.

 

[Usain]

I'll be shocked if Bot is contributing anything this decade.

I think autonomy is going to be everything you think it is, I just think it will take longer than you think.

All they have to do is find one really great use case for the Bot. I don't think that's too much to ask in the next 6 years.

As soon as the bot gets put to work doing something useful, TSLA will skyrocket. FOMO is a powerful motivator.

 

[jerry33]

I know I've been harping on this all week, but maybe you guys can put up with me one more time on a Friday.

Markets are forward-looking. So share price will go through the roof long before robotaxi actually happens.

As soon as FSD is good enough, the market will start believing that robotaxi WILL happen. The FOMO will be palpable. That's when TSLA takes off for the moon.

Markets are forward looking but the maximum forward looking time is usually ninety days.

 

[uscbucsfan]

FSD is already good enough to see the Robotaxi potential and yet here we are; 40% off the all time high of two years ago.

It's not at all, but it will get better with V12.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I'll be shocked if Bot is contributing anything this decade.

I think autonomy is going to be everything you think it is, I just think it will take longer than you think.

TeslaBot is a significantly less complicated technical challenge than FSD. "Perception" with cameras is already solved via Tesla Vision, and "Planning" for repetitive assemblyline jobs is significantly easier (and less variable). "Control" (or movement and manipulation) is what they're working on now, and that's AI boosted learning/training (motion-capture). It'll happen much faster than you think.

The factory is a private, wholey-owned and controlled environment, precisely the opposite of real-world driving. There are many auto-industry figures saying already that they expect that robots will come to factories before they come to roads.

Teslabot contributes by decreasing COGS. It does the work of 6 employees, never goes on strike, never takes a sick day, doesn't make pension demands, and works reliably on Monday mornings and Fridays before the long weekend.

Tesla will easily find a way to monetize Teslabot. It will be huge and fast growing revenue generator.

 

[Singuy]

Papa put the max pain at 245, however this guy's app says 247.5. Looking like 247.5 is the winner.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/16cjfn8

 

[Usain]

FSD is already good enough to see the Robotaxi potential and yet here we are; 40% off the all time high of two years ago.

People don't believe it yet. Like you said, your friends say FSD is not ready for robotaxi. I have FSD and I agree with your friends.

But when your friends start to change their tune, that's when people start to believe that robotaxi is around the corner. That's your "buy" signal, if you see it in time.

 

[Usain]

Markets are forward looking but the maximum forward looking time is usually ninety days.

So TSLA doesn't take off until high robotaxi revenue is 90 days away?

Not a chance. The upside for robotaxi is too insane for investors to sit on their hands.

 

[2daMoon]

Yeah, but these "competitors" are not only competent, they are also suppliers. Tesla isn't getting the whole pie to themselves. and they will have to fight for margin.

The point being that this "fight" you allude to will be much like the fight they have already taken against "competent" manufacturers in the Auto space as well as against "suppliers" (via vertical integration) to get a growing slice of the Auto pie.

Time will unveil whether the "competent" folks who hadn't thought of this before Tesla lit the fire will be considered "leaders" down the road.

 

[Southpasfan]

So TSLA doesn't take off until high robotaxi revenue is 90 days away?

Not a chance. The upside for robotaxi is too insane for investors to sit on their hands.

As an FSD owner since 2019, I would throw out there that (1) the actual robotaxi market isn't really insane, its a big market, but the demand for taxis of any kind is known, but (2) what follows on from FSD is having a personal vehicle that will never get in an accident, whether you are driving it or not.

Its not like Tesla needs to figure out a way to sell more cars, but point (2) is worth $5k or $10k per car, and at this point since its software the benefits to margin are obvious.

In comparison, let's say tomorrow Tesla announced a new product "hey, surprise, we've been keeping this a secret, robotaxis are for sale" and its like regular Model Y has good safety software and something a bit better than current FSD, and the Model Y robotaxi does not require a driver, but it sells for $300K. How many does Tesla sell?

 

[unk45]

There are folks whose only concern is how much per month. They take subscriptions. There are people who really dislike monthly payments because that's how you get into trouble if your finances change. They do an outright purchase. When data becomes available I doubt it will show subscriptions eat purchases as the buying group of each is mostly different.

I believe you’re correct. As an analogy, There are some segments that choose to rent residences rather than purchase then, despite obvious financial capacity to buy for cash, we’re they to choose that. Just as Apple has enormous subscription success, including a pseudo subscription that allows upgrade for each new iPhone. Fractional ownership is another case in point, especially with private aircraft. BMW and Nissan have both experimented with such options.

Tesla is just scratching the surface of subscriptions.

 

[ToTheStars]

Well, it means wealth and abundance for those who own the means of production - robots.

I agree with you and I think it even means wealth and abundance for everyone.
Have you read this story?

Manna – Two Views of Humanity’s Future – Chapter 1 | MarshallBrain.com

marshallbrain.com

If not: have fun and let me know how this compares to your views.
P.S. It's quite a lenghty story, but I think it's worth the time investment.

 

[jerry33]

So TSLA doesn't take off until high robotaxi revenue is 90 days away?

Not a chance. The upside for robotaxi is too insane for investors to sit on their hands.

Real investors agreed. Wall Street gamblers (most of WS as far as I can see), no so much.

 

[Singuy]

FSD is already good enough to see the Robotaxi potential and yet here we are; 40% off the all time high of two years ago.

A lot of uncertainty with robotaxi and it's not just about the self driving technology. Waymo and Cruise are losing a boatload of money per year. So we don't know how much operating expense a Tesla network will cost, and how profitable robotaxies are. Even after Tesla started saying "FSD is now L5, we have over 50 million disengagement free miles" or whatever..this is not the end of it..it's just the beginning.

Lots of bad actors will get their hands on a FSD enabled car and tries to make them fail. A 10x safer than a human still means plenty of crashes per year to give MSM their organismic headline. It will be years before regular folks start trusting a Tesla to drive them so demand will be low. The good news is there will be millions of FSD enabled cars on the street fighting FUD, however accidents will be highlighted and the first FSD caused injury will see TSLA stock hitting the uptick rule.

With that being said, I do agree the forward looking market will reward Tesla will something if robotaxi is rolling out, but not as much as you think after the initial pump n dump phase.

 

[woodisgood]

So TSLA doesn't take off until high robotaxi revenue is 90 days away?

Not a chance. The upside for robotaxi is too insane for investors to sit on their hands.

TSLA takes off the day robotaxi becomes real in terms of tangible, demonstrable plans for the customer experience, economics, app, and most importantly, liability. Tesla could formally show all that today and you’d have a very insane market reaction.

It is obviously not in Tesla’s best interests to discuss any of those things until the risks to Tesla are minimized (ie, FSD is safe enough).

The market is looking for relatively superficial things that are only indirectly linked to how competent/safe FSD actually is.

 

[2daMoon]

I know this isn't an official design from Tesla, but I think it'd be hugely popular

If it were stainless steel, it would need to be thin enough to stamp the complex curves.
There is no way to get that look using the folding methods used for CT.

My guess is that the durability of the CT, due to thickness of the folded panels and absence of paint, would be the sort of characteristics to lend Robotaxi the ability to Live Long and Prosper into a dystopian Blade Runner future.

Edit: Curious about what @Artful Dodger found disagreeable. Was it the mixing of Star Trek and Blade Runner references?

 

[uscbucsfan]

A lot of uncertainty with robotaxi and it's not just about the self driving technology. Waymo and Cruise are losing a boatload of money per year. So we don't know how much operating expense a Tesla network will cost, and how profitable robotaxies are. Even after Tesla started saying "FSD is now L5, we have over 50 million disengagement free miles" or whatever..this is not the end of it..it's just the beginning.

Lots of bad actors will get their hands on a FSD enabled car and tries to make them fail. A 10x safer than a human still means plenty of crashes per year to give MSM their organismic headline. It will be years before regular folks start trusting a Tesla to drive them so demand will be low. The good news is there will be millions of FSD enabled cars on the street fighting FUD, however accidents will be highlighted and the first FSD caused injury will see TSLA stock hitting the uptick rule.

With that being said, I do agree the forward looking market will reward Tesla will something if robotaxi is rolling out, but not as much as you think after the initial pump n dump phase.

These are my exact thoughts...great post.

 

[uscbucsfan]

If it were stainless steel, it would need to be thin enough to stamp the complex curves.
There is no way to get that look using the folding methods used for CT.

My guess is that the durability of the CT, due to thickness of the folded panels and absence of paint, would be the sort of characteristics to lend Robotaxi the ability to Live Long and Prosper into a dystopian Blade Runner future.

The problem with SS, which doesn't impact many truck owners as much...because they are supposed to be rugged, is that it can scratch and there's not an easy or cheap way to fix it.

It will be super resistant to dents and while the panels may pop off in a horrific crash(like the CT rollover test) they won't dent/bend easily.

I don't the SS will be a great mass market non-truck. It's very polarizing. It would be an INCREDIBLE taxi though.