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

[samn]

I posted this on the options thread but also posting here for a wider audience. TL;DR I'm looking for a tax accountant well-versed in options and wash sale rules. Please DM me with any references.

Can anyone recommend a tax accountant/advisor? I specifically need help filing last year's taxes which includes options losses and wash sales. I'm in California but am mostly concerned about Federal tax filing so accountant in CA is not necessarily a requirement.

I'm a long term TSLA investor and naively got into selling puts. I got hit hard last year when these long dated deep in the money puts started getting exercised against me. I ended up with a string of margin calls and had to sell TSLA multiple times to cover margin. This all lead to large gains on paper from the stock I had to sell, and my large losses that I had hoped to use to offset the gains are being considered wash sales and disallowed. I'm having trouble finding any tax accountants that will take on new clients and I'm concerned that this may be a tricky area of tax law to navigate.

Can anyone help with references? If so please PM me, I would appreciate it!

—

Mod: no responses in this thread. Use PM as requested.

 

[hobbes]

Hyundai is developing a Tesla-like Giga Press to boost EV production and cut costs

Hyundai is taking a page from Tesla as it plans to model a new EV production method after its Giga...

electrek.co

 

[Artful Dodger]

I took a picture of [the VW XL1] at Brussels Motor Show in January 2014

View attachment 973332

The VW XL1 had two problems:

1. it was a diesel-electric hybrid (2-cyl 800cc, basically half a TDI) so it wasn't a ZEV, and
2. it retailed for over $100K (and hence only sold about 200 units in a single limited production run.

We found out years later that (then current) VW CEO Martin Winterkorn was responsible for the "dieselgate" fiasco, and he also steered the "1-Liter car" program (into the ditch). BTW, Winterkorn served several years in prison for his role in dieselgate.

But just imagine how great this style of vehicle would be if fully electric, when it picks you up at your door, drives you to the train station while you read the morning news on a big screen, customized to your cloud-based preferences, then continues on its way...

Not bad for a few bucks (or Euro).

Cheers!

 

[Words of HABIT]

I received this email from Tesla today. Nice.

 

[navguy12]

The people are the problem. Hmm. Have you or anyone else figured out what all these "people" , drivers, and all of the tens of millions suddenly out of work because of bots, robo- taxis, robo-trucks, robo-everything else will do for a living? Five years ago, hearing about all of these innovations Elon was working on, I was glad it was him working on these things, certain he would have considered the impact on capitalism, society, and had a plan for that. Five years down the road, we have all learned more about our hero. With his new venture and other...changes.., I now have no expectation that Elon has given the societal chaos that will certainly ensue a moment's thought.

Henry Ford at least realized his workers would need to be paid well to afford to buy his cars (and participate in the economy). I don't think the "new" Elon could give a flying you-know-what about pride, and the "people" you mention.

Henry Ford paid his people a high wage to avoid worker turnover.

https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/108-years-ago-ford-doubled-employee-wages-overnight-business-case-for-higher-pay.html

Did Henry Ford Pay Efficiency Wages? on JSTOR

Daniel M. G. Raff, Lawrence H. Summers, Did Henry Ford Pay Efficiency Wages?, Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 5, No. 4, Part 2: The New Economics of Personnel (Oct., 1987), pp. S57-S86

www.jstor.org

Henry Ford and the $5 a day wages — Adam Smith Institute

Chris Snowdon tells us all in The Times of how Henry Ford really didn’t raise wages so that the workers could afford the cars they made : The left-wing equivalent of the self-financing tax cut is the self-financing spending splurge. The idea is that if you pay teachers more, they will spend more a

www.adamsmith.org

 

[newcarbuyer123]

Did a 1500 mile trip in my MY, no road trip issues and it was in rural areas without the normal compliment of Tesla superchargers. Does take a bit more planning than a gas car but not much more.
These articles seem to be all about other EVs not Tesla. And they are probably done to justify a big govt "investment" in chargers which by the way Tesla already has. I'm no Tesla fanboy, just reality. Don't count on the US federal govt to do anything efficient or rational when it comes to EV charger network. Can you say "pork"? I also live in CA where the State Government has threatened for over 10 years to build out a high speed train. $30 billion later and no train. Politicians and EVs bad combination. OK my rant is over.

 

[2daMoon]

The people are the problem. Hmm. Have you or anyone else figured out what all these "people" , drivers, and all of the tens of millions suddenly out of work because of bots, robo- taxis, robo-trucks, robo-everything else will do for a living? Five years ago, hearing about all of these innovations Elon was working on, I was glad it was him working on these things, certain he would have considered the impact on capitalism, society, and had a plan for that. Five years down the road, we have all learned more about our hero. With his new venture and other...changes.., I now have no expectation that Elon has given the societal chaos that will certainly ensue a moment's thought.

Henry Ford at least realized his workers would need to be paid well to afford to buy his cars (and participate in the economy). I don't think the "new" Elon could give a flying you-know-what about pride, and the "people" you mention.

Elon does have a plan for that.

Gather some of the breadcrumbs about the future of a free energy economy from Tony Seba.

Pick through the tidbits regarding the long term plans for x.com.

Also consider who will clean and maintain the robots and robotaxis.

Everyone else can find work on Mars, right?

 

[ReddyLeaf]

“Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy”

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-evs-cars-chargers-charging-energy-secretary-jennifer-granholm

Haven’t seen this posted yet, a piece on NPR yesterday about Secretary of Energy Granholm and EVs. Despite the title, it’s a pretty positive article about Tesla. My favorite quote:

“EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem”.

Also, do you think she got permission from Tony Seba to show his horses vs cars slides?

I was forwarded a “mpr” article, probably the same, from a friend in Minnesota. Great article highlighting why Tesla is better and confirms the GM (Union) bias of the current administration. Perhaps they are now more educated. A great read. For example:

Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.

Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.

So, they F&$$*$#@# ICED the spot, blocking a family that needed to charge. Someone call the cops, only to find out it’s not illegal in GA to ICE chargers. Still happening after a decade (FYI, from my screen name, you might have guessed it, but I’ve been driving an EV for 12 years).

major takeaway: EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem, and the White House knows it's urgent to solve this issue.

At another stop in Tennessee, the Chevy Bolt that I was riding in charged at one-third the rate it should have. Electrify America says that's not an isolated problem; a faulty component has caused a number of chargers to be "derated" while the company works on a fix.

The Bolt’s max charge is ~50KW, so 1/3 is……pathetic (even for me with my 24 KWh 2011 Leaf).

Then, I loved this: Kids, what do they know?

Ford CEO Jim Farley recently told NPR he was driving with his kids on a family vacation, past a huge, conveniently located Tesla Supercharger station. His kids wondered why Farley, who was driving a Mustang Mach-E, couldn't just stop there to charge.

Farley explained that they couldn't because those were Tesla chargers.

When he explained why they couldn't charge there, his kids were blunt, as he recalled to NPR in an interview in August: "'Well, that's stupid. They have, like, a lot of free open spots there.'"

Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

 

[Artful Dodger]

In case you think the early-prototype Tesla Robotaxi is too far out there (or too much like the VW XL1), I present the 1992 GM Ultralite 1 concept car:

It was rated at 88 miles per US gallon (2.7 L/100 km) by the EPA, but could achieve 100 miles per US gallon at a steady state cruising speed of 50 mph (haha, my 7-seater 2022 Model Y AWD gets 132 MPGe).

The car had gull-wing doors, no B-pillars, and had a 0.19 drag coefficient (Cd). Its three-cylinder 1.5 L two-stroke engine produced 111 hp (83 kW), which allowed a speed of 135 mph (217 km/h). Acceleration from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) was less than eight seconds.

So, over 30 years ago, this GM Concept was a modernized (!) version of the 1950s era Messerschmitt Kabinenroller (which was itself later updated to the 4-wheeled FMR Tg500:

Now it's true, older folks and people with mobility challenges aren't going to hire a robotaxi this size, but how many of these folks are commuting anyway? Sure, there will be Model Y robotaxis for trips to the medi-clinic or shopping-mall, but for teens-to-twenty-somethings, a safe, self-driving two-seater to ride-hail home from pub-crawling on Friday nights could be a big deal (and on Monday morning, too).

Cheers to the Flexible Travellers...

 

[Words of HABIT]

Volkswagon and Stellantis, don't worry. Canada's Industry Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne thinks you're good for another 100 years.

Read in National Post:
EV battery subsidies to take 20 years to break even, not five as government claimed: PBO — National Post

"It will take 20 years for the federal and provincial governments to break even on massive subsidies to auto giants Volkswagen and Stellantis, not the five years that the government initially pledged, according to the (Canada's) Parliamentary Budget Officer (Yves Giroux).
Volkswagen, which plans a massive electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas, Ont., and Stellantis, which is building a plant with LG in Windsor, Ont., both received massive production subsidies from the provincial and federal government.
Those subsidies will pay the companies for every battery they produce at the new facilities on top of money both companies received for building the plants. Volkswagen is set to get $13.2 billion ($9.7B USD) and Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler and Jeep, is set to receive $15 billion ($11.1B USD).

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne defended the subsidies when they were announced, insisting they would pay off in just five years. “Talk to any banker. He would say if you get your money in five years for a plant that’s going to be there for 100 years, that’s a pretty good deal for Canadians,” he said when the Volkswagen deal was announced."

 

[Usain]

Don't count on the US federal govt to do anything efficient or rational when it comes to EV charger network.

The federal government did decide to let the states figure it out. The money goes to the states and, within some guidelines, the states can control how the charging infrastructure is built and who gets the contracts. So far, Tesla seems to be getting the lion's share of the business because they can always outbid the competition. Plus, many of the states have mandated NACS.

It's not exactly how I would have done it, but I'm not too bothered by the government's performance so far.

 

[Tronguy]

200 exceptional software engineer will hands down beat 10,000 mediocre software engineer.
Alot of people get confuse with quality and quantity. They think throwing more heads will solve problem faster and better, but that's far from the reality. Throwing too many body onto a problem would likely slow down and makes problem worse. That's especially true in software.

Most efficient way to run a project is One Engineer.

Two engineers don't go twice as fast; it's more like, maybe, 1.5 times as fast. They have to communicate and contend with each other's errors. (You think engineers don't make errors? What planet are you from, anyway?)

200 people working on the same stuff.. They don't go 200 times as fast. They'll be lucky if they go 20 times as fast as a single engineer. Good documentation is key.. and start thinking about how much time is taken by writing documents. (I used to say documents were a form of self-defense: Well written ones keep a zillion other people from continually interrupting one, asking, "Well, how did you do this? And how does this API work?")

As one adds engineers one needs to segment what the engineers are doing into smaller teams that become specialized. You think that a massive product has everybody working on the same thing? No way, people can't keep all that stuff in their heads.

200 design engineers is a massive product. Most I've ever worked on had roughly a hundred, half on SW and half on HW, and that was, indeed, unweildly. 200 people working on the same thing.. that's a lot of work keeping everybody face forward.

 

[FireMedic]

This just in. The GOAT on the all in podcast live. In flight!

 

[GhostSkater]

Most efficient way to run a project is One Engineer

This is so true, and why Tesla kills on what it does, few hyper focused people on each part of a problem and working together tightly interconnected to solve it, you just need to see the Model Y easy of assembly video a few posts behind to get it, you can't do that with huge teams working on their own thing

Reminds of a period of working on the SAE student project I told a few posts ago, we were 13 people with not much knowledge trying to design, engineer and build a car since a lot of people left the team

To my knowledge to this day it was the highest scoring and best performing one the team has ever built, mostly due to everyone being able to sit in a single table with no communication barrier, no delays, no needing to go schedule to talk with someonem, etc. Problems could be solved in minutes if not seconds as they were faced

 

[snellenr]

Most efficient way to run a project is One Engineer.

Two engineers don't go twice as fast; it's more like, maybe, 1.5 times as fast. They have to communicate and contend with each other's errors. (You think engineers don't make errors? What planet are you from, anyway?)

200 people working on the same stuff.. They don't go 200 times as fast. They'll be lucky if they go 20 times as fast as a single engineer. Good documentation is key.. and start thinking about how much time is taken by writing documents. (I used to say documents were a form of self-defense: Well written ones keep a zillion other people from continually interrupting one, asking, "Well, how did you do this? And how does this API work?")

As one adds engineers one needs to segment what the engineers are doing into smaller teams that become specialized. You think that a massive product has everybody working on the same thing? No way, people can't keep all that stuff in their heads.

200 design engineers is a massive product. Most I've ever worked on had roughly a hundred, half on SW and half on HW, and that was, indeed, unweildly. 200 people working on the same thing.. that's a lot of work keeping everybody face forward.

Brook's Law: "Adding programmers to a late project makes it later."

 

[Tronguy]

Brook's Law: "Adding programmers to a late project makes it later."

Ha. Leaving the names of the guilty out of this..

One Day a supervisor stuck his head into me and my partner's Place of Work and asked, "Either of you know VHDL?" We both did; in fact, we were newbies in the field but had taken the Official Course. But the partner had stuff to work on and finish, so I got the job.

An single engineer working on a massive set of three VHDL-defined FPGAs had left the project abruptly. I showed up and met the other two engineers who were attempting to get the whole system running and got a carthartic dump of the Biggest, Most Frustrated List of Things That Worked Only Sometimes. As it happens, the engineer who had left was of the opinion that said engineer Never Made Mistakes. Which is a Really Weird Opinion: People always make mistakes, it's part of the human condition.

No documentation, other than the code, which didn't have any comments, either. What the heck: Dug into it, figured out the overall structure, and wrote lots and lots of notes of what went which way and why. In pretty short order I had Questions about the design methodology and techniques, especially about the handling of data driven by different free-running clocks. I asked the existing engineers and they said that They Had Had Those Questions, Too, but Never Got Answers. Dug into that and did some architectural design and changes to fix that. But there were still bugs.

With logic analyzer waveforms started tracking down individual bugs and fixing them, at three to seven days per bug. Bad logic. Typos not caught by the equivalent of Lint. After four weeks of this, had had enough: Went to my supe and said, "This whole thing has to be put under a VHDL-driven simulation, or we'll be doing this forever, and we only got six months!"

With trepidation, my supe authorized overtime and started praying. I found the local expert on VHDL sim, extracted his brain, and got the sim working in two weeks.

First day after the sim was working: twenty valid bugs. In two weeks, was done on one chip; got the other two in another two weeks.

Then ran into bugs in the development environment. It was putting in bugs with excessive delays in signals. Dragged in the rep from the software company and lit a fire. The company figured it out, but compiles now took two freaking days, but at least the devices worked.

Out the door with four weeks to spare. Given that I had started eight months before deadline, that was pretty darned tight.

So, yeah, a single engineer can be faster. Unless said engineer has serious problems and generates a design that Doesn't Work, and then refuses to Fix It.

 

[Beltsbear]

200 exceptional software engineer will hands down beat 10,000 mediocre software engineer.
Alot of people get confuse with quality and quantity. They think throwing more heads will solve problem faster and better, but that's far from the reality. Throwing too many body onto a problem would likely slow down and makes problem worse. That's especially true in software.

For example, software written by 10,000 people…… see VW.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

The solution to the robotaxi mobility concern for elderly and others, with regards to trade off of vehicle height vs aerodynamics is obvious. Great big air bags in the suspension. Cybertruck already demonstrates the capability to design such a thing.

User can have set in their app profile their preferred floor/ seat height (or however you would describe it), with a couple of reasonable presets to choose from by default. Alternatively, just always raise to something that is ADA friendly or whatever as a default, with profile settings being an option for those that doesn't work for.

Also they should add grab handles for easier entry and exit but let's be honest Tesla won't.

 

[MartinAustin]

The solution to the robotaxi mobility concern for elderly and others, with regards to trade off of vehicle height vs aerodynamics is obvious. Great big air bags in the suspension. Cybertruck already demonstrates the capability to design such a thing.

User can have set in their app profile their preferred floor/ seat height (or however you would describe it), with a couple of reasonable presets to choose from by default. Alternatively, just always raise to something that is ADA friendly or whatever as a default, with profile settings being an option for those that doesn't work for.

Also they should add grab handles for easier entry and exit but let's be honest Tesla won't.

Yeah I have not seen a single grab-handle in Cybertruck interior pics yet. If there are none... that will be sad. They are useful

 

[EQC_]

Yeah I have not seen a single grab-handle in Cybertruck interior pics yet. If there are none... that will be sad. They are useful

If it is too high or awkward when getting in or out, people will make whatever they can reach into a handle...hope that steering wheel is sturdy and that the doors can support plenty of extra weight when open. I know the suspension can lower...but there will be folks who set it high all the time.

(I've heard about people who raise up their regular pick-up, then hoist themselves in and out via the steering wheel until it eventually breaks...)