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

[Krugerrand]

I'm a bit flabbergasted when I hear this argument.
1. Things don't happen in a vacuum, but people have families, have different financial situations, the can provide for sick people, etc. Also, the legal system may be more or less efficient or expensive.
2. The "fight" is asymettrical. Companies have better lawyers than workers. Collective action is a tool invented hundreds years to protect the little guy. Sure, it can be misused, but companies misuse their power all the time too.
2. "leave the company" is an extreme measure. It's an option for very bad working conditions, but if the conditions are mildly bad you actually want a negotiation, not dropping the bomb. It's like people who advice for "divorce" for every problem in a marriage: as divorce in itself it's not an extreme measure (with kids, with alimony, with splitting funds and property, etc...).

And I’m always flabbergasted when people think others are responsible for making their lives easy.

1. Agree things don’t happen in a vacuum. People have kids all the time when they’ve got no business having them. They manage their money poorly and make bad financial decisions. They’re lazy and average at their jobs with no pride in their work and no ambition. They rip off companies they work for, stealing, calling in sick when they aren’t etc…

2. There are tactics the little guy can use; like media. Not all companies are big and can afford lawyers. Basically, life isn’t fair. Too bad, so sad. We all learn that as children.

3. leave the company’ is a perfectly good option whether you think it’s extreme or not. Been there, done that - right in the middle of a shift, without another job to go to, with debt and bills to pay, living paycheck to paycheck, and without consulting the spouse. Best decision ever. You don’t do yourself any favors by staying at a company/job that makes you unhappy. There are just as serious consequences in doing that as there are up and leaving - which also applies to marriage.

 

[Thekiwi]

You are a different breed of cat, we already know that ;-)
We agree that politics and religion do divide people, and your attitude is maybe the best one: this is not to say that everybody thinks like you. People are very partisan sometimes, they pre-judge. So, we agree on the premise.

Ok.

That would be really fun.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding.
We - at least, I - don't think *it's good* to make it a political argument,
but it's right and newsworthy to state that it is. It is increasingly engaged as political argument in the presidential campaign and outside of it. Also in Italy there is increasingly an anti-EV campaign from the (right-wing) actual government.
If people (left and right) do think with prejudice we need to be aware of it. I don't think it's bs (but I agree there is the self-fulling prophecy feedback loop).

New Zealand had an election a couple of weeks back. The party that garnered the most votes and will lead the new government had as one of its key policies the removal of all EV subsidies. So the current $7500 subsidy is going to be gone by year end.

EV‘s are most definitely a huge political football right now, all over the globe.

 

[cliff harris]

As far as advertising is concerned I'd rather Tesla spend their money on new delivery centers. I cannot tell you how many people I know in New Hampshire and Maine that won't buy a Tesla since the only service centers in the area are in eastern Massachusetts not far from Boston. If the service center isn't within an hour many won't buy. Service centers are demand drivers.

Good idea. And why not make them multipurpose? A tesla delivery center should also be a servcie center, and a showroom and a supercharging destination. As many as possible could be Tesla diners.
Taking a car for a service is a chore, so why not eliminate that?
Also, if a supercharger at a service/delivery center is open to non Tesla drivers, they get to see not only the charging network, but the delivery & service experience as well.
Stick a Tesla bot prototype on display in each Tesla diner too! (Talking of which, if Tesla bots could ever be trusted to deliver food at the Tesla diner, that would be the best advertising imaginable).

 

[aubreymcfato]

And I’m always flabbergasted when people think others are responsible for making their lives easy.

1. Agree things don’t happen in a vacuum. People have kids all the time when they’ve got no business having them. They manage their money poorly and make bad financial decisions. They’re lazy and average at their jobs with no pride in their work and no ambition. They rip off companies they work for, stealing, calling in sick when they aren’t etc…

2. There are tactics the little guy can use; like media. Not all companies are big and can afford lawyers. Basically, life isn’t fair. Too bad, so sad. We all learn that as children.

3. leave the company’ is a perfectly good option whether you think it’s extreme or not. Been there, done that - right in the middle of a shift, without another job to go to, with debt and bills to pay, living paycheck to paycheck, and without consulting the spouse. Best decision ever. You don’t do yourself any favors by staying at a company/job that makes you unhappy. There are just as serious consequences in doing that as there are up and leaving - which also applies to marriage.

I'll stop here, just saying this is a precise worldview and it's political. Some may agree with your pessimism, some may not. You're entitled to have it, of course, and I'm entitled to have another.
I personally live in a less hobbesian world than yours, I'm more of a Spinoza guy.

 

[Knightshade]

Yup, straight to a Vegas Boring Tunnel in time for Superbowl Sun, Feb 11, 2024



Yes, that's 1.2M LCDs (600K sq ft) on the "Sphere" in Vegas, not the actual moon.

Cheers!

That this is even physically possible in that time has been debunked, directly to you, at least twice now- why keep repeating it as if it's a thing?

That's hilarious. According to Toyota's graph, manual mode is fully enveloped by EV mode and will always result in a slower vehicle. You can't make this stuff up!
View attachment 986197

To be fair. it's "manual mode" and manual transmissions have offered inferior performance for a while now, so the math checks out here. Slushboxes have come a long way since powerglides.

Best comment in that article:

Hey toyota, why not include a virtual hand crank and make the driving experience truly authentic. ;-)
View attachment 986168

One of my favorite auto history stories is Cadillac founder Henry M. Leland, after Byron Carter, a Cadillac engineer, was hit in the head by a starting crank when the engine backfired which later resulted in death, worked with Charles Kettering to prevent that from ever happening again and they developed the electric starter as a result.

 

[jerry33]

And I’m always flabbergasted when people think others are responsible for making their lives easy.

1. Agree things don’t happen in a vacuum. People have kids all the time when they’ve got no business having them. They manage their money poorly and make bad financial decisions. They’re lazy and average at their jobs with no pride in their work and no ambition. They rip off companies they work for, stealing, calling in sick when they aren’t etc…

2. There are tactics the little guy can use; like media. Not all companies are big and can afford lawyers. Basically, life isn’t fair. Too bad, so sad. We all learn that as children.

3. leave the company’ is a perfectly good option whether you think it’s extreme or not. Been there, done that - right in the middle of a shift, without another job to go to, with debt and bills to pay, living paycheck to paycheck, and without consulting the spouse. Best decision ever. You don’t do yourself any favors by staying at a company/job that makes you unhappy. There are just as serious consequences in doing that as there are up and leaving - which also applies to marriage.

The issue is that most jobs are 80% like and 20% dislike. Over time, people tend to focus on the 20%, get fed up and migrate, or grin and bear it (typically because of financial reasons). And in most companies, the way to get a pay increase (that's more than a pittance) is to migrate to another job.

 

[mongo]

Quick question... Am I correct in assuming that Elon Musk is literally not getting paid to be the CEO of Tesla?
His salary is $1/year and his performance base compensation packages from 2012 and 2018 have been met afaik. And that pay is under threat from a shareholder lawsuit. (Tornetta vs. Musk) It seems like he is running the company conservatively until this lawsuit is resolved and he gets another big incentive package. That is my intuition... does that seem accurate?

The stock options from Elon's 2018 CEO compensation package has all vested, but none have been exercised. His net payout is dependent on both the stock price when he does exercise them and the stock price 5+ years later which is the soonest he can sell the awarded stock.
It is a ten year plan and his deadline to exercise is January 20, 2028. I tend to not expect a new compensation plan before then.

 

[Unpilot]

I think the prejudice goes in both directions: there is zero evidence that Tesla is doing the best for its employees.

This appears to be a contradiction to me.

 

[Knightshade]

.

The stock options from Elon's 2018 CEO compensation package has all vested, but none have been exercised. His net payout is dependent on both the stock price when he does exercise them and the stock price 5+ years later which is the soonest he can sell the awarded stock.
It is a ten year plan and his deadline to exercise is January 20, 2028. I tend to not expect a new compensation plan before then.

An excellent summary though I'd addendum it to note he can sell some new shares immediately to cover the taxes exercising the options will create- which are likely to be substantial enough to, at least temporarily, impact share price- assuming he does the same open-market transacting he has in the past rather than the dark pool/brokered selling Gary Black and others have suggested instead.

 

[2daMoon]

Logic and reason applied to a fundamental absence of any understanding just leads to more lack of understanding. Please stop. And that goes for the entire cohort of ignorati here. Y'all ever hear the phrase "first stop digging"?

​

Are you saying it is better to form an opinion based upon emotional factors while ignoring facts than it is to gather evidence, sift the data, and derive a conclusion by applying logic and reason?

 

[dhrivnak]

New Zealand had an election a couple of weeks back. The party that garnered the most votes and will lead the new government had as one of its key policies the removal of all EV subsidies. So the current $7500 subsidy is going to be gone by year end.

EV‘s are most definitely a huge political football right now, all over the globe.

I would far prefer a carbon tax than EV rebates. Most governments are deficit spending, which is not good and so bleeding more cash is not a smart move. It also fosters polarization. Tesla was growing just fine without the tax credits in 2019 - 2022. Let the government lead by example, by replacing the mail service and fleet cars with EVs. And let the market do its job.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Musk has more skin in this game than any CEO who is working for a salary. Elon own's approx. 20% of TSLA stock which is well over $100B at the moment. The idea that he is somehow holding back due to some fantasy law suit is laughable, in fact sounds like an idea implanted by a TSLAQy (ironically on twitter).

The economic challenges facing Tesla, the industry, and the country are real and are not some fantasy bouncing around some TSLAQ basement suite. Elon will guide the company thru these challenges as he has always done, with a long view and by keeping his eye on the big prize. In case you don't know, that's autonomy (both in FSD and Robotics) and the larger goal being the first to achieve AGI.

There's $2B investment going into Dojo compute in each of the next 2 years. That's not 'holding back'. Elon doesn't play it safe, he's a risk-taker by nature. But that also means assessing risk, and mitigating it as appropriate.

Sorry dodger. What is AGI? Thanks.

 

[mongo]

Sorry dodger. What is AGI? Thanks.

In this situation: Artificial General Intelligence

 

[Webeevdrivers]

In this situation: Artificial General Intelligence

Thank you.

 

[kbM3]

Quite unlikely, even if it ships with a 200 kWh pack, 1 MW would be a 5C charging rate, most any Tesla does today is 3.3C, and with the packs likely being smaller than that, even more unlikely

But as time goes on probably, the next jump might be when Tesla starts using it's own Anode material with Silicon, but still I don't see any passenger vehicle hitting 1 MW soon

And on a important note, that rating is for the dispender, which doesn't include the cable, current cables on V4 are rated for 1000 V 615 A, or 615 kW

Lol, not unless it has a 333 KWh pack that supports a 3C charge rate. A 200 KWh pack at 3C maybe, but that's only 600 KW charge speed.

The 'charger vs vehicle' issue is like Oktoberfest, it's all about how fast you can pour vs how fast you can swallow.

At the Pepsi Semi delivery event, Lars (after getting Elon’s permission) revealed that the Cyber Truck will charge at one megawatt.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I'm a bit flabbergasted when I hear this argument.
1. Things don't happen in a vacuum, but people have families, have different financial situations, the can provide for sick people, etc. Also, the legal system may be more or less efficient or expensive.
2. The "fight" is asymettrical. Companies have better lawyers than workers. Collective action is a tool invented hundreds years to protect the little guy. Sure, it can be misused, but companies misuse their power all the time too.
2. "leave the company" is an extreme measure. It's an option for very bad working conditions, but if the conditions are mildly bad you actually want a negotiation, not dropping the bomb. It's like people who advice for "divorce" for every problem in a marriage: as divorce in itself it's not an extreme measure (with kids, with alimony, with splitting funds and property, etc...).

Have you ever run a company or been a senior manager in one? Trust me, retaining employees, especially in today’s environment of low unemployment, isn’t a slam dunk. People get recruited away. Finding a comparable lateral move job somewhere is literally a click away. This isn’t the 1950s where people worked for one company most of their lives. Job mobility is very much a thing.

Although I note you live in Italy, and there may indeed be regional difference at play here. The US job market is very mobile.

 

[aubreymcfato]

This appears to be a contradiction to me.

Maybe I mispoke (I find it hard to articulate well my thought in English nowadays).
If K. prejudice was that there is zero evidence that Tesla is doing bad by their employees, also the opposite can be said:
there is zero evidence that Tesla is doing the best => so they are entitled to (try to) negotiate.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Have you ever run a company or been a senior manager in one? Trust me, retaining employees, especially in today’s environment of low unemployment, isn’t a slam dunk. People get recruited away. Finding a comparable lateral move job somewhere is literally a click away. This isn’t the 1950s where people worked for one company most of their lives. Job mobility is very much a thing.

Although I note you live in Italy, and there may indeed be regional difference at play here. The US job market is very mobile.

The Italian labor market is (famously?) *not* mobile.

 

[andrewt3000]

The stock options from Elon's 2018 CEO compensation package has all vested, but none have been exercised. His net payout is dependent on both the stock price when he does exercise them and the stock price 5+ years later which is the soonest he can sell the awarded stock.
It is a ten year plan and his deadline to exercise is January 20, 2028. I tend to not expect a new compensation plan before then.

Are you sure all 12 of the tranches are vested?

Elon Musk scores hat trick of Tesla compensation goals worth $23 billion

This article from April 2022 indicates that 11 of the 12 tranches were vested.

If the plan is vested already, why would expect a new plan 5 years later?

 

[hobbes]

That's hilarious. According to Toyota's graph, manual mode is fully enveloped by EV mode and will always result in a slower vehicle. You can't make this stuff up!
View attachment 986197

Not that I like the idea of the virtual manual transmission, but technically it is quite obviously the only way to realize it: Control the electric motor output such that it matches torque curve of an ICE engine, which means it will be lower than max output for the EV drivetrain. Would be even more stupid to then artificially limit the EV mode even more (meaning you´d never max out the drive train at all...), no?