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

[mongo]

Right, but you and @mongo are talking about FSD chips which already have been in vehicles for years.

I was responding to @elasalle who said that on the call it "Was good to hear that the chips in the cars are Tesla based already", as if that was news on this call.

So may question was if there was something other than FSD that was new this go-round. He's since clarified there is not, he just forgot about it.

V3 TRIP is new, TRIP is not
We're all in violent agreement

 

[Krugerrand]

He's still a bull.

No he’s not.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Also optimus is theoretically perfectly multi-skilled. Optimus can move from one job in general assembly, to another, to unpacking boxes of components, to any other task in the factory, as needed. If any optimus has been trained to do a task, they all have.
That makes the workforce perfectly fluid and adaptable. A far cry from the 1970s days of 'demarkation' and workers striking at the suggestion that a worker does another worker's job.

ok... optimus replacing large amount of factory workers and doing multiple jobs incl. tasks no robot can do today.... are we talking about 2028+ ? i'm sure WS isn;t being that patient.

 

[AndrewZ]

I think a cheaper car is already priced in, not that Tesla is valued as a car company in the first place

 

[Krugerrand]

Have owned all my TSLA (2500 shares ) since 2016 and have never sold any of it. I was in for the long-term but now I’m starting to question that decision. I don’t see anything else in 2024 that is going to give the stock any kind of boost perhaps I’m missing something. I’m considering rolling it into AMZN

You should do it. Is advice.

 

[mongo]

building a sub $30k EV in the US with US labor costs/ cost environment will be extremely hard. Not sure why they are set on Austin and not upcoming Giga Mexico...

Mexico doesn't have a factory
Mexico doesn't have Tesla engineering
Tesla hasn't finalized the production line
Once the first line is developed, they can expand to Mexico

Having worked for a Tier One and developed a manufacturing line in Monterrey, I support this plan.

 

[EVWatcher]

building a sub $30k EV in the US with US labor costs/ cost environment will be extremely hard. Not sure why they are set on Austin and not upcoming Giga Mexico...

Maybe Im deluded but every time Elon talks about how the manufacturing technology to make this car the answer seems pretty obvious. The only thing that could be so amazingly beyond any other companies manufacturing tech as he describes it is the cars are planned to be assembled by Optimus. Labor rates no longer apply.

 

[Drax7]

And people believed it even with no place to build the CT. I for one have a very hard time believing any time table (and lots of other things) that Elon says now. He has betrayed trust far to much.

Well Elon does hallucinate, and some of them turn real.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Have owned all my TSLA (2500 shares ) since 2016 and have never sold any of it. I was in for the long-term but now I’m starting to question that decision. I don’t see anything else in 2024 that is going to give the stock any kind of boost perhaps I’m missing something. I’m considering rolling it into AMZN

Do what makes you sleep better at night.

 

[The Accountant]

My concern is the revolutionary process to make the next car will be harder than anticipated and as a result even more delays will take place.
Imagine the situation we would be in now if instead of the cybertruck a more conventional truck had been designed. We could be selling in the hundreds of thousands a year by now.

I hope the same process does not repeat itself with the next gen vehicle.

I don't think a conventional manufacturing process would provide the low cost of production needed to sell an affordable EV with good margins.
We could get production hell again but they'll work through it. They need to get the cost of production below $20k per car imo.

 

[larmor]

building a sub $30k EV in the US with US labor costs/ cost environment will be extremely hard. Not sure why they are set on Austin and not upcoming Giga Mexico...

Texas is "US adjacent" and most of Texas is originally from Mexico.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Have owned all my TSLA (2500 shares ) since 2016 and have never sold any of it. I was in for the long-term but now I’m starting to question that decision. I don’t see anything else in 2024 that is going to give the stock any kind of boost perhaps I’m missing something. I’m considering rolling it into AMZN

If you are comfortable with that decision, sure, why not. In hindsight I would have sold at 415, post split. Like we all would have.
But, again, hindsight is too easy.
I remember that in 2020 I was in a excellent position: being Italian I knew that COVID was wreaking havoc at least 2 weeks before the rest of the Western world. I remember many people dismissing my worries, even here on this forum. So I decided to gamble and sold 7 (!!) shares, at a great profit.
But, guess what, I bought them much later, not being able to timing the market well, so re-bought only 5.
This tiny play taught me a very trivial albeit important truth: you don't have to time the market once to profit, but twice! It's stupid, I know, but psychologically I chased the bottom for months, and didn't catch it. Then the ramp up began so I bought at a loss.
Lucky for me I'm a cheap bastard that doesn't trust himself so I played only with an handful of shares.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Texas is "US adjacent" and most of Texas is originally from Mexico.

Historically yes. Texas is part of the US with US federal regulations, min wage, cost structure and Austin isn't particularly cheap either when it comes to hiring.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Maybe Im deluded but every time Elon talks about how the manufacturing technology to make this car the answer seems pretty obvious. The only thing that could be so amazingly beyond any other companies manufacturing tech as he describes it is the cars are planned to be assembled by Optimus. Labor rates no longer apply.

a fully automated factory with robots walking around doing all labor. sure. but that ain't 2026 or 2027 or 2028....

 

[Krugerrand]

My concern is the revolutionary process to make the next car will be harder than anticipated and as a result even more delays will take place.
Imagine the situation we would be in now if instead of the cybertruck a more conventional truck had been designed. We could be selling in the hundreds of thousands a year by now.

I hope the same process does not repeat itself with the next gen vehicle.

Right. So it should be avoided because it’s hard? So what if it’s delayed? Who else is even trying? In the scheme of the planet self destructing, late might jyst be better than never.

You have no idea and no way to prove any such thing about CT vs conventional truck, and can’t ever. I love all these armchair quarterbacks proclaiming CT as a failed vehicle after a month of start of production AND in the face of what Tesla just said yesterday about CT demand.

You keep being concerned and keep telling yourself stories. I’ll just sit over here and patiently watch Tesla succeed yet again.

 

[Tony73]

This is true. However, that’s not how the average person views the situation. They don’t do the math from last year vs this year. YOU might. Other people don’t. Most other people don’t. All they see is ‘OMG! look at how high those interest rates are!?’ All they hear is the constant bombardment of news about how bloody high interest rates are. All they know is that they can’t afford the monthly payment. Period end of story.

And yet, 16 million cars were sold in the U.S. last year, the vast majority by automakers who have not cut prices anywhere near as much as Tesla.
People are still car shopping; people are still buying cars.
Let’s not delude ourselves that interest rates explain the entirety of Tesla price cuts. They do not.

 

[Unpilot]

Converted 100 more shares from IRA to ROTH....lemons to lemon aid.

 

[Krugerrand]

I may have missed a few questions from WS but tbh the WS questions came of as surprisingly "hot stone massage like" to me. The questions seemed very in tuned with "you guys are so great at making things more financially viable, do you think this will continue". That sounds boring maybe but it is fundamentally important to successfully making the world a better place through delivering a product.

Clearly bs. If they believed that why would there be a sell off? Why all the downgrades today? Why Dan Ives parading around about how disastrous and childish the ER call was?

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

I agree, 50 kWh will be perfect for Robotaxis.
An affordable car for the masses around the world, where regulatory didn't approve autonomous driving in a foreseeable future? Must be as cheap as possible. I haven't heard from Tesla that they don't want to address this market in recent past. The economic impact of producing cars in huge numbers and to replace any old ICE on this planet with a low cost EV is overwhelming attractive.
The new production system in combination with the bot will make this possible. Can't wait until the horse (ICE) is replaced again, asap.

According to Isaacson he really did not want this car. He reluctantly agreed to having it built with the Robotaxi and has raised the bar on the production innovation to keep it back until the FSD is more advanced. He is treating it as a race. I still think Tesla China has a compact that is not Gen3 that may come out of the blue.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

Clearly bs. If they believed that why would there be a sell off? Why all the downgrades today? Why Dan Ives parading around about how disastrous and childish the ER call was?

Ives is supporting some client's trades.