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

[M|S|M MYP]

I just found out you can legally hire your own kids and pay them up to the standard deduction of $13,850/yr (per the internet).

Yes, If you have your own S-Corp or LLC. I guess Elon could form a new start-up and only hire his kids, considering he has 11.

 

[Stretch2727]

Edmunds with something positive on CT, and the review is balanced and pretty fair.

I like their conclusion.

If you want a work truck, get the Ford. If you want a lifestyle truck, get the Rivian. And if you want a Cybertruck, well, get a Cybertruck. It's really as simple as that.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1766132950243164340

 

[Tony73]

The big question is can Rivian reach break-even? They need a lot of cost cutting to achieve that. It doesn’t look like that scale will help them, so what will? Cutting features? There are only a couple of stalks and sensors they can eliminate. If they don’t do that (break-even) fast, they will need to raise a lot of money. They can only IPO once, and they got a lot of easy money with that IPO. I see nothing but dilution until they achieve break even. Dilution is not good if you already own Rivian.

Rivian has $9 billion in cash. If they can’t right the ship before that much money is spent, something is fundamentally wrong.

 

[SOULPEDL]

what we need is for the grown ups at Tesla to be in charge of the Model 2 design. Another weird mobile like the X or the CT would be a disaster.

If the CT was targeted at F-150 buyers, like the 3 & Y were targeted at traditional sedan and CUV buyers, it would have been the next significant leg of growth.

Now we have to wait for late 2025 / 2026.

If this Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang vehicle were low cost, had good range, and was reliable, they'd sell as well. It's all about the value proposition, in totality.

Noticing the Red/Yellow solar panels - way ahead of it's time. Wait... headlights and lanterns both?
And that spare tire is a trick to get on. But I like the wood trim for sure and it's within my budget...

 

[scaesare]

I am unable to forgive Rivian their Tesla slights, just as I am unable to forgive Lucid and Adidas and Coke and GM and Ford and so on.

I logically understand the whole concept of competition is good, variety is nice, and more companies are needed to accelerate the transition. Emotionally, I’m a long way from your desired result.

I kinda remember Rawlings / Lucid taking shots at Tesla but missed if Rivian had. What did they do?

 

[Cult Member]

Recent status update from the electricity supplier for Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg

** Update 08.03.2024 - 04:30 PM MEZ **
Average rods for 110 kV pedestal arrive at Steinfurt construction site - work continues at full speed
In the meantime, further significant construction progress has been made in the immediate vicinity of the damage site on the pylon, and emergency crews from numerous trades with a wide variety of construction vehicles are currently on the construction site, which has now been fenced off and secured by camera systems. In addition to the regular working shift during the day, work is also being carried out after dark in a 3-shift system. The lighting systems required for this were installed yesterday, Thursday.
For the further construction of the announced technical solution for the rapid resupply of the currently unsupplied commercial/industrial customers in Freienbrink, extensive emergency rods were also delivered to the construction site yesterday via a special transport, which are currently being installed by specialized personnel for high-voltage technology not far from the damaged guyed pylon. Several containers were also delivered, which are needed for the civil engineering and surface work. The construction site must be continuously drained, as otherwise water would continue to enter the cable construction site due to the damp ground conditions.
All practical work on site is being closely monitored and supported by a technical task force made up of experienced network experts from several E.DIS divisions. The technical task force has developed the concept for the provisional technical solution and is making all decisions for the fastest possible implementation.
At this point in time, we are unable to make a statement on the amount of damage as the matter is still subject to financial and technical review.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

 

[GhostSkater]

I kinda remember Rawlings / Lucid taking shots at Tesla but missed if Rivian had. What did they do?

Might be the stealing IP lawsuit

 

[Stretch2727]

Rivian has $9 billion in cash. If they can’t right the ship before that much money is spent, something is fundamentally wrong.

They are burning $5 billion a year and it does not look like it will slow down this year. You can't run this down too far before suppliers start asking for cash up front which becomes a further burn. Their options for raising cash are minimal with a market value around $10B.

Want them to survive but it does not look good. My guess is the market value will continue to drop and at some point there will be value for a takeover at a few billion.

 

[Krugerrand]

Rivian has $9 billion in cash. If they can’t right the ship before that much money is spent, something is fundamentally wrong.

They’ve already spent 11B of the 20B that they have 9B left of. Something was fundamentally wrong before the 20B was acquired.

 

[Krugerrand]

I kinda remember Rawlings / Lucid taking shots at Tesla but missed if Rivian had. What did they do?

Poached Tesla employees who took IP with them for starters and then pretended it didn’t happen.

 

[unk45]

I don’t know about you all but I have seen a LOT of Tesla ads on YouTube lately (yes I’m too cheap to get a YT membership). Practically every time I open the app and watch a video which can be a few times daily.

I think at least 5 different commercials telling about the hepa filter, heat pump, performance, etc. and fortunately they prominently show the price and fed tax credit.

I just hope these ads are reaching the right people. Preaching to the choir with me.

The last sentence is why nearly all advertising is wasted. Very, very precise and accurate targeting is needed to identify prospects who have propensity to buy, intention to buy something in the category, capacity to buy and influenceable by the tactics chosen. A long career doing that in multiple product areas, from airplanes (for executive sales), cars, banking products and numerous consumer goods over and over shows how very carefully targeted solicitation must be to be economical. Factually, most of Tesla ads today are primarily oriented towards individual investors, a number of whom are insistent that advertising is a necessary solution. Much of the advertising of that type comes from precise targeting too, almost always directed towards the specific audience. Much of that type is directed for Washington, DC, Brussels etc. in order to reinforce key influencers. Tesla is proving to be quite adept at that, minimizing costs in the process. From a professional standpoint it is sad that this has become necessary. From a consumer standpoint, the traditional Tesla process has worked wonders and still is doing so as they scale. Cynics, superficial as always, see only the 2024 transitional year as proof of imminent catastrophe. That ignorant outlook is indeed sad!

 

[growler23]

Still in a bit of emotional shock over the attack on Giga Berlin. The discussion here seems to have largely moved on, but something like this is not easily moved past for me.
Spreading FUD is one thing ... a physical attack, to me, despite an easily-written letter claiming responsibility, seem much more the style of fossil-aligned interests than the purported environmental group. There are well funded fossil-dependent groups/interests everywhere ... and one such "interest" is right very active in very physical attacks in Eastern Europe at this very moment. Something like this - hybrid warfare including using pawns and disinformation to throw off the trail - is right up their alley. Plenty of evidence of this sort of thing in Poland right now, Moldova as well... I theorize this, only from the known parameters of the attack and its clear target.
It is really tough to see the factory not even able to be cleared out and repaired yet, presumably until the power is back on. Ouch. Factories shuttered = huge losses per day, and that is not even mentioning repair and restart costs.
It is encouraging to see the Berlin Tesla community coming back for a solidarity event - thank you folks for posting that.
Tesla is extending the runway to land our civilizational jet of runaway resource consumption ... slowing their efforts hurts us all long term. And hurts Tesla now.
Despite the long term hit, I guess we can at least be glad no humans were directly and immediately hurt, per what I have read.
--Growler out

 

[FreqFlyer]

Still in a bit of emotional shock over the attack on Giga Berlin. The discussion here seems to have largely moved on, but something like this is not easily moved past for me.
Spreading FUD is one thing ... a physical attack, to me, despite an easily-written letter claiming responsibility, seem much more the style of fossil-aligned interests than the purported environmental group. There are well funded fossil-dependent groups/interests everywhere ... and one such "interest" is right very active in very physical attacks in Eastern Europe at this very moment. Something like this - hybrid warfare including using pawns and disinformation to throw off the trail - is right up their alley. Plenty of evidence of this sort of thing in Poland right now, Moldova as well... I theorize this, only from the known parameters of the attack and its clear target.
It is really tough to see the factory not even able to be cleared out and repaired yet, presumably until the power is back on. Ouch. Factories shuttered = huge losses per day, and that is not even mentioning repair and restart costs.
It is encouraging to see the Berlin Tesla community coming back for a solidarity event - thank you folks for posting that.
Tesla is extending the runway to land our civilizational jet of runaway resource consumption ... slowing their efforts hurts us all long term. And hurts Tesla now.
Despite the long term hit, I guess we can at least be glad no humans were directly and immediately hurt, per what I have read.
--Growler out

Eco Terrorism has been around for decades, those from the PNW can you some stories. Why it doesn't get more media attention? I will leave that to the posters' opinions. Tesla was the victim this time.

 

[GOVA]

The big question is can Rivian reach break-even? They need a lot of cost cutting to achieve that. It doesn’t look like that scale will help them, so what will? Cutting features? There are only a couple of stalks and sensors they can eliminate. If they don’t do that (break-even) fast, they will need to raise a lot of money. They can only IPO once, and they got a lot of easy money with that IPO. I see nothing but dilution until they achieve break even. Dilution is not good if you already own Rivian.

Either Rivian knows they will get the money to continue (Amazon and/or somebody else) OR they play Nikola. Hope it is the former but don't know where and how they will break even. So far, their balance sheet is red.

 

[Mengy]

Are people dumping their TSLA so they can raise funds to buy NVDA? That explanation comes to mind

Maybe some people are, but it's also likely many people are dumping TSLA due to a lack of confidence in growth for the short term. And it's hard to blame them as Tesla themselves have guided for a low growth year.

Remember it's hard for most investors to truly hold long term, emotions get in the way. If holding was easy there would be a lot more rich people in the world.

 

[GOVA]

Still in a bit of emotional shock over the attack on Giga Berlin. The discussion here seems to have largely moved on, but something like this is not easily moved past for me.
Spreading FUD is one thing ... a physical attack, to me, despite an easily-written letter claiming responsibility, seem much more the style of fossil-aligned interests than the purported environmental group. There are well funded fossil-dependent groups/interests everywhere ... and one such "interest" is right very active in very physical attacks in Eastern Europe at this very moment. Something like this - hybrid warfare including using pawns and disinformation to throw off the trail - is right up their alley. Plenty of evidence of this sort of thing in Poland right now, Moldova as well... I theorize this, only from the known parameters of the attack and its clear target.
It is really tough to see the factory not even able to be cleared out and repaired yet, presumably until the power is back on. Ouch. Factories shuttered = huge losses per day, and that is not even mentioning repair and restart costs.
It is encouraging to see the Berlin Tesla community coming back for a solidarity event - thank you folks for posting that.
Tesla is extending the runway to land our civilizational jet of runaway resource consumption ... slowing their efforts hurts us all long term. And hurts Tesla now.
Despite the long term hit, I guess we can at least be glad no humans were directly and immediately hurt, per what I have read.
--Growler out

Well, unfortunately, it's been a war for Tesla. I hate it too, but I bet a buck that this was financed by some Not-EV-crowd dressed as ECO (nuts)

Curious to see what today's GigaBerlin worker parade will show.

EDIT: new reports show that GigaBerlin is supposed to restart next week.

 

[scaesare]

Might be the stealing IP lawsuit

Oh, I had forgotten about that... yeah, that's not nice.

 

[unk45]

Let’s chat about daewoo next

What use is another GM example? At least they did acquire a pretty good small vehicle design team, that has helping GM to thrive in some large markets for smaller vehicles, perhaps most notably the Cruz that has been highly successful in some large markets. More recently, though, the Onix was developed by SAIC while GM Brasil developed the SPIN and the Cobalt which has been highly successful in versions built in several Asian countries as well as being a huge seller >300,000 pa sold in Brazil alone for some time, dominating the taxi market.

Daewoo, for a time was a useful place for GM.

Soon we'll see the BYD replace GM and, later, Tesla will be a force in those markets.

 

[scaesare]

Poached Tesla employees who took IP with them for starters and then pretended it didn’t happen.

And Rivian didn't fess up and do the right thing either, IIRC...

 

[Krugerrand]

Still in a bit of emotional shock over the attack on Giga Berlin. The discussion here seems to have largely moved on, but something like this is not easily moved past for me.
Spreading FUD is one thing ... a physical attack, to me, despite an easily-written letter claiming responsibility, seem much more the style of fossil-aligned interests than the purported environmental group. There are well funded fossil-dependent groups/interests everywhere ... and one such "interest" is right very active in very physical attacks in Eastern Europe at this very moment. Something like this - hybrid warfare including using pawns and disinformation to throw off the trail - is right up their alley. Plenty of evidence of this sort of thing in Poland right now, Moldova as well... I theorize this, only from the known parameters of the attack and its clear target.
It is really tough to see the factory not even able to be cleared out and repaired yet, presumably until the power is back on. Ouch. Factories shuttered = huge losses per day, and that is not even mentioning repair and restart costs.
It is encouraging to see the Berlin Tesla community coming back for a solidarity event - thank you folks for posting that.
Tesla is extending the runway to land our civilizational jet of runaway resource consumption ... slowing their efforts hurts us all long term. And hurts Tesla now.
Despite the long term hit, I guess we can at least be glad no humans were directly and immediately hurt, per what I have read.
--Growler out

It’s despicable. I understand the anger and other emotions it elicits. There will be more attacks against Tesla just as there have been from the start. It’s par for the course. Aren’t people wonderful? Why does Tesla try so hard when things like this happen?

Here’s the thing, though. Tesla positioned itself well. This will obviously affect the bottom line for Q1 and Q2, but it won’t matter in the end. This isn’t going to bankrupt Tesla and I wager like every other obstacle put in Tesla’s way, it will make the company stronger. Tesla will respond in its usual way and be better for the challenge.

Additionally, the erroneous thought that the consequence of this act would turn people against the company has actually brought the German community together. It has given Tesla a chance to show their humanity and for people to rally around. While the target may have been Tesla, a lot of others have been impacted. Trying to destroy the morale of good people, of determined people is about to backfire in an epic way.

Tesla history just gets more colorful by the day.