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

[nativewolf]

I am assuming Austin moves from 5 days per week to 7 days per week, Also including growth in Austin and Berlin production since Q1 2023. (My estimates were global not just Austin.)

Mainly I think the "low ball" estimates are not factoring in the progressive Model Y ramp over 2023, My impression was the production run rate at the end of 2023 was a lot higher than it was at the start, at both factories,,

For Gen3 production start, I concede I overlooked that production start estimate. I don't think that will overly impact the timing of Mexico and the next lot of factories.

As an additional clue, Cybertrucks are now Supercharging over at the new west side Superchargers. I did think Supercharging might have been a bottleneck, but occasionally I have also seen empty stalls.

Everything about that west side facility suggests Austin production has out grown the temporary east side logistics. This time in 2023 east side logistics seemed to be easily keeping up.

To go close to their 2030 target numbers have to really increase from 2027 onwards, something like a minimum of 2 million additional vehicles per year.

assuming everything you are hoping for is true (and that is a very very bull case) where do you find the batteries? They dont have 4680s? They haven't for 2 years. I got strung up on a tree limb 2 years ago for suggesting Tesla had a 4680 issue...when they did. They still do. Not much has changed. If they solve 4680 you'll see more CTs and/or you'll see a price drop on model Y. It would be good news for CT buyers and those of us wanting a semi.

 

[Mengy]

How long will the Street keep trying to shake shares out of weak hands before they clear their short positions and try to grab as many shares as they can? I suspect it’s sooner than you seem to think and those that wait for the revenues to hit the bottom line will miss out, but like you I’ll just continue to hold and not worry too much about it.

I would love it if my hunch was wrong and you were correct. I want TSLA to moon as much as any Tesla bull, I'm just not expecting it for many years yet.

 

[MC3OZ]

They dont have 4680s?

I think 4680s are mainly reserved for Cybertruck and the Gen3 car.

I am wondering where they will get cells for more Models Ys and the Semi.

What I am looking at is the new outbound logistics lot in Austin, the urgency attached to that project, and the new car park. The new lot is at least double the size of the old temporary lot, and I think it will get even bigger.

I think we will also find that outbound logistics at Berlin looks different to what it did a year ago.

I assume the 2170s for more Model Ys at Berlin came from China..

I don't expect 4680 issues to impact on the Cybertruck ramp or the Gen3 car, last we heard from Drew he also thought they would keep pace.

If they have excess 4680s they might build some Model Ys with 4680s, but nothing Drew has said indicates that will happen,.

And I am also thinking about the mission and the target of 20 million vehicles per year by 2030, 4680s are a big part of that... If the 4680 project was going really badly I think Elon would be less optimistic about hitting the 2030 target... It does probably remain an area where they will need to work hard to hit the target, but it doesn't seem like the target is impossible

 

[capster]

Optimus unlike FSD/Autonomous driving will have significant competition.
Plenty of companies in the U.S. and China will get into this field. Boston Dynamics is not the competition; it’s the startups backed by Amazon, Google, Huawei and Alibaba. Tesla will not have the data advantage it has in FSD. There are thousands of use cases for Optimus most of which are simpler than driving and less safety critical.
Tesla will be one of many winners but
I seriously doubt anyone will be able to maintain “staggering” margins in this area.

Just like all those other "many (oh so profitable ) winners" in the EV race?

Tesla has a significant advantage in manufacturing. That advantage is specifically in the areas required for their robots—electric motors, batteries, power electronics, neural network software, and so on.

They already have a proven vision stack integrated with their own inference hardware.

The amount of real world data they have from their fleet of autonomous capable vehicles is ginormous. Internet videos, memes, simulations, etc are hardly the same thing.

They have millions of robots (vehicles) operating safely in the real world amongst cars, humans and animals already.

They can deploy to their own factories or to other Musk companies’ facilities at the direction of Elon—that is to say without needing sales and marketing out of the gate.

It’s a race to capability and a race to scale. Tesla is already well in the lead in both races. As for prototypes, I seem to recall somebody once saying something about those being relatively easy compared to getting manufacturing to scale .

In the nineties, someone told me wrt to computer hardware that the lead company makes money, the second breaks even and the rest lose money.

 

[Captkerosene]

You do understand the TAM for humanoid robots is vast, right?
Mind-bogglingly huge.
Carl Sagan-ish Billions and Billions sized.

Competition?

Everyone in the game with a viable product will sell (lease) all they can produce for decades to come.

Brian White (FutureAZA) interviewed Cern Basher on this recently in a multi-part series Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Worth a looksie.

It'll be a bloodbath. There will be other players, but Tesla will take most of the profits. Tesla will ramp remarkably fast with the best features at the lowest price. This isn't a save the planet product ... it's a mission to Mars ($) one.

 

[capster]

I would love it if my hunch was wrong and you were correct. I want TSLA to moon as much as any Tesla bull, I'm just not expecting it for many years yet.

My hunch is that the Street players, in their perpetual efforts to wrong foot retail investors, try to only allow a major move up when retail investors least expect one.

I also suspect that the Street players are a little PO’d that retail investors like you and I got the jump on them with TSLA and they’re frustrated that we’re so hard to shake off.

Indeed, TSLA seems to be holding up pretty well with the amount of short interest that is likely out there now.

While I don’t have an expectation of any move, things seem kinda brittle somehow and I think anyone shorting right now with the intent to make money off that position (as opposed to some more esoteric effort to manage the situation) is a fool.

 

[SmokyPeat]

I went to the Market today to buy some strawberries. Much to my surprise, they were 50% off. Others in the produce section were skeptical to put strawberries in their basket because they thought the low price must mean something was wrong with them. Were the strawberries passed their expiry date? Upon closer inspection, No, they looked like the best strawberries I've ever seen. The Market manager obviously made a pricing mistake. Picked up five 500g containers of strawberries and headed to the check-out counter. Today was my lucky day.

On the way to the check-out counter, I passed a commotion taking place in one of the isles. A new potato chip with Artificial Ingredients where selling out fast, and the Market manager kept rising the price to quell demand, yet the more the prices were raised, the more AI chips were bought. People thought they just had to have them at any price, after all, if the prices were going up it must mean that the AI chips were a better value, no?

I return home and am enjoying a bowl of strawberries. Listening to the evening news, there is a report that the AI chips went up in price another 7% today, however few very are now reading the nutrition labels anymore.

Be sure to give those strawberries a thorough rinse before consuming. Good chance they're completely saturated in woke virus pesticides.

 

[StapleGun]

The Tesla ratings, on an old version:

View attachment 1027126

None of these tests appear to be concerned with how well the system can drive.

 

[30seconds]

Been thinking about near term demand generators prior to Model2 release.

Model 3 performance and Model Y light refresh are the two that come to mind.

But I also think that a 375mile Model Y would be very interesting. We have seen less than 10% increase in the Model Y Long Range (from 291 miles in 2020 to 310 today) despite the years of battery advances.

And its not like Tesla has too many models on sale.

 

[Drax7]

These my thoughts, based on observations of drone videos at Austin.

Model Y production and Austin and Berlin ramped during 2023 the run rate Q1 2024 is higher than the run rate Q1 2023.
Model Y production at Austin still seems to be ramping. Cybertruck production is ramping. A second Cybertruck line will be added in the middle of the year.
Currently vehicle production and Austin seems to be 2x12 hour shifts Monday - Friday. By Friday the calibration and testing lot is full, and they spend the weekend emptying it out, Each week seems to follow the same cycle.

Parking at Austin is an issue, and they are building a massive multi-storey car park, a lot more staff will be hired soon, sorting out parking is a priority.

Gen3 at Austin will probably be shipping Q2/Q3 2025. If they start construction soon, Mexico can be shipping around Q2/Q3 2026. Rather than delaying the construction process they will simply rework anything that needs to change a Mexico. Rework at Austin is common, at anytime in the last 6 months there ways probably at least some rework going, they are very good at removing previously laid concrete, inside and outside the factory.

When any other Gen3 factories could be shipping cars depends on when they start, IMO there could easily be another 2 factories lagging 6 months behind Mexico.. It all depends on when Tesla fires the starting gun.

I am assuming the 20 Million car by 2030 is a real target, not that they will necessarily get there, bit I think they will try to hit the target.

IMO a full ramp of all existing factories more or less provides the cash flow to build the Gen3 factories, they also need to line up permits, workforce, parts and raw materials..

If I had to guess the growth rates - 2024 + 400,000, (Model Y and Cybertruck), 2025 + 500,000 (Gen3 and Cybertruck) 2026 600,000 Gen3 - multiple factories. This was just a quick guess, but I am assuming Austin is working a 7 day week on all lines, and that there are no parts or battery constraints.

I hope we get to 3 million on the way to 20.

 

[2daMoon]

Just like all those other "many (oh so profitable ) winners" in the EV race?

Tesla has a significant advantage in manufacturing. That advantage is specifically in the areas required for their robots—electric motors, batteries, power electronics, neural network software, and so on.

They already have a proven vision stack integrated with their own inference hardware.

The amount of real world data they have from their fleet of autonomous capable vehicles is ginormous. Internet videos, memes, simulations, etc are hardly the same thing.

They have millions of robots (vehicles) operating safely in the real world amongst cars, humans and animals already.

They can deploy to their own factories or to other Musk companies’ facilities at the direction of Elon—that is to say without needing sales and marketing out of the gate.

It’s a race to capability and a race to scale. Tesla is already well in the lead in both races. As for prototypes, I seem to recall somebody once saying something about those being relatively easy compared to getting manufacturing to scale .

In the nineties, someone told me wrt to computer hardware that the lead company makes money, the second breaks even and the rest lose money.

Imagine them also licensing the Bot version of FSD software to the other Bot manufacturers, because, Tesla.

 

[Linkmeup]

Imagine them also licensing the Bot version of FSD software to the other Bot manufacturers, because, Tesla.

They could legitimately make a huge Tesla business line just from the hands and selling them to other Bot manufacturers as they scale up themselves.

 

[Tony73]

Just like all those other "many (oh so profitable ) winners" in the EV race?

Tesla has a significant advantage in manufacturing. That advantage is specifically in the areas required for their robots—electric motors, batteries, power electronics, neural network software, and so on.

They already have a proven vision stack integrated with their own inference hardware.

The amount of real world data they have from their fleet of autonomous capable vehicles is ginormous. Internet videos, memes, simulations, etc are hardly the same thing.

They have millions of robots (vehicles) operating safely in the real world amongst cars, humans and animals already.

They can deploy to their own factories or to other Musk companies’ facilities at the direction of Elon—that is to say without needing sales and marketing out of the gate.

It’s a race to capability and a race to scale. Tesla is already well in the lead in both races. As for prototypes, I seem to recall somebody once saying something about those being relatively easy compared to getting manufacturing to scale .

In the nineties, someone told me wrt to computer hardware that the lead company makes money, the second breaks even and the rest lose money.

I disagree but I will be very happy to be wrong.

 

[Knightshade]

And I am also thinking about the mission and the target of 20 million vehicles per year by 2030, 4680s are a big part of that... If the 4680 project was going really badly I think Elon would be less optimistic about hitting the 2030 target...

Serious question- when's the last time Elon mentioned that 2030/20 million target? I know he's recently in answer to a question of if vs when for 20 million he said- 10x current production capacity would be "very hard climb to 10X output. Doable, but it is an immense amount of work." but there wasn't a 2030 date attached to the discussion.


Last I know off hand the goal is mentioned during the 2021 shareholder meeting--- that's the same meeting Elon said, in reference to growth of car sales

I feel confident of being able to maintain something like this, at least above 50% for quite a while

Of course "quite a while" turned out to be just a little over 2 months... The same year he made the claim, and he made it in October of said year, was the last one they grew above 50%.... 2022 being 40%, and 2023 being 38%.


So perhaps the goals from that meeting should be considered as a bit behind schedule at this point?

 

[capster]

I disagree but I will be very happy to be wrong.

Let’s say meaningful bot competition is coming. It won’t matter for quite awhile anyway. Why?

In new markets or market disruptions when sufficient products are available only to address a small fraction of the total addressable market, products from different vendors synergize more than compete (this has created the "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" situation the legacy auto OEM’s have been facing).

Let’s say, conservatively, that there is a market for a billion humanoid robots. Let’s say the threshold for conversion from synergy driving the establishment of the market to competition within the market happens around 10%. That’s 100 million units—that’s a lot. We could also say 5% or 50 million—that’s still a lot (Then too we could size the market one-to-one with humans at 8 billion units).

No doubt we’ll continue to hear the "Eek! Competition is coming" argument for bots despite it not holding water on multiple grounds, at least not before, say, 2032.

I worked in automotive R&D for a fancy brand and I’ve generally dismissed the competition argument for EV’s. If an automaker is selling many hundreds of thousands of units and making good money and overall EV market penetration is significant, then I’ll consider that competition worth giving some thought to.

I’ll apply the same rule to bots, though really a threshold of millions of profitable units is probably a better mark.

 

[Linkmeup]

Might be helpful https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/State-of-Real-Estate-2024-March-2024.pdf

 

[nativewolf]

Let’s say meaningful bot competition is coming. It won’t matter for quite awhile anyway. Why?

In new markets or market disruptions when sufficient products are available only to address a small fraction of the total addressable market, products from different vendors synergize more than compete (this has created the "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" situation the legacy auto OEM’s have been facing).

Let’s say, conservatively, that there is a market for a billion humanoid robots. Let’s say the threshold for conversion from synergy driving the establishment of the market to competition within the market happens around 10%. That’s 100 million units—that’s a lot. We could also say 5% or 50 million—that’s still a lot (Then too we could size the market one-to-one with humans at 8 billion units).

No doubt we’ll continue to hear the "Eek! Competition is coming" argument for bots despite it not holding water on multiple grounds, at least not before, say, 2032.

I worked in automotive R&D for a fancy brand and I’ve generally dismissed the competition argument for EV’s. If an automaker is selling many hundreds of thousands of units and making good money and overall EV market penetration is significant, then I’ll consider that competition worth giving some thought to.

I’ll apply the same rule to bots, though really a threshold of millions of profitable units is probably a better mark.

Why in the world do you think there is a market for a billion robots? How many people do real work in the advanced economies? How many will governments let get replaced by robots? Also its going to take time to get to what ever the market might be.

Don't take this as being an arse about the whole robot thing but EM rigged a self parking summon and park demo. We all thought FSD was a 2 year effort. Years later...still work to be done. Not saying they won't get there but I see huge limiting factors and I'd really like to see the hands at work outside of a Tesla clip.

 

[nativewolf]

Let’s say meaningful bot competition is coming. It won’t matter for quite awhile anyway. Why?

In new markets or market disruptions when sufficient products are available only to address a small fraction of the total addressable market, products from different vendors synergize more than compete (this has created the "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" situation the legacy auto OEM’s have been facing).

Let’s say, conservatively, that there is a market for a billion humanoid robots. Let’s say the threshold for conversion from synergy driving the establishment of the market to competition within the market happens around 10%. That’s 100 million units—that’s a lot. We could also say 5% or 50 million—that’s still a lot (Then too we could size the market one-to-one with humans at 8 billion units).

No doubt we’ll continue to hear the "Eek! Competition is coming" argument for bots despite it not holding water on multiple grounds, at least not before, say, 2032.

I worked in automotive R&D for a fancy brand and I’ve generally dismissed the competition argument for EV’s. If an automaker is selling many hundreds of thousands of units and making good money and overall EV market penetration is significant, then I’ll consider that competition worth giving some thought to.

I’ll apply the same rule to bots, though really a threshold of millions of profitable units is probably a better mark.

So BYD outselling Tesla globally means?

 

[ToTheStars]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1767601955298578636

I can't seem to find the post or the account. Has it been removed/closed?

 

[T@oo]

I can't seem to find the post or the account. Has it been removed/closed?

Yes