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

[GOVA]

This rant is uncalled for.

I believe Sandy Munro has seen more cybertrucks and is able to look much deeper and closer in term of build quality and he seems concluding that Cybertruck is much better than previous models and Tesla is doing a better job than anybody else could be. While Munro is somewhat fanboy-ish recently, I trust him much more than Marques in tech assessment.

Not to dunk Marques or anything, but his "expertise" in tech is in gadgets like smartphones, earbuds, etc. Marques is good at assessment of product looks, feels, and apparent quality issues, like panel gap, i.e. mainly user experience and that's all. This single cybertruck is not acceptable, panel gap wise, according those watched the video. But that alone is not enough to jump to conclusion of bad quality control.

Marques is a good kid but his content has reached the end of S curve for sure. He's been constantly uninformed especially with a bit deeper understanding of technology and Tesla. His shows are for the masses to keep his subs in check. That 'review' was just a low quality parking lot moaning. It was just a flick which does not hold a candle to other CT reviews. It is a pity really as his viewer base is strong. I wish he got the message and hired a tech guy for many things he has no clue about.

Strongly agree. I live in Vermont and until now the nearest service center has been a four hour round trip to Lathrop New York. Just had my first Ranger service visit a few weeks ago (to fix a fog light) and showed a bad panel gap to the technician. He measured and said it was sufficient to warrant adjustment on a new service ticket. The larger issue for us investors you raise, is myopic allocation of resources as the company has reached large scale and profitability. With 20+ billion in cash reserves, why not deploy .0001 % to correcting quality problems, adding service centers more proactively and other steps to support demand growth prior to ramping of Model 2. Including ramping overdue efforts to overcome widely held misconceptions about EVs versus ICE vehicles.

With Tesla's expansion rate there will be a latency between input they get and output they decide to provide. It will take time but eventually it will happen to satisfactory extent.

Look at FSD, so much moaning and yet, 12.3 - folks lose their pants over it.
Batteries - moaning, yet 2x progress in short time.
Service - it needs time. I don't blame Tesla for getting close to major city areas. This is where the money is. They will get to remote folks eventually.

 

[GOVA]

Yesterday, I test drove the new M3. Great car for the money.

Now, there was a line of folks waiting to get their orders delivered/done. 2 truck car carriers full of Teslas arrived while I was there for 5 minutes. It looked like Costco on Saturday but with Tesla as merch only.

Bullish.

 

[GatorMeat]

Supercharger station buildouts amaze me, with an astounding over 30 stations within 100 miles of my home, mostly 250 KW!

But what do we know of service center buildout rates?

Funny you mention Superchargers. They built one less than 5 miles away from where I live a few years ago, in a tourist beach town.
And yes, EVs need less maintenance, and in 6 years of ownership I went 2x to the service center. But since it's so far, I am putting off issues with my 2023 Model X. And my last trip they made me pay out of pocket for a rental and I spent all day driving there and back home and did it again the next day. For *sugar* the factory should have straightened out. Lexus doesn't pull that *sugar* on new owners of $90k cars.
If you live on an isolated mountain, you don't expect service to be close, but I'm talking about typical buyers who live 100+ miles from a large metro. This is like owning a supercar with the travel required for sales/service.
Not only is service far away, but so are sales locations. People need to see/touch/drive a car first and everyone has a F/GM/T dealer in town.
Model 2 will need many more Sales/Service locations. The normal car owner isn't a superfan and won't deal with these distances.
Those that live in metros never dealt with this and don't understand this.

 

[Knightshade]

I said, "China EV sales", which is growing fast as a percent of the overall car market in China.

Wang is saying next quarter we hit 50% market share! Granted, he's talking about NEV, but it's a reasonable proxy for EV as well.

You realize it's already at 48.2% right? I'd hardly call a <2% increase the "steep part of the S curve"

My point is that Tesla probably sees the trend as well as BYD. If so, then Tesla wants to take advantage of this with higher pricing. Also remember that insurance registration reflects demand from weeks ago. Tesla knows how fast orders are coming in each day. Tesla has better data than we do.

Again, I think there is more to the China price announcement than just goosing sales for Q1. Tesla thinks demand is rising.

Your ability to believe things directly contradicted by all known data continues to be remarkable

actual Q1 china sales YTD remain below Q1 2023.

And there's a reason BYD is say NEV instead of BEV there. And you might want to look at what price class of vehicles BYD is mostly selling in- it's one Tesla doesn't plan to have a car in until at least 2026 in China based on current info.

Both of my neighbors have Teslas and they were texted as well. Maybe it's a state thing or maybe we all opted in, but I've never had Tesla-corporate reach out so many times as they have in the last 2 months.

Same--getting both frequent texts and emails from Tesla about trading in my current car and have been for weeks... and the goose sales bit seems pretty clear intent they want to insure Q1 deliveries are at least not lower than Q1 2023 to avoid "tesla sales shrinking" headlines.

 

[Maarten]

The Roadster section of the interview hasn't been mentioned much:

From 15mins.
Elon has now several times said that the Roadster will be a colab. Not just the special edition is how I read it.

Also, will have wings (multiple) (not big). Which I read as lift rather than downforce in the context (maybe both if they swivel). I'm always optimistic...

OK, I’ve seen the interview from beginning to end.
And learned the hard way that there are better ways to spend my time.
TL;DR: Interviewer trying to score by trying to get under Elon’s skin about things like censorship on X.
Skip!
Advice.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Per usual, people getting bent out of shape on that mole hill.

Agree. I would have possibly fixed it myself... even under warranty. (Then again, I own big tools, big Allen wrenches, a BIG Philips, impact wrenches, etc...) To me, it's like someone seeing their window open and thinking it's broken. It's a truck! (Grabs a torque wrench, checks wheels).

It's also not nothing. They forgot a step which isn't good. Optimus? Are you practicing again?

When Optimus is employed, quality could go up by an order of magnitude. Ask anyone, in any factory, it's the People who tend to screw things up best (followed by Equipment then Materials and Process - my ranking anyway). Biggest reasons is they won't cut corners, they will all be trained to exact specifications, and they won't forget to tighten the striker bolt on CyberTruck - mainly because they don't mate or compete, or need breaks. Just by NOT stopping a machine in production, you improve quality. MU (Machine Utilization) goes up too, so capital and other costs drop. I can't wait to see this!!!

Hopefully Optimus has good hearing with crazy frequency range. They could learn the sounds of the machine better than any human, even predict maintenance needs more precisely.

Uh, what was I talking about?

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

OK, I’ve seen the interview from beginning to end.
And learned the hard way that there are better ways to spend my time.
TL;DR: Interviewer trying to score by trying to get under Elon’s skin about things like censorship on X.
Skip!
Advice.

It was good to see how Elon handled this idiot interviewer. Renewed my faith in Elon.

 

[SO16]

I’m just going to count on a slow quarter with weak outlook and a 140 stock price after earnings. Less chance of me being disappointed.

 

[stef]

It was good to see how Elon handled this idiot interviewer. Renewed my faith in Elon.

yeah, I was waiting for this any second but didn't happen /s

 

[GOVA]

I’m just going to count on a slow quarter with weak outlook and a 140 stock price after earnings. Less chance of me being disappointed.

Free country this is.

 

[unk45]

The fact sales YTD are down a couple percent from the same time last year tells us otherwise.

Now, it's possible they've concluded that pricing is just as inelastic up a touch as it is down a touch-- meaning they don't think this price raise will REDUCE sales as much as it'll help margin (an effect they saw in the opposite direction as they slashed them more than sales increased)--- but the idea they need to increase them because of some huge S-curve-jump in demand is factually, provably, false by the actual sales so far this year.





A page before your post is literally Elon Musk admitting this was a manufacturing error failing to tighten something sufficiently (since fixed in production).

I'm just floored by the several people rushing to victim blame folks who got cars with manufacturing errors.

People in the various model-specific threads still get factory-defect cars on S, 3, X, and Y as well and those aren't "new" cars. Not as many as used to, but not 0.

Nobody makes perfect cars 100% of the time- including Tesla.

I have the impression that we are much less tolerant of Tesla quality glitches than we are of others.. That was many years ago, but I recall major problems with several vaulted quality excellence builders such as both other German and Japanese brands, but never for Tesla. There is zero question that anything made by human beings may have mistakes that somehow don't make it through QC. With new airplanes, boats, cars, helicopters (never a train or truck) I have observed major flaws in things normally error free.

It's sad that such things happen, but human beings really are not perfect, nor are the things they/we do.
That sad, when such things an-open to me I become less tolerant. Hence: (QC failures that resulted in sale or factory repurchase) within six months: Boston Whaler equipped with factory Ford inbound engine; BMW M3 convertible, Porsche 964 convertible, Cessna Citation 525. The Citation and Whaler were factory buybacks, BMW and Porsche. The BMW took some litigation but worked out ok for me.

That list sounds excessive, but I have owned roughly 60 new vehicles on one type or another, mostly problem free. None ever have been so problem and maintenance free as have been my four owned Teslas.

That is, in part, why I am so close to fanboy status.

 

[SOULPEDL]

I’m just going to count on a slow quarter with weak outlook and a 140 stock price after earnings. Less chance of me being disappointed.

Wanna bet it gets to 200 before it gets to 140?

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Finally getting FSD V12.3. Installing now. I'm on HW4.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to try it out until tomorrow evening. Wife takes the Tesla to work in the morning.

(Well, if I can't sleep from the excitement, I might have to try it out in the middle of the night.)

If you were a true hardcore $TSLA investor like us, you would wake up and drive your wife to work on FSD V12.3, just sayin

 

[scaesare]

Just used v12 and can confirm it has solved a bunch of issues overnight. The car can finally go slowly toward my gate and triggers the auto open. For the first time I had a zero intervention/disengagement ride to a nearby target where before I had to disengage at my gate everytime. It also solved this left turn onto traffic lane without misjudging approaching cars.

Left turn issues solved... FSD is COOK'in'!

 

[scaesare]

A few notes before I relegate this topic to the ALL CyberTruck discussion thread.
The door striker issue is on Tesla, but it seens like an owner who really cared to fix it could have found the issue (hard to imagine it doesn't rattle) or at least requested a mobile service visit. It may have been a boiling pot situation where the gap kept slowly getting bigger as the bolts loosened so the worsening was less noticeable, but the end result was ick.
Marques didn't seem to have done much research before making the video.
The front screen is 18.5 inches, not "15".
The range extender will be around 600 pounds, "not thousands".
Hopefully, the review if his vehicle will address things.

After pointing out the gap from the outside, a few minutes later he closed the door from the inside, and it made a clunk sound that indeed sounds like a noise you'd expect from a latch/striker plate issue. He also reacted as if it was a new noise, so it does seem like it's getting worse over time, implying it may not have left the factory that way.

Agree that he's not a great tech reviewer... at least for these sorts of things.

 

[Knightshade]

I have the impression that we are much less tolerant of Tesla quality glitches than we are of others..

Most replies to the CT review was victim blaming the customer, so I get the opposite impression.

I've personally had more issues with a new from the factory Lexus than a new from the factory Tesla-- but neither was non-zero, and there remains a hardcore element of Tesla fans (esp in this thread) who insist any problem is not Teslas fault.

There is zero question that anything made by human beings may have mistakes that somehow don't make it through QC. With new airplanes, boats, cars, helicopters (never a train or truck) I have observed major flaws in things normally error free.

It's sad that such things happen, but human beings really are not perfect, nor are the things they/we do.

Absolutely.... It sounds like this factory mistake was caught pretty quickly and only impacted 15 trucks and is already resolved-- That-- admitting there was an issue, explaining it and defining its scope- and correcting it both on existing ones (SC visit) and future ones (fixing the line issue) is the absolute correct way to deal with it-- and that's what Tesla did.

Suggesting "Maybe he faked the gap to get more video clicks" is... not.

Left turn issues solved... FSD is COOK'in'!

FWIW when Chuck did his first 12.3 video of his turn he had at least two failures. It's better, but certainly not "solved" yet

https://twitter.com/x/status/1770282452638146677

 

[SOULPEDL]

FYI, I'm gonna grab this kids book (before they get removed from schools).
Here's the Amazon link if anyone wants to enlighten some more kids.

Amazon.com

 

[uscbucsfan]

Most replies to the CT review was victim blaming the customer, so I get the opposite impression.

I've personally had more issues with a new from the factory Lexus than a new from the factory Tesla-- but neither was non-zero, and there remains a hardcore element of Tesla fans (esp in this thread) who insist any problem is not Teslas fault.



Absolutely.... It sounds like this factory mistake was caught pretty quickly and only impacted 15 trucks and is already resolved-- That-- admitting there was an issue, explaining it and defining its scope- and correcting it both on existing ones (SC visit) and future ones (fixing the line issue) is the absolute correct way to deal with it-- and that's what Tesla did.

Suggesting "Maybe he faked the gap to get more video clicks" is... not.





FWIW when Chuck did his first 12.3 video of his turn he had at least two failures. It's better, but certainly not "solved" yet

https://twitter.com/x/status/1770282452638146677

A similar turn on my car went 0 for 3.

There's also a list of new issues.

Still a lot of work to do, but v12 is a huge improvement.

 

[LuckyManX]

This is a huge issue. Unless you live in a major metro area, you have to really want a Tesla to deal with the distance from Service/Sales. Every damn small town in America has a Ford, GM and Toyota dealership. Living in the FL panhandle it's 2 hours west, or 5 hours east to the nearest sales/service center. Rivian won't even let me order a truck though.

I'm fairly positive any 'Tesla Ranger' worth his salt could fix this in your garage/driveway. I suspect all that's needed is a torque wrench. We just had a Ranger visit us last week. His mobile service truck? A brand new, fully kitted-out Model S!

 

[Dikkie Dik]

Giesige thinks the 4680 lines have been down retooling for gen2 Cybercell. Next update on production will be important.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1770436891914940873