Whelp, that was an unmitigated disaster. Reminds me of early 2019--fun times! We recovered.
Silver linings / associated thoughts: (which I firmly believe, as someone who's been closely following the company and its financials since 2012 but will nonetheless likely earn me a boatload of dislikes--and not just from @Krugerrand !)
Silver linings / associated thoughts: (which I firmly believe, as someone who's been closely following the company and its financials since 2012 but will nonetheless likely earn me a boatload of dislikes--and not just from @Krugerrand !)
- Supercharger network is opening up, which will improve utilization of deployed Superchargers and hopefully help continue ramping their growth. Will be a trivially small # in Q1, but should be considerably higher in Q2 (as Ford/Rivian owners obtain the adapter en masse) and beyond (as further OEMs come onboard and we hit the summer travel months). Won't move the bottom-line needle a lot, but I view it as important in the long run if Tesla can maintain its position as the clear fast-charging electron-provider leader.
- For what it's worth, I had a road trip last month for spring break, and I already ran into a handful of Rivian/Mach-e folks at Superchargers. In no case were they causing Tesla owners to wait, and in every case it was a positive interaction. In one case I had to explain to a Mach-e owner that the v2 Supercharger they were trying to use would not work, and that the app was referring them to a different location < 1 mile up the road.
- FSD trial seems to be going well. I'm still not one to believe that FSD is going to see substantial take-rate improvements at current pricing, as it's still the case that FSD is a 'cool/nice to have' thing and not a paradigm-changing thing, nor is it likely to be for a long time still. (I like FSD! I use it! I would like to keep it! I am absolutely not paying $12k for it!) However, I'm sure this wide trial will result in some uptake, and it's certainly delivering a boatload of training data back to the mothership.
- tl;dr summary of my views: 12.3 is waaaayyy better than the last version I tested. And it still won't charge itself, nor drive itself without me paying attention, nor will it let me out and find its own parking spot, nor will it even pull into my driveway, nor operate reliably in 'bad weather' (as defined by the car--this level of weather is nowhere near bad enough to cause a human to have significant trouble), nor operate reliably in construction zones, etc etc. It's cool. I like it. We're not getting robotaxis anytime soon.
- My view is that Tesla loves to charge for this software as though it's finished and delivering on all of its promises. (Proof is in the pudding: Tesla itself won't pay you anywhere near FSD's price when trading in a vehicle with FSD.) Even then, for most consumers it won't be worth $12k. Eliminate the laugher of a product that is the current EAP iteration, and price FSD at $6k or $99/mo, and I guarantee you Tesla sees a substantial rise in overall software revenue. Make FSD transferable at a 75% discount when trading in vehicles, permanently. The current model remains a joke, even on 12.3. FSD is just never going to pull in five figures on consumer vehicle purchases at high take rates. It's just not going to happen. When 'real' robotaxi functionality is available, another business model / pricing strategy will be worthwhile. Until then, it's just years and years of leaving significant money on the table by Tesla.
- Exhibit A: I own two Teslas (2.5, really, as the third is still in the family, an OG 3 with FSD purchased at $2k). Neither has FSD on it, though I could afford to do so and would have done so at more reasonable (to me) pricing. Now take the (comparatively large) group of consumers for whom adding 25-40% to the purchase price of the vehicle in order to add FSD is simply not financially feasible.
- I have in my friends/family/close acquaintances circle probably 20 Teslas, none with FSD purchased at the five-figure pricing level.
- Highland and Cybertruck ramps are continuing apace; Performance Model 3 is imminent and will drive some level of pent-up M3P demand. Exhibit A: I will likely buy a Performance 3 when it finally hits.
- Tesla is really going to need to pull out all the stops in Q2 to ensure that the Q2 delivery number is significantly better. For better or worse, it's still a growth stock. One massively bad quarter on growth is a data point. Two consecutive is a trend. For folks like me with aging Teslas, this bodes well for incentives.