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

[EQC_]

But they aren't ready to produce the cheaper model, are they? What is the advantage to them announcing it many months before the start of production? I know there are people who would hold off on purchasing the Model 3 and Y (a stretch for them) if they thought the compact model was on the way "soon". I guess it would also make people who would only consider the compact model wait instead of buying a car from another manufacturer, though.

Exactly this.

Tesla started at the upper end of the market, and is working their way down. Many people make the "Tesla stretch." Many people went from a Prius to a Model S back in the day...if they had believed a Model 3 would have been available in 6 months or a year, many would have waited....and then Tesla wouldn't have had the Model S profits and investments to develop the Model 3.

The other car companies already have all their models across many market segments.

Nobody who really wants a Corolla is going to pay more to buy a Camry instead. But, Tesla actually benefits when people who really want a Model 2 decide to buy the Model 3 because they don't think they can wait for the Model 2 to be in mass production.

I think a lot of wealthier folks also assume people buy the maximum car they can "afford." There are, of course, plenty of people who do that...and also plenty of people who buy more than they can afford. But there are plenty of folks who decide more rationally, and buy the least expensive car that might meet their needs/wants. Those needs/wants don't have to all be financial and logical...there can be brand preference, preference for environmental friendliness, etc. If part of that need/want includes EV, then they probably turn to Tesla...and for many of those folks it would be difficult to justify a 3 or Y if they knew Tesla would have a car for $10K-$20K cheaper before too long.

 

[Knightshade]

Nobody who really wants a Corolla is going to pay more to buy a Camry instead. But, Tesla actually benefits when people who really want a Model 2 decide to buy the Model 3 because they don't think they can wait for the Model 2 to be in mass production.

I think a lot of wealthier folks also assume people buy the maximum car they can "afford." There are, of course, plenty of people who do that...and also plenty of people who buy more than they can afford. But there are plenty of folks who decide more rationally, and buy the least expensive car that might meet their needs/wants. Those needs/wants don't have to all be financial and logical...there can be brand preference, preference for environmental friendliness, etc. If part of that need/want includes EV, then they probably turn to Tesla...and for many of those folks it would be difficult to justify a 3 or Y if they knew Tesla would have a car for $10K-$20K cheaper before too long.

Which do you think it a larger group?

People who will skip stretching for a 3/Y and wait for the next-gen if it's announced as coming within a year.
or
People who will skip buying a non-Tesla 25k car and wait for the next-gen if it's announced as coming within a year.


Because based on who buys how many of what car, that second group seems at least an order of magnitude larger?

 

[Tony73]

No they did not scrap it. Reuters lied.

Oh, sorry. For the pedantic people. Reuters sources lied and Reuters didn’t bother to verify the information before going to print with it.

The truth lies somewhere between Reuters and Musk. I seriously doubt Reuters made this story up completely out of thin air and I do not completely believe Musk’s non specific denial.

Something has fundamentally changed about the program.

If I had to guess, Reuter’s sources are in Asia and from their vantage point, it looks like a cancellation.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

RE hand signals,

This is a solved problem via neural networks. Waymo has had the ability to do it for awhile:

And no, Waymo does not have any special sauce that Tesla doesn’t have to do this. Tesla’s just handling things in priority order of severity and frequency, and things like hand signals, school zones, and stopping for emergency vehicles is lower down the list. But I think we’ll see all of these situations handled withon 6 months or so.

I wonder if it would be useful for driverless cars to have some kind of light or visual signal that indicates the car is driverless. Might help in some instances.

 

[Tony73]

They've allegedly been working on an autonomous snake charger for nearly a decade. Remember the coast to coast fully autonomous trip that was totally going to happen in 2017? Errr, 2018? Wait, was it 2019?

Then again, Elon says a lot of things

I seriously doubt they’ve been working on it continuously for a decade. It’s not that hard a problem once the car parks itself in the right place. It’s probably been solved engineering wise a long time ago. Tesla has to decide if it’s the approach they want to take.

 

[unk45]

Small Robotaxi - 2 seats
Unveil - 8/8/24
First production - May 25 (Austin)
First delivery - Tesla network only Dec 25

Compact Crossover - 4 seats with steering wheel
Unveil - November 24
First production - Aug 25 (Berlin then Shanghai then Mexico)
First delivery - Dec 25

Medium Robotaxi - 4 seats compact crossover without steering wheel
Unveil - November 24
First production - Aug 26 (Austin)
First delivery - Dec 26

What's wrong?

First, the size issue. Many lucrative taxi markets tend to sue larger cars, (e.g.mid-level MB, BMW etc in much of Western Europe) , and even a mixture of size variants in almost all major countries. For RoboTaxi that variation will continue, will not diminish. Thus, RoboTaxi will need, say, Model X, Model Y, new smaller types also. It is not quite so simple as tiny cars=Robotaxi.
It never will be so. A two passenger tiny one probably won't work anywhere.

if an unveil comes we'll see what the Tesla bet will be, but without question it will not be anything like the whole story. After all, the semi-convoy market is likely to end out being more material, simply because the economics and logistics are vastly less complex. There are already numerous examples globally of potential cases that could be amazingly cost-effective. Consider, for example, Australian Road Trains (look them up).

I have some major skepticism about how quickly RoboTaxi can actually be delivered. I am convinced that the technology, once perfected, has vastly more revenue and cost effectiveness in long distance trucking and road transport, plus regular routes that are easily adaptable such as airport-central city/major destination links.

Nearly all this discussion is competition with traditional hailed taxis and the Ubers of the world. Those are big deals. The others are where both money and need hit squarely. The need is exacerbated because long haul truckers are becoming and endangered species inmamny areas. How many people, for instance, know that 20% an growing numbers of US long haul truckers are Punjabis, partly due to lack of others drivers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/20/along-highways-indian-restaurants-serve-americas-truckers/

Robo long haul trucking!

 

[jerry33]

Where are you getting that the critical disengagement rate is 300 per mile? If critical disengagement means accident avoidance then I'd say it's already a lot higher than 300 miles with V12.

Agreed. A lot of my disengagements (V11) are due to me being uncomfortable with what FSD is doing. Most of them are probably not a safety issue rather a "I wouldn't do it that way" issue. Because the computer can calculate distances better than I can, I will always want to leave more room than FSD does.

 

[Usain]

Microsoft Power BI

app.powerbi.com

380 miles City Miles 2DE Critical on 12.3. 146 miles on 12.3.3

Bottom of the first chart you'll find the graph

Home

FSD Community Tracker

www.teslafsdtracker.com

So I'm not seeing information about that site. How is the data gathered? What is considered a critical disengagement?

 

[chinney]

Inductive charging exists, and Tesla bought a company that does it, and we've seen some evidence of it coming for CT.

THAT said- 99.9% of the fleet lacks the HW to do it, and 100% of supercharger stations lack the HW to do it....so it's not fully solved if they still plan to make existing cars RTs.

The dark horse option will be by the time RTs are actually in service, Optimus will be good enough to plug/unplug cars at superchargers (and also handle tasks like cleaning the cars--- which RTs will also need and inductive does not solve)

Thanks for the reply. On reflection, it might be that the automatic charging issue will not be a big hurdle. I remember seeing an article about induction charging a few years ago and it did not seem to me that this is futuristic 'pie-in-the-sky' technology. It seems eminently do-able, even if it may need to be further refined. Presumably Tesla is well equipped to engineer those refinements. And even if 99.9% of the current fleet does not have the hardware to support induction charging, that is not an obstacle for the robotaxis, as long they come equipped for it. Adoption by the wider fleet can be a later development, if needed. And I don't know that developing the separate self-charging infrastructure for robotaxis necessarily will be a big issue - the fleets largely will be intended to serve local markets, not for road-tripping, and presumably will have one or more home service bases for those local fleets. As long as those service bases have the self-charging infrastructure, that will be enough. Finally, even if there are some situations - for charging or other tasks - where human intervention might sometimes be needed, it will not be a huge obstacle or expense to hire a limited number of employees for the service bases. Presumably some staffing is going to take place anyway.

 

[Usain]

So I'm not seeing information about that site. How is the data gathered? What is considered a critical disengagement?

Nevermind. I found it. You have to find the home page.

Home

FSD Community Tracker

www.teslafsdtracker.com

 

[insaneoctane]

But they cant keep it down for long.

With all due respect, I've been thinking this for years and it is NOT true. What I still believe, though, is:

But they cant keep it down FOREVER.

 

[WMTribe90]

I wonder if it would be useful for driverless cars to have some kind of light or visual signal that indicates the car is driverless. Might help in some instances.

I think Teslas driving on FSD should have magnetic stickers like those you see for student drivers, something like “Be Patient, AI Driver.”

 

[EQC_]

Which do you think it a larger group?

People who will skip stretching for a 3/Y and wait for the next-gen if it's announced as coming within a year.
or
People who will skip buying a non-Tesla 25k car and wait for the next-gen if it's announced as coming within a year.


Because based on who buys how many of what car, that second group seems at least an order of magnitude larger?

I won't guess about which group is larger...but you're obviously right that more people buy less expensive cars in general.

Adding EV, though, introduces a couple more variables.

1) for whatever reason, the Model Y outsold the Corolla and the Camry and the RAV4 (globally, but not combined obviously) in 2023 despite being notably more expensive.

2) if people are looking for a $25K EV specifically, with 250+ mile range, at least in the US, there really aren't options available in big quantities. I don't exactly know the current status of the Bolt or Leaf or less expensive options from Kia/Hyundai, but even if those can be had for $25K, they aren't as mass produced and available as even a Model 3, and their production levels are like 2 orders of magnitude below the plan for the Model 2. So, even if all the Bolts and Leafs available in the US get bought today, it's only a very small dent in future Model 2 sales.*

*Assuming, of course, that Model 2 plans are still in the millions per year.

 

[insaneoctane]

Accident costs: These is the big variable that people can argue / give input on what is the best assumption. I googled and costs are all over the place. Let's assume $5000 payout cost Tesla would owe per accident.

I don't know about your state, but California is particularly litigious....

$5K seems low.....

 

[indysurfer]

Thanks for the reply. On reflection, it might be that the automatic charging issue will not be a big hurdle.

At worst, how expensive would it be to hire a person to manage plugging in at existing Superchargers or dedicated robo-taxi yards?

I figure a single person could manage the daily charging needs of 100+ robotaxis over an 8 hour shift if there are enough chargers.

 

[unk45]

...

If it’s a 2 seater that is going to limit its use case… ie, going to the airport with family and luggage.

Whoever came up with such a silly idea as a two seater?
For certain it was nobody at Tesla!

 

[Paul_SF]

So, what if only the Robotaxi model/s will be allowed for do Robotaxi rides on a dedicated platform?

And everyone who wants to share their FSD cars with family and friends would be able to, as a feature on the Tesla app. Each ride being tracked and logged and maybe even have a way to charge any amount you’d like for mile/time of usage to cover the costs of operating the car.

The more people talk the more it seems to me a dedicate model line for Robotaxi network, with no personal cars allowed it’s the only way it makes sense.

People will keep buying personal cars and those personal cars will be used more than ever shared by more people.

 

[Captkerosene]

I'm literally picking up a 2018 Model 3 today. I don't know if the FSD hardware has been upgraded or not. I'll be in one of the legacy camps in a couple of hours, and I'm not even sure which subgroup.

That doesn't change the shape of the curve to come.

Did you get FSD? Why not if no. How much did you save by no FSD.

Seems like used M3 with FSD are a good bargain now. 25K?

Maybe even MS with dead battery is worth 12K for the FSD transfer.

 

[capster]

I think ARK is modeling $1/mile revenue, which seems a bit on the high side. Don't get me wrong, I drink through the Tesla kool-aid bong, but $1/mile seems unsustainable to me.

Presumably depends on average trip length being fairly short and there being some base cost per trip? That doesn’t seem implausible.

 

[unk45]

Exactly this.

Tesla started at the upper end of the market, and is working their way down. Many people make the "Tesla stretch." Many people went from a Prius to a Model S back in the day...if they had believed a Model 3 would have been available in 6 months or a year, many would have waited....and then Tesla wouldn't have had the Model S profits and investments to develop the Model 3.

The other car companies already have all their models across many market segments.

Nobody who really wants a Corolla is going to pay more to buy a Camry instead. But, Tesla actually benefits when people who really want a Model 2 decide to buy the Model 3 because they don't think they can wait for the Model 2 to be in mass production.

I think a lot of wealthier folks also assume people buy the maximum car they can "afford." ...

The problem with such simplistic logic is that ignores the reality that for most OEM's there si a major price range within each size category.
You say Corolla, it could be GR Corolla Morizo that was >US$50,000 base price.
Corolla is positioned as a small luxury car in some markets, and priced as such.
We've discussed this many times, size is not necessarily cheap=small, large=expensive.
Even Camry was designed originally to be a cheap big American to compete with Chevrolet and Ford. It worked. Times have changed and Ford does not even have sedans in the US.

Regardless of exactly what Tesla says in terms of positioning we may be assured there will be more and less expensive variants. That is true for Models S3XY and Cybertruck, so why will it not be the case for the RoboTaxi and small car?

We keep explaining that, and somehow people keep ignoring reality. Sorry for the sarcasm, but it becomes hard to explain this over and over. As a repeat buyer of Performance model Tesla's higher prices, together with optional paint and interior plus other things, I understand that Tesla certainly knows how to do that. RoboTaxi will have multiple options whether they say so at launch or not. That is the way things work!

Take a quick look at the Uber menu. That have variable cost by vehicle class too. Some people always buy Black.