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

[Knightshade]

I just realized that FSD is already good enough to start a robotaxi service today.

Since it's today an L2 system lacking at least 3 definitional things required for a driverless car-(a complete OEDR, a DDT fallback ability, and a defined L4 ODD) no, it's really not.

Attempt number 398 to ask you to actually read and understand J3016 so you stop getting this so fundamentally wrong.

 

[Unpilot]

From the looks of Pre-market, looks like more Roth conversions coming up for me.

 

[replicant]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1780098229800927730

Sales continue to slump in China.

How does that compare to the recent car sales trend in China – ICE and PHEV included?

 

[replicant]

I think that with some concentrated testing and bug fixing, today's V12 could make the trip reliably.

Reliably enough to have no driver?! Definitely not.

 

[DarkandStormy]

You DO realize that you can just go look at the financials and see for yourself the $29billion in cash right?
Why on earth do you think that having cash means you never fire people. I still recall firing someone who was not generating a positive return on what I was paying, despite my company still making very decent money. Even thriving businesses should not carry any dead weight.
Be honest, have you ever worked anywhere where you couldn't spot the 10% of workers who contributed less than their salary justified? It turns out at twitter the number was 75%...

Yeah, I, uh, wouldn't use Twitter as a prime example considering Musk has run its value into the ground, around ~$10bn at last valuation, per Fidelity.

Anyway, in my latest post I noted two executives left on the same day. That's highly unusual and implies this was not the usual "trimming dead weight." Service center employees were cut. Sales people were cut. Folks claiming to work on highly important pieces of CT were cut.

 

[Ellec]

Yeah, I, uh, wouldn't use Twitter as a prime example considering Musk has run its value into the ground, around ~$10bn at last valuation, per Fidelity.

Anyway, in my latest post I noted two executives left on the same day. That's highly unusual and implies this was not the usual "trimming dead weight." Service center employees were cut. Sales people were cut. Folks claiming to work on highly important pieces of CT were cut.

How do you know the executives weren't performing well? Could be they are rich now and motivation to work 100% has evaporated. But no one knows for sure. Point is companies cut staff to remain lean, it's a positive thing for share holders, obviously not for those who were terminated.

 

[Knightshade]

Anyway, in my latest post I noted two executives left on the same day. That's highly unusual and implies this was not the usual "trimming dead weight." Service center employees were cut. Sales people were cut. Folks claiming to work on highly important pieces of CT were cut.

Trimming dead weight would be expected to hit nearly all departments... it's common for big companies to lay off the lowest X% performers across the board.

One other correction- it was four executives who left on the same day... Amir Mirshahi, director of infrastructure at Tesla Gigafactory Texas and Anthony Thurston, Senior Manager of Cathode Materials & Manufacturing at Tesla, also left.

 

[DarkandStormy]

How do you know the executives weren't performing well? Could be they are rich now and motivation to work 100% has evaporated. But no one knows for sure. Point is companies cut staff to remain lean, it's a positive thing for share holders, obviously not for those who were terminated.

Not being able to maintain stability in your executive team does not imply strength.

 

[Ellec]

Not being able to maintain stability in your executive team does not imply strength.

Yeah he only worked there 18 years, how unstable!

 

[nativewolf]

Troy is pointing out EU sales have been roughly flat for 6 quarters in a row

How many pinocchios does blaming two production interruptions in Q1 to explain that get- especially when inventory never got low enough for a week or two of lost production there to matter?




That's great- but if the most recent reports of RT-only cars, with Gen3 consumer car on the back burner are true, that won't matter. There'll be more FSD subscriptions on the same 1.8M in sales, which is great, but it doesn't, remotely, get you to Teslas 20M/yr goal, nor advance the mission significantly.

With FSD insufficient for RT, to use your words, only a cheaper next-gen vehicle does those things.




If you back out the one-off tax valuation in Q4 they had ~2 billion in net income. That's not really tens of billions (though admittedly you don't say over what length of time you're talking, maybe you mean entire company history or something, but otherwise)

And without FSD per your wording, and with a next-gen consumer car a while off, that # doesn't have anything making it larger other than megapacks... which, while not nothing, also won't get you to to 10s of billions without many more factories than exist or are even under construction for them today.

The other critical point, which I feel is ignored, is nobody has addressed the fact that nobody has demonstrated how FSD is actually improving the sustainability of transportation. Perhaps that's a topic for a different section but I don't see FSD being somehow magically helpful and in the short term will be clearly detrimental.

 

[Musskiah]

https://ark-invest.com/articles/analyst-research/finding-signal-in-noisy-auto-data

I'll leave you all to draw your own conclusions. If you write everything off that comes from ARK instead of observing the factual data they present and drawing your own conclusions, then I'll let you exercise your right to remain ignorant.

 

[Usain]

Interesting. I would have thought one wouldn't bother in a city but you feel the same way there too? Was it "instant love" or is it something you slowly get used to like? In your view, would one month's free subscription be enough to make you hooked?

I don't know the answer to that because I've already been using FSD for a really long time. So it's hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who is completely new to FSD.

I think those who took the time to get used to V12 during the free subscription will want to keep using it. FSD really is at the point where it can become addictive. I there is a decent number of people who will pay the $99/month just to get the parking assist feature, which is pretty awesome now as well. If the new smart summon is as good as the new autopark, it will easily be worth $99/month, or even more.

I'd be surprised if the take rate is not up to 25% by the end of this year. And it will probably be at 50% by the end of next year as FSD gets so good you just can't live without it. At that point, it will affect auto sales dramatically.

 

[Musskiah]

The other critical point, which I feel is ignored, is nobody has addressed the fact that nobody has demonstrated how FSD is actually improving the sustainability of transportation. Perhaps that's a topic for a different section but I don't see FSD being somehow magically helpful and in the short term will be clearly detrimental.

Supervised FSD as it is now? Well it statistically has not caused a death (sustains life) and a year ago it crashed 5x less than a human (sustains vehicles). And for those of us who consistently drive 10 hours or more some weekends, it sustains sanity and mental energy. Tesla publishes astonishing FSD safety statistics

Eventually, within 3 years to be sure, some would say by next year, FSD unsupervised will allow each RT to replace the utility of approx 15 cars (average car is used for 1.4 hrs a day vs 24/7 RT). This will drastically reduce the number of ICE vehicles on the road.

 

[EverettRuess]

Yeah, I, uh, wouldn't use Twitter as a prime example considering Musk has run its value into the ground, around ~$10bn at last valuation, per Fidelity.

Anyway, in my latest post I noted two executives left on the same day. That's highly unusual and implies this was not the usual "trimming dead weight." Service center employees were cut. Sales people were cut. Folks claiming to work on highly important pieces of CT were cut.

Tesla must know these departures will be viewed negatively and they timed all of this news to come out at the same time. Get it all out there right before earnings.

 

[Ellec]

Tesla must know these departures will be viewed negatively and they timed all of this news to come out at the same time. Get it all out there right before earnings.

Could be Elon preparing a shorty burn with surprise good earnings.

 

[Usain]

Since it's today an L2 system lacking at least 3 definitional things required for a driverless car-(a complete OEDR, a DDT fallback ability, and a defined L4 ODD) no, it's really not.

Attempt number 398 to ask you to actually read and understand J3016 so you stop getting this so fundamentally wrong.

J3016 doesn't matter. Documents don't matter. We just fundamentally disagree on this.

The only thing that really matters is if it can reliably do the job with better safety than a human. Tesla could start a limited robotaxi service with human safety drivers. For what I was describing, it would even have a very limited, repeatable, route. Tesla would simply work on perfecting that route.

As long as the service works safely and reliably, no silly document is going to stop it.

 

[Mengy]

I just realized that FSD is already good enough to start a robotaxi service today. It's a limited use case, but still a possible way to get started quickly.

The use case is for trips that involve a long highway journey. For instance, Macon is one of Georgia's largest cities. But the only major airport is Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson, which is about 90 minutes away by interstate. Today's FSD could easily take passengers from downtown Macon to the airport and back. I think that with some concentrated testing and bug fixing, today's V12 could make the trip reliably.

This kind of use case is currently served by busses. We also have busses that take passengers from the suburbs to the city center. Again, the drive is mostly interstate where FSD is quite solid. Plus, the origin, destination, and route does not change. So it would be possible to concentrate on solving for that route and go driverless in a relatively short time.

In the past, I've been thinking Tesla robotaxi would start just like Waymo got started. That is, optimize for a geofenced area in a city. But Tesla could go after these long point-to-point journeys where passengers currently use busses. And the service could be started with only some minor improvements to the FSD we have today.

I'm not saying Tesla will do this. I'd even say it's a little unlikely. But the fact that today's FSD is pretty close to being robotaxi-ready in a limited use case is, to me, very encouraging.

So you are arguing for essentially "geofencing" Tesla RT's using FSD today.

My initial thought is, while FSD v12.3.4 is damn impressive, its not RT ready yet by any means.

However, I have had plenty of intervention free rides with FSD over the past few weeks myself. I have a couple of routes where from my house to the destination I can literally trust the car to drive the complete way without issue.

So technically what you propose could be possible. Maybe Elon is thinking along these lines, placing Tesla RT's in regions or routes where it can function without requiring interventions, and growing those zones as FSD gets better over time.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I have to admit I'm a bit rattled too, at least for the prospects of TSLA over the next couple of years. Very long term I'm still confident, but near term I'm concerned.

And I admit my fear might be unfounded, but I do feel it.

If the Gen3 consumer car really is "scrapped" and Elon is pivoting to full on RT's, then I feel the stock will be in for some very hard times for at least a few years. Without the Gen3 consumer version there won't be much growth potential for Tesla "near" term. Sure Megapacks are ramping nicely but its still the beginning of the S curve, its early. We need many more Mega Factories. M3 and MY likely won't ramp much higher than they currently are at, and CT will ramp but only to something like 250K per year, and that won't be for another couple of years due to the 4680's ramping slowly.

Gen3 was the next growth phase of Tesla, without it we don't have much in the near term.

In the long term, sure FSD will one day get solved and RT's will be possible. But even at the point FSD becomes L5 there will still be a LOT of work to get RT's into full swing. The RT's need to be manufactured, their production lines need to be built. RT centers need to be built where they can charge and be cleaned and serviced. The software for the RT services needs to be created. There is a lot of infrastructure work to go along with an RT service, and that all comes after FSD is solved and the RT itself is being made. That's probably many years away yet until we see it contribute to TSLA in any meaningful way. I'd say 2030 at the earliest.

Without the $25K compact, Optimus is honestly our best chance to see TSLA beat our ATH of $415 anytime "soon". And by soon I mean within the next few years. Optimus could be deployed and sold to customers much faster than building an RT service could. But Optimus volume production & sales is still many years away yet too.

Before this month I was fairly confident TSLA would beat its ATH by sometime late next year, once Gen3 was in production and being sold, and once the Fed had well started lowering rates. Now, IF these rumors of the compact being killed are indeed true (IF), then I don't think we'll be seeing $415 again for a great many years. Honestly I couldn't even predict it as the course of Tesla would be so uncertain without Gen3 going into production next year.

Q1 ER will be interesting but I fear it will be disappointing and not very informative. 8/8 should give us a much clearer picture of what the next few years hold for Tesla and TSLA. My gut tells me we won't be getting much clarity until 8/8, and as a TSLA investor I really hate that.

Agree with much of this. I also tend to think seeing Tesla ever produce more than a few million vehicles per year is no longer a thing. Elons not dumb. Maybe pivoting away from automotive and more to storage, solar and software is a more profitable direction. But a part of me wanted to see tesla become a major auto manufacturer. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

 

[Musskiah]

Oh no! China registrations are only 6,000! Sound the alarms!

Tesla is now in the Trough of Disillusionment, the Valley of Doubt. Prepare for Enligtenment.

 

[nativewolf]

Supervised FSD as it is now? Well it statistically has not caused a death (sustains life) and a year ago it crashed 5x less than a human (sustains vehicles). And for those of us who consistently drive 10 hours or more some weekends, it sustains sanity and mental energy. Tesla publishes astonishing FSD safety statistics

Eventually, within 3 years to be sure, some would say by next year, FSD unsupervised will allow each RT to replace the utility of approx 15 cars (average car is used for 1.4 hrs a day vs 24/7 RT). This will drastically reduce the number of ICE vehicles on the road.

Safety would be helpful.

I was looking more at the second statement and no, I don't see it. Everyone needs to leave work at 5pm, for example. Those cars don't all just appear magically. The 1 car that makes the hour commute from downtown LA to Pasadena can't take the other person from downtown LA to Longbeach at 5pm. Maybe someone going for dinner in Pasadena but then it gets complicated. I've looked and looked at the RT/TaaS and I don't see the huge numbers people expect. Most cars are parked most of the day for a reason, we have traffic jams at certain times for a reason. TaaS actually does nothing for these. Most are travelers and people looking to enjoy themselves. Some replacement, surely. Not as much as some hype would suggest. In the transition you'll have RT vehicles wasting huge amounts of time doing what uber drivers (waste time waiting for rides) do but without the labor. This actually will hurt sustainability. What would make a difference is pooled rides but now that does not seem as likely.