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

[FreqFlyer]

I’ll be generous and just say this is very confusing

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782424092836077711

Does not bode well for new products. Unless work is being transferred to a cheaper but just as innovative China engineering team.

 

[Zaddy Daddy]

TBH this isn't a good analogy.

Now this is funny coming from one of the most over the top YouTube accounts.

What happened to Model 3 Highland being a single piece casting?

 

[rentierparasit]

Well that could be your problem. You aren't going to find Tesla's R&D expense in a Toyota report.

Hi, MP3Mike --

Thanks, on review I see that I said,

"Some auto companies have a separate line item for R&D; some, including Tesla, do not."

, when I intended to say,

"Some auto companies have a separate line item for R&D; some, including Toyota, do not."

Yours,
RP

 

[2daMoon]

Does not bode well for new products. Unless work is being transferred to a cheaper but just as innovative China engineering team.

I didn't read that to mean everyone on the US design team were gone, just a significant chunk of them.
If so, they shaved some dead weight and kept those who are contributing the most.

This term "design team" doesn't sound like "engineering" to me. I think this is about a reduction in Franz's Design Studio, in Hawthorne.

As for anyone let go in advertising and marketing, this may be justified if they weren't producing the expected results.

 

[Zaddy Daddy]

I feel like this forum should really be a constant party...for the path of humanity going to Mars over the next 2 decades. Meanwhile, celebrating Elon Musk and team with all their various achievements getting to Mars.

Yet, its not.

This is not the Elon Musk thread. There’s one for that.

This is not the SpaceX thread. There’s one for that too.

This thread is for analyzing Tesla as an investment vehicle. People are interested in both the success of the company and making money. It’s the American way.

The company doing well and investors losing money should not be seen as a good thing for investors. That is fine for “fans”.

People trying to be level headed and patient for when to buy should not be admonished nor censored here ( coincidentally the CEO would agree).

I am considering to start nibbling on some shares. While the forward PE ratio is still quite high (higher than other tech stocks), I am wondering when there will be a bottoming of 2025 earnings estimates. Maybe post Q1 will be the most pessimistic and therefore best to buy in?

Maybe it’s now if the market has already assumed the worst (no Model 2 consumer car) which Musk will likely clarify isn’t correct on the earnings call.

 

[Linkmeup]

This is not the Elon Musk thread. There’s one for that.

This is not the SpaceX thread. There’s one for that too.

This thread is for analyzing Tesla as an investment vehicle. People are interested in both the success of the company and making money. It’s the American way.

The company doing well and investors losing money should not be seen as a good thing for investors. That is fine for “fans”.

People trying to be level headed and patient for when to buy should not be admonished nor censored here ( coincidentally the CEO would agree).

I am considering to start nibbling on some shares. While the forward PE ratio is still quite high (higher than other tech stocks), I am wondering when there will be a bottoming of 2025 earnings estimates. Maybe post Q1 will be the most pessimistic and therefore best to buy in?

Maybe it’s now if the market has already assumed the worst (no Model 2 consumer car) which Musk will likely clarify isn’t correct on the earnings call.

If you feel so emotionally charged from my post and don't care to hear what I write in order to inform your investment decisions, there is a mute button on this forum. I'd suggest using it on me, it's really not that big of a deal.

 

[wtlloyd]

I have looked extensively at traffic patterns. Extensively, it fascinated me. The people driving to and from metro stations, the people dropping kids off at schools, the landscapers, etc. I actually spent days looking and then decided it didn't matter. Most people that drove to work, park, then they don't move the cars. Most commuters, most days. That's well documented. So, the people on the road in the middle of the day are usually not commuters. Some are going to meetings but they are people doing something (fedex, delivery XYZ, service XYZ, kids, tourists, etc). Again it does not matter. Take Seattle again. 350k workers downtown. 25% commute in single use cars trips. 80k or so cars moving in and then leaving once a day. I use Seattle because my own metro region is so F'd it makes the numbers look worse for RT.

The RT picks someone up in suburbs and takes them downtown. Between 8- 9am the RT, 80K of them, are not parked but sitting in the roads causing even worse congestion. Where do they go? There are not 80k riders needing to go somewhere in downtown Seattle at 9am. Uber handles that 9am traffic in Seattle with a couple of thousand cars. That is the market downtown for people that didn't want to go around in a rental or in their own car. So you have a gap of 78k or so cars. That's a lot of traffic. A lot. Where is the business? It isn't there at 8-9 am. Cars are moving but it isn't 78k worth of cars moving. They are also not commuting regularly. People are working from home and a certain amount of that never comes back. That might help the RT use case I am just not sure. It means you have to have a huge amount of vehicles stashed to handle surges on Tues-Thursday.

If the commuters cars are the RT fleet then there are 80k chasing 2k worth of work. Does everybodys car get to take 2 fares/week? I don't see how that is even worth signing up in the system (the intercity midday fares in Uber are very low, 2-4 miles 10-15 mins- this is all about parking and convenience). An uber driver may get 15 such rides between rush hours. The pofitiable rides for Uber are bar hopping rides starting at 5pm and ending at 11pm but it's really not a big number. From 8pm to 6am there isn't much traffic except for this work and occasional airport work.

The greatest societal good I see from working RT is that it brings new societal interactions to elderly, handicapped, and substance abusers. Can they use an app? I guess we can make sure they are accessible. will the rt be handicapped accessible? Maybe Uber drivers will still be needed to move wheelchairs or ? Anyhow, lots of good but I am not sure how much profit.

Do your own analysis. Figure out how to move the commuters and then how to move the other people. Carve out all the people with work related vehicles. Go stand at a street corner and just count each car at a corner. Easy RT replacement or not.

Then here is another issue. We need to park and charge a minimum of 75k cars.

Will Tesla invest in 75k cars to handle Seattle transport market? If they had invested in 2018 they'd have needed 100k cars but people are teleworking so the number decreased across the USA. What would they have done with the extra 25k cars?

I think Waymo is on the right track. Gut Uber and grab all the dense Urban traffic and as demand slowly increases take the profits and expand. If Waymo is first you'll have 50k vehicles making profit. Waymo could be serving the 5 big CA cities by end of 2025 and that would be 5/20 in the USA. Obviously they add Austin and Phoenix and then some others. We'll see. They are being very methodical.

Google can better leverage the ad dollar spend associated with a captive ride, they'll know if you buy pizzas or pho on the way home and can hit you with ads or just to extend trip (OR NOT). For this reason I've always thought Google was in a good position. Also that Ubers data has some value.

I live in Everett and drive to Seattle every day (that I work).
It's not like this:

Edward scissorhands leaving for work scene - Google Search

 

[GhostSkater]

I’ll be generous and just say this is very confusing

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782424092836077711

Easy, 40 people team for the quality of ads we were seeing? No wonder Elon said bye to them

Not that they were bad, but could be so much better in educating the public on the stuff that impedes EV adoption for many

 

[durkie]

If you feel so emotionally charged from my post and don't care to hear what I write in order to inform your investment decisions, there is a mute button on this forum. I'd suggest using it on me, it's really not that big of a deal.

Sure, anyone can mute anyone on here, but we want to at least stay somewhat on topic. How is potentially going to Mars in 20 years relevant to investing in Tesla today? They seem unrelated to me.

 

[Mengy]

I’ll be generous and just say this is very confusing

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782424092836077711

That's concerning.

 

[growler23]

Easy, 40 people team for the quality of ads we were seeing? No wonder Elon said bye to them

Not that they were bad, but could be so much better in educating the public on the stuff that impedes EV adoption for many

I read this as Elon (?) believing that word of mouth is proving the most effective. Perhaps he also believes that the next 3 months of progress in FSD will create enough free buzz in the word of mouth and social media arenas that advertising will be unneeded.
I think we here don't put enough emphasis on the fact that we will get another 1.8 - 2.2 million new mouths to spread the word this year. Roughly 2 million new trusted sources.
I don't know if Elon is correct, but I have not pulled my chips off the table. When others are fearful, be greedy. Or at least HODL.

 

[Ellec]

I read this as Elon (?) believing that word of mouth is proving the most effective. Perhaps he also believes that the next 3 months of progress in FSD will create enough free buzz in the word of mouth and social media arenas that advertising will be unneeded.
I think we here don't put enough emphasis on the fact that we will get another 1.8 - 2.2 million new mouths to spread the word this year. Roughly 2 million new trusted sources.
I don't know if Elon is correct, but I have not pulled my chips off the table. When others are fearful, be greedy. Or at least HODL.

Elon can tweet and it reaches hundreds of millions of eyes, via direct followers, retweets, then the press reporting on it, which would cost tens of million in marketing/advertising to achieve. X is Tesla's marketing arm now.

 

[2daMoon]

Easy, 40 people team for the quality of ads we were seeing? No wonder Elon said bye to them

Not that they were bad, but could be so much better in educating the public on the stuff that impedes EV adoption for many

I wonder if Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez would be interested in creating some ads for Tesla...

Dice ICE,
Mach-E-tte
FUD Fiction
Zerro... emmissions

 

[Linkmeup]

Sure, anyone can mute anyone on here, but we want to at least stay somewhat on topic. How is potentially going to Mars in 20 years relevant to investing in Tesla today? They seem unrelated to me.

Bots, Vehicles, FSD, Dojo in terms of products/services that can directly be used on Mars to create a 1 million person self-sustaining civilization before Humans get there within their 2 decade timespan goal. i'm sure there's a lot of heat pump tech that could be used on Mars too for temperature control to mimic what its like on Earth. I'm sure there's a lot of tech they're building, and knowledge share, between SpaceX/Tesla employees that's charging both efforts.

Edit: Here's the SpaceX all-hands from a few weeks ago that talks about the logistical plan to go to Mars

 

[SOULPEDL]

My ignore list is up to nine. Post it? We can talk about this openly right? (It's probably my French coming through.*)

Ya wanna know what I think is really going on? The Fudsters (maybe some general pessimists in the list, sorry) are trying to drive us away from this very Forum. Not just sell, but leave or shut up. We are THAT powerful so it seems. A front line of several similar battles I'm sure. Consider the selloff could be worse without some sanity and patience around here. It WOULD be pretty scary without (~50%) of you folks. Thanks y'all, and please stick around or they win.

Spoiler: * Background

Our family spent many weekends at a Nudist Colony (Sun Valley Gardens) up in Ontario Canada. I was about 5 at that time when we lived on this Fruit Farm near Niagara Falls. I remember it well. I highly recommend this for your own children. Gives us a new perspective on life when you're all naked - even the Emperor at times.

 

[Matias]

Bots, Vehicles, FSD, Dojo in terms of products/services that can directly be used on Mars to create a 1 million person self-sustaining civilization before Humans get there within their 2 decade timespan goal. i'm sure there's a lot of heat pump tech that could be used on Mars too for temperature control to mimic what its like on Earth. I'm sure there's a lot of tech they're building, and knowledge share, between SpaceX/Tesla employees that's charging both efforts.

Ps. You are aware that owning TSLA shares gives you zero ownership of SpaceX?

 

[2daMoon]

Bots, Vehicles, FSD, Dojo in terms of products/services that can directly be used on Mars to create a 1 million person self-sustaining civilization before Humans get there within their 2 decade timespan goal. i'm sure there's a lot of heat pump tech that could be used on Mars too for temperature control to mimic what its like on Earth. I'm sure there's a lot of tech they're building, and knowledge share, between SpaceX/Tesla employees that's charging both efforts.

I don't think anyone is denying the connections, nor the unstated plans for potentially converging the technologies of all Musk enterprises towards that goal. It is only that there are already other threads to discuss these things so as to avoid talking about them here.

Que @Buckminster in 3... 2... 1

 

[Usain]

I think you completely fail to understand Waymo. They are an over $30billion company and I can assure you they are not valued so because they have a couple of cars offering fares. Right now they are clearly conducing WTP analysis, designing payment systems, etc.

Anyhow you are now engaged in behavior worthy of a TeslaQ so I'll stop responding.

You have stopped responding because you can not explain to us how Waymo becomes profitable. If there is hope for Waymo, I'd really like to know about it.

 

[Linkmeup]

I don't think anyone is denying the connections, nor the unstated plans for potentially converging the technologies of all Musk enterprises towards that goal. It is only that there are already other threads to discuss these things so as to avoid talking about them here.

Que @Buckminster in 3... 2... 1

I know...I'm just answering questions to better inform people for my long-term tesla investment so it helps further the mission that I think is really cool.

 

[scaesare]

I think true disengagement data is only known on real FSD vs shadow mode. One is purposeful disengagement, while shadow might just be a difference in personal preference. FSD often does things differently than I do (sometimes better) and I often let it and choose to not disengage. You miss out on real disengagement data in shadow mode and have to guess about significance. If that subtle difference in data collection is valuable to Tesla for training, it might explain the recent reduction.

Agreed for disengagements which is metric that's often used to judge/compare systems.

But for the purposes of gathering valuable training data, I suspect the system can learn a lot even ehn FSD isn't engaged by the magnitude of the delta between the driver action, and the shadow-mode FSD intended action.

If FSD intended to turn 15 degrees over the course of 4 seconds and the driver yanked the wheel 90 degrees in a half second. If FSD would have applied the brakes at 20% for 6 seconds, and the driver hit the brakes at 80% for 2... etc.... Also, they can see objects and if the planned path would have caused an issue where the driver would have needed to disengage to avoid one..

Are they doing this currently? I dunno.

Are the cars capable of it and would it provide valuable data? Yes, and I suspect so.