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

[DarkandStormy]

You'd also never have an ICE vehicle as a Robotaxi. It would either have to be running all the time, which would kill any hope of profits, or it would have a standby mode which would drain the 12V battery pretty quickly. Even if you include PHEVs, it's unlikely they could run at a profit.

How do you think current taxis operate?

 

[advocate8]

This should be a shock to no one here. Especially long term investors.

There has been lots of nonsense tossed out by the media lately, or by bears or even members here armchair quarterbacking and attempting to read between the lines and second-guess the greatest entrepreneur the world has ever seen.

I’d like to suggest an observation that some people are truly unconsciously letting themselves get influenced by that nonsense.

People think Tesla’s going to stop making cars or Superchargers? Really? Who will carry on the mission of transitioning the world to sustainable transport? GM? Lucid? Do you think Elon believes China’s going to flood the US with BYDs?

Superchargers are the standard in North America. People thought Tesla was going to just abandon them?

People need to relax and stop letting themselves get pulled into the media’s bubble of high school gossip. Like take a serious 500mg chill pill.

The media makes money by being dramatic. Elon is often not great about being clear in his posts. He never has been. It is our job to recognize that and recognize that reality will not be as dramatic as the media has painted it to be.

As a consequence, it is unwise to make investment decisions on knee-jerk reactions to rumors, gossip, and reading between the lines.

The work ethic and corporate culture at Tesla that has put them miles ahead of competitors did not arise out of a lazy and easygoing CEO. And this comes from someone who has been closely watching the company evolve since the Roadster days.

Elon is still Elon. He is damn determined to make every car electric and spread solar and battery backup everywhere.

It’s shocking to me that Tesla can now see the end of the tunnel on this massive share price kickstarter (FSD and even Optimus) and people are talking about selling NOW.

These catalysts are not far off in the grand scheme of things.

That tweet is not in any way shape or form an explanation of what happened and the plan forward vs what the plan was say 6 months ago. Not even close. It is the kind of number tossing people use to obfuscate, not clarify.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Tesla jagas av Kronofogden – skyldiga miljoner | Carup.se

Tesla har problem att betala sina räkningar i tid och jagas av Kronofogden. Carup kan avslöja att Teslas svenska bolag TM Sweden AB just nu har miljonbelopp i ansökningar hos Kronofogden, bland annat för obetald hyra på huvudkontoret. Senaste tre åren har Tesla haft 354 ärenden hos Kronofogden...

carup.se

This is quite amateur stuff imo.

 

[CorneliusXX]

What's funny is that people advocating for FSD don't seem to realize that means FULL compliance with laws. 55mph zone...55 mph it will be. Full stop at stop signs...slow in traffic control zones, etc etc.

The other irony is that is 30 or 40 years when FSD really is widespread the US traffic courts will be gutted throwing 10s of thousands of lawyers out of work and JUDGES and Courtroom staff.

The speed limit is only set at 55mph because humans are bad drivers with poor reaction speed and distraction. I'd expect limits to go up in the longer term once robodriving is the majority of miles travelled, particularly in a highway setting.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Wiki - Tesla Europe Registration Stats

This wiki belongs to the thread EU Market situation and outlook. Click HERE (CTRL-click to open in new tab) to add new data using a Google form. Any forum member can contribute. We encourage you to do so! Your entry will appear after the data is double-checked by other volunteers. If the data...

teslamotorsclub.com

Final EU April sales are in. <14k, which is down from January and April 2023.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787801714696798551

Where are/were the ~50k "in transit" vehicles as of 3/31? Of the April sales data we have they do not seem to appear, unless Tesla just stopped manufacturing vehicles for awhile.

 

[GOVA]

I guess I am not as sold that FSD would lead to a 10x reduction of cars. People still need to be at school at 7 am and done at 2:30. Most work starts at 8 and ends at 5. The weekend ball game begins at 2. So the need, the majority of need is not evenly spread out through the day.

Perhaps that will help? I recommend watching this from Steve showing mostly the discussion about Tesla/Uber/Waymo and how they see the future with Tesla in it.

The INSANE Economics Of Tesla Robotaxis

 

[jerry33]

The speed limit is only set at 55mph because humans are bad drivers with poor reaction speed and distraction. I'd expect limits to go up in the longer term once robodriving is the majority of miles travelled, particularly in a highway setting.

Strictly speaking, even FSD still will have sight distances on hills and curves. Speed limits are supposed to be designed so there will be enough reaction time to stop--this isn't always the case, sometimes they are designed to increase city revenue. In some places it is not safe to go faster than 55. Over about 130 km/h you start hitting birds because they don't react fast enough. So there are natural limits to speed.

 

[GOVA]

That horse says a lot of horse *sugar* that turns out to be misleading. No one thinks that Tesla is abandoning SuperChargers. It just is really hard to manage planning through go live without project managers and other staff to do it. People pointing out SuperChargers going live now saying see it isnt slowing are being dishonest. Lets see how permitting and moving from permitting to construction to go live slow down.

Really? Seems like half of this forum's posts have been about exactly this.

 

[unk45]

I am surprised to hear this from a long-term Tesla supporter.

FSD is a high priority because each EV with FSD would be capable of replacing 10 gasoline vehicles.
FSD can help increase demand for EVs.
Optimus is a high priority because it could reduce manufacturing costs and help scale car production down the road.
Every project's delay had valid reasons behind it.

Tesla said they will not stop until every gasoline car on the street is gone. I trust them.

Edit:
I will add my two cents to address your other points:

"The Semi being very SLOWLY introduced, a good 3 years late."

• If Tesla engineers have been sitting around doing nothing, then you have a valid point. You should know how hard Tesla engineers pushed themselves on all these projects. The Semi is a product that requires extreme reliability. They produced some, tested them in the real world, and are now redesigning some parts, including changing from a 2-axle drive to a 3-axle drive. If you think it took too long, try working on these projects and see how easy it is.
• Meanwhile, Tesla put in a crazy amount of effort to get the Cybertruck out. This will be a high-impact product.

"The Tesla Roadster 2 being some 4 years late (likely a good halo car)."

• This is a low-impact project but can take a lot of resources to make it perfect.

"The SuperCharger team being sacked with no explanation given. Especially after NACS became the standard, and has been Tesla’s crown jewel. But focus is gone before other manufacturers have modified their cars to use it."

• We don't know what Elon is planning. He did say they will continue to grow the Supercharger network and focus on 100% availability. Have Superchargers been a bottleneck? Someone who traveled 100k miles using Superchargers said he had never waited at a station. I never had to wait in line either.

"EV growth being walked back, significantly, way back."

• No, Elon said we are between two major growth waves. They are preparing for the next big wave.

"Model 3 losing the tax credit, resulting in a 20% price increase and likely a good part of the sales drop."

• Supply chains take a long time to plan. You should blame the government, not Tesla, for this.

"Dropped plans for a smaller value model."

• A cheaper model is coming earlier than planned.
• The Robotaxi could still be two models, one being a cheaper model.

"Strong walk-back on Tesla Solar."

• Running a business is like fighting a war; you have to deal with everything with limited resources. Solar industry itself is progressing well, even if Tesla completely pulled out of it, solar industry would continue to grow. On the other hand, Tesla put in a lot of effort to grow energy storage business.

"Mexico being slow-walked."

• At the moment, even the current lines are not fully utilized. Do you want them to add more production capacity right away?

"Twitter diversion, at a minimum a loss of focus."

• Elon said if we lose to the woke mind virus, we would lose everything—the Tesla mission, the SpaceX mission, the business, shareholder value—everything would be gone. I agree with him on this view. We are still not out of the woods yet.

For those of us who, like @dhrivnak , have been active since near the beginning or even before with Zip2 or other early Musk-led businesses, it is a bit disingenuous to dismiss legitimate concerns with formulaic acidulous misunderstanding. It is difficult enough for those of us who invested very early to face directly the reality that present Tesla trajectory is no longer compatible with the TSLA we bought. To be factual, for all of us the capital gains are handsome anyway.

We signed up to help accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. The present course is pursuing other objectives, perhaps laudable, perhaps profitable. The present course is seemingly systematic in destruction of TSLA financial prudence.

This Investor’s forum should be devoted to assessing those issues, And counter-issues with logic, evidence and analysis. Were that to have been the focus we would have far fewer bot issues, virtually no “I’m too lazy to look it up, but here is my ‘opinion’” entries.

Since there is active debate about our future as a useful source of insight I dare to express my views;
We have had, and lost, numerous people who actually knew the subjects about which they spoke;
1. We had several people who knew Elon Musk and knew his character, not from reading or skimming some biography;
2. We had people who actually participated directly in building solar systems, BEV’s, electrical infrastructure and more;
3. We had people who actually had done business in nearly every arena in which Tesla operates;
4. We had numerous people who had built companies from concept to maturity.

And many more.
What happened?
In the beginning one had to have unusual characteristics to buy a Tesla or TSLA. In the early days of Model S everyone who bought one was a distinct character. Many had never before bought a new car. Many had a sequence of supercars. Most had advanced educational and professional accomplishments.

That was then.

Now Model Y has been the best selling car in the world. The world has changed, and TMC has changed with it.

One thing we cannot and should not do is recreate the past. We now have a membership that reflects 2024, not 2014 and before.
People now blog and use visual media. Then people read and wrote. Some of us might not like the present world, but most NA TMC members today have never heard of Kate Turabian, although all the NA 2012 members probably still do remember her.

It tempting to try to recreate those early days when each of us had the ability to collaborate with knowledge other might not possess.
Now we have near-universal information access with excellent free translations. As recently as 2010 I had a staff of ~30 people doing research. Today I do the same work alone. The missing part, as you know, is editing!

Can we not devise a way to help transmit useful insight to the majority of TSLA investors today who have none of that background? Can we find ways to do that while eschewing obfuscation or condescension. Can we even understand that vocabulary lessons serve as entertainment and insight for linguistics aficionados but few others?

We need to find a way to be inclusive and helpful while fighting bots and avoiding the idle chitchat and irrelevancy that is rampant now.
While I have ideas, I am not one of our prime audience. We really need insight from the newer population of TSLA investors while avoiding descent more deeply to share speculation and market-making functions. We do have other excellent threads for those subjects including some very useful Technical Analysis threads, which do lack deep statistical rigor, but that is an entirely different subject.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Supercharger ex Elon

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788834859110002716

Great post and great to hear. A lot of hand wringing could have been avoided if he had sent this last week.

Gitterdun Elon.

 

[sunwarriors]

Time is essential for Climate Change. At the current rate of transition, it's not happening fast enough! Robotaxis enable a 10 times impact per vehicle, thereby vastly speeding up the process. All Tesla has to do is mandate that anyone licensing FSD must do it with an EV (no hybrids/gas vehicles).

Don't let Perfect be the enemy of Good!

I think the US/India allowing ultra cheap new EVs ($10k) come into the US would address Climate Change far faster than a RT fleet. Very few is going to use a RT for longer trips nor outside prime city/dense areas.

Even Tesla going balls to the wall with coming out with a uber cheap $15k or $20k EV would do more really. Whether that's good/profitable for the company or the US industrial work/environment is a totally different question (probably not good for either as we've seen with Covid and how dependent we are on China).

 

[2daMoon]

I wanted to drop this here as it was so eloquently written and deserved to be shared...

I emphasize the bear attack because I wish to suggest that often what we see with TSLA trading is disconnected from reality. Ditto with the troll campaign that's been underway in TMC's main investor forum these past couple weeks. It's often unpleasant to sort through the dribble. What I suggest you do at times like this is focus on the reality, which is that Tesla has shown it can outperform any automotive company out there. Now it's taking its know how and agile corporate ways into the AI space with full self driving and Optimus robots. From Tesla's 6 year history with human coded FSD, we learned that neural nets can do the job better and quicker. With driving data and massive compute being the cornerstones of a neural net-based FSD effort, no one is going to beat Tesla to the prize of widespread robotaxi deployment. Q2 of 2024 will look pretty insignificant once Tesla robotaxis are proliferating and earning big returns. Tesla should win the winner-takes-most robotaxi competition in North America and many other locations as well. The humanoid robot competition will have mutliple winners, and that's okay because the total addressable market is far bigger than any other product has ever seen. That's the reality if you extend your horizons. Unless you're changing your investing strategy, I suggest you also find focus in areas of your life outside of the Teslasphere for a while. Life is too precious to allow the FUDsters, trolls, and day-shorters to get you down. Someone you love needs a hug.

Thank you @Papafox for the cool head and concise reporting of the ongoing TSLA status.

 

[Mengy]

Sigh what’s wrong with these people?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788883769186783435

I'm genuinely curious, what exactly are they protesting? Are they EV haters? Or are they just people who don't like Elon?

 

[Skryll]

[...] Over about 130 km/h you start hitting birds because they don't react fast enough. So there are natural limits to speed.

Did you mean 130mph ? I have not once hit a bird in my 30 years of driving including Autobahn, but I do stay below 100mph usually, at least in the US.

Butterflies and bugs - different story.

 

[sunwarriors]

That horse says a lot of horse *sugar* that turns out to be misleading. No one thinks that Tesla is abandoning SuperChargers. It just is really hard to manage planning through go live without project managers and other staff to do it. People pointing out SuperChargers going live now saying see it isnt slowing are being dishonest. Lets see how permitting and moving from permitting to construction to go live slow down.

Agreed.

I've seen articles (waiting for more concrete proof myself) that Tesla will need to rehire some of these laid off folks to start/continue with plans to build out some of these sites. Since it's probably all speculation for now, I will wait and see until I find a more credible article/comments.

I still don't see why/how someone would want to go back to Tesla long term (go back till you find a new job mode it'd be) after you've just been shown the door in such a poor fashion. Even though no one is guaranteed a job, this is almost like an abusive relationship.


There were many credible reports that contractors/partners couldn't reach a single contact when this happened so if they ARE doing new sites, planning, they need to hire totally new folks or rehire those they just canned.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Strictly speaking, even FSD still will have sight distances on hills and curves. Speed limits are supposed to be designed so there will be enough reaction time to stop--this isn't always the case, sometimes they are designed to increase city revenue. In some places it is not safe to go faster than 55. Over about 130 km/h you start hitting birds because they don't react fast enough. So there are natural limits to speed.

Speaking of hitting birds. There is a common bird in Australia called a Galah, and during harvest season they gather on the edges of the road to eat bits of grain that have spilled off the top of wheat trucks, and eat so much they can't get off the ground. So the speed limit to not hit them is about 10kph to give them time to hop/roll to to edge of the road. Should also make a decent edge case for FSD to solve.

 

[EVMeister]

I'm genuinely curious, what exactly are they protesting? Are they EV haters? Or are they just people who don't like Elon?

Or are they just mindless hoardes of easily influenced individuals looking for any excuse to cause disruption? Don't wish to get political, we see a lot of that with the free you know where protestors. Many of them don't care about or even understand "the cause", they just want to be part of it.

 

[bpjod]

Sigh what’s wrong with these people?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788883769186783435

The people storming Gigaberlin or the people in charge of a newsfeed titled “the brake.” who don’t know the difference between brake and break?

 

[jerry33]

Did you mean 130mph ? I have not once hit a bird in my 30 years of driving including Autobahn, but I do stay below 100mph usually, at least in the US.

Butterflies and bugs - different story.

Trying to think (hard I know). I lived in Canada at the time and when driving in places such as rural Saskatchewan or Manitoba I recall hitting birds once I went 130 or over. I'm almost positive it was km/h but it was around the time of the transition, so I could be misremembering (though I doubt any rental car in the 70s or 80s would go 130 mph . Those roads do not have a high volume of traffic, which I'm pretty sure the Autobahn does.

 

[bpjod]

I completely agree that Tesla should mandate EV-only for anyone licensing FSD.

But I don't think that will happen. Elon will argue that FSD will save lives and it would be wrong to put an EV mandate in place. And it's not a bad argument.

Far, far more lives will be saved by ending the burning of fossil fuels than by putting FSD on every car produced.