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

[ShareLofty]

People act like increasing a market cap 10x is some ultrarare astonishing achievement. Happens all the time. It’s not worth $56 billion in compensation

 

[phantasms]

People act like increasing a market cap 10x is some ultrarare astonishing achievement. Happens all the time. It’s not worth $56 billion in compensation

Also, let us all please remember that we were [are] in a stock market bubble. TSLA was a bubble. Some of the reasons for the market cap were true to fundamentals but it for sure was way overvalued. How many times did Elon himself say the stock is overvalued? A bunch....to our delight. Will Tesla get to the pay package market cap with a reasonable P/E? Of course, and more! BUT, just because a series of crazy events caused a bubble that took TSLA "to the moon" doesn't mean that valuation was based on the fundamentals that were certainly in mind when Elon's pay package was constructed. Elon is essentially saying "Pay me based on one of these metrics that I said time and time again was nonsense".

 

[philw1776]

People act like increasing a market cap 10x is some ultrarare astonishing achievement. Happens all the time. It’s not worth $56 billion in compensation

I will gladly invest $ into 3 CEOs you designate as likely to increase market cap 10X in the next 3-4 years.
Just one of them "happening all the time" would be a great use of my money.

 

[unk45]

Well, let’s see if I can get you to reverse your downvote, or simply amass more such.

Yes, I most certainly am serious. I cannot abide someone who is a weasel with his words. Who dissembles. Who tergiversates (look those up if you have to).

I parsed out what is irresponsible in that statement; I can do it again:


We are starting to get to the point where, once known bugs are fixed, it will take over a year of driving to get even one intervention

So: what does the statement say of where we are?

• We’re not AT the point.
  • We’re not even getting to the point.
    • We’re STARTING.

What point? The point that,

• IF bugs are fixed, we’ll have a good product.

This is some 7 1/2 years after proclaiming reaching by year’s end (end 2017) US coast-to-coast self-driving without interventions.
In retrospect, that was a mistake. A rather large one, yet one that I and many - most, I am sure - accepted and forgave.

But a man who does not learn from his mistakes, but repeats and repeats and repeats what is effectively the same mistake is someone whose word means nothing. Who cannot be trusted.

A man who did not get my vote for an enormous incentive - by far the largest in nominal terms in the history of the world, and very likely in real terms as well - and who will not get my vote again this month.

Someone who does not belong at the helm of this critical company.

I long ago proclaimed myself as a long-term investor; I have tried to make this thread focused on same, rather than one for traders or for those who make use of derivative products.

I will today clarify that. I do not consider TSLA a “long term” holding, rather, I have set it up in our investment trust to be a multi-generational one. Just as one side of my family, those who over two centuries ago created the glass industry in Pittsburgh “always” had PPG in the family, and another side held Std. Oil and its progeny as multigenerational investments.
As such, that Elon Musk presently is the company’s CEO is of fleeting consequence. There WILL be a time when he no longer is CEO, nor retired, nor even alive. He WILL be followed by others.

This misstatement - this series of misstatements - is serious but it is not the gravest he has made concerning Tesla. For me, that was his announcement that he needed to be ==given== enough shares for him to own 25% of the outstanding. Not that he would have clearance to purchase them to achieve the same goal, but that, in the purest distillation, to be gifted them.

To have made this statement after he not only earlier - 2015? - proclaimed “I will be the last one out”; after on Jan 4 2017 at the Gigafactory told a group of Wall St. professionals, including me, “You have nothing to worry about my selling any shares, at least not until I need to fund Mars colonization“; and then after selling shares - chasing the market downward as he funded his TWTR purchase - boggles any investor’s imagination.

Having voted “No” for his 2018 incentive package - for reasons I have laid out in an earlier, recent, post - makes it that much easier to overcome my distaste for the Delaware court’s ruling and its overreach of (other) investors - other shareholders!, and once again vote No.

Summarizing:
Mr Musk will not head this company for the entire time I - with my descendants - expect to be owning the handsome position I have built in what I consider to be the ascendant corporation of our time. He no longer has my vote of confidence and I would be happy to see his replacement at the helm, sooner rather than later.

These are my sentiments today although i did vote in favor of the original plan and ratification.
Events of the last few days have established the consequences of Mr. Musk's reactive postures regarding Tesla issues. Pre-pandemic he seemed consistently acting in the best interests of shareholders including his own long term prospects. During and Post- Covid-19 it seems he might have, at best, "long Covid".

The prospects of Tesla remain stellar if stable relentless innovation continues. Whether that will be the prognosis (assuming all this is fundamentally diseased) is not at all clear.

 

[unk45]

I disagree with this take and most definitely want Musk at the lead for the foreseeable future. Some points:

Tesla started at a time when EVs were shunned upon and were the laughing stock of the auto world. Musk was everything that an EV company needed: engineer that understood the tech, shrewd economist that knew the cost advantages of EVs and how that would shape the market as cost curves of batteries, motors and other EV supplies came down. The advantages that he has bestowed in tesla are staggering and too numerous to mention. Here are some: vertical integration and next level manufacturing all with engineering prowess, pulled in superior talent into tesla, foresight to design cars starting in 2017 to handle autonomous tech today, OTA updates that set the stage to make existing cars new over time (moat that even to today no other oem can replicate).

This is all well and good to get Tesla manufacturing superior cars to compete with ICE, b/c that is what you need to get people to switch - not apples to apples but apples to applies with cherries, strawberries and oranges.

But lets take a step back and figure out what the end goal is ? to accelerate the world to a sustainable future. specifically for cars that is switch from using fossil fuels to energy source that is green. Lets talk about how that is achieved.

Plan 1: car for car replacement. 1 EV for 1 ICE. how long will that take ? very long. but when tesla started out this was the most likely choice with the tech that was present at the time. So how to accomplish goal w/ plan 1. Build gigas to make insane amount of cars. Make sure these insane number of cars have batteries. So ramp up the battery industry and fill gaps whereever there were gaps. Enter 4680 tech to fill a gap of insane amount of batteries. Again this tech nudging the battery complex to ramp up to Tesla speed. Tesla doesn't want to do this stuff. Tesla wants to make cars but they will enter fields when the tech/supply is lacking. Again plan 1 is very demanding just because a 1:1 replacement was the goal

Plan 2: Autonomous cars (AEVs). With AEVs, utilization of cars goes up from 4% to ~60%. that means a single car can do about 100K miles a year or more. So with this strategy, 1 doesn't need to make 1:1 replacement of ICE. just 3m cars a year instead of 20m cars a year can replace most miles driven by ICE. But plan 2 didn't have the tech mature to pursue this. What does Tesla do under Elon? Pursue this route in parallel, design cars now (2016) that can handle the software when it comes out later (hopefully soon) so that we can engage plan 2. This/Plan2 is the MAIN plan all the time. plan 1 is pie in the sky but needed since that is what most of the world understands.

So while progress was being made in FSDv8, 9, 10, 11 all these heuristics based solves. All the while GPU costs were still high and compute was extemely hard to come by. But tesla kept pushing the FSD/Plan2 approach. If the AP team didn't pursue FSD, they would never had stumbled upon the v12 approach. So EM lead the company from 2018: insane ramp up, giga china, model y, giga berlin, giga atx, ct all the while pushing and operating plan 2. I don't know many CEOs that could have pulled this off. IMO 0 CEOs. Maybe a team of 3 CEOs could but you get the idea.
So i hear a lot of EM lied about FSD. vaporware SW. EMs timelines are off. From my POV, this is tech that no one has ever written before. in Rumsfields words: the unknown unknown. So not only did we not know how it would work we didnt know what tech would get us there. But it was absolutely critical that dollars and investors supported the funding of the FSD or we would not be here at v12. So what does EM do to convince people this is viable tech ? He puts timelines out. EM: Hey I think we think (with my best info I have on this tech atm) that we can achieve this by 2020/coast to coast. I completely understand him saying these things to get people behind the tech. But some people call these out as lies and trust breaks.

What happens in late 2023 is truly monumental. As tesla accumulates more compute, they start using it more for video training and figure out 'this is the way'. Plan 2 is not just possible but increasingly more probable than plan 1 !!! Then the direction of the company pivots. Its Elon's leadership that pivots the company. When designing the new 20K car, he insists no steering wheel or pedals. Its his visionary thinking that keep pushing the company in a direction that most people don't see: taking the world to a sustainable future in the most accelerated speed.

This is the lens that I see EMs actions by. These are completely justified. And yes I voted all my shares for not reneging on the deal to pay EM for his tremendous and irreplacable work that has got Tesla here where it can truly impact the world in the quickest possible time.

We are at a point that most people don't even see plan 2 as existent or viable. They still think we are on plan 1. 1:1 replacement of cars. IMO, we are not. Tesla needs around 3m cars/year to get US/EU and most of CN out of 85% of miles driven (ref: Tony Seba) . And EM is the most qualified person to get Tesla/us there.

Summarize: Tesla needed musk when it started, Tesla thrived with Musk till now giving shareholders tremendous value and Tesla most definitely needs Elon for a world that will be sustainable in the shortest possible time.

Consider the historical pattern of major visionary figures: Consider Thomas Edison, for an example, Henry Ford for another. Both were definitive epochal figures. Both accomplished massive innovation in their early lives. Both lost their dynamism by their early '50's but one lost control of General Electric that continued to be massively successful until very recently. The other fell into relative decline by less than two decades after it's huge innovations.

Without question Elon Musk has much in common with Thomas Edison. How can any sane person not be in awe of his transformation of five industries thus far (consumer finance, rocketry, BEV, grid services, telecommunications)? Answer: no sane person would fail to venerate such a person.

Does that mean that person should continue in a direct executive role after diminished rationality becomes evident. Of course not!

We should consider Edison's precedent raters than Ford's.

 

[Leftlane22]

If the BoD really thought that there was no way Tesla was going to hit those goals back in 2018, then what the hell were they doing setting them? Who wants a board that doesn’t deal with reality and actually has goals they think might be realistic to hit (with appropriate incentives)? This board has abandoned all of their duty - or, they are incompetent. Tough choice between these two.

 

[insaneoctane]

"New"? I guess...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799405994843222249

 

[M|S|M MYP]

It's beyond ridiculous to claim Tesla investors should replace a CEO who just accomplished this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798792222743122164

Get this: Tesla is nothing without Elon Musk, without him Tesla is just a bigger Rivian, and one would be better off to just buy RIVN since it's a lot cheaper.

And who do you plan to replace him with? Trevor Milton? Peter Rawlinson?

If it was between T-Milli and Rawlinson, I'd vote for Rawlinson....but only because i want to hear the smooth British accent saying "Teeesssslllllaaaa"

 

[Tachyon]

Next week all we will hear is a drum beat of various institutional funds voting against the pay package . At this rate, it’s gonna be a miracle if it passes this time around .I don’t think us retail holders have enough voting power to get it passed . Karma is a bi—-.

 

[cliff harris]

Google is not clueless on how to mass produce products.

Googles last product reveal was gemini AI. how did that go? And sure, google can do software...maybe. Maybe not. Thats why they had to buy deepmind to get anywhere in AI.
But hardware? Show me the large scale global physical hardware rollout by google? What google hardware do you own? Mass production of physical products is WAY harder than rolling out software, and definitely requires different skills.

And again... you cannot compare a few hundred (or even thousand) waymo vehicles with LIDAR to Tesla. Tesla order cameras for their cars by the million. How many LIDAR units do you think waymo ordered in the last year? You think waymo can get LIDAR cheaper than a camera? (They need cameras as well)

In August 2023 waymo told regulators they had 250 cars, 100 of which were in use at any one time.
Yeah... really not holding my breath for global robotaxi domination by that company...

 

[elasalle]

"New"? I guess...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799405994843222249

If you voted no in 2018(which they did), even before Elon bought X etc etc, then mind likely already made up then.

I don't expect too many people who voted no in 2018, to change votes to Yes.
But a good chunk of people who voted yes in 2018, likely to change to no, based on all the stuff/antics Elon has been upto since then. Some can let it pass, many can't. To each their own. cheers!!

 

[Paracelsus]

If he wants his package, he should probably quit posting stuff like this. He looks like an ass and a crazy MAGA person.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799417761539805431

Just wondering how in the hell this post hasn’t been removed yet for political reasons or other…? A couple weeks ago I had a post with a combination of 53 likes and loves, and that was recommended by @unk45 as a post of particular merit- that was quickly removed for ‘political reasons’ simply because a portion of my post discussed that Elon was on X to share information of an Independent candidate - instead of Elon just casting support for the Far Right’ as a recently-acquired TMC troll claimed. To not immediately remove posts like this one from @ggies07 seems to suggest some bias IMO. Otherwise let’s keep open for discussion the ideas that Elon isn’t ‘Far Right’, and let’s discuss how Elon might have some anger still for policies that were argued in an effort to shut down the Fremont factory such as the 6’ social distancing ‘rule’ that was recently revealed by its own author while under oath to not be based on anything - it just sort of appeared.

Censorship is a slippery slope - even when used with the best intentions, as it can ultimately prove to be just as hurtful in the end. An example of that might be all the significant TMC contributors in the past who can no longer can be found here, while Trolls and anger seem to rule the day now instead.

 

[growler23]

IMO, AI is what it stands for Artificial intelligence. The human brain for the most part is a black box. There are have been several leaps made in understanding the human brain. But not entirety. AI is similar as in its a black box. In Tesla/EMs words its video in/control out. Increasingly decisions made by AI will become harder and harder to reason/decipher.
Having stated the above, the best way to look at AI is through the lens of evolution. So the human brain is one of the largest brains in the animal world. Its complexity and energy needs are supreme. This is what chatgpt says about human vs chimp

View attachment 1054665
So b/c of structural and energy differences, chimps are limited in what they can do. AI will be several levels (as of now no limit) above human brain. Currently it can do certain things better w/ inputs. Like my cars on FSD will see pedestrians when i don't see them (esp at night). Or will go really quickly to next lane to avoid car coming in b/c it has already checked blind spots to see target lane is clear. But capabilities will start increasing over time. Once LLMs get introduced in cars, they will start conversing w/ us. And the list will just grow from there. Bots are a natural progression from there.
So yes AI will eventually become sentient like Robert e Olivaaw. And yes IMO i can see them being heads of state (which i very much prefer to the current bunch we have). But all this is contingent on the evolution of AI. They can evolve into a caring and nurturing sentience. That is why what google did w/ gemini is shocking. EM stated AI should be made to be truth seeking and curious and I tend to agree with him. No one really knows how AI will evolve especially when geo political considerations are taken. A possibility that it will become nurturing (don't know how much weight the possiblity is). But it can also go awry. But IMO, the age of the dominance of human intelligence is close to an end. As ilya of open ai put it, it will be like we treat pets. We don't go around killing our pets. We nurture them. But we don't ask for their opinion when we need to build a highway

Also read Iain M. Banks culture series. I read those after the foundation series and robot short stories. The player of games is a good one. If things go right, good chance our world/universe can be like that: Amazon.com

Weekend slightly OT...
I greatly appreciated all the Culture novels, and their description of benevolent AI that is orders of magnitude, nay, dimensions of magnitude, beyond our brains' capabilities. The AI's described in those books (there are myriad AI individuals, often idiosyncratic) tend to see us humans as beautiful pets, worthy of protection (including, for the most part, of our free will), but in many cases nowhere near their equal. The worlds described in those books are worth aiming for for many reasons, although the books are interesting just because those worlds are not perfect either! That said, the AI's try to do a suitable job of balancing human basic needs, freedom of expression (lots of that in those books), freedom of travel, against often competing goals of safety and security and, on perhaps occasion, even privacy... Add in the fact that various human factions, planets, other groupings don't always get along, and you have a rich field of plots to draw from.
HOWEVER, there is very little in our current AI landscape that makes me think we are headed there. The big guys (the only ones who can afford to train AIs today) seem to have the default idea to use AI in combination with/as an extension of Big Data to intrude even more into our personal lives/finances, for their own monetary gain. We don't have to envision a HAL 9000 to see how badly that turns out; AI at scale might just be an ever more precise scalpel enabling giant corporate control of our commercial, social, and mental worldscape.
I don't know if Elon could help shape the course towards something more beneficent for all humankind, but I sure don't trust OpenAI given what they did. At least Tesla looks to be harnessing AI with the goal of decreasing harm to the planet's climate and decreasing vehicle collisions/deaths. I admit I am not sure what xAI is up to other than their LLM.

 

[The Accountant]

All it takes is one experince like this with FSD to become deaf to the naysayers. I can't even hear them anymore. @DarkandStormy who? Tesla owner thanks FSD (Supervised) 12.3.6 for avoiding potential collision

I hear the complaints about what Elon has said in the past about FSD progress and I don't have the same sentiment. Why? I don't look to his X posts for progress, I look to my own experience on FSD and see that we are progressing quickly.

I have this edge case in my town. A roundabout where 2 lanes have a "right of way" and 3 lanes have a yield. For local townspeople, we maneuver this with ease. But anyone new to this roundabout yields everywhere because it is confusing. FSD V11 and prior would get confused here and either disengage or yield when not necessary. FSD v12.3.6 has handled this roundabout 6 times now consecutively with no intervention or disengagement.

Robotaxi does not need to arrive tomorrow. It needs to arrive first with the competition a few years behind . . .and I think this is what we will see.

Green has right of way. Yellow needs to yield.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Denholm: "So, the actual return for shareholders, $2.3 billion stock-based comp charge that was taken for the 2018 plan has already happened. The share count […] in the options is already in the diluted share count. That's already happened. If […] that plan is overturned and we have to put in a new plan, for example, if it was exactly the same type of plan as the other, it would cost $25 billion worth of stock-based comp.

So the Delaware judge will actually cost shareholders $22.7 Billion if the old comp plan approval doesn't pass and they have to do a new one today."

If what she says is true, and you do believe the Delaware court overreached (it seems that you do), wouldn't it make more sense to vote "yes" this time around as a statement against the Delaware court and then save your "no" vote for the next compensation package when it comes around?

It's a load of manure. And she's not dumb, which means she's being disingenuous. Not a great look, especially if trying to demonstrate the board is not a bunch of captive sycophants.

The 2.3b vs. 25b is simply a GAAP technical issue. It has zero effect on the actual economic cost to shareholders, which is the dilution or alternatively the opportunity cost of granting options to Elon vs. selling them (or a proxy, like convertible bonds) into the market. If Tesla restores the exact same plan the 25b would be a "one-time charge" which would mess up robo-generated P/Es and such for a year, but investors wouldn't care. Tesla is valued on "non-GAAP earnings" which ignore stock comp. Even the analyst estimates are non-GAAP.

She also ignores the possibility Tesla might NOT restore the original plan, and instead come up with something with a lower economic cost to shareholders. Then again, she may consider that an impossibility no matter what the shareholders she is supposed to represent say.

 

[insaneoctane]

Can't confirm this is actually 12.4, but was posted on X to be so. This would drive me crazy...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799332647241662853

 

[Doggydogworld]

LIDAR has rapidly moving parts and a lot to go wrong, and draw more power.

Zero moving parts, 13W and sub-$500 in volume. Not quite as good as Waymo's units, but solid state lidar specs are improving rapidly.

Vista X90 Plus Feature

Cepton’s newest sensor is the world’s smaller adaptive long-range lidar, designed for the easier windshield integration for the automotive industry.

www.cepton.com

 

[AudubonB]

Just wondering how in the hell this post hasn’t been removed yet for political reasons or other…? A couple weeks ago I had a post with a combination of 53 likes and loves that was quickly removed for ‘political reasons’ …

Here is one good - if lame - reason: I have not taken it down because I am 100% ignorant of what it means. And I think I prefer to remain ignorant in this matter. It certainly reinforces my distaste for Twitter as a replacement for dialog, and for memes as well.

 

[Southpasfan]

I disagree with this take and most definitely want Musk at the lead for the foreseeable future. Some points:

Tesla started at a time when EVs were shunned upon and were the laughing stock of the auto world. Musk was everything that an EV company needed: engineer that understood the tech, shrewd economist that knew the cost advantages of EVs and how that would shape the market as cost curves of batteries, motors and other EV supplies came down. The advantages that he has bestowed in tesla are staggering and too numerous to mention. Here are some: vertical integration and next level manufacturing all with engineering prowess, pulled in superior talent into tesla, foresight to design cars starting in 2017 to handle autonomous tech today, OTA updates that set the stage to make existing cars new over time (moat that even to today no other oem can replicate).

This is all well and good to get Tesla manufacturing superior cars to compete with ICE, b/c that is what you need to get people to switch - not apples to apples but apples to applies with cherries, strawberries and oranges.

But lets take a step back and figure out what the end goal is ? to accelerate the world to a sustainable future. specifically for cars that is switch from using fossil fuels to energy source that is green. Lets talk about how that is achieved.

Plan 1: car for car replacement. 1 EV for 1 ICE. how long will that take ? very long. but when tesla started out this was the most likely choice with the tech that was present at the time. So how to accomplish goal w/ plan 1. Build gigas to make insane amount of cars. Make sure these insane number of cars have batteries. So ramp up the battery industry and fill gaps whereever there were gaps. Enter 4680 tech to fill a gap of insane amount of batteries. Again this tech nudging the battery complex to ramp up to Tesla speed. Tesla doesn't want to do this stuff. Tesla wants to make cars but they will enter fields when the tech/supply is lacking. Again plan 1 is very demanding just because a 1:1 replacement was the goal

Plan 2: Autonomous cars (AEVs). With AEVs, utilization of cars goes up from 4% to ~60%. that means a single car can do about 100K miles a year or more. So with this strategy, 1 doesn't need to make 1:1 replacement of ICE. just 3m cars a year instead of 20m cars a year can replace most miles driven by ICE. But plan 2 didn't have the tech mature to pursue this. What does Tesla do under Elon? Pursue this route in parallel, design cars now (2016) that can handle the software when it comes out later (hopefully soon) so that we can engage plan 2. This/Plan2 is the MAIN plan all the time. plan 1 is pie in the sky but needed since that is what most of the world understands.

So while progress was being made in FSDv8, 9, 10, 11 all these heuristics based solves. All the while GPU costs were still high and compute was extemely hard to come by. But tesla kept pushing the FSD/Plan2 approach. If the AP team didn't pursue FSD, they would never had stumbled upon the v12 approach. So EM lead the company from 2018: insane ramp up, giga china, model y, giga berlin, giga atx, ct all the while pushing and operating plan 2. I don't know many CEOs that could have pulled this off. IMO 0 CEOs. Maybe a team of 3 CEOs could but you get the idea.
So i hear a lot of EM lied about FSD. vaporware SW. EMs timelines are off. From my POV, this is tech that no one has ever written before. in Rumsfields words: the unknown unknown. So not only did we not know how it would work we didnt know what tech would get us there. But it was absolutely critical that dollars and investors supported the funding of the FSD or we would not be here at v12. So what does EM do to convince people this is viable tech ? He puts timelines out. EM: Hey I think we think (with my best info I have on this tech atm) that we can achieve this by 2020/coast to coast. I completely understand him saying these things to get people behind the tech. But some people call these out as lies and trust breaks.

What happens in late 2023 is truly monumental. As tesla accumulates more compute, they start using it more for video training and figure out 'this is the way'. Plan 2 is not just possible but increasingly more probable than plan 1 !!! Then the direction of the company pivots. Its Elon's leadership that pivots the company. When designing the new 20K car, he insists no steering wheel or pedals. Its his visionary thinking that keep pushing the company in a direction that most people don't see: taking the world to a sustainable future in the most accelerated speed.

This is the lens that I see EMs actions by. These are completely justified. And yes I voted all my shares for not reneging on the deal to pay EM for his tremendous and irreplacable work that has got Tesla here where it can truly impact the world in the quickest possible time.

We are at a point that most people don't even see plan 2 as existent or viable. They still think we are on plan 1. 1:1 replacement of cars. IMO, we are not. Tesla needs around 3m cars/year to get US/EU and most of CN out of 85% of miles driven (ref: Tony Seba) . And EM is the most qualified person to get Tesla/us there.

Summarize: Tesla needed musk when it started, Tesla thrived with Musk till now giving shareholders tremendous value and Tesla most definitely needs Elon for a world that will be sustainable in the shortest possible time.

I like it, except that robotaxis do not do much for sustainable energy in that miles driven are miles driven, regardless of whether it’s a taxi or my own car. So instead of driving my car 10k miles i take a robotaxi 10k miles ans you take the same robitaxi foy your 10k miles. 20k miles are still driven, plus more miles to go from me to you and back to me. Robotaxis may be a profit play, and a way to covert parking lots to some other use, but they are not a sustainable energy play. If universal- robotaxis would drasticly reduce private cars. I worry that the resistance to THAT would dwarf the resistance to EVs and as a result delay the transition- not accellerate it. But just another opinion

 

[Southpasfan]

CYBERCAB FINANCIALS
Until now, I have never performed an analysis on the potential financial impact of the Robotaxi/Cybercab.
The cybercab was excluded from my long range estimates.

I completed a high level analysis recently. I took Uber's 2023 financials and adjusted them as if they ran a robotaxi business.
I stripped out driver payments, added costs such as charging, maintenance & repairs, Insurance, back office logistics, etc.

In this analysis, Uber's EBITDA went from $5B (25% of sales) to $30B (50% of sales).
Note: Sales are higher in the robotaxi model as Uber's revenues exclude the portion of billings given to drivers.
EBITDA= Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

I was surprised by these results and as I dug into it i realized the following:
Since everything is practically outsourced at Uber, profit is shared with:
- the driver
- the gas station
- the auto insurance company
- the mechanic
- the car wash

When you have no driver and you have your own infrastructure (service centers, charging stations, insurance, etc), you keep a higher percentage of the end to end profit. Of course the robotaxi model requires a huge ongoing capital investment with the vehicles, but in Tesla's case, they mfg the vehicles and thus acquire them "at cost" - no markup to share there either.

I'm not ready to share the analysis but hope to prior to the Aug 8 event.

Tesla acquires them at cost sure, but uber and cab companies do not bear the cost of the car, the driver bears that cost. I would say let any person who buys a car decide to use it as a taxi or not, charge accordingly for FSD. My own model is more like Microsoft- end up licensing FSD to every car sold worldwide at $1000 - thrown in advertising revenue that Tesla keeps as the former driver can just relax and see the menus at all the restaurants they drive by.