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

[SO16]

If you don't want Elon as CEO, who would you recommend for the CEO role? Or leadership team in general?

I don’t see very many CEOs doing things like this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799975549365793099

 

[Beltsbear]

Unfortunately it looks like the stock market is starting to price in the loss of the federal EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing credits. If we lose these credits , end buyer costs will go up on the model Y in the USA and our current sales volumes will be hard to keep. The law does not even need to be repealed, the next administration could change the administrative rules and make them impossible to get or easily turn full credits into half credits.

 

[SO16]

Unfortunately it looks like the stock market is starting to price in the loss of the federal EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing credits. If we lose these credits , end buyer costs will go up on the model Y in the USA and our current sales volumes will be hard to keep. The law does not even need to be repealed, the next administration could change the administrative rules and make them impossible to get or easily turn full credits into half credits.

As battery prices keep falling, the tax credits becomes less important.

 

[SO16]

I know this won’t happen but I would like to see Elon receive his option package and in turn, give a significant chunk to Tesla employees including some to the recently laid off. That of course wouldn’t help his voting rights concern but it sure would go a LONG way in creating positive public sentiment. I don’t see how the UAW would have a chance of ever getting in if he did that. It also would make his companies even more popular to work for.

 

[scaesare]

Elon is completely spazzing out on X with a whole bunch of incorrect assertions about what Apple announced today. Of course it should be noted that Elon is a direct to competitor to any company offering AI products, so natural for him to not look on competitors favorably, but stating blatantly wrong facts is a whole different level of behaviour.

What incorrect assertions has he made?

 

[CHGolferJim]

@Maarten @Artful Dodger and I agree that manipulative shorting has been a big factor in holding TSLA down at the moment and during the timeframe Dodge was referencing. Look how crazy-level the stock price has been for over a month. You continue to suggest that many of us believe shorting is the reason TSLA fell in the first place. Nobody that I know believes that.

Consider the following scenarios:
* TSLA falling as margins shrink and growth rate slows. You and I both agree this was the primary reason for TSLA's dip of recent years.

* TSLA falling as Elon sold stock to buy Twitter. This is a case of market being unhappy with Elon selling but complicated by hedge funds and others short-selling to front-running the news of Elon selling and causing the dip to be deeper than it would be otherwise. Verdict: Dip was combination of market forces plus manipulation forces.

* Past month of TSLA trading: TSLA has traded mostly level in a tight trading range while Nasdaq has risen and percent of TSLA selling by shorts has been routinely above 60% (a level indicating far above normal shorting activity). Option sellers have something to gain by holding TSLA level and they're doing so through mechanisms I describe daily in my Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts posts. In this case, manipulations are overriding market forces and causing TSLA to remain level, rather than climbing with the market and with good Tesla news.

There's a big difference between saying manipulations are currently holding TSLA down vs. saying it was a bigger factor than margin and growth shrinkage in TSLA's dip. Please don't try to convince readers that we are saying things we clearly are not.

Have you looked at the data for total value of TSLA selling by shorts vs. %, and would the difference matter? Seems like low volumes have contributed to the >55% trend you have cited.

 

[CitizenKane]

I don’t see very many CEOs doing things like this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1799975549365793099

I'd rather see him tweeting something about Tesla's plan for electric trucks than about playing Diablo or building X-phones. Electric trucks will likely be a massive market and if you can combine electric with full self driving that should translate into massive potential income AND a very, very important contribution towards sustainable transport.

Scania founded Erinion, a company for charging systems - Sustainable Bus

Big news for the Swedish manufacturer: Scania has founded a company for charging solutions. Everything you need to know.

www.sustainable-bus.com

 

[Usain]

Unfortunately it looks like the stock market is starting to price in the loss of the federal EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing credits. If we lose these credits , end buyer costs will go up on the model Y in the USA and our current sales volumes will be hard to keep. The law does not even need to be repealed, the next administration could change the administrative rules and make them impossible to get or easily turn full credits into half credits.

Easier said than done.

It takes time to fashion new regulations, which would then be challenged in court.

Plus it would kill GM and Ford, who are still moving forward with billions in EV investment. They both borrowed the money to build out their EV infrastructure. But without the subsidies they will be unable to sell their inferior EV products.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I’m surprised we haven’t heard about any new markets being developed. Chile, Brazil, even proper supercharger infrastructure in Mexico. As other markets saturate or drop off I would have thought this would be on the table. Especially proper supercharger development on key Mexican routes.

Jmho.

 

[scaesare]

I'd rather see him tweeting something about Tesla's plan for electric trucks than about playing Diablo or building X-phones. Electric trucks will likely be a massive market and if you can combine electric with full self driving that should translate into massive potential income AND a very, very important contribution towards sustainable transport.

Scania founded Erinion, a company for charging systems - Sustainable Bus

Big news for the Swedish manufacturer: Scania has founded a company for charging solutions. Everything you need to know.

www.sustainable-bus.com

Can't the guy blow off a little steam?

 

[SPadival]

Unfortunately it looks like the stock market is starting to price in the loss of the federal EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing credits. If we lose these credits , end buyer costs will go up on the model Y in the USA and our current sales volumes will be hard to keep. The law does not even need to be repealed, the next administration could change the administrative rules and make them impossible to get or easily turn full credits into half credits.

Next(ish) Gen models will be in production by Jan 6th 2025

 

[jeewee3000]

I'd rather see him tweeting something about Tesla's plan for electric trucks than about playing Diablo or building X-phones. Electric trucks will likely be a massive market and if you can combine electric with full self driving that should translate into massive potential income AND a very, very important contribution towards sustainable transport.

Scania founded Erinion, a company for charging systems - Sustainable Bus

Big news for the Swedish manufacturer: Scania has founded a company for charging solutions. Everything you need to know.

www.sustainable-bus.com

Tesla is building the Semi. Elon doesn't have to post about it every day to make this more real.

I see similar posts on X after Elons livestream: "How does he have time to play games?"
The man works a lot more than most. Don't judge how he spends his free time.

BTW Elons livestream was full of interesting tidbits for his viewers. Here is a great writeup on X.

Regarding Tesla Elon said the following:

TESLA/OPTIMUS
Elon sincerely THANKED Tesla shareholders for voting multiple times.

"We are not going to do a Tesla phone."

"Your Tesla will be able to pick up food for you, or go anywhere you tell it."

Once Tesla cars are self-driving, Elon explained to a fellow gamer, that is when you'll be able to look at your phone or play a game in the Tesla. Currently, he said, "we have to disable gaming in the car while driving unless you are in the backseat."

"You can make catgirls real if you have a robot" and Optimus will be able to teach kids anything OR pick them up from school. It will support any language too."

"We could make a robot puppy, what really matters is a humanoid robot though."

One listener suggested the name "byte" for the Tesla robot puppy.

"I think everyone is going to have an Optimus, maybe more than one."

"The ratio in the future will be 2 to 10 humanoid bots for every human."

"Optimus will cost maybe $20 - $30K and cost less than a car"

"We're less than 24 months away from AGI, where its smarter than a human."

 

[alexxs88]

At the URL you mentioned, I don't download the CSV you pasted here.

The CSV I downloaded (automatically) mentions a lot of different systems: for Waymo, there are ~200 disengagements in 2023, but with a driver always present in the vehicle.
Maybe you made a mistake with the link?

I don't see that attachment. Seems to be missing?

It's the first and penultimate links under 2023: Disengagement Reports - California DMV

[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/2023-autonomous-vehicle-disengagement-reports-csv/
[2] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/2023-autonomous-vehicle-disengagement-reports-csvdriverless/

Related, but not linked. Regulations:
[3] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/adopted-regulatory-text-pdf/

No, that document is only for when there is a driver. There is no log of the "fleet response" interventions for driverless Waymos that are public, because Waymo doesn't consider them a disengagement.

Please see [2] above (but also my message below).

You're wrong and owe @Usain an apology. As @MP3Mike notes these DMV reports only cover operations under Waymo's DMV testing permits (which typically have safety drivers). These days Waymo mostly operates under their DMV and CPUC deployment permits. Those reporting requirements are much different, to my knowledge they only report crashes.

If you have any evidence Waymo reports Fleet Response events while operating under their deployment permits, I'd like to see it. I and others have looked, without success.

There's a saying in my country: "if two people tell you you're drunk, you need to go to bed". So @Usain, I pre-emptively apologize if I jumped the gun on this. It seemed pretty clear cut to me (I live in Europe, so maybe you guys have some info that I don't), but that's not an excuse . Please bear with me and tell me how/where I'm wrong. I numbered the links above to make it clear what document I'm referring to.

So, starting from [3], which contains the regulations that define what "disengagement" means. Point 227.50 defines the concept and the reporting associated with it. Now @Doggydogworld , from what I can see under [1] and [3], there's a lot of Waymo vehicles that operate under the DMV permits and there seems to be a mix of driverless and "with test driver" reported as per DMV regulations. Now, even considering the different reporting regulations for the CPUC vs DMV (which I'm not clear on yet), there is still, in my opinion, enough information in the DMV reports to be able to compute a "miles driven between disengagements under city conditions" for Waymo. It might not be all the vehicles, but it's over ~250 of them.

 

[ShareLofty]

Unfortunately it looks like the stock market is starting to price in the loss of the federal EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing credits. If we lose these credits , end buyer costs will go up on the model Y in the USA and our current sales volumes will be hard to keep. The law does not even need to be repealed, the next administration could change the administrative rules and make them impossible to get or easily turn full credits into half credits.

Losing the EV tax credit doesn’t matter. Elon isn’t interested in selling cars going forward

 

[aubreymcfato]

Nice May number from China, we're basically on par with 2023 (-1%).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1800499278059647409

 

[hobbes]

I laughed too soon

https://twitter.com/x/status/1800275405762609509

You did see this is from a parody account?

 

[CitizenKane]

Can't the guy blow off a little steam?

You mean the guy who feels he needs to be paid 50 billion?

 

[Webeevdrivers]

You did see this is from a parody account?

What is a parody account?

 

[Maarten]

Losing the EV tax credit doesn’t matter. Elon isn’t interested in selling cars going forward

So obvious that it makes it easy.
One more on ignore.

 

[CitizenKane]

Tesla is building the Semi. Elon doesn't have to post about it every day to make this more real.

I see similar posts on X after Elons livestream: "How does he have time to play games?"
The man works a lot more than most. Don't judge how he spends his free time.

BTW Elons livestream was full of interesting tidbits for his viewers. Here is a great writeup on X.

Regarding Tesla Elon said the following:

TESLA/OPTIMUS
Elon sincerely THANKED Tesla shareholders for voting multiple times.

"We are not going to do a Tesla phone."

"Your Tesla will be able to pick up food for you, or go anywhere you tell it."

Once Tesla cars are self-driving, Elon explained to a fellow gamer, that is when you'll be able to look at your phone or play a game in the Tesla. Currently, he said, "we have to disable gaming in the car while driving unless you are in the backseat."

"You can make catgirls real if you have a robot" and Optimus will be able to teach kids anything OR pick them up from school. It will support any language too."

"We could make a robot puppy, what really matters is a humanoid robot though."

One listener suggested the name "byte" for the Tesla robot puppy.

"I think everyone is going to have an Optimus, maybe more than one."

"The ratio in the future will be 2 to 10 humanoid bots for every human."

"Optimus will cost maybe $20 - $30K and cost less than a car"

"We're less than 24 months away from AGI, where its smarter than a human."

"The man works a lot more than most." Most people don't expect 50 billion in compensation though.

I'd like to see Musk execute first and talk later. When I read those quotes it just reminds me of all the past quotes about when robotaxis were due and when Level 5 would be achieved, how solar roofs would be an important part of Tesla or what the future price for Tesla cars would be. I get that you want to have ambitious goals internally but communicating those to the market and then having to back down is not how to build confidence.