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

[Baumisch]

In Jordan's new video on Etherloop he gets a lot right, but also misuses some standard terms (which is fine and maybe easily overlooked or benign)

Very short summary on the Etherloop: Generalized redundant hardware with guaranteed virtualized specific and unique necessary dynamically allocated resources.

Another way to say it: Two identical Etherloop compute hubs which are, in effect, like data centers or virtualized compute clusters.

Or another way: Take all the uniqueness and differences of the controller hardware and instantiate it into software or simplify the design to work with existing software.

Or think about it like an equation: Add up all the compute of all the controllers, all the memory, networking and power needs, redundancy, control loop, stability and reboot cycle time requirements. Take the lowest common denominator of all those and build one hub to operate and meet those requirements.

This looks like a data center, with a server, that instantiates a set of virtualized resources, managed by a trusted hypervisor, that boots into dedicated resources, with a dedicated operating system, which can execute commands with guaranteed results.

Why do this? It enables unboxed, saves a ton of money on hardware, cuts down on weight, manufacturing time, allows for all issues to be software issues thus allowing for faster break/fix cycles.

Why hasn't this been done before? You'd need to first have the vision of doing this, hire the right people and put a crazy amount of faith that it could be pulled off as it is a boat load of software engineering at the lowest levels of compute.

Etherlopp is great, much better than can from bandwidth perspective.
In house controllers are awesome , software defined vehicle ftw ... BUT


Seeing the video I was thinking how much effort would it be for Ford to "just license fsd" for a future fortd car.

Tesla is on a hole different hardware and abstraction layer than the hole industry - which is awesome, but does this mean fsd is exclusive as of dependencies?

Explains a bit why cybertruck fsdb was late, the architecture is vastly different than the can based cars before ....

Just food for thought

 

[Knightshade]

No, I literally didn't.

I quoted you using em man. Twice.

I was trying to compare two companies, saying that they are, at the moment, playing different sports, especially in terms of volume. To do that, I picked (wrongly) the latest annual cumulative P&D for both.

You also wrongly picked comparing one only two years into production to one 11 years into it.

And also got the amazon thing entirely wrong.

And tried to use the fact they're still doing cap raises (despite Tesla doing them even further away in years from founding than Rivian is doing) as a talking point.

And now deny you said this stuff and accuse me of bringing it up? Despite me citing YOU saying these things?

*you chose* those two underlying metrics

No, I quoted you choosing therm. I literally cited YOUR words about the cap raises and the production numbers.

you continue to play with numbers that no one mentioned (or even cared for).

Third time now- I quoted YOU and replied to YOUR words.

Here's YOU citing the Rivian 2-years-into-mass-production number.

in 2023, they produced 57232 vehicles and delivered 50122.

And I pointed out that's significantly higher than Tesla produced 2 years into mass production.

I even tried to help you out by suggesting the (many more) metrics by which Rivian at this point (both years of production and years since founding) were behind Tesla-- but instead you want to.... deny you ever said the original stuff where Rivian actually looks good in comparison to Tesla at the same point?


Not sure what hill you think you're dying on, but it's not a productive one....but if you REALLY wanna keep doing... whatever this is... about Rivian there's a whole thread dedicated to em:

Rivian

Tesla really needs to buy Rivian. They desperately need more products. Rivian has them. Rivian needs cash. Tesla has that. The product portfolios complement each other. It seems like a no brainer to me.

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[jeewee3000]

Just installed Autopark in the EU on my 2023 no USS Model Y - software updates set to Advanced. Out of the blue!

 

[rolfrenz]

Just installed Autopark in the EU on my 2023 no USS Model Y - software updates set to Advanced. Out of the blue!
View attachment 1060067

Same on my 2019 USS M3 in Austria…

 

[Snerruc]

Perhaps some of the jump today comes from Consumer Reports saying Tesla had the lowest cost of repair over 10 years.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I quoted you using em man. Twice.




You also wrongly picked comparing one only two years into production to one 11 years into it.

And also got the amazon thing entirely wrong.

And tried to use the fact they're still doing cap raises (despite Tesla doing them even further away in years from founding than Rivian is doing) as a talking point.

And now deny you said this stuff and accuse me of bringing it up? Despite me citing YOU saying these things?



No, I quoted you choosing therm. I literally cited YOUR words about the cap raises and the production numbers.




Third time now- I quoted YOU and replied to YOUR words.

Here's YOU citing the Rivian 2-years-into-mass-production number.



And I pointed out that's significantly higher than Tesla produced 2 years into mass production.

I even tried to help you out by suggesting the (many more) metrics by which Rivian at this point (both years of production and years since founding) were behind Tesla-- but instead you want to.... deny you ever said the original stuff where Rivian actually looks good in comparison to Tesla at the same point?


Not sure what hill you think you're dying on, but it's not a productive one....but if you REALLY wanna keep doing... whatever this is... about Rivian there's a whole thread dedicated to em:

Rivian

Tesla really needs to buy Rivian. They desperately need more products. Rivian has them. Rivian needs cash. Tesla has that. The product portfolios complement each other. It seems like a no brainer to me.

teslamotorsclub.com

No man, maybe you brain is wired differently but... I don't deny to have written the stuff that I wrote. I know I did.
But I was replying to a poster that implied we are here too pro-tesla and biased against Rivian, and the recent news is great, ad that our comments are "head in the sands".
And to do that I wrote "hey, Rivian has sold X cars in 2023 and Tesla has sold 30X, they don't play the same sport. And also Rivian always asks for money": I just loosely comparing 2 companies.

Then you came with a tackle with
1. number of years since mass production
2. number of years with cap raises/funding

Which are related to the letter of what I said but not really the spirit of what I said. Why not "number of years from foundation"? "rate of annual growth"? "number of years from first 1 billion raised"?
These are but two about the many possible metrics you can chose to really compare two companies at different stage of maturity.
You are being very very literal.

Anyway, I have no hill to die on, I hope Rivian makes it, their cars seem nice.
I'll wait for them to grow 10x before worrying about them. Now you can have the last word.

 

[WolfHero]

Not that I'm minding the gradual run up today for TSLA, but has there been any tangible news today to prompt this? Seems like there was massive buying right out of the gate, the money makers got a lid on it after a bit but its been gradually creeping up ever since. Is there a catalyst, or is the moon just in the correct phase tonight?

Positive catalyst: new analyst Stephen Gengaro of Stifel Nicolaus initiated coverage of TSLA with a buy rating and $265 price target yesterday evening.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/w...-the-company-is-simply-without-peers-c5d97953

 

[Xepa777]

I put a lot less credibility into these videos because I know an autonomous driving AI engineer (this guy -

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLQuestions/comments/u30fry/_/i4nvj3s

) who's very smart on Reddit and offered to debate these two publicly but they declined and blocked him. @DaveT you should re-consider this. Echo chambers are bad man.

If Rob can have GORDON JOHNSON on his channel, you two can talk to someone with actual credentials and have an intellectual clash of credibile theories of thought.

Oh look, 2 years later and no FSD/robotaxi solved. Color me surprised that James Duoma the bullshit artist was overhyping on progress.

 

[sunwarriors]

I think it's fair to say Tesla is treated quite differently by Chinese media and by the Chinese government (which ate essentially synonymous) than they have historically been in the US .

This is no surprise when Elon has to do whatever the CCP demands, that and he said Taiwan should just go back to China. It's not surprising he is treated "well" by the Chinese government.

Taiwan tells Elon Musk it is 'not for sale'

Mr Musk draws anger from Taipei again for his comments saying the island belongs to China.

www.bbc.com

Elon Musk wades into China and Taiwan tensions

The billionaire wins China's praise for comments but Taipei says freedom is "not for sale".

www.bbc.com

Maybe he can get China to allow X in the country eventually with no censorship? Free speech right?


On the Rimac Taxi news, they have been profitable with their Bugatti JV for awhile and I've read they also work with many other automakers:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a42120788/rimac-bugatti-profitable-beyond-expectations/

BMW Group and Rimac Technology agree long-term partnership.

+++ Leading premium manufacturer and young, tech-focused company agree a long-term, strategic collaboration in the area of fully electric drive technology +++ Their shared goal is to create innovative solutions for the high-voltage batteries in future selected vehicle projects +++

www.press.bmwgroup.com

Not saying they will win, but if Europe wants to go with a Europe player and help succeed for Europe/their own benefit, Rimac seems like a good company to partner with.


If the 8/8 RT reveal is as bad as that dancing person in a suit, that would be a big letdown. Investors should watch that Rimac video in the previous page. Probably much more comfortable than a low/hard to get in M3 with what looks like a pretty far along prototype/app/package.

 

[Todd Burch]

Your 1st point said they didn't look at cost savings at all which was totally wrong here which makes it look like you had no clue really other than spouting incorrect info (positive FUD).

You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. I did not say “they didn’t look at cost savings at all.” What I said was that instead of focusing on cost savings (R1 isn’t making them money) they got an infusion of cash, which will make them less likely to drive for cost reduction with the intensity that Tesla did. You can claim tons of cost reductions with future vehicles, but the reality is that those are future vehicles not in production yet. One cannot rest on laurels that don’t yet exist. Surviving the auto startup stage, which Rivian is still very much entrenched in, is a game of pennies. I don’t see Rivian playing that game well enough with the R1, and my whole point is that more cash available means there’s less urgency to cut costs.

Similar to how posters don't like incorrect information posted, you were posting totally incorrect info so I called it out.

Glad to have you quote what precisely I said that you believe was incorrect.

As I state again, Rivian needed $$.

Yep. Why? Because rather than focusing on driving down costs on their first vehicle to make a profit, they started working on other vehicles and building other factories. I believe this was a fiscal management mistake. History is littered with auto startups that couldn’t even get their first vehicle profitable, and Rivian went in to steps 2, 3, and 4 without proving success with step 1.

You are welcome to disagree with what I said, which is an opinion.

With regard to valuation which you like to bring up, you seem to completely disregard Tesla’s multiple other current (energy, charging) and future (robotaxi, FSD licensing, Optimus) revenue streams. You simply compare delivery numbers and seem to think a company that delivers x times the number of cars should have x times the valuation.

Rookie mistake.

 

[sunwarriors]

You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. I did not say “they didn’t look at cost savings at all.” What I said was that instead of focusing on cost savings (R1 isn’t making them money) they got an infusion of cash, which will make them less likely to drive for cost reduction with the intensity that Tesla did. You can claim tons of cost reductions with future vehicles, but the reality is that those are future vehicles not in production yet. One cannot rest on laurels that don’t yet exist. Surviving the auto startup stage, which Rivian is still very much entrenched in, is a game of pennies. I don’t see Rivian playing that game well enough with the R1, and my whole point is that more cash available means there’s less urgency to cut costs.


Glad to have you quote what precisely I said that you believe was incorrect.

Yep. Why? Because rather than focusing on driving down costs on their first vehicle to make a profit, they started working on other vehicles and building other factories. I believe this was a fiscal management mistake. History is littered with auto startups that couldn’t even get their first vehicle profitable, and Rivian went in to steps 2, 3, and 4 without proving success with step 1.

You are welcome to disagree with what I said, which is an opinion.

With regard to valuation which you like to bring up, you seem to completely disregard Tesla’s multiple other current (energy, charging) and future (robotaxi, FSD licensing, Optimus) revenue streams. You simply compare delivery numbers and seem to think a company that delivers x times the number of cars should have x times the valuation.

Rookie mistake.

I think what you post is wrong. I've seen videos/reports that the new R1, available now/immediately, has cut a fairly large amount of the cost to build. Maybe I can look it up if I see it or someone can share so yes, they are focusing on cost savings for the R1. The cash infusion is to allow them to get to building the R2.

There are definite cost savings. I remember a number in the 30% range, maybe it was on an out of spec video, but no, it's not my opinion that costs were cut on R1:

Rivian’s R1 vehicles are getting a gut overhaul — here’s what’s new

The R1 vehicles may look the same, but everything’s changed.

www.theverge.com

I guess we'll see in the future and who's eventually right.

 

[Todd Burch]

I think what you post is wrong. I've seen videos/reports that the new R1, available now/immediately, has cut a fairly large amount of the cost to build. Maybe I can look it up if I see it or someone can share so yes, they are focusing on cost savings for the R1. The cash infusion is to allow them to get to building the R2.

It is an opinion, and therefore cannot “be wrong”. I am stating an opinion that they have not cut costs enough.

35% is great. But they started way in the hole, and it probably isn’t enough.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Not that I'm minding the gradual run up today for TSLA, but has there been any tangible news today to prompt this? Seems like there was massive buying right out of the gate, the money makers got a lid on it after a bit but its been gradually creeping up ever since. Is there a catalyst, or is the moon just in the correct phase tonight?

One more catalyst for the hat. 10 FSD vehicles approved in China for the pilot. From Lars video I saw on another machine. Sounded encouraging.

 

[advocate8]

The problem of flat tires is all but extinct East of the Mississippi?

Yup, in my sample size of … uh…. Me!
Point being generally though that tires are pretty good these days and that robo tire doesn’t look like it solves much.
Flats aren’t nearly as big an issue ans they were ans recently ans the 1980s …and a serious hazard will kill that thing about as easily as a standard tire and clearly the tread will wears down same way.
Looks like it would have issues in heavy side loads… rolling resistance a bear to tune for different vehicle weights, etc
There’s a reason it’s been in development so long and may just stay there.

 

[Thekiwi]

China Production # for May: 67,309

 

[InTheMiddle]

Heard this on the local radio yesterday. Not once was Tesla mentioned. I thought it was a different supplier from the sounds of it.

WHAT?
"The utility aims to reduce emissions (from 2005 levels) by more than 65 percent by 2035 and 90 percent by 2050. As a part of that plan, SRP will have retired approximately 2,600 MW of coal-fired generation by 2032."

Edit: Coal? They use gas peaker plants, in Coolidge, new ones too! Maybe a mistype or ?

Likely correct, not a typo. Even with the Navajo Generating Station having been retired in 2019, et al, Arizona still has multiple coal powered plants currently operating. The recent solar and battery plants being brought on to allow retiring these coal plants is an ongoing process and will be for another decade. Solar + batteries allows for retiring baseload coal plants, not just peaker gas plants…in fact, under some circumstances the environmental and cost savings are greater when being able to retire baseline coal plants.

Here is a ready list of SRP’s generation plants (both fully owned and partially owned plants).

SRP Generation Plants

Wikipedia article with some planned AZ coal power plant retirement dates

Very exciting times for AZ seeing solar and battery coming online!

(Also, happy to report that Tesla did finally complete the solar-panels-plus-PowerWall installation at my sister’s house in AZ - a tad bit smaller than the utility-scale sites in the article. End to end it took 16 months primarily due to various Tesla issues / inflexibility, but it’s now online and generating, so I’ll focus on the…*sunny* side that it’s now done!))

 

[Prunesquallor]

Finally a fun and entertaining day on here. So much news swirling about and the quarter is about to end. Consider me entertained, keep it coming.

Me too!

 

[dhanson865]

That jump at 9:45 this morning was pretty steep, and then the stock was on an upward climb until just before the end of trading.

 

[GatorMeat]

Not that I'm minding the gradual run up today for TSLA, but has there been any tangible news today to prompt this? Seems like there was massive buying right out of the gate, the money makers got a lid on it after a bit but its been gradually creeping up ever since. Is there a catalyst, or is the moon just in the correct phase tonight?

no Q end inventory discounts

 

[GOVA]

The pure genius of Elon buying Twitter will not be fully understood in a thousand of years due to the lack of humans understanding.

BTW, nobody was whining when Bezos bought WP, which is close to WC.