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

[jamaatta]

What is so interesting about Optimus? Seriously. It seems like the product where Tesla has the least competitive advantage. There are several other companies doing the exact same approach as Tesla is doing with Optimus, so what's Tesla got here that's special?

This is in contrast to FSD: Tesla has a unique approach (vision-only) and unique access to data (huge fleet of cars). But Optimus has neither of those things. Sure, Tesla's a bigger company than many of the other robotics companies, but they're also late to the game and we don't know how much they're devoting to Optimus specifically.

- AI (based on FSD)
- a HUGE computing power
- already one of/the most sophisticated hand (for example 11 degrees of freedom, coming this year 22 DoF)
-a very short and fast training loop in factories inside the company, internal data collection
-experience in scaling and manufacturing
-easy financing of development

Edit/add:

-less conserns of industrial espionage compared to Chinese humanoid bot developers (would you let the Chinese bot into your factory?)

 

[Buckminster]

I'm probably the biggest Elon fan here but FSD AND Optimus are a done deal. Optimus have an amazing team with probably 50 leaders better than most of us have ever worked with. Elon is irreplaceable but when you have a $375T market cap target you don't need to worry quite so much. I can live with $200T.

The team have Elon's algorithm and crucially believe in it. They will just make a few mistakes along the way. No more than 20% will leave in the unlikely event of Elon going. This 20% are replaceable.

 

[hobbes]

This would seem to run counter to the 1k/week claims, no?

Yeah.. I don´t remember the timing exactly, when were we estimating the 1/k per week and when was the stop of deliveries due to accelerator pedals? Maybe that was what was limiting deliveries in March.

EDIT: I looked it up, both (1000/wk production and accelerator issue) were only in mid-April. So 1000+ sold in March doesn´t impact the 1000/wk production of April.

 

[Carl Raymond]

I just voted my 5000 shares. I didn’t expect it to be so easy.
They’re held by IG.com in Australia. I’ve inquired about voting in past meetings and was told “not possible”.
Turned out they had emailed me the control number for proxyvote.com two weeks ago. Tesla greased some wheels is my assumption. They got this. Elon will get paid. Relax.

 

[alexxs88]

Dojo, Nvidia

D1 is underperforming Nvidia's offerings and wouldn't be competitive when offered as part of a cloud service. Not to mention Tesla hasn't moved an inch towards implementing any sort of cloud as a service solution and doesn't really have the expertise nor can do any sort of integration with existing businesses like Microsoft and Google could do with Azure and GCP.

 

[MartinAustin]

Minor point but for those lamenting the updated & higher price of the Cybertruck, $39,900 in 2019 is ~$48,000 in today's money. So for the base truck to now be priced at $61,000 is still a 27% price hike but not as large as 39-to-61.

Dual motor AWD $49,900 in 2019 is ~$60,000 in today's money. Hiked 33% to $79,900.

Cyberbeast $69,900 in 2019 is ~$84,000 in today's money... hiked 19% to $100,000

OK those are pretty bad price hikes... meanwhile the Model YLR AWD launched at $49,900 in 2020 (~$59,000 today) and is now down in actual price today at $48,000. I'm hopeful the truck prices will be lower by the time my order comes around

 

[NicoV]

Look at this, it should give us a good idea of the Robotaxi dimensios. Just look at the positions of the McGyvered cameras:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791298702251864367

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

I'm probably the biggest Elon fan here but FSD AND Optimus are a done deal. Optimus have an amazing team with probably 50 leaders better than most of us have ever worked with. Elon is irreplaceable but when you have a $375T market cap target you don't need to worry quite so much. I can live with $200T.

The team have Elon's algorithm and crucially believe in it. They will just make a few mistakes along the way. No more than 20% will leave in the unlikely event of Elon going. This 20% are replaceable.

Nope. It will take no time at all for the culture to fall apart. Witness SC team.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

I just voted my 5000 shares. I didn’t expect it to be so easy.
They’re held by IG.com in Australia. I’ve inquired about voting in past meetings and was told “not possible”.
Turned out they had emailed me the control number for proxyvote.com two weeks ago. Tesla greased some wheels is my assumption. They got this. Elon will get paid. Relax.

My experience is that IG have managed to get their act together with proxyvote.com in the past 6 months. I have been offered voting rights on all of my holdings for this first time this season. Yes, I hold other stocks. It is not a crime. (90% value in Tesla tho !)

 

[JusRelax]

@zhongwen2005, one of the Tesla reporters from China, is reporting that companies registered in the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone (Of which Giga Shanghai is a part of) will be given permission to transfer listed data overseas for a one-year pilot program. There is no mention of whether data used for FSD will be a part of this pilot program, but I would guess so since that would most likely be the primary reason for this approval in the first place:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791423455008858444

 

[JusRelax]

Tesla China announces a new promotion providing potential customers with the option of either $0 down or 0% interest on all new Model 3/Y. Offer is good for the rest of Q2:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791295424277459218

 

[NicoV]

30 charging locations planned in Flanders for electric trucks in the next 2 years:

https://www.tijd.be/dossiers/de-verdieping/komende-twee-jaar-30-laadpleinen-voor-e-trucks-in-belgie/10546846

“A European trucker needs to rest for 45min after driving for 4.5 hours. During that time the truck can charge an extra 400km.”

One of those companies will provide chargers with 400kW CCS connections and 600-800kW MCS (Megawatt Charging System) connectors.
There is a pipeline of 125MWh of batteries to be colocated with these chargers.
Pricing will be between 0.4 and 0.5 euro/kWh. Note that this is less than the 0.8 euro/kWh seen in most fast chargers here.
To be competitive with diesel the price should be around 0.2 euro/kWh.
Some transport companies already achieve this on short trajects (<200km) by producing their own solar energy.

 

[Speedr117]

What is so interesting about Optimus? Seriously. It seems like the product where Tesla has the least competitive advantage. There are several other companies doing the exact same approach as Tesla is doing with Optimus, so what's Tesla got here that's special?

This is in contrast to FSD: Tesla has a unique approach (vision-only) and unique access to data (huge fleet of cars). But Optimus has neither of those things. Sure, Tesla's a bigger company than many of the other robotics companies, but they're also late to the game and we don't know how much they're devoting to Optimus specifically.

It's the opposite. Tesla has a massive advantage since it's a high volume Manufacturer! And they make almost all of their own parts, so they are used to producing very specialized parts. Exactly what a new technology is going to need.

All these startups, even successful, will have to figure out how to make a robot in volume (something they've never done before).

 

[2daMoon]

What is so interesting about Optimus? Seriously.

This is in contrast to FSD: Tesla has a unique approach (vision-only) and unique access to data (huge fleet of cars). But Optimus has neither of those things. ... we don't know how much they're devoting to Optimus specifically.

Think of it this way. FSD in cars is intended to replace human drivers.

FSD in humanoid robots is intended to replace humans in a much larger scope of tasks than simply driving. That is what makes Optimus interesting.

Where used, it will increase manufacturing quality, productivity, and reduce costs by doing the boring, repetitive, and dangerous jobs currently being performed by humans. This is orders of magnitude more applications than simply replacing the driver of a car.

You do realize that Optimus shares the FSD hardware and software with the cars, right? Seriously. They are both designed to be robots operating as humans do in an environment designed for humans.

All FSD development applies directly to Optimus development. There is no "contrast" to speak of at all.

Other robot OEMs do NOT have this advantage of an AI development program that has been running for a long time and gathered several orders of magnitude more of data for solving AI specifically applicable to both its robot automobiles and robot humanoid platforms. Add to this Tesla's manufacturing prowess as pointed out by @Speedr117 above.

With this knowledge, now compare the combination of Optimus and the TAAS programs to those of the other robotics companies. Now, we can talk about the stark contrast between Tesla and the others.

 

[alexxs88]

All these startups, even successful, will have to figure out how to make a robot in volume (something they've never done before).

Isn't this exactly what was being said about Tesla though? That they won't be able to manufacture cars as efficiently as the legacy manufacturers. Tesla can't afford to be this arrogant on a market that's just in the process of being developed. There are a lot of companies that have incredibly manufacturing prowess (Apple would be the first one that comes to mind).

You do realize that Optimus shares the FSD hardware and software with the cars, right? Seriously.

I think that's a very big claim to make without proof. It would make no sense to use the same models for both.

 

[Knightshade]

I think it's probably not even a bad thing if Elon takes AGI to XAI. He'll buy server space from Tesla

.... what?

Tesla has no external facing data center service, and it multiple steps from even being capable of offering one.

Meanwhile XAI is actually buying server space from one of the many companies actually offering it.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musks-xai-nears-10-bln-deal-rent-oracles-ai-servers-information-reports-2024-05-14/

Other robot OEMs do NOT have this advantage of an AI development program that has been running for a long time and gathered several orders of magnitude more of data for solving AI specifically applicable for both its robot automobiles and robot humanoid platforms.

How is billions of miles of car driving data applicable for solving general robotics AI for a thing that isn't a car?

All inputs on things like how humans behave around crosswalks, how other cars behave around other cars/objects/people, etc wouldn't be relevant to a walking robot.... and outputs (walking, hand manipulations, etc) would all be entirely different outputs/controls than what the car does- and with vastly more needed precision... if your car parks 25 mm further or nearer an object it's not an issue-- if your robot hand misses a fine motor control thing by 25mm it's a complete failure.

I mean there'd be SOME overlap in things like generally recognizing objects exist and they're X distance away, but that's not an especially hard AI issue and tons of folks have solutions that do that without Teslas data....And Optimus cameras/speed/etc are all different locations than the car...

So I don't see the 'billions of miles of driving data' thing being nearly the massive advantage for optimus development that it is for FSD development.

You do realize that Optimus shares the FSD hardware and software with the cars, right? Seriously. They are both designed to be robots.

They share the same FSD computer... the cameras are different in placement (and I'd expect # in the final product)- and they for sure wouldn't share ALL the same SW as that'd make no sense.

Keep in mind they still don't have basic autopilot working on Cybertruck 6 months after first delivery despite being far more similar to other FSD-enabled cars than Optimus is... so it's not like they just toss the FSD stack onto Optimus and everything works right...

 

[DarkandStormy]

Yeah.. I don´t remember the timing exactly, when were we estimating the 1/k per week and when was the stop of deliveries due to accelerator pedals? Maybe that was what was limiting deliveries in March.

EDIT: I looked it up, both (1000/wk production and accelerator issue) were only in mid-April. So 1000+ sold in March doesn´t impact the 1000/wk production of April.

On the Q1 earnings call (April 23rd), Lars Moravy said, "Cybertruck had a 1K week just a couple of weeks ago."

Assuming the ramp has been somewhat linear, they probably exited March with a ~400/week rate. And then for the week of April 7-13 it suddenly jumped to 1,000/week?

Magic 8 ball says doubtful.

 

[dl003]

I'm probably the biggest Elon fan here but FSD AND Optimus are a done deal. Optimus have an amazing team with probably 50 leaders better than most of us have ever worked with. Elon is irreplaceable but when you have a $375T market cap target you don't need to worry quite so much. I can live with $200T.

The team have Elon's algorithm and crucially believe in it. They will just make a few mistakes along the way. No more than 20% will leave in the unlikely event of Elon going. This 20% are replaceable.

Jerome, JB, Zach, Drew etc... everyone at Tesla seems to have an expiration date, except Elon. It's grueling work, trying to change the world for the better. He's the one constant that people think will always be there no matter what. If he leaves now, Tesla will become a house of cards. We'll have a new CEO every couple of years. Watch. Stock will crash like never before.

 

[GatorMeat]

Anyone that's invested in TSLA for the long term and is voting no for Elon's compensation is a total moron.


No Elon means no Optimus which means no trillion dollar+ market cap with TSLA.


Emotions have distorted morons logical thoughts. Unreal.


Imagine what happens to the stock if Elon leaves. Stock drops significantly. Tesla stays just a car company and Optimus develops probably at xAI.


Again, anyone voting no is a total moron. Just sell your shares now because you're infected with a mind virus.


Go invest in Fisker and Lucid instead. Their CEO's land rockets on drone ships in the ocean and bought Twitter to preserve free speech for all.


Oh... wait....

Mr. 'Free Speech' Elon fought for me to be able to voice my free speech and Vote No.

 

[2daMoon]

Jerome, JB, Zach, Drew etc... everyone at Tesla seems to have an expiration date, except Elon. It's grueling work, trying to change the world for the better. He's the one constant that people think will always be there no matter what. If he leaves now, Tesla will become a house of cards. We'll have a new CEO every couple of years. Watch. Stock will crash like never before.

You seem to have left out the alternative where Elon continues to work toward reaching the goals that he's dedicated his life to.

Not that this is relevant to your aptitude for maintaining a bias toward a negative outlook.

For those preferring more balance in the things that shape their attitude this consideration may be useful.