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

[hobbes]

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Worth repeating if it’s already been posted.
Very good comparison of where ICE is going and where Tesla is going

Model 3 sold 22% more than BMW 3 series !

 

[TN Mtn Man]

Yep lots of progress in the field of prosthetics. I saw the other one you posted as well. I sold corporate IG solutions and learned an amazing amount from many clients, from tunnel boring to tires, to fuel injectors to bananas to robots. t was then that I learned how hard it was. It's hard. Skin, it turns out, is amazing; combined with muscles and tendons and bone the hand is just amazing. That was my big takeaway over 7 years ago. If something had happened where a robot had practical hand movement, dexterity, partial speed, and tactile sense it would be ground breaking and well reported.

The issue isn't the NN models. The issue is the hand. Look at what Boston Dynamics does.
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The hand has been a target for decades. Longer than NNs. The rubicks cube thing you posted was solved years ago by a robot...not using hands at blinding speed. The hands add complexity to the NN for sure but it is really the other stuff that I understand to be an issue...at least it was years ago.

You made me look but I'll stand by everything I've said on the bot.

One of the USA's leading researchers:

We Can Do Better Than Human-Like Hands for Robots

Robotic hands can take advantage of extra degrees of freedom to do all kinds of things human hands can’t

spectrum.ieee.org

That's just 1 approach, there are lots like it. We have lots of research in the USA at places like MIT, Carnegie, Stanford etc but not so much success at scale. Korea is full of robotic companies and I suspect actual practical solutions to emerge from there or China. It is not, as you intimate, a field in which I know nothing. I know enough to say...whoa. I don't believe it. EVs I believed in and spent $100k on studies to see if I should launch an EV firm back in 2006, thank goodness I stopped there. FSD I view as inevitable, I think Tesla will get there first but I don't think it will be so soon and I am not at all sold on robotaxis- the more I see Tesla challenges on getting sufficient SC up and going and on solar side of things the more I feel that robotaxi may best be done by a third party that is more service oriented.

Tesla has not revolutionized solar. I don't see that they have any particular competency in robotics to say they'll solve a problem others have struggled to solve. It's not rockets where we knew we could launch and land a rocket upright. It was doing so profitably. It's not EVs. The auto industry began with EVs. It is not boring where lots of companies can bore a tunnel, they just made really large tunnels. Boston Dynamics and others are full of really smart people...and they haven't solved the hand problem ...yet. Somebody will. I just would agree with that researcher that says in 20-50 years. But what does he know vs a poster on TMC?

The company I recently retired from designed and engineered a lot of products for top universities and national labs. We've sold to MIT, Carnegie and Stanford (regularly with the last) and I've visited a few. These universities have brilliant people working there, no doubt. But most professors spend their time directing grad students, writing and managing grant requests, basically managing people and processes. The students doing the work are usually young with little real-world experience. I bring this up only because, simply because a university hasn't completely solved a problem or "industrialized" it, doesn't mean that it can't be done. That's why I wasn't too impressed when Missy Cummings attacked Musk and Tesla (particularly when she makes mean, personal attacks). She likely had a couple grad students working on the problem. I have no idea how big Tesla's FSD/AI team is, but I'd hazard a guess that it's a lot more people than any of these universities have working on the problem. And I suspect most of them have far more experience than most grad-school students or post-docs.

I don't want to sound like an attack on the university folks, its not. But I suspect the Tesla team is a lot more focused, larger and more experienced. As you said, Korea, China and I assume Japan has companies working on this. I hope Tesla puts the resources on this and can "bring this home" and really revolutionize the product/capabilities.

 

[Ipe]

Indeed.

Here is a typical street in a European town. It is my street in my town, and the fact that it is in Europe would probably surprise 52% of voters, but that's not my concern. Inhabitants range from pensioners to surgeons, via electricians, engineers, teachers, drug-addicts, chemists. About half are house-owners, half renting. The average house price in this street is precisely the same as the national average. In short this is an utterly average town street. Go into a European (or Asian) large city and it gets a lot more congested.

This is mid-day, mid-week, mid-winter. The street doesn't get any emptier than this all year. All the 3-4 bed terraced houses on the right have a 5m frontage and rely entirely on street parking. Many are 2-car households but the average is probably 1.5 cars/house as some houses have no cars. The houses on the left are 5-7 bed and have off-street parking for ~4 cars each. The streets in this area are absolutely at capacity for parking.

I've drawn a 5m frontage on the wall. The Skoda Roomster with the hidden number plate (not mine) is 4.2m long. A VW Golf mk IV is 4.2m long. A Peugot 107 is 3.4m long. A Tesla 3 is 4.7m long, and a Tesla Y is also 4.7m long. So too is my VW Passat 4.7m long and it is very much more difficult for me to find a parking space in the evening than when I drove a Golf - the extra 0.5m makes for an enormous reduction in the number of available parking space options.

The first Tesla was purchased in this street last month. The owner sold a 3-year old Audi SUV for more than they paid for it, and bought a Tesla model 3. Their commute used to cost them £15 (USD 20) in fuel, now it costs them £1.50. They are fortunate as they own one of the houses with off-street parking and own their garden so can run a cable to their charger - very few people in this street can do this (most either rent their homes and/or are on-street parkers). Doubly fortunate as the nearest Tesla Supercharger is 60-miles away (120-mile round-trip).

Nobody in this street has a 'truck'. The full-size vans are those of visiting trades working on jobs. It would probably be socially unacceptable to try to park a truck (or a full size van) here routinely overnight unless one had a real good reason. The trades who live in the street only park small vans here overnight (4.5m length) though the issue is not just the length but also the width. (Cybertruck is 5.9m long x 2.0m wide.) Trying to get home for supper is no fun if the only parking space is 3m long and you are in a 6m vehicle.

>> Tesla will do a car that is smaller than a 3/Y, if only because their own employees will demand it in Europe/Asia as otherwise they can't park.

>>Tesla will need to massively expand the Supercharger network, if only because their own employees will demand it in Europe/Asia as otherwise they can't charge.


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Your cybertruck will drop you off at the front door and drive itself to a charger in a parking lot at the end of town. Those tiny parking spaces will become a nice broad sidewalk or bicycle path. If not, I will be shocked.

 

[MABMAB]

"Spot", the Boston Dynamics robot dog, sells for $75k per a quick Google search. This just as a reference point for how much companies are willing to pay for a dog with an on/off switch that doesn't need feeding and a regular walk through the park.

Long before Tesla will sell Optimus as a product with warranty and spare parts and all the other strings attached to industrial use, it can leverage it for internal purposes, iterating and improving rapidly.

What companies have purchase such a dog?

 

[EVMeister]

I almost forgot there were other threads in the Investor Discussion section. Wish I had.

Guilty for having too much money or how to drop your stock price in one easy lesson!

Elon Musk tried to distract the market with plans for a shiny new Tesla robot. It backfired horribly I am not a Tesla Boi and neither am I anti-Tesla (my seventh one is about to be delivered), but the recent earnings call was grossly disappointing. I am a realist. Musk's autistic and bipolar...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[JustMe]

The company I recently retired from designed and engineered a lot of products for top universities and national labs. We've sold to MIT, Carnegie and Stanford (regularly with the last) and I've visited a few. These universities have brilliant people working there, no doubt. But most professors spend their time directing grad students, writing and managing grant requests, basically managing people and processes. The students doing the work are usually young with little real-world experience. I bring this up only because, simply because a university hasn't completely solved a problem or "industrialized" it, doesn't mean that it can't be done. That's why I wasn't too impressed when Missy Cummings attacked Musk and Tesla (particularly when she makes mean, personal attacks). She likely had a couple grad students working on the problem. I have no idea how big Tesla's FSD/AI team is, but I'd hazard a guess that it's a lot more people than any of these universities have working on the problem. And I suspect most of them have far more experience than most grad-school students or post-docs.

I don't want to sound like an attack on the university folks, its not. But I suspect the Tesla team is a lot more focused, larger and more experienced. As you said, Korea, China and I assume Japan has companies working on this. I hope Tesla puts the resources on this and can "bring this home" and really revolutionize the product/capabilities.

There’s also something to be said for access to state of the art R&D facilities, unlimited resources, and a unified focus.

Sort of analogous to Bell labs back in the day and the Apollo mission.

 

[H Mak]

And when everyone is fearful, what are we?

All together now ...

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Your cybertruck will drop you off at the front door and drive itself to a charger in a parking lot at the end of town. Those tiny parking spaces will become a nice broad sidewalk or bicycle path. If not, I will be shocked.

Then a Teslabot will give you a piggyback ride up the stairs.

 

[WolfHero]

Woke up with so many new posts on Sunday morning and I thought there were big news like FSD v11 or Canadian FSD beta...... I am really disappointed of the same old robot talks.

 

[Tyler34]

Futures opened flat. After the last 2 weeks, I'll take it

 

[TN Mtn Man]

Futures opened flat. After the last 2 weeks, I'll take it

When I see that in the pre-market lately-I feel the same way. Reminds me of the old song, I think Gorden Lightfoot. "Sometimes, I think it's a shame, when I get feelin' better when I'm feelin no pain."

 

[capster]

It occurs to me that Optimus Subprime will help solve another of Elon’s concerns: Insufficient population growth.

Making people more secure about resources, especially when they are young adults, as well as giving them more free time will naturally lead to increased family size.

edit: Maybe?

 

[Dreadnought]

What companies have purchase such a dog?

SpaceX owns one. IIRC, they check for contamination on landing / crash sites. You might want to check out the case studies on Boston Dynamics' homepage.

 

[Thekiwi]

That's one I don't get. AAPL earnings up 25% YoY, market is pretty saturated, and their stock goes up what, 11%. TSLA earnings up 217% YoY, 30% gross margins auto, highest in industry, and it tanks. Makes no sense to me.

part of it is current trading multiples

AAPL has a PE of only 27x, so any larger than expected growth in the near term is impactful to the stock price immediately.

TSLA on the other hand has a much higher PE multiple which assumes a lot of growth is going to happen, so any better than expected growth in the near term has negligible stock price impact UNLESS it also changes the medium/longer term growth expectations of market participants.

Personally I am more bullish on tesla long term growth after the earnings call - so think the stock price should have moved higher - but I think its a valid argument that many market participants were spooked by Elons comments (or at least how they were reported) about medium term product rollouts that growth expectations were lowered by enough that a sell off eventuated.

 

[Tommy O]

SpaceX owns one. IIRC, they check for contamination on landing / crash sites. You might want to check out the case studies on Boston Dynamics' homepage.

There was a video posted on Twitter of Liv Boeree with one at giga Berlin months ago. Can’t seem to find it, because I don’t recall if there was any text attached to the tweet that would be searchable.

So maybe Tesla owns one, too?

 

[Discoducky]

After watching James's video, it's pretty apparent that 2022, 2023 and 2024 are all going to be super difficult for any luxury car brand in the United States.

That chart is going to look really different in two years. Maybe even really different in one year with several falling off.

 

[tslagreen]

The question I am asking to myself: Was the $1200 stock price pricing in the potential start of production of mass market $25,000 EV to destroy completely any new sale of ICE Corollas, Malibus, Golf, etc. Or is the -10% drop the following day just a reaction of wallstreet relative “deceit” of not having a instantly gratifying “roadmap update” from Musk announcing factories to be operational immediately and faster production like happened to the Model Y?

The $25,000 EV was not on my radar and I did not factor it at all in this earnings call. Not that my opinion matters. Likewise, I did not hear much chatter pre-earnings from other TMC members. Now it is all the rage, lol.

 

[jbcarioca]

I do worry about these things. As the transition starts to significantly impact petro-profits, what will the reaction be? So far, (we speculate) it has consisted of rather covert media and stock market manipulation -FUD and damage to company and personnel reputations.

But could things get more overt? The attacks by politicians on Elon and the hostility of the current US administration towards Tesla could have other motivations, but I find it worrisome. What’s next? Physical violence toward Tesla facilities and personnel?

Sorry, quarantined with the o, so have too much time to think.

Just a few days ago several friends from the Middle East and I were having just that discussion. All of us are Tesla fans, including those who are in countries Tesla does not currently serve. The risks are real. Not just for Tesla but for traditional participatory government as well. The risk to Tesla stems form the very tight political; connection to the fossil fuel industry. I feel a bit like a conspiracy theorist on all this, so have avoided these subjects until now. Seeing the deep seated manipulation of TSLA has caused me to revise my views.

 

[StealthP3D]

The question I am asking to myself: Was the $1200 stock price pricing in the potential start of production of mass market $25,000 EV to destroy completely any new sale of ICE Corollas, Malibus, Golf, etc. Or is the -10% drop the following day just a reaction of wallstreet relative “deceit” of not having a instantly gratifying “roadmap update” from Musk announcing factories to be operational immediately and faster production like happened to the Model Y?

It's not really relevant why people bid the stock up to $1200 when we know it's worth much more in the future. It's good enough to know that there was more demand for shares than supply so the price was bid up until that was no longer the case.

But, if people bid the price up because they thought Tesla was going to grow production faster than the 70-90% growth we are looking at, or that making X number of $25K cars was going to be more profitable than making X number of $50K cars, then that would have been sheer stupidity. Because upmarket cars are consistently much more profitable than $25K cars. Even if the margins were the same, which would be unlikely, a $50K car will make trice as much as a $25K car. And Tesla made it clear during the call that they could not make any more cars if they decided to make the $25K car. They are growing production as fast as their supply of chips allow them to grow production and selling as many Models 3 and Y as they can make as far as the eye can see.

If you don't know why the share price dropped then one thing is certain: there is no single reason why. The market has its own personality and hundreds of things contribute. If there was a single reason why, it would be obvious. About a week before earnings were released, I mentioned that TSLA share price has a long history of responding to blow-out earnings by declining or languishing. That it can take the market a number of days or weeks to process and respond logically. In keeping with my belief that markets are largely unpredictable I recognized that they may or may not happen this time. Well, guess what? It happened again and it will take an unknown amount of time to correct the mispricing. I'm thinking it might not take long.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I think it's been long enough, can we initiate a ban after today on earnings call whining? And maybe create a robot feasibility and value thread/forum?

Some of us are busy counting the billions in earnings from automotive manufacture plus looming energy services and don't wanna be distracted!