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

[SOULPEDL]

But also, this is what I've been saying Tesla should do. Roll it out fast, before it's really "ready".

They don't actually need a rock-solid use case to start selling the bots. They just need to get it in the hands of hobbyists, researchers, and R&D staff at companies. If you give them the tools to train the bots, use cases will be found.

It's just like the early days of home computers. They couldn't do much useful stuff except play games. But hobbyists started programming them and they came up with useful apps like word processors and spreadsheets.

I'm ready, and would even forfeit CyberTruck, but seems like a long shot so early for Joe public.
I don't know if banks will loan for a Robot (no life expectancy yet), so cash needed.
I will be the first to sign up if made available. I have yard work, pool training, dog sitting, my own factory... all sorts of jobs waiting for Optimus.

 

[unk45]

I've driven in Fla, it's dangerous with their limited access freeways (Chuck's ULT is all over that State). Just yesterday, my son wrecked a historic Chevy PU from someone doing a left turn at an intersection. (I'd post the pic, but it won't work most likely.)

Maybe it's the safety part that sells Tesla in Fla. Older crowd - do you notice?

Since I regularly drive in Europe, Florida and Rio de Janeiro I'm very cognizant of differences. I find Florida to be the most difficult primarily due to the number of truly amazingly ignorant tourists and apparently non-trained drivers. Rio de Janeiro has denser traffic and less compliance with traffic rules but it is very predictable. In the EU one always sees the plates, which give excellent behavioral clues.

The Tesla buyers in Florida I know seem mostly enamored of never entering Florida gasoline stations. Even in condominiums everyone has their own charging. That surprised me. I thought there would be more typical motivations. I know YMMV.

FWIW, my next door neighbor in Rio has two Volvo Recharges and I have one. Both of us, and everyone else we know desperately wants Tesla! However, BYD is singularly changing and accelerating BEV adoption here, mostly Seals and Dolphins, not so much Dolphin Mini/Seagull that is so discussed.

 

[EVMeister]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lucid-signs-deal-raise-1-bln-saudis-pif-affiliate-2024-03-25/

Luxury electric automaker Lucid said on Monday it had signed a deal to raise $1 billion in funding from an affiliate of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), sending its shares up 20% before the bell.

Funding secured!

 

[scaesare]

The chart colors are the same colour because I was too lazy to properly configure the chart. You can configure your own on Explore — Elia Open Data Portal
It’s actually very nice that Elia (the Belgian grid operator) exposes all kinds of data for free to the public. I wrote my own smart charging software using those predictions.
I’m not a nuclear power plant specialist, so I can’t explain why it’s not possible to switch off nuclear power plants, but apparently it is (either for technical or economical reasons).
The cheapest way to take advantage of such a situation is demand steering, but it is still a relatively unknown area for EV owners. If you have a Tesla it’s just some software, even if you have a dumb home charger. The not so cheap way is using batteries, and for the moment on a home scale it’s hard to justify economically. But on a grid scale we’re installing a lot of batteries in the near future.

Well it is possible to shut down a nuclear plant (otherwise you'd be screwed for things like maintenance). However, nuclear plants are considered "baseload" generation, and the issues is long shutdown and startup times, and relatively slow ability to throttle, as well as limitation as to how deeply.

There are limits to how fast & deeply you can insert/remove control rods, there's tons of water that needs to get up to temp, generator inertia, pump lag time, etc...

So although it can be done... merely adjusting output can take upwards of several hours... complete shutdown can take days. Far longer than the relatively fast fluctuation of grid demand. Hence, nuclear plants typically run at a steady state, providing the generation necessary at the bottom of the demand curve, and "peaker plants", historically coal, natural gas, etc.... provide the rest.

Fortunately, these days solar+storage has become cheaper than building or operating a coal plant, and thus cost effective to replace much of the peak demand generation...

 

[unk45]

Funding secured!

Do we think the Saudis would rather have had TSLA?

 

[Usain]

Do we think the Saudis would rather have had TSLA?

Yes. But I wonder if they would have purposely slowed Tesla's progress.

 

[Drax7]

Sorry for the bad news, most of the auto manufactures are up today. Some legacy makers up more than Tesla.

It's not FSD take off yet, but I do think the stock has not dipped more with the likely low P & D numbers due to FSD optimism.

One would think the soft quarter would be fully discounted by now, and the positive
Developments in FSD would attract buying.
However It seems buyers are fearful of buying before
The quarterly numbers are released.

 

[CHGolferJim]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lucid-signs-deal-raise-1-bln-saudis-pif-affiliate-2024-03-25/

Luxury electric automaker Lucid said on Monday it had signed a deal to raise $1 billion in funding from an affiliate of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), sending its shares up 20% before the bell.

= a slight reduction in bankruptcy risk

 

[Jim Holder]

Does this mean Morgan Stanley is done
accumulating

“Morgan Stanley reiterates Tesla as overweight Morgan Stanley said it’s standing by its overweight rating on the stock. “We know it’s very hard to imagine today… but we eventually expect to potentially see a load of new product coming out of Tesla and expect the stock to eventually price this in well ahead of their respective launches.

“Tesla may be witnessing price-cut fatigue with consumers (buyers' strike) and may be testing profitability levels that the company may not find acceptable."

"Such conditions may not significantly improve near-term given the age of Tesla's product line-up," wrote Morgan Stanley. "However, we prefer production cuts to price cuts to help balance supply with demand."

“Today's cuts (and subsequent cost-cutting actions?) are the first signs of what we expect will be an eventual bottoming of consensus earnings estimates," they added. "We (and many of our clients) expect to see a big step down in consensus expectations throughout 1H24."

 

[SOULPEDL]

For those folks waiting to buy TSLA on Q1 Auto production weakness: How did you feel during the first 5 min trading today? Be honest! For a moment, was there something wrong with your own thesis? Did your face curl up briefly as you scratched your hair? Maybe stood up to get some more coffee?

At this point, I don't care so much about Auto Production as there shouldn't be any surprise that this year's challenge is ongoing for the masses. But they appear to be making it up in part with CyberTruck. It's easy to see where this is going. Truck of the year by Christmas?

 

[GOVA]

As I said a few times before, Rocco tests are the ones that show what is happening for me, because although his environment is simple from a road and traffic point of view, is also non standard, usually with poor markings and FSD always screwed up in a bunch of places there, but looks like the tide is turning fast

Rocco? You got me worried a bit buddy.

 

[SOULPEDL]

On that Bot Tech Writer position and timing. It could take a solid 3-6 months to create a draft service manual for Optimus (single person is doing it with some media help, and longer if you're in early to also learn the subject matter and save time for content experts). I'm surprised they don't pull from internal resources that did the Auto service manuals, but maybe those folks only knew cars (or too just busy working on CyberTruck manuals).

Anyway, you don't typically start writing anything until the Design and CAD is stable, otherwise you're simply chasing your own writings and it is wasteful to even start beyond formatting templates or basic outlines. That's my take-away from that job opening.

 

[stealthyc]

For those folks waiting to buy TSLA on Q1 Auto production weakness: How did you feel during the first 5 min trading today? Be honest! For a moment, was there something wrong with your own thesis? Did your face curl up briefly as you scratched your hair? Maybe stood up to get some more coffee?

No, I welcomed the opportunity to sell some calls. Still very bullish long term though.

 

[Zaddy Daddy]

For those folks waiting to buy TSLA on Q1 Auto production weakness: How did you feel during the first 5 min trading today? Be honest! For a moment, was there something wrong with your own thesis? Did your face curl up briefly as you scratched your hair? Maybe stood up to get some more coffee?

At this point, I don't care so much about Auto Production as there shouldn't be any surprise that this year's challenge is ongoing for the masses. But they appear to be making it up in part with CyberTruck. It's easy to see where this is going. Truck of the year by Christmas?

No offense, but this sounds like salesman or real estate agents trying to swindle you into buying something on the premise that this is the LAST CHANCE you get before the train leaves the building.

People should be deciding on investments in a calm, less emotional state of mind.

Tesla is going to report lower than expected deliveries and mediocre earnings, certainly down YoY. Probably not the best time to think stock is definitely going to moon.

As for FSD progress, V12 is certainly looking good, but still far away from robotaxis. I highly doubt institutional investors (who bring the volume to signficantly move the stock) are going to exert heavy buying pressure because a few youtube videos look better.

 

[Tronguy]

Good question, IDK how many work closely with NASA, I'm sure there's a few there.

It’s not a few. SpaceX has been launching rockets like mad from at least two pads, landing at a couple of others, has tugs to pull those barges all over, refurbishes boosters, and has a huge hanger where a lot of this takes place.

And, unlike previous governmental and other commercial launch crowds who always went for the lowest bidder (i.e., firing a contractor who’s been raising salaries over time and all their workers, then re-hiring all the workers under a new contactor with all those who care to stay being hired in at newbie, fresh from college rates, so the standard of living never goes up), the people who work for SpaceX are regular employees. Stock options and all.

You didn’t think that accelerated launch schedule was being done by the equivalent of minimum wage engineers, did you?

 

[NicoV]

Well it is possible to shut down a nuclear plant (otherwise you'd be screwed for things like maintenance). However, nuclear plants are considered "baseload" generation, and the issues is long shutdown and startup times, and relatively slow ability to throttle, as well as limitation as to how deeply.

There are limits to how fast & deeply you can insert/remove control rods, there's tons of water that needs to get up to temp, generator inertia, pump lag time, etc...

So although it can be done... merely adjusting output can take upwards of several hours... complete shutdown can take days. Far longer than the relatively fast fluctuation of grid demand. Hence, nuclear plants typically run at a steady state, providing the generation necessary at the bottom of the demand curve, and "peaker plants", historically coal, natural gas, etc.... provide the rest.

Fortunately, these days solar+storage has become cheaper than building or operating a coal plant, and thus cost effective to replace much of the peak demand generation...

It seems like the French are planning to lower their nuclear output during weekends according to this guy:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772252757174489227

Maybe weekends are long enough to warrant this.

 

[Hiline]

No offense, but this sounds like salesman or real estate agents trying to swindle you into buying something on the premise that this is the LAST CHANCE you get before the train leaves the building.

People should be deciding on investments in a calm, less emotional state of mind.

Tesla is going to report lower than expected deliveries and mediocre earnings, certainly down YoY. Probably not the best time to think stock is definitely going to moon.

As for FSD progress, V12 is certainly looking good, but still far away from robotaxis. I highly doubt institutional investors (who bring the volume to signficantly move the stock) are going to exert heavy buying pressure because a few youtube videos look better.

Agreed. I've sold some shares I bought late last year at a loss, in anticipation of another disappointing earnings release. Will probably be buying back in after Q2 earnings which I also expect to be less than rosy. Only 2 things can save TSLA from further slides this year: Elon Musk holding back from political commentaries, and FSD making a breakthrough.

 

[Discoducky]

April 8th for more details on the first mass produced solid state battery vehicle:

. This could be interesting, but still a wait and see.

 

[capster]

I’ve received my Cybertruck (and there was much rejoicing ) and am astonished by how good it is: It is the best automobile ever made by far.

Without going into my experiences with the vehicle and with quite a few gawkers at this time, I wanted to give the upshot for Tesla shareholders: Tesla is going to sell many, many Cybertrucks and the prices will not be coming down for a long time—it is that good.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I’ve received my Cybertruck (and there was much rejoicing ) and am astonished by how good it is: It is the best automobile ever made by far.

Without going into my experiences with the vehicle and with quite a few gawkers at this time, I wanted to give the upshot for Tesla shareholders: Tesla is going to sell many, many Cybertrucks and the prices will not be coming anytime soon—it is that good.

Just saw a trailer with 3 CT's and a few 3's going up north on interstate 5. For a second, it made me want to email tesla with my holdings to qualify to be bumped up to take delivery of the CT. That lasted a whole 2 minutes until my wife called and reminded me that both kids were going to summer camp this year, school tuition is going up again, and she narrowed down where her and the kids want to vacation this summer.