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

[StealthP3D]

EV Sales: Norway June 2020

Will this be remedied by September or will it require Model Y?

The problem with monthly country-specific sales data when it comes to Tesla is they don't have a bunch of stock sitting on sales lots. Because they are production limited. That means they send batches of production to areas that make the most sense based on a host of other factors. The sales data will be extremely lumpy due to this fact.

The bottom line is monthly sales figures for any local are all but worthless for comparison purposes. There are US states bigger than Norway (no offense to the Norwegians).

 

[powertoold]

That means they send batches of production to areas that make the most sense based on a host of other factors. The sales data will be extremely lumpy due to this fact.

Tesla is also a data company. They want more cars in regions that don't have many (for FSD data collection).

 

[Rammstein]

The stock has risen 50% since I decided to be "smart" and sell a few shares in the low 900s after that run up earlier in the year. I'm not making that mistake again.

Yeah me too. I had my Dad and friends begging me to sell shares on the last run up to 800-900. I sold a small amount. Not going to be listening to them this time. They just don’t understand that Tesla will eventually be a multi trillion dollar company. Current stock price is actually a good deal long term. Why would I sell out now. Especially before Q2 earnings report and Elon is selling short shorts.

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

Waymo has level 4 in some of their arizona taxis, with no human driver present.

All their L4 stuff is heavily geofenced though, so it's a very very different approach than Teslas where they're aiming for a much broader application.







What cred?

He promised cross-country autonomous drive by 2017- then 2018- we're still waiting.

He promised enhanced summon release in 6 weeks- it took just under a year and continues to underwhelm almost another year later.

He promised feature complete FSD by end of 2019- now it's end of 2020 maybe.

He promised Robotaxis working and approved by regulators at least somewhere in the world by end of 2020- and that clearly ain't happening either.


I believe Musk on a lot of stuff. He seems to be especially good on timelines related to actual manufacturing for example.

But FSD timelines ain't one of the things you should put any faith in what he says and he's got years of track record to prove that.




That said- if the market wants to take his "we are super close for reals this time!" comment seriously and bump the stock up- I'm ok with that

Uh oh. Here we go again.

For [no] arguments sake, I totally agree with you - please don't repeat what you just said all over again. It won't make it any more or less true.

I do have to ask though. Why not just state your negativity straight out, and not bother trying to camouflage it with positive nuggets that we all see clearly through?

If your posts are a true reflection of how you feel, I highly recommend you take a short position out immediately (tho I get the feeling you have already).

 

[humbaba]

Basic functionality of level 3 maybe. Level 5 requires the car to make the right decision Everytime or else you don't have the basics. Basic of level 5 is level 5. Any functionality that is not fully mature is designated for lower levels. So the statement Elon made imo is optimistic and has missed his goal.

The "basic functionality" is the foundation, not the complete "thing" all sewed up and ready for use. You make claims that Elon did not, then point out that your claims mean it would be completely done. My apologies, but that is a straw man (however unintentional). Elon did not say those things, you did.

Think of it like this: you are going to make a suit. You get the cloth, the scissors, pins and the pattern. Depending on terms and intentions, this could be viewed as the foundation, but you are obviously not done. You pin the pattern to the cloth, and cut it out with the scissors. Now you have all of the pieces needed for the suit, but you still have to sew them together.

This is the point where I think Elon thinks FSD will be in "2-4 months". The "pieces" here are sign recognition, OCR (or functional equivalent, to get "55" into a speed limit), lane recognition, recognizing other vehicles, pedestrians, etc. The problem here, and why there are such widely varying opinions, is defining what constitutes those pieces that will be "assembled" into FSD.

My opinion is that Elon has again underestimated what is required to address the long tail and they will find that they actually need more capability in the "basic functionality".

Another point is that, unlike sewing a suit, you can't just glue those basic functions together. There are, as you rightly point out, significant issues with decision making. This is not easy and, as no one has done this before, no one really knows how hard it will be to do, or if it can even be done.

Now, if it can be done (and I think improving on typical human driving is definitely possible) then Tesla is clearly in the lead and with the best path forward.

In the end, I doubt we disagree significantly on this, but while I do not think Elon's goal will be reached in this time range I want it to be clear that what he is projecting is less than full FSD.

If none of that squares with your view of FSD, and that you cannot call it "basic functionality" without it being complete then simply recognize that your view differs from Elon's and translate it into terms you can find acceptable. But realize that he is *not* promising functioning FSD, but elements required in order to have functioning FSD.

 

[Nocturnal]

I can't believe I'm buying in this range but here we are. Just a handful of shares and another leap.

Yeah me too. I had my Dad and friends begging me to sell shares on the last run up to 800-900. I sold a small amount. Not going to be listening to them this time. They just don’t understand that Tesla will eventually be a multi trillion dollar company. Current stock price is actually a good deal long term. Why would I sell out now. Especially before Q2 earnings report and Elon is selling short shorts.

Yup. Obviously with hindsight you would have wanted to sell right at $960 in Feb, and then buy back in March when it was in the $400s but that requires a lot of luck, and to be brave. Most of the people who sold on the Jan/Feb run-up said they were waiting for a dip. I'd bet some of my shares that most were too afraid to buy back in March and were just waiting for "it to go lower". I've learned to leave my core shares alone, and I've had to re-learn that a few times. lol Now I "play" with options here and there and use that for trying to swing trade.

 

[StealthP3D]

I'm considering to reduce my TSLA holdings down from the current 50% to 25% of the amount I initially purchased many years ago.

What I'm hearing you saying is you are about to make the same mistake you made when you reduced your Tesla holdings by half the first time. Now you want to do it again. I call errors like this "compounding errors" because the cost of the error continues to grow with time and with appreciation of the underlying asset.

With that said, the current stock rally is putting me in a position where I am within arm's reach of my life financial goals, almost a decade ahead of schedule. The freedom that comes from being in such a position might be greater than potentially losing out on having a relatively ridiculous (hey, I'm middle class) ownership stake in tomorrow's greatest tech behemoth.

If you identify with being middle-class and want to stay that way, well, that could explain why you keep wanting to sell off half your stake every time you have some nice appreciation. While there's nothing wrong with that, you should be aware of what you are doing. Financial advisors are very fond of this kind of thinking.

The desire to "lock in gains" fails to protect future wealth. Ironically, it all but ensures you will never have any. That's why dead investors perform better than the living!

 

[Christine69420]

That could even be related to opening up Superchargers to other car brands via the addition of CCS.

A restaurant/cafe would be at a larger site with more stalls. stalls could either be dedicated as Tesla/Non-Tesla or shared dual purpose stalls. Have enough stalls and the likely inconvenience in waiting for a stall is very low...

Overall the site could be profitable as restaurant/cafe/shop purchases would help.

It also defeats a possible criticism of Telsa that the charging network is a closed system.. if the process involves the addition of a suitable number of additional stalls, Tesla owners will not be inconvenienced.


A likely mix is 50 Tesla's for every Bolt or Taycan... these other brands will provide novelty value, and it is an opportunity for Taycan drivers to buy Tesla merch in the shop ahead of their next vehicle purchase.

Don't think so.

In my country, Norway, we have 5% EVs now. Most of them not Teslas. Still many people choose Tesla because of the charging mess all the other cars have to live with. This is perhaps THE best marketing point Tesla have among other EV owners. IMHO worth a LOT.

Years ago Tesla offered others to participate in building out the supercharger network. But they did not see the point. Now they see the point. But it would cost others $$$$$$ to be part of this system. Tesla would need some of the fortune used to build the chargers back to give up this advantage.

If any of you don't get this then rent a non-TeslaEV for a week and go on a road trip. I did for 3 days. I'll never go back!

 

[StealthP3D]

Speaking of covert bear signals, I've noticed a suspicious drop in the share price repeatedly about 10-15 minutes before the real selling begins. But it only shows up in the daily chart with 1-minute intervals that I get from Schwab (open-high-low-close). These brief down legs really stand out visually because the drop is about 5-10 times the magnitude of surrounding lines.

Speak of the devil!

Is anyone else seeing a sharp drop at 10:51 am? This precedes the cliff that arrives a few minutes later.

 

[Alphacrux]

MMD

 

[Christine69420]

In my opinion (but I haven't checked detail on boats and Norway deliveries) it need boatloads of Teslas for Europe. I'd be interested to see key markets in Europe (Norway, Netherlands and UK?) and see how stock levels are.

On Autotrader there are something like 244 Teslas for sale, 20-40 Model 3 (I forget), but just 3 Long Range.

I don't think potential customers in Europe have been able to get them.

This is what I hear too.

And the Audi e-Tron is in the situation Tesla was in years back when most of the cars were sold in Norway. Tesla has moved past this and sell lots of cars all over Europe. The e-Tron is not very popular outside Norway so the main share of cars are sold here.

 

[Singuy]

The "basic functionality" is the foundation, not the complete "thing" all sewed up and ready for use. You make claims that Elon did not, then point out that your claims mean it would be completely done. My apologies, but that is a straw man (however unintentional). Elon did not say those things, you did.

Think of it like this: you are going to make a suit. You get the cloth, the scissors, pins and the pattern. Depending on terms and intentions, this could be viewed as the foundation, but you are obviously not done. You pin the pattern to the cloth, and cut it out with the scissors. Now you have all of the pieces needed for the suit, but you still have to sew them together.

This is the point where I think Elon thinks FSD will be in "2-4 months". The "pieces" here are sign recognition, OCR (or functional equivalent, to get "55" into a speed limit), lane recognition, recognizing other vehicles, pedestrians, etc. The problem here, and why there are such widely varying opinions, is defining what constitutes those pieces that will be "assembled" into FSD.

My opinion is that Elon has again underestimated what is required to address the long tail and they will find that they actually need more capability in the "basic functionality".

Another point is that, unlike sewing a suit, you can't just glue those basic functions together. There are, as you rightly point out, significant issues with decision making. This is not easy and, as no one has done this before, no one really knows how hard it will be to do, or if it can even be done.

Now, if it can be done (and I think improving on typical human driving is definitely possible) then Tesla is clearly in the lead and with the best path forward.

In the end, I doubt we disagree significantly on this, but while I do not think Elon's goal will be reached in this time range I want it to be clear that what he is projecting is less than full FSD.

If none of that squares with your view of FSD, and that you cannot call it "basic functionality" without it being complete then simply recognize that your view differs from Elon's and translate it into terms you can find acceptable. But realize that he is *not* promising functioning FSD, but elements required in order to have functioning FSD.

The basic of LEVEL 5 require completion. That's the point of that level. So you can say basic of level 3 or even level 4. But the basic of level 5 is on or off, black or white. There are no reliability issues because one of the basic parameters of level 5 is reliability.

 

[Christine69420]

Waymo has level 4 in some of their arizona taxis, with no human driver present.

All their L4 stuff is heavily geofenced though, so it's a very very different approach than Teslas where they're aiming for a much broader application.

Waymo with their Lidar is a virtual Scaletrix system. Only Tesla is FSD.

Scaletrix car tracks were fun growing up - but free range proper radio controlled cars were way better.

 

[StealthP3D]

Speak of the devil!

Is anyone else seeing a sharp drop at 10:51 am? This precedes the cliff that arrives a few minutes later.

The sharp drop I saw at 10:51 has already been erased or "corrected".

 

[TheTalkingMule]

$80-90 MMDs. If you people can't make money in this nonsense.....you shouldn't be a degenerate day trader!

 

[chiller]

There are US states bigger than Norway (no offense to the Norwegians).

Yes, like Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin, Maryland, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, taxes and California.

Actually, you guys have more small states (by population) than I expected!

 

[Nocturnal]

Considering we are talking about Waymo FSD vs Tesla I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I'm not an expert on neural nets or any of this. I do work in tech so I know just enough to realize how little I do know. We live in a real physical world and we can take examples from the longest running NN program ever, life.

Life on Earth has continually adapted and improved for 6 billion or so years. Life has tested all sorts of ways to navigate our physical environment, but one system is dominant. Vision. The surface of our planet is bathed in radiation constantly and life has decided to mostly use the visible spectrum to get around. Yes there are exceptions for animals that live in dark areas such as echo-location among Cetaceans and bats, and electrical impulses like you see in Sharks etc. but those are only used because visible light is not available. Furthermore, human life/cities/streets are all designed to be navigated through vision.

Given that, I don't know why anyone thinks LIDAR is the way forward.

What I'm hearing you saying is you are about to make the same mistake you made when you reduced your Tesla holdings by half the first time. Now you want to do it again. I call errors like this "compounding errors" because the cost of the error continues to grow with time and with appreciation of the underlying asset.



If you identify with being middle-class and want to stay that way, well, that could explain why you keep wanting to sell off half your stake every time you have some nice appreciation. While there's nothing wrong with that, you should be aware of what you are doing. Financial advisors are very fond of this kind of thinking.

Dave Lee put together a nice video on this. I think most of us that truly grew up middle class or lower have to deal with this mindset if we want to truly gain wealth.

 

[Christine69420]

The problem with monthly country-specific sales data when it comes to Tesla is they don't have a bunch of stock sitting on sales lots. Because they are production limited. That means they send batches of production to areas that make the most sense based on a host of other factors. The sales data will be extremely lumpy due to this fact.

The bottom line is monthly sales figures for any local are all but worthless for comparison purposes. There are US states bigger than Norway (no offense to the Norwegians).

Many suburbs have more people than Norways 5.5 mill so no offense taken.

I haven't done any numbers but would guess some markets are more profitable than others for Tesla. Like the Netherlands last year. So it make sense for Tesla to be lumpy.

Besides that someone has to buy those e-Trons. We all want more EVs right - regardless of brand? I believe my fellow Norwegians are taking one for the team. Team Earth.

 

[StealthP3D]

Uh oh. Here we go again.

For [no] arguments sake, I totally agree with you - please don't repeat what you just said all over again. It won't make it any more or less true.

He's very fond of repetition to "prove" his points.

I do have to ask though. Why not just state your negativity straight out, and not bother trying to camouflage it with positive nuggets that we all see clearly through?

If your posts are a true reflection of how you feel, I highly recommend you take a short position out immediately (tho I get the feeling you have already).

Having a much smaller long position than desired is the functional equivalent of being short (in that you want the share price to drop precipitously).

 

[UnknownSoldier]

MMD

I saw that red dip, opportunity to grab some LEAPs haha