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

[Prunesquallor]

MMD

Fine, fine. Bought a few at $1353. Jeez.

 

[elasalle]

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.

Those with EVSense (Performance, charging, free upgrades, range) will buy Teslas.
There will always be some who will buy others either for value(Prius etc) or others for brand loyalty, Tesla/EM hate, wanting to stand out ...

Smaller Slice of Bigger Pie ...

 

[ZeApelido]

Yes exactly, that seems to be the current model, but I think they will end up going further. Essentially the code is:

if(NeuralNetDetectsATrafficCone())
{
Do some hard coded C++ avoidance stuff here;
}

And I think thats one level too low. I think the number of edge cases and weirdness is just too massive for any normal software engineering to handle. I reckon that code will end up looking like this:

if(NeuralNetSeesSomethingWeird())
{
neural nets decides what to do here;
}

I get the impression thats what Karpathy wants, but there is likely pushback because its scary as hell. The problem is, the first approach STILL requries humans to anticipate every poissible 'issue' and wriote code to respond. You are *bound* to miss things. Thus the 75%/25% NN/C++ split may be a 'local maxima' where that approach gets you to 99% autonomous but never 100%. They may *have* to switch to pure NN systems to get to 100%. We know a pure NN can do it, because human drivers do it.

It doesnt worry me as an investor though, because the value of Tesla having autopilot at 99% FSD is still HUGE, so they can ride out that cash for however long it takes them to go 99-100%.

Disclaimer: Teslas coding team know way, way more about this than me, obviously.

Yes they are constantly replacing more and more of the code with various neural nets. All part of the "Software 2.0" analogy Karpathy has talked about.

I'm actually doing the same thing with our computations in my company (obviously a bit less complicated than self-driving ). Replacing hand-crafted calculations with neural nets that come up with the same predictions. This may sound useless at first, but it make it faster to scale when you want to do anything else. Want to come up with new features? Easy to train on new hand-crafted ones. Easy to learn on data to come up with ones you hadn't thought of. Plus neural nets are really just a bunch of matrix math which makes it easy to port and deploy. No need to manage all these fancy packages and dependencies.

 

[Knightshade]

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.

.... why would I?

U
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?

Are you high or something?

Someone (incorrectly) said Waymo only had level 3.

I corrected them with the fact they have level 4 (but in a way that, unlike tesla, is HEAVILY georestricted).


How you jump from that to OMG YOU ARE A SECRET NEGATIVE NELLY is....batshit crazy to be honest.

If you don't like facts there's always Fox news for ya.

U
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).

Dude. My actual post was pointing out Teslas intent is to operate in way way more places than Waymos system is capable of

That's the opposite of what you seem to be making up in your head that I "feel"


If you believe any of my facts to be incorrect- by all means please correct them (with sources please).

If you want to just keep making up arguments I never made and being mad at them instead, please spare us.

 

[lazybot]

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.

I made the same mistake of selling about 10% of my position in the high 800's. I had been a buy and hold but after going through the ups and down and reading all the trades other people had made I thought I should probably sell some and buy back more when it drops back. I was so caught up in this sell some mentality prior to March that I completely missed the March low's to add more. Lesson learned.

 

[Bobfitz1]

Chip swapping makes no sense. Even if the chip were socketed (which I'm so certain it is not I won't even bother checking) it would make no sense. Why?

Producing the chip is going to be the most expensive part of the board. The rest of it will have some cost, but it won't be that much. So while there is some marginal cost savings to be had here there isn't much. And it would be reduced by using a socket (which would also introduce other problems).

Even if you wanted to have the problems of a socketed chip and for some reason care about the slight improvement to cost let's talk about swapping the chip. This is *not* your PC where you unplug it, pop the case off, pull the CPU, socket the new one and call it good. For starters, the entire board will have to be removed anyway and this is a significant operation taking quite a bit of time to perform. The board was designed to be swappable, but it was crammed in and is not as simple as saying "swap the board." If the chip were socketed it wouldn't be that much more to do (because you already pulled the board), but there is greater risk (e.g., the service tech damaging a pin). The point is that it is *more* work to do the service replacement which is going to have an incremental cost that eats into whatever savings might have been achieved by solely replacing the chip. And since the chip is surface mounted it becomes a *lot* more work.

So, doing a chip swap will cost more, take longer, and has higher risk with effectively the same cost. Why bother? It was designed for board swapping and that is how Tesla will handle them (not that I think they will ever upgrade current vehicles past HW3, but that is a different post).

[edit: as for being designed for compatibility? Nope, no way. Just look at the HW3 design -- it is absolutely optimized for what it is without any concession. Trying to cram a new design into an old introduces compromises and there's no point to do doing it in this case. Again, not PCs]

 

[Curt Renz]

CNBC Video - half hour ago: Tesla shares surge more than 200% in 2020—Watch three experts discuss what's next for the stock

 

[SOULPEDL]

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!

Am I so spoiled that I cringe at the thought of driving ICE ever again?
Yup, spoiled rotten. "I wonder what the ICE people are doing now?" As if they are cave dwellers. Only exception is if someone can't afford one yet, but theirs is coming soon.
Today, I literally have to drive my Murano bc I need to tow a trailer. Means I hv to seriously pay attn to the road. So use to FSD that it scares me without it. I'm not making this up.

 

[StealthP3D]

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.

David Lee is is talking about the same thing I keep mentioning here when I recommend people change their relationship with money and the way they think and feel about money. I arrived at a similar place to where Dave appears to have arrived at without living through it as he did, I simply thought about it deeply and changed myself to make it happen. But I came from a middle-class family in which money didn't take center-stage in life because there were always regular pay checks. There was no attempt to get ahead beyond saving enough buffer that there were no worries. In those days people would retire on pensions and S.S., we live in a different reality now and investing is something everyone should be doing.

Preferably, investing like dead people so we get better returns.

 

[Causalien]

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.

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.

Go for what you want to do. Only you are aware of your own situation. For example ppl who grew up an orphan has to expand more time on building their contacts and protections as they don't have the family fail-safe mechanism.

One person's investment strategies usually don't fit another's temperament.

Ppl with good entrepreneurial skills are better off all in on their startup instead of the market. And you also have ppl who are better off in real estate. The stock market is not the be all and end all.

 

[Curt Renz]

Barron's - 47 minutes ago: Tesla’s ‘Shining Light’ Is China. Here’s Why.

Excerpt:

It is important not to underestimate the importance of strong China sales, Ives argues. While demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is climbing in the nation, Tesla is also competing against a number of domestic and international rivals. He writes that "strong Model 3 demand out of China remains a ray of shining light for Tesla in a dark global macro and appears to be on an eye-popping run rate to hit 150,000 unit deliveries in the first year out of the gates for [Shanghai factory] Giga 3, which is driving some strength for Tesla as well as Model Y deliveries starting to ramp as well."

Ives estimates that the company's growth in China is worth about $400 a share on its own in a bull-case scenario, as the company sees increasing penetration in the coming year, along with important battery innovations. He believes the million-mile battery is an "elusive goal now in the grasp." If Tesla can keep up this robust trajectory, it could be a game changer, for the next decade or so.

 

[mekberg]

Am I so spoiled that I cringe at the thought of driving ICE ever again?
Yup, spoiled rotten. "I wonder what the ICE people are doing now?" As if they are cave dwellers. Only exception is if someone can't afford one yet, but theirs is coming soon.
Today, I literally have to drive my Murano bc I need to tow a trailer. Means I hv to seriously pay attn to the road. So use to FSD that it scares me without it. I'm not making this up.

The last time I drove an ICE was a Toyota Hilux (manual) in Bonaire in December. "Oh right, this is what most people deal with every day. No thanks." You just kind of forget what life was like before Tesla. This is why my Model 3 license plate is OBLIVI8. Obliviate is a memory erasing spell in the Harry Potter universe.

Btw I plan on buying a Cybertruck and shipping it to Bonaire when I retire in 5-10 years where I'll charge it from my own solar array.

 

[Rarity]

II wouldn't be surprised if they're making aircraft in five or ten years.

The dirty little secret is that aircraft manufacturing currently is a crappy, difficult business with a small total addressable market.

 

[adiggs]

Am I so spoiled that I cringe at the thought of driving ICE ever again?
Yup, spoiled rotten. "I wonder what the ICE people are doing now?" As if they are cave dwellers. Only exception is if someone can't afford one yet, but theirs is coming soon.
Today, I literally have to drive my Murano bc I need to tow a trailer. Means I hv to seriously pay attn to the road. So use to FSD that it scares me without it. I'm not making this up.

Bad news - at least with Model X, tow mode leaves you with adaptive cruise, but disables autopilot / driver assist. And yes, it's at least annoying, whether it leaves one scared or not.

I find the 60 mile tow run I do reasonably often is more fatiguing without autopilot, than most of the day of driving we have for the 500 mile day trip to Seattle and back to Portland we do.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Bad news - at least with Model X, tow mode leaves you with adaptive cruise, but disables autopilot / driver assist. And yes, it's at least annoying, whether it leaves one scared or not.

I find the 60 mile tow run I do reasonably often is more fatiguing without autopilot, than most of the day of driving we for the 500 mile day trip to Seattle and back to Portland.

I assume same with Model Y with is next on the agenda? I get it, but still sucks.

FSD Trailering - Feature request?

 

[Curt Renz]

ARK's Tasha Keeney initially on Tesla ride hailing. then 3-D printing companies

TD Ameritrade Network - 2 hours ago:

 

[adiggs]

I assume same with Model Y with is next on the agenda? I get it, but still sucks.

FSD Trailering - Feature request?

I know that's on my list (autopilot trailering). My guess is it's not soon - maybe with CT. I personally find that except for chill mode (which I don't really need) and more like a 55-60 driving speed, towing in Model X seems like the same as driving without the trailer. So I don't see the problem with Autopilot and trailering..

But I've also read that you can get trailer sway and I don't know what else where the trailer starts wagging the car, and thus you want the human handling the reaction to that (rather than autopilot). Then again, the car already makes minute adjustments to damp that out that I don't feel or worry about (I might suck at towing trailers with anything other a Tesla, as I don't really understand issues that others towing trailers need to deal with; I just drive).

 

[Dangerous Fish]

We've been considering getting rid of our second car (ICE BMW) for a while, but lockdown put that on hold. We were looking at a used i3 maybe as that was about the right amount of money to spend when we first looked at the figures.

With what's happened in the last few weeks to TSLA (and other investments which are doing OK) I thought it only right to support Tesla and add to this quarter's sales figures.

Thanks to everyone in this thread who's helped me keep my nerve and stay looooooong.
Still plenty of TSLA left in the pot after this small-ish withdrawal.

 

[wipster]

I think I've come up with a good slogan for Tesla's Level 5 FSD with it's continuingly learning Neural Net when it's released to the general public:

"No matter where we go, there you are"



Or something like that...

 

[oldTAVguy]

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!

"taxes" or did you mean "Texas"?