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

[Dan Detweiler]

View attachment 387662
Just remember why media is negative on Tesla.

That 12 Billion could build quite a few battery factories, huh?

Dan

 

[adaptabl]

Share price is still stuck in it's near-term falling wedge...

I think the bottom of the wedge will be opening up soon.

 

[shlokavica22]

Glovis Start #7 out of 8 for EU is set to arrive today:
View attachment 387663

How long before TSLA buys shipping company

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Uncertainty concerning model 3 sustained production level
Uncertainty concerning s and x production level
Then uncertainty concerning deliveries of the above
Uncertainty concerning effect of price changes on margins
Uncertainty on level of non recurring charges
Too many variables up in the air this quarter

Uncertainty implies risk, which in turn means price concession
Removing uncertainty should rally price

Long term thesis remains intact

Uncertainty implies progress.
Uncertainty implies innovation
Uncertainty implies building moats
Uncertainty implies setting ones self apart from the competition
Uncertainty implies protection of proprietary information

Sorry, but I am tired of these bean counters that can't see their nose to spite their face.

Dan

 

[Todd Burch]

That was in 2016

Thanks for the correction. Oct 2014 was when the D's were announced and AP1 came out. I remember because I was sad that I getting a P85 and it just got trumped by a D, but surprised that I got a bonus autopilot that I didn't order.

 

[ZsoZso]

TSLA just now popped on the WSJ’s buying on weakness page - net $27M in block trade buys. Wasn’t there earlier.

Didn't I just tell you I was backing up the truck ?

 

[VValleyEV]

This is simply apples to oranges. The various entities your friend listed are standards bodies. Standards exist primarily for interoperability (but also other reasons like safety) and aren't specifically about patents. What all standards bodies have in common is that they are primarily political entities. By that I mean they have memberships, committees, appointments, and voting which means that their results are achieved through politics.They also have purpose statements that may be lofty or not. ANSI for example is not shy about saying its purpose is to advocate "American" (meaning U.S.) technologies. Standards bodies touch on patents because most technologies that are or could be standardized are or could be patented. Participation agreements often say that if technologies that become part of the standard are patented, that the patent holder (who surely is a participating member of the organization or the body is making a huge mistake) agrees to licenses their technology on a "non-discriminatory" (to other members) basis and charge "reasonable" royalties. Your friend is pointing out that such agreements neither require cross-licensing of patents that aren't part of the standard, nor require zero royalties. As political bodies they also often lobby governments to get their standards to have the force of law.

Tesla is not above joining standards organizations. For example they are a member of CharIn which among other things has created the CCS standard. Note that Tesla had (and has) a superior DC/AC charging connector and more DC charging stations than any other member but only a single vote. Thus the CCS standard adopted an unwieldy connector patented by someone else, using an interface used by someone else and they are doing everything in their power to prevent adapters from being made too. https://www.charinev.org/fileadmin/.../Position_CharIN_towards_new_standards_V4.pdf None of that is surprising when you understand that standards bodies are political organizations.

Patents on the other hand can cover all sorts of things that might not relate to standards and Tesla has many such patents. For example they have useful patents for fire protection of EV batteries. Another EV maker could legally use Tesla's patent (without even letting Tesla know) to protect against fire in their batteries but they would have to refrain from suing any other EV maker for any patent infringement if they did so. It may be unappealing for most vendors to take that step, but not necessarily. Another example would be a charging network could build their own network of superchargers to get some revenue from the large number of Teslas on the road and they could use all of Tesla's patented technology to do it. It's unlikely that a charging network owner would want to sue an EV maker for patent infringement so it's not even much of a trade-off for that.

TL;DR Tesla isn't trying to turn their patents into standards. They don't have the political power to do that so they've made a (feeble) attempt to grow their mindshare by offering their patents in a share-and-share-alike manner instead.

\\

Thanks! I had a sketchy outline of some of this in my mind, this has filled in many of the gaps.


There is a specific point within the following snippet that I would like to confirm:

Another EV maker could legally use Tesla's patent (without even letting Tesla know) to protect against fire in their batteries but they would have to refrain from suing any other EV maker for any patent infringement if they did so.

My understanding is that the requirements are a little more stringent than may be implied by the above: that anyone who uses a Tesla patent must refrain from suing any other EV maker for ANY infringement of ANY patent, not just the patent of Tesla’s that they are using. I think this means that to use Tesla’s patents you have to join the “we share our EV patents” club, along with Tesla. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, and could foster a lot of shared innovation, but I think is being argued as a prohibitive barrier to anyone considering use of a Tesla patent. Hence folks who are not friendly to Tesla deride their patent sharing as a smoke screen intended only to fire up Tesla fanboys.


Can you comment on the above paragraph? Here is where I got some of my Tesla patent sharing analysis:
A Closer Look at Tesla’s Open-Source Patent Pledge - Lexology

EDIT: Again, for context here is the snippet of criticism from my engineering friend complaining about Tesla not being serious about technology sharing with their patent sharing offer, and subject of discussion in reply by @hacer:
——-
“ANSI/ISO/IEC/ITU IPR and Statement of Participation agreements are precise. They do not allow for anyone's IP to be "free". RAND terms where the royalty is zero is OK, but that does not EQ "free". If you won't sign a Statement of Participation agreement you are basically disallowed from making any contributions and perhaps even participating in those standards making bodies. If TSLA was serious they would do same (SoP), but I do not believe that they are.”
——-

 

[Drax7]

Sure price is a function of the above points you make plus risk.
But risk dominates in the short term until we get clarification

 

[anthonyj]

Back in October of 2014 (I think), when the "Paint it Black" video came out, I was the guy who started the thread and said that level 5 was at least 5 years away (took a lot of flak for it), so I know it's hard.

But we are hearing that the car is making turns in dense urban environments, reacting to stop signs/stoplights, etc...If true they need to show that AP has made real progress to start kicking the stock back into high gear.

I hope you are right. But in regards to driver attended FSD by year's end, can we trust Elon's word? Not hating on the guy, but he’s been consistently wrong on this. I’ve been lurking the autonomous forum and it’s been eye opening.

Btw, just sold a covered call and bought a put. Should see a bounce now

 

[ZachF]

Btw, just sold a covered call and bought a put. Should see a bounce now

Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.

(Press F to pay respects)

 

[humbaba]

Back in October of 2014 (I think), when the "Paint it Black" video came out, I was the guy who started the thread and said that level 5 was at least 5 years away (took a lot of flak for it), so I know it's hard.

But we are hearing that the car is making turns in dense urban environments, reacting to stop signs/stoplights, etc...If true they need to show that AP has made real progress to start kicking the stock back into high gear.

I think part of the problem with Tesla and their progress on self driving is that it isn't even remotely comparable to Waymo, Cruise, etc. As in, not an apples to apples comparison.

For example, Waymo can drive with (I'm certain) fewer disengagements per thousand miles. But that's because it is only capable of driving pre-designed routes that conform to significant preconditions. The disengagement rate -- which seems to be the primary comparison to determine who is on top -- would almost certainly make Tesla look like they are worse than anyone else.

Naturally, Tesla is not geo-fenced, much less restricted to certain routes with only designated stops, etc. IMO they are much farther along and a sane valuation would, in consequence, value $TSLA much higher than it currently does. But all of the warts and faults of Tesla's current autonomous driving make it easy to spin as being far less capable.

In short, I'm not sure there's that much Tesla could do right now that would overcome the negative bias with regards to autopilot/autonomous driving.

 

[Todd Burch]

I hope you are right. But in regards to driver attended FSD by year's end, can we trust Elon's word? Not hating on the guy, but he’s been consistently wrong on this. I’ve been lurking the autonomous forum and it’s been eye opening.

Btw, just sold a covered call and bought a put. Should see a bounce now

I love Elon but agree, his words have a track record of being overly optimistic. Market knows this, which is why Tesla needs to demonstrate some evidence of their progress to turn things around.

 

[KarenRei]

I hope you are right. But in regards to driver attended FSD by year's end, can we trust Elon's word? Not hating on the guy, but he’s been consistently wrong on this. I’ve been lurking the autonomous forum and it’s been eye opening.

Btw, just sold a covered call and bought a put. Should see a bounce now

Today I've been lowering the strikes on the (covered) calls I sold on Friday, now that what I sold has devalued. Timed almost every one poorly - buying the previously-sold high strike calls on what turned out to be peaks and selling the new low-strike on what turned out to be lows :Þ But still... more cash. Used part of it to lower the strike on an owned April call (which again I timed poorly :Þ )

Little bit of an anthonyj bounce going on now

 

[humbaba]

I hope you are right. But in regards to driver attended FSD by year's end, can we trust Elon's word? Not hating on the guy, but he’s been consistently wrong on this. I’ve been lurking the autonomous forum and it’s been eye opening.

Btw, just sold a covered call and bought a put. Should see a bounce now

Let's be careful: what Elon said was that he thought it would be ready for driver monitored at the end of the year and then require an unknown additional amount of time for regulator approval.

IMO, NoA might be ready for regulatory approval by end of year.

 

[Todd Burch]

I think part of the problem with Tesla and their progress on self driving is that it isn't even remotely comparable to Waymo, Cruise, etc. As in, not an apples to apples comparison.

For example, Waymo can drive with (I'm certain) fewer disengagements per thousand miles. But that's because it is only capable of driving pre-designed routes that conform to significant preconditions. The disengagement rate -- which seems to be the primary comparison to determine who is on top -- would almost certainly make Tesla look like they are worse than anyone else.

Naturally, Tesla is not geo-fenced, much less restricted to certain routes with only designated stops, etc. IMO they are much farther along and a sane valuation would, in consequence, value $TSLA much higher than it currently does. But all of the warts and faults of Tesla's current autonomous driving make it easy to spin as being far less capable.

Agree...which is why Tesla/PR would need to stress this. I think part of the problem is that the general public doesn't understand the exponential learning rate of AI.

It was impossible for AI to beat the world's best Go players, until it was. Then shortly thereafter, it became nearly impossible for the world's best Go players to beat AI.

I know autonomous driving is a harder problem, but the general behavior of exponential improvement still applies.

 

[omarsultan]

*sigh*, and both Republicans. Yet again, abandoning their supposed free market principles at the drop of a hat. (Spoken as a disgruntled former Republican)

Chatting with friends in one of the TX Owners Clubs, this has a high probability of passing as the larger bill this provision is tucked into is popular.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

At this point guys, I don't think there's much to be done about the share price. Lots of great and very important news for the company(35k model 3, moving orders to online, model y reveal, V3 supercharging, Giga 3 building completed in May, etc...) and no effect. In fact it's become very, very apparent(to me at least) over the past year that Wall St is working together to cap the share price and drive the share price down. Could be that they want to maximize how much money they can make by driving the stocks to the extreme of the trading ranges or what I personally believe, they're being paid through the backdoor by the multiple trillion dollar industries Tesla will be disrupting in the next 5 to 10 years. I don't believe for a second that Wall St has been selling on such high volume based on FUD concerns. I don't think anyone on Wall St actually believes the FUD, they just use it to maximize downward pressure on the share price.....but in the end they were going to drive the stock lower regardless of FUD or not.

Wouldn't be surprised if we're still capped at 300/share by Q3 or Q4 of this year, despite the annual revenue run rate being at or close to 30/billion. It's not going to be hard for them at this point with macros near all time highs and likely to retreat or not increase much from their current levels for the rest of the year. I never thought I would have the opportunity, but if the stock says in this area until Sept, I'll be able to increase my share count by a third or more. So that's something to be excited about lol.

When I talk about Wall St collaboration and manipulation, I've invested in large, medium, and small cap stocks. Over the past year, the stock's behavior on trading days(MMD, inverting macro rally's, morning spikes up only to be slowly lowered on very low volume through the day, the type of coordinated FUD with massive volume spikes as well as massive volume spikes on any news, even good news, etc..., reeks of the stuff you see happening in small cap stocks. I really don't know now how big Tesla has to get to break this but I'm sure glad I have a 5-10 years horizon for owning my shares.

 

[Tslynk67]

In short, I'm not sure there's that much Tesla could do right now that would overcome the negative bias with regards to autopilot/autonomous driving.

Actually they need to shut up an execute.

And if they do need to do announce something negative, dress it up a bit. Instead of saying "we need to reduce costs to be profitable so we're firing 3000 people", say "we've reviewed our retail practices and realised that we're over-staffed in several areas, to which end we'll be letting 3000 people go, or shift to service where feasible".

And I still think the €60k price cut on XSP100D is a big part of this, I still see no explanation for that. Sure, cut the price, but not by that much, and justify it under "efficiency gains", "decreased battery costs", etc. It's not really difficult now, is it?

As said by others, the blatant lack of coherent communication, almost wilfully destructive, makes you wonder if there is a strategy to allow some investors to load-up on the cheap...

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Data point: I called my local store today to speak to a rep that I know and ask about the MR availability. She said since this morning they've been working like crazy to find inventory MR cars for customers. They can see the inventory decreasing by the second and it's now down to basic black on black here and there. So, it seems MR is pretty popular.
I also asked about delivery sched for SR+ vs LR RWD and was told that the LR is likely available in a just a few days in SoCal but SR+ and SR can be longer than 2 weeks. Highly dependent on how the order is optioned.

That could be it, LR was too popular, so, it made sense to pull it to mostly shift demand to LR.

Wild speculation - it's also somewhat possible (10-20%?) that MR was software limited LR.
Though my original bet was that SR+ was software limited MR. That now seems unlikely, as one of the bloggers video shows that SR+ physically doesn't have subwoofer and second amp, or related wiring harness...
Yeah, in the end, I don't know what was my point...

 

[shlokavica22]

At this point guys, I don't think there's much to be done about the share price. Lots of great and very important news for the company(35k model 3, moving orders to online, model y reveal, V3 supercharging, Giga 3 building completed in May, etc...) and no effect. In fact it's become very, very apparent(to me at least) over the past year that Wall St is working together to cap the share price and drive the share price down. Could be that they want to maximize how much money they can make by driving the stocks to the extreme of the trading ranges or what I personally believe, they're being paid through the backdoor by the multiple trillion dollar industries Tesla will be disrupting in the next 5 to 10 years. I don't believe for a second that Wall St has been selling on such high volume based on FUD concerns. I don't think anyone on Wall St actually believes the FUD, they just use it to maximize downward pressure on the share price.....but in the end they were going to drive the stock lower regardless of FUD or not.

Wouldn't be surprised if we're still capped at 300/share by Q3 or Q4 of this year, despite the annual revenue run rate being at or close to 30/billion. It's not going to be hard for them at this point with macros near all time highs and likely to retreat or not increase much from their current levels for the rest of the year. I never thought I would have the opportunity, but if the stock says in this area until Sept, I'll be able to increase my share count by a third or more. So that's something to be excited about lol.

When I talk about Wall St collaboration and manipulation, I've invested in large, medium, and small cap stocks. Over the past year, the stock's behavior on trading days(MMD, inverting macro rally's, morning spikes up only to be slowly lowered on very low volume through the day, the type of coordinated FUD with massive volume spikes as well as massive volume spikes on any news, even good news, etc..., reeks of the stuff you see happening in small cap stocks. I really don't know now how big Tesla has to get to break this but I'm sure glad I have a 5-10 years horizon for owning my shares.

Luckily for us- resistance is futile.
First- FCF is one big FUC* YOU to the banks and everyone counting on TSLA being dependent on them. Second- TSLA is still able to expand drastically thanks to Chinese banks/government (cutting again the cord connected to the WS institutions).
As it stands now, TSLA will double car production for each of the next 2 years. That alone will bring a ton of cash. Then we have the wildcards- Semi, Roadster 2, Truck, Energy, FSD.
I really don't get why long term shareholders twist their pants and care about the short term noise.