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

[YasB]

FSD is chock full of "edge cases" with potentially lethal results.

Indeed. And when you are finally done and implemented all the edge cases you could imagine, you'll come across a stubborn woman in a wheelchair chasing a duck in the middle of the road.

Google's self-driving car avoids hitting woman chasing a bird – video

 

[Electroman]

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

@Reciprocity or @Lycanthrope - can one of you tweet this and tag Dana and other MSM trolls masquerading as journalists?

During the initial years - 2012 -2015 - Tesla got a lot of positive and fair reviews when Model S was introduced. At that time Tesla was an exciting new kid in the block. Nobody thought it will go beyond being a niche player.

But now that they are actively threatening the breakfast, lunch and dinner of major legacy autos, MSM understandably is batting for their main customers. If CNBC gives any fair coverage to Tesla, then GM and Ford would take their business to Bloomberg or NYT. It is as simple as that. The one that disses Tesla and constantly keep negative news flowing gets more legacy auto Ad revenues.

This is the No. 1 reason why almost all of MSM is churning out hate stories on Tesla now and expect that to ramp up even more in the coming years.

 

[brian45011]

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.

To track 2019 session legislation relating to auto dealer licensing: Texas Subject MOTOR VEHICLE DEALERS

 

[MarcusMaximus]

If Texas lawmakers get their way, Tesla won’t be able to fix its own cars

Good grief.

Note that at the same time, a bill opening up neighboring New Mexico to both Tesla sales and service is working its way through NM state legislature and just might be a slam dunk. Right now Tesla can neither sell nor service cars in NM, so that would be a huge win.

I would expect if the NM bill succeeds, to see Tesla open service centers in Albuqurque and Las Cruces, the latter being a few miles from El Paso in west Texas, because currently the closest Tesla service to EP is 700 miles to the east in the Dallas/Austin/San Antonio area, regardless of whether this Texas self-inflicted wound idea passes.

It would indeed be strange to see Texas shut down all Tesla access at the same time that NM goes from closed to totally open. I really don’t expect Tesla to pass this bill, but who knows. My MS was an inventory car in Austin that they shipped to me in AZ, after of course shipping it into Texas presumably for test drives because you can’t sell them there.

Is it possible for this to get any crazier, and why isn’t this way more nuts and newsworthy than Tesla changes to number of stores and fiddling with stores vs galleries and commission schemes and tweaking the labor force for all the above?

On this note, I wonder... what position in terms of best selling passenger car would the Model 3 have been in if you counted only those states in which Tesla is legally allowed to sell them?

 

[scaesare]

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.

And, even more incredibly, AlphaZero became the best chess playing entity on the planet, not by being taught chess strategy, but rather by only teaching it the rules of chess, and then letting it play itself in order to develop winning strategies. It did this in 4 hours, and then crushed the previous best chess playing programs (which in turn can beat the best humans).

So as not to be too far off-topic: I think the salient point here is that there can be a radical shift in capability once some fundamental items are accomplished... in full self driving there may be a point where allowing the AI to develop driving strategies to deal with unexpected events may produce result vastly superior to what humans might often do in similar circumstances.

 

[Freder Reeve]

Shortsville times:

 

[jerry33]

On this note, I wonder... what position in terms of best selling passenger car would the Model 3 have been in if you counted only those states in which Tesla is legally allowed to sell them?

That's still going to be 100% of the sales because cars moved to other states after the sale are counted in that state's sales--although registrations won't match sales.

 

[Off Shore]

Of course, though that won’t rally the price now.
From profitable every qtr to a reversal immediately
Afterwards is not confidence building. Tesla will
Overcome , the results will speak for themselves.

Please don't misquote. It was profitable every qtr except...
Thank you

 

[shlokavica22]

@Reciprocity or @Lycanthrope - can one of you tweet this and tag Dana and other MSM trolls ?

During the initial years - 2012 -2015 - Tesla got a lot of positive and fair reviews when Model S was introduced. At that time Tesla was an exciting new kid in the block.

But now that they are actively threatening the breakfast, lunch and dinner of major legacy autos, MSM understandably is batting for their main customers. If CNBC gives any fair coverage to Tesla, then GM and Ford would take their business to Bloomberg or NYT. It is as simple as that. The one that disses Tesla and constantly keep negative news flowing gets more legacy auto Ad revenues.

This is the No. 1 reason why almost all of MSM is churning out hate stories on Tesla now and expect that to ramp up even more in the coming years.

Exactly! The attack campaign from the MSM is an indication how the relevant entities increase the spending in order to protect their assets. The more endangered they feel- the bigger the spending.

 

[elasalle]

.

If Texas lawmakers get their way, Tesla won’t be able to fix its own cars

Good grief.

Note that at the same time, a bill opening up neighboring New Mexico to both Tesla sales and service is working its way through NM state legislature and just might be a slam dunk. Right now Tesla can neither sell nor service cars in NM, so that would be a huge win.

I would expect if the NM bill succeeds, to see Tesla open service centers in Albuqurque and Las Cruces, the latter being a few miles from El Paso in west Texas, because currently the closest Tesla service to EP is 700 miles to the east in the Dallas/Austin/San Antonio area, regardless of whether this Texas self-inflicted wound idea passes.

It would indeed be strange to see Texas shut down all Tesla access at the same time that NM goes from closed to totally open. I really don’t expect Tesla to pass this bill, but who knows. My MS was an inventory car in Austin that they shipped to me in AZ, after of course shipping it into Texas presumably for test drives because you can’t sell them there.

Is it possible for this to get any crazier, and why isn’t this way more nuts and newsworthy than Tesla changes to number of stores and fiddling with stores vs galleries and commission schemes and tweaking the labor force for all the above?

How much is Tesla Services US worth?
Maybe the complaining auto dealers should be asked to purchase US Services for couple of Billions.(which then goes to next GF/ vehicle ramps)
And then Tesla can go about making cars that needs fewer visits to Services. What say?

 

[ReflexFunds]

Nickel sulfate prices are down, too.

It's hard to give a specific "prices are X percent raw materials, Y percent manufacturing costs" figure, but a good estimate for Tesla is probably about 50-50.

On my very rough numbers Model 3 battery & powertrain will have roughly 45kg or $600 Nickel, 5kg/$400 Cobalt, 48kg/$600 Lithium Hydroxide and 95kg/$650 Copper (in motor, wires & battery). Some of these base material costs are likely to be higher by the time they get to Tesla after the cathode maker & cell maker have added their margin etc.

Model S & X also have a very significant aluminium exposure, but i think less so for Model 3. Has anyone seen an estimate for kg and cost of aluminium and steel (or any other key material) in Model 3?

One important point when we talk about "raw material" costs. These are very rarely the actual scarcity value of a raw material deposit, most of these materials are highly value add products with a significant about of the price consisting of COGs, opex and equipment depreciation for the production process. This means these "raw materials" prices can also be reduced with R&D and technological innovation, just as for batteries/solar panels etc, and current raw material prices are no firm lower boundary for cell prices.

 

[gene]

Shortsville times: Tesla tire inflation practices steal valuable oxygen from the atmosphere...are they really better for the environment?

Yeah but this is a true story!
US town rejects solar panels amid fears they 'suck energy from the sun', cause cancer
A US town rejected solar panels amid fears 'they'd suck up all the energy from the sun'

 

[brian45011]

I'm digging through Tesla's financial statements today... Can someone help me understand what line item on the income statement includes depreciation of the Gigafactory/Fremont factory?

It's part of Cost of Revenue--Mostly Automotive Sales some of GF-1 depreciation is in Energy Generation and Storage

 

[Intl Professor]

Ok, I have to admit that until now, I never believed VW would be serious about EVs.

They have now positioned a paper asking for very aggressive EV support in Germany: VW drängt auf drastische Änderungen bei E-Auto-Förderung

I do now believe them that they are serious about turning to EVs.

Edit: Of course this will cause massive discontent in Germany: They want to have smaller cars (their cars) and cheaper cars (their cars) subsidiezed and bigger cars (Mercedes, BMW - but also Porsche & Audi) less so. They want to kick-out PHEV (which will annoy BMW, Mercedes, Porsche most) and of course they use the EU as boogeyman...). Another interesting piece of news is that they put this forward in the VDA (a powerful lobbying association) and threatened to leave the VDA is there is not more support for EVs...

Now it is owned by a Chinese company. That country is the leader in climate change awareness, though belated. Typically, "communist" countries fixated on the labor theory of value placed no value on the environment, much like capitalist countries for different reasons.

 

[ZachF]

FSD is chock full of "edge cases" with potentially lethal results. As Tesla's founder liked to say, a car crash is fundamentally different from a software crash. Until AI either learns every one of those edge cases (unlikely) or can fall back on a proven safe Plan B (and C, and D) for when Unexpected Things happen, I believe the "full" part of FSD will remain aspirational at best, and a revenue-enhancing sales gimmick at worst.

I think that if they can get it to work in 99.x% of circumstances, they can just handle the rest with remote pilots when the AI doesn't know what to do (which it can learn from). You'd need a few thousand remote pilots to handle a million cars. From the standpoint of the passenger, this would be fully self driving.

 

[Lessmog]

Now it is owned by a Chinese company. That country is the leader in climate change awareness, though belated. Typically, "communist" countries fixated on the labor theory of value placed no value on the environment, much like capitalist countries for different reasons.

Excuse me? Are you perhaps thinking of Volvo, whichs is indeed Chinese owned now? VW is practically owned by German Bundesländer, I believe.

 

[Tslynk67]

@Reciprocity or @Lycanthrope - can one of you tweet this and tag Dana and other MSM trolls masquerading as journalists?

During the initial years - 2012 -2015 - Tesla got a lot of positive and fair reviews when Model S was introduced. At that time Tesla was an exciting new kid in the block. Nobody thought it will go beyond being a niche player.

But now that they are actively threatening the breakfast, lunch and dinner of major legacy autos, MSM understandably is batting for their main customers. If CNBC gives any fair coverage to Tesla, then GM and Ford would take their business to Bloomberg or NYT. It is as simple as that. The one that disses Tesla and constantly keep negative news flowing gets more legacy auto Ad revenues.

This is the No. 1 reason why almost all of MSM is churning out hate stories on Tesla now and expect that to ramp up even more in the coming years.

I asked nicely: Lycanthrope on Twitter

 

[Joe F]

The shorts don't own any U-boats do they?

That might explain Toilet Boy's favorite position on Tesla.

 

[Curt Renz]

Electrek - 35 minutes ago: NYC reveals massive maintenance savings from electric cars in its fleet

 

[TheMrX]

Nice descending triangle.

Just remember that we still have an SEC case pending.

That alone should be preventing big dollars to flow into TSLA.

If case is dismissed, or clearly in Musk favor, it could very well be the trigger for stock liftoff.