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

[CLK350]

It doesn't just sound far-fetched, it is far-fetched and overly dramatic. The tent production line was brilliant and it saved Tesla from further embarrassment and the need to do raise capital at an inopportune time with unfavorable terms. But that's not what I call "on the brink of disaster". More like they were on the brink of "unfortunate and irreversible dilution". This kind of innovation is precisely why Tesla is by far my largest holding. It was more than brilliant - it was heroic. It's also why management is worth every ounce of dilution caused by their stock options

Re the so so meh reactions to VW Battery/ Power Day and the bashing of VW and Diess - let's not forget - this is a huge plus for "The Mission", and also remembering H. Diess and Elon Musk are *very* good friends. To recall, Elon recently made a surprise stopover early Sep 2020 to meet with Diess and check out their ID3, the good humored presence of Diess at the event in Germany when Elon officially announced Giga Berlin .. all this up to 2018 when in the toughest straits Tesla came under ("M3 Production Hell") Elon started negotiating with Diess a possible takeover of Tesla*.
... <snip>

(*) I know, this sounds far fetched, I may be mistaken, but I haven't had such dream/ errors so far. Maybe someone has the precise reference. To recall, in 2018 Tesla was really on the brink of disaster, and was saved at the last minute by Jerome Guillen's tent factory innovation, which debottlenecked the production line.

My bad - poorly written: I meant the meetings between Elon and Diess re VW acquiring Tesla at that time might sound far fetched. Tesla was on the brink of disaster if Elon was in negotiations. This wasn't widely reported at the time, and I can't find out where I read about it. This means that Diess must have seen a good deal of Tesla tech at the time. May have been at the same time Apple's Tim Cook refused to meet w/ Elon. We'll probably find out all these details in one of the 2+ upcoming books on Tesla.

Of course Guillen's intervention was brilliant, so much so that they used that same approach for SpaceX ramp up.

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

Diess seems to know the only battle before VW is to fight for the #2 spot against GM & Ford Etc.

History in the making?
I wonder if the market will, in time, see this VW Battery Day Power Day Presentation as a major shift from ignoring, ridiculing and sabotaging Tesla to fully validating Tesla' approach. As the saying goes: Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Now, for the first time, a big respected (emission cheating aside) ICE manufacturer is saying that Tesla was right all along when they started taking control of battery design, production and integration back in 2014 (They don't say this directly, but it is implied).

If so, the next step is thinking it through - and then realize that if Diess is really right, then all his ICE assets are not really assets, but liabilities.

Then the next step is to realize that 240 GWh is not nearly enough. Not by far. It is only a timid start.
It may sound ambitious, but indirectly is shows precisely the lack of ambition.

The final step is to realize that ICE is over.
And that VW is being very clever, because this is perhaps mostly (?) aimed at tax-payers and regulators: ICE manufacturers are in very big trouble and need a lot of money to transition to full EV production. Then the problem becomes that the company valuation is then predicated highly on when and how much government aid VW will get.

TLDR
You can gamble on goverment assistance to ICE companies. Since VW is 'first amoungst the last' then perhaps your bet will work...(?)
OR - you can invest in the tech leader and trailblazer and the only company being adequately ambitious for the mindbogglingly huge, gargantuan task of transforming the entire world into a greener, cleaner, better - and more prosperous place.

 

[Unpilot]

Macros green...yet the Pre-market silliness for TSLA stays red.

 

[AudubonB]

Paging @AudubonB, from Karen

https://twitter.com/x/status/1371747758965727233

Tempted to respond, but it’s probably better just to wait as eventually my evil twin brother sneaks onto the keyboard when I’m not looking.

 

[joh01652]

It's not just about price - many mainstream vehicle commentators have noted the list of annoying steps required to charge at non-SC charging networks - need various dongles/cards to operate it, random sequence of plugging in vs vehicle being on/off, poor connectivity, chargers out of service, terrible route planning.

Early in the SC rollout I thought it would only be a medium term advantage for Tesla, but the competing charging networks have proven to be so disorganised, sub scale and user unfriendly that it looks like the SC network will provide a sustained competitive advantage for a long time to come.

IMHO I won't use third-party fast-charging stations until they get rid of the stupid subscription requirements with phone app, the initial hook-up fees, and their (often) opaque and/or downright exorbitant fee structures.

Public chargers need to be like gas pumps: be able to easily ascertain fee rates (and charge rates) at a glance, pay with credit card/Apple pay/etc (without subscription/phone app), plug in, walk away.

I shouldn't need five apps, five subscriptions, multiple adapters, and five minutes of investigating the fee structure to charge.

I'd like to imagine in 2-5 years things won't be as bad with other public chargers, but I'm not holding my breath. Tesla SC integration into the navigation UI is absolutely the best, simplest and most transparent. Tesla nailed it, they set the gold standard.

 

[EVMeister]

Tempted to respond, but it’s probably better just to wait as eventually my evil twin brother sneaks onto the keyboard when I’m not looking.

AudubonC?

 

[Tslynk67]

Macros green...yet the Pre-market silliness for TSLA stays red.

We did slip green briefly, then the retail figures came out and slapped it back down (not that Tesla is impacted by that, IMO)

 

[Unpilot]

Not sure if this has been posted but a good rebuttal to the Elon is a blood diamond heir.

I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story

“If people are going to dislike me, I’d prefer they do so for what I’ve actually done.” I reckon this stance is something like a decoder ring to Elon’s relationship with both the press and all those who’ve outsourced their judgment about him in that direction. Few individuals are written about...

savingjournalism.substack.com

 

[buttershrimp]

The EA stations didn't have the correct software to run at 270 kW which is what the Taycan can take. It tried dumping 350 kW into the Taycan which caused the car to stop the charging session. Despite this Taycan still got the record mostly charging at ~150 kW.

The Cannonball was created in the 70s, way before internet memes. I posted not say EA is superior to Tesla Supercharger Network but that CCS is largely here. Not immanent. There are rural areas where there are Superchargers and no CCS chargers. There are also rural areas where there are gasoline stations and no Supercharger stations.

I suppose Tesla cares about Cannonball about as much as it cares about Nurburgring and Laguna Seca, of which Tesla/Elon post about.

A Model S can probably beat the Taycan time. A Model S Plaid Plus definitely will be able to. It is just a matter of someone doing it. The above run wasn't sponsored by Porsche. There have also been many Tesla runs, not sponsored by Tesla.

BTW Some posters are a lil bit too sensitive if someone post something where a Tesla competitor is not a complete POS.

I’m super impressed by this! Very smart on Porsche part to try to disrupt the narrative about lack of superchargers. I wouldn’t have thought this was possible prior to the attempt. I think it’s pretty clear Tesla could smash this record if they wanted to, but until then, smart move Porsche.

 

[scaesare]

Thank you! I had wrote out similar math before on a non-Tesla forum but I hadn't expected to need to write it out here =)

FWIW, for the no-supercharger, 50 miles per day scenario, I made the assumption that there would be occasional days where you could charge a little more than 12 hours every few weeks which doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption.

The other likely scenario is involves workplace charging:

Charge 10-12 hours at night (+30-60 miles) and then plug in for ~4-8 hours at work (+12-40 miles).

 

[Norwalk79]

Macros green...yet the Pre-market silliness for TSLA stays red.

After an up day, Tesla shorts will pull it down the next day. This is the normal routine, today is more red because of the "violent crash investigation" all over Yahoo Finance news

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Macros green...yet the Pre-market silliness for TSLA stays red.

Trying to set the tone for the day. I bet there’s a big push down at open, but it won’t last.

 

[Norwalk79]

Trying to set the tone for the day. I bet there’s a big push down at open, but it won’t last.

So you think Tesla will be UP today? Reason?

 

[scaesare]

Maybe I'm really dense, and this is well understood, but its suddenly occurred to me that if your job, and indeed entire career and specialization is investigating vehicle crashes, then the idea of a future of perfectly safe autonomous driving cars probably scares the fudge out of you, either consciously or subconsciously, because you then effectively have no job.
Stats speak louder than press releases, and autopilot is safer than humans already. That paints a dark career future for people who investigate vehicle collisions as a job...

(emphasis mine)

While I don't disagree with the overall points about human psychology you make, I want to point out that vehicular autonomy does not mean perfectly safe cars,

The simple support for this is Elon's bar for "good enough" FSD: It's not zero incidents, it's "some factor statistically more safe than human driving" .

And while you could argue that's just the bar for beginning to allow FSD, and it will improve from there, the car remains bound by physical laws. One only has to have seen one of the many dashcam videos of an oncoming vehicle abruptly crossing the line in to oncoming traffic. While the FSD system will likely detect and react to that event more quickly than a human, if the event happens below the threshold for which the limits if traction allow an evasive maneuver (or the area is physically constrained with now escape path, nearby traffic, etc...), then a collision is going to occur. Physics demand it.

 

[Big Time]

Was this our first open above 700 since Le Dip?

 

[buttershrimp]

We did slip green briefly, then the retail figures came out and slapped it back down (not that Tesla is impacted by that, IMO)

View attachment 644884

2 more couch cushions this morning

 

[MP3Mike]

A Model S can probably beat the Taycan time. A Model S Plaid Plus definitely will be able to. It is just a matter of someone doing it. The above run wasn't sponsored by Porsche. There have also been many Tesla runs, not sponsored by Tesla.

Are you sure about that? Porsche provided the car and had both EA and Porsche techs available at each charging stop to try to make sure things worked as well as possible. (At least that is what I read.)

 

[Unpilot]

So far that is a pretty effective "severe cash" fud story line.

 

[buttershrimp]

(emphasis mine)

While I don't disagree with the overall points about human psychology you make, I want to point out that vehicular autonomy does not mean perfectly safe cars,

The simple support for this is Elon's bar for "good enough" FSD: It's not zero incidents, it's "some factor statistically more safe than human driving" .

And while you could argue that's just the bar for beginning to allow FSD, and it will improve from there, the car remains bound by physical laws. One only has to have seen one of the many dashcam videos of an oncoming vehicle abruptly crossing the line in to oncoming traffic. While the FSD system will likely detect and react to that event more quickly than a human, if the event happens below the threshold for which the limits if traction allow an evasive maneuver (or the area is physically constrained with now escape path, nearby traffic, etc...), then a collision is going to occur. Physics demand it.

If it’s an autopilot crash into another trailer, I’ll be disappointed as everyone here surely would. Apart from the tragedy which is awful, if it turns out to be related to autopilot, the software should prevent this sort of incident by now. Which is why I will say that the thing that makes me think it may not be autopilot is there is a passenger, and driver of course should have caught this ahead of time most likely, but surely passenger would have also been looking if driver clearly was looking down. I want more videos of autopilot clearly saving lives.

 

[Tslynk67]

$VW = $WTF