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

[GLDYLX]

I give up. The more I read, the more unread posts pile up, many of which appear to be whingeing and whining about Elon being Elon and the Market being the Market. There just aren't enough hours in the day, and the rest of my life needs more of my attention.

I'm just going to leave these thoughts here, and if they've been discussed before and I missed it, I apologize.

What if, while operating out in the world, interacting with humans and other living beings, Optimus Subprime can collect/provide data to FSD that allows it to calculate probabilities of pedestrian behavior and other edge cases?

Why do people keep referring to the next smallest car as the 25k car? If we don't know where it fits in the timeline, we can't know how much it will cost. Maybe the "compact" or "compact hatch", or even the "compact platform" is a more appropriate name...

The OEMs may perennially be trying to catch up to where Tesla used to be, but we are also guessing where R&D is/should be, when they are most likely at least as agile as the engineers making changes on the lines every three hours.

Wasn't it George Blankenship who said (oh, so many years ago) that Elon makes the impossible merely difficult?

Perhaps it's not merely difficult for "competitors" to survive/thrive... Maybe they need their own Elons to turn things around.

I know I'm CrAzY; I was CrAzY in 2003, 2012, 2016 and all the surrounding years. I can live with it. Happily. Excitedly. Joyfully.

By the by, this is my tenth year all-in on TSLA; the goal post has just moved....... WheeeEEEEEeeeeEEEeeeeeEEEEEE!!!

 

[Electroman]

Even better news - Model 3 is the best selling car of any power train in Europe for December.

Wow. Never thought this will happen so soon. Never thought an EV model will be No 1 in sales beating all ICE cars, at least not this decade. And this happened in the first year of the decade, for a whole continent. And once it happens in US, I think then the fat lady has sung.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

And just one year ago it was over 1300. 7X difference. Lots of people here with a heck of a lot more knowledge than me, but with that kind of drop I have trouble seeing this as overpriced. If we continue at the same rate (which admittedly is unlikely) that would put us at a PE of 25 at this time next year.

Not very knowledgeable about stocks or PEs, but it seems like p/e 15-25 is a decent long term average for stocks. My neighbor keeps saying that TSLA p/e is too high and thus won’t buy. My guess is that this is the general public perception as well. I’m ok with p/e 75 and 75% growth as long as it keeps growing at that rate, which looks fairly certain for until 2024 at least. HODLing until 2025+.

 

[MXWing]

I think we should really put this " Elon shouldn't be on conference calls" to rest. The man build to company to where it is today, exceeding expectations when it comes to all financial measures and execution. So to see all these share holders crapping on him and want him to fade away from Tesla is heart breaking for the guy. That's just selfish beyond words while he spends his health for us shareholders everyday by working to death.

Elon doesn't really want to be on them either.

So when we have a situation where there are no winners, why play?

Elon is much happier talking to people like Joe Rogan than "bone headed" analysts like Toni Sacconaghi who asks stupid questions like WHERE 25K car.

Elon is so far from being bone headed that he doesn't know how to response to bone head questions.

"We are drowning trying to fulfill demand for 50K cars. 25K cars doesn't make sense. We'll make it eventually, but when we can start at 250,000 of them year 1, not 46 Model 3s like in July 2017".

 

[[email protected]]

Just a few days ago several friends from the Middle East and I were having just that discussion. All of us are Tesla fans, including those who are in countries Tesla does not currently serve. The risks are real. Not just for Tesla but for traditional participatory government as well. The risk to Tesla stems form the very tight political; connection to the fossil fuel industry. I feel a bit like a conspiracy theorist on all this, so have avoided these subjects until now. Seeing the deep seated manipulation of TSLA has caused me to revise my views.

Hmmm, when I was a child, a journalist was a skeptic and the Fourth Estate checked, somewhat, the powers that be. Journalism is dead, now: today, skeptics are disposed of with the label "conspiracy theorist" and there are very few checks to the narrative. Aramco and other fossil fuel businesses are the largest companies, and my guess is that Tesla is perceived more and more as a mortal threat. Besides pumping $6 expense barrels of oil out of the ground and selling it for many multiples, what is there to do besides "deep seated manipulation' to defeat mortal threats? My guess is you are right: the risks are real.

 

[Ocelot]

Tesla...already conducting trials.

 

[Artful Dodger]

My guess is more like $20k - $10k hardware, $10k software.

$10K hdw sounds fine, but that's a true COGS. Any software developement will come from R&D which is spread across mulitple product lines, including FSD. The accounting will be different, I think. Paging @st_lopes

Batteries 1/20 of a Model 3, Raw materials 1/50 of a model 3, assembly 1/5 of a Model 3.

Yeah, 3 KWh is a good est for bty pack size, raw materials more like 1/30 of a model 3 (125 lbs x 20 = 3750 lbs)

Charge time 1 hour per day. Operational working like 23/365 x 10 years.

Charging 3 x 1 hr per day, uptime ~20 hrs/day. As long as the bot is available for work while the factory is running, Teslabot fits in fine at the factory (not a bottleneck).

Tesla may own the bots, charging costs paid by user, Tesla chsrges $3-$5 per hour depending on the task.

Interesting idea about the work-for-hire, but Tesla will have to sell at least some to cover production costs, depending on their margins. $3-$5 is WAY low-ball: Tesla said the bot is to perform

1. dangerous tasks (read: Fukushima cleanup, Fire/Rescue/Emergency responce, Bomb disposal), and
2. for jobs that people don't want to do (Coal miner, TBM Operator on Mars).

I'd estimate $125/hr for the former, and $25/hr for the latter types of work. The main cost difference will be MTBF in different tasks (likely firefighter 'bots earns ↑$ while Fuku gets ↑↑$)

My guess is that this might be profitable.

My rough calculation is that the bot cost Tesla around $0.24 per hour.

Maybe that is why Elon thinks there is no limit to the size of the economy.

Agreed. Informative. Indeed.

Sky's NOT the limit anymore...

Cheers!

 

[MC3OZ]

Hmmm, when I was a child, a journalist was a skeptic and the Fourth Estate checked, somewhat, the powers that be. Journalism is dead, now: today, skeptics are disposed of with the label "conspiracy theorist" and there are very few checks to the narrative. Aramco and other fossil fuel businesses are the largest companies, and my guess is that Tesla is perceived more and more as a mortal threat. Besides pumping $6 expense barrels of oil out of the ground and selling it for many multiples, what is there to do besides "deep seated manipulation' to defeat mortal threats? My guess is you are right: the risks are real.

There isn't much Fossil Fuel companies can do do about Chinese EV makers selling EVs in China, and exporting cheaper EVs to the world wide market.

It isn't as simple as "Stop Tesla" it is even beyond "Stop Tesla and China".

I do think Fossil Fuel companies are active in all sort of push back, political interference and misinformation. I also think there are many trying to drive down the Tesla share price and impact negatively on the Tesla business.

But when we sum up how successful those Fossil Fuel Interests have been in their attempts to damage Tesla over the last 10 years, the bottom line is they have probably burned a lot of cash for very little end result, and they will do even worse in future.

 

[Artful Dodger]

FTFY

This is common misinterpretation of what Elon said. For example, during an appearance on Joe Rogan's Podcast, Elon said that with conventional rocket technology, it is possible to colonize the entire galaxy within a million years.

This DOES NOT include intergalatic space travel. The nearest large galaxy, Andromedia, is over 2.5M light years away and is unreachable by chemical rockets.

But this too is a false narrative. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is hurtling through space even now and will merge to form a new spherical galaxy "Milkdromeda" in about 4.5B years (same age as our solar system).

So, the TAM for Teslabot is Pan-Galactic. all Elon has to do is wait, and stay healthy...

Cheers!

P.S. Eventually, all galaxies in our local group will either merge or have close passes, allowing humanity to colonize all reachable space. Outside the local group, where distant galaxies are not gravitationally bound to our own, eventually those places will fade from view with the Hubble flow (~75km/sec/Megaparsec). Elon will have to content himself with the ~120 Galaxies of the local group.

P.P.S. Physics is the Law; Everything else is a Suggestion. FTL travel changes the law....

 

[[email protected]]

There isn't much Fossil Fuel companies can do do about Chinese EV makers selling EVs in China an exporting cheaper EVs to the world wide market.

It isn't as simple as "Stop Tesla" it is even beyond "Stop Tesla and China".

I do think Fossil Fuel companies are active in all sort of push back, political interference and misinformation. I also think there are many trying to drive down the Tesla share price and impact negatively on the Tesla business.

But when we sum up how successful those Fossil Fuel Interests have been in their attempts to damage tesla over the last 10 years, the bottom line is they have probably burned a lot of cash for very little end result, and if anything they will do even worse in future.

I have no opinion about relative success in the future. That said, the fossil fuel business is simple, linear, and price elastic, so whatever must be spent to delay or prevent Tesla success will be spent, and drop down to the gallon of gas price. Stated another way, this is a zero sum game, and the loser dies. In 2014, I realized that my Tesla S 60 was at least three times more energy efficient than an ICE vehicle, and other factors (parts count, maintenance, etc.) favored the Tesla over an ICE. Tesla must therefore win in an efficient market over time. The job of the ICE/fossil folks is to prevent an efficient market. I understand that one of the features of historical Afghan warlord disputes is to fight a little, negotiate a lot, and then to arrange a relatively bloodless resolution. That cannot happen with Tesla: there must the blood in the streets and there must be losers. There cannot be a negotiation and there will be losers. A simple risk/reward model suggests that fossil fuel will spend up to every dollar they have to protect their income stream. Buckle your seatbelts.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

This is common misinterpretation of what Elon said. For example, during an appearance on Joe Rogan's Podcast, Elon said that with conventional rocket technology, it is possible to colonize the entire galaxy within a million years.

This DOES NOT include intergalatic space travel. The nearest large galaxy, Andromedia, is over 2.5M light years away and is unreachable by chemical rockets.

But this too is a false narrative. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is hurtling through space even now and will merge to form a new spherical galaxy "Milkdromeda" in about 4.5B years (same age as our solar system).

So, the TAM for Teslabot is Pan-Galactic. all Elon has to do is wait, and stay healthy...

Cheers!

P.S. Eventually, all galaxies in our local group will either merge or have close passes, allowing humanity to colonize all reachable space. Outside the local group, where distant galaxies are not gravitationally bound to our own, eventually those places will fade from view with the Hubble flow (~75km/sec/Megaparsec). Elon will have to content himself with the ~120 Galaxies of the local group.

P.P.S. Physics is the Law; Everything else is a Suggestion. FTL travel changes the law....

Keep in mind we don't have actually have that much time on our clock to wait for the galaxy merger between Milky Way and Andromeda.

Future of Earth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Sun is gradually growing brighter and has been since it's formation. In about 600 million years, the current biosphere will not be able to function and most multi-cellular carbon-based life will be extinct. In about 1 billion years, the Sun will have boiled all the Earth's oceans off into space, causing total biological extinction of carbon-based life. The Sun itself will exhaust it's hydrogen resources in about 5 billion years and expand in a red giant, completely engulfing what will by then be a lifeless rock.

What I'm saying is, even if we don't cause our own extinction within a century by warming the Earth until it is uninhabitable by our species, we still need to discover FTL space travel, develop advanced terraforming, be able to engage in massive scale spaceship and space colony construction, and eventually if our species survives that long, completely abandon our homeworld in a few hundred million years. By that point humanity would likely have a very large star empire, and the loss of our homeworld would be little more than a historical artifact.

And IF our species survives that long, and has this level of technology, that would imply we can probably continue to perpetuate our existence indefinitely, in which case the Heat Death of the Universe comes into play in the far future of the Universe. From that, there is no escape for anything in our Universe.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Keep in mind we don't have actually have that much time on our clock to wait for the galaxy merger between Milky Way and Andromeda.

Lol, sure we do! Remember the part about colonizing the entire Milky Way within 1 million years? We've got that within our abilities...

But even if we only make it to the closest Red Dwarf star (Proxima Centauri, 4.25 Light-years), that keeps the lights on for 4 Trillion years.

Proxima Centauri - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes, Red Dwafts w. small mass are miserly with their fuel consumption. It's just that the 'habitable zone' is closer to the star.

Our descendants (or their 'bots) will see Milkdromia.

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

The question I am asking to myself: Was the $1200 stock price pricing in the potential start of production of mass market $25,000 EV to destroy completely any new sale of ICE Corollas, Malibus, Golf, etc. Or is the -10% drop the following day just a reaction of wallstreet relative “deceit” of not having a instantly gratifying “roadmap update” from Musk announcing factories to be operational immediately and faster production like happened to the Model Y?

Haha, D. "None of the Above". Wall St. has pulled this same shee-shee every January for the past 5 years. Let me review:

• 2018 - Production Hell
• 2019 - Logistics Hell
• 2020 - Covid Shutdown Hell
• 2021 - Hell hath no Burry
• 2022 - Fwd P/E Hell

It's all B***SUGAR! Wall St. knows full damn well that Tesla is a once-in-lifetime Juggernaut of industrial expansion, and shortzes and hedgies are hell-bound to milk Tesla for as long as they can.

Everything else is short-term noise. Advice? Invest in some ear-plugs.

Cheers!

 

[WADan]

Neuralink has a ways to go before that's a possibility. The sensible thing would be to have the robot operate the chainsaw too. Maybe an electric quick attach chainsaw in place of a hand. I'm having a hard time getting excited about the robots, honestly. Seems like autos and energy should be the focus.

It would be cool to have a bunch of robots to help me rob Fort Knox (sorry, I‘ve been watching Money Heist on Netflix)!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Futures opened flat. After the last 2 weeks, I'll take it

Nasdaq 100 Mar 22 (NQ=F)​

CME Delayed Price. Currency in USD
14,447.75 +14.75 (+0.10%)
As of 02:28AM EST. Market open.

TL0 (Tesla, Inc.) trading up about +1% at the Tradegate borse in Berlin ~$856.90

NASDAQ pre-Market quotes start to flow in about 1.5 hrs (4:16 am ET)

Cheers!

 

[WADan]

Lawsuit filed against Mercedes after soft-close doors of GLE cut man's thumb

While the plaintiff's right thumb was placed on the inside door column, the doors of his Mercedes GLE 450 pulled shut on his thumb unexpectedly, his lawsuit stated.

auto.hindustantimes.com

Ouch. Who needs to worry about FSD safety when you have this issue?

 

[MikeAtkinson]

Not very knowledgeable about stocks or PEs, but it seems like p/e 15-25 is a decent long term average for stocks. My neighbor keeps saying that TSLA p/e is too high and thus won’t buy. My guess is that this is the general public perception as well. I’m ok with p/e 75 and 75% growth as long as it keeps growing at that rate, which looks fairly certain for until 2024 at least. HODLing until 2025+.

Although no single measure of company performance should be given too much weight, PEG (Why the Price/Earnings-to-Growth Ratio Matters) is generally better for growth companies than PE. Just divide the PE by the earnings percentage growth.

PEG should generally be about 1, lower values indicate a BUY. Quality companies, those which the market has high confidence will grow for many years (and which have several years of profitabiliy) may have a PEG of 3 and not be overvalued.

PEG can be computed by trailing twelve month (TTM), current quarter annualised, for future 1 year (or 3 or 5 year) expected growth and earnings. Details like GAAP/non-GAAP, including one-of items, etc. can vary the PEG estimate a bit.

For Tesla the TTM is about 0.26, Q4 annualised is about 0.22, future growth rate expected PEGs are also well below 1.

The PEG calulation can be inverted to compute the expected share price for a future date. If we take a Q4 2023 earnings of over $10B ($40B annualised), a growth rate of 75% earnings (for 50% growth in revenue) a PEG of 1 implies a share price of about $2,800. If Tesla were recognised as a quality stock a share price of $6,000 would not be unreasonable by the end of 2023.

According to the PEG measure, TSLA is a screaming BUY, BUY, BUY.

[Note: I have been deliberately imprecise on actual PEG values for Tesla, partly this is because I am lazy and don't want to do the considerable research to give PEG for expected future periods, mainly it is becuase you need to do your own research and use judgement, PEG is not the only metric and this is definitely not advice]

 

[Artful Dodger]

I'm having a hard time getting excited about the robots, honestly. Seems like autos and energy should be the focus.

Sandy Munro estimated the cost of labor for assembling a $50K Model 3 at about $10K.

With Teslabot, that drops to about $1K in the medium term (3-4 yrs).

That takes COGS to about $24K and gross margin to about 52%

Excited yet?

 

[SmokyPeat]

Sandy Munro estimated the cost of labor for assembling a $50K Model 3 at about $10K.

With Teslabot, that drops to about $1K in the medium term (3-4 yrs).

That takes COGS to about $24K and gross margin to about 52%

Excited yet?

Yeah, I'm all for expanded margins. I see that as five years out probably. Short term I'm far more stoked about the possibility of three SpaceX rocket launches this week!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Nasdaq 100 Mar 22 (NQ=F)​

CME Delayed Price. Currency in USD
14,447.75 +14.75 (+0.10%)
As of 02:28AM EST. Market open.

TL0 (Tesla, Inc.) trading up about +1% at the Tradegate borse in Berlin ~$856.90

View attachment 762475

NASDAQ pre-Market quotes start to flow in about 1.5 hrs (4:16 am ET)

Cheers!

And here is Tesla at Tradegate Berlin just seconds before the pre-Market opens in NYC: 772.40 eur in usd is $862.91

Pre-Market Trading has begun at the NASDAQ (but their quotes are delayed 15min).

Cheers!