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

[Olle]

Maybe. But seriously. Even Elon has to know that the robotaxi autonomous FSD dream is over, at least for the next decade or two. I personally don’t think it was a malicious deception on Elons or Teslas part, but they need to come clean on this fantasy of robotaxi being a reality with the current hardware software suite. It’s not even remotely close and at the present rate of improvement won’t be for the foreseeable future. I get it. FSD is hard and I’m sure it will happen someday. But Tesla needs to own this and be straight up with folks. I enjoy using FSD but it’s an entertainment feature not any kind of robotaxi feature. I think people would be more understanding if they just came out and explained that it’s just not going to happen on existing cars. Not 3 years ago, not 3 years from now and probably not in 10. Maybe with new hardware someday but not existing cars.

Personally I would still probably buy it again. It’s fun and I like my cars to be fun. Our teslas have always been way fun. But sell it as that. A fun infotainment thing.

Jmho.

I totally disagree with this.

If what you suggest is true, we need to sell our TSLA because then it's worth zero, according to the man in charge.



I see no reason why computer evolution would stop and FSD be frozen in time from now on.
It's of course impossible to prove that FSD will be solved, but easy to envision. No doubt in my mind at least.

 

[growler23]

Extreme E's May X Prix in Scotland will race EVs through a former coal mine

After releasing its tentative race schedule for season 3 in late 2022, we’ve known Extreme E has been planning an...

electrek.co

TLDR: the irony: EV race will be held at the site of a former coal mine before it’s turned into a hydropower plant and wind farm.

EV’s and renewable energies dance on the grave of can’t-be-gone-soon-enough dirty coal.

That is so cool! And it sounds like their entire marketing effort for these races is about climate change.

Spoiler: engineering nerd snark

I just wish someone at Electrek had a clue about engineering or even, heaven forbid, electricity since it is in their name? They say the new hydro plant will produce "210 MW per hour"? Huh? 210 MW is already power. So if it runs for 2 hours, does it actually produce 420 MW of power, as they imply? I don't thiiiiiiink so. Sheesh.
If you mean "it can produce 210 MW of power from storage for up to 8 hours", then just say that.

 

[aubreymcfato]

NO/NL/SE/ES currently on target for +30% over Q4, also word was that Denmark is having a bonanza quarter too

The big wildcards are the three largest markets: Germany, UK & France, which historically get big deliveries in the 3rd month - I assume for the UK this will still be the case as all the cars are coming from GF3, makes sense for Germany and France GF4 deliveries also to later in the quarter as it's relatively easy to get the cars there - same for Belgium and Holland, and to a degree Denmark too

We'll see, but having followed this charade for many years now it is giving a good gut-feeling right now

Word.
I'm checking teslastats.no dozens times a day, as I did in 2019.
I really did not expect a Q1 in Europe like this.

 

[cliff harris]

Maybe. But seriously. Even Elon has to know that the robotaxi autonomous FSD dream is over, at least for the next decade or two. I personally don’t think it was a malicious deception on Elons or Teslas part, but they need to come clean on this fantasy of robotaxi being a reality with the current hardware software suite. It’s not even remotely close and at the present rate of improvement won’t be for the foreseeable future. I get it. FSD is hard and I’m sure it will happen someday. But Tesla needs to own this and be straight up with folks. I enjoy using FSD but it’s an entertainment feature not any kind of robotaxi feature. I think people would be more understanding if they just came out and explained that it’s just not going to happen on existing cars. Not 3 years ago, not 3 years from now and probably not in 10. Maybe with new hardware someday but not existing cars.

Personally I would still probably buy it again. It’s fun and I like my cars to be fun. Our teslas have always been way fun. But sell it as that. A fun infotainment thing.

Jmho.

I'm in partial agreement, but I think you may be slightly too pessimistic, both on the timescales, and the usefulness of FSD before robotaxi. I agree that it definitely doesn't look like we get robotaxi in the next few years, but then the growth in capabilities between GPT3 and GPT4 has thrown up the possibility of super-growth in AI so...who knows?
But also... even a non-robotaxi FSD is very, very useful. When I do long road trips, they are dramatically more relaxing and easy with autopilot, and I don't even have FSD here in the UK. I can imagine the utility for an uber/tax driver, or travelling salesperson is extremely high.
Elon makes way too much of a big deal of the last-mile of FSD. A car that can automate 95% of my driving is still massively useful to me, and easily worth the $12k., especially as I get older!

 

[aronth5]

When Mobile eye charges the manufactures an arm and a leg, you can bet every dollar that the car manufacture is not taking responsibility. They will blame mobile eye and get them to pay for any accidents just like how GM got LG to pay for every battery fire recall.

Tesla will be the one taking responsibility and there's no one to blame but themselves. So like I said, it's best to push the responsibility to the driver until it starts affecting car sales.

I wonder how much the FSD take rate would be if Tesla did add the few changes needed for L3 on controlled access highways enabling texting/video watching etc? Would it be enough to offset their financial risk? It sure would get the attention of potential Tesla buyers too.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I'm in partial agreement, but I think you may be slightly too pessimistic, both on the timescales, and the usefulness of FSD before robotaxi. I agree that it definitely doesn't look like we get robotaxi in the next few years, but then the growth in capabilities between GPT3 and GPT4 has thrown up the possibility of super-growth in AI so...who knows?
But also... even a non-robotaxi FSD is very, very useful. When I do long road trips, they are dramatically more relaxing and easy with autopilot, and I don't even have FSD here in the UK. I can imagine the utility for an uber/tax driver, or travelling salesperson is extremely high.
Elon makes way too much of a big deal of the last-mile of FSD. A car that can automate 95% of my driving is still massively useful to me, and easily worth the $12k., especially as I get older!

Yah. I agree. We use it every day and it’s both fun and to some extent useful.

But I’ll disagree with the first part. In my opinion L4 autonomy is not achievable with current cars and hardware. And that’s fine but tesla needs to own that and move on.

Jmho.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Interesting article about consequences of emission rule 6b in China:

Legacy auto faces disaster in China with unsellable cars as pollution crunch looms

Potentially millions of petrol and diesel cars may become unsellable in world's biggest car market as China moves to new pollution standards and EV demand booms.

thedriven.io

Tl;dr:
Advice: do read the article above. If not:
The implementation of emission rule 6b in China by July 1 this year may incur a cascade of negative consequences in the industry; and not just in China.
Especially legacy auto with their huge debts can be pushed to the brink, or over it.

What are the assets against the enormous debts of legacy auto worth, when they cannot produce with a profit anymore?
The question is: will the consequence of this be a cascade into another international crises of the financials (banks) and real estate, to name some.

This will not only make China a country with more clear air, but will likely help China to become, with Tesla, the main player in the car industry worldwide.
I personally cannot believe that this last aspect isn't intentionally into play here.

I wonder how much TSLA the Chinese government owns.

 

[Tim S]

Nobody debates that Q1 is up YoY.

The open question is whether it’s up QoQ.

China is confirmed up QoQ (impressive especially given some downtime this Q for Model 3 upgrades). US up QoQ is likely I think.

Europe is the bigger question mark. Let’s look a little closer. Per EU-EVs.com:

Q1-2023(so far) vs Q4-2022:

For the countries who update their registration data daily, all are up over Q4, and it’s not yet the end of the quarter:

Norway: 9226 vs 8670
Netherlands: 2926 vs 2826
Spain: 1784 vs 1317
Sweden: 4109 vs 2236

Next are the countries who update monthly. Keep in mind a few things about these countries:

1. The numbers only include thru February 28 for Q1.
2. Berlin has been ramping, which suggests Model Y deliveries will be weighted more toward end of this Q.
3. Model 3 exports from Shanghai are still arriving later in the quarter (despite attempts to flatten the wave). This is especially true this Q as Shanghai had a shutdown to retool the Model 3 line earlier this Q, plus their week off. So European Q1 deliveries will be weighted toward end of quarter (as we’re seeing with countries that report daily).
4. Tesla typically tends to hold deliveries closest to the factory (Germany) to the very end of quarter to reduce logistics risks, so I expect Model Y deliveries in Germany to be primarily in March.

With the above info, I’m going to assume we see 40% of deliveries for the Q in March for most of Europe, and 2/3 in Germany. So I’ll put my full quarter estimate in parentheses:

Portugal: 1106 (1843) vs 994
Austria: 1226 (2043) vs 1211
UK: 2522 (4203) vs 20732
France: 3631 (6052) vs 7370
Germany: 11951 (36215) vs 31505
Italy: 1639 (2731) vs 1706
Switzerland: 310 (517) vs 2326
Denmark: 1550 (2583) vs 847
Ireland: 2 (3) vs 25
Finland: 431 (718) vs 741

This yields 74,953 vs 82506 in Q4. I realize this is not Europe’s total count, but it’s probably large enough to extrapolate. My 40% estimate might be lowballing the percentage deliveries in March, or it might not. But looking at this this way, yes Europe might be down slightly this Q.

Having said that, even with a 15k shortfall in Europe vs Q4, I still think we see a record worldwide.

Why is UK so much lower in Q1 vs Q4?

 

[Snerruc]

Only 10? I feel like I got off easy.

Do you remember Steve Allen? Jack Parr? Youngsters!

 

[mongo]

Why is UK so much lower in Q1 vs Q4?

Indeed, December 2022 had 16,368 of Tesla's 20k deliveries. UK's EV Share Hits 40% In December — Tesla Model Y Overall Bestseller - CleanTechnica

 

[jerry33]

Why is UK so much lower in Q1 vs Q4?

Presumably right hand drive production.

 

[generalenthu]

Why is UK so much lower in Q1 vs Q4?

I think someone mentioned a quirk around registration/ taxes that might push some deliveries after 3/31.

May be it was @petit_bateau ?

 

[JRP3]

I totally disagree with this.

If what you suggest is true, we need to sell our TSLA because then it's worth zero, according to the man in charge.

I disagree with the man in charge on this point, though I think his intent was to say "if other companies solve it and we don't then we've failed".

 

[mongo]

I think someone mentioned a quirk around registration/ taxes that might push some deliveries after 3/31.

May be it was @petit_bateau ?

Huh, specific for this year? March of 2022 had 13k deliveries. UK is definitely lumpy though.
UK: Plug-In Car Sales Almost Doubled In March 2022

 

[growler23]

Interesting article about consequences of emission rule 6b in China:

Legacy auto faces disaster in China with unsellable cars as pollution crunch looms

Potentially millions of petrol and diesel cars may become unsellable in world's biggest car market as China moves to new pollution standards and EV demand booms.

thedriven.io

Tl;dr:
Advice: do read the article above. If not:
The implementation of emission rule 6b in China by July 1 this year may incur a cascade of negative consequences in the industry; and not just in China.
Especially legacy auto with their huge debts can be pushed to the brink, or over it.

What are the assets against the enormous debts of legacy auto worth, when they cannot produce with a profit anymore?
The question is: will the consequence of this be a cascade into another international crises of the financials (banks) and real estate, to name some.

This will not only make China a country with more clear air, but will likely help China to become, with Tesla, the main player in the car industry worldwide.
I personally cannot believe that this last aspect isn't intentionally into play here.

Thank you! A very good (short) read. One of the upshots, scary and yet exhilarating:

The German and Japanese car giants are also two of the most indebted companies in the world, both with almost $US200 billion of debt and highly questionable valuations on their internal combustion factory assets.

An inventory glut of unsellable vehicles in the world’s largest car market is the last thing these companies need and with ICE vehicles sales plummeting, it’s difficult to see how they will survive.

In Japan, automotive manufacturers and the industries that support them are estimated to employ over 5 million workers. Around 8% of Japan’s workforce.

Because of Japan’s disastrous national hydrogen strategy (largely promoted by Toyota), the nation produces a trivial number of electric vehicles and as a result its addressable market in China is vanishing before its eyes.

With Chinese automakers largely shielded from the impacts of the new pollution standards because of their early move to EVs, it’s unlikely that the Chinese government will delay its implementation.

I still keep my eye on Toyota, the behemoth and (pre-Tesla) the one who once set the standard in manufacturing innovation. Year after year (even going back to my Prius days) I watched them stutter and obfuscate against EVs, when they could have leveraged their high-power electronics and battery experience from the Prius to define and dominate this new market. Hydrogen Forever indeed
Will Toyota survive? Can Japan allow them to fail? Could it even afford to keep them afloat? This one company's fate has global economic implications (as do the other big ones, but Toyota is massive).
By contrast, per the article, Tesla remains exceedingly well positioned in terms of eating the lunches of former bullies.

 

[Nocturnal]

Thank you! A very good (short) read. One of the upshots, scary and yet exhilarating:

I still keep my eye on Toyota, the behemoth and (pre-Tesla) the one who once set the standard in manufacturing innovation. Year after year (even going back to my Prius days)

When I first started investing in Tesla Toyota was the company I was concerned about. It made sense that the Prius experience could have been used as a launch pad. Turns out I was wrong, so far at least. (not that I expect anything to change)

 

[generalenthu]

Huh, specific for this year? March of 2022 had 13k deliveries. UK is definitely lumpy though.
UK: Plug-In Car Sales Almost Doubled In March 2022

take it with a lump of salt, but this is what ChatGPT-4 told me. it may just end up pushing demand from Jan and Feb to March.

Me:
can you tell me more about the UK march plate change, and how it affects car purchases around that time?



ChatGPT:
The UK March plate change refers to the biannual update of vehicle registration plates, which occurs in March and September. The plate change helps to identify a car's age by indicating the year it was registered. In the UK, registration plates use a two-letter regional identifier, followed by a two-digit age identifier, and then three random letters.
During the March plate change, the age identifier increases to represent the new year. For example, in March 2023, the age identifier would be "23", and in September 2023, it would change to "73" (adding 50 to the March number). This system repeats every year with a similar pattern.
The March plate change has a significant impact on car purchases around that time:

1. Increased demand: Many consumers wait to buy a new car during the plate change period to ensure they get the latest registration plate. This can lead to increased demand and a potential shortage of certain popular models. Dealerships often have promotions and discounts to capitalize on this increased interest.
2. Depreciation: As new registration plates are issued, older vehicles with the previous year's plate may experience accelerated depreciation. Buyers looking to resell their cars in the future may prefer to purchase a vehicle with the latest plate to help maintain its value.
3. Pre-registered cars: To meet sales targets, dealerships may pre-register vehicles before the plate change. These cars are technically "used" but often have minimal mileage and may be sold at a discount. Buyers looking for a good deal may consider purchasing pre-registered cars around the time of the plate change.
4. Used car market: The influx of new car purchases during the March plate change also leads to an increase in part-exchange vehicles, creating a more extensive selection in the used car market. Consumers may find better deals or more options when shopping for used cars during this period.

Overall, the UK March plate change can affect car purchases by influencing buyer behavior, altering the demand for new and used vehicles, and impacting vehicle depreciation rates. Buyers looking to capitalize on the plate change can use this period to find promotional deals and discounts or take advantage of a more extensive selection in the used car market.

 

[Zero CO2]

You are not making much sense.

I use FSDb all the time too. Have been since it came out - infact used EAP extensively before that.

That doesn't mean "robotaxi" is close by. You disagreed with a comment it might take 10 years - but as you confess - you have no idea when (or if) it can be achieved.

my disagree was with the idea that it is a toy for entertainment ... for me as a driver i could care less about robotaxi ... it is a nice goal ... what matters to me is safety and FSD is improving quite a bit ... my few drives on this new release the system seems more confident ... strange to describe software as confident .. but that is how i see FSD11.x at this point

I do care about robotaxi in terms TSLA stock ... but i don't know when FSD will be SAE L5 (is L5 required for robotaxi? with no operator in driver seat). I would guess we are between L3 and L4 right now

 

[Krugerrand]

I'm gonna go with 426969

‍

So many slow learners; 383,000

 

[Krugerrand]

But I’ll disagree with the first part. In my opinion L4 autonomy is not achievable with current cars and hardware. And that’s fine but tesla needs to own that and move on.

Jmho.

Tesla doesn’t have to own your opinion.