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

[GrandEnigma]

Those of you reporting govt numbers, please go look at how they've been revising the numbers quietly months later. They're lying to try and boost confidence in the economy.

It has at times been quite humorous the level of revision. That said, it does appear to be working if that is indeed the motivation and not just terrible reporting and aggregating.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Those of you reporting govt numbers, please go look at how they've been revising the numbers quietly months later. They're lying to try and boost confidence in the economy.

It's always a problem.

How Large Are Inflation Revisions? The Difficulty of Monitoring Prices in Real Time - Liberty Street Economics

The key features of the recent inflation spike and subsequent moderation may look quite different in hindsight once further revisions have taken place.

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

 

[Drumheller]

It has at times been quite humorous the level of revision. That said, it does appear to be working if that is indeed the motivation and not just terrible reporting and aggregating.

View attachment 998610

I agree. Inflation is reducing, so that is working, but the current status is worse than being reported. The job numbers are often heavily revised. And it doesn't accurately portray how many people are picking up second, or even third, jobs to make ends meet.

Tesla has increased discounts on inventory model Ys this week. About 3400 off website price for a long range. This thread can argue what is the primary impact on sales. My opinion is that the economy, particularly years of inflation without wages keeping anywhere close, is the main influencer.

 

[The Accountant]

Those of you reporting govt numbers, please go look at how they've been revising the numbers quietly months later. They're lying to try and boost confidence in the economy.

There have only been 4 revisions to the CPI number in the past 23 months. They do not get revised often.
The yellow dots show where a revision has occurred.

 

[Drumheller]

There have only been 4 revisions to the CPI number in the past 23 months. They do not get revised often.
The yellow dots show where a revision has occurred.
View attachment 998616

The formula was altered to make the numbers look better. Also, the job numbers have been revised several times.

On another note, glad to see you back posting here more often!

 

[GrandEnigma]

The bigger canary to me is the number of people I see getting a second job and the number of my wife's friends that were home with their kids that are strongly considering going back to work or already have. That is not the sign of strength in a market and short term inflation is 100% to blame.

 

[The Accountant]

The formula was altered to make the numbers look better. Also, the job numbers have been revised several times.

On another note, glad to see you back posting here more often!

The jobs numbers are always going to be revised. The process to collect that data is arduous and antiquated from what I understand.
At a manufacturing facility I ran, we had someone in an entry level position completing the monthly, quarterly and annual government reporting.
They took numbers from reports and completed forms - getting instructions from the prior entry level person who passed on the work to them.
The person did not understand the content of the work . . .they took the number from here and entered it there.

The reason I know all this was because I was given almost daily items that I needed to sign. During my first month on the job, some government reports came to me for signature. I asked, "What am I signing? . . . how do I know they are correct"? Unfortunately these questions led to many more questions.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Likely COP98 will come and go and we still won't have 'negotiated' beyond Stage 3 in our recovery from fossil fuel addiction. Only profitable EV and renewable energy businesses give us hope to overcome greed and short-termism. The fossil fools won't go without a fight. We're seeing it today (both in Dubai and on Wall St).

COP28 negotiations enter last day with no agreement in sight on fossil fuels | CBC Newsnet (9 hrs ago)

 

[Krugerrand]

The bigger canary to me is the number of people I see getting a second job and the number of my wife's friends that were home with their kids that are strongly considering going back to work or already have. That is not the sign of strength in a market and short term inflation is 100% to blame.

I’m seeing the opposite. Lots of job postings but nobody wants to work. ‍

 

[Artful Dodger]

12 Days of Christmas* - Tesla Edition 12/12/2023

Day 01: A partridge in a pear tree | Roadster Proof of Concept
Day 02: Two turtle doves | S/X fraternal twins go mainstream
Day 03: Three French hens | Model 3 bets the company
Day 04: Four calling birds | Model Y made at 4 factories
Day 05: Five golden rings | Semi breaks physiks
Day 06: Six geese a-laying | Megapack To Excel
Day 07: Seven swans a-swimming | Cybertourdeforce
Day 08: Eight maids a-milking | Model 2 World Car
Day 09: Nine ladies dancing | Dojo as a Service
Day 10: Ten lords a-leaping | Teslabot FTW
Day 11: Eleven pipers piping | FSD or bust
Day 12: Twelve drummers drumming | Robotaxi at last

Over this Yuletide season, each day I will be posting another installment in a series focusing on the past, present, and future of Tesla products (pardon the Dickensian diversion, but afterall, I am the Artful Dodger).

Merry Christmas to all, Happy Holidays, and enjoy this discussion.

Best regards,
Lodger

*TL;dr Each of these 12 steps results in an approximate 1.5x increment in Tesla's enterprise value, reaching approx. $16.5T in Step 12. So stay tuned, elves. Santa's on his way!

 

[NicoV]

The older system has seperate CAN-busses. This could be for having motion data (position/angle sensors, motor speeds from the inverters) seperated from the service data to avoid having the bus overloaded because one node is flooding the bus with pakkets.

The newer is an all-ethernet based fieldbus with deterministic properties at a much higher bandwith without the need for a seperate CAN/Ethernet gateway (think of it like Powerlink Ethernet or Ethernet/IP from AB) lowering latency and speeds. Tesla designs most of the controllers/inverters/electronics inhouse for this platform, so I expect them to avoid the legacy CAN interface entirely on the controllers/board and have direct Ethernet communcation based links between every node (actuators, invertors, screens, controllers, sensors, ....)

Can you elaborate on how Ethernet has gotten deterministic? I’m still stuck in the 90s CSMA/CD being not deterministic and thus useless for real-time systems.

 

[growler23]

Well, another employee at our humble commercial enterprise has taken delivery of a Model Y Performance. That gives our company a Tesla ownership ratio of about 15%. I helped sell this most recent one (loot box points expected inbound shortly).
Keep talking to folks about these future machines when the opportunity arises. Also, key point, know when to stop talking and let them discover.

Growler out.

 

[Skryll]

I’m seeing the opposite. Lots of job postings but nobody wants to work. ‍

Maybe specific to your bubble - I would assume early retirees with extra cash from the stock market ? Took me six months to get a decent tech job after 25 years of experience, and took a personal connection to get the attention. The job
Market in my industry has significantly changed. Instead of head hunters knocking on my door, most applications disappeared into a black hole, some got a template decline two months later. Also LinkedIn has turned into more of a Facebook than being effective for getting responses for outreach.

 

[growler23]

Can you elaborate on how Ethernet has gotten deterministic? I’m still stuck in the 90s CSMA/CD being not deterministic and thus useless for real-time systems.

In the video we were discussing, they mentioned that the 100 Gb loop was run as something closer to a time-based token ring. Per my understanding, simply put, everyone on the bus knows when it is their timeslice to talk, so CSMA/CD does not come into play since everyone who isn't supposed to talk right then, shuts up. And yes, all speakers on the bus must have a very accurate common sense of time to allow this. Different time-based token rings have different ways of configuring this, but that's even more geeky detail.
Short answer: Ethernet wire, but different MAC (media access control).

 

[philw1776]

Can you elaborate on how Ethernet has gotten deterministic? I’m still stuck in the 90s CSMA/CD being not deterministic and thus useless for real-time systems.

My guess:
It's not old fashioned ethernet when carried on the fiber. Yes "ethernet" packets but the packets could be transported along the fiber ring by a token ring type protocol from node to node. No CSMA/CD along the ring. That's how we did it in 1985.

 

[unk45]

The jobs numbers are always going to be revised. The process to collect that data is arduous and antiquated from what I understand.
At a manufacturing facility I ran, we had someone in an entry level position completing the monthly, quarterly and annual government reporting.
They took numbers from reports and completed forms - getting instructions from the prior entry level person who passed on the work to them.
The person did not understand the content of the work . . .they took the number from here and entered it there.

The reason I know all this was because I was given almost daily items that I needed to sign. During my first month on the job, some government reports came to me for signature. I asked, "What am I signing? . . . how do I know they are correct"? Unfortunately these questions led to many more questions.

I can attest to that from time responsible for central bank and treasury reports in several different countries. None of the people responsible in those agencies and much ida what they were aggregating and the providers fo data to them were never very talented. I never had such responsibilities in any US entity. I always imagined it would be better in the US.

My question now is how effectively automotive and energy entity reporting might be? Can Tesla have better data than can others? It seems that for logistics questions such as shipping prices and commodity prices they may well have better information than do the aggregated sources? Is that so?

Now I wonder if @The Accountant may be giving us another area of Tesla competitive advantage. From past logistics discussions in Tesla presentations the germ of that idea began to percolate. Unwinding the quarter-end rush obviously is one clue, as was the extreme flexibility during the 'chip crisis'. Such things might help explain why Tesla maintains positive cash flow when few competitors can do that.

It does require superior information flow to maintain a positive cash conversion cycle.

 

[MountainRatMat]

One of Tesla's engineers in the Munro video did use the term CAN in reference to one or more busses that communicate on the gigabit network. Maybe it was used as a generic term, but it was someone on the team saying it.

I'm trying to recall what I heard but I believe there are CAN offshoots from the main network. The primary communication for the vehicle is an ethernet like gigabit ring network. CAN is too slow to do what Tesla wants for the main network.

 

[Artful Dodger]

From past logistics discussions in Tesla presentations the germ of that idea began to percolate. Unwinding the quarter-end rush obviously is one clue, as was the extreme flexibility during the 'chip crisis'. Such things might help explain why Tesla maintains positive cash flow when few competitors can do that.

Jeff Lutz (ex-Supply chain executive) discussed this with Herbert Ong this morning (queued to time index 8:08). Jeff said Tesla was rated in the Top-25 in the Gartner survey of supply chain management. Indeed Tesla was ranked 14th in the World across all industries, while no other Automaker even made the list:

This is how Tesla keeps grinding the grist, and chews away at COGS:

EDIT:

"The Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 identifies, celebrates and profiles supply chain excellence on a global scale, and by target region and industry."​

Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2023 | gartner.com

Gartner Supply Chain Top 25: 2023 Best Global Supply Chain

Want to know what sets apart the best supply chain companies from the rest? Download the 2023 Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 eBook now and get inspired.

www.gartner.com

Cheers!

 

[SOULPEDL]

My guess:
It's not old fashioned ethernet when carried on the fiber. Yes "ethernet" packets but the packets could be transported along the fiber ring by a token ring type protocol from node to node. No CSMA/CD along the ring. That's how we did it in 1985.

SNL style, post UFO encounter (what it means to most of us):

"Let me tell you about them Ethernet packets. On my last abduction, them packets were about 2" in diameter and crammed in there so hard, they had to use the ring protocol to remove them! But I swear, it still feels like they left that CD in there - I notice it every time I brush my hair... Zap! Then the lights go out!"

Happy Tuesday!

 

[FreqFlyer]

View attachment 998482

The competition has come and scaled back its 'ambitious production goals'. How long until the EV leader Mary Barra and her crew retract, oh wait....they are releasing 70 new models by 2025

If one is concerned about the masses switching to EVs this is not a good sign. 14 million or so buyers are happy buying ICEs.

The F150 Lightning product is lacking too, being warmed over F150 ICE truck with batteries between the frame.