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

[alexxs88]

How many lives has FSD, FSD Beta, and FSD Supervised saved, compared to Waymo?

This is the metric that will determine how effective either system is over time. Neither will be perfect. Caca occurs.

If you define it as a ratio of events / miles driven, I'd guess it's comparable. Do you have any reason to believe it's not?

Most "FSD saved my life events" that I've seen are available in cars today. Happy to be proven wrong though. My BMW has automatic emergency braking, cross traffic detection and a bunch of other safety systems that can prevent a lot of incidents or at the very least reduce their impact.

But you haven't replied to the "driver present" Waymo data. It still only shows ~200 disengagements over 3.7 million miles. I'd say that's pretty good, isn't it?

When a system is operational at a level that beneficially surpasses the injury, death, collision, etc. rates of human drivers, that will be the system that gets a green light. Regardless of "meaningful progress..." as you define it.

Insurance companies already place their bets based upon the statistics. If the rates of liability-related costs are reduced, the taking the risk for that liability will be less than it is for human drivers.

Whatever that cost is will be built into the cost of an FSD subscription, and it will be less than a human driver will pay for the same coverage. It will be as balanced a risk as any other insurance policy will be, based on actuarial data.

Who has the most data?

I don't disagree with any of that. It's just the question of "when" and "who". That's where we are in disagreement (and that's not a problem)

 

[alexxs88]

The combination of direct distribution, improving manufacturing efficiency and reduced component costs (notably in motors, battery costs and reduced warranty expense as a result of lower problem rates and improved OTA diagnosis, has, in your view, not a glimmer of value?

It does. The direct distribution alone is a big reason why Tesla is still in business. The rest, I don't agree with. I have a rough idea of the margins dealers get, so I'm not seeing any significant manufacturing efficiency or reduced component costs when I take those out.

Can you share your split of the gross margin? How much does it come from the direct distribution part and how much is in the manufacturing?

 

[unk45]

....

Insurance companies already place their bets based upon the statistics. If the rates of liability-related costs are reduced, then taking the risk for that liability will be less than it is for human drivers.

...

Indeed they do. Loss frequency and loss severity. How many times does one need to repeat actuarial calculations for liability in auto insurance. Loss severity in automated systems is higher than that of direct human operated systems in almost all cases. We persist in ignoring that!

 

[Krugerrand]

Your attitude is certainly hilarious. And judging by your predictions, what you're considering "a base case" is certainly incredibly optimistic. I wonder what happens if I go 3-4-5 years back and look at the time estimates of people like yourself, of when getting FSD will be a no-brainer and any company that doesn't have it will be doomed.

Triple dog dare you to infinity. You’ll note I’ve never made a prediction and I can’t actually remember Moonie making one either.

Are you serious? The message I quoted above was addressed directly to me? Is that not harshness of tone? As I can swear I can't see you disagreeing with those posts.

How would you prefer me to tell you I don’t believe you and think you’re talking bs? I don’t believe you were long, that you timed selling perfectly, that you went short perfectly, and covered your short timed perfectly. I don’t believe you’re here for the reasons you’ve stated. Etc., etc…

Give me the words, an example of grammar, punctuation, whathaveyou, that you want me to use when conversing with you, and I’ll extend you the courtesy of addressing you in that manner. I’ll even never reply to you again if that is your wish. You need only ask.

 

[MartinAustin]

Surely $200 will be a ceiling today? At this rate it looks like it's going to charge through

 

[advocate8]

If you define it as a ratio of events / miles driven, I'd guess it's comparable. Do you have any reason to believe it's not?

Most (if not all) of "FSD saved my life events" that I've seen are available in cars today. Happy to be proven wrong though. My BMW has automatic emergency braking, cross traffic detection and a bunch of other safety systems that can prevent a lot of incidents or at the very least reduce their impact.

But you haven't replied to the "driver present" Waymo data. It still only shows ~200 disengagements over 3.7 million miles. I'd say that's pretty good, isn't it?




I don't disagree with any of that. It's just the question of "when" and "who". That's where we are in disagreement (and that's not a problem)

There is literally no way to know if FSD reduces accidents, fatal or otherwise. It's used mainly on highways and the like, which are significantly safer generally. The only way to know would be to develop an accurate set of crash data for vehicles WITHOUT FSD for miles driven on the exactly same kinds of roads the exact same percentage of time for each category of road. This has not been done anywhere I have seen.
Using Tesla crash data and comparing it to general crash data, as the company does, is a significant misuse of statistics and clearly deceptive.

 

[2daMoon]

On the link I've sent, there's similar data available for Waymo as well. Just use the data for rides that had a safety driver present. I got the number above.

Are the Remote Operators considered "safety drivers" in that data?

If not, how are their interventions counted?

 

[alexxs88]

Triple dog dare you to infinity. You’ll note I’ve never made a prediction and I can’t actually remember Moonie making one either.

How would you prefer me to tell you I don’t believe you and think you’re talking bs? I don’t believe you were long, that you timed selling perfectly, that you went short perfectly, and covered your short timed perfectly. I don’t believe you’re here for the reasons you’ve stated. Etc., etc…

As I mentioned, I don't really care what internet usernames know or believe about my internet username. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy in that user's message.

I didn't time it to perfection. I lost some money last year (still well positive as of today) and I also sold way too early on the way up. I only made 4x from my 2019 investment in Tesla when the max was actually something like 20x iirc. Last year's lesson was to not get in the way of Tesla investor optimism and Elon's determination. As I mentioned a lot of times, I think both the company and him are extraordinary, I'd much rather work for them than at any other OEM, but that doesn't change the investment thesis: there's too much perfection priced in and I don't believe it's justified. Same as I didn't believe Nio's battery swapping miracle technology hype was justified.

 

[Drumheller]

Load thread... oh, 7 unread pages, maybe some interesting news and conversation

Turns out 4 pages are people responding to a bad faith account. You're helping to spread FUD by engaging and giving them more attention. Some of those accounts are paid jobs. People are literally paid to make argumentative posts in a community to spread dissent. This has been a real thing for decades. There are patterns to recognize those accounts, such as not seeming to learn from debunked theories, only posting during specific hours (their work shift), always posting in a way that triggers other members to feel the need to respond to "set the record straight."

Feeding them helps their objective.

 

[unk45]

It does. The direct distribution alone is a big reason why Tesla is still in business. The rest, I don't agree with. I have a rough idea of the margins dealers get, so I'm not seeing any significant manufacturing efficiency or reduced component costs when I take those out.

What is your assumption of dealer distribution costs? Unless you have actual data for all elements fo dealer distribution to compare with direct distribution I doubt your statement.
Clue: margin between MSRP and actual sales price is not normally a significant source of dealer profit nor OEM distribution costs.

it was a major shock to me the first time I saw such data. Since I'ev actually seen to for two EU OEM, one Japanese and two US. None were below 20% of total cost of goods sold. Tesla will, of course have a very different structure and exact parallel is not possible.

One OEM actually commissioned my firm to evaluate the results were they to launch a new brand with a direct sales approach versus their existing dealer network. The results were compelling, they did try, but quickly gave up in the face of dealer threatened rebellion. They're doing well today with that new brand, no longer new, but no longer aspire to improving their distribution. No surprise, their dealers abhor the Ev's...return to total costs of dealer distraction for clues. Profits from required service and warranty repair are just too important to dealers.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Elon comment on on the Ron B. interview.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784973255662813584

Unless it's Munger or Buffet

 

[Hock1]

How is investing on a thesis gambling? Expecting a stock to go down because of a valuation model is as much gambling as it's expecting it to go up based on an a valuation model. The stock is down 33% from when I started the short, how do you think I lost money?

You are equating short selling to investing? You should work for the SEC.

 

[Buckminster]

interesting timing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784980797239296140

 

[alexxs88]

Are the Remote Operators considered "safety drivers" in that data?

If not, how are their interventions counted?

Yes. DMV's definition is quite clear - now I obviously can't guarantee Waymo is not gaming the system, but I think they'd be open to a lot of litigation if they would and the benefits seem inexistent. Any deactivation of the autonomous mode counts as a disengagement. And they're obligated to report if the disengagement was caused by the remote operator

227.50 - https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/adopted-regulatory-text-pdf/

 

[M|S|M MYP]

interesting timing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784980797239296140

Intern forgot to hit the 'publish' button at 6:30am PST.

 

[Musskiah]

That’s not at all how Elon thinks. It’s not how he operates.

That's a good point

 

[2daMoon]

If you define it as a ratio of events / miles driven, I'd guess it's comparable. Do you have any reason to believe it's not?

On the contrary, when it comes to insuring autonomous vehicles this is what will be considered. This is what will establish the cost basis, and support adoption of the technology. Does it save lives, and also reduce injuries and collision damage compared to the alternatives? If the answer is "yes" then it will be implemented.

But you haven't replied to the "driver present" Waymo data. It still only shows ~200 disengagements over 3.7 million miles. I'd say that's pretty good, isn't it?

It hasn't been determined how Waymo defines "disengagement" for any reasonable comparison to take place. Whether or not remote operators are considered as a "driver present" might be another factor to muddy the waters in interpreting Waymo's data to compare with Tesla's data.

There is a significant opportunity for events where a Tesla driver "disengages" FSD being markedly different and more frequent in scope from those events which Waymo describes using the same term, but defined differently. It is looking more and more like an apples and oranges situation because of this ambiguity.

In forming an opinion, I'd steer away from comparing reported disengagements between Waymo and Tesla entirely without having a shared definition established as a standard to base the count upon.

I would certainly not repeatedly post those numbers in a forum expecting it to offer support to an opinion.

 

[UncaNed]

Any chance we could start another thread where all those obsessed with troll-feeding could happily do their thing while sparing the rest of us?

Asking for a friend...

 

[Usain]

That is of course A MODEL. I don't think it's even remotely correct.
1. Take rate over 50%? When? Right now it's in the single digit category.
2. Gross margins above 80%? Let's be realistic. Google's gross margin is 57%, Meta's GM is 80% (and their business is huge).
3. OEM Deals are not realistic until the system gets to level 4/5. Again, take rate. Tesla will have to show amazing take rate to convince any OEM. That take rate is not there yet.

1. I already told you "when". I said when people realize that driving manually is too dangerous. Insurance companies will give huge discounts for using FSD. That alone will drive the take rate high.

2. Yes, gross margins above 80%. Rather than give you one link, just google "profit margin for SaaS companies". I will say that the margin on FSD is hard to compare to anything else. It requires a lot less development and support personnel, but it does require a lot of expensive compute. In Tesla's case the compute resources will be shared with many non-FSD projects. So it's really hard to tell what the margin will be. My experience in software is that when you scale up and your software gets really popular, 90% margins are common.

3. OEM Deals are realistic today. As in NOW. Elon already talked about it on the conference call.

 

[unk45]

Thank you for pointing to that. It's a wrinkle that I never knew about a man that I didn't know.

For others who may not have done the search, it seems to go back to the days of Zip2. Remember that Elon is OG mapping and navigation. Robin Li was, among other things, a staff engineer at Infoseek.

Fun, isn't it?. When we discover serendipity.;Knowing only that additional point does help understand why the two might rather admire each other and seek to find ways to cooperate.

As an adjunct to this one it is quite amazing that the more a person has lived and worked in several countries it is far more likely that they'll have encountered serendipity. I still, after all the travel and living around the world am astonished about how frequently that happens.

Both Elon and Robin are prototypes. Simply the range of their backgrounds allow them to relate to others who might simply ignore them. One corollary to that lies with the aphorism: "chance favors the prepared mind". I owe my career success and my marriage to chance. I often feel that my life might well have been powered by the Infinite Improbability Principle that was so effective with "The Heart of Gold". Never have I had any direct knowledge of either Elon Musk nor Robin Li. I still can recognize how the two of them would have obvious rapport.

Now take a quick glance of other major figures in Elon's journey in China...
start the next look with the present Vice Premier of China...