1x Tsla Discussion Threads

[hosede] 24/7/2024 11:40

Perhaps the Robot should be renamed Pessimus :-o

[zho] 24/7/2024 09:34

An 8% fall after market tells its own story. What was the problem? In part, the Musk schtick is beginning to wear thin. To cite two almost comical examples, he at one point said that “everyone on Earth” would want an Optimus robot, so the total addressable market for it was about 8 billion, and then answered a question about regulatory approvals for the robotaxi by saying: “Our solution would work anywhere, even a new Earth.” That inspires Musk’s legions of admirers but it falls flat with shareholders, particularly after a poor quarter.

[cfb2] 20/7/2024 15:40

hosede: Tesla have numerous moats which are crucial to their technology. A competitor would be unable to mimic Tesla's solution by merely stripping the car to its components and copying them.

Several talking heads/analysts remark that the intermittent windscreen wipers were copied by other manufacturers shortly after Ford rolled them out and the same will happen to Robotaxis, except they'll do it better than Tesla because they'll learn from their mistakes. So your misunderstanding appears to be common and hopefully I can explain some of the moats Tesla has:

1. All Tesla cars have eight cameras, a couple of dedicated AI based processors with full redundancy.

Tesla have been putting this hardware into their cars for a decade. Giving them the ability to upgrade any of the 6m vehicles to run as robotaxis. Any of these cars can send back specific video clips that can be used to train Tesla's AI.

The amount of compute power available spread over the Tesla fleet in the inference engines is vast potentially providing yet another revenue stream in the future.

2. Vertical integration.

Vertical integration means that Tesla can issue software updates to upgrade any of the software in the car's components. None of the legacy manufacturers have this ability as they buy in components and software from elsewhere resulting in upgrades requiring a return to dealer and the attachment of a cable to upgrade.

Allowing a car to upgrade any of its components is really difficult to do unless it has been designed in at the start. Most of the legacy manufacturers would need to throw away the majority of their software (and some hardware) and start from scratch to achieve this.

3. AI and neural network expertise.

The team has been put together over 15 years and judging them by their achievements they are world leading. There will be considerable amounts of in-house written software and knowledge accumulated over that time to support the FSD.

4. Data advantage

Over 2 billion miles driven by their cars and accumulated safety data ready for submission to the regulators. The best of the captured video data is being used to train the AI. Without this volume of data it will be impossible to discover those edge cases that need to be solved to make FSD safer than humans.

The FSD software is unlikely to ever be complete as there will always be the quest for the march of nines. The faster you can accumulate the data the faster you can feed this back into improving the software.

5. Data centre

Constructing a data centre with a hundred exaFLOP capabilities is difficult and expensive. There are few companies with deep enough pockets. A data centre of this capabilities requires it's own power station!

[iceagefarmer] 20/7/2024 07:51

Mr Trump said: “We will end the ridiculous and actually incredible waste of taxpayer dollars that is fuelling the inflation crisis.

“They’ve spent trillions of dollars on things having to do with the green new scam – it’s a scam.”

[hosede] 19/7/2024 18:58

Cfb
I still don't see why Robotaxis - if they come to fruition - should benefit just Tesla. Anything new like that and every man and his dog rush to get aboard; normally resulting in massive competition, and very little profit for anyone

[cfb2] 16/7/2024 15:27

The Robotaxis event has been delayed until October, not in itself a big deal in the scheme of things, but it suggests the initial announcement was to deflect attention away from reduction in YoY car sales. The rumour is that it is being pushed back to introduce a new feature that developers say is worth the delay.

Tesla shareholders are used to Musk's optimistic time scales and they're OK with it because Tesla are such trailblazers in their markets. What Musk needs to realise is there is a thin line between optimism and manipulation. Very difficult to come back once you've been proven to be on the wrong side of the line.

[hosede] 15/7/2024 10:16

Results out on 23rd - that's late: it's usually around 17th . You would think that if they were good you'd want to get them out early

[simon gordon] 11/7/2024 18:48

Bloomberg - 11/7/24

How Rivian Became the Anti-Tesla

The startup persuaded Elon-phobic car buyers to drop $70,000 on its EVs. Now it just needs to make money.

Like a lot of people, Chris Hilbert has complicated feelings about his Tesla Model S. Hilbert, who is 44 and lives outside Indianapolis, loves his car’s instant torque and neck-snapping acceleration, but there are other aspects of Tesla ownership he finds less appealing. For instance, he doesn’t credit the company’s claims that his car is a few software updates away from being able to operate autonomously, and he wouldn’t particularly care about such a capability, even if it existed. “I like to drive my vehicles,” he says. He’s also put off by the rabid fandom culture that’s come to surround everything related to Tesla Inc. and its chief executive officer, Elon Musk.

Recently, when Hilbert complained on social media that his car’s “Full Self-Driving” system seemed to consistently fail to stop for school buses, he was greeted with a mixture of denial (“Fake news as usual”) and ridicule (“You suck”). “The big problem is, there’s Tesla and there’s TSLA,” Hilbert says, referring to the two species of Tesla fan. The first group cares about the cars and is basically like Hilbert. The second is mostly interested in pumping up the stock ticker and attacking anyone who isn’t doing the same. “The stockholders are the toxic bit of it,” he says.

Hilbert, who works at a financial-services company, is a lot more enthusiastic when talking about his family’s other car, a Rivian R1S. Last year he and his wife bought the three-row SUV, which starts at around $76,000, by trading in their old Tesla Model X, a luxury crossover vehicle that seats six and features the distinctive “falcon wing” doors resembling those of a Bugatti Type 64 or a DeLorean. The R1S had a seventh seat, making it big enough for his five kids. (He considered a plug-in hybrid minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica, but couldn’t face the idea of actually having to fill up a gas tank.)

Continued....

[hosede] 11/7/2024 17:17

I Understand history Juliemara - and I know that the end of the US hegemony is not far off

[hosede] 11/7/2024 16:52

Three nice gaps above 195.
If Robotaxis ever actually make it onto the streets, I suspect that there will be as many robotaxi Cos. as there are normal taxis cos. today and they will have to compete just as they do now

[hosede] 11/7/2024 16:25

Bears seem to have come out of hibernation today

[hpcg] 10/7/2024 14:42

I can't see the logic of tariffs on Chinese EVs being good for Tesla. It has a large plant there with a lot of political risk. It needn't be government lead, it could be a consumer boycott.

[hosede] 08/7/2024 11:02

Simon
Lets wait til the earnings report. Any fool can sell stuff! - its (a) making a profit and (b) getting paid that are the difficult things

[simon gordon] 08/7/2024 10:48

Bloomberg - 7/7/24

Hedge Funds That Piled Into Big Tesla Short Stung by Huge Rally

Growing number of hedge funds shorted Tesla through June

Hedge funds piled into short bets against Tesla Inc. right before the electric vehicle maker unveiled a set of numbers that triggered a hefty share-price rally.

About 18% of the 500-plus hedge funds tracked by data provider Hazeltree had an overall short position on Tesla at the end of June, the highest percentage in more than a year, according to figures shared with Bloomberg. That compares with just under 15% at the end of March.

Those contrarian bets now threaten to saddle the hedge funds behind them with losses. Tesla’s latest vehicle-sales results, published on July 2, revealed second-quarter deliveries figures that beat average analyst estimates, even though sales were down. Investors pounced on the news, driving the company’s shares to a six-month high. Since the beginning of June, Tesla’s share price has now soared about 40%.

Tesla is likely to see its profit margins improve, helped by lower production and raw material costs, according to Morningstar Inc.’s Seth Goldstein, one of the top three analysts covering the stock in a Bloomberg ranking that tracks price recommendations.

The company will likely “return to profit growth” next year, he said in a note to clients. But how Tesla handles the market’s intensifying focus on affordable EVs will be key, he added.

The development feeds into an ongoing sense of uncertainty around how to treat the wider EV market, amid a sea of conflicting dynamics. The industry — a key plank in the global race to reach net zero emissions by 2050 — benefits from generous tax credits. Yet it’s also contending with significant hurdles in the form of tariff wars and even identity politics, with some consumers rejecting EVs as a form of “woke” transport.

In the US, Donald Trump has said that if he becomes president again after November’s election, he’ll undo existing laws supporting battery-powered vehicles, calling them “crazy.” That said, Trump is a “huge fan” of Tesla’s Cybertruck, according to Elon Musk, the EV giant’s chief executive officer.

Meanwhile, the list of internal disruptions at Tesla is long. In April, Musk told staff to brace for major job cuts, with sales roles among those affected. And the Cybertruck, Tesla’s first new consumer model in years, has been slow to ramp up.

For that reason, some hedge fund managers have decided the stock is off bounds altogether. Tesla is “very difficult for us to position,” said Fabio Pecce, chief investment officer at Ambienta where he oversees $700 million, including managing the Ambienta x Alpha hedge fund.

Basically, it’s not clear whether investors are dealing with “a top company with a great management team” or whether it’s “a challenged franchise with deficient corporate governance,” he said.

However, “if Trump wins, it is truly going to be very positive” for Tesla, though “obviously not amazing for EVs and renewables in general,” he said. That’s because Trump is expected to impose “massive tariffs towards the Chinese players,” which would be “beneficial221; to Tesla, Pecce said.

Investors ended 2023 declaring they’d likely retreat further from green stocks in general, and EVs specifically, according to a Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse survey. Almost two-thirds of the 620 respondents said they planned to stay away from the EV sector, with close to 60% expecting the iShares Global Clean Energy exchange-traded fund to extend its slide in 2024. The ETF has lost 13% so far this year after sinking more than 20% in 2023.

The Bloomberg Electric Vehicles Price Return Index, whose members include BYD Co., Tesla and Rivian Automotive Inc., is down about 22% so far in 2024. At the same time, the metals and minerals needed to produce batteries are at the mercy of wildly volatile commodities markets, with speculators regularly trying to make a quick buck on shifts in supply and demand. Price volatility means some battery manufacturers are having to adjust to a market in which their profit margins have been getting badly squeezed.

Against that backdrop, more traditional automakers are finding themselves under pressure from shareholders to slow down their capital expenditure on EVs, with recent examples including Porsche AG. Polestar Automotive Holding UK Plc, a high-end EV manufacturer, has lost almost 95% of its value since being spun out of Volvo Car AB two years ago. Fisker Inc., another luxury EV maker, saw its value wiped out starting last year and has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Soren Aandahl, founder and CIO of Texas-based Blue Orca Capital, said “valuations in the EV space are so beat up” that he’s now avoiding shorting the sector. It’s no longer an obvious contrarian bet, because those tend to do best if investors enter “when things are a little bit higher,” he said. But at this point, “a lot of the air’s already come out of the balloon.”

But Eirik Hogner, deputy portfolio manager at $2.7 billion hedge fund Clean Energy Transition, suggests there may be more pain to come for the wider EV industry. There are still “way too many” startups that remain “sub-scaleR21; and with gross margins that are simply “too low,” he said. As a result, the supply-demand dynamic of the EV market “is still very negative.”

“Ultimately, I think you need to see more bankruptcies” before the market starts to look healthier, Hogner said.

[hosede] 07/7/2024 09:34

Cfb.
Yes but that sort of Pharma is NOT a near trn dollar Co. and is never a major part of a portfolio.
The energy storage is fine but doesn't deserve a 3 figure PE.
Are you aware that No-one has EVER made money buying a Co. with a PE above 30: except of course by selling to a greater fool - though there are plenty of those around at the moment :-0
If there are Robotaxis, new Cos. will emerge to run them (like Waymo) and while one might be a Tesla subsidiary, others might use its competitor's cars. Far too much uncertainty at the moment.
Anyway the top of the market is looking very near - all the usual signs are there

[cfb2] 06/7/2024 17:46

hosede: Valuing based on certainty is the approach of a value investor. If you apply that to the pharmaceutical or IT sector you will come up short on the valuation. My valuations are based around a percentage likelihood of it happening, a discounted cash flow which allows future revenues to be accounted for.

One thing worth considering is the revenue from their energy storage business is equivalent to the sale of 100K vehicles and it doubled in the last quarter.

Something nobody seems to have picked up on yet is the cost for Tesla to roll out their robotaxis and their self cleaning huts. To get the volumes and make the most of their market lead in autonomy I think they may decide to raise money to accelerate it. Their free cash flow is good but with their spend on AI and mining/refining they have a lot going on.

[johnwise] 06/7/2024 04:38

“The Information Is Essentially Fictional”

Net Zero Watch Director Net Zero Plans

VIDEO



Video: Mark Levin sussed the government scam
The truth about global warming


If Zero CO2 was ever achieved every tree on the planet would die
VIDEO: A Dearth of Carbon Dr. Patrick Moore

[johnwise] 06/7/2024 04:34

VIDEO

Owners Sending EVs to Junkyards After the First Breakdown: "Not Worth Fixing!"

[hosede] 03/7/2024 22:18

cfb :-0
Saved me from crypto too - very similar..
I don't think Maths changes much over the years - though today's very low interest rates do make a significant difference. In those days you could get 6.5% on an A grade bond. The point is that Tesla should be valued on what it's going to achieve almost for certain - not on what might be.
Anyway - regardless of math, the chart looks very bearish to me. the price has shot up over the trendline in what looks like a throwover. It should return to that trendline very soon if it doesn't we shall have to reassess. Musk sold more cars than many people expected in Q2. In a few weeks we shall discover how much it cost him!

[cfb2] 03/7/2024 21:20

hosede: Your criteria would have saved you from the 1637 Tulip mania. Not suggesting you are old or your ideas are dated. Ahem.

[hosede] 03/7/2024 18:57

time will tell Dominic - but when I was.a lad I was reluctant to pay more than ten times historic earnings or 1.3 x book value for any company - which would give Tesla price around $ 25 - 30

[dominiccummings] 03/7/2024 18:34

Or.... it's you that is wrong hosede?

[hosede] 03/7/2024 14:48

Ridiculous - now at 246 whereas even analysts - who always err on the long side average is 185 .I was long briefly - but it can't go on!
It's left three juicy looking gaps above 200