Member Info for Dogberry101

Billy
What is constraining Tesla production now and its not money.. Supply chain problems in particular chips and micro processors and to a lesser (but still important) batteries. You can have as many models as you like but if you are supply constrained concentrate on building your higher value products especially when you have a 6 to 12 month waiting list for them.
GM are planning to have 30 EV models by 2025 (but will only plan to produce 1 million EVs by that time) Cadilac Lyric coming out this year planned production 1250 Hummer EV planned production 100,000 and so it goes on its a really bad idea no real focus no efficiencies of scale.

Koffee and Billy
It depends on how much transport as a service costs, as far as I can see the Tube in London and buses and taxis carry millions every day; if you can call up an FSD car to collect you from your door and go where you need to be for less cost than the aforementioned Tube buses and Taxis and have no worries about emission zones, parking , insurance, maintenance and vehicle depreciation its a no brainer. If you have a car and want to drive it into London you would need to be crazy or very wealthy. Apparently there are already loads of youngsters who have no wish or aspirations to owning a car.

Koffee
The 20,000 dollar car is a long way away, Tesla cannot build 60k cars fast enough to keep up with demand and all the cars they are building have a substantial profit margin. They are not going to start producing a low profit margin vehicle until they have at least caught up with the current backlog and the supply chain difficulties have gone away so not any tome soon.
Incidentally when FSD is solved will there be a need for the 20k car? With transport as a service being orders of magnitude cheaper than owning your own vehicle who will be buying cars when they can order one up at a moments notice to take them wherever they want / need to go without the hassle of finding and paying for a parking place when you get there; not to mention the expense of buying the vehicle insuring it servicing it and having somewhere to keep it when not in use. Elon is not just ahead of the game he is light years ahead.

Eileen
Only if you stop posting ludicrous twitter threads. I am sure everyone can think up a no possible way to win scenario for FSD or a human driver. My timeline now within a year.
I watched this post from Dr Know it All, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6EuKberFL4 it gives a good idea of the difficulty to solving FSD.
To be brutally frank in answering your question I thought it would have been done already and said so probably a year or so ago. So what went wrong well the hardware and software were not up to the task so they addressed that problem with a re-write for the system. I also thought Dojo would be up and running at full tilt before now but not so.
My best guess now is just a guess because we have not been told enough but we should know a lot more within the year. Apparently AI can take ages and appear to be getting nowhere ten suddenly it all comes together, so within a year.
I think Tesla could actually run self driving vehicles in limited scenarios now, low speed driving in small well mapped areas but thats not Elons way he wants feature complete FSD that can drive anywhere without human oversight and with orders of magnitude safer than the average human driver

Eileen
''But the time line is rather important. It is turning out to be nothing like as easy as Elon (and you) predicted. He is out by an order of magnitude.'' The time it takes is the time it takes I have confidence it will be done even if it takes longer than first thought if competitors were doing better catching up or overtaking Tesla then there might be a problem, but they aren't.
"It is the last 1% that is likely to be the most difficult," Very true and yes I think Tesla is a lot nearer this goal than you do There are a lot of posted drives on Youtube with Teslas driving all by themselves in daylight in the dark in cities and towns on motorways and dirt tracks with few if any driver interventions -it's getting there.
"My investment case does not depend on Tesla solving FSD " - Other poeple do, eg Mad Cathy from ARK put a huge part of her Tesla valuation on FSD (her fund is down <20pc this year).
Cathy may well turn out to be a super star she does not have short term valuations so putting FSD in the valuation is spot on because it will be done. Wall street laughed at her valuation in 2017 but she was spot on then.

Wolfie
Eileen knows it will be done all we disagree on is the time line. It is the last 1% that is likely to be the most difficult, I am sure that regulators will demand much higher levels of safety from autonomous vehicles than from human drivers and that will require a lot of data, massive amounts, and the only system with massive amounts of data is Tesla FSD sure there are 'self driving cars' around now but they can only drive on roads that have been pre-mapped for them and there have been questions about how self driving they are with rumours that there are remote human overseers to get them out of awkward situations. But at the end of the day either we believe the experts (people who understand AI systems as applied to Tesla FSD) or we don't, I have listened to the experts (not sure I understood very much of it) but they do seem to think Tesla is on the right track and and will succeed.
My investment case does not depend on Tesla solving FSD or building the Teslabot these things would be icing on the cake.

Eileen
We shall see. I understand from your post that even you think he will get it done just not anytime soon. What I can say if Tesla is unsuccessful with FSD it won't be for the lack of trying.

Eileen
I would like to know exactly where the figures came from and what year and whether they include more than just tailpipe emissions from ICE vehicles?
Also from the 2020 IEA Report executive summary.
A massive additional push for clean electrification that requires a doubling of solar PV
and wind deployment relative to the APS; a major expansion of other low-emissions
generation, including the use of nuclear power where acceptable; a huge build-out of
electricity infrastructure and all forms of system flexibility, including from hydropower;
a rapid phase out of coal; and a drive to expand electricity use for transport and heating.
Accelerating the decarbonisation of the electricity mix is the single most important lever
available to policy makers: it closes more than one-third of the emissions gap between
the APS and NZE. With improved power market designs and other enabling conditions,
the low costs of wind and solar PV mean that more than half of the additional emissions
reductions could be gained at no cost to electricity consumers.

Eileen
The last couple of sentences, ''the only criticism is sometimes I don't do it in time.. But I always get it done.''
Now he has over 60,000 users of Beta FSD and the system will learning at a prodigious rate, the edge cases will now number hundreds every day and once one vehicle sorts it out all vehicles in the fleet can be updated with it.
The crazy thing about AI is that vast data sets can be crunched and the solution put out t all users extremely quickly if you look into the older super computers like Big Blue doing something relatively complex like playing Chess or Go, from memory I think it went from being programmed with the rules of the game to being unbeatable by a human in three days. Yes FSD is a great deal more complex not only does the car have to know the rules it has to know how to interpret what it is seeing and then decide what to do, and of course no-boddy can die playing Go or Chess so the systems got to be right.

Eileen
Like I said Tesla are in cahoots with Boston Dynamics one of their quadruped robots was at a Tesla presentation interacting with Grimes and with TESLA written on the side.
The Atlas robot could probably have managed the Teslabot dance (but it doesn't look very humanoid).

Billy as I said I don't expect in anytime soon but I think a lot sooner than you anticipate this Boston Dynamics Robot gymnast is not an actor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdnJI9T-yX
I doubt that this is the best that can be done and Elon is in cahoots with the company

Billy
Elons favourite saying does not really apply here if you consider possible and then probable uses for the robot. We know Elon loves automated systems and that he dropped an enormous clanger in over automating the Model 3 production line eventually coming up with "production hell" and "human workers are often underrated". I also heard Sandy Munro giving his opinion on automated production systems and it was not very complimentary calling the current robots BOBs (Blind One-armed Builders)
Modern construction of very complex engineered objects involves breaking down complex systems to individual small steps that can be accomplished by virtually anyone with minimal training. So Elon builds a robot that can move and find its way around (something like FSD is doing for Tesla cars) it has two ''arms'' and ''hands'' and capable of manipulating tools and parts and can be trained to do simple tasks initially and then as the AI get better more complex tasks. The BOB is no more, no longer blind, no longer one-armed, no longer static bolted to the floor. It requires no time off no meal breaks no holidays no toilet breaks and no payment. Just imagine how efficient and how cost effective such a factory would be.
I don't expect it to happen very quickly but it will happen and I am fairly sure Elon and Tesla will make it happen. Tesla is not building Dojo just for solving FSD it is an AI training computer for Opyimus.

Eileen
You seem to be an Optium Teslabot sceptic, the actor playing the Teslabot was as Wolfie says theatre; as to the likelihood of it being produced I am pretty sure it will come to pass and sooner than you may think.
Tony Seba in his presentation on disruptive technology gave a really interesting well informed version of why Apple (and google)were able to build the smart phones when the incumbents did not. The concept was due to emerging technologies coming together and being used in a new way.
I think we are at such an inflection point in robotics, AI, batteries and computing power that the Teslabot is a realistic proposition not just pie in the sky. Elon said that this project will be headed by him personally and I would say that if anyone has the brains and resources to do it Elon is that man. That said I do not expect a fully functioning iteration anytime soon but I do expect that a basic prototype capable of standing, walking and with moving joints in shoulders arms and hands in the next couple of years.

Chump
Tesla has just had a wonderful year with a blow out final quarter, the current share price weakness has far more to do with market conditions and to some extent world events than any problem with Tesla. The whole technology sector has been suffering most much worse than Tesla particularly tech. companies not yet making a profit.
Of course Elon was able to his exercise his options at a lower price that is how Tesla compensation works they also have a staff employee compensation system so everyone who works foe Tesla can benefit at a lower price.
I would be interested to know how you are thinking that the FED raising interest rates will affect Tesla?
My view is that Tesla is a very strong highly profitable company growing rapidly and growing profits and profit margins and deliveries every quarter with huge demand and a company with almost no debt and a substantial cash pile and just about to open two massive new even more efficient and lower cost production factories. Whats not to like. OK things can and I am sure will go wrong and there will be bumps in the road so there will be short term problems which I am absolutely certain shorters will play for all they can get, and which I will if I have cash available treat as buying opportunities. I have already done very well in this share and I do not think it will disappoint over the medium to long term.
Bare in mind that the electrification of transport has only just begun and Tesla is about a trillion dollar company now making about a million vehicles a year with battery and chip constraints what do you think it will be worth when it is making 20 million vehicles a year, not to mention autonomous vehicles, mega-watt battery storage systems, AI systems as a service and Optimum Teslabot.

Chump
''Elon exited at the top of the mountain and now he is calling for a recession''
Elon is still by far the largest shareholder in Tesla. He sold off some of his shares to finance a lot of share options which were due to expire in fact he now has more Tesla shares than he had when he started the process and the top of the mountain was quite a bit higher $1229 or thereabouts. Is he calling for a recession? My take is that he believes one is inevitable like a large number of economists. There have always been booms and busts when/ if we get the recession as an un-leveraged investor I shall sit tight and wait for things to sort themselves out because I am pretty sure Tesla will ride out a recession better than most enterprises.
I would have thought you would be celebrating bears tend to do well in recessions. Just a reminder bears shorting Tesla historically have not done well.

Billy
When they built the Shanghai factory it took getting on for a year to ramp up production. Grunheide has been ready to go for months so I expect that all the equipment has been validated and set up for a really quick ramp up once official approval has been granted. At Austin they are already building vehicles for testing and whilst they will be using some new techniques these are well understood and Tesla will have experience of using them in Shanghai so I expect Austin to ramp up pretty swiftly too.
I think there was some sandbagging from Elon last night I know he said that Cybertruck will not be arriving until next year I don't believe a word of it. He also said they were constrained by battery and supply chain issues all I can say is I hope they have the same constraints this year because it didn't seem to delay them very much 87% growth ain't to shabby.

Koffee
What are your metrics for Tesla to stagnate? There are two enormous new factories coming on line demand is huge and the company is getting ever more profitable where do you see stagnation?
Lithium miners have gone up with the price of Lithium, however there will be a lot of activity by miners to make more lithium available and Lithium may be called a rare earth but really it isn't there is lots of it.

S8
''Wednesday TSLA
That’s where it gets real interesting.
Tesla P/E is an astronomical 306, everyone expects a super bullish Tesla ER, the slightest hint at growth problems and it might tank spectacularly. I think this could be a type 1.
This high P/E provided the reason for the CEO to dump $20 billion dollars worth of stock in the last 90 days.''
This is tosh, the CEO sold off a lot of shares to fund exercising outstanding share options (that were due to expire shortly) and pay a vast amount of Tax resulting from the exercise; and since exercising the options he now has more Tesla shares than he did before commencing.

The current share price weakness is is not about Tesla but about macro economic conditions and the US economy, the whole technology sector has been having a very rough time share price wise. So what the share price will do next week who knows I think it is better to ignore the background and the crowd buy the dips and concentrate on where Tesla is headed; on the 26th Q4 2021 financials will be revealed and I don't think they will disappoint. Mr Musk will reveal the plan and objectives going forward and may reveal when we can expect Giga Grunheide and Giga Austin will open. Hopefully we will also get updates on 4680 battery production, FSD progress,how Dojo is coming along, the timeline for Semi production and possibly a teaser on Cybertruck and just maybe some surprises.

Interesting indeed Eileen.
Fortunately most Tesla recalls have been over the air updates the current ones are the cable at the rear and the frunk fastener both relatively minor and Tesla are working through these steadily. The heating problems in very cold (and I do mean very cold} climates are being addressed and I doubt that many vehicles are affected.
Just one more point anyone would think Tesla was the only manufacturer that has recalls one source I looked at last week said that there were from memory 4700 recalls in USA in 2020 and I just looked this up
Laguna Hills, CA, May 12, 2020 — In its fifth “State of Recalls” report, Recall Masters, the automotive industry's leading provider of recall solutions, revealed that more than 29.3 million affected vehicles were accounted for in 278 recalls mandated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)