Shorting Tesla seems dangerous if only because of the army of deranged Elon stans.
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I think it’s important to note that TSLA stock can go to zero, and the company will still exist. A companies stock and the company itself really aren’t the same thing. TSLA’s bond ratings are basically proof that the market expects the bondholders to take a significant haircut at some point in the future. When that happens the shareholders are going to get wiped out, and the bondholders are going to convert to equity in Tesla v2.0. Tesla 2.0 might be a pretty good investment at the right price.
The issue with TSLA 1.0 is that it hasn’t achieved the necessary scale to be viable, has tapped the capital markets suuuuuper hard, and probably doesn’t have a route to profitability that doesn’t require it to spend a bunch more money. If it can’t come up with the money it’s going to 0. The issue with shorting it is that you really have to be right about timing and the trade is very crowded/expensive. It could drag on for at least another couple of years, which means shorting it today could be a truly terrible move.
I’ve long thought that Elon’s single greatest talent is as a fundraiser, so it’s theoretically possible that he finds enough dumb money to find the light at the end of the tunnel… in which case it will only go down double digits because it’s way overpriced for even the best case scenario lol given all the dilution it’s going to have to take to get there.
There is a big distinction between google maps data and actual vehicle sensor data in driving conditions. That’s why Google also runs a test fleet of AVs, but getting millions of miles of data from your fleet is actually not that good. Tesla’s fleet runs up billions of miles, in a much wider range of driving conditions.
Again, it’s quite possible that Google is good enough at the engineering that they don’t need the huge dataset, but having the extra data certainly seems helpful.
Google is driving a sufficient number of miles and are massively ahead of TSLA on autonomous vehicles. If you don’t believe me look into where Google is. They’re super super close to done. A couple more years tops. TSLA started way later than they did and their current level of tech is where Google was 5+ years ago.
They can’t afford to spend on this like Google can either so the lead isn’t shrinking, it’s growing. Google absolutely plans to dominate this area, and I don’t see a good reason why they won’t.
What is Tesla’s tech? Putting 10k little Panasonic batteries in a car?
People were making some very fast electric cars as DIYs before the Roadster came along. The market winning idea Tesla had was to make a fast luxury EV. That’s pretty much it. Don’t get me wrong, they built a really good car, but it was the realization that rich people will pay a lot for a car and people looking for economy won’t that was their smart move.
The question is, when an EV costs the same or maybe 10% more than an ICE (with lower operational cost), instead of 50% more, will Tesla be able to compete.
I think that most of the big car companies aren’t doing self-driving tech in-house. My niece works for these guys:
And they’ve been developing the self-driving software for awhile. They may be the leader in it. They have quite a few cars in testing now on the Vegas Strip with Lyft. If you grab a Lyft on the strip it’ll ask you if a self-driving car is acceptable.
The cars still have an operator, but they’re hands-off unless there’s an emergency or the car freaks out (I don’t think it’s happened yet). I’m fairly certain that BMW is using their software, or is partnered with them in some manner.
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What is going to drive the price of EVs down to 10% over a comparable ICE though? Presumably the proximate cause is someone selling a bunch of EVs at that price point (or rather, producing a bunch of EVs at a cost a little bit below that price point), which people can’t do now because of something–“tech” or know-how or just availability of batteries. There’s two ways you could think about it. Either Tesla does lead the pack in this X factor, or else the other car companies have better X factors in their skunk works and they just choose not to roll them out because it still wouldn’t be profitable (or, a variant, it’s just Panasonic’s battery tech that is the limiting factor for everyone and only Tesla is dumb enough to lose money selling cars with it today). Or perhaps legacy car companies don’t want to sell EVs because they will cannibalize their own ICE business?
Lyft has a Waymo partnership as well to be fair. There’s plenty of testing going on all over the place. The only thing I’m 100% certain of is that TSLA and Uber are not in any danger of making it long term. Neither one is a viable business.
Actually the coolest thing Tesla is doing along these lines is the battery gigafactories.
Price needs to come down and it will more through manufacturing scale and automation than from battery tech. Same way solar panels cost 10% of what they did 10 years ago despite a panel being the same exact technology.
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Seriously battery tech IS exciting. EV’s are way less interesting in terms of advancing civilization than the batteries that make them possible. They enable EV’s, but if the cost came down and the supply went up I’d stop being such a bull for nuclear power… which I basically support because I understand the energy markets enough to know that it’s that or natural gas.
I haven’t followed this thread till now, but let me introduce you to Hedy:
Hedy is one of the last cars we will ever buy. We’re “car people” and it’s literally the best car we’ve ever owned. This, of course, presents another wrinkle in TSLA’s long term plans…owners are keeping their cars, and that means fewer new sales. They have to expand their solar and battery tech.
No one in the thread has even touched on charging infrastructure for future EV viability. TSLA basically said, here, we’ve lifted our patents, take advantage of our charging tech…and no one bit. Instead (for non-Teslas) we still have a confusing dvd vs. blu-ray type of fight between different charging standards (CHADeMO vs. SAE) so it’s often terribly difficult to find the type charger you need…and you have to be a “member” of 5 different charging providers because the SAE-standard charger over here is managed by EvGO, while the one over there is managed by Blink and if you don’t have accounts with both you’re fucked. Oh, and if you’re low on juice and the only fast charger around is CHADeMO but your car has an SAE plug…too bad, you’re not fast charging today. BTW, tesla supercharging blows these other two out of the water.
I leased a BMW i3 before we bought the Tesla, so I had to learn all this crap. I’m a relatively informed and intelligent person, and for the first few months it was baffling and infuriating. How can we expect EVs to become “normal” until this bullshit is fixed? If we’re talking about the economy of EVs, perhaps a better investment would be in implementing a nationwide fast charging network that actually works for people.
The $86 Trillion World Economy in One Chart
Kinda neat seeing how tiny some of the countries Trump & Co. are buddying up to really are. Russia, SA, and Israel combined are barely more than France.
It’s Hedley!
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Meh, people don’t drive gasoline powered cars until they die on the roadside and then go buy another one. Mostly they drive it til they get bored with it and/or a newer model comes out and their old model suddenly looks stupid and old. There will be a market as long as the new models are more appealing looks and feature wise than the old ones.
I always thought Mexico was part of North America.
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That’s a bingo.
Ha, I didn’t even notice that.
Chart is really lacking a “shit hole” color
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I’m old school. Modes of conveyance should be female, like ships, etc. Being a true geek, I wanted a famous female electrical engineer who’s accomplishments were at least somewhat relevant.
Hedy Lamarr (yes, the actress) fit the bill. Kinda grinds my gears that her name has become such a joke (and yes, Blazing Saddles is a great movie)
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There’s a documentary about her called “Bombshell”. Highly recommend if you haven’t seen it. (Available on Netflix, probably other places)
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