“* Tesla slumps on weak deliveries: Tesla (TSLA) shares fell 8%, erasing post-election gains, as investors worry about Elon Musk’s political involvement and declining sales. European deliveries dropped 50% in January, while U.S. price cuts are squeezing profits, pushing Tesla’s market cap below $1T.” Source: [NY Times]
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While the time that Elon Musk is spending with the new administration is probably reducing the time that he could be spending on Tesla and his other companies, and there are certainly plenty of people that aren’t fans of Musk and won’t be buying anything that they believes supports his entities, I would point out that January sales declines, such as the Europe sales in Jan’25 being -45% may not be as big a reason to worry as it appears on the surface.
One of the biggest reasons is that Tesla has recently unveiled and is taking orders and about to release the refreshed new Model Y (Juniper) model. The Tesla Model Y is the best selling car in the world and this is the first signfiicant update to the model in a few years. Most reports I’ve seen regarding the new Juniper have been pretty positive.
The impact is twofold.
1 the Model Y production lines were down for a portion of January (few weeks?) possibly into February as Tesla does the switchover to set it up for production of the new Juniper Model Y’s and
2 there are likely many people holding off on buying the old model, knowing that the new model will be available in coming weeks
Also, note that January 2024 (last year) was an anomoly, an unusually strong month for Tesla’s European sales when they nearly doubled from January 2023. This was most likely due to the elimination of German BEV subsidies which ended for purchases after December 2023, but still applied to many vehicles that were delivered to Tesla’s German customers in January 2024, when Tesla would have recorded the sales.
But despite all of that, I don’t disagree that some of the backlash lately against Musk will have some negative impact on Tesla’s sales throughout the world in the near term.
Fortunately, I don’t own the stock for reasons that rely on their sales to consumers in the near term.
As a Tesla shareholder, there is plenty to be excited about over the next few months and quarters:
China FSD
Full Self Driving “FSD” (supervised, still requires an attentive driver to be monitoring the car) was just released yesterday in China for the first time. Technically, it’s not called “FSD” in China and is under a different name for some kind of legal reasons, but most everyone that has seen demonstrations of Tesla owners in China using the new software seem to believe it is essentially the same as a recent version of FSD in the U.S. Apparently the software was trained almost entirely using publicly available videos of Chinese roadways, which is pretty remarkable.
Robotaxi
Tesla still expects to launch their robotaxi ride-sharing service in Austin TX in June and have said they expect to launch in several other cities by the end of 2025 too.
Unsupervised FSD
This would imply that “unsupervised” FSD (without any driver having to be attentive) could be available for customer vehicles later this year too. Even if Tesla doesn’t increase the monthly FSD fee when it becomes unsupervised (which I expect they should and will), it will most likely increase the adoption of FSD regardless (very high margin software license fees, recurring revenue).
Cybercab
Tesla Cybercabs (self driving only vehicles) are expected to be in volume production in late 2025/early 2026 and will be the first vehicle to use Tesla’s new “unboxed” production method, the new production that will eventually be used for all Tesla models before long and is expected to enable them to build and produce cars significantly less expensively than ever before…and Tesla’s current/old production methods are already currently the most efficient, cost effective way to produce vehicles today. Check out some of the videos online describing the unboxed process, seems like it will be pretty great.
New Low Priced Models
Tesla is expected to unveil multiple new low cost vehicles (likely as cheap as $30k) in the first half of 2025. It’s possible that they may announce new non-low cost models this year as well. 2025 is likely to be the biggest year for new Tesla models in a long time, maybe ever.
Semi Trucks
Tesla’s big Nevada Semi Truck factory is pretty far along and expected to go into volume production in either late 2025 or early 2026. Companies that have bought the limited production of Tesla Semi’s in recent years have had very favorable things to say about them.
Energy
Tesla’s energy business has been a strong point in recent quarters. In addition to the first gigafactory in CA, the new Beijing gigafactory was just completed and they’ve said that a third gigafactory is already under construction although the location has not yet been revealed. I suspect more will be announced before too long.
Other
That’s a lot for me, as a Tesla shareholder, to be excited about in the very near future. I’m not even really mentioning some of the further out opportunities
-new Roadster
-possible licensing FSD to other automakers
-Optimus Humanoid Robots (Musk claims this will eventually be much larger and more profitable than all of Tesla’s auto and other businesses combined)
We may not see much of a significant financial impact from these right away, even in the next couple of quarters, but I suspect that, if Tesla is able to launch the robotaxi business in a few cities in June without major problems (or any time this year for that matter), we may start to see the potential of that business impact the stock price even before it ramps up too much.
Eventually, probably as we get to the end of the year, and into 2026, a few of the things above are all going to start to come to fruition at once and it should be evident how profitable the company will start to become. No matter what the public perception of Tesla and it’s CEO are, if the financial performance, income, and cash generation start to snowball, there will be plenty of investors ready to buy TSLA shares.
I for one, couldn’t resist adding to my, already large, Tesla position this week. But it’s possile that everything takes longer than I expect to roll out and timelines could get extended.
It’s going to be an exciting next twelve months as a TSLA owner one way or another.
-mekong
42 Likes
@mekong22 - I see your post and it all sounds like the same stuff we have heard from Tesla for a looooong time. Why do you believe they can stick to their dates this time, when they have never stuck to dates and they also routinely go back on promises.
FSD has been promised to be close forever, the robotaxi’s got seriously panned at the big show recently so that promise seems dubious, the new Roadster is vaporware so far, the semi’s have been promised for so long that Nikola is now competition and Volvo in UK.
The only thing I still see, and was my only reason for owning a few years back…yes, the energy business seems to be moving along. But that alone wouldn’t put this stock even on my research tab anymore. Heck, even Duracell is now producing larger home energy systems, talk about going mainstream (ie - commodity product).
Also, I would NOT struggle against the European bad taste they have due to the salutes and the work Elon is doing to promote right wing candidates in the EU. Their memory is much more vivid than in America…
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Hi dbuffy
I don’t blame you one bit for being skeptical. I would add that if you don’t think that Tesla is close to solving vehicle autonomy, then TSLA would not be a good company to invest in.
Just to respond to some of your specific thoughts:
“FSD has been promised to be close forever”
Have you rode in a Tesla on FSD version 13 (released at the end of last year)? I definitely encourage anyone that knows someone with a Tesla with a FSD license to go for a ride in your friend’s car. It might change your mind.
There are people today using their Tesla’s in FSD to drive several hour long rides, across both local rodes and highways with zero interventions. It’s not all the way there yet, but I personally believe they will be there in 2025.
“the robotaxi’s got seriously panned at the big show recently so that promise seems dubious”
This is the comment from your post that I’m most curious about. Is your understanding that the robotaxi’s got panned because the look/style of the cars was not liked? Was the performance of the vehicles than expected? Or something else?
I know the stock price went down immediately after the event, but I don’t believe, in my opinion, that that was directly related to the robotaxis or cybercabs. I believe that there was an unrealistic expectation from the analyst community that Tesla would unveil their new low priced vehicles at the event too, and when they didn’t appear, the stock sold off.
I’ve noted in my previous posts that there was 0% chance that a new low cost vehicle would be unveiled in October because doing so would be disruptive to Tesla sales of their existing models if customers know that a really great quality, much lower cost version is coming in a few months. It would have been self-sabotage.
I didn’t hear any negative comments about the cybercabs or robtaxi’s from any attendees of the event, but I’m very much willing to hear about any critiscims that I might have missed if there are any links etc that you’d like to share. There were 50 autonomous vehicles including both cybercabs and regular Tesla models all operating fully autonomously within a the movie studio lot where the event was held with no issues or problems reported. Of course this was a controlled situation and they were not yet ready for public roads at that time, but I don’t think anyone expected that they would have been on public roadways, as they didn’t have the regulartory approval to do so yet regardless.
The appearance of the Optimus robots at the event (which were not yet operating autonomously and were remote controlled at the time) was a bit silly, I agree, and I actually would have preferred if they just focused on the robotaxi at that time.
“the new Roadster is vaporware so far”
Yes, agreed, the new Roadster is probably at least two years from being released, and likely a good year before they even really unveil it. The roadster is not going to generate big profits for the company, and I would bet might even be expected to run at a loss.
As Elon said regarding the new Roadster (I can’t find the exact quote), Sometimes you do things because they are critical to the business and sometimes you do things just because they are cool to do. If the new roadster can truely do the 0-60 in less than a second as they claim, it will get no shortage of press and free marketing for the company even if it doesn’t directly bring profits.
I would compare it somewhat to the cybertruck where the cybertruck operated at a loss for the first few quarters and only became profitable last quarter…But…many of the new technology features of the cybertruck are starting to get integrated into the new regular model vehicles and Tesla essentially got relatively free/low-cost real life R&D of these features subsidized by the people that paid the big bucks for the cybertruck, that they have now worked out enough of which ones make sense to put into the more mass produced vehicles. Pretty genius strategy in my opinion. I suspect that some Roadster tech features will eventually make their way into the regular models (years from now) too.
Again, I didn’t highlight the Roadster as something that will be critical to Tesla’s success above, I threw it into the “other” bucket that, if I didn’t make it as clear as I intended, I was trying to say that those items won’t play a signfiicant role in the company’s success over the next 12 months, but could start to figure in later on.
“the semi’s have been promised for so long that Nikola is now competition and Volvo in UK”
Unless there is something I’m not aware of, I don’t believe Tesla has suggested that Semi’s would go into mass production in the past. They did a few test builds originally for Pepsi, which led to Pepsi ordering a few dozen more (they like them!), and various other big retailers are rumored to be testing out the low production Semi’s that were initially produced. Tesla already currently uses their own Tesla Semi trucks for transportation of batteries from the factory to the automobile production facilities in California.
I believe Tesla only announced that they were ready to start building out a high volume production facility for Semi’s in 2023. During 2024, the facility (Nevada) has already been mostly constructed (lots of videos and updates available online) and they expect to start rolling them out later this year with more of a high volume production next year.
Again, I haven’t heard any rumors that this big new factory is possibly not going to start producing Tesla Semi trucks in volume once completed. I would be curious to learn of anything you’ve heard to the contrary if you could share any links.
Yes, there will be competition. The existing manufacturers of diesel engine Semi trucks aren’t going to roll over and play dead. But even if Tesla Semi’s are only “as-good” as EV Semi’s from other companies (I would bet their technology is going to be much better…and someday self driving) then Tesla’s advantages with manufacturing is likely going to make it possible for them to have at least some degree of success in this industry.
I don’t disagree that the company will have some real challenges in the European market going forward. But for my own personal investment thesis, if Tesla’s European businesses all went to zero tomorrow and never recovered, I still believe the company will be worth MUCH more in the future than it is today. So for me at least, it’s not worth worrying about. At the same time, I think it’s likely that in the long run, they’ll do just fine in Europe.
I appreciate the business discussion, as this is certainly not going to be the type of company for everyone, and I get that many people will rule out TSLA as an investment for all sorts of reasons, but I’m grateful that we are able to discuss the company here as I do believe they are going to be very successful in several of the areas that they are investing in, even if they have a few inevitable flops along the way.
-mekong
39 Likes
Despite that next quarters auto sales are expected to be abysmal, Iam adding here to Tesla also …
Many point out where Elon Mush has overpromised and not delivered anywhere near on time, without extentending recognition of what Tesla has delivered. Thank you Mekong for steering this thread away from the politics and listing a few concrete examples of Tesla Domination in some of the largest markets in the world.
When the largest markets in the world are being disrupted the information asymmetry is going to be stark. Mekong’s question asking if you’d driven with Tesla ‘full self driving’ is relevant.
I’ll just add … If you’re not aware of Elon Musk’s xAI, how it effects Tesla, and why they have surpassed all other AI companies in near every bench mark so quickly, Tesla being the absolute winner in autonomy won’t make sense.
Why speed to development of the best AI will lead to winner take all, at least in autonomy (not mentioning that Tesla is unrivaled in there ability to go from prototype to scale production, faster than anyone).
What leads to the better GPUs/DoJo chip design teams
min Mark 43 …
Winner take all!
min Mark 44.52
Me: Beyond being the place where AI will bring the most profits, Tesla is on track to dethrone Nvidia for the best at making AI compute! - at least for those markets where Tesla is building out dominance.
30% Tesla
Jason
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It is possible that Tesla’s (read Musk’s) decisions to essentially cede the Chinese and European markets to the competition will severely limit Tesla’s options. By ceding China, he has essentially given up on all of Asia as well.
We should not expect the AI battle between the US and China to end soon, and there are no doubt many more Deepseeks to come. If I were betting on this race, my money would be on the combined resources of China over Musk. Although there is no single Chinese company as a competitor, it is a unity as a sovereign state, and ultimately Xi’s view is all Chinese companies are mere extensions of the nation.
Musk has strengths, among them drive and ingenuity, but he lacks focus. Focus and long-termism is a core virtue in Confucian societies.
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Why would Tesla “cede the Chinese and European markets to the competition” if it has the best selling model?
Denny Schlesinger
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A quick reply with video from Marques Brownlee -
This is not part of Tesla. FSD is but not Xai. So why bring up any of the parts that won’t benefit Tesla investors?
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Understanding how all of the engineers in Musk’s companies work together is a key factor, not well understood by many.
Tesla One is the AI that automates the process of allowing any engineer at any one of Teslas(edit ‘engineers are placed into project groups at any one of Elon Musks companies according to their interest, passion, and ability to contribute.) many companies to pick the project that most interests them at every company in real time, adjusting paychecks accordingly.
Utilizing alloys developed at Space-X in the Cybertruck and Tesla utilizing the 220k fully coherent GPU cluster, the largest tin the world by far (number two is 30k), to train their FSD is on public record.
Building that monster cluster (4 mos to get 100k coherent and 3 more months to get another 100k coherent)was accomplished partially by utilizing Mega packs from Tesla and the engineering staff from all of his companies.
Best
Jason
15 Likes
You are completely correct to state that Tesla presently has the best selling model in both China and Europe (and the world). It is also rapidly losing market share in China and in the hyper-competitive and still developing Asian market it barely competes – https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/business/chinese-electric-vehicles-thailand.html – and most indications suggest Europe is going to be much less hospitable to Musk going forward.
The reason I assert that Tesla has ceded China and Asia, as well as Europe is the following: Tesla was encouraged to set up operations in China by the Chinese government using its time honored strategy of bringing a technologically advanced company and its operations onto its home turf, where it could deeply study its methods and embed it tightly into its supply chain. It appears that China has assimilated all those lessons, and has improved its entire industry (including all the peripheral industries) to the point where it can completely price Tesla out of all non-western markets. This is the first step (we have seen this play out before with Japanese vs US automakers in decades past). Tesla has no response to BYD’s offerings presently, and BYD and other competitors are just getting started.
In Europe, Tesla as well as European automakers are reliant on tariffs to keep Chinese automakers at bay. This will have a limited shelf life as an industrial policy – consider how it resulted in Detroit avoiding having to face difficult productivity and quality problems up to this day. 5 years from now I do not think we can expect Chinese cars to be lower quality than Tesla’s, while their costs will likely remain significantly lower. Even now, consumer feedback suggests that the features and finish of Chinese cars are at least equal that of Tesla. Tesla has additional headwinds in the general European distaste for Musk, his behavior and apparent political leanings.
FSD is frequently touted as the next best thing that will save Tesla’s bacon. The importance of this to Tesla may explain part of why Musk has so closely linked himself to the new administration, and his apparent eagerness to dismantle so many regulatory functions of the government. However I am doubtful that it will be rolled out quickly in the U.S. I am quite a bit more optimistic that China will have it working before Tesla – due both to the technological bench depth in China, and the willingness of the government there to make it happen.
These are longer term dynamics that will take time to play out, but nothing in Tesla’s actions appear likely to reverse them.
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I understand that Jason but this has always worried me. You have investors in Xai and you have investors in Tesla and you had investors in Solar City.
Musk rolled solar city into tesla at what I think was a discount. So the investors in Solar City were let’s say not happy. Now Xai was formed and it is the brains, AI. Tesla says it is using Dojo for FSD but how does that work with Xai. Remember two very different investor bases. So what if the AI portion goes to Xai and then the production goes to Tesla. Which portion is worth more? I am assuming Xai because they can sell the Ai to everyone. That is what has me worried. Maybe Tesla gets rolled into Xai or not but the value is in the AI.
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That’s not what you wrote in your original post I replied to. You wrote:
Tesla’s (read Musk’s) decisions
After Tesla’s initial success and governments all over the world mandating net zero policies and handing out EV subsides it would be absurd not to expect Tesla to have competition.
How you underrate the man and the plan! EVs were just the starting point. A number of related ventures emerged, storage, insurance, supercharging, virtual power plants, FSD, all of which pale in comparison to Robo taxis which pale in comparison to humanoid robots. If you follow Elon Musk you would have heard him saying, “If you don’t believe in autonomous driving and Optimus robots, don’t invest in Tesla.”
EVs are the foundation, the past and it had a plan,
- Start with the roadster to test the waters
- Follow with high priced luxury models
- Continue with mass market models
Autonomous driving and Optimus robots are the future. “Lack of Focus and long-termism” indeed. Next stop Mars!
Denny Schlesinger
19 Likes
I believe in autonomous driving and in robots.
However, Tesla has not demonstrated that it will grow a profitable business with either. In fact the only business that Tesla has that is growing the top line and accelerating that growth is the storage business. It is my observation that everything Tesla touches does not turn to gold. Think solar panels. Yes it can be innovative and cutting edge and premier engineering, and like the Cyber truck, not add a lot to either the top or bottom line.
Worse, if Tesla stock fails to deliver and the workers get antsy, a lot of the power of Tesla may wain quickly. Although reading through this thread that may not be likely.
Cheers
Qazulight
5 Likes
What’s the batting average of top platers?. 50%? 35%
I was very critical of SolarCity’s business model and I posted as much several times. I also called Tesla saving SolarCity “nepotism.” But out of SolarCity came storage.
Go Figure!
Denny Schlesinger
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Thanks for sharing this. I hadn’t seen this video before but I think a lot of it is very interesting.
My impression is that he doesn’t follow Tesla super religiously, as there were a few things he commented that he was surprised by at the robotaxi event that had been previously reported and were well known by those of us that follow the company closely, even before the the Oct 8th event.
But that’s not a bad thing, because I do think a lot of his reactions are going to be pretty identical to the average person the first time that they witness and experience these products. They’re going to view much of it as “confusing” at first glance.
I’ll also comment upfront that he seems to be looking at the cybercab from the standpoint of whether he would want to own this car as his primary vehicle, rather than it’s intended purpose to be used in a robotaxi fleet. yes, some people will someday buy cybercabs as their own personal car. Maybe they’ll let it participate in the robotaxi ride share sometimes and maybe some won’t.
But I’d say at least some of his confusion, such as when he says he can’t understand why the cybercab would only have wireless inductive charging and no port to plug it in at a supercharger or at home, reveals how he is thinking about the vehicle, not necessarily in the way that most owners will utilize this car.
Starting at the End
I’m going to jump ahead to the very end of the video, because I don’t think this reviewer is really “panning” the cybercab, or even all that negative.
Here’s what he says at the very end of the video, starting at the 17:05 mark:
"To their credit, this event, it was insane. They did a lot of things that could have gone wrong. If you told me that in 2024, that a company would do a bunch of self driving car demos around tons of people just loose in the road.
And they would have bipedal humanoid robots roaming around performing tasks and entertaining people at the same event. And that they would have a drone show. Like, that is just a lot of stuff in a row that is super high tech that could go wrong but somehow didn’t.
And it represented I think a very optimistic view of the future. Even tho it’s very much still, like, concepts, it’s a future that is potentially way more efficient, potentially way safer, and more impressive in general technologically than the world we live in today, and that in itself is honorable."
He goes on to say that he’s still pretty skeptical that any of the products he saw at the event will ever get manufactured and sold.
And then he finishes with:
“But hey, if there is one company, that has the best chance of bringing this all to life. If you made me bet money on one company that I think has the best odds to get there eventually, then yeah it would be the one with the massive data gathering advantage with stuff out there in the real world today. It would be Tesla”
and finally saying he’ll “believe it when he sees it.”
A few of his criticisms/confusions earlier in the video:
Doors - He really doesn’t like the butterfly (open upwards) doors. Doesn’t really say why. Although it’s decieving and can look like these door need more room to open, the truth is, they actually require less space on the side of the vehicle to open, which is ideal for crowded city streets.
I also suspect that part of this a security function (e.g. if passengers are getting too frisky in the car), it will probably recognize this on the cabin cameras, pull the car over and open the doors, in order to discourage that behavior. Having the butterfly doors that open upward seems like a good move to make it really obvious that they aren’t experiencing any privacy there.
Wheels - he didn’t seem to like the design of the wheels, how part of the color is essentially painted onto the wheel itself. Not a big deal as far as I’m concerned.
Touchscreen - He says he feels that too much is controlled by touchscreen and there aren’t enough manual buttons and controls. Again, if you think of this vehicle as primarily going to be used as a robotaxi, why would you expect to have lots of buttons and controls? When I get into an Uber, I don’t expect to have lots of buttons and controls to use.
Actually the cybercab is going to be able to save your default settings so that when you order one, it will be adjusting the temperature to your desired setting while on the way to pick you up, before it even gets to you. You’ll be able to fully control the music. You’ll be able to watch tv shows or movies on the screen. Here is just another example of where the reviewer seems to be looking at this as a personal vehicle, which it won’t generally be used as is the real world.
Charging - Again, he doesn’t like that it is wireless inductive charging only and is confused why it wouldn’t have a charing port for wired charing. He also commented that he thinks it’s going to be difficult to line up the car in the right spot over the charging pad so it connects. Of course, the car will do that for you (just like how a roomba robot vacuum goes back to the charing port and just like how the optimus robots lower themselves onto the wall chargers, etc) and if it ever loses connection somehow, you’ll get a notification on your phone (just like you do now when charging from a cable, if for example, some random person unplugged your car while it was charging.
He says he doesn’t believe that the cybercab will be produced by 2027 and he doesn’t believe it will be sold for as little as $30,000. I mean, he rode in one in 2024…why wouldn’t he think that two and a half years later they’ll be producing them.
My opinion, there are lots of reasons to believe the car will be produced very inexpensively and can be sold for $30k (if that’s what they decide to sell it for…frankly, I think they can sell it for more than that given that it will be a cash generating machine, although they will also be getting the FSD fees, robotaxi fees, etc in addition to the vehicles sales price), few examples:
-
new unboxed production line
-
gold paint will be infused in the panels and there will be no need for a paint station at the assembly plant
-
the car will primarily be used for robotaxi with a focus on safety, so it will not be capable of going very fast, no reason for it to go way above the speed limit, so the engine, horsepower etc will be intentionally limited to only what is needed to power such a vehicle
Robovan - Although he saw the robovan in person at the event, he simply doesn’t believe that Tesla will ever produce or sell this vehicle. Time will tell, but I will bet there will be a large size customizable vehicle (e.g. can be cusomtized to become an office on wheels to take you from meeting ot meeting without having to take a break from working) autonomous vehicle at some point in the future. But this is likely several years away.
Optimus Humanoid Robots - His comments on Optimus was interesting. While I think they should have been left out of the event entirely, he says in the video that the Optimus robots “would have been one of the most impressive things ever”. But when the robots started talking to guests, he could tell that they were not operating autonomously and he could tell they were tele-operated. He essentially says he felt hoodwinked and it made him question whether anything he saw at the event was real or fake.
I’m pretty sure the company was pretty transparent in telling us that those robots were being tele-operated after the event, but maybe, to the guests that were there in person, they didn’t hear that yet.
Again, here, I’m not sure why it would be a surprise to find out that these humanoid robots were not operating 100% autonomously. They are still a few years away (at least) from being produced and sold to consumers (although Tesla will be using them in their factories were some more repetitive and probably dangerous tasks much sooner than that).
So this is probably just another example of him not being that up to date on the latest on these products…which is fine, I’m sure this is the same understanding that a random typical person on the street would have today.
Conclusion
So there is nothing in this video that gives me any pause that Tesla won’t be able to make Cybercab, Robotaxi, and autonomous vehicles happen. The reviewer in the video is skeptical, as are various people in this thread above, and I’m sure many other people out there are.
I think they are getting close. They might not exactly hit their current timetable of a June robotaxi launch, but even if that is delayed 3, 6, or 12 months, it’s not going to make Tesla a bad investment in my opinion.
If it gets delayed way beyond that, or if they launch and have some major problems that lead to bad press and a major delay before it can be re-launched, that will be bad. And that might happen. We’ll see. I’m betting that it’s going to be a success and won’t be too far away.
If this reviewer’s concerns expressed in this video are the biggest issues that they face, then I think these products are going to do just fine.
-mekong
25 Likes
I watched about half the video curious about what he found confusing. Half way through I figured the author was not familiar with Tesla technology. One example, he commented on how the gull-wing doors had been a failure on an earlier Tesla model but Tesla did it again anyway. The new doors are not gull-wing, Tesla had learned from their miskate.
I absolutely love Freedom of Speech but remember that advice is worth what you pay for it.
The Captain
14 Likes
Edit: via Grok
Legally, the separations are clear:
-
Tesla: Owns Dojo and FSD. Benefits accrue to Tesla shareholders via autonomy (e.g., robotaxis, Optimus).
-
xAI: Owns Grok and its superclusters. Benefits go to xAI investors via AGI/SGI breakthroughs.
Let’s break it down: Dojo (Dojo is a chip design) is purely a creation of and solely owned by TSLA. FSD, a foundation model for autonomy, is a creation of and solely owned by TSLA. xAI has created and solely owns the largest super clusters of compute in the world and so far has developed the LLM Grok. X, formerly Twitter, owns 10% of xAI.
The investor base for xAI is solely interested in attaining Super Generalized Intellegence, SGI. AGI will come first, clearly; but, I assuming they won’t stop there.
So, it wouldn’t make sense for me to say TSLA will necessarily benefit from AGI or SGI. But it does make sense to assume as an investor that TSLA will be the sole beneficiary of FSD/autonomy.
It’s confusing when not trying to separate different types of foundation models.
Is anyone here able to better seperate foundation model development or does anyone here have reason to believe anything other than this?
Best
Jason
6 Likes
I think the reason it is confusing Jason is because of what you said before. Tesla and Xai swap engineers back and forth. So how much separation is there? How can you keep something separate when the same people are working on the same projects? The only way I can see this working is if the person that is loaned out is specifically loaned for a duration of time to complete a project. The company I used to work for would do that to us all the time.
Tesla holders: we’ve heard for a long time now that when real FSD finally arrives, it’s going to be a game changer for them. I think we can all agree that self driving cars will be incredible (Waymo is already doing it by the way, and no one cares that they are “supervised”, in fact they might prefer it).
From a revenue perspective, have they mentioned how much more they will charge for the new FSD vs. the previous? Have they estimated what percentage of owners they expect to upgrade? What can we expect here?
Or is the thesis that when the real FSD arrives, new car buyers will not be able to resist buying a Tesla?
3 Likes