As a car company alone, using standard or former metrics Tesla is tough to view as investable. Moving beyond that, TSLA might be entering what I view as a third period of investable growth. The first occurred sometime after IPO as the model S came into the market and profits began, the second as the model 3 and Y did well. For a few years now they seem to have languished. There publicly announced plans of an affordable model have been changing and slow to materialize. Semis have been slow to market. Mexican factory seems to have vanished. Lithium plant not going up as fast as giga factories. FSD has been slow to evolve. Early FSD was a nice driver assistance feature but required knowing its nuances to stay safe, or certainly to keep passengers without fear. Early reports included not responding to flashing lights of first responders, crashing into dividers, rear ending others. Bright sunshine regularly rendered cameras offline. Rain would shut things down also. The cars existed with report bug functions whenever one wanted or even after taking over from the computers. For years it seemed like reporting bugs was an exercise in futility with know observed improvements. The car would abruptly slow down where new highways were located rather than continuing at speed limit. The car would "jump" railroad tracks without deceleration. The bugs and quirks are gone. That shit is over with. For months now the safety level of FSD has been exceptional with dramatic improvement. It is downright annoying with the level of attentiveness it requires, one can hardly glance at a stock price on a screen without the car beeping to pay attention. Absent autonomy this feature alone has saved lives and needs to be mandatory for all. Austin autonomous trials upcoming. Self driving cars now seem like they might be in our immediate future and beg consideration as an investment. If long term growth stock investing is one of your options this really needs looking at. A proper consideration requires sampling FSD. Test rides are easy to schedule through Tesla but are short. Perhaps some owner can offer you a ride, pay attention to year of the car, perhaps modern hardware versions are better. Better yet, especially if you have lots of money to risk in the market is to rent a current model with FSD on a service like Turo. Explore the city, the highway, parking lots, self parking, summon. Go on a road trip, put on hundreds of miles. It took me 800 miles in a week to start to feel comfortable and familiar with the product. Talking about self driving cars without this experience is really arguing from ignorance and naiveté. Once accepting that a self driving car can be in the future then requires some difficult work examining some valuation model. Cathy Wood and ARK (recent of which I have not yet read) might be a place to begin. One examination of things comes from what has been said is a former Tesla engineer: view The step change for autonomy is so HUGE, it really requires one to consider it as a bit of a Pascal's wager. I argue as such: 1. Sample FSD in a Tesla and see if it jibes as a product. 2. If the product works, will it bring about a step change in transportation? 3. If it brings about a change, how big of a change will it be and when will it occur? 4. Do these things make it investable for the long term?
This is stupid. LIDAR, not cams. I read about three sentences only to realize that you're full tilt into confirmation bias stage... so yeah, buy 100K shares at 340 and let's revisit in six months. Uber, a service business, will destroy them and aren't limited to hardware. You're long, 340.
They aren't even first to mkt. He took the DOGE gig to keep BYD out of the US and neuter regulation into FSD. Hatred of Elon trumps (pun not intended) any regulatory pass. Go to SF and hire a robotaxi and it won't be a Tesla.
Sure, get that. The questions becomes though, if you accept that FSD and robotaxi pan, out is how to value things. Ark provides some basis to do that or at least how to think of it.
I am unable to judge BYD cars from where I am. I favor US based growth companies. First to market important. The engineer writings I posted seem to argue in favor first mover advantage to those that can move in size. I dont think there are others in US that are close to size yet.
Is your investment thesis about FSD or about Tesla? Because there are companies who are much further down the road in terms of FSD.
Interesting post mark 340. I think that just throwing out Lidar as a comment without spending some time with a vision only recent Tesla is poor research.
Decipher it any way you wish. We can make a prop bet instead of an anon tout here. Quoting Kathy, lol. LIDAR is the answer. Cams are a failed strategy. That's how they maneuver, dude. Short 390, Bro. https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/tsla-going-to-get-hammered-tomorrow.382983/ Traded under $230. Do the math. Hit me up in an SMS with terms on the wager.