arsenal21

  You haven't done your research Mike. Volkswagen is already in the insurance business. In fact, it's the biggest motor insurer in Germany.   https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Versicherungsdienst   VW already makes a lot of money from finance. In fact VW Financial Services has revenue and profit several times the size of Tesla's entire revenue. Tesla has a plan to sell insurance, but its competitive advantage is minimal and so far it has made inroads only in California, where it's not even an insurer, but a broker.   And another way VW make money from finance is leasing - typically selling to a subsidiary company which leases the cars, which could explain the sales figures above.   And of course they're not just going to sit there and watch Tesla come up with business ideas and do nothing so they also have a subsidiary that offers ride sharing in Berlin.   Sure there is also money in games and entertainment but there are also market incumbents with deep pockets who will also want a piece of the action. 

You are resident in Ireland for tax purposes if you are there for 183 days or more in the year, so as I understand it if you move after July 2nd (or whatever the 182nd day is) then your tax residency in should not begin until 2022. I'm not a finance professional either so you should check with revenue.ie.

  It's not Musk buying on his own account, it's Tesla that has used almost 8% of its available cash to buy bitcoin. It's a material risk for the company.

  You are falling into the same stupid trap that all "professional" investors are: relying on metrics that only apply to stable currencies. Those metrics show their weakness in currencies with exponential potential. Worst, you are completely skipping the proper analysis to make for Crypto: technology, process, disruption. :lol:

I don't think there is any point in trying to ban it because crypto is fundamentally an idea.   One big gripe I'd have with bitcoin though is that the underlying computational problem is the equivalent of a sudoku or a rubik's cube i.e. it's just a puzzle. If they could formulate problems like analysing cancer cells or unsolved mathematical theorems to be solved then there would be some tangible benefit from all that computing power.   I think regulation will eventually have to happen in that people will have to identify themselves to use the service and 'anonymous' bitcoins will be sanctioned. So if the US government says to Tesla, ok you can accept whatever currency or crypto you like as long as you can identify who is giving it to you, then that makes it much less of a wild west.

If the factories are 100‰ utilised how do they increase production at the end of every quarter? By bumping it up to 150%?

I grabbed the following off twitter Tesla Q4 investor call preview: Solar: no roof progress Insurance: no state progress Robotaxi: no development progress Factory utilization: 45% Factories: 2 in progress Battery: no cost estimate Cybertruck: no date Roadster: no date Semi: no date FSD: no “self insurance” reserves   But rumours of lithium being found on Mars should send the share price up, right?

https://insideevs.com/news/462834/europe-plugin-car-sales-november-2020/   Overall in Europe, Renault is no.1 and Tesla no.2 for the year, but only 4th for November, with VW gaining rapidly. So while the overall market share is growing fast, Tesla's market share is declining. Maybe that's down to capacity restraints and the Berlin factory might alleviate that.

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/03/norway-in-november-ev-market-share-at-80-fossils-disappearing/   Norway's figures for November are interesting. Norway is somewhat ahead of the curve with 80% of all new cars being e-cars.   However Tesla is 10th on the list in terms of market share. Whatever first mover advantage they had seems to be rapidly declining.

  Meanwhile Daimler is partering with Waymo, who have fsd cars on the road already.   But I'm not sure whether there is the demand for fsd. Most people prefer to drive than to be the passenger. That's human nature.

  2 years away, eh?   https://mashable.com/2015/12/25/self-driving-tesla-2-years/?europe=true