All things Tesla

[Krieg 15,027]

I like how some people buy an EV and suddenly start white-knighting all that is wrong about them.   I should buy Kool-Aid shares.

 

P.S., However I appreciate the input for the two EV users that are super honest here.

[fraufruit 42,165]

No white-knighting here. I already reported that our "auto drive" system failed and there is a part on order. Yesterday, the HUD failed. Himself talked to the workshop this morning. They are supposed to call back. I told him to tell them that we will be driving an Ioniq 5 to Italy on March 9 and we would prefer it to be our own. It is our big annual holiday.

 

We never had any problems with our Skoda. 

[yesterday 2,022]

Tesla Robotaxis Touted Years Ago Are Nowhere to Be Found

 

To recap, Musk claimed in April 2019 that Teslas were one year away from no longer needing human supervision and earning their owners $30,000 annually by autonomously driving other people around. Having failed to deliver this 43 months later, the chief executive officer shared a teaser image of a dedicated robotaxi in December.

 

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-robotaxis-touted-years-ago-120025566.html

 

P/E ratio back up to 60 

[MikeMelga 7,312]

2 hours ago, yesterday said:

Tesla Robotaxis Touted Years Ago Are Nowhere to Be Found

 

To recap, Musk claimed in April 2019 that Teslas were one year away from no longer needing human supervision and earning their owners $30,000 annually by autonomously driving other people around. Having failed to deliver this 43 months later, the chief executive officer shared a teaser image of a dedicated robotaxi in December.

 

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-robotaxis-touted-years-ago-120025566.html

I didn't believe then, and I don't believe now that customer cars will provide any money as robotaxi.

Robotaxi will be dedicated mini-bus managed by fleet operators. In the meantime some people bought Tesla as a robotaxi investment, which is stupid.

 

Regarding timeline, it's a problem with groundbreaking engineering: you can't give good estimates. At the same time, it doesn't mean it won't come. And I still firmly believe Tesla will be the first to achieve it on a non-geofenced wide scale.

 

2 hours ago, yesterday said:

P/E ratio back up to 60 

PE ratio has nothing to do with Robotaxi. Unless you believe Cathie Wood. Which I don't.

[yesterday 2,022]

14 hours ago, MikeMelga said:

I didn't believe then, and I don't believe now that customer cars will provide any money as robotaxi.

Robotaxi will be dedicated mini-bus managed by fleet operators. In the meantime some people bought Tesla as a robotaxi investment, which is stupid.

 

I think its not a bad idea, but taking to  a lot of people, most people do not want their cars being used by other people, so in the end, yes its a stupid, but to be fair, its not the first stupid idea from Tesla.

 

14 hours ago, MikeMelga said:

Regarding timeline, it's a problem with groundbreaking engineering: you can't give good estimates. At the same time, it doesn't mean it won't come.

 

I said here, that I did not think FSD would work at the moment, or in the mid term either, people who think this will work, do not have any experience of how computers work and how different they are from humans.

 

14 hours ago, MikeMelga said:

 

And I still firmly believe Tesla will be the first to achieve it on a non-geofenced wide scale.

Agreed, geofenced solution's, are just dumb. Having said that, they are already operating in some US cities, so for some tasks they do provide a solution.

https://iot.eetimes.com/the-4-cities-competing-to-fully-implement-autonomous-vehicles/

14 hours ago, MikeMelga said:

PE ratio has nothing to do with Robotaxi. Unless you believe Cathie Wood. Which I don't.

 

PE, is just a stock tool, to show you when a company has a too high share price or not - thats it anything 30 or 40 is insane

[yesterday 2,022]

Tesla fires more than 30 workers after union drive announcement

 

Tesla workers at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, allege over 30 workers were fired on 14 February in response to the announcement of a union organizing drive at the 1,000-worker facility.

Related: Tesla recalls 362,000 vehicles over self-driving software flaws that risk crashes

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has fought union drives in the past. The campaign, Tesla Workers United, is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate Workers United and has filed an injunction with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to halt the firings.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-fires-more-30-workers-070004234.html

 

Still some people will be happy at this because it protects Tesla's margin.

 

 

 

[CincyInDE 3,293]

On 03/02/2023, 16:19:38, Krieg said:

@DanglingPointer

 

About #2.  A normal European 16A socket will give you 3.5 kWh and and EV consumes in average 22 kWh every 100 km.

 

I think most people nowadays can charge from a normal socket.  They don't even need to plug it every day.

 

A normal European 16A Schuko socket is not intended to deliver the full 3.7W for extended periods of time.  My mobile charger (it's basically a portable wall box) limits itself to 12A when I plug it into a Schuko outlet, which ends up being about 2.7W.  A full charge (from 0% to 100%, which no one ever does) would take well over 24h. 

 

The preferred outlet for charging at the full 16A @230V is a CEE-blue outlet, a.k.a. Campingstecker. Depending on one's driving profile, this could be a perfectly cromulent solution. 

 

[CincyInDE 3,293]

On 13/02/2023, 10:41:56, fraufruit said:

The SWM card is expiring the end of March so you can forget "einmalig". We won't buy another one - can use our ADAC card if we need to use their chargers which we probably won't. 

 

The card is not expiring, they are ending your contract so they can increase prices within their established contractual framework.  I. e., you don't have to get a new card just because you get a new contract.  The old card can be associated with the new contract. 

 

That being said, it's maddening that EV charging is the one type of electricity that's getting more expensive.  It's like the question is not "how much does electricity cost?" rather the question is, "how much do people pay for driving ICE cars per km?  We should should charge that for electricity at charging stations."

[CincyInDE 3,293]

On 13/02/2023, 10:48:24, Krieg said:

Imagine if you had to pay 12 EUR (a year?) for a card to be able to use a gas station to buy benzine or diesel?  Imagine if every gas station chain had its own card.   

 

Most charge cards are either no recurring fee or a monthly recurring fee, but with the monthly fee you get a discount on the kWh price.  The price points are unsurprisingly designed to get you to fork out more money because you don't really know how many kWh you're going to need from a particular service in a given month. 

 

Public EV charging is worse than 1 card for every gas station.  I have a dozen cards (none with recurring fees) in a wallet that lives in my glove box, and I have to stay vigilant on the current kWh price for each card, which for the same card can change depending on whose charging network you're using. 

[MikeMelga 7,312]

On 2/16/2023, 9:52:47, yesterday said:

I said here, that I did not think FSD would work at the moment, or in the mid term either, people who think this will work, do not have any experience of how computers work and how different they are from humans.

It's a matter of time. Look at ChatGPT. A few months ago, you didn't have a decent thing. Now you have. 

This is not linear development.

I do have experience on how computers work. Stop thinking of FSD as a classical computer problem. It's not a deterministic pre-programmed behavior! It's AI, it works much closer to how a human learns than to a computer program.

[fraufruit 42,165]

Quote

 

Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report shares moved firmly lower Thursday after the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said the carmaker will need to recall more than 360,000 of its cars due to risks associated with its self-driving software.

CEO Elon Musk said the word “recall” "for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!", a Tweet from his official Twitter account.

The NHTSA said the FSD system may allow Tesla cars to "act unsafe" around intersections and respond "insufficiently" to changes in posted speed limits. Tesla will need to recall around 362,758 cars made between 2016 and 2023, including certain Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

"The feature could potentially infringe upon local traffic laws or customs while executing certain driving maneuvers," the NHTSA said in a statement. ""The system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver's adjustment of the vehicle's speed to exceed posted speed limits." 

Tesla will issued a 'software' based 'over-the-air' recall, the company said.

CEO Elon Musk said the word “recall” "for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!", a Tweet from his official Twitter account.

 

 

here

[Krieg 15,027]

Except one should be looking at the LEGAL meaning of "Recall" and not at the dictionary meaning of the word.   A Recall can be as simple as sending a letter to all customers sharing some information (i.e. Once a Toyota recall was sending a letter to their customers telling them to remove the floor mat on the driver side).

[MikeMelga 7,312]

Some guys took a deep look at these various FSD NHTSA claims, including past ones. Some of these complains require the car to operate on a very strict implementation of the law, which is NOT how normal humans drive. 

These strict interpretations either lead to impatient nearby drivers complaining, to situations where it could even be dangerous.

Will be fun to watch, as laws for humans taken strictly by computers will highlight these laws are far from perfect and are modelled assuming humans wont strictly follow them.

[MikeMelga 7,312]

On 2/17/2023, 10:47:17, Krieg said:

Except one should be looking at the LEGAL meaning of "Recall" and not at the dictionary meaning of the word.   A Recall can be as simple as sending a letter to all customers sharing some information (i.e. Once a Toyota recall was sending a letter to their customers telling them to remove the floor mat on the driver side).

I have no issue in calling it a recall. I also think it should be distinguished from a simple information, a OTA update or a physical recall.

As a shareholder, I used to be pissed with media twisting this word. Now I dont care, stock is not affected any more by it.

[MikeMelga 7,312]

A friend came with a new Model Y yesterday. Spent quite a lot of time around it, here is a review compared with my 2019 Model 3.

 

Good:

• It's much more quiet inside. You can't even hear the pedestrian sound from inside. This is due to new glass and rubber seams
• Doors latching now sound good, not like mine, that sounds cheap
• Interior trimming improved a lot. All the plastics look and feel much better
• New Ryzen computer is much faster! I showed him how to do a hard reset, and it took around 10 seconds, instead of 2 minutes on my old car!
• Wireless phone charging is a good improvement
• heated steering wheel, although personally I never found a reason for it

Bad:

• While the panoramic glass roof is much more impressive, it doesn't have these central lights which are convenient
• Disappointed that the middle back seat doesn't allow a pass-through hole like the Model S does. This is great for long items like skis
• They removed the emergency SOS button, which I don't agree
• It has no ultrasonic parking sensors, which sucks. Tesla is about to come with an update to do it by cameras, but my guess is it will never be as good as the ultrasonic
• Unsure why, I couldn't find the firefighters power cut guide ribbon below the frunk. 

[scook17 281]

On 2/13/2023, 10:48:24 AM, Krieg said:

Imagine if you had to pay 12 EUR (a year?) for a card to be able to use a gas station to buy benzine or diesel?  Imagine if every gas station chain had its own card.   

 

Imagine if, wow, you could just pay at the pump with a regular debit/credit card?

For some reason it's not popular here in Germany, but just about all garages have the option if I think about the UK.

Put the card in, select 20 Euros and it loads the car with 20 Euros worth of electricity.

How about google pay, apple pay, ..., etc. It's just a simple NFC tag linked to a bank account.

 

Reminds me a bit of Metro, the one supermarket which requires a special card to use it.

[Krieg 15,027]

10 minutes ago, scook17 said:

 

Imagine if, wow, you could just pay at the pump with a regular debit/credit card?

For some reason it's not popular here in Germany, but just about all garages have the option if I think about the UK.

Put the card in, select 20 Euros and it loads the car with 20 Euros worth of electricity.

How about google pay, apple pay, ..., etc. It's just a simple NFC tag linked to a bank account.

 

You can use an app like PACE and pay from your phone for your petrol/diesel.

[Janx Spirit 11,153]

"Tesla and Debt: A Masterclass for the Auto Industry"

 

Quote

The story of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and its corporate debt, or lack thereof, will go down as a masterclass in conservative corporate debt management and equity financing for many capital-intensive businesses and industries.

 

Makers of planes, trains, automobiles and any heavy industrial business that, if American financial history is any benchmark, have always been reliant on debt for their businesses, expansion plans and continued existence, should take note. Tesla is, for all practical purposes, virtually debt free 20 years after incorporation.

 

 

More interesting reading: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-debt-masterclass-auto-industry-161002631.html

[MikeMelga 7,312]

Having my first issue-driven service with Tesla tomorrow.

Autopilot not working since a few days. Cameras seem to be working, but autopilot won't engage. Typical solutions like reset aren't working. I suspect a faulty cable or AP computer. Or simply a SW re-installation.

Let's see how it goes, I'm still under warranty. Will post outcome.

[Janx Spirit 11,153]

Good luck.

 

Interstinmg numbers from my above link:

 

Big 3 American Auto manufacturer stats (information from most recent financials publicly available)
	Ford	GM	Tesla
Total Long Term Debt	$140 Billion	$115 Billion	$5 Billion
Market Cap	$48.23 Billion	$50.93 Billion	$548 Billion
Total Sales	$158 Billion	$156 Billion	$81 Billion
Cash Available	$44 Billion	$31 Billion	$22 Billion
Debt Minus Cash	$94 Billion	$84 Billion	$17 Billion SURPLUS in Cash