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Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

reuters.com

71–80 of 360 posts

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#71
post #25

I dunno. I want a Tesla as my next car and a lot of folks have said similarly. I am tired of getting gas every 2 weeks or so and I am really tired of oil changes. If I can charge at home and at work that seems to be just right. I'd probably still have a bigger gas family hauler but day to day a Tesla.

Unless your commute is >50 miles one-way, there's no need to charge at work unless its incredibly convenient. I use a standard wall plug to charge my Model 3 at home and still I'm back to full in under 12 hours after work. If you want to bring that down to 2 hours, you can get an RV plug or a home EV charger installed.

If there's always an open charger at work, go for it, but I think people still overestimate how often they'll need to charge.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#72
post #40

I don't know how to value a stock, but after riding in my friend's Tesla a few times on road trips. I seriously doubt I'll buy a ICE car ever again unless for specific purposes (mini-van). I know 10 people who owns Tesla, the 6 or so friends I've spoken about it feel the same way as I do. If this keeps up, I think Tesla's stock price is under valued.

There have been a few news about EV vans. Also Van conversion have been going for quite a while, you see a few on youtube. I'm surprised nobody have made an EV model already..

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

> Cybertruck have they published pre-orders numbers ? I thought it was pretty much a PR stunt without any real product line behind.

Last number I heard was 250K pre-orders in November. That said the pre-order buy in was crazy cheap and just gets you a spot on the waiting list. I spend a fair amount of time in automotive circles though and interest in this truck is big. I'm expecting significant sales.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#74

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

Software magic. The same reason Apple is valued more than Nokia in 2008, even though Nokia sold many more phones. Once you have software, you can do magical things like upgrading the car’s capabilities, create an eco system for various apps allowing the car to slowly creep into your life. Imagine someday using your car as a backup battery for your home, now, who wouldn’t want that? Allow refueling at hours of day whe…

Yes, this. An example: I remember a few years (?) ago someone complained on Twitter to Elon about people leaving their cars hooked up to super chargers all day (basically just using the super chargers as parking lots). In less then a week (if I remember correctly) a firmware upgrade was out that imposes an idle charge if you leave your car in the Super charger after it's full. I just can't see any other car company being able to deploy these kind of things on that timescale. Perhaps Tesla just happened to have this feature in the pipeline already and just feature flagged it to "on"? Still something other car companies just can't do.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#75

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

Keeping in mind, part of the gains are from shorts being squeezed.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see one good reason: the rest of the auto industry is playing catch up with Tesla. Nobody else afaik is even able to do over the air updates (reliable updates, that is). They have a charging network, the competition basically doesn't and can't seem to get their act together, and that's not even really a technological issue.

they do "over the air" updates? Of the software that powers the vehicle? Isn't that an _exceptionally_ dangerous vector?

In what way? Sign updates, validate signature, and only apply when car is off and at home charging. Maybe some POST/rollback logic even possible. It's not much different than going to a dealer to get ECU flashed.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#77

I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening…

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

A lot of people have taken a short position and that is driving a lot of this gain. The shorts are getting squeezed bad and have to cover thus further driving up the price. It is a lot harder to make a long term short bet due to the potential of unlimited loss and your shares being recalled.

Tesla has done better than expected with the Model 3 despite overpromising a lot and missing a lot of targets. Actually just last year Elon said he was leasing model 3's now to buy them back for a fleet of robotaxis that will start this year (LOL). But he has the hype and people's attention. It is just hard to time when that cycle will collapse.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

> Perhaps it’s still overvalued beyond all of those factors. If you feel strongly about that, why not take out a short position? The issue with that is that GP is arguing that this stock's investors continue to behave irrationally. There is no reason to believe they are going to suddenly behave rationally. Thus, a short position is inadvisable. If you are a value investor, the right thing to do is to just not invest…

So you are saying that the opposite (a long position) is advisable? But that would make the current investors behavior a rational one, right?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

> Perhaps it’s still overvalued beyond all of those factors. If you feel strongly about that, why not take out a short position? The issue with that is that GP is arguing that this stock's investors continue to behave irrationally. There is no reason to believe they are going to suddenly behave rationally. Thus, a short position is inadvisable. If you are a value investor, the right thing to do is to just not invest…

> The issue with that is that GP is arguing that this stock's investors continue to behave irrationally.

Can we stop pretending that any part of the market behaves rationnally?

Investors buy a stock because they think there will be someone else to buy it from them at a higher price later, that's it, they don't look further.

Everyone was already complaining about this when $TSLA was at 50$ a share...

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see one good reason: the rest of the auto industry is playing catch up with Tesla. Nobody else afaik is even able to do over the air updates (reliable updates, that is). They have a charging network, the competition basically doesn't and can't seem to get their act together, and that's not even really a technological issue.

they do "over the air" updates? Of the software that powers the vehicle? Isn't that an _exceptionally_ dangerous vector?

I guess that's why it is not so easy. Volkswagen is struggling https://www.autoblog.com/2019/12/27/vw-id3-ev-software-issue...
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