Tesla races past $100B in market valuation • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#321

Post by whack » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

kgwgk wrote: post #296

whack wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're investing with a 5 year time horizon, sure. If you're investing with a 20-30 year time horizon, and you're convinced that Tesla is overvalued, you should absolutely short it. Whatever "reality distortion" you are suspecting, is not going to last for 20 years. Eventually, when the promised profits and growth fail to materialize, the stock price will drop back down to its fundamentals and you will make a kill…

> If you're investing with a 20-30 year time horizon, and you're convinced that Tesla is overvalued, you should absolutely short it. Do you understand how shorting works? If you had shorted $10k of TSLA stock in May you would have lost $23k by now (it's not just a paper loss, you have to post collateral to avoid liquidation). And you also have to pay to borrow the stock you're shorting, so even if you don't face a ma…

Do you understand how portfolio management works? You run the risk of losses with any investment you make. If the size of your short position is less than 5% of your portfolio, you still have the other 95% that you can use to cover any temporary losses.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#322

Post by Psyonic » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #173

ethbro wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telsa apps/games This is the only thing that remotely justifies their current valuation. If you expect them to crush it in China + monetize their install base via creating an app platform for 3rd party apps + get to self-driving. People forget that EVs are going to likely be on the road a lot longer than ICEVs, due to lower wear-and-tear. Past battery capacity degradation, there isn't much to break.

That's my wife's current objection to buying an EV: after a quarter-million miles, a Tesla will still be running fine with no reason to replace it (vs an ICE trying to self-destruct).

She objects to EV's because they keep working longer?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#323

Post by braythwayt » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

shyn3 wrote: post #297

braythwayt wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only competitors are going to be the new car companies because they will adopt the same model Tesla has where they own their own dealerships. The general form of your argument is correct, however existing automobile companies aren't all wedded to their dealer networks. Volvo (which is now owned by Geely in China) took their Polestar performance brand and launched an entire automobile brand a few years ago. They n…

I might be mistaken but I think the Polestar line is a Hybrid car so that will result in Maintenance for the dealer. I.e. I am unsure if you buy the Polestar 1/2 where do you get it fixed? If you have to get it fixed at Volvo the dealership won't be upset, but then it's not really an electrical car so it's not upending their business model.

The Polestar 1 was a hybrid, the Polestar 2 is pure electric. They have some of their own stores, but I believe these are purely retail. They might be serviced in Volvo dealerships at the moment, I don’t know.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#324

Post by kgwgk » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #321

kgwgk wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're investing with a 20-30 year time horizon, and you're convinced that Tesla is overvalued, you should absolutely short it. Do you understand how shorting works? If you had shorted $10k of TSLA stock in May you would have lost $23k by now (it's not just a paper loss, you have to post collateral to avoid liquidation). And you also have to pay to borrow the stock you're shorting, so even if you don't face a ma…

Do you understand how portfolio management works? You run the risk of losses with any investment you make. If the size of your short position is less than 5% of your portfolio, you still have the other 95% that you can use to cover any temporary losses.

Do we agree that if you had a short position in TSLA which was 5% of your portfolio in May now you have a short position in TSLA which is around 15% of your portfolio? (TSLA has more than tripled, the S&P 500 is up "only" 25%.)

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#325

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #298

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem entirely accurate. Super cruise only works in supported areas, and it gets updates at a dealership instead of over the air. Both will improve over time and both appear to use ML.

> That doesn't seem entirely accurate. How so? Super Cruise requires that the car's forward collision avoidance, and adaptive cruise control technologies be enabled. It utilizes pre-scanned high precision LIDAR and GPS derived maps that limit where it can travel, and is 100% reliant on GPS to maintain it's lane. It cannot change lanes or steer around navigate traffic. It won't function in exit lanes. It won't functio…

>Does all of that sophistication in Tesla's system perform better? Eh... it's debatable. But it's definitely more sophisticated and is absolutely doing more advanced things...

I think you have a different definition of advanced and sophisticated than I do. If I do fizzbuzz with a neural network is it really more advanced and sophisticated?

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#326

Post by kgwgk » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #311

kgwgk wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla has gotten big enough so it is pretty unlikely to fail. Customers love the product, there are several "it is the future" features. People want to own a part of that. Wasn't that also true eight months ago? The stock was trading then at $180 rather than $590.

The market is often irrational and inefficient.

Of course!

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#327

Post by stanferder » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

xedeon wrote: post #308

erk__ wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very twitter thread that you are replying about.

That's one person. "Others" is plural. As requested: https://imgur.com/a/1IYTbrc Notice how the payment transaction actually happens in Apple Pay. So that means that you need FaceID to complete it. Impossible to do if the phone is in your pocket!

Thanks for providing that.

I believe the route to the accidental purchase the twitter thread refers to is through the "Pay with credit card" button though, which for some reason isn't present in your configuration.

https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1219406791941017607

See bottom, under the "Apple Pay" button.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#328

Post by ctdonath » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

Psyonic wrote: post #322

ctdonath wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my wife's current objection to buying an EV: after a quarter-million miles, a Tesla will still be running fine with no reason to replace it (vs an ICE trying to self-destruct).

She objects to EV's because they keep working longer?

Yup. And not an uncommon opinion.

At a quarter-million miles, most people want something different. "It's falling apart" is an acceptable excuse. "It's running just fine, another three-quarter-million miles to go" not so much.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#329

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #319

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow. Why must people think that Tesla will be worth 10 times its current value? The pro-Tesla argument I’ve typically seen is that they’ve already demonstrated they’re better than other manufacturers and it’s just a matter of cleaning up their production pipeline. Have you seen anyone in particular argue that Tesla will be valued at $1T in 2030?

I have seen several "bulls" peering into their magic eight balls and predicting trillion dollars valuations for Tesla (and SpaceX) on CNBC. Here's one: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/10/02/ron-baron-tesla-could-... Google "Tesla Trillion Dollar Company" and you can find dozens of predictions.

Fair. That does seem overly optimistic.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#330

Post by gangstead » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

aynyc wrote: post #270

njarboe wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Model-X is really like a mini-van. High price, but similar functionality. Seats five adults + two kids. Maybe Tesla will drop the price over time. I think Elon Musk built it as the car he would want to take his family around in. He later said he regretted building that model as it took too long to develop and set back introducing the model three by a year or two.

Don't the kids seats face backwards?

That was an option initially for Model S. Two backwards facing jump seats for kids. They don't appear to offer that anymore, probably hoping you'll by an X instead. X has 2 regular forward facing seats in the third row.