Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

[LarryHoward]

Now Tesla not going private. I’m certain the SEC is going to have an opinion on Elon’s behavior and somehow they need a more independent board.

[TheOffice]

Class actions to follow. Elon should be demoted to COO

[BeauV]

Class actions to follow. Elon should be demoted to COO

OH NO!!! There's not an operating bone in his body! He is really "Chief Promotional Officer" and should not be in control of either operations or finance, In my opinion. Frankly, they've been trying to find a COO who'll work for Elon for at least three years and no one is willing to go near the job as long as they have to report to Elon. Having worked for more than one crazy guy, I can relate to that.

[Chris Chesley]

I only see lawyers and unpaid legal bills in the future for Elon....

[BeauV]

Elon is really acting oddly. The pressure is probably getting to him.

[floating dutchman]

As much as I don't want to believe it, I think Elon may be a future Tucker.

But he did say his goal was to make electric cars accessible to the masses, and he has done that.

[Orestes Munn]

As much as I don't want to believe it, I think Elon may be a future Tucker.

But he did say his goal was to make electric cars accessible to the masses, and he has done that.

Nissan, Chevy, et al., made them accessible to the masses. Musk made them desirable for the rich.

[BeauV]

The Tesla Semi is wandering around showing itself off to folks in the trucking industry. It is managing to wander around using only the Supercharger network, which was unexpected.

A friend in the trucking business says that they have over 100 openings for Drivers and can't fill them. They are growing quickly. The issues:
1) You have to pass a drug test before getting hired and then randomly once employed, he claims this eliminates about 50% of applicants.
2) The economy is very nearly at "full employment" (as the economists use that term) and truck drivers are scarce.

Because of the driver shortage, this friend has been unable to grow his business as quickly as he'd like, which is really pissing him off. He says he'll buy 5 of these Tesla Semis as soon as he can get them simply because he can reduce the number of total "drivers" he needs. The other paybacks don't matter to him at all.

[TheOffice]

The Tesla Semi is wandering around showing itself off to folks in the trucking industry. It is managing to wander around using only the Supercharger network, which was unexpected.

A friend in the trucking business says that they have over 100 openings for Drivers and can't fill them. They are growing quickly. The issues:
1) You have to pass a drug test before getting hired and then randomly once employed, he claims this eliminates about 50% of applicants.
2) The economy is very nearly at "full employment" (as the economists use that term) and truck drivers are scarce.

Because of the driver shortage, this friend has been unable to grow his business as quickly as he'd like, which is really pissing him off. He says he'll buy 5 of these Tesla Semis as soon as he can get them simply because he can reduce the number of total "drivers" he needs. The other paybacks don't matter to him at all.

Beau,

We have a neighbor with 50+ openings for long distance drivers. If only he needed long distance sailors!

Joel

[BeauV]

The Tesla Semi is wandering around showing itself off to folks in the trucking industry. It is managing to wander around using only the Supercharger network, which was unexpected.

A friend in the trucking business says that they have over 100 openings for Drivers and can't fill them. They are growing quickly. The issues:
1) You have to pass a drug test before getting hired and then randomly once employed, he claims this eliminates about 50% of applicants.
2) The economy is very nearly at "full employment" (as the economists use that term) and truck drivers are scarce.

Because of the driver shortage, this friend has been unable to grow his business as quickly as he'd like, which is really pissing him off. He says he'll buy 5 of these Tesla Semis as soon as he can get them simply because he can reduce the number of total "drivers" he needs. The other paybacks don't matter to him at all.

Beau,

We have a neighbor with 50+ openings for long distance drivers. If only he needed long distance sailors!

Joel

I know, it's everyone in the trucking business. Until I started digging into why Tesla wanted to build a self-driving truck I had NO IDEA that there was this massive shortage of drivers.

[floating dutchman]

As much as I don't want to believe it, I think Elon may be a future Tucker.

But he did say his goal was to make electric cars accessible to the masses, and he has done that.

Nissan, Chevy, et al., made them accessible to the masses. Musk made them desirable for the rich.

I am of the opinion that Tesla spurred the other car makers into getting their act together with electric cars.

[TheOffice]

And this from Porsche:

https://electrek.co/2018/08/28/porsche- ... -and-fast/

Seems like the laws of physics applies everywhere!

[BeauV]

Joel,

A couple of points about the article.

1) Given that the average comment for folks in the US is about 30 miles round trip, this re-charging on the road issue is only for vacation or exception travel. These folks ignore that.

2) They do accurately mention that they can get charge fast at first and then less fast as the batteries get near full, physics applies as you mentioned. What they ignore his that customers would like not to have to charge at all. Thus, the extremely large number of customers who have electric cars they use for commuting and charge at home.

3) They never ever ever ever mention the cost..... which will be substantial.

4) No one has multiple cards and authentications in the US. Every one of the charging companies has apps on the iPhone which allow you to pay/charge/etc... These folks are showing their age, this credit card thing is so last century

[kdh]

I think Musk has lost his mind. Picking a fight with the SEC?

[Orestes Munn]

I think Musk has lost his mind. Picking a fight with the SEC?

Bipolar disorder?

[LarryHoward]

I think Musk has lost his mind. Picking a fight with the SEC?

Worse, apparently there was a settlement deal that he killed at the 11th hour. Read somewhere that the SEC has a 98% win rate when they sue. Wonder when the board will remove him as CEO? If they don't, I think they are playing with fire as far as shareholder suits and refinancing maturing debt. wonder who will underwrite new debt and at what terms. Don't forget, he still has the personal suit from the rescue diver he called a pedo to deal with as well. It seems he really does want to go down in flames.

[TheOffice]

Ugly day for shareholders - down 12%.

Of course, if he had resigned it would also be down.

He will have to stick to playing with rockets and digging tunnels pretty soon. He only has to answer to himself in those companies.

[BeauV]

I think the stock price decline is based upon the assumption that he will be gone or out of daily control and the stock market thinks that's a bad thing. Despite is obvious problems, he has been more successful than anyone starting a car company is a long long time. He has also made shareholders like us a LOT of money. That said, I do think he's crazy.

My completely uneducated opinion is that he is so out of touch with reality that he doesn't realize that it's OK for a politician to state obvious lies on Twitter, but NOT OK for a CEO to do so. That leads to the obvious question: Why don't we have an election commission which would nail those politician with the same rigor as the SEC is doing to Elon, but that discussion belongs over in there Political threads. I really believe that he is just behaving the way most self-important people behave on Twitter and running the tweets before running the brain. We see it right after every Fox and Friends show pouring out of the Whitehouse. 'Nuff said.

As to what might really happen, I've no inside info at all. I do know that a LOT of the folks at the company are doing repeated facepalm plants.

My guess, he gets to remain a shareholder and probably Chair of the BoD. But he is forced to give up direct operational control to a CEO who is actually a real CEO - meaning Elon can't fire him. I'm also quite certain that he can roll over the debt, but it will just be at much worse terms. If you had $50 billion sitting around and could get warrants on a third of Tesla at a price 50% below the market price, wouldn't you loan Tesla the money secured by the company? I sure would! At the very least there is a loan-2-own strategy for someone with a lot of cash. Think VW, Apple, Samsung, etc...

[TheOffice]

My guess, he gets to remain a shareholder and probably Chair of the BoD. But he is forced to give up direct operational control to a CEO who is actually a real CEO - meaning Elon can't fire him. I'm also quite certain that he can roll over the debt, but it will just be at much worse terms....

Agreed! He gets to continue on as mad scientist. Rising interest rates and negative cash flow combined with risk of him going off do not equal cheap money.

BTW, not sure why he is building his own car carriers. Plenty of capacity out there (but his will eventually have his electric cabs)

[BeauV]

I hadn't heard he was building car carriers. They'd make good beta-test platforms for his trucks. Also, the current car carriers are an awfully scruffy lot. When I was commenting to LA every week I'd pass dozens of them carrying Teslas up and down I5 in CA. Despite wrapping the cars in plastic or cloth the way many auto mfg do, I think there must be significant damage from dust/rocks/water as they are transported. It maybe that building enclosed car carriers and avoiding the wrapping and cleaning altogether is worth the cost.

[kdh]

I think the stock price decline is based upon the assumption that he will be gone or out of daily control and the stock market thinks that's a bad thing. Despite is obvious problems, he has been more successful than anyone starting a car company is a long long time. He has also made shareholders like us a LOT of money. That said, I do think he's crazy.

I think the market is pricing in his eventually settling with the SEC, as it's the only reasonable option. However, the market is also pricing in that he's crazy.

I'm also quite certain that he can roll over the debt, but it will just be at much worse terms. If you had $50 billion sitting around and could get warrants on a third of Tesla at a price 50% below the market price, wouldn't you loan Tesla the money secured by the company? I sure would! At the very least there is a loan-2-own strategy for someone with a lot of cash. Think VW, Apple, Samsung, etc...

Financing can always be done at a price, but issuing shares at below market price or debt senior to existing bonds is not practical. Current owners of the debt and equity wouldn't stand for it. It's a public company after all, and Musk is merely one of its shareholders.

The deal Musk rejected from the SEC was a small fine and a temporary bar from serving as chairman, but continuation of his CEO role. Seems like a great settlement to me given his behavior.

[SemiSalt]

I wonder if Musk is acting out due to stress.

[TheOffice]

Musk is out as chairman but stays on as CEO Good outcome.

[BeauV]

It looks like Elon managed to take a $20m fine and turn it into a $40m fine. Small change given his checkbook size, but loosing the Chairmanship will really bug him. He wants to be the biggest ball of cheese in the fridge.

[BeauV]

This isn't really about Electric Cars, but it turns out that the electric cars are leading the way in providing semi-autonomous cars to the public so here it is.

While driving along in my Tesla through a lot of traffic, Stan Honey posed a simple question:

"Humans only have vision in the visible light spectrum and the refresh rate of that vision is pretty slow, basically about 2 frames a second best case. Yet, they drive cars pretty darn well. Semi-autonomous cars have LIDAR, RADAR (in some), multiple high frame rate cameras, etc.... yet they don't drive all that well yet. Why is that? Do we need better cameras and more sensors? Or should the engineers be working to figure out how a human drives just fine with a really poor camera?"

It's questions like that that keep me up late at night......

[Chris Chesley]

I don't think it's the quality of the picture. Rather, it's the quality and processing power of the software/hardware that differentiates human drivers from the autonomous self-driving auto.

(I know.... It's hard to believe that all our whiz-bang nano chips and electronic wizardry is still rather clunky by comparison)

[Olaf Hart]

Pattern recognition.

[BeauV]

I'm pretty sure you guys are on the right track. Consider the range of vision also. A human can see a blurry pattern that is 1/2 a mile ahead, the current car cameras have real trouble seeing further ahead than about 200' because the lenses the engineers have chosen are pretty wide angle. Your rear parking camera is an example.

Humans can also notice movement/change in an image very very fast (great to spot a predator/prey). The computer doesn't have a separate change processor, it's mixed in with the rest.

Finally, we're learning that a lot of processing of the image goes on within the retina and optic nerve, the brain sees a pre-processed image, and your conscious mind sees a highly preprocessed image. The old saying: "I'll believe it when I see it." is probably exactly backwards. It should be "I'll see it when I believe it." People quite literally can't see things they don't believe exist or can happen. It's one of the fundamental reasons magic works. Your mind predicts what's possible and your eyes seem to confirm that bias.

All of this is making the problem really interesting.

[kdh]

All of this is making the problem really interesting.

Really interesting and really hard. We tend to think that if something's easy for for us to do that it's easy to program.

We have all sorts of cognitive biases that even simple systematic systems can fix, but our visual and pattern recognition systems are amazing.

[Chris Chesley]

Pattern recognition.

Hah! So that's why I find myself heading for the grocery store when I REALLY wanted to get on the freeway instead.... (and I wasn't even messing with my phone or the radio dials on the new buggy....!)