Tesla

[weijian]

In general, a regular car company does a revamp of its car every 3-5 years - a minor facelift every 3 years and a major refresh every 5 years. So is Tesla a regular car company? Of course its "founder" and shareholders do not think so! Afterall, it had singlehandedly advanced the adoption of EVs by 5-10years...

Based on its track record, it make rational sense to have faith that its humanoid robots and autonomous driving will also be advanced 10years ahead of time.

Tesla is running out of excuses for its prolonged sales slump

Tesla is having a hard time building on the success of the Model Y, which was the best-selling vehicle in the world last year. The sport utility vehicle has been on the market since 2020, while the Model 3 sedan debuted three years earlier.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compani...ales-slump

[dreamybear]

Well, the 4 names can be considered outliers as well?

That's true. But probably less of an outlier than Tesla.

A good bet on Tesla for an average OPMI can yield a millionaire / multi-millionaire, aka option of saying goodbye to eyeball/brain damage retirement.
https://www.valuebuddies.com/thread-8694.html

Reading the article below brings to mind moat 2 low cost producer (https://finchat.io/blog/economic-moats-c...-examples/). 

That said, I think there are other moats applicable to Tesla like brand power.

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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/unite...cuts-costs

[weijian]

It seems like the ultimate winner is still the "Art of the Deal". Someone pays you for the privilege to do spending cuts on your behalf. This someone is the public face for the unpopularity of these cuts and hence you are shielded from it you. And then you turn around and spend like no tomorrow to gain popularity.

In chinese, there is a idiom translated as "accompanying a ruler is like accompanying a tiger". I think the decoupling from politics is probably a net positive for Tesla shareholders over the medium/long term.

Trump, Musk feud explodes with threats of cutting contracts, backing impeachment

"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Minutes after the closing bell, Musk replied, "Yes," to a post on X saying Trump should be impeached. Trump's Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress and are highly unlikely to impeach him.

"Without me, Trump would have lost the election," wrote Musk, who spent nearly US$300 million backing Trump and other Republicans in last year's election. "Such ingratitude."

Trump asserted that Musk's true objection was the bill's elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles. The president also suggested that Musk was upset because he missed working for the White House.

"He's not the first," Trump said on Thursday. "People leave my administration ... then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile."

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/tr...nt-5168076

[Big Toe]

" Art of the deal" even though the most powerful man on the planet right now, will ultimately lose. Musk is the only sensible person that was directly helping to curb spending and doing good for America by his own freewill. Given Trump's management style, no capable person would want to work for him.

When surrounded by Yes men, the administration will crumble sooner or later. Hopefully the checks and balances that is built into the system will enable the government to function somewhat normally(like how the tariffs were challenged). As for the ever increasing budget deficit, it will just grow bigger and at some point it will have severe consequences. We just dont know how it will unfold.

[specuvestor]

In my view the gaining momentum to scrap the debt ceiling is a bigger issue on the faith in the USD, but that's a topic for another thread

Tesla lacking LiDAR seems to be the problem for many of these incidences including a fire engine across the road or a wide screen that cameras alone cannot triangulate a 3D proximity

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-...ing-crash/

[Behappyalways]

Time to drop the really big bomb
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930703865801810022

[weijian]

Tesla lacking LiDAR seems to be the problem for many of these incidences including a fire engine across the road or a wide screen that cameras alone cannot triangulate a 3D proximity

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-...ing-crash/

Elon's 1st principles thinking (we drive using our eyes) vs Alphabet's Moonshot (What is the product that is going to be 10x better in 5 years' time?). Can both be right? Or is someone going to be terribly wrong?

It seems Elon's formidable enemies and his rivals' formidable allies are all Chinese!

The AV Sensor Stack

Tesla has taken a fundamentally different approach. It does not use lidar or radar and instead relies entirely on eight cameras to make driving decisions. In contrast, Waymo’s fifth-generation car has 29 cameras, six radar sensors, and five lidar sensors.

Why such a dramatic difference? As early as 2013, Elon expressed skepticism about the need for lidar in autonomous vehicles. Elon framed the reason in a rather intuitive way in 2021: if humans can rely on their eyes and brain, then self-driving cars can rely on cameras and AI.

In one example, Waymo's lidar picked up the presence of a pedestrian in a Phoenix dust storm that was not visible on the camera. In another example, Waymo’s sensors were able to detect a pedestrian who was behind a bus and avoid a collision.

Another tailwind for Waymo’s approach has been the falling cost of lidar. When Elon first called lidar too expensive in the early 2010s, it cost ~$75K per unit. Since then, costs have fallen dramatically, and some lidar units sold for personal vehicles (not robotaxis) are being priced in the hundreds of dollars. Chinese lidar maker Hesai is pricing its units around $200 each, and US-based Luminar Technologies is pricing its devices at around $500 each.

https://contraryresearch.substack.com/p/...undown-140