Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "Bloomberg Technology" channel.

  1. You mean, analysts who finally stop being wrong, and jump on the bandwagon to repeat what's obvious? And he even missed a major point. The reason Giga Nevada hasn't expanded for a long time, is that they are in a remote area and are having problems getting enough workers for it, and the area just has limited skilled labor, or housing for people to move there. Panasonic was having to leave Japanese engineers there at the battery plant because they couldn't find local manpower to fill the spots. So a major expansion there would not work at this point. Texas on the other hand has lots tech industry already, so lots of good potential hires.
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  2. He seems to have been listening to the consumer investor videos and repeating it lol One thing he missed though, Giga Nevada isn't likely to get expanded much, because they are having trouble finding adequate workforce there. Too far out, and Reno isn't a big enough city, or tech focused enough to supply workers. Texas on the other hand has lots of tech industry, and large cities that would supply a good workforce.
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  3. I drive i5, and it's rare that I don't see several loads of Teslas every day, and I know that more are going down the 101, or across the 80 and 58.
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  4.  @mackenzieiscamping1293  It's not the particular technology, it's the fact that they are combining all the technologies in novel ways, and making it into something never seen before. The vertical integration and combination of batteries and solar and storage and cars and ai and self driving and adding technology and apps and fun features to cars, and doing it with a rocket science and computer science as a background, and really leveraging the parallel companies off each other to reshape car technology and rocket technology.
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  5.  @mackenzieiscamping1293 are you so focused on the analysts that you aren't paying attention to what they are doing? Yes, they haven't had a lot of profitability, mostly because they have never stopped reinvesting in growth and new things. They just built a working factory in less than a year. Just after they ramped a new model at much higher production rates than they had ever done before. And now they are starting to build one in Germany, and getting ready to start one in Texas. If they just stopped spending money on expansion right now, and just sold as many cars as they can make in Fremont and China, and as many grid scale batteries, and as many solar installations, they would be making consistent profit. But that's not why the stock is so high, it's because the smart people know that Elon isn't going to stop improving and expanding until he is satisfied that the system is efficient. And that expansion costs a lot of money. And now they are starting to ramp the Y, and getting ready for the Cybertruck, and moving forward with the Semi, and working on new battery technology, and preparing to build their own batteries, and all that takes lots of money, which reduces profits.
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  6.  @mackenzieiscamping1293  How large a market share do they have to get in order to satisfy you? Do they have to totally take over the entire automobile market, or would you accept success as being the main worldwide electric vehicle company?
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  7.  @mackenzieiscamping1293  It's not just about selling a certain number of cars, don't you get it. Tesla is valued for its cutting edge solar solutions, for its cutting edge best in the world battery storage systems, and for its work towards autonomous driving technology, which is far ahead of anyone else, and, oh ya, it has a commanding lead in electric vehicles, and is years ahead of the competition. When even the CEO of Volkswagen says that they think there is a chance that they might be able to catch Tesla, in other words that they are way behind and catching up isn't a given, and none of the other car companies have shown any signs that they are close to Tesla, and countries around the world are moving to force adoption of electric cars, looking to the future is very easy to do. But if you think Tesla is just a car company and so should be valued on the number of cars sold, then of course you would not understand the valuation. And you may say that self driving isn't going to happen, or that Tesla is way behind others, but the fact that they have so much data to train the AI with, so many cars on the road with the full sensor suite, as long as they hire AI experts as good as the competition, they will beat the competition, simply because they have more to work with. And they may have some bumps in the road, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still way ahead of the game. In addition, the market caps of the car makers is also based on what is expected from them, and none of them are doing really well at the moment. They are all in turmoil trying to keep up with electrification, with changing consumer tastes, with changing environmental laws, with a changing political environment, plus lots of scandals and upheaval in leadership, and poor profit margins. So they aren't a very good looking stock right now, especially since everyone sees a major shift to electric cars coming, and no one else is ready for it, especially not compared to Tesla. So a big part of Tesla'a valuation is in comparison to the problems at the other car companies, and their scandals and blind leadership.
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  8.  @mackenzieiscamping1293  Uhh, hello! That's what the stock market is, a giant casino! Most stocks are valued based on people's guesstimates and assumptions, and when you look at the wide range of valuations by all the different analysts who are all looking at the same data, you can see this is true. And its why many people who make these assumptions when a stock is low (Amazon, Google, Apple, etc) are now millionaires because their guesstimates were correct. And I don't see the AI value being in the ride share app, that may be nice, but the real value is that when they get it figured out, they can then extend it to trucks, and that will be a multi billion dollar market right there, if fleets can reduce the need for as many drivers. See, except for ride shares, most car traffic is because the driver personally wants to go somewhere, so the car being autonomous doesn't actually help the driver much. With trucks, the driver doesn't need to be there, he's just delivering the load, so if he can be replaced, the load is much cheaper to deliver, because drivers are the second most expensive part of delivering a load, slightly behind costs. (which means that if you can drastically cut fuel costs with a battery truck, AND eliminate driver costs, you just got the attention of ALL the fleets!) And the Tesla Semi is covering this, because it's going to be designed to be ready for autonomous driving with the sensors and computer, and so it will cut fuel costs, and then when the software is ready and regulations allow, the companies can pull drivers out and cut their costs in half or more. Yes, Tesla solar has dropped in market share, partly because they pulled people off of it to ramp the Model 3, and partly because they were concentrating on getting the Solar Roof ready for market, and partly because in the ramp for Model 3, they were cell constrained because Panasonic was slow on their ramp, and so energy storage took a back seat on cell supply, and many solar installs include storage, so they had to wait. Now that the Solar Roof is ramping up, and as they get cell supplies ramped up, solar and storage should start recovering. Also, once they get Self driving ready, they can license it to others in other markets and turn it into a separate income stream. Just like as they get more Gigafactories online and start cell production, they can start building skates for other manufacturers and add that income source. So they have multiple directions they are able to grow, most of which are emerging markets that don't have much direct competition and haven't even begun to be tapped yet. And if they gain primary market share in even one of those markets, they will be worth more than today when it matures.
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  9.  @mackenzieiscamping1293  Most people who pick stocks, as opposed to funds etc, are gambling. It's all about trying to be smarter than the other guy. Look at Shorts, they are betting on the price going down. Some people go for dividends, but that's not very common. But most people buy stocks because they think it's going to go higher, and whatever their reasons, it's not much different than gambling, because you never know, even if all the technical details look perfect, whether a natural disaster or CEO scandal is going to crash it. So if you are thinking that stocks have logical reasons and it's not a guessing game in the end, trying to predict the future, than you have fooled yourself lol And, no, I don't have any money in the game directly, because as much as I believe that the evidence points to Tesla doing amazing things, I can't predict the future, and there are a lot possible pitfalls that could crash it, and I am not a gambler.
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