I will bet that Tesla has cars with level 4 autonomy by 1/1/29 let's say. I'm not willing to limit it to Teslas built by 1/1/22 because I simply don't know enough about the advances that will be necessary (Elon says it's just a software thing, but I doubt it). As you can see, I'm giving up a couple years as compensation.

As far as an escrow, I'm not willing to tie up money for 8 years but there are plenty of very well respected poker players who will vouch for me. If you have similar vouches, we could do it that way.

they'll probably just license a solution from one of the tech-leaders by then.

Replacing cars with slightly less polluting cars is one of those things that make people who don't want to really consider the consequences of their actions feel good about themselves.
You are still an environment destroying consumer despite thinking that driving everywhere in an electric car is some kind of an amazingly enlightened behaviour.

Not to mention, Tesla isn't even "less polluting". It's the most polluting of all electric and hybrid cars, worse than some gas cars, and is possibly the worst environmental option of all new mass consumer cars thanks to the massive battery and premium cost. In the end price is largely a proxy for CO2 emissions and human effort required. It starts out 5+ years in the red on emissions vs gasoline cars thanks to the vast amount of energy (mostly from dirty coking coal) required to produce the battery. It never actually captures up with hybrids which are substantially superior environmentally, especially cheap ones.

It's the classic environmental scam - feel good while being subsidized by the taxpayer and actually making the world worse.

But there are already two problems with your grading.
1. Full Self Driving isn't being pitched as level 4 today. It's being sold as a robo-taxi capable product.

Elon -
2. Full self driving is being sold on cars today (not by 1/1/29) and the feature doesn't transfer to your new Tesla purchase. It does transfer with the car if you sell it. So cars being manufactured today are being sold with this FSD potential greater than level 4.

This feature is a fraud in my opinion because it is a product being pitched as something people inside Tesla know will never be achieved. It is also being pitched by Elon as a catalyst for increasing valuations, although this is less of a fraud if there is some future set of hardware that allows Tesla to actually reach level 5.

they nearly doubled the share count since the thread opened.

don't get me wrong - they are great at lighting money on fire. first ballot hall of fame capital destroyer.
but even they can't burn money at the speed they raise it.

I underestimated how much demand would exist for something like a Model 3. PHEV make more sense to me for the mass market, but the trend hasn't been going that direction. I'm curious to see how the Rav4 prime and Jeep 4xe play out. It would be more interesting if Toyota would build enough Rav4 primes to match demand.

investors just love it when the real owner of half "their" $800b car company is the chinese government.

IMO, bears got three main things wrong:

1) Ability to raise. Even uber-bull Jonas was calling Tesla a busted growth, distressed-credit story in early 2019. Bears failed to account for Elon turning things around and raising $10B+ in part by promising 1 million robotaxis.

2) Model 3 production ramp. Bears thought Tesla would struggle to scale up production, and it certainly was a struggle, but they ultimately managed to ramp up aggressively by any means necessary--skipping safety testing, building cars in a tent, putting office workers on the assembly line, violating code at the paint shop, etc. Unsurprisingly, build quality was absolute dog ****.

3) Demand cliff. Bears thought the market for heavily subsidized shitboxes was showing signs of saturation, but they failed to account for the cult's tolerance for abuse, Tesla's willingness to introduce lower-priced, profitless variants like the SR+, slashing prices across the board, and building a Chinese factory (risking excess capacity and being beholden to the CCP). Early competition like the i-pace and niro also didn't bite as hard as expected.

So what are the main takeaways? Bears clearly underestimated Elon's willingness and ability to do whatever it takes to keep the company afloat--making fraudulent promises, taking on massive risks, sacrificing profitability and brand value. That isn't sustainable long-term, but as long as the cult is willing to forgive the quality/service issues, and the company can raise money, and the fraud goes unpunished, the show can go on indefinitely. Elon is an uncanny promoter, and he seems to be untouchable at this point. When the Model Y and China bump soon start to fade, it will be on to the $25K Model 2 to maintain the growth narrative, profit margins be damned. I don't know what's left after that, but I'm sure he'll think of something.

That said, the cracks in the house of cards keep accumulating. Recalls left and right. Battery degradation and winter range issues. China doesn't tolerate poor quality the way the American cult has, and even their regulators have been tougher than ours (sad). U.S-China trade war tensions don't seem to be easing up. Competition is finally starting to hurt Tesla in Europe, and should start making serious headway in China this year, and at least a small dent in the U.S. with the Mach-E, ID.4, Taycan, etc. No new major markets to tap into for easy growth. 100% margin regulatory credit revenue will start declining dramatically. Level 4-5 autonomy will remain elusive, with consumer lawsuits mounting. Somehow Elon (along with Chamath) has managed to position himself on the right side of the populist backlash against the GameStop/Robinhood fiasco, but that could change at any moment.

I'll keep rolling my shitputs. Stairs up, elevator down. Inshallah.

Space is the same. Number of cars (and therefore resources invested in making cars) is not.

That same car that would just sit around at your workplace all day can be used to ferry someone to get groceries in the afternoon instead - potentially saving that person from having to own a separate car.

it would pretty much eliminate the 'two (or more) car hosuehold' where one (or more) cars just gather rust 99% of the time.

And certainly is mobility a drain on resources. It requires material and it requires energy.
But not using the most efficient way possible to supply the desired mobility usecases is just dumb.

It doesn't work like that though. Car life is mostly limited by miles traveled. There are few cars that die of old age and aren't instead worn out by miles traveled.

the thing I don't understand with Elon is that some of his ideas are so easily disproven but they still get so much funding it's crazy

like the hyperloop..

there are so many videos/articles showcasing why it's impossible to do what he is promising yet he is still getting hundreds of millions in funding and government support

I just don't get it sometimes

it reminds of politcs..you can literally lie 24/7 and get no recourse when everything you said turns out to be false

I mean even when the Math has been disproven then idk what can even be done lol

That's why public transport, walking and cycling are the future for cities, where more than 70% of population already live.
There will be robotaxis but they won't be luxury cars of vain rich people.

Can you elaborate. What is impossible? Hyperloop? Here is a demo of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHjr...el=Thunderf00t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrbs...el=Thunderf00t

there is a lot out there

thunderfoot alone has multiple videos debunking the hyperloop scam

the math has shown that their demo area isn't even long enough to have the ability to reach the speeds they claim

ps : the guy is a phd so he can definitely explain it better than a cretin like me

Agreed Hyper loop is literally one of the worst ideas ever. Tunnels aren’t cheap - the infrastructure required for hyperloop is beyond stupid.

People forget the magic of air travel versus rail/tunnel systems. Build a terminal (1 airport) and instantly be linked to every other terminal. Now compare that to building a rail network.

/also why high speed rail in the US continues to go no where - other than the billions wasted on virtue signal planning it in Californian for 20 years and counting.

it's also funny that musk does this "open-source design" or "no patent" model because all the patents already exist then when new patentable ideas come out from this he patents every single one lol

it's legit clown world

@heftik watched it again

it was only possible to get to 100mph in that demo video and for it to reach the speeds they claimed it would have to be 20x as long lol

It's easy to get caught up in the hyperloop hoopla, but outside of a contrived prototype in a non-trivial setting it will likely never work for passenger transportation.

Freight transportation might work, but the investment to make it worthwhile would be huge. One benefit would be getting most the trucks off highways. If one trusts autonomous driving that benefit would be reduced, but controlling where hyperloop pods would go seems a lot easier/safer to me. Another benefit would be easily transferring power to the pods while in transit, eliminating the need for refueling/charging.

And that 45 minute video talking about inefficient vacuums could have been compressed to 3 minutes.

You always have to take it within the context of where you want to deploy it. I.e distances and volume of people as well as funds available to these people to pay for this sort of mobility.
Trains (and hyperloop) may be costly to set up, but the running costs are pretty low wheras with planes it's the other way around. So at some point there is a cost crossover.

Added to that: Environmental concerns are starting to play a real factor if we - as a species - want to survive. So in a rather short time airplanes (particularly for the mediuam ranges of 1000-2000km) will no longer be a viable alternative, unless they switch over to some energy source that is non-polluting.

Not every country seems to be so inept at planning (nor so fraught with companies actively opposing cheap travel). That California can't get its act together doesn't mean that high speed rail isn't viable - because elsewhere in the world it has clearly shown to be.

Hyperloop is stupid but tunnel digging is something universally agreed to be stupidly expensive and in need of disruption.

Cutting through gov't bureaucrazy (or papering over violations with his sheer charisma and cult of personality) and taking government money are very very much in Elon's wheel house.

Btw, we have (maybe just had? I'd think some of it got dug up already due to disuse) a primitive hyperloop for mail underground in Manhattan. It's call pneumatic tube mail and it was in use between 1897 and 1953 to shuttle tens of thousands of pieces of mail a day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneuma..._New_York_City

I watched some of his video. I am no Phd, but I have a MSc and taken some courses in mechanical engineering etc, and I was not impressed by him. His math regarding the pressure on a long cylindrical tube seems off, but not gonna elaborate, I think one experiment should be enough to disprove it.

It’s short because it’s a demo. A longer demo would cost more and take longer time to build.

Can you explain exactly why hyperloop is impossible?

That it’s not politically feasible or economically feasible is not the same as it’s impossible. And just because it is not politically feasible in one place does not make it politically impossible everywhere. And just because it is not economically feasible right now does not make it economically impossible if we figure out a way to rearrange atoms in a cheaper way.

And I trust the engineers who spend millions building an actual system a lot more than some Phd on youtube who get’s views by being controversial.

TSLA shareholders I have a question

How do you reconcile your claims that Elon is a genius and then ignore/defend his shitty/ bizarre Tweets? Clearly this is someone unhinged (see Howard Hughes fall) or totally blitzed out of their mind.

Tesla also stole some design features from Nikola Motors on their semi, had a lawsuit to have Nikola make changes denied. First they copy the name and then the semi design, it never ends.