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TSLA - Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ)

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I am quite skeptical of the future of the automotive industry as a whole over the next 20 years. I think in 20 years time there could be potentially a lot less cars being sold than today. Despite car ownership rates currently rising in emerging economies, self driving cars will prove an existential threat to the automotive industry.

Currently most people buy a car and 95% + of the time (unless its being used for commercial purposes) it just sits somewhere parked. So you pay $20,000+ for something that sits there unused for the majority of the week.

Once there is a fleet of self driving taxis instead of everybody owning a car that sits in the drive way, most people will stop owning cars and will instead hail self driving taxis (they will be cheap once you have removed the taxi licensing fees and the human labour cost out of the taxi prices) by pressing button on a mobile phone app. Instead of every household having a car , one self driving taxi will be able to service many households, thus drastically reducing the total number of cars needed. The auto industry will then need to consolidate into even fewer automotive companies with cheaper products being sold at lower profit margins (if your customers become companies like Uber or former taxi fleet operators instead of individual consumers, you have fewer but larger customers with more negotiating power who will force your product prices lower).

That is just my best guess as to what the future could like look. For all I know I could be 100% wrong and people could be using flying taxis or teleporting or zipping around in hyperloop tubes or whatever the hell else.

I think that the current model of every household having their own car is incredibly costly and inefficient and will not persist as a mass market (it will become a niche market) in the future. The current model of car ownership is the equivalent of every household having their own dairy cow in their backyard because they drink 3 litres of milk per week. It just does not make sense.

As always though the future is unknowable so maybe I am wrong on that.
 
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Muckman said:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...tranded-hours-half-mile-long-line-charge.html

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I think electric scooters and bikes will be OK for those that need to just zip around the city/region quickly.

Electric cars are no where near cementing their future monopoly yet. As for Tesla, they will be pushed out of the European and Asian markets; then eventually be consumed by the American auto manufacturers.

The Germans are already sticking it to Tesla: Tesla market share crushed in Germany: "Tesla’s share of the EV market plunged to 8.7% year-to-date, from 18.4% last year. Competition is now huge and across the spectrum. Tesla faces the same situation globally."

(https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/tesla-crushed-germany-evs-vw-renault-hyundai-group)

 
I am actually a very anti-car person and prefer to get around by bicycle. I think to a large extent cars create their own demand in a negative feedback loop. Having lots of cars and big houses creates the need for cars because you have all these roads, highways, parking lots, driveways, petrol stations, truck stops, car dealerships, big houses, etc that all take up space that could be used for shops and apartments (or smaller houses). This (coupled with everyone wanting their own quarter acre block instead of accepting apartment/terrace living) results in everything being far apart and the city being sprawled out creating even more need for cars. If you get rid of cars (and quarter acre blocks) you stop needing cars so much.

Singapore has around 5.6 million people and around 1 million vehicles. NSW has 7.6 million people and 5.6 million vehicles...... Singapore has 5.6 million people in 725 square kilometres. Sydney has 5.25 million people in 12,368 square kilometres.....

Mr. Money Moustache delves into this concept more on his blog:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-reality/

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/02/10/the-happy-city/
 

Fast, clean, reliable, frequent and cheap public transport is really the way to go in large and densely populated cities. The Singaporeans are smart city planners who are forward looking.

I understand that some people will need a vehicle for work or if they have a family with kids.

Really; cars are a depreciating asset that are costly to maintain. I haven't owned a car in 10 years.

Many supporters of EVs are trying to repurpose vehicles as grid batteries. I don't see how that will work well because the purpose of owning a vehicle is for convenience to be able to jump in and drive off at any time and at short notice.
 

I tend to agree that less people will own cars, but I believe more car miles will be driven.

Which of the existing players do you think have the highest chances of creating a self driving fleet? I think Tesla.

Firstly I think Automated charging is a lot safer than automated petrol refilling, so I think electric car fleets have an edge and Tesla already have automatic chargers.

Tesla is already so far ahead with its self driving tech.

Tesla has already stated that their intentions are to create a self driving fleet.

Check out this charger, its easy to imagine these automatic electric chargers, I am not sure an automatic petrol bowser would be as safe.

 
Value Collector said:
I tend to agree that less people will own cars, but I believe more car miles will be driven.
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The entire concept of public transport and high density just got a pretty big slap in the face from a virus.

Cars aren't going away anytime soon in my view, indeed we may even see a move toward them since in due course a self-driving car removes the need for a drivers license or even being able to acquire one. Eg a blind person or a child, neither of whom can drive a conventional car, could travel by themselves in an autonomous vehicle quite easily so long as appropriate safeguards are incorporated.

There's also the point that the whole argument for the 1970's > present push for high density and public transport rests upon the notion that cars and petrol are joined at the hip. Apartments and upgrading public transport were an advocated response to oil depletion and what was then termed "the greenhouse effect". Switch to electric cars, or any other alternative to petrol etc, and that policy rationale is no longer valid.

Who owns the cars is somewhat irrelevant from the manufacturer's perspective. 100 cars each traveling 15,000 km a year and lasting lasting 25 years or 10 cars doing 3000 km a week and being worn out after 2.5 years makes no real difference to overall sales. Etc. Not that I'm convinced everyone will give up on private ownership but even if they do it doesn't kill the vehicle market as such.

The only real doubt I have is whether Tesla makes it happen or some other company ultimately jumps ahead and beats them? There's plenty of historical precedents where early leadership in a field didn't result in being the ultimate winner.
 
Value Collector and Smurf I think you guys missed a few key points in your analsyis:
1) Carpooling
2) Commoditization of cars
3) Remote work
4) Ageing population
5) High density

1) Carpooling: Once self driving taxis become common place the next step will be to have self driving taxi carpools become common. In any densely populated suburb during peak hours there are going to be a lot of people heading towards the CBD for work, so why should they pay more to sit in a taxi by themselves when they can carpool for less than half the cost (even if it takes slightly longer). Obviously the more people that carpool the less cars you need.

2) Commoditization: People generally only care about the brand of car when they own the car or lease it for a substantial period of time. Not many people care about the brand of car of a Taxi or Uber they ride or the brand of the bus they ride. And so all those self driving taxis will be commoditization. Companies like Tesla or Porsche, etc a lot of their profitability rests on selling a premium brand product to consumers with high profit margins.

At the moment Tesla is trying to be the Apple of the car industry. Obviously when there are mostly self driving taxis and nobody cares about brand anymore it will become a race to the bottom to produce the cheapest cars. Tesla is competing against car companies that pump out 3 or 5 or 10 times as many cars in total (I mean all cars not just electric) and have much bigger balance sheets. Once all the big car companies start mass producing self driving taxis there is no guarantee Tesla will be market leader and even if Tesla is the market leader all those cars will likely have very little profit margin in them.

3) Remote Work: Coronavirus accelerated the trend to online/virtual meetings, people working from home, etc. This is a long-term trend in my opinion. In 20 years time far fewer people will be commuting to the CBDs for work 5 days per week than is currently the case. The biggest usage of cars currently is to commute to work. When you reduce the need to commute for work you reduce the usage and sales of cars.....

4) We all know that in the wealthiest economies that have have higher car ownership rates the populations are ageing (and in some cases also shrinking). Pensioners do not go to work and they are stay at home far more than younger people.

5) High density: Smurf pollution and oil depletion is only one argument for high density living. Even if you remove those arguments it still makes sense for a lot of reasons. Have you even read the Mr. Money Moustache blog posts I linked to? Walkability, reduced commute times, reduced costs for all car related infrastructure such as road construction and repair, traffic police, parking rangers, parking lots, etc.
When you have spent some time living in a beautiful Colonial or European style old town centre where you can walk and cycle everywhere living in a city designed for cars seems like sad joke. Lifestyle and system costs are much better in walkable/cyclable areas/cities. You don't agree cities like Amsterdam or Singapore are a preferable design to cities like Sydney or Los Angeles?
To my mind its completely retarded, uneconomical, ass backwards and even almost criminal to build cities designed for cars instead of people.

6) Intersection of points 3 and 5. I am not sure exactly how these two points will influence each other in the future. Will the CBDs hollow out with the densely populated beach-side suburbs becoming even more densely populated? Or will more Sydney-siders move to Wollongong or the Blue mountains if they only need to spend 2 days per week in the office instead of 5? Maybe a little bit of both? CBDs hollowing out with beach side suburbs and satellite towns/cities becoming more crowded? Whatever happens in the future the population distribution of a lot of cities will probably look quite different in 20 years time and its hard to say what the impact on car usage/demand will be.
 

If the cost of private jet rentals dropped significantly, would that be good or bad for the people selling normal commercial flight tickets?

Cheap access to robo taxis won’t encourage car pooling, people will choose private cars wear possible.

especially if it’s a choice of sending your kid to school in a private car vs a shared one.
 

but either way, my simple point was that this is very good for Tesla, not so good for the others.
 
Value Collector said:
Cheap access to robo taxis won’t encourage car pooling, people will choose private cars wear possible.

especially if it’s a choice of sending your kid to school in a private car vs a shared one.
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I don't think it is that black and white.
If for example sending my child to school in :
A) Shared Car costs $1.00
B) Private Car costs $3.00
Then I will select A.

But there is always option 3. Tell the child for the betterment of their physical and mental health, ride your bike, you also get the added benefit of freedom.

I personally, use my car very little and will not be purchasing a new one for many years, riding my bike gives me more benefits at less costs.
 

I am not saying car pooling won’t exist, Or that kids will stop riding bikes, I am just saying that reduced cost means people are less like to look for cheaper alternatives, not more likely.

especially if the reason people are choosing public transport are the additional non vehicle related costs such as car parking.

there are people that currently use public transport or car pooling just because they want to avoid paying $20+ a day to park the car on top of the regular car costs.

for those people a robo taxi that picks them up at home and delivers them to the door of their office would be very attractive, rather than cramming into the train.
 
Go back 20 years and I was in that camp.

In due course though, having spent quite a bit of time speaking with professionals in the transport field, I shifted to a realisation that public transport fits very nicely with an industrial economy but fails in a service economy. It works when you've got 3000 people all working at the mill and all starting and finishing at the same time but it fails when you've got 3000 people all working independently at different locations and times and the mill no longer exists.

The thread's about Tesla not town planning but noting the ongoing pandemic, I'm not at all convinced that we're going to see people piling into big city apartment towers going forward. Not everyone's going to do it but the concept of living in the suburbs isn't dead in my view, there's plenty who live in apartments who've now come to see the idea of a house with a backyard more positively and they won't forget that thought in a hurry.

It might cost more owning a car and so on yes but rarely do consumers pick the cheapest option for anything. iPhone, Mercedes, every 4+ star hotel, David Jones, Myer, every private school, private health, most fashion branded outlets, every cafe, every restaurant, the entire concept of business class travel and so on. They all rationally don't exist at all if we assume price is the determinant but they sure do in practice because consumers don't actually go for the cheapest option. They even sell premium priced cinema tickets these days.

A poor person will pick the cheapest combination of living and travel arrangements. They've no choice really.

Someone with more money will live somewhere they like to live and travel by the most efficient and comfortable method. Within reason it costs what it costs.

The latter are the ones who might buy a Tesla vehicle especially if they get to the point of full autonomy thus removing the need to stuff about finding somewhere to park since the car can do that by itself after the owner has got out at their destination. In terms of convenience and comfort that massively beats any form of shared transport.

Tesla aren't competing against buses or trains. They're at the premium end where the money is. Someone worried about a few $ isn't their target market just as Qantas doesn't market business class travel to mum, dad and the two kids off to the Gold Coast for a week. etc. They're aiming at the middle and upper ends with different products priced accordingly.

FWIW - I don't own a Tesla but then I tend to shun upmarket things generally by choice. I'm not most people though and there's plenty who will buy an upmarket car that drives itself once they're convinced it's safe, comfortable, reliable and so on.
 
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Smurf1976 its not only about cheapest option its about quality of life. Wouldn't you prefer to be able to walk and cycle everywhere (like is common in many European cities) than having to sit in car? I don't even own a car and I try to get around by bicycle as much as it possible. Its a great way to get exercise and often (at least in the areas I cycle) it takes the around the same amount of time as driving due to traffic congestion. Walking and cycling are activities that build a sense of community and enable people to get sunshine and exercise and fresh air (sometimes). Driving is for worker drones. Even if driving a car was hypothetically slightly cheaper than cycling (its obviously not) I would still prefer to cycle. This is aside from the fact who wants to waste hours of their lives commuting every day. Obviously a different town planning model which eliminates the need for long commutes enhances quality of life.

What you are saying about industrial vs. service economy misses the point completely, because you are simply looking at public transport (trains, buses, etc) without even factoring in cyclists and people walking. There are cities in the world where the majority of people cycle and or walk to work.

Also I am not saying everyone has to live in apartments. People can live in houses with backyards but they shouldn't have to commute to the other side of the city to work. Everything they need should be within a reasonable distance of their house. This is something that can be done with the right town planning and has been done in many cities around the world.

And yes although this is a thread about Tesla and not town planning the two are joined at the hip because town planning drastically affects car usage and car sales and we got to think about how town planning and city usage will be in the future when evaluating automotive companies.

Value collector I think we will have to agree to disagree. I think carpooling will take significant market share from people using private robo taxis. Sure the premium market will always exist but it won't be the majority.

I think the self driving car market will become like the airline market where 90%+ of people (the plebs) choose the cheapest option available (economy) and the other 0 - 10% will choose the premium options. There is a reason most airlines have terrible profitability and I expect the self driving car market to end up the same way.
 
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Value Hunter said:
Smurf1976 its not only about cheapest option its about quality of life. Wouldn't you prefer to be able to walk and cycle everywhere (like is common in many European cities) than having to sit in car?
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Personally I do walk every day either to get from A to B or for exercise so I'm not adverse to the concept. Heck I've even walked from A to B in Los Angeles and that takes some determination.....

For living though, well the practical reality for many people is the days of a job for life or even a career for life are long gone and with that the days of always working in the same or a nearby location. Far more likely you'll spend your working life spread between the CBD and an assortment of suburbs nowhere near it doing a few completely unrelated jobs.

There are exceptions to that of course, there are some who will always work in the CBD and who have hobbies and interests which are very much based in the city and who rarely leave it. That group arguably has little need for a car, no argument there.

A real life example, I know a couple who bought a house within a few km of where they both worked. Within 12 months one was in a new job and commuting about 30km each way and that's in Hobart, not exactly a large city by any means. Now they work in the CBD, a ~15km trip.

I'm not suggesting that everyone will buy a Tesla or even own any car at all, there are certainly some for whom it makes no sense, but cars as a concept are very much here to stay in my view. At least they are so long as we have a society which functions roughly the way it does today - that of course could change dramatically.
 
Lucky777 said:
$TSLA announced stock split

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/11/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus

Might decide to buy more.
Click to expand...

bought more last night...
The question is now; Are they going to worth $400/ps on the split.
And will they for-fill my expectation of doubling again in the next two years?( almost seems un -ambitious)

Go Berlin Go Austin...

And everywhere I look, nearly all the competition is going no where or backward.
Bezos could buy Ford with his loose change...(or in my view if they don't pull the digit out he can just wait till it's junk) And with some sort of view to the future sort that mess out.
 
Yea been up about 20% since I posted that, should’ve topped up. I’ll stick to my guns with the $3k price target(scaled back): $500 end of year!
 
So at the close we're at $400/ps for the split...

Rob Maurer who has a long back catalogue of pod casts relevant to this discussion.. Don't know if he's been linked previously. He's well into the weeds on TLSA's financials and the condition of the competition(spoiler they're not).
 
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