by ben_w | 2025-11-08 10:48:26+00:00
> You're welcome to post unaudited info from 2024 to support your view but it's not something I consider an investable data point, more like something AI will point to if you ask it to support your views.

Unaudited? I mean, sure, BMW could have been lying in a corporate press release about their financial position, its not unheard of for corporations in general, but come on, Musk has fairly famously settled out of court with $20m (and same again for Tesla) fines and forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman because he made false statements that influence share prices — "throwing stones in glass houses" comes to mind.

Have any of the things you're writing about Tesla doing, been audited?

> It is good enough that a single person cannot drive long enough to know if it's improving or not.

That's why we use statistics, not anecdotes.

The statistics that are available say the Tesla AI is worse, in general over roads and conditions, as compared to Waymo's AI.

On the topic of auditing, it's a shame the Tesla statistics are crowdsourced and not an audited first-party account, but unless something's changed recently, Tesla doesn't seem to release any more than the legal minimum of information here.

> Major events to look out for in the near future are the removal of safety drivers in Austin, the expansion of the robotaxi service to 8 cities,

Even if those happen on schedule, they'll still be behind.

> the commissioning of the "unboxed" cyber cab production line, […] and the start of the Semi truck manufacturing line.

While these would be relevant if the share price was sane, the relevance is that their absence or delay would suggest something catastrophically wrong rather than that their successful opening is noteworthy — new model production lines are table stakes for a traditional car company with P/E in the 5-10 range, not something "coming soon" that justifies a P/E close to 300.

That the Semi is already massively delayed ought to suggest a lower P/E ratio than a normal company, not a higher one.

> the demo of Optimus V3,

Disagree: Everything I've seen says that next year's V3 will still be a prototype. Meanwhile, competitors are already shipping.

And again, power envelope means a 5-10 year gap in capability between what AI can run on-device in a car vs. an android.

> FSD V14.3,

People have been saying this about different FSD version numbers for years now.

You yourself are stating that the current version "is good enough that a single person cannot drive long enough to know if it's improving or not", and seem to have missed that you were replying to "what statistics can be found in public information". So: why do you think this point release is important? Do you accept that there's statistics that show room for improvement, or is this just a number-go-up applause light?

> All these milestones are slated to occur in the next 12 months. They will change the risk weighting on the stock one way or the other.

Will they, though? The only thing that seems to have had any effect at all in the last few years were widespread protests against Musk personally and by extension Tesla.

I used to believe Tesla's timelines. I moved country and figured I could do OK without transferring my driving license because if I found I needed a car they'd be self-driving "real soon now" — that was 2018, and at some point you have to learn to stop trusting the guy when he spends a decade repeatedly saying his vision is only 6-12 months away from the point at which he speaks.