With AI and cheap energy logistics is going to go to become irrelevant with respect to total cost and at that point what do I need Amazon for? I'll be able to ask my phone to re-up my staples and for everything else I'll purchase from the manufacturer directly. All the profit is going to go to attention and trust, which means profits are going to be centred in high value brands and influencers. If anything, I'd prefer the opposite of Amazon. Some online store that just sells the best two of _everything_ that's irrelevant (toothpaste, etc) so I don't have to think about it. Plus AWS is overblown. Sure it's got good financials, but over time, AWS is a commodity play and commodity plays lose margin over time. There is some lock-in, but it's hard to lower prices for newcomers without reducing prices for the locked-in.

But back to Tesla: You're right. It's not smart to bet against Musk. It will stay irrational for some time because great men like Musk will make the very most of their situation. Also, with this volatility I wouldn't go with puts. Leveraged shorts or selling calls sound like much smarter plays if you are going to bet against TSLA.

The manufacturer cannot easily sell to end users, as it requires fine tuned delivery platforms and most of all, discoverability. SEO alone is not enough for a manufacturer to get noticed, so Amazon will benefit from being the de facto “search” for products. Anecdotally I and most of my friends and family already do this. It’s rare that I have intention to purchase <sub big ticket item> and google it.

As for Tesla, yeah I think it’s time to bet against him. There were many many “great men” like Musk in the 80’s and 90’s that made 1 too many misssteps and ruined their companies. Elon is on a razor’s edge.

Now, you're 100% right about discoverability. But Amazon is misplaying here if that's the long game. They should be a quality filter, not a cheap marketplace of knock-off Harry Potter toys.

You're also right that Google isn't nailing it. Really, I would argue that tastemakers are still leading the way for physical goods; with rating systems coming in a distant second. Ultimately I think a web of trust is going to develop to solve many of these problems, but that is largely a task of user interface, since enumerating trust and context is too onerous to push on a user. Besides, making it explicit is provably gamed as much as possible, see LinkedIn's "skills" for example.

Or Google could get its act in gear and cut amazon out of it. Hard to tell what will happen.

I actually don't find their share price to be out of control at all. They have assets other companies would only dream of at this point. The data alone on miles driven is extremely valuable in the race to self driving cars. Their supercharger network is extremely impressive and growing every day. Not only do they build the best electric car, but they've built out the infrastructure that many analysts seem to just discount. Not unlike what Amazon did (and is still doing).

It's not clear to me that Tesla is in the lead on driverless cars, or that driverless cars will initially be all electric. The economic benefit of being electric might outweigh the fact that it will spend a quarter of its time charging, or it may not. If we move to an Uber Style On Demand model of car usage rather than ownership I am not sure.

And I'm still not saying that Tesla won't succeed, or even that they will not at some point be the most profitable automaker. But their share price is so inflated that you have to believe they will do it very quickly to pay it. There's a very strong chance that the market as a whole is going to outperform TSLA even if they succeed for the next 5-10 years first

Walmart had the funds to overcome and mimic what Amazon was doing early on as well and they didn't. Why not? Some companies are set in their ways and have trouble seeing the future...or at least be willing to sacrifice short term revenue goals for long term gain (often times big profitable companies act this way).

TBH, I own a Tesla. I agree they are likely not the leader in the best technology for driverless cars, they are definitely the leader in affordable driverless cars. The interesting thing is autopilot gets better and better on streets you drive over and over again. Tesla's have ruined my experience for driving any other car. I'm sure someone else will make some great electric cars in the future as well, but right now there is nothing that compares to it overall.

Edit: To add one other point on my initial paragraph (and coincides with my last). Tesla not only gathers the data but has the autopilot features to be able to test changes to the algorithms in place and improve them over time. Even if the big 3 started collecting this data they are far behind in the ability to even simulate much less enable it for real feedback on the roads.

They are. GM is investing billions into self-driving cars and electric vehicles. Every other major car manufacturer has similar initiatives.

If you're wondering why they don't gather teh big datas like Tesla, perhaps it's worth considering that the benefit of this is more of an internet meme than an actual, useful idea. Pretty much everyone serious in the field is using LIDAR, not trying to make up for it with petabytes of bad bumper video.

Maybe Tesla's ahead of some of them. (I'm not sure they're ahead of Waymo.) But they've still not learned how to make an affordable car at scale. They're having a hard time getting to a $35k car, and estimates put the lowest Model 3 at $41k to produce. Average American car price, including trucks, is below $34k, and those are being sold at a profit.

And again, all of this is not to say that Tesla won't succeed. They probably will. What they've done is impressive. I just think there's a very good chance that they're on a long, difficult, slow ramp up to being a major car company, in which case their current share price will have been a bad investment.

Edit: also, I left out another huge risk factor: Their CEO. They have a visionary leader who is clearly overextended and shows signs of fraying to the point where he's possibly breaking laws over Twitter.

That's not only being the GM of electric vehicle, they are much bigger than that.

I'm pretty sure they are overvalued right now because what they do is for the greater good, but they are also much bigger than what shorter want us to believe.

Short sellers thesis is that the company is overvalued and that the market will come to see this and correct itself.

If they are wrong they will lose money. If they are right they will make money. There's no reason to ascribe to them malice.

Most CEOs ignore short sellers and get on with their job of running their company.

Why are people still saying this? Is 300 miles then 200+ mph recharge rates not enough for 90%+ of people 100% of the time, and the other 10% of people most of the time?

And for someone who doesn't live in one of the densest cities, it's nowhere near 90% of the time.