I think you have to ask whether Tesla would have the same or similar valuation in any of the following circumstances:

- If literally anyone else were CEO.

- If Musk hadn’t used twitter to gather a cult-like following of people who idolize him, think the tech is cool, and can’t afford a Tesla but can afford a few shares of the stock.

- If Musk hadn’t repeatedly inserted himself into the WSB “meme stock” & crypto counter-culture to cultivate fans within that group of risk-taking investors who are known for ignoring fundamentals and buying stock on their intuition (or even the internet’s intuition!) alone.

I’m not saying Tesla is worthless and I even have to give Musk credit for creating an internet persona where he’s helping middle class millennials “stick it to the man” while _being_ the billionaire man. But IMO its very obvious that at least some substantial portion of Tesla’s valuation comes from Musk and his internet antics/persona and is completely detached from the underlying value of Tesla itself.

You’re not entirely wrong, but Tesla (and a small SpaceX investment via funds) is the closest most people can come to investing in Musk personally. Wouldn’t you invest in someone who is obsessed and will strive at all costs to succeed? And how is this any different than accelerators like YC investing in founders vs business ideas? The “eccentricity” for lack of a better word is the symptom of his underlying drive, so if you want the returns you take the good with the crazy.

I wouldn’t work for Musk (to protect quality of life and mental health), but absolutely would sink all of my high risk allocated capital directly into him as a person. Obsessed people get shit done.

> And how is this any different than accelerators like YC investing in founders vs business ideas?

VC funds are (1) diversified, so it’s less risky — their success or failure isn’t tied to any one persona or even any one company, (2) fund investors have a lot of money so they can afford it if their entire investment goes to zero, and (3) the investors are well-versed in assessing the likelihood of that risk when they make the investment. The same cannot be said for the average Joe who’s a fan of Musk and has $2,500 in their Robinhood account.

Fair points. I'm unsure how to protect retail more without handicapping those who know what they're doing. Taking away exposure opportunity from retail isn't going to help, but neither does encouraging gambling (although that's what investments are, educated gambles). Musk is exploiting an edge case, but I'm unsure if I can blame him for it based on how it's turned out.

Don't invest (or gamble) what you can't afford to lose on high risk investments. Index funds are your friend.

Although I'm no fan of Musk he's a pretty smart guy and he's done a pretty good job so far of toeing the line. (Though I don't envy his lawyers because I suspect he toes the line a touch more than they'd prefer.) And, as the saying goes, winning fixes everything, so I think the fact that Tesla is "profitable" and has a promising technology at the core of the business helps, too. It's clear the stock price isn't entirely derived from the company's value but the company clearly isn't worthless, either.

All that is to say, I don't think there needs to be any additional restrictions or regulations on investors to deal with meme stocks because I think the problem will eventually be addressed via the existing system. Whether it's Musk or (more likely) some other enterprising social media personality I think we'll eventually see a meme stock that's so egregiously ridiculous and loses a lot of people a lot of money that the SEC, and perhaps the DOJ, will be forced take action. Maybe even multiple egregious meme stocks will be used in quick succession in order signal where the SEC's "hard line" will be.

And I eagerly await Matt Levin's "Memes are Securities Fraud" column when it happens!

> Don't invest (or gamble) what you can't afford to lose on high risk investments. Index funds are your friend.

100% truth, but many people don't listen to that. Too boring. I'd rather have Joe Robinhood Investor sink $2,500 into Musk and his mission with Tesla instead of sinking $2,500 into GME or casinos.

This obsession hasn't always been good, and often caused Elon Musk to make dishonest statements about the overall state of the business and its future. This should scare anyone who is attempting to value Elon Musk at a realistic level.

As a recent owner of a model 3, I've been blown away by the charging infrastructure advantage.

The non-Tesla chargers near me in Colorado are just plain garbage. Sometimes, they work great, but other days I go back and the terminal won't function. And currently, these chargers are all the owners of non-Tesla EVs have.

I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

> I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

There is in some other countries. IMO the supercharger network is a short-term competitive advantage but probably not a sustainable one as other companies move in.

> I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

I honestly don't understand this sentiment.

Tesla invested many many years creating a charging network in a competitive environment that actively resisted it. So now that Tesla is super successful in part because of this long-term investment, how is it fair that Tesla _must_ open it up to the _same_ people that resisted them earlier?

That's like Apple being forced to give up their Lightning specs to third-parties because they invested years of R&D into creating a fast plug-and-play standard before USB-C gained a foothold.

Because sometimes the government can use its powers for the good of the general public, even if it negatively effects business. How negatively Tesla would be impacted is debatable - I don't think anyone would expect them to be forced to let people use their chargers for free.

I dont think people would put up with a gas station that only fueled Toyotas, or a parking lot that only allowed Fords. This doesnt strike me as being terribly different.

Why would a government not consider it monopolistic to own both the charging infrastructure and the vehicles themselves?

I own both a Audi e-Tron and Tesla Model Y (well, it’s the wife’s but you get the idea.) Taking a road trip in the Audi is all but out of the question because of how awful the charging infrastructure is. That is not say nothing in regards to the litany of design flaws, poor consumption, and miserable dealer support with the Audi.

Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers.

> Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers.

Well the majority view is that the Porsche Tycan is a better car, but at a different price point - considering the (im)maturity of the market 10-15 years seems a stretch, particularly considering there are some great cars coming out like the mini electric.

Depends on how ‘better’ is being judged. Premium fit/finish, interior quality, handling, etc. - i.e. the things that the legacy Porsche business was already good at, Taycan is better.

Battery tech, motor tech, vertical integration, and (arguably most importantly) overall efficiency, Tesla is ahead, and probably by many years.

Tesla also far ahead in effort/time out into developing self-driving, though the jury is obviously still out on how meaningful their approach finally turns out to be.

> (arguably most importantly) overall efficiency

Sorry but pretty much no one cares about efficiency after you break 300-400km range

I considered the Taycan as a replacement for the e-tron but it has all the same problems as the e-tron. The interior finish and handling dynamics are nicer than Tesla for sure but literally everything else they get wrong. Like I said, they are at least 10 years behind.

Here is an example: recently the Audi app which you use to control the car from your phone was down for two weeks for server upgrades. I have worked in IT and software for almost 20 years now and a 2 week outage is unimaginable.

I'll agree a 2 week outage is insane, but that's hardly an example of the tech being behind. Shitty process sure and lazy software development too.

How about the charge range or stability control? Any idea about the battery's expected life span? What technology do you think Audi is behind on?

My impression has been that Tesla nailed the charging network, charge range and raw straight line performance. Everything else they half-assed, i.e. the stuff I care about on a daily basis feels cheap.

Things you'll care about on a daily basis:

* Rear hatch will occasionally just open by itself. There was a TSB from the dealer to resolve this where they reprogram your keys and adjust the sensitivity of the kick sensor but I'm still skeptical. The audi app should alert me if the hatch has been left open for more than X minutes with the car off.

* Audi App in general is very slow and unresponsive. Sometimes I'll try to precondition the car and the app just spins for minutes and then silently fails.

* The onboard charger can run with either 50% of 100% of a circuit, nothing else. If you are at a shared 240 or 120v system where there is a lot of load (RV camp ground for example) your car simply won't charge.

* Electrify America is a mess. You can google this and see thousands of examples.

* There is no regen or one pedal driving. You can manually activate regen by pulling the levers on the steering wheel but the behavior isn't consistent and the regen isn't strong.

* There is no way to enable "creep" mode like how a traditional automatic ICE car behaves.

* There is a feature to schedule charging for those who have off-peak rates. You have to set this every single time you use the car.

* The virtual cockpit and 360 camera occasionally fail to initialize so you just have blank screens.

* Consumption is extremely high. For reference for Tesla people a good day in an etron is 400wh/mi.

* Vehicle nav map shows me gas stations, no way to search for charge stations.

* Vehicle still has ICE based service reminders built in.

---

Now for things that are going to get someone killed:

* The vehicle rolls backwards on hills. This + lack of creep means that you have to feather the gas. There is a "hill hold assist" which will randomly kick on but it's not reliable. Stop and go traffic in a hilly area is very annoying.

* When parking the vehicle will roll backwards or forwards for about a foot until the brake catches. This could easily entrap someone in an enclosed space.

* If the vehicle is "on" or "off" isn't completely clear as a user. If you put it into accessory mode it looks exactly the same as the vehicle being on sans one small green line. I've accidentally put the vehicle into neutral with the vehicle in accessory mode while parked on an incline and it began rapidly rolling away (the thing weighs almost 7000lbs) while I tried to pump the non operational brakes.

* Vehicle automatically shuts off climate control after 30 minutes of idle. I'm glad I learned about this while waiting for someone instead of when I had left my dog in the car.

* Getting out of the driver seat shuts off the car completely when in park. See prior points about climate control and rollback.

I could go on. This is just what came to me off the top of my head.

With the exception of the efficiency numbers, none of these seem like problems that would take 10 years to resolve, even at the glacial pace of most automakers. Many of them even seem like software issues that would be resolvable via firmware updates.

400wh/mi though, oof. That would be about as expensive to operate as my current gas-powered vehicle (both around 10c/mi).

Yes but it’s the mindset of the VAG software engineering staff that created these problems. I didn’t go into the extremely confusing MMI, lack of OTA updates, etc. There is no way to escalate issues to VAG corporate. Even if they pressed reset on their software engineering team tomorrow it’d take a few years to ramp up to catch Tesla.

> 400wh/mi.

That's INSANE. No wonder why they need chunky batteries!

Our Model 3 cruises at around 200 Wh/mi.

Also, the Model 3's climate control times out after four hours. But you'll get a notification when that happens and can re-enable climate immediately thereafter.

It's unfortunate that VAG took shortcuts

Two weeks?! Not even FCA's UConnect infra was down that long!

100k car is better then 40k in a few metrics. Wow what an achievement.

Model 3 Performance can keep up with 120K+ Tycan.

And Model S leaves a Taycan behind it like a the Taycan was a Ford Focus.

> particularly considering there are some great cars

People made the same argument in 2014 and all those cars came out. People made the same argument in 2018 and all those cars came out.

And non of that changed Tesla growth or margin (other then to the positive).

Well the statement “nobody makes a better car at that specific price point” is a bit less bold than the original claim that every other car company is “easily 10-15 years behind”.

I mean it’s obviously an absurd claim anyway, Tesla is less than 15 years old and clearly the other car companies aren’t starting from scratch.

Besides, the Taycan now starts at $79k, not $120k. You are comparing the cheapest Tesla against a higher range Porsche. It’s pretty much cost competitive with the Tesla Model S. Not everything is about performance anyway, I doubt I need more power than either car - a comfortable driving experience and build quality would be more important to me if I was in the market for one of these cars (which are all more than I would want to pay for a car).

> Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers.

The Mercedes EQS is getting pretty good reviews and the specs look good, so I'm not sure about that. It looks like a direct competitor to the Model S.

> I’m actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

Why does this surprise you?

They are opening up in Norway, presumably due to local laws.

Can you point to a source?

All I can find are articles such as this one https://www.tu.no/artikler/apner-tesla-offentlige-ladestasjo... that talk about Tesla bidding for contracts to install charging stations and that the conditions of the contracts require the stations to be open to other brands of car.

The article points out that Tesla can do this by dedicating part of the station to third party chargers.

So it isn't because they are being forced to do it nor is it necessarily the case that Tesla's own network would be involved.

There is something between 'fundamentals' and 'irrationality' here. This kind of market cap results from a bet by buyers that, if given access to capital (by inflating the value of Tesla or Elon's holdings of Tesla shares, or its ability to issue more) Tesla will realize the value that the market cap is bid up to. But of course, it's circular - if Tesla's stock wasn't bid up that high, it wouldn't have the capital to realize that value. That doesn't mean it's irrational, but it's not the same as a cold evaluation that a business is already clearly going to be worth than much.

No reason it can't be both. Obviously Elon memes helped a lot, but they are making very real and significant progress.

It's pretty clear to me...

Can you enlighten us?

Tesla's stock performance doesn't justify the price unless they pivot hard into other markets.

Their product is so popular production of their Model Y is essentially sold out for the 3rd quarter with 2 weeks to go in the second quarter. They are in a business that has massive efficiency advantages as it scales. There is a good chance Tesla will be the largest company in the world in 10 years. It isn’t a coincidence that you hear all these rumors about Apple trying to get into the automotive business.