JPMorgan warns Tesla stock could sink 60% in new note | Hacker News Reader

JPMorgan warns Tesla stock could sink 60% in new note

finance.yahoo.com

62 pointsfreediddy21 comments

I recently bought some TSLQ (2x short ETF) with a bit of play money after many years of being long on Tesla. I do think they're cooked at the current valuation and my thinking is pretty simple: almost the entirety of their valuation is predicated on near-instantaneous robotaxi rollout and a near monopoly on humanoids and neither of those are going to happen. None of the other businesses they've tried have worked and the car and storage businesses together are worth probably 15% of current valuation.

So first, why is robotaxi not happening? Well, it is just not on the scale they need it to. In addition to Waymo, many other companies are working on driverless systems and they're all making good progress. nVidia has a full stack competitors based on VLA models, as do Chinese manufacturers etc. In short, we'll see capable self driving systems from probably a dozen companies world wide. Tesla has some advantage here, but real world acceptance and scaling are slow, trust in Tesla is low and most of their cars are physically incapable of running the size of models L4 systems will require. My 2022 Model Y has roughly the same processing power as my Rovers Jetson Orin Nano and that thing isn't driving itself.

The humanoid part is even worse, Tesla has absolutely no structural advantages there - they're no better than Chinese companies at making the hardware and they're no better than the AI Labs at developing the models required. Also, again low trust. Tons of people will absolutely not let a tesla bot in their house. There's no reason to think they'll be wildly successful, and the actual capabilities and economic usefulness of humanoids are still some years away.

Were the humanoid “robots” even real?

I saw some videos that seemingly showed them to just be remote controlled by a human, but I don’t research deeply enough on it to be confident that it was true.

It's a mix, depending on what the task is, everything impressive is teleop. Which is fine in the abstract - all humanoids from all companies (there's probably like 3 dozen now) are either teleop, doing slow and cautious autonomy with limited scope or executing routines. This is simply how they must be developed - do some useful task with teleop and get data, train model, execute task unsupervised. It's all sensible except Tesla needs this to work at warp speed for their valuation to stay where it is, and it just won't. It's slow, expensive, and will take years to get that data flywheel spinning correctly, get people used to it etc. I just don't see it working on the timelines Tesla needs.

There's a big difference to end users between "a robot walking around my house doing something" and "a human remotely controlling a robot and walking around my house". The privacy and safety implications are huge, and I cannot imagine that Elon Musk has the remotest interest in letting those points be heard.

not to mention that they run out battery fast and cant really lift much.

They will never lift much. If they were strong enough to lift heavy objects they would be strong enough to kill you accidentally. There's no technology fix for that.

Careful buying ETFs as a way to short the stock.

The ETFs are designed such that at any point in time, they are roughly 2x short the stock, but they do this by buying derivatives over time which means that the stock decreasing by X or increasing by Y doesn't mean you'll gain or lose 2X or 2Y over a long time period. If the stock increases first, then decreases, you'll probably lose money even if it ends up lower than when you bought it.

I think just shorting the stock or buying long dated put options is probably a better way to do it.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/092815/risks...

This is not financial advice.

Buying options and rolling them might cost more than the decay on the etf

You could literally get knifed by mechahitler in your own kitchen.

Good luck, you're going to need it. I can see Tesla breaching $450 end of the year.

> almost the entirety of their valuation is predicated on near-instantaneous robotaxi rollout and a near monopoly on humanoids and neither of those are going to happen.

I also expect their robotaxis and robots to be a joke business-wise for the foreseeable future, but I totally disagree that they have much to do with the stock price. The real driver is Elon's immense cult following. The Tesla stock price has always been absurd relative the actual business, but cult followers don't care about financial statements, or engineering work, or business logic. They will ignore all of that to support their leader.

Elon has been spewing blatant lies for well over a decade at this point and always claims to be chasing some shiny object a year out that will transform the business and grow its revenue to match the valuation. It never happens, but people don't care.

He has lost some supporters from his peak due to his political and social media insanity, but most of the diehards have kept by him. The odds of him diving back into MAGA politics in a visible way is a larger stock price risk than continuously declining sales, but even then he would have to go to extreme lengths to shake off most of the people who have stuck behind him for this long.

Only 60% ?

https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/tesla-europe-sales-2...

The difference in quality and performance between Tesla and the EVs from Hyundai, Toyota, Kia, and Nissan is closing fast. Tesla is stuck with marginal innovation and has to pull stunts like the Tesla Diner just to stay relevant in the news cycle.

BYD is bringing their EVs to Canada, including models starting at $20k, $55k less than the Model S:

https://cardog.app/blog/byd-canada-full-lineup

The only reason Tesla is still in business is American protectionism.

That article don’t provide any proof for which models are sent to Canada. It just lists all their models.

TSLA at $150 would still be a phat valuation. The best that can be said for that number is the Tesla lacks a lot of the baggage of legacy car OEMs. Their current cars are still competitive for three or four more years, but I don't see them spending what it takes to update their products, which is how you make a path from a $150 to zero.

Good luck with that...fools errand

Maybe Trump should make another TV appearance promoting Tesla.

I love Tesler!

I mean, everything is computer so yeah.

Yeah, but are they factoring in tesla bots replacing all manual labor in the next 5 years while everyone rides robotaxis everywhere? With AI? And a TeraFab? And 3D datacetenter mass drivers on orbiting satellites to mars?

Looks like classic manipulation so they can buy low before we hit $10T valuation

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