Ed Carson

in this mega thread the great tesla historian & musk critic @niedermeyer.online gives a rundown of tesla in court vs. CA dmv - the co. swears its cars are obviously only meant for hands on, driver’s in control rides.

The only place Elon Musk says Teslas can't drive themselves is in a courtroom.

To be clear, the rally is still intact.

Get ready for another big week of earnings. Palantir is due Monday night. AMD is late Tuesday (along with fellow AI hardware plays Super Micro and Astera Labs). Shopify is early Wed. Dozens of other quality names. 2/2

Futures loom after Friday's sell-off on the weak jobs report and Trump tariffs. All the major indexes are below their 21-day lines for the first time in months. Investors may have wanted to some selling due to specific holdings or just to reduce exposure a bit. 1/2
www.investors.com/market-trend...

Trump says the -818k 2024 benchmark payroll revisions show BLS commissioner McEntarfer was political and incompetent. Let’s look at the facts.
1. The revisions were released in Aug 2024, not Nov 15 as the president said. So the BLS release showing far less job growth came 3 mos. BEFORE the election

Why Counting Jobs Is Really, Really Hard | National Review The reasons for revisions in jobs numbers are incredibly boring and technical and have nothing to do with politics or ideology.

"So, no, the BLS is not incompetent, and it does not have an easy job at all. The reasons for revisions are incredibly boring and technical and have nothing to do with politics or ideology. Or at least they didn’t, until the president fired the BLS commish because he didn’t like the jobs numbers."

I watched this show because I was a Firefly fan. The early episodes were interesting before being quickly cancelled.

But I've no idea how anyone thought "Drive" could run for multiple seasons.

This might have worked as an 8-10 episode limited series - but that wasn't really a thing back then.

Tariffs aren't having a huge impact on overall inflation because the U.S. is largely a domestic, services economy (services inflation is slowing, in part due to foreigners not traveling to the U.S., hitting air/hotel fares).

If the U.S. were a goods-focused economy, we'd be in real trouble.

Obvious red herring.

Speaking of downward revisions...

Just five months until "next year."

The new commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Whoever handled this scoreboard.

All the nuance of who's liable goes out the window if/when Tesla declares FSD to be unsupervised. It'll be 100% on Tesla.

So, true self-driving will always be "this year" or "next year" - never now.

Elon Musk prefers self-driving "lie ability" over self-driving liability.

On Thu., the major indexes reversed lower despite Meta and Microsoft. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are just below record highs set Thursday morning, but the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 equal-weight ETFs RSP and QQEW closed below their 21-day moving averages for the first time in 3 months.

Trump Tariffs, Amazon Outlook Hit Futures; Jobs Report Due Reddit and Apple were key earnings movers after Thursday's tech-led rally fizzled.

Futures fall solidly as Trump hikes tariffs around the world and Amazon's outlook weighs on techs. Reddit surged on earnings while Apple rose. Roku and Coinbase tumbled.
www.investors.com/market-trend...

Futures rise, esp. techs, as Meta and Microsoft surge on strong earnings and guidance. Arm, Carvana, Lam Research, Robinhood among the many other top companies reporting.

Earlier, stocks closed mixed as Fed chief Powell signaled he's still in no rush to cut rates.
www.investors.com/market-trend...

So Mark Zuckerberg is a super-predator because he's offering $100 million pay deals to poach AI workers from rivals.

Tesla not liable for Furniture Suddenly Dropping (FSD) incidents.

Claude-back provisions for heavy chatbot users.

Separately, Yeti sightings spiked in Wisconsin.

Forcing a company to sell 25% of its wares at a loss. Why would that have an impact?

Pilot programs in education - and this is basically a pilot program - often don't translate when extended broadly w/o motivated educators & parents.

But AI has the potential to transform education -- beyond cheating on papers.

So more of this please.

Canada retaliating vs. Trump's lumber duties already.

Tesla really hasn't accomplished much since launching the Model Y in early 2020.

But in 2020-2022 it *seemed* like Tesla was doing stuff. The $39.9K Cybertruck and the Semi were imminent ... the 4680 batteries were going to wow. Hints at a next-small EV.

And, ofc., self-driving.

Yes - I agree. Older models and nothing new in the pipeline.

Just astonishing. Could go nearly a decade without a new passenger EV except for the Cybertruck flop.

I do think the lost tax credits are a (big) net negative for Tesla, even in the long run. It really needs sales *now.*

Also, while US competition might be less fierce in 2030 than it would have been, will Tesla still have the same old models?

That's the ultimate problem for Tesla. No fix for that.

A lot of these EVs were cancelled in 2024. Presumably a lot more will be scrapped with the tax credits going away.

That's why bulls - and Musk - used to think scrapping the tax credits would be "good news" for Tesla. Less competition long term.

As you well know, Tesla has always claimed it's *thisclose* to self-driving even as it told regulators that FSD was Level 2.

Admittedly, CA regulators seem less eager to look the other way now. The CA DMV trial is evidence of that. Still, state/U.S. regulators have never really hit Tesla.

A tough situation for auto giants. Most are losing money on EVs. How much do they spend on ICE and EV system development.

China, you have to be EV/PHEV going forward .. but even then it's hard to compete with locals.

In the U.S., ICE will dominate for some time.

Europe is sorta in btw.

Good to know!