[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Yeah, this one is bizarre:

The employee at the center of the issue, Dr. Guangzhi Cao, had admitted from the start that he uploaded Tesla's Autopilot source code to his personal cloud-based storage account, before going to work for Xpeng's US subsidiary, XMotors.

Uh, dude, what did you expect? Kinda industrial espionagey there bro.

Back on the self-driving stuff, there's also headlines about fooling auto pilot so you can have no driver

In my day we called that "cruise control & a bungee cord" but I guess it's new

this is the reputational bullying I was referring to.First paragraph in the article...

"After two years of allegations, mostly made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk via Twitter, that Xpeng Motors was using stolen Tesla source code obtained by a former Tesla employee, it appears that wasn't the case at all". 

[KRS_SN]

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/...built-in-lidar

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

this is the reputational bullying I was referring to.First paragraph in the article...

"After two years of allegations, mostly made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk via Twitter, that Xpeng Motors was using stolen Tesla source code obtained by a former Tesla employee, it appears that wasn't the case at all".

Yeah, well I'll defend Elon on this one: if an employee uploads company IP to his own private cloud, then leaves for a competitor, said employee shouldn't be surprised if the company makes a few allegations.

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Yeah, well I'll defend Elon on this one: if an employee uploads company IP to his own private cloud, then leaves for a competitor, said employee shouldn't be surprised if the company makes a few allegations.

causing reputational loss to a competitor by making baseless allegations(about the company not the individual guy who was guilty) that was proven not true is the issue. Bit like the pedo guy saga.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

causing reputational loss to a competitor by making baseless allegations(about the company not the individual guy who was guilty) that was proven not true is the issue. Bit like the pedo guy saga.

Yeah, not when an employee downloads all of your source code and then goes to that competitor, and said competitor defends you! - that's more like industrial espionage.


If I steal your car, but don't use it, would you feel responsible to protect my reputation? Come on man.

Elon's done some fucked up things, but this ain't one of them - when a company knowingly hires and protects an IP thief, they deserve reputational damage.

What would your company do (present or past) if they found out you stole IP from a previous employer? Defend you or fire you?

[KRS_SN]

except it wasn't industrial espionage

'Dr. Cao believes that two years of litigation have now established what he knew from the beginning: he never accessed any Tesla data after he left Tesla, he never provided Tesla information to XMotors or anyone else, and nobody at XMotors or anywhere else ever asked him to do so. Dr. Cao is gratified that Tesla has finally dismissed its claims and stopped its search for evidence that does not exist.  
Dr. Cao regrets and apologizes for the unnecessary harm that Tesla's lawsuit caused to  XMotors. He is grateful to his colleagues at XMotors who supported him during this litigation'

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

except it wasn't industrial espionage

If you hire me to detail your car and I don't return it, and then say

"Geez KRS_SN has been accusing me of auto theft for 2 years but now I'm vindicated because I've proven I actually just stored the car on my property and never used it"

Your point is, you should now have to now apologize to me for reputational harm because I never used your property so I'm a great guy? Oh, and what if I never returned your car and then started work at a rental company that rents cars and one looks exactly like yours? You're saying you'd DEFINITELY be in the wrong for thinking I stole your car and was renting it out?

Come on man.

The guy, as a Tesla employee, downloaded all of Tesla's source code TO HIS PERSONAL cloud storage AND THEN went to a competitor. That gets you fired and charged at any company on the planet.


In a related story:

engineer Anthony Levandowski ... has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for trade secret theft ...Google’s self-driving unit, then called Waymo, filed a lawsuit against Uber for trade secret theft, alleging its acquisition of Otto allowed the company to gain access to sensitive and confidential Waymo technology Levandowski illegally took with him on his way out. Uber and Waymo settled the lawsuit, but Levandowski was still on the hook for criminal charges of trade secret theft

Sometimes when AD engineers leave with IP and go to a competitor, they've been known to use it ... and, do we really believe this guy didn't use the code he stole?

[KRS_SN]

In other news only tesla thinks they can do autonomous driving stuff. Most other brands now can including xpeng etc...so reminds me of
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/27/1...copying-iphone

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

If you hire me to detail your car and I don't return it, and then say

"Geez KRS_SN has been accusing me of auto theft for 2 years but now I'm vindicated because I've proven I actually just stored the car on my property and never used it"

Your point is, you should now have to now apologize to me for reputational harm because I never used your property so I'm a great guy? Oh, and what if I never returned your car and then started work at a rental company that rents cars and one looks exactly like yours? You're saying you'd DEFINITELY be in the wrong for thinking I stole your car and was renting it out?

Come on man.

The guy, as a Tesla employee, downloaded all of Tesla's source code TO HIS PERSONAL cloud storage AND THEN went to a competitor. That gets you fired and charged at any company on the planet.


In a related story:

engineer Anthony Levandowski ... has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for trade secret theft ...Google's self-driving unit, then called Waymo, filed a lawsuit against Uber for trade secret theft, alleging its acquisition of Otto allowed the company to gain access to sensitive and confidential Waymo technology Levandowski illegally took with him on his way out. Uber and Waymo settled the lawsuit, but Levandowski was still on the hook for criminal charges of trade secret theft

Sometimes when AD engineers leave with IP and go to a competitor, they've been known to use it ... and, do we really believe this guy didn't use the code he stole?

except there is no proof that he used teslas code to make xpengs software. Tesla repeatedly insinuated that Xpeng stole their code.
So sorry I think Tesla is the bully boy here as they have No proof of the claims they made as it was a 3rd party that adjudicated.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

except there is no proof that he used teslas code to make xpengs software.

The next time I steal something I don't end up using, you're my PR guy!

[GrussGott]

Imma keep wheeling out this hobby horse cause it keeps being right:

if you wanna know where the energy and auto markets are going (and understand your risk of climate related events) there's been no better bell-weather for the last 30 years than the reinsurance market.

So what are they up to these days?

Munich Ergo AssetManagement GmbH, which manages investments for reinsurance giant Munich Re, bought more shares of electric-vehicle firms Tesla (ticker: TSLA) and NIO (NIO), and nearly tripled holdings of Microsoft (MSFT) stock in the first quarter. MEAG, as the investment manager is known, also sold nearly all of its Exxon Mobil (XOM) shares in the quarter.

Microsoft, btw, has possibly the World's greatest recurring revenue B2B bundle only getting stronger, and will soon have one the largest online gaming recurring revenue bundles.

If you're not in MSFT, now's the time. If you only buy one tech company, this is the one. (disclosure: you're damn straight I'm all up in this shit)

[KRS_SN]

https://news.sky.com/story/teslas-pe...-11bn-12288129

Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin said: "Higher regulatory credits, lower taxes, and bitcoin sales buoyed financial results. Back these out, and it was a large miss."
Questions have been raised about the way Telsa achieves profitability, as a major portion of it comes from selling regulatory credits to other carmakers.
Tesla earns regulatory credits from governments around the world for manufacturing zero-emissions vehicles and sells these to other car manufacturers that produce vehicles that run on petrol and diesel.
Without $518m (£372m) in credits for the quarter, Tesla would have lost money.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

https://news.sky.com/story/teslas-pe...-11bn-12288129

Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin said: "Higher regulatory credits, lower taxes, and bitcoin sales buoyed financial results. Back these out, and it was a large miss."

"buh buh buh if you subtract some of Tesla's business profits, they're not profitable!"

The correct analysis these ding-dongs are missing:

(1.) The revenue is recurring B2B, i.e, revenue from other companies, and

(2.) That revenue - which used to be "about to disappear" - is GROWING!

Meaning, it's 2021 and not only have the Bigs failed to show up to the party, their late fees are J-curving.

Porsche and Audi are showing up in a big way, and Ford is looking ok (though I'll have to wait on Sandy's review) but the rest?

Expect extreme disruption.

[GrussGott]

Nice Sankey of Tesla's Q1 financials:



Anybody excited about the US's return to dominance in the global auto industry should love what Tesla and Ford are doing ... at least for now, they look to the be the leaders with Porsche/Audi & MB following close and the Chinese building up massive capacity ...

Gonna be an interesting decade as the auto cards reshuffle ...

[KRS_SN]

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...t-tesla-2021-4
GrussGott you may have called it right.

[FCX5]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...t-tesla-2021-4
GrussGott you may have called it right.

The problem is that US has the upper hand when it comes to controlling tech access to China. Look at what happened to Huawei's mobile phone business once the US imposed sanctions of them and that was nothing. Huawei initially said they would just work around it, but then they recognized the reality.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/huaw...-business.html

If the Chinese explicitly start blocking US companies like Tesla, the US govt has way more powerful arrows to shoot the other way.

So it's interesting for sure, but I don't see Chinese EVs succeeding anywhere outside of China.

[FCX5]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

https://news.sky.com/story/teslas-pe...-11bn-12288129

Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin said: "Higher regulatory credits, lower taxes, and bitcoin sales buoyed financial results. Back these out, and it was a large miss."
Questions have been raised about the way Telsa achieves profitability, as a major portion of it comes from selling regulatory credits to other carmakers.
Tesla earns regulatory credits from governments around the world for manufacturing zero-emissions vehicles and sells these to other car manufacturers that produce vehicles that run on petrol and diesel.
Without $518m (£372m) in credits for the quarter, Tesla would have lost money.

The regulatory credits are baked into their financials so you can't just back them out. It is known for each Q. As for bitcoin sales, even without it Tesla still beats on both top and bottom line. Their revenue growth was the highest of any major auto - by a long shot. This was a Q when they were transitioning their entire Model S and X lines.

The most important metric for financial viability is free cash flow and...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...nt/ar-BB1gbGI6

[FCX5]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Nice Sankey of Tesla's Q1 financials:



Anybody excited about the US's return to dominance in the global auto industry should love what Tesla and Ford are doing ... at least for now, they look to the be the leaders with Porsche/Audi & MB following close and the Chinese building up massive capacity ...

Gonna be an interesting decade as the auto cards reshuffle ...

BMW had a really solid Q as well. In fact all the German auto manufacturers have a really solid product line and doing really well.

Ford, Tesla, and also GM had their best Q of Bolt EV sales and financial performance was solid last Q for all 3.

[KRS_SN]

so they sold regulatory credits and bitcoin while other automakers made their profits from selling cars I'll post this again.

[Busa Dave]

Unfortunately the guy moved to my state. Hopefully competition the next couple of years will put him where he needs to be. Looking at the PE it is pretty obvious the company valuation is still driven by emotional people who may be surprised in the not to distant future and not in a good way.

As the rest of the industry gets established in the EV world will it not be pretty for the tick symbol T. Only time will tell.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

so they sold regulatory credits and bitcoin while other automakers made their profits from selling cars I'll post this again.

Originally Posted by Busa Dave

As the rest of the industry gets established in the EV world will it not be pretty for the tick symbol T. Only time will tell.

(1.) Tesla's regulatory credit revenue is GOING UP
This is your key sign that not only is the rest of the industry NOT getting established, they're going backwards, thus they have to pay Tesla for regulatory credits because their BEVs aren't selling (or don't exist). (e.g., Tesla sells every BEV it can make; VW sells 1.5 production days/month of BEVs)

(2.) Tesla doesn't just sell cars
But, for now, let's ignore the $1.4B in non-auto revenue and think about just automotive revenue for a sec:

• Ford, as an example, earns revenue primarily from sales to dealerships.

• Tesla is the automaker, the dealership, the service center, the gas station, the parts suppliers, the software vendor, and the insurance company. This means Tesla is truly vertical: they own the customer relationship and they control all their manufacturing, and especially important, they make their own batteries with their own patented tech. Tesla is one of the few companies on the planet set up to be a trillion $ company. But, if China crushes them, they won't be.


Anyway, I'll post this again with some revenue highlights for scale:

[KRS_SN]

interesting...automotive revenues 8.5 bn and cost of revenue 8.2 billion so is there any profit in the automating sector despite all the vertical integration etc.
On the other hand I read this
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazo...201758948.html
That's what real profit sounds like a few tesla millions sounds like loose change no?