Subject: Re: FKA : TSLA
I never thought I would go from shorting TSLA to owning shares, and it’s not like any of my other investments, but I think it is true that they have a good chance of becoming the biggest company in the world. And if they can master full self-driving as they seem to be on the cusp of doing, they may be #1 sooner rather than later. I would not want to be an owner of UBER or any of the other car companies, with the possible exception of BYD, just in case regular cars have a few more years before being obsolete.

Let me make the "not bull" case. Musk has criticized Waymo's geofenced with a remote safety driver approach as difficult to scale. Which is true. Thus far, Musk's approach has been to try to solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times. Which makes sense.

But Tesla's robotaxi rollout in Austin next month with be geofenced with a safety driver. In other words, Tesla is going with the very approach they have been criticizing for years. That says to me Tesla doesn't believe true FSD will be available any time soon, otherwise why would they even be bothering?

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Tesla is the first to achieve true FSD. That would be great, but being first isn't enough to remain in first. As an example, I present Tesla. Not very long ago, Tesla was the dominant global EV manufacturer. But today, Tesla's sales are flat or declining even as the market expands and competitors are gaining market share by double digits. Worse, Tesla once enjoyed tech-like margins, which are now down to car company-like margins. And realistically, every car company has plans for autonomous driving. If Tesla is first, they might not be first for long, and they might not even be first.

I'm also a bit skeptical that even if Tesla cracks true FSD first that the cybercab will be particularly lucrative, for the simple reason they face the same problem all rideshare companies do: If you build out your fleet to meet peak demand, then a portion of your fleet sits idle the rest of the time. Uber/Lyft solve this with surge pricing, not owning their fleet, and employing gig workers. Eliminating the operator cost certainly helps with this problem and may even induce demand due to lower fares. But the basic problem remains as well as the personal preference and connivence of simply driving your own car. The cybercab might work out well, but I don't think it will be a blockbuster.

Same kind of thing with Optimus and AI. Telsa isn't the leader in either of these fields. Both could work out well, but I think a home run is unlikely.