These findings suggest that there were some certain scenarios where the car might act in a way where the driver couldn't take over fast enough to avoid a crash or potentially break the law. So uh, you know, fixing this and the software a lot easier than say, having to bring it into a car dealership like a Chevy would do and have to change mechanical things, have to put in new equipment or something like that, so you know. kind of. In short, a little kind of a win for Tesla because it doesn't have to turn the system off.

It doesn't have to do any mechanical changes, but a black eye because of the system's defaults. What what has Tesla said about the defaults? They agree with the government's assessment of it. Well, they would disagree. Uh, they pushed back on the government that with the government's findings, but went forward with the voluntary recall Here it which is often the case.

Uh, in these things, when the Nitsa is going to do this, it's either do a voluntary or it can become much more messy down the road. So you know, going back to Tesla traditionally says that these systems are safer than what the human can do. Uh, is that's you know. Maybe perhaps in debate.

Sometimes we don't understand where their data is coming from, but it gets to kind of the core of these systems. Are they about safety or are they about convenience? The criticism continues to be about Tesla and other systems like it is that the driver thinks the system can do more than it is. It is not fully self-driving the robot is not in control, The driver needs to be in control, needs to take back that wheel, needs to to be engaged in the driving scenario. And oftentimes they get lulled into thinking the car is doing more than it actually is.

Yeah, I mean he's not. He's not actually wrong about that. You have that same kind of issue in aviation where you get lulled into the idea that ah, Autonomy is taking everything over or you don't have to concentrate on anything. The good news is a lot of us using the Autonomy technology today realize in Tesla's uh oh, we're coming up on uh, you know, potentially a dicey intersection or an area where I want to pay attention a little bit more and sort of activate your your awareness and take over earlier.

Uh, and and yeah, look, there's absolutely this argument to be made that if you rely too much on autonomy all of a sudden, your skills start waning and you're not actually able to respond appropriately in situations where it's necessary to take over from Autonomy. But what's wild and why Tesla's actually getting all this crazy coverage right now I Mean they're still talking about it right here on. CNBC What's wild about this is apparently there was this recall that was issued and it's literally just a software update, but people are freaking out over this. There's so much press going on over this and I think it's remark workable.

In fact, take a look at this. I Got this text message yesterday. it's Friday which means the flash sale Ends Tonight Check it out. A link down below it says hey, you might have heard this already, but it's on Channel 7 World News that Tesla is recalling 360 000 Vehicles because of the self-driving feature potentially leading to accidents.

Just a heads up and I wrote terrible recall that requires a horribly intensive automatic software update At night it's like it's true. It's like look, you don't have to take the darn thing in anymore when I had a Toyota Prius and I had to take the sucker in for service. Not a pain in the butt. Yeah, Take the car in after you set an appointment because now they want you to have an appointment, then you go drop it off and you have to wait in line to talk to the person.

Of course when you go want to just drop off the damn. Keys You can't do that because then they want to try to sell you because that's how dealerships make money. They gotta sell you as much freaking service that you don't need as possible. Everything needs service.

Every time you go in, there's something they gotta sell you on. There's always something they have to sell you on. And and you're a loser is at least the impression. If you don't, at least do some of it because hey, you know we've got this whole list of things that are wrong with your car, but you know, why don't we just chip away at it and maybe do like a quarter of it now and we'll save another quarter for next time.

So that way you don't feel like a loser, you're still spending probably a quarter or more than you should have spent. which should have been zero, right? Like the old school dealership model is just trash. It's so annoying, it's so inconvenient. Uh, and then you gotta pick the darn thing up and then how are you gonna get back? Sure you? Uber But then it's a pain in the butt because you gotta wait 20 minutes for the Uber and you're wasting so much time out of your day to bring a car to a dealership and then go back and get it.

Or you're also wasting somebody else's time if they're driving you to drop you off. Which then it's even more ridiculous because now you're wasting two people's time. Terrible, terrible, economic efficient on inefficiency And so you have all of these. sort of like in my opinion.

I'm just gonna call I'm gonna call it what it probably is, uh, traditional Boomers Who don't know much about software or have any care to learn? uh about anything? Elon Musk touches. And so the thesis is. Oh man. Oh the headlines say recall, there we go.

We always knew the new stuff was bad. Yeah, just can't innovate. can't can't have good things? no recalls. That's right.

Yep Tesla getting screwed again. it's It's almost like people get happiness out. It's like I think it's like a a schadenfoid a a psychology of of Tesla it's like like the the old guards kind of like Elon losing again another recall for the Teslas Oh it's just like so stupid and annoying. Uh, it just drives me nuts.

But ironically, what's happening now is you have this ironic Network effect where the Tesla people are like you're the idiot who has to take your car into service whereas we just press update on the car. uh and in a weird way it actually has this like in my opinion, positive marketing effect. So even though initially it's like it seems like all this negative press I really think for Tesla the argument of no press is bad. Press is great.

I mean Tesla doesn't have an advertising Department because they don't need it. As soon as there's a software update, everybody freaks out calling it a recall and then what happens The Defenders of Tesla are like dude it's a software update and then people that okay well I still hate Elon it's like just so ridiculous. Uh, but but that's just what's out there. Meanwhile, the model Y is sold out for Q1.

It's the first time these suckers have been sold out. uh you know, into for about six months which is fantastic. Now the Model Y sold out. They raised the price twice over just the last uh, six weeks here after their initial price reductions and now you also have Tesla having to respond to allegations about them, uh, firing people who, uh, uh, you know wanted to form a union in Buffalo New York Now let's be real and this is this, is just, uh, you know, sort of the thesis here.

This is like the quiet part that probably shouldn't be spoken out loud. Let's Be Real Tesla doesn't want unions. Okay, most most modern companies generally don't want unions because ultimately you're trying to automate away your labor anyway. Okay, like that's the long-term goal, right? I Mean, think about it.

during the pandemic. Did we really need 5 000 Math teachers teaching calculus on Zoom Or did we really need one math teacher teaching calculus on zoom and then 499 sort of helpers to help grade papers or whatever. right? like you put the best teacher on Zoom They teach it and everybody else you know sort of helps and and tutors as necessary rather than five thousand different people trying to put together a zoom lecture plan, right? So that is innovation that probably you should be seeing in education. but of course that means a lot of people lose their jobs and so that's bad because people don't want to lose their jobs because then they have to learn something new and that's very difficult to do.

especially when you're in a Groove and you're in a habit. and and I mean it's hard to to change with the times, right? And and I mean nobody wants to see their job get replaced. That's the reality of it. So unions help protect labor from getting replaced.

I Kind of think about it like the Industrial Revolution the luddites. It's like, oh, we've got, uh, we've got machines coming in to sort our cotton. Hell no. let's go in and destroy the machines at night.

Uh, and and so you've got luddites destroying machines during the Industrial Revolution Because goodness gracious, what are we gonna do if we don't have the manual necessity to to actually separate the seeds from the cotton, Why would why would we let machines do that? They're gonna bankrupt us all and we'll be broke and we'll have to learn to do something else. Of course, the goal is with Innovation you now have the ability to get another job that potentially pays you more money with less time. So for example, if you're making thirty thousand dollars a year and then all of a sudden you turn around and you realize, wait a minute. I could do some quality assurance work in a tech job and make twice as much money with half as much time.

Well, now I got more now I got more money and I got more time to do something else, right? So innovation in a necessary way kind of forces you for a moment to go through a little bit of hardship it. But then you end up better. You end up working less and you end up making more money. But unions of course.

And this isn't just straight a bag on unions. But let's be clear about the incentive of a union. The incentive of a union is to survive. and if the goal of the Union is to survive, then it survives more.

When it has more union members, the last thing a union wants is Less union members because then you have less union dues and you have less power. But if union members are getting replaced by robots at Tesla then the Union's obviously going to be pissed about the robots. It's just like the luddites during the Industrial Revolution. But then what happens when the Tesla sort of sees that writing on the wall? Or corporations see that writing on the wall and they're like, well, let's automate as quickly as possible so that we can replace labor before we can't replace labor anymore because the unions have vesting and mandatory employment and and non-fire requirements.

Uh, you know, pensions and all these liabilities that essentially make companies unable to innovate again in the future? I Mean, think about like, how do you? How do you take a legacy company with massive pension liabilities like Ford or GM and turn them into an efficient, new Innovative company? You generally can't. Those companies have to die out. If they have unfunded pension liabilities, then the people end up getting screwed anyway out of their pensions. I mean obviously their insurance programs and things like that in a place to sort of prevent the defaulting on pensions because those pension contracts are important.

But ultimately it comes down to the the company's guarantee because if the company goes bankrupt, you got big problems. But anyway, long and short of it is you have a society where the the newest breed of companies dare I say are relatively anti-union and one of the reasons they in my opinion are anti-union is because they realize in order to stay Innovative they have to be able to have Labor flexibility. In other words, they have to be able to kill the need for labor because labor is uh I mean very expensive. Let's just put it that way.

So anyway, these Uh labelers in New York uh were starting to work with a manager of a Starbucks who helped organize the Starbucks Union effort and that Starbucks Union person essentially motivated somewhere around 25 people potentially more to put together a letter and send it to Elon Musk demanding that Tesla recognized their right to form a union. Now employers have a choice to recognize a union unless the majority of you members of that company uh, more than 50 percent basically vote for the union. then the company is forced to recognize the union, So in the meantime, while a company is not forced to recognize the Union what happens is you end up getting this: uh, this this place where a lot of companies don't want to. uh and so what ended up happening is after roughly about 25 people happened to file a ladder saying roses are red, violets are blue, unions start with you which was also where in the last time I pitched the fact that today is February 17th with him, there's a coupon code expiring at 11 59.

PM Actually, it's a flash sale. It's not a coupon expiring tonight at 11 59. PM for the programs on building your wealth or the shadowing experience that's linked down below. But anyway.

uh, after they sent that within a day of sending that letter on Valentine's Day 25 of them got fired 25 26 of them got fired Now a day after that which is last night Tesla responded with in response to false allegations uh and then so Tesla now is arguing there's a false allegation that Tesla terminated employees in response to new a new Union campaign. These are the facts behind the event and let's just make it clear: okay Tesla is not going to come out and point blank say yeah, we don't want unions but I think I've just made the case that pretty much companies don't want Unions That's that. That's obvious. That should be very, very obvious.

And so anyway. Tesla as sort of a Cya because you kind of have to do this. what do they do? you know? and of course I don't know all the details so this is my opinion. I could be wrong, but let's just be clear: I mean Tesla is talking about how they conduct performance reviews and just conveniently uh, you know the the conveniently four percent, roughly four percent.

wait four percent. that's a little bit more than I thought there were about 650 labor. Oh no, that is about right. Yeah, that's 26 employees.

Okay, approximately four percent of the employees on the autopilot labeling team in Buffalo New York Which by the way, I guess the minimum wage for that is like 19 bucks an hour and you're literally just pushing a button like yes, no, yes, no. like labeling what the Aics is is not. You know it's not that difficult. Uh, and so I wish I made 19 an hour when I was you know, 18 years old or 16 years old making smoothies of Jamba Juice or folding clothes that Hollister that people would just walk in and steal uh at, you know, 16 and making seven dollars an hour? but whatever.

Anyway, so approximately four percent of the employees on the autopilot labeling team in Buffalo were exited. As a result of this performance review cycle, the employees let go so as part of this process received prior feedback on their poor performance. So it's kind of interesting. If that's true, then it's really convenient that basically the people who are trying to unionize may have also been the poor performers.

Which then it kind of makes you wonder, are poor performers? people who want to unionize or do people want to unionize? And Tesla's just saying they happen to be performers. It's kind of like a chicken or egg problem. And and I'm curious to know what your opinion is, so leave me a comment on that. But uh, Tesla makes the argument.

Despite feedback, they did not demonstrate sufficient Improvement And as a result, before we even knew about this Union uh, unionizing effort that was happening, we basically fired 26 people uh, uh, or or warned them that, hey, their performance wasn't up to par. And then after the union effort, the timing just happened to be very coincidental that we just happened to fire everyone involved in the effort right after the union effort, uh, began. So it really, really convenient for Tesla. You know, maybe maybe what a company should do is just tell everyone that their performance needs to step up.

So that way, if at any point they decide to unionize, you could just say, well, yeah, you're fired and we're not. You're not fired because you're forming, You're fired because we told you to get better and you didn't get better? Yeah, well, you tell everyone to get better. I mean I don't know, right? I'm just look whatever it is I don't think I think legal battles. Whatever.

legal battles take years before you see a union at Tesla it probably will be 2028 or or on uh and and by then you then start scratching your head like okay, are we getting to a top of a growth cycle? Do you potentially then spin off divisions within Tesla to protect it from unionization by spinning off like the robot division from I You know I don't know. Uh, the The Robo Taxi division. Whatever. Do you start spitting these segments off to sort of insulate them from unionization? Who knows.

there are plenty of corporate tricks that happen, but uh yeah, it's awfully convenient that um, that these folks happen to be exited which is such a like a fascinating word by the way, like oh yeah, we we don't fire employees, we exit them. Uh, anyway. look bottom line is generally uh yeah and this is you know opinion here, obviously. but there's plenty of research also supporting this.

But generally the impression is that unionization hurts Innovation That doesn't mean unions are bad. Obviously, it's important that employees are paid appropriately for the value they're providing. I Think where unionization becomes problematic is when you end up seeing, uh, disruptive unionization like what you're seeing in the United Kingdom where you have either teachers, unions or Pilot unions or whatever striking and creating more Supply and chain nightmares. especially in Industries where there's always already already very nominal profit, The airlines are losing money, hand over fast.

They're highly indebted. They're basically on the brink of either mergers or collapse. Uh, because they they have a very hard time actually surviving thanks to all of what the labor costs. In fact, you have a lot of Institutions today saying stay away from high labor highly labor-intensive businesses because well, there's more risk.

The more labor you have, the more risk there is. And obviously then if you can have Executives who can, who can get a lot done with minimal labor is is more ideal. Uh, but uh yeah, it doesn't sound like uh, unionization and Innovation tend to align very well and so I think for the purposes of unions, I Think they probably have to Rebrand their reputation a little bit to make sure that they can actually prove to businesses. Hey, look, you know we actually are pro-innovation Like how do you innovate and and transform unions from not Innovative to Innovative right? That's probably something.

If I were you know leading a union I'd be thinking about it because I I don't think uh, uh. The the common theme today is yeah unions I I Think that's kind of Gone by the wayside, mostly especially for people sort of outside the system. So uh, quite. uh, quite interesting.

So uh, let's see Garrett Garrett Hartel here says unionization didn't hurt the building of America A lot more of this country used to be unionized. Yeah, well. I I mean that that could be entirely causation without correlation, right? Just because, uh, in the mid 19th century, every automaker that existed was unionized doesn't necessarily mean that that unionization was good for America Especially given that basically every car company other than Ford every law Legacy automaker other than Ford ended up going bankrupt. You know we could.

We could just as easily make the argument that unionization led to the bankruptcy as as did not prevent the building of America right? So I I think uh, I Think that's uh, that's a difficult, uh, difficult argument to make uh with. Without uh, you know, clear, clear statistics I Think this is interesting. Steve makes the argument: a hundred percent of poor performers want to unionize. uh to mooch the system poor performers want to unionize says Alex here.

Uh, I I mean there's there's always the possibility of that at midnight King Email us at Kevin Meet Kevin.com we can get you taken care of. But anyway. yeah, I mean look, obviously there's there's no uh, there's no real way to I Think make the blanket argument and and be correct that everyone who wants to be a union sucks or everyone who wants to unionize is great. and Innovative right? It's obviously as with everything, it's a mix of both I think probably the the argument that is often made is that look, if if you're an Innovative Technologies and ultimately you're trying to replace labor just by the nature of wanting to innovate and minimize labor, you already stand in the face of what unions stand for.

So unions stand for more labor and businesses. Stand For Less Labor So no matter which way you slice it Innovative Companies will always be looking for ways to reduce labor, and unions will always be looking wait for ways to increase labor. So from a first principles approach of the purposes is of those two entities, one is diametrically opposed to the other. They will always stand in conflict with each other because their mission is exactly the opposite that makes for a very challenging environment and one that will continuously be uh litigated forever.

So I Think really the that's probably the only binary conclusion that you can make where it's like, yes, absolutely, unions want more labor. Absolutely businesses want less labor. Now the rest of that, Well, that's to be debated. but either way, again, the more Tesla sits in the news, the more Tesla ends up ironically selling Vehicles So it's fascinating just to see how Tesla has sort of mastered the world of uh of advertising without advertising.

So congratulations Tesla Sorry to Charlie Monger Now there are also now some rumors going around that uh Tesla is uh, potentially uh, leaking the Cyber Truck Body in uh in in this right here with Joey uh, 2000 potentially showing this this Frame over here of uh, the side frame of a vehicle I'm going to play that again right here. but these are some rumors circulating so if we move to this next clip right here, this is what some people say would be sort of wheel: Bay One wheel Bay 2 Cyber Truck side Body Cyber Truck frame Who knows. We know that they've uh started the process of manufacturing the Cyber truck and we expect the Cyber truck to actually be available uh for its initial orders towards the end of 2023 and then more bulk orders in Uh in 2024. There are a lot of rumors as well as to what's to happen with Tesla regarding the Uh the March 1st Investor Day.

A lot of folks believe that Investor Day obviously is going to be about Elon Musk's Master Plan Three uh, Master Plan Three is highly rumored to potentially include the announcement of a new vehicle platform that could be Robo taxi it could be steering wheel list. Maybe it's an optional steering wheel. Uh, you know it could be some grandiose Vision about what's to come in years down the road. There are a lot of hopes for that.

I Don't think whatever we hear on Investor Day is going to be something that practically or meaningfully changes our ability to buy anything from Tesla anytime soon. given that obviously we're still substantially in the ramping phase for the sexy Vehicles that's the S the model 3, uh, the X and the Y And then of course, we've got to get Cyber truck up and going. Uh, so it's probably still going to be a while I'm personally a little bit bearish on the end the event, mostly because I I don't like to get my hopes up and that's not because of my pessimist. I think I'm a very optimistic person.

but I suppose just in in history Uh, you know, whether it's battery day or AI day. the information we end up learning tends to be very nuanced and not very applicable to a large investor base or just sort of a large audience and tends to be a little bit more uh. Arcane Difficult to be understood by many, right and hopeful for the long-term future which is fantastic and and those with the interest in that are probably going to love investor day. But I think broadly if if folks are betting on sort of some sort of big run after investor day in the stock because of what's announced on yesterday, it's not a bet I would make.

I I Wouldn't necessarily say that I would go in short before because you just never know, but it's probably not a bet that I would make just given the history. Who knows. maybe this time we'll be surprised. Uh, my boss thinks I'm stupid that I invest in Tesla and then uh, real George Here says mature people just don't want things to change.

Well, I I find that uh, remember, your your average customer for Tesla is between 25 and 45 years old and it's statistically more likely to be a dude I Think that's because they they really haven't come out with sort of a mommy style vehicle yet. Uh, sure, you could claim that the x or y would work, but um, but once? Yeah, once you have two kids and strollers, you need a lot of space. Uh, but anyway. uh yeah, I do find that at least anecdotally myself.

It seems that uh, any one of the older Generations older than than the millennial generation. so we're talking. you know Gen X uh uh, you've got, um, Boomer generation and of course the silent generation, which they don't say much. but anyway, the other two there you generally seem to have a an aversion to what Elon Musk is doing and I I believe that a lot of that aversion to Elon Musk is actually shaped by I hate to say it because it sounds a little tinfoil had-esque but by the mainstream media because of the headlines that are so negative towards Tesla that people and and I I know this because I try to bridge the gap a little bit when I get my newspapers because I actually physically get newspapers Financial Times USA Today Wall Street Journal New York Times The post is in there.

you know, whatever. I Get all these. It's very. um, let's just say it's it's It's easy to throw Elon Musk Tesla and negativity on the front page and frequently makes the front page.

and and I Don't think there's much critical thought that often goes on beyond the media narrative, which is not an insult, it's just sort of the way things have been. and it's unfortunate. Definitely is unfortunate. But uh, so it is.