Is now the time to buy Tesla (TSLA)?

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

Elon hints at where FSD is going
Would you, could you, buy a Tesla?
Grannies at half time

If that’s enough to get the cars off the showroom floor, read on…

AI Collision 💥

I was following a lady in a car yesterday afternoon, she was going slow. As in, she was doing around 50kph in a 70kph zone. In addition to the slowness, she was gently veering out of her lane. As we pulled up to a dual carriageway and a set of lights, I glanced across and (you’ve probably already guessed) but she had her phone in her hand, texting someone.

I was furious because I had my boys in the car. And it set me off because it’s drivers like that that put others on the road in an unnecessary position of risk.

She, and people like her, are the most dangerous people on the road. It’s drivers like her that wipe out pedestrians crossing the road, take out bikes on a hard shoulder, rear end cars in front and, at some point, inevitably kill themselves by crashing into a tree.

People like her should have their licences revoked. No penalty points, no fines – if you’re spending more time texting than driving, then you shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

She is also the reason that self-driving cars cannot come fast enough. If people like that have cars that drive themselves, then we’re all safer (and so is she). There is zero argument to suggest that she’s a better driver than autonomous technology.

Sure, self-driving cars right now are not perfect. Maybe they will never be perfect. But if it’s 90% safer than humans, then it’s 100% worth rolling them out to the masses.

There’s currently one clear leader when it comes to self-driving car technology: Tesla. That’s because it was early with the rollout of its autopilot technology to capture real-world data. It was also early with the rollout of its Full-Self-Driving (FSD) feature to further mature its technology.

Speaking about it on the Tesla earnings call a couple of weeks ago, Elon Musk said,

…very few people understand the value of self-driving and our ability to monetize the fleet. Some of these things I’ve said for quite a long time, and I know people have said, “Well, Elon, the boy who cried like a wolf like several times.” But I’m telling you, there’s a damn wolf this time and you can drive it.

In fact, it could drive you. It’s a self-driving wolf. For a lot of people, like their experience of Tesla Autonomy is like if it’s even a year old, if it’s even two years old, it’s like meeting someone when they’re like a toddler and thinking that they’re going to be a toddler forever. But obviously not going to be a toddler forever.

They grow up. But if their last experience was like, “Oh, FSD was a toddler.” It’s like, well, it’s grown up now. Have you seen it? It’s like walks and talks. And that’s really what we’ve got.

Here’s the thing…

Tesla is clearly pushing ahead with this. But the question lingers about how it impacts the company and how it becomes a driver (accidental pun) of profits and further growth.

A little further along the earnings call, Elon gave us a glimpse of how:

What we’re seeing is at this point, significant interest from a number of major car companies about licensing Tesla full self-driving technology.

For a while, there’s been rumours that one of those companies could be Ford. GM has its own FSD technology, which it calls Super Cruise, but there’s not a huge surge of companies as advanced as Tesla.

This is also not the kind of technology where you end up with different versions for every kind of car maker. And considering that most car companies plug in parts from thousands of different manufacturers, it makes sense that Tesla’s FSD becomes the industry standard.

That said, there’s a good likelihood that all the real-world data the FSD exponentially gathers also feeds into Tesla’s AI. This no doubt feeds Elon’s xAI and provides data to the robotics that Tesla is also developing.

In short, when it comes to data for AI training, Tesla is the king. And if data is the most important food for AI to grow and learn, then maybe we’re looking at Tesla in the wrong way.

Not all that long ago I suggested that Tesla’s value could be in its humanoid robotics and AI, not so much the cars. But maybe it’s more about the data and the AI.

Either way, Tesla is down 26% from its December high. While it may still be up nearly 100% in the last year, I get the feeling that this is a company gearing up for a significant second half of 2025, and a very important 2026.

With better FSD on the way, a new Model Y just released, humanoid robots imminent, and the AI that underpins it all getting smarter and smarter, it’s starting to look like there might be more room to run for Tesla. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a decent stock to think about buying if it’s not already in the mix of your investments.

$6 Million Every Minute

Every minute, an average of $6 million is pouring into a specific area of the energy market.

That’s $3 trillion in total. An investment flow larger than anything we’ve seen in years.

James Allen has pinpointed three stocks that he believes could be the biggest winners of this boom.

Find out what they are before the mainstream catches on.

Capital at risk.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

man in black suit jacket and black pants figurine

Boom 📈

BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) up 106%
Gorilla Technology (NASDAQ:GRRR) up 64%
Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 58%

Bust 📉

Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) down 8%
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) down 8%
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) down 7%

From the hive mind 🧠

Fundamentally, the answer here is yes, it probably will be – but what if AI decides that “western, liberal, democratic” countries aren’t all that liberal and/or democratic?
It does feel like this whole AI is bad for the environment thing is going to get bigger. Unnecessarily bigger, but bigger nonetheless. It happens with most foundational technologies, hence the unnecessary part. But I wonder, is it going to impact the stocks around AI and AI energy?
Ah, Google’s Gemini, the “also ran” of the AI world. From strange recipes and black Nazis to remaking a Super Bowl ad, is there anything this AI can’t mess up?

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

Have you seen the new, upgraded Tesla Model Y? Personally, I thought the first version looked ugly. That’s changed with the Tesla Model Y. I’m looking at it and considering if maybe it belongs in the Volkering garage.