Nikola vs. Tesla Robots: Real Deal or CGI Hype?

During their latest episode of the VALUE: After Hours Podcast, Taylor, Carlisle, and Brewster discussed Nikola vs. Tesla Robots: Real Deal or CGI Hype?. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

Tobias: This is just to compare Nikola’s experience with Tesla. So they produce this robot that’s a person in a suit. And then the next thing you see is it’s this pretty rudimentary robot that’s no more advanced than anything. It’s nothing like the Honda robot or anything like that, not that far down the track. Then the next one that I saw, it was one robot handing another robot a gun, and it was shooting up the Tesla Cybertruck. Was that real or was that CGI? This the thing. I don’t know how much of this stuff is real and how much of CGI. Like, now they look pretty advanced, that’s extraordinary rate of growth in a year. If that’s real, then that’s amazing. If it’s not, then what are we doing here?

Bill: I think it might be real. I also think it may not be as real as people think.

Jake: There’s a big difference though between programming a robot to follow a set of instructions, and then it having more autonomy to decide, “Hand me the gun now and aim here.” Those are–

Bill: I was talking to somebody about the Cybertruck, and he said that the shame of the Cybertruck is that the way that it looks has taken away from the engineering feat that it actually is. I don’t know exactly what it is. I’m not competent to talk about that.

Tobias: The pulling power or something like that.

Bill: Well, the turning radius is super tight and they went with, I don’t know, whatever, bigger cape. I don’t know exactly what they did. But he was telling me, and I do trust that he knows what he’s talking about because he covers autos. I just think it’s going to be interesting to see what that company can pull off. I think it is not impossible that they pull off what the bulls may think that they pull off. I don’t know why people care.

Jake: Well, you have to give the best price.

Bill: Yeah, that’s right. But it’s clearly not something that the three of us are going to own. It’s not our type of–

Tobias: Maybe at a good price.

Bill: Yeah, at $2 a share.

Tobias: There’s a price. It’s not–

Bill: I kid, folks. I kid.

Tobias: Now, it’s more like $30, something like that.

Bill: Samson out here sending me death threats.

Tobias: I think he’s on– [crosstalk] [laughs] He’ll let us know after the fact.

Jake: Samson’s been very good about not being gloaty about it.

Bill: Yeah. And a guy like that, I think– From how long has he owned that thing?

Tobias: At least since we’ve been doing this show. [laughs]

Jake: Yeah.

Bill: So I hope he wins. I root for people like that. He’s got this vision, and I hope he’s right. It just doesn’t have to be for me. Different strokes for different folks. It’s fine.

Jake: Billy, did you go to, what, were you in New York for MOI?

Bill: Yeah.

Jake: How was it?

Bill: It was good, man. Peter Keefe was interviewed, and I got to talk to him a bit. He’s a cool dude. And Phil Ordway interviewed Mauboussin. That was a fun interview. Phil is a great person to do that.

Jake: Yeah. He’s really funny. His dry sense of humor always cracks me up. [laughs]

Bill: He’s an incredible teacher in his own right. Will Thompson highlighted a mining family that I tweeted out, but I can’t remember right now. They’re pretty cool family. And then Elliot Turner interviewed Mario Cibelli. They talked about small cap. So it was a good day, and had a great time seeing folks. It’s a busy three days. I stayed at a Holiday Inn express. I would not recommend that.

Jake: Uh-oh. There’s goes our sponsorship.

Bill: Oh, well.

Tobias: Yeah, I think I stayed at a holiday in Omaha for a shareholder meeting a few years ago, and there were all of these signs up about human trafficking in there.

Bill: I didn’t have any of those, so I had that going for me. But the reviews were clean and modern. I was like, “All right. Sweet.” I got there, and it was neither clean nor modern.

Tobias: [laughs]

Bill: So I wrote a less stellar review. Not a horrible one though, but not stellar.

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