Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I wonder how much of that IP is a real barrier to competitors.  

It's tough. Their fanboys talk about them being vertically integrated in batteries, but I think that's becoming true in battery production, not battery chemistry. I.e. they're still tightly tied to Panasonic for their battery chemistry. Which to me means that the most likely arrangement is that for every battery they produce, they're paying a license fee to Panasonic. And that they don't own the battery IP.

(Just spitballing here based on how I think these relationships are often set up.)

However just a quick googling suggests they've got a lot (>3K) of patents. How impactful any of them are, and how much they're a barrier to competitors, is unclear of course.

Dell owns almost 52,000 patents in an industry that's long been closer to open source than it is proprietary, so I'm not sure we can read a lot into their patent numbers.

And are there really any areas in an EV-- other than batteries-- where unique innovation could provide a competitive advantage?  Electric motors have been around for generations, there's not a whole lot of potential for something unique there, that would afford patent protection.  And the microchips, computers, and software used in a Tesla, might be unique, but there are so many other ways to do the same thing, I doubt it provides much of a competitive advantage either.

Really their best advantage is experience in the industry, and that's one that diminishes with each passing year.

Dell owns almost 52,000 patents in an industry that's long been closer to open source than it is proprietary, so I'm not sure we can read a lot into their patent numbers.

And are there really any areas in an EV-- other than batteries-- where unique innovation could provide a competitive advantage?  Electric motors have been around for generations, there's not a whole lot of potential for something unique there, that would afford patent protection.  And the microchips, computers, and software used in a Tesla, might be unique, but there are so many other ways to do the same thing, I doubt it provides much of a competitive advantage either.

Really their best advantage is experience in the industry, and that's one that diminishes with each passing year.

Agreed re: patents. You can't be sure how important it is. It's not just patents of course, but also trade secrets and other IP. Perhaps in autonomous. I believe it's a crucial misstep to rely on vision/radar and not LIDAR, but they may have developed a significant amount of IP around the vision/radar portions that would augment what another company has done and lead to true autonomy. 

Or even just the people and institutional know-how. 

I do think some of it might merely be learning-curve. But there may also be some actual IP there. 

Whatever it is, it's not worth $761B. So they're not getting acquired unless there's an absolutely catastrophic drop in their market cap. 

Tesla is the Facebook(Meta) of the automotive industry.  Everyone discounted Facebook believing it only had so high it could go because it was just a social media company, while behind the scenes they were making their mark utilizing and selling data. This is the part of Tesla that many people miss.. they're a data company behind the scenes and far more than just an EV auto maker.

What data do they have that's valuable? I can potentially see the millions of miles of driving data that could potentially power true L5 autonomy, but they haven't been able to turn it into true L5 autonomy. 

To me Tesla keeps trying to tell everyone that they're a tech company and not an automaker, because Wall Street doesn't value [boring] automakers with the insane PE ratio Tesla is carrying. 

I, personally, don't believe them. So I'm asking earnestly... Why do you? Tell me what I'm missing. 

Yeah I don't see obscene value in the data they've collected.  Normal everyday value, sure.  But they're NOT Meta and they're NOT Alphabet and they're not even Microsoft.

Exactly. How do you monetize the data? 

Meta/Alphabet: You're monitoring literally everything a person does, and using that to feed them advertisements that are uniquely tailored to hit their demographic. 

Tesla: ???

A lawyer once told me a patent is only as good as you're willing to enforce it, which is true.  I was peripherally involved in some court challenges and they get expensive, quick, even for a large company.  There is a huge incentive to settle, or not even challenge.  I'm a named inventor on quite a few patents, none of them are worth spit, in part because nobody else would want to infringe them.  

Most patents I saw were written poorly, they were unclear or left out ways of getting around them.  (The old patents are mostly not like this.)  And I've read a lot of patents.  I got pretty jaded on the whole idea.  The patent attorneys were supposed to run their drafts by me, some did for a while, they didn't like my input with one exception.  We worked together pretty well and then he got a different job.  One thing several would do is to cut and paste "boilerplate" which usually had nothing at all to do with the invention in the middle of a patent.  That was annoying because we had page charges, but I guess it made them look better, or so they thought.

The VP in charge was a very sharp guy, he knew the deal.  He got moved up, I suspect they wanted him to take over as CLO at some point.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tesla basically say that anybody can use their patents as long as they credited Tesla for their work (credit as in acknowledging the use, not necessarily pay them).  I thought that they did this in order to speed up EV technology?  I know he sent a big packet out to the other automakers this year detailing how to run 48V architecture for modern vehicles and get rid of the 12V standard.  On this last statement I don't really think much of it, as I don't view it as much of a technical challenge to go from 12V to 48V, if anything it may be easier. 

I read an article recently detailing how GM and Ford (and Kia) were jockeying for 2nd place.  One sold like 22K EV's in one quarter, the other sold 26K, etc.  Tesla, the #1, sold like 164K in the same quarter.  There's a pretty big gap from #1 to #2. 

Tesla has sold around 4.5M vehicles total.  Ford sells 4.5M vehicles in a single year.  When the big automakers really decide there's a market for EV, Tesla will become an afterthought.

And, as bwar has pointed out, their market capitalization is actually too high for them to be a viable acquisition target, so I'm not sure what their future is.  I honestly don't believe they really have one, as an auto manufacturer.

Tesla could stand to steal some actual car designers from companies like GM, Ford, M-B, BMW, etc. As it stands their cars look like shit (except the S), ride like shit, and are appointed like a Yugo inside.

They could also consider making hybrids.