Mike Nielson

Tesla lover

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@stevenmarkryan I’m with Fidelity and requested a 7500 shares but only received 300. (4% of what I asked for).

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@MAGANEWSShapiro A

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@elonmusknews30 Elon Musk

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@Teslaconomics 3

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

Have Tesla’s stop with a little more space from vehicles in front of you when approaching stopped traffic at a red light or sudden backed up traffic. This is way if there is a fast approaching car behind you and about to rear end you, FSD will quickly be able to react by pulling forward or even off to the side if needed to avoid a rear end collision

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

I don’t care what she says Sandy! I think you do awesome interviews.

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@teardowntitan

[TezLab @TezLabApp]

I wanted to put thoughts on paper for myself as I consider my current and future investments into Tesla. This is as much for me as it is for anyone reading this, but most importantly, this is NOT financial advice. I walked away from the event late last night/early morning with a similar, yet distant, feeling I had when I first watched The Matrix—I felt different about the world and got a glimpse into the future.
The Events:
Last night, long-term investors, influencers, celebrities, and anyone lucky enough to get a ticket swarmed the Warner Bros. lot for a spectacle of technology and, importantly, a glimpse into the future with autonomy at its core.
Many mainstream publications will chalk this up as further fanfare, more empty promises, and take shots at Tesla and Elon for overpromising. For the record, Elon pokes the bear, and some (most?) of the attacks are warranted—that’s a different journal entry, and he would likely agree.
What I want to spend time thinking about is the landscape of automation, separating the news, politics, and Elon from what Tesla is actually building. It's very hard to find truth in the minute-to-minute news cycle we all live in. Sitting down and pulling it apart, focusing on the specifics, helps me organize my thoughts and hopefully find additional conviction.
I spent much of the evening speaking with product architects and engineers. These were casual yet deeply technical discussions that they loved to dive into—topics like how Optimus moves so fluidly, how they handle voice and small gestures, and what the biggest product hurdles have been in the last 15 months. Hours flew by as similar conversations unfolded around Robotaxi, low-level fluid dynamics, material design, and the new vehicle frameworks being used for the Cybertruck. It was an engineering delight.
Tesla's Culture:
The team members I chatted with lit up with excitement when talking about their work. They can move fast, take big chances, and push boundaries. They are encouraged to try new ideas, work with new materials, and take significant swings. The culture at Tesla is all about removing limitations to make real change. Over and over, I felt this across every team and individual engineer I chatted with.
This culture is the catalyst behind Tesla’s success and it’s hard to find inside other companies. If factories are the tools to build products, then the engineers, designers, and craftspeople who create and maintain the culture are the bloodlines of the company. This was extraordinarily evident in my conversations with the team.
Tesla’s engineering-driven culture is underappreciated, and it would be an obvious win for them to showcase this more. While Apple still reigns supreme in software-hardware integration, Tesla is coming in fast. They are one of the few companies delivering hardware and software well at scale. Just look at the numbers: Tesla has delivered over 1.37 million vehicles in 2022, and they continue to grow quickly, commanding around 60% of the U.S. EV market as of mid-2023.
FSD (Full Self-Driving):
I’ve been using and integrating FSD from its earliest, brittle versions. Over the years, I’ve watched Tesla hit limits in architecture, forcing them to literally start over. But the recent progress, especially over the last 15 months, signals that they are well on their way to solving autonomy using vision. Tesla has amassed over 8 billion miles driven with Autopilot—that’s data no other company has, which has fueled its ongoing refinement.
For those in the market for a new car, I encourage you to try the current FSD experience. It’s incredible. You’ll realize, much like I have, that buying a car without FSD is akin to buying a Blackberry when the iPhone was just released.
No, full autonomy isn’t complete, but my ability to drive from NYC to upstate NY with minimal intervention feels closer to flying a plane than driving a traditional car. We forget to talk about what the technology can do today because everyone is obsessed with what it will do. Tesla vehicles with Autopilot have one accident per 4.31 million miles driven, compared to one per 484,000 miles for regular vehicles in the U.S. The safety and capability are already here. Tesla should be marketing this more.
They will solve full autonomy—it’s just a matter of when. But even now, what Tesla has achieved is nothing short of remarkable. I would never buy another daily driving car without this level of autonomy.
Waymo vs. Tesla:
I recently hopped in a Waymo in San Francisco. It was fun, but it felt a lot like Tesla’s FSD from about a year ago. Waymo’s approach, while important for competition, doesn’t feel sustainable from an investor’s perspective. Their technology, which heavily relies on expensive sensors and maps, results in vehicles costing over $200,000 per unit. It reminds me of how MiniDisc was a bridge between CDs and MP3s before getting wiped out.
On the other hand, Tesla’s vision-based approach, using just cameras and neural networks, allows them to aim for a $25,000 autonomous vehicle. The lower-cost solution with feature parity almost always wins in the long run. The engineers I spoke with were buzzing about what’s next in FSD, and watching vehicles on the event track using unreleased updates made it clear: this will be a game-changer when rolled out.
AWS for Tesla?
As demand for specialized computing grows (big kudos to NVIDIA), Tesla’s built-in inference chips offer a massive opportunity. It’s like how AWS unlocked a new revenue stream for Amazon. With chips fine-tuned using vast amounts of driving data, Tesla has the potential to do something similar, especially with the introduction of Dojo, their AI training supercomputer. If pursued, this could be a massive money maker—though it’s hard to quantify just how big. This is one area that has me particularly excited.
Final Thoughts:
Will Tesla hit every timeline? Probably not. But I’m a long-term shareholder, so that doesn’t concern me. Do I think they’ll solve the problems and develop the products they’re working towards? Absolutely. When they do, I believe the world will be a better place. I think I’ll buy some additional shares as it trades down—no surprise there. To all the engineers and different team members I chatted with late into the night, thank you - very impressive.
@RonBaronAnalyst , thanks for taking the time to connect with me and the PIC!
@Tesla @teslascope @elonmusk @bschippers @robmaurer @DirtyTesLa @benholland @teslaownersSV

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

@Rodneyniya @realMeetKevin @Tesla @elonmusk I agree, it’s Model AF…. S3xy AF

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Watch part two of tonight's doubleheader with Falcon 9 launching 22 @Starlink satellites to orbit https://t.co/H6rLRyxg2t

[Vamsi Krishna Koppuravuri @vkkoppu]

🌟 A Tribute to Naatu Naatu 💫 Check out this exclusive aerial footage of a dazzling #TeslaLightShow synchronized to the Oscar-winning song #NaatuNaatu from @RRRMovie. Watch this one-of-a-kind #ElectrifyingRhythms event that's taking the internet by storm! 🚗✨🎶

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

Could I maybe get the headset please https://t.co/JMOlYABJh9 via @YouTube

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

President Of SpaceX (Gwynne Shotwell) on Elon Musk #shorts https://t.co/iAc5IQIhvk via @YouTube

[Mike Nielson @Michael_Nielson]

Pranks Destroy Scam Callers- GlitterBomb Payback https://t.co/6HM3mTXihX via @YouTube

[Prayag @theprayagtiwari]

@elonmusk Most motivational screenshot ever. ♥️💪

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Watch live as Elon provides an update on the development of Starship → https://t.co/pxgvgTWzrx https://t.co/eGP6jugjkg

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Denmark just ended Covid restrictions
https://t.co/tg12nar2CJ

[Emmet Peppers @EmmetPeppers]

My @elonmusk $TSLA "Product Roadmap Update" Interpretation:

Demand is off the hook for existing models so it doesn't make sense for us to introduce new vehicle models until all supply constraints can first catch up to that ever-increasing demand