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If frictionless robotaxi is available at $.35 per mile, there is 0 chance that I actually own a car.
Uber already publicly stated that if the Model 3 was self-driving in 2020 that they'd buy every single one. Of course, Elon then published his 2nd Master Plan outlining the Tesla Network, and a few months later Uber purchased Otto. Coincidence? Hmm.
If Uber is $2/mile, then robotaxis disrupt Uber at $1/mile, and disrupt car ownership at <$0.50/mile.
davecolene0606
Member
So yea, not sustainable (Steve Jobs) but while Tim seems to be a reasonable finance man, he won't, almost by definition innovate APPLE to the next "must have". Example Boeing, mega cash flow $$$ powerhouse virtual monopoly that hasn't risked jack *sugar* since an engineer (William M. Allen) ran a company and was willing to bet it on innovation(747).
So until we see EM cashing or checking out (he has stated won't happen) TSLA will beat all other comers roundly as they don't have the steel balls (ask EM's wife #1) to take to the next level much less where TSLA already is.
I will continue to bet on TSLA and the man who stated to my face, that hiring people with a good heart is as important to hiring people who are competent in their field of expertise..
Fire Away
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ValueAnalyst
Closed
Now, if we look at Tesla with 35-40 GWh of cell production in 2019, and 45 to 50 GWh of pack production, going to 105 GWh of cells and 150 GWh of pack production and compare against everyone else.
Here are two charts from recent FT articles using Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.
Note how they disparage Tesla in that second chart and provide zero dots when they know there is cell production. Note that these present all automotive and stationary storage lithium ion production, which includes LiFePO4 that isn't interesting for automotive. These are 2020 and 2021 looks and we know that these factories take time to come online. I think the "commissioned" in the first part means they've started construction and put money forth. They also clearly have the LG Ochang facility at way too high of an amount... it was 3.2 GWh in 2013 but severely under-utilized at the time:
LG Chem to Crank up Its Idle Battery Productions Lines | Korea IT Times
Likely it is around 5 GWh now given cell improvements and demand from GM and Hyundai/Kia. The total "commissioned" for LG should be around 8 GWh today. Note that their own data is not quite lining up for Ochang. But oh, well, clearly BNEF is incompetent.
Anyways... likely then, commissioned for 2017:
Tesla/Panasonic: 16-7 GWh
Panasonic: 9-10 GWh
LG Chem: 8 GWh
Samsung SDI: 6 GWh
SKI: <1 GWh
BYD is all LiFePO4, and unclear how much of CATL is also. Chinese incentives were only for LiFePO4 and not NMC, but that recently changed so I expect the production mix to also change.
Thank you for your very informative posts.
I have noticed the same trend in these articles wildly understating Tesla's planned output for 2020. On the other hand, however, is it fair to say that one assumption you're making in reaching your conclusions is that even though FT and BNEF articles wildly understate Tesla's planned production for 2020, they correctly state others' production?
RobStark
Well-Known Member
"Frictionless" is a fantasy. As is $.35/mile. There is the cost of capital,insurance, electricity, depreciation etc. It will be many years before anyone can guarantee service to everyone 24/7.
For private persons renting out their car there is the cut to Tesla Network,Uber,Lyft or whatever.
I live in a house with a 3 car garage. I rather have my own car with my own mobile storage. Keeping a Tesla Model 3 15 years isn't going to cost me $.70 per mile. Aspirationally, powertrains will last 1m miles. At $.7 per mile that is $700k. It won't cost me even $.50 per mile.
I understand people living in cities where you pay rent for a parking space would feel different.
You are gonna keep a model 3 for 15 years just to win a messageboard discussion? Seems like a high price to pay.
Fortunately the 2032 model is expected to have exactly the same features so there won't be any reason to upgrade.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
No offense, but I personally think it is dumb to trade in a car every three years like these analyst assume. And I don't chase a marginal upgrades in features. It doesn't drive me insane to know someone out there has a better car than me.
I do keep my cars a long time. Get a good car,well equipt, and keep it a long time.
Get a good suit keep it a long time etc. I have argued in this thread before against those that say you should live miserly and invest the extra money instead. But neither am I volunteering to take the depreciation for the taxi companies nor CPO buyers.
dhrivnak
Active Member
That is not my experience at all. Our 2002 Prizm with 145k is being driven my my oldest son and has yet to have a dealer issue. My 2004 Chevy Avalanche with 130k miles is doing just fine and has yet to go back to the dealer. My 2015 Volt with 40k has gone back 3 times all relatively minor. But my Roadster has been worked on more than my Chevy's combined and has cost more as well. The Roadster is an early car and I expected a few bugs but my Chevys have been very solid.
If your Chevy hasn't been back to the dealership for that long please take them back as there will be sheets of recall to perform...Guaranteed. (Below results was just for fun looking up the recalls issues. 7 is nuts!)
2004 Chevrolet Avalanche Recalls
There are currently 7 recalls for your vehicle.
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dennis
Model S Plaid
As has been pointed out previously, the cells Tesla uses are not garden-variety cylindrical cells. The normal jacketing and thermocontrol are absent because Tesla takes care of this at the module level. This reduces the cell cost for Tesla. So yes, anyone else could buy the cells, so long as their battery modules incorporate the same features as the Tesla modules.
dennis
Model S Plaid
No, I was way behind in reading this thread. After seeing 50 posts on the subject, I thought it needed to be pointed out that Tesla always planned to assemble battery modules at the gigafactory from cells sourced elsewhere.
Future use of that extra EV (in this case the Leaf):
Parked Electric Cars Earn $1,530 From Europe's Power Grids - Bloomberg
Parked Electric Cars Earn $1,530 From Europe's Power Grids — Bloomberg
Parked Electric Cars Earn $1,530 From Europe's Power Grids - Bloomberg
Parked Electric Cars Earn $1,530 From Europe's Power Grids — Bloomberg
Bet TSLA
Active Member
I have the same approach with iPhones, but I'm afraid my iPhone 4s is becoming unusable. Too slow for the latest software, so no upgrades anymore. Too slow and inadequate to run modern apps as well. It's only five years old.
Do you seriously think a car whose behavior comes largely from its (buggy, constantly updated) software will really be acceptable in ten years, never mind fifteen? I predict that in six years you'll be completely unwilling to put up with a car that takes over an hour to fully charge its puny battery, when new ones take ten minutes to store 180kWh. Never mind the fact that it can't platoon in the EV-only lane.
So, I'm looking for a solid cohesive succinct argument rather thanwhich tell me most here may not be realizing the seriousness of this risk.
succinct? in addition to what you got out of CorneliusXX response, (which I'm reposting for anyone new to the discussion, it is quite helpful)
you might consider that 2-3 years ago, several of us spent some time exploring the potential impact of Apple jumping in (or some other massive tech company for that matter) when the Apple car narrative was fresh. like yourself, some of us saw it as having the potential for a material change to the size of Tesla's runway years down the road.
what's happened since those days?
here's a pretty detailed account, I think well worth reading all through, but, I've excerpted a pretty telling portion below,
How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit
"Apple started Titan in 2014 with grand ambitions to make a dent in an auto industry that consultant McKinsey & Co. estimates will be worth $6.7 trillion by 2030. The iPhone maker embarked upon an aggressive hiring spree, and an Apple-designed vehicle was targeted by the early 2020s. The hope was to revolutionize cars in the way the iPhone upended the mobile industry in 2007.
By the end of 2015, the project was blighted by internal strife. Managers battled about the project’s direction, according to people with knowledge of the operations. “It was an incredible failure of leadership,” one of the people said. In early 2016, project head Steve Zadesky, a former Ford Motor Co. engineer and early iPod designer, left Titan. Zadesky, who remains at Apple, declined to comment.
Zadesky handed the reins to his boss, Dan Riccio, adding to responsibilities that already included engineering annual iPhone, iPad, and Mac refreshes. Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded manager who helped develop the original iPad, returned in April from a part-time role at Apple to lead the team.
About a month later, Mansfield took the stage in a Silicon Valley auditorium packed with hundreds of Titan employees to announce the strategy shift, according to people who attended the meeting. Mansfield explained that he had examined the project and determined that Apple should move from building an outright competitor to Tesla Motors Inc. to an underlying self-driving platform.
Departures
In the following months, engineers started leaving. Some chose to quit amid doubts over job security and skepticism that an Apple car product would ever come to market. Others were cut. In August, a first wave of employees was let go, followed by a second round in September.
More than 120 software engineers working on a car operating system and testing procedures were cut. Several hundred hardware engineers working on car chassis, suspensions, and undercarriages also left, the people said. The New York Times reported in September that Apple had cut dozens of employees from Titan."
Reading the whole article, that is quite a lot of testimony to the thesis that Apple backed away from making their own vehicle, with quite the taste in their mouth of hurt, discord, and being overmatched with trying to walk down the automaker path. Even with all that, I don't think we should discount that Apple could change their mind, and try again. Time has passed, though, and the events in the article speak to the issue of how daunting it is to start a vehicle operation, i.e., another attempt is likely to reflect some considerable humility about how aggressively to proceed. If they do shake off their rough, apparently aborted first go in this direction, I suspect, at best, they might produce 20K-40K vehicles in 2021, 500,000 in 2024, millions in the late 2020s (notice from the first sentence in the excerpt I included, when they first were looking at this in 2014, their target was the early 2020s for a vehicle launch... if anything, I've presented a more aggressive timeline than they would consider). It's hard to imagine that in addition to the cautiousness their first attempt, they wont also be focused on coming out with a quality product from day one, and, notwithstanding their massive amounts of cash, trying to go straight to hundreds of thousands, much less millions of vehicles produced per year seems like a near certain recipe for a reputation crashing product.
So, what might the impact of this Apple jumping back in be on this kind of timeline? While it would also compress the timeframe of the "kick the EV can down the road" game of the ICE makers, with a current auto market of 90 million vehicles per year, or call it 60 million if you want to in the mid 2020s because you believe autonomy will drop that number precipitously, I don't see any of this putting competitive pressure on Tesla until well past 2025. The key is that even if Apple did switch back toward a goal of making their own vehicle, by the time they could make 1 million per year, perhaps 2025 at best, the strong majority of vehicle buyers will be sold on long range EVs... so what of Apple having some of this massive market, if this were even to happen?
Drumheller
Active Member
My Model S is a 2013 manufactured in June 2013. I'm still very happy with it.
sundaymorning
Active Member
This is my opinion alone and may offend some people, but after years of reading about the prospect of the next "Tesla competitor", I can say with conviction that the process of designing & manufacturing a "Teslaesque" car is way more challenging than matching Apple's cell phones/iPads, it won't happen within the next 2-3 years. Here, Tesla has free reign for at least 5-10 years. When Apple announced the iPhone/iPad..Samsung, Amazon and others were quick to bring challenging products to market. Even 3rd party Chinese knockoffs can be bought online..After 5 years of Model S, I have seen zilch from any competitor (ranging from BMW to Apple--none). Sorry but the Bolt is DOA here in the US (dead on arrival). They may do well in Europe where parking is scarce and where streets are too tiny to navigate, which is why small cars sell so well in Europe.
If you're a diehard Apple fan, I don't blame you..Apple cell phones & iPads are impressive in their own right, but even the "tech titans" such as Apple will be facing/fighting a giant in Tesla, anyone attempting to enter the EV market in the US will simply get slaughtered once M3 ramps (just read what veterans such as VW have stated lately, they've submitted to defeat without even a fight).
Many investors here like to throw out speculations that again, imo are a last minute Hail Mary pass that just will not happen. The process of building out a Tesla type infrasture is not only too costly but too time consuming. Companies entering this arena will see losses for many years to come, cannibizing their own products, unable to find enough lithium to supply themselves, and finally the most daunting task of all--creating genuine "hype" in that arbitrary Tesla killer. Bears love to throw words such as "cult" and "hype" in association with Tesla, but as a business owner, I can tell you how difficult and daunting a task it is to build genuine "hype", trust me, it's not easy. Companies would literally feed Facebook and Google advertisement in the billions$ in order to attract a fraction of attention that Tesla is getting. The "hype" and "cult" that Tesla has built is unbelievably hard to foster and maintain, which is why so many car companies try to associate themselves with Tesla, even Mercedes has tried to ride Tesla's tailcoat in correlating their semi a day after Tesla released their news, yet, where's the "hype" in Merc semis?
The thought of a Tesla competitor popping up overnight or within the next 2-3 years is simply wishful thinking. I'm sorry, but no amount of money paid in advertisement to celebrities are going to take Tesla's title
as the reigning savior of climate change and possibly utterly defeating oil. But hey, they're welcome to try, but be warned, anyone entering the EV game will need massive capital and time, even if they had both, it may not be enough, i.e Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Kodak, Nokia, Motorola, Circuit City, Radio Shack, Robinsons May, Sears, Macy's, etc., giants with loads of cash are a dime a dozen, the investment game now is getting rather simple: evolve or die. Each passing day that no evolution occurs within legacy auto makers is another opportunity lost where Tesla gains in strength.
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Exactly.
For several fundamental reasons this has been and will continue to be a slow motion disruption, dramatically different from the other disruptions we've seen in our lifetimes. This disruption is playing out over decades, not a few years.
For anyone that this doesn't make sense to or to whom this doesn't seem significant, I strongly suggest you think about this one over and over. Tesla's runway is massive. It's not a guarantee as to how much they execute, it's not impossible they somehow trip themselves up, but, the open runway stretches many years.
What's different about this disruption is that it'll likely be influenced by the availability of materials (namely batteries), which, I agree, will create a slow-motion effect. It's also very chicken-and-egg, as the availability of vehicles affects battery supply, and the availability of chargers affects vehicle supply. (Tesla, we know, brute-forced both)
However, I think this will radically accelerate in the early 2020s.
Someone earlier asked about moats. It's a favorite topic. I've even compiled a list of quotes from all the analysts and insiders who are convinced that Tesla has no moat. They range from our quote-machine friend at Fiat-Chrysler to Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. They're all great.
From my perspective, Tesla has at least five moats:
1. Big Auto is incapable of self-disruption and/or obsoleting their own IP
2. Superchargers
3. Batteries
4. 1st party dealerships
5. Software talent
I don't count the CEO a moat, though that's partly included in #1, as every other CEO is mostly caretaking profits and avoiding risks. And, self-driving isn't a moat because everyone's doing it.
If you look down that list it becomes apparent why every auto company is, at most, planning on having only one token EV by the 2019/2020 timeframe.
No one has a fully connected car.
No one has battery supplies to compete at massive volumes.
No one has a charging network.
No one has the freedom to do things that imperil their relationship with 3rd party profit-centers
No one has the willpower to bury their ICE engines and transmissions that they're still trying to improve
I don't see this changing without an existential threat. The Model 3 should be that threat, but it probably won't be apparent until sometime next year (when the backlog keeps growing), which would seem to create another 2-4 year lag for the real response. By then, hopefully the Tesla Network is up and running and they have a CUV, a Semi, a pickup truck, and maybe even a roadster ...
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