2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[SBenson]

Business Insider reporting that only ~60 of the reservations for the FF91 are of the paid variety.

I'm actually quite surprised, there are as many as 60 morons in this world!

 

[Dwdnjck]

I'm actually quite surprised, there are as many as 60 morons in this world!

Rich ones.

 

[mmd]

So many paid shills.

Several of the articles reporting on the NHTSA investigation closing are saying that there is evidence of some defect that would have required a recall or something, but NHTSA didn't force one for a mysterious reason. If you read the actual NHTSA report, there is no such information there.

Can you link any of these articles? I didn't see anything negative in main line media about this.

I browsed the NHTSA report, and it appears they evaluated Tesla AP as a level 2 autonomy system, that requires constant attention from driver. Also, it seems the only thing they tested is AEB of Tesla, and compared that to AEB of 2015 Mercedes C300 4Matic, and found that it is at par with the AEB of the peer vehicle. Rest of the doc mostly repeats warnings and caveats from Model S owner's manual, and version 8.0 changes.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2016/INCLA-PE16007-7876.PDF

NHTSA conducted a series of test track-based AEB performance evaluations shortly after the May crash using a 2015 Tesla Model S 85D and a 2015 Mercedes C300 4Matic peer vehicle. The vehicles were tested in the three rear-end collision crash modes (LVS, LVM, and LVD) and three different vehicle operating modes: manual driving; adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems activated; and ACC and Lane Centering Control (LCC) systems activated. This testing confirmed that the AEB systems in the Tesla and peer vehicle were able to achieve crash avoidance in a majority of the rear-end scenarios tested; that ACC generally provided enough braking to achieve crash avoidance without also requiring CIB to intervene; and that neither vehicle effectively responded to a realistic appearing artifical “target” vehicle in the SCP or LTAP scenarios.

Apparently, IIHS also predicts the same 40% crash reduction with just AEB for all cars (page 3).

IIHS research shows that AEB systems meeting the commitment would reduce rear-end crashes [emphasis added] by 40 percent. IIHS estimates that by 2025 – the earliest NHTSA believes it could realistically implement a regulatory requirement for AEB – the commitment will prevent 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries.

 

[150 kWh]

Business Insider reporting that only ~60 of the reservations for the FF91 are of the paid variety.

I think Faraday Future is exactly the kind of company bears are trying to find in Tesla.

 

[racer26]

I'm actually quite surprised, there are as many as 60 morons in this world!

People for whom money is both no object, and also $5,000 is an acceptable loss to take.

If FF goes bankrupt (and it sounds like they might before the summer) you can bet that reservation holders can kiss their $5k goodbye, its never coming back.

 

[racer26]

I think Faraday Future is exactly the kind of company bears are trying to find in Tesla.

Agreed. Potemkin village, cash burn with no profits to show for it, smoke and mirrors show, ponzi scheme, falsified (or at least disingenuous) performance specs (ok, Tesla's fairly guilty on that one too).

But 100% agreed. Every bear argument I've heard about Tesla, most of which are patently untrue of Tesla, are blindingly apparent at Faraday.

 

[Krugerrand]

No, I'm one of the several that laments the obvious decrease in quality of this thread over the last few years. Many of the best posters have left for this very reason.
This is the TSLA investors section of the forums, not the circle jerk section. Most of the people that defend the echo chamber that this place becomes lose money well and fine enough on their own. I'm just here clinging to some hope that this thread returns to even a fraction of it's former glory.

As to b). Someone who gives a *sugar* and would like to keep making enormous returns in TSLA that doesn't want to skip through 4 pages a week about people calling any potential negative argument idiotic and assuming everyone who disagrees with them are paid shills.

Good thing then that our illustrious moderator split the old Short Term Investor thread into two making this one the all encompassing 'General Discussion'. The other one might fill your wants better. Here's a link for you: 2017 Investor Roundtable: TSLA Market Action

 

[Krugerrand]

Little OT: Chevy Bolt Crashed On Its Own, Says Owner

You can't see it on your post, but I totally pushed the 'maniacal laughter' button, which of course represents several magnitude funnier than just the 'funny' button.

 

[neroden]

I don't think the finishing voltage of a cell has anything to do with it's C rate.

Voltage most certainly does.

Charge rate is still watts, which is voltage times amperage. Increasing the voltage improves your charge rate unless you've somehow reduced your amperage at the same time.

I went so far as to go back to the Nernst equation to prove to myself that I'm right.

Now, if this is *only* discussing voltage in a range of amp-hours where the cell is currently not being operated at *all* (outside current specs specs) then that's another matter -- you'd be adding capacity but you'd be adding time-to-charge at the same time. That's possible, but I don't think it's a correct interpration of the description of the paper. If this development has an effect on the overall operational voltage, it should allow faster charging. Measured in watts, which is really all that matters.

 

[CaliBear1]

Rich ones.

Who have invested in the company. Doh!

 

[neroden]

Another 1MWh Tesla Powerpack Installation. This is great but it won't add much revenue and I was hoping for more utility sized installations.
Tesla found an energy storage market in breweries and wineries, installs new Powerpack project at Sierra Nevada

Boy, we are jaded. ~$400K in revenue from one sale. "Won't add much revenue". What would investors have thought of that in the days of the Roadster.

 

[neroden]

Continuing on the theme of "not an echo chamber" here is an article on the Tesla/SolarCity/Silevo/Panasonic Buffalo fab from an experienced solar industry reporter:

Tesla/SolarCity/Silevo/Panasonic 1GW Buffalo fab’s known unknowns

It doesn't provide new information, but it does frame things a bit, including the difficulties of combining Panasonic and Silevo technology and how little we know about what is going on there amidst some delays (not all Solarcity or Tesla).

Helpful link and analysis. I suspect the delays to financing due to the auditing of the state funding were more harmful than we realized at the time.

 

[neroden]

Just sold some TSLA in my ROTH account so now it's not 100% of the account value. Definitely a high risk move or some may say dumb .

My Roth is slightly more than 100% TSLA (there are some calls which are effectively leverage), but then *it's not my only account*. I figured since TSLA has such high upside potential I should concentrate the TSLA in the account where gains are tax-free and put the other investments in other accounts.

 

[pGo]

New Wall Street Conflict: Analysts Say ‘Buy’ to Win Special Access for Their Clients

 

[Krugerrand]

Fact vs Fiction; True vs False, etc. I am a back door rocket scientist; a retired Field Artillery Officer.

<snip>

That was poetry and against the rules, but God love you for it anyway.

 

[Krugerrand]

Business Insider reporting that only ~60 of the reservations for the FF91 are of the paid variety.

60 of the Jin's closest family and friends.

 

[Krugerrand]

How do you all think about those execution risks?

I don't think about them for one reason: Elon Musk. It's not that the risks don't exist, it's that none of them can or will stop him. Might slow him down, make him go around, under or over, but he's not going to be stopped.

 

[neroden]

This article is written by Bertel Schmitt, the same guy who recently predicted Tesla will need to spend $28bln on showrooms and service centers by 2020.

Even though I think Tesla will need to open huge numbers of service centers, they're pretty cheap; I can't see where he could possibly get that figure!

 

[dakh]

I think everyone is missing a huge part in the 40% statistic, this footnote:



The 40% reduction is for total crashes of all miles driven before AP1 installation, compared to all miles driven after AP1 installation. This has a huge influence on how much safer AP1 actually is if we can make the following assumption:

Assumption: Cars without AP1 installed have the same crash rate as cars with AP1 installed but turned off.​

If you buy that, then the reduction in crashes while actually using AP1 is higher than 40% depending on the percentage of miles that people drive with AP1 turned on once they have installed it. Potentially much higher.

To illustrate this assume group A is all the cars without AP1 installed. Group B is all the cars with AP1 installed. If both groups drive 100 million miles, we would expect ~130 crashes from group A and ~80 crashes from group B. But now consider that group B only had AP1 active for 50% of those miles. Assuming the 50 million manually driven miles have the same crash rate as the manually driven miles in group A we would see ~65 crashes for manually driven miles from group B. This would mean only 15 of the crashes in group B happened for the 50 million miles with AP1 active compared to 65 for group A. In this scenario that would be a reduction of 77% from AP use!

It is important to appreciate that the actual reduction is highly influenced by the percentage of miles you assume are driven with AP1 on. As far as I know Tesla has not divulged this information. If you accept the assumption above then the number cannot be below ~39%.

Um, no not exactly. If human+AP activated is more crash-prone than human+collision avoidance only part of AP and even more crash prone than human alone, you could say yes overall accident rate is lower but AP is not necessarily making it better. I don't think that's the case but just calling out this math can't really be done without some additional factual input.

 

[schonelucht]

You can't see it on your post, but I totally pushed the 'maniacal laughter' button, which of course represents several magnitude funnier than just the 'funny' button.

I didn't. If it turns out there is something seriously wrong with the Bolt, that would be a set back for Tesla as well.

Boy, we are jaded. ~$400K in revenue from one sale. "Won't add much revenue". What would investors have thought of that in the days of the Roadster.

Nah, jaded would be that we'd start calling them mouse nuts.