2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[neroden]

A cautionary note on Macro's and Trump Bump euphoria from the "quiet giant of investing"

He makes the point that volatility will go up, that macroeconomic situation will probably deteriorate globally (including the US), and that market-tracking funds end up overweighting the current incumbents...

...and then says that that makes it a stock-picker's market.

Well, boy am I following that advice. I'm ultraconcentrated right now, even more than normal, with Tesla as my second-largest position (after Berkshire Hathaway, which got extremely large and which I'm actually selling some of).

Who knows if that advice is right, but it's sort of reassuring to me that Klarman is seeing it the same way I do...

 

[vgrinshpun]

He makes the point that volatility will go up, that macroeconomic situation will probably deteriorate globally (including the US), and that market-tracking funds end up overweighting the current incumbents...

...and then says that that makes it a stock-picker's market.

Well, boy am I following that advice. I'm ultraconcentrated right now, even more than normal, with Tesla as my second-largest position (after Berkshire Hathaway, which got extremely large and which I'm actually selling some of).

Who knows if that advice is right, but it's sort of reassuring to me that Klarman is seeing it the same way I do...

His stock-picker's market comment was a stand-out for me as well. It makes a lot of sense.

 

[Ovulation]

That's an good point regarding the capex. But I am skeptical since they have already stated the next plant will be in Europe. Ideally I think it would have been in China, and they have probably tried negotiating for it which this leak might be the result of, but I think they are waiting to see if the joint venture rules will go away which sounds like it might be the case as China matures. Ideally they would be doing a factory in China right now, but if they could wait a few years and do it alone or with Panasonic that would probably be preferred. Who knows though, maybe they'll announce a Chinese factory next week!

Musk is a guy who thinks big, who shoots for the stars, well maybe for the planets. When he talks about the 1 trillion dollar company I really think that's his aspiration and to achieve such a thing you have to outgrow the competition. So I think Tesla will built a massive factory in China and one in Europe simultaneously when the model 3 is up and running ... next India and the billions from a Chinese partner are certainly helpful.

 

[EinSV]

Musk is a guy who thinks big, who shoots for the stars, well maybe for the planets. When he talks about the 1 trillion dollar company I really think that's his aspiration and to achieve such a thing you have to outgrow the competition. So I think Tesla will built a massive factory in China and one in Europe simultaneously when the model 3 is up and running ... next India and the billions from a Chinese partner are certainly helpful.

Maybe.

Europe seems like a "no-brainer." The Model 3 and Y as well as Powerwall and Powerpack should be huge hits in Europe, and Tesla will get assistance from whatever country they decide to locate in who will be eager to build an economic base in key growth industries for the next 20-30 years.

In comparison, China is full of risks -- Tesla has been willing to open up its patents but not its trade secrets. Piracy in China is a major risk if not a given, especially since developing batteries and BEVs are key objectives of the Chinese government and industry. If I had to guess I'd say we see the next GF in Europe and then somewhere in Asia.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

The Hog Negativity Index just hit 1. It's almost impossible to find a negative article on Tesla right now, with production issues behind them, SCTY all but forgotten, and EM having the President's ear. Historically that has correlated with the stock hitting the upper end of its trading range. Food for thought

Have no fear.
Anton Wahlman has published both yesterday and today, thanks Anton! Not sure what, but you know what he has to say, before you read it. And than, there was EnerTuition article yesterday with strongly worded:
California Autonomous Vehicle Data Shows Tesla Is Materially Misleading Its Customers And Investors
So, we're not quite there yet

 

[BriansTesla]

My understanding is there has been live coverage of this event on the Telly. (We can afford one, but were out of house for a doctor's appointment.) On the off chance there is someone here who missed it, or even more off chance were interested, see below. I just sat through an audio of the 9th Circuit Court proceedings. My takeaway: I'm sure glad I didn't have to sit in for counsels on either side. I'm not sure Trump could claim with any merit these were "so called judges." Here's one access to the recording for any of you as nutty about politics as I am.

I listened to the proceeding live because I thought it might be historically important. I think that Washington will prevail and that in some way it may strengthen Elon's position with the administration. It's going to be an interesting four years.

 

[SteveG3]

The Hog Negativity Index just hit 1. It's almost impossible to find a negative article on Tesla right now, with production issues behind them, SCTY all but forgotten, and EM having the President's ear. Historically that has correlated with the stock hitting the upper end of its trading range. Food for thought

just head over to the Yahoo Finance feed for TSLA. to your point, it's not as high a percentage of attempted cold water pouring as six months ago, but those efforts are still there on a daily basis.

 

[mmd]

Not sure if this goes in this thread or the other, but T. Rowe just reported its TSLA holdings and it's way up from 2016.

2016: 2.72m sole voting power shares, 7.87m shares sole dispositive power
2017: 4.33m sole voting power shares, 11.92m shares sole dispositive power

Any link for this? Isn't this reported quarterly? Or may be you meant 2015 & 2016. Thanks.

 

[EnzoXYZ]

My understanding is there has been live coverage of this event on the Telly. (We can afford one, but were out of house for a doctor's appointment.) On the off chance there is someone here who missed it, or even more off chance were interested, see below. I just sat through an audio of the 9th Circuit Court proceedings. My takeaway: I'm sure glad I didn't have to sit in for counsels on either side. I'm not sure Trump could claim with any merit these were "so called judges." Here's one access to the recording for any of you as nutty about politics as I am.

We know you are very passionate about politics and you made it very clear last bunch of post only dealing with politics. Maybe this isn't the right thread to push your views. Maybe respect others and use the correct thread?

My opinion on this matter is move it to the Supreme Court and stop wasting time in the 9th court.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Any link for this? Isn't this reported quarterly? Or may be you meant 2015 & 2016. Thanks.

This is yearly (as well as end of Q4) reporting. They increased their position by 29.76% in Q4. More details here.

 

[mmd]

This is yearly (as well as end of Q4) reporting. They increased their position by 29.76% in Q4. More details here.

OK, that's what I thought, end of Q4 2016. They loaded up in the lows.

Part of the increase could also be due to conversion of their SCTY shares to TSLA shares.
But I can't find their SCTY holdings at the end of Q3. The Nasdaq link no longer works for SCTY.
It is pretty silly that all historical data is gone once the ticker is removed.
- NASDAQ.com

 

[Mike Smith]

According to Robert from the Talking Tesla show a reliable source from the factory says Fremont will be shut down from Feb 18 to Feb 28 to prepare for Model 3. He says he's 100% certain it's happening.

 

[Fallenone]

Report: Leaked files show plans for a Tesla plant in China

Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A leaked document showing plans for a joint venture between U.S. automaker Tesla Motors and a Chinese partner is drawing widespread speculation the company is planning a production site in Shanghai.

... as the biggest car market it would make sense and for Tesla, the 50/50 china joint ventures are not so bad, it means after all 50% less capex.

It's fake news. The company already posted a statement to debunk it

 

[mmd]

According to Robert from the Talking Tesla show a reliable source from the factory says Fremont will be shut down from Feb 18 to Feb 28 to prepare for Model 3. He says he's 100% certain it's happening.

Is this the same shutdown discussed few days ago? I can't find the source of the previous rumor. Were the dates same or close enough?

 

[Ovulation]

It's fake news. The company already posted a statement to debunk it

I'm confused, after all the meme fake news was introduced by the mainstream after many people/democrats thought Clinton was corrupt or crooked (to quote your president) and didn't vote for her, stayed home. So what do you mean, that fake news are fake or that the speak true to power LOL.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Well, if we assume the Powerpack/Powerwall is using the heat pipe-based pack design, a powerpack 2 could contain around 16,000 21-70s.

Each pod has around 700x700 mm of batteries, or 490,000 mm^2, which is effectively around 443,500 mm^2 when packed with circles. Each 21-70-cell will effectively occupy around 363 mm^2 with 0.5 mm between each cell, 380 with 1 mm between each cell and 415 mm^2 with 2 mm between each cell.

That works out to 1221, 1167 and 1068 cells. This doesn't include the center cooling pipe, so lets assume around 1000 cells. With 16 pods in a Powerpack, that's 16,000 cells, and the energy per cell is around 13 Wh/cell. And the machine would output up to 0.81 GWh/year with no downtime. 13 Wh/cell is roughly a 20% improvement in chemistry.

(The calculations line up pretty well with my previous calculations: Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016 Previously I assumed immersion cooling, but heat pipe cooling is fairly equivalent.)

Based on PowerPack 2 data for the Mira Loma substation, there are 16,320 individual cells (16 x 12 x 85 = 16,320). Based on 210kWh (AC) capacity of the PowerPack 2, each 21070 cell has capacity of 12.87Wh. Since these powerpacks were installed by December, the cells came from the Japanese Panasonic factories, and do not include new chemistry.

So assuming 15%-20% improvement in chemistry, we should expect further increase of the capacity of PowerPack (2.1-?) once new chemistry cells will start to be used for TE. The total capacity after introduction of new cells might be 241 - 252 kWh, with cell capacity of 14.80Wh - 15.44Wh.

"The SCE facility at Mira Loma has 396 Powerpacks, each with 16 pods of batteries inside. Each pod has 12 bricks of cells, and each brick has 85 battery cells. Add ‘em all up and it’s 6,462,720 individual “2170” battery cells, so named because they’re 21 x 70mm cylinders."

 

[Yggdrasill]

Based on PowerPack 2 data for the Mira Loma substation, there is 16,320 individual cells (16 x 12 x 85 = 16,320). Based on 210kWh (AC) capacity of the PowerPack 2, each 21070 cell has capacity of 12.87Wh. Since these powerpacks were installed by December, the cells came from the Japanese Panasonic factories, and do not include new chemistry.

So assuming 15%-20% improvement in chemistry, we should expect further increase of the capacity of PowerPack (2.1-?) once new chemistry cells will start to be used for TE. The total capacity after introduction of new cells might be 241 - 252 kWh, with cell capacity of 14.80Wh - 15.44Wh.

"The SCE facility at Mira Loma has 396 Powerpacks, each with 16 pods of batteries inside. Each pod has 12 bricks of cells, and each brick has 85 battery cells. Add ‘em all up and it’s 6,462,720 individual “2170” battery cells, so named because they’re 21 x 70mm cylinders."

I'm a bit skeptical of the figures. There's no source. It could just be someone's best guess. Also, 12.87 Wh/cell would be a ~19% improvement in chemistry over the Powerwall 1, so if true, this would likely be the final Gigafactory-ready cells.

If you have 510 cells per module, the logical arrangement would be 32 cells in each row and 16 rows, which is quite similar to the 100 kWh pack, but this works out to a pack that's roughly 750 mm long. I'm not sure if there's room for a pack of this size in the Powerwall 2. I'm still leaning towards these estimates: 2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

 

[Yggdrasill]

I'm a bit skeptical of the figures. There's no source. It could just be someone's best guess. Also, 12.87 Wh/cell would be a ~19% improvement in chemistry over the Powerwall 1, so if true, this would likely be the final Gigafactory-ready cells.

If you have 510 cells per module, the logical arrangement would be 32 cells in each row and 16 rows, which is quite similar to the 100 kWh pack, but this works out to a pack that's roughly 750 mm long. I'm not sure if there's room for a pack of this size in the Powerwall 2. I'm still leaning towards these estimates: 2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

Also, if the pack only has 12 "bricks", that means the Model 3 pack would have to be quite different from the Powerwall/Powerpack modules. The Model 3 has room for around four powerwall battery packs, so that means the Model 3 could only fit in 48 bricks, and you'd end up with half the voltage of the Model S/X packs. The powerwall 1 had 12 "bricks", divided between two modules. But the Model S battery pack is substantially larger and can fit 16 modules.

 

[jhm]

None of us are thinking big enough about Gigafactories. Tesla needs to break ground on a new Gigafactory every year for at least the next 9 years.

The only way to keep growing battery capacity by say 50% per year over the next ten years is have multiple campuses that can expand by about 10 to 50 GWh per year. Suppose we have 50 GWh in 2018 and grow exponentially to 850 GWh in 2025. Now for 2026 we will need to add 425 GWh more capacity to reach 1275 cumulative capacity. So how do you build out 425 GWh in one year. If you have 9 campuses, each campus could add about 50 GWh. That seems plausible. But if you only have 4 campuses, then each one must add at lease 100 GWh in a single year. This seems unsustainable, if not implausible.

So once you wrap your head around the idea that Tesla needs 9 or more Gigafactory campuses by 2025 and these need to have lots of room for expansion, the question where to build the next GF becomes not such a big deal. Tesla needs to be looking at new sites on every continent. Whether GF2 is in China or Europe is inconsequential because both will be needed in within the next three years and a third one somewhere else. India, Peru, UAE, who knows?

 

[vgrinshpun]

I'm a bit skeptical of the figures. There's no source. It could just be someone's best guess. Also, 12.87 Wh/cell would be a ~19% improvement in chemistry over the Powerwall 1, so if true, this would likely be the final Gigafactory-ready cells.

If you have 510 cells per module, the logical arrangement would be 32 cells in each row and 16 rows, which is quite similar to the 100 kWh pack, but this works out to a pack that's roughly 750 mm long. I'm not sure if there's room for a pack of this size in the Powerwall 2. I'm still leaning towards these estimates: 2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

This article was re-tweeted by Elon, so the numbers are most likely correct.

Why do you think that 2170 cells that came from Pana Japanese factories have new chemistry?