Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

[AudubonB]

Well,, I certainly agree with your correlation between parakeets and the IBD!!!!! Neither I nor my office ever found it to be of use for anything else.

 

[Ubbe]

Tesla super-bear Bertel Schmitt is a cofounder (with fellow outspoken Tesla bear Edward Niedermeyer)

Forbes Link: 40% Price Drop On Chinese EV Batteries Spells Trouble For Tesla

Does anyone really believe that the viability of the Tesla Gigafactory could be imperiled by the Chinese as Schmitt suggests?

Why they think that this would threaten Tesla in any way escapes me? Tesla is not in the business of selling batteries, they sell products containing batteries - that they produce in partnership with Panasonic on a massive scale. Teslas profit-margins remain.

So other EV-manufacturers (with no native cell/battery production) might get better margins... Great for them. Tesla doesn't hurt when another manufacturer increases its profits. Tesla will still sell as many cars and power-walls/packs as they can produce. The market for EVs and energy storage is far from saturated and there's plenty of room for both Tesla and the "competition".

Unless "the Chinese" can produce and sell humongous numbers of quality cells way below the cost of raw materials and then sell that product to everyone but Tesla... How is Tesla going to get in "trouble"?

Or is this just an attempt to manipulate the stock price? I'm shocked, --shocked sir!

 

[ggr]

L
Forbes Link: 40% Price Drop On Chinese EV Batteries Spells Trouble For Tesla

The article re-quotes a Morgan Stanley analyst who was quoted in Barron’s last evening:

According to Gaogong Industry Institute, some EV makers in China have proposed that battery vendors cut prices by 35-40% in 2017. Our China analyst Jack Lu sees this proposal as likely to proceed, as some battery vendors in China could still make a decent profit after such a cut.
...
Does anyone really believe that the viability of the Tesla Gigafactory could be imperiled by the Chinese as Schmitt suggests?

If they can cut prices by 40% and still make a profit, their current gross margin must be over 66%. I have a little difficulty believing this.

 

[austinEV]

Saw this link off of Google finance.

He gets it all wrong of course. He is confused about why he thinks the political climate has improved, when just about everyone else sees Trump bending more favorable to Tesla. Then he takes issue with AJ's conservative assumptions as not supporting the upgrade. Fine, but the better conclusion is there is more upside that Jonas is calling for.

Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) Stock Gets a Meaningless Upgrade
Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) Stock Gets a Meaningless Upgrade

I left a critical response in the comment section (moderated) and it hasn't shown up... holding my breath...

 

[dc_h]

I think the Bertel Schmitt article about China highlights China's commitment to EV cars. This is good news. More charging infrastructure and more ideas to lower battery costs. Tesla is on track to produce more battery output as china in 2020 and still in position to lead in quality, if not quality and price.
The important message is that Tesla will be the quality EV car in a country selling up to 5million EVs by 2020. If they are the Apple of EVs then they will profit greatly at the changes. The biggest challenge is growing fast enough.

 

[wdolson]

Long-time Tesla super-bear Bertel Schmitt is a cofounder (with fellow outspoken Tesla bear Edward Niedermeyer) of the Daily Kanban which often rants extremely negatively about Tesla Motors. Forbes also allows Schmitt to be a contributor. Early this morning Forbes presented an article by Schmitt about Chinese EV makers proposing that Chinese battery makers cut prices and how this might affect the worth of the Tesla Gigafactory.

Forbes Link: 40% Price Drop On Chinese EV Batteries Spells Trouble For Tesla

The article re-quotes a Morgan Stanley analyst who was quoted in Barron’s last evening:

According to Gaogong Industry Institute, some EV makers in China have proposed that battery vendors cut prices by 35-40% in 2017. Our China analyst Jack Lu sees this proposal as likely to proceed, as some battery vendors in China could still make a decent profit after such a cut.

Barron's Link: Sell Samsung SDI: China To Slash EV Battery Prices, Warns Morgan Stanley

In the meantime another Morgan Stanley analyst today upgraded Tesla Motors to Outperform with a $305 price target.

Does anyone really believe that the viability of the Tesla Gigafactory could be imperiled by the Chinese as Schmitt suggests?

My reply to this in the Long Term investor's thread:

Long-Term Fundamentals of Tesla Motors (TSLA)

Post #4037

 

[Gerardf]

Not sure which is more uncommon :
- A bullish article that SA allowed to be published instead of rejecting it
- An article on SA with real numbers about revenue, EPS and target SP forecast in it

..... instead of the usual crazy comparisons of Tesla to any other car that enters the market, unfounded statements it is all a scam, potemkin GigaFactory, more than 14% of GF will never be build, air-cleaning fossil fuel cars... etc, etc

Well, this article has real numbers, is bullish, and was (surpisinghly enough) allowed to be published by S.A. !!!
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4040494-next-catalyst-will-drive-tesla-shares-higher

 

[JRP3]

This is an annoyingly short sighted piece criticizing Elon for creating SpaceX and Tesla instead of helping the poor. Apparently starting companies with the goal of preserving a habitable planet and creating a potential lifeboat for the species in the event of a catastrophe is not good enough.

Is a mission to Mars morally defensible given today’s real needs? | Aeon Essays

 

[Ubbe]

This is an annoyingly short sighted piece criticizing Elon for creating SpaceX and Tesla instead of helping the poor. Apparently starting companies with the goal of preserving a habitable planet and creating a potential lifeboat for the species in the event of a catastrophe is not good enough.

Is a mission to Mars morally defensible given today’s real needs? | Aeon Essays

The "why do anything in space when we have problems here" rhetoric is as annoying and unoriginal as always. Especially since Elon has financed it more or less out of his own money, and for cheaper than anyone else in the industry. Why would the moral burden for eradicating poverty and disease fall on Elon, rather than some other very wealthy person that blows the same amount on houses, parties, jewelry, drugs or whatever?

And to completely miss that Elons overarching motivation is to secure the existence of humanity, or life even?

 

[dc_h]

The "why do anything in space when we have problems here" rhetoric is as annoying and unoriginal as always. Especially since Elon has financed it more or less out of his own money, and for cheaper than anyone else in the industry. Why would the moral burden for eradicating poverty and disease fall on Elon, rather than some other very wealthy person that blows the same amount on houses, parties, jewelry, drugs or whatever?

And to completely miss that Elons overarching motivation is to secure the existence of humanity, or life even?

Remember, all dollars spent going to Mars will be spent on earth.

 

[MitchJi]

They do not use Lidar. Too expensive.

Tesla doesn't use Lidar because Elon believes that radar is superior.

 

[brucet999]

OK. You see that grey bar coming off of transportation? That's waste from the incredibly inefficient gasoline-burning engines. That's what electric cars eliminate. .

Has anyone calculated the effect on global warming of all the waste heat dumped into the atmosphere by 1.2 billion ICE vehicles? BEVs eliminate all of that waste heat, thus increasing their greenness, even when compared to H2 powered vehicles.

 

[vigleik]

Has anyone calculated the effect on global warming of all the waste heat dumped into the atmosphere by 1.2 billion ICE vehicles? BEVs eliminate all of that waste heat, thus increasing their greenness, even when compared to H2 powered vehicles.

My back of the envelope calculation gives 0.00005 degrees Celsius.

 

[Krugerrand]

Tesla doesn't use Lidar because Elon believes that radar is superior.

And he said it's too expensive.

 

[PeterK]

My back of the envelope calculation gives 0.00005 degrees Celsius.

My gut says it's more than that, because much of it is concentrated in cities where it contributes to the heat island effect and is multiplied by the need to run air conditioning that much more - in homes, offices and retail settings as well as in cars themselves. EVs can thus have a multiplier benefit as they are more easily adopted in cities to reverse the cycle.

 

[PeterK]

Remember, all dollars spent going to Mars will be spent on earth.

Yes,and in the meantime SpaceX is also saving NASA billions of dollars on launches, which could be spent on other priorities.

The authors spend a lot of time on Musk's biography and Tesla (to the point where it feels like they're plagiarizing Vance's book), but don't give him credit for his mission for Tesla and SolarCity. It just comes across as whining.

 

[brucet999]

My gut says it's more than that, because much of it is concentrated in cities where it contributes to the heat island effect and is multiplied by the need to run air conditioning that much more - in homes, offices and retail settings as well as in cars themselves. EVs can thus have a multiplier benefit as they are more easily adopted in cities to reverse the cycle.

I don't understand the air conditioning effect. AC simply moves heat from inside a car or building to outside, but adds only a tiny fraction of warmth from the windings in compressor motors. Basically a zero-sum action for the environment.

 

[dmckinstry]

My back of the envelope calculation gives 0.00005 degrees Celsius.

At what rate? Per day, per year or ever since ICE cars existed?

 

[winfield100]

My gut says it's more than that, because much of it is concentrated in cities where it contributes to the heat island effect and is multiplied by the need to run air conditioning that much more - in homes, offices and retail settings as well as in cars themselves. EVs can thus have a multiplier benefit as they are more easily adopted in cities to reverse the cycle.

subscribe to or read "Journal of the Holocene" for a more scholarly answer
SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

 

[vigleik]

My gut says it's more than that, because much of it is concentrated in cities where it contributes to the heat island effect and is multiplied by the need to run air conditioning that much more - in homes, offices and retail settings as well as in cars themselves. EVs can thus have a multiplier benefit as they are more easily adopted in cities to reverse the cycle.

If you want me to show my math I can do that. Let me just add the following, to make sure that we're on the same page:
1. The local effect in urban areas is of course much larger.
2. You should multiply by a factor of 2 to account for all transportation rather than just cars, and another factor of 3 to account for all human activities rather than just transportation.
3. There are direct and indirect effects due to changing our local environment which I'm not accounting for, and while these might have a large local effect they still change the global temperature by a negligible amount.
4. There are direct and indirect effects due to changing the composition of our atmosphere which I'm not accounting for, and this is of course what we should be focusing on.

At what rate? Per day, per year or ever since ICE cars existed?

In total, compared to a world where car engines magically didn't produce any heat.