The investment landscape is littered with examples of giant companies throwing billions of dollars away on poorly-executed acquisitions.
Two examples: ATT bought NCR and sold it later for pennies on the dollar after losing money for a decade. Time-Warner bought AOL and suffered huge losses. The problems usually are that the smart people aren't making the decisions. Or, that smart person makes a mistake. Investing $6 billion is a huge bet which could change the fate of many companies. Elon makes a lot of good decisions, but I believe he's making a mistake if he's putting all that money into one giant Li-ion factory. My fervent hope is that he becomes more cognizant of the viable alternatives which threaten to displace Li-ion in the next three years (when the gigafactory comes online).
Given what you said above, what would you do different from what Tesla is currently doing?
Elon's stated goal all along has been to use the Model S success to then ramp production of the Gen 3 car to a mass market. The Gen 3 price point is not achievable unless they get the battery cost down 30% like they plan on doing with the gigafactory. If you don't think they should build a Li-ion gigafactory, then you are also implying that they hold off on the Gen 3, and presumably only sell the Models S and X until some (?) undetermined point in the future, right?
That doesn't seem reasonable to me, as it takes away much of the growth potential of Tesla. Even if a disruptive super-capacitor technology came into the market, there is nothing stopping Tesla from still producing the Gen 3 car at a cost that consumers will pay for. If I can buy a nicely equipped $40,000 - $50,000 electric car that is comparable to a BMW 3 series with a 200 mile range, why would I wait an additional minimum 2-3 years to see if the super-capacitor can cut my electric car purchase price by $5,000 or even $10,000 depending on how super the super-capacitor is?
We are still at a price point where a $5,000 difference will not be the straw that breaks the camels back WRT how many units Tesla can sell. Now, if you were talking about the difference between a $25,000 car and a $20,000 car, then you might have a more valid point, since that is the entry level for cars and a much more sensitive price point. GM and the other dinosaurs may indeed cede the $50,000 car market to Tesla, like they are now losing the battle for the super-premium luxury car, since the Model S is production constrained. If they don't jump into the electric game in a serious manner, they will find themselves making $20,000 entry level ICE cars, and $45,000 pickup trucks, with market share declining from where it is currently. Then once Tesla gets the Gen 3 car line up and running, they will get even more experience and then be able to compete at the lowest price points, especially if gas prices rise for any number of reasons. If the current set of ICE automakers had any sense, you would think they would also realize this, and get on the electric car train before the next war sends gas up to $5 then $10 per gallon.
I have a long list of bookmarks in my browser related to many different tech companies, EEstor being one of the ones that I have periodically checked up on for
many years. Like others have posted previously, it seems unlikely that a disruptive technology like super-capacitors could appear on the scene and displace the current best battery technology in anything less than I'm guessing a minimum of 5 years, if not longer. It could happen, but you tend to get jumps like that in the electronics field in things like fiber optic speed, processing speed and storage density, more so than in the physical sciences where you are trying to produce power (solar panels) or store power (batteries, super-capacitors).
No matter what, it's going to be a very interesting ride between now and when the gigafactory gets completed.
RT
