Moderators' Choice: Posts of Particular Merit

[2daMoon]

What does it say about a country lagging in EV sales if the catalyst needed to break the habit of ICE is the collapse of the industry, rather than obvious benefits of making the change?

It just seems odd how the EU and China seem to be making the transition scale based upon logic at both the buyer's and legislator's levels while the US needs to see drama in order to come around.

Well, I think we are on the cusp of the needed drama and that the problems contributing to the slow uptake in EVs are closer than ever to being overcome. These industry giants behind Big Auto and Big Oil have painted themselves into a corner by trying to milk the unsuspecting for all they're worth.

Visiting a friend, he was talking about the cost for repairs on his cars and other related issues and I asked if he had considered the advantages of an electric vehicle.

His answer was, "But what if I want to take a long trip?"

I replied, "How do you take a long trip now? You stop and fill up as you go." Then, I went into how 95% of his "fill-ups" will be done at home with an EV.

This opened the FUDgates with him countering about how long it takes to charge (which I explained wasn't an issue) and he went down the standard list of reasons not to go EV that folks in the US have been spoon-fed. Like, asking me how much does it cost to replace the battery? Which I explained were good for a million miles now.

Other things I mentioned included how the legacy ICE OEMs are struggling, scaling down production, piling up inventory, and encouraging employees to take buyouts in order to reduce their workforce. I also mentioned energy, the adoption S-curve, and all the usual bullet points. Until I could see his eyes begin to glaze over.

I asked if he would like me to send him some links to more info, as I explained the breadth and depth of Tesla. He said he would like to learn more. The links have been sent to whet his appetite. But, I know him well enough to not be surprised if he never mentions EVs again.

Having been involved in TMC has opened my eyes to many perspectives from people who work and live in other parts of the world. I find it frustrating and a little embarrassing when I see us lagging behind in the US.

Maybe it IS the Fluoride in the water, or the Disneyesque model of the American Dream that has been such a part of our indoctrination. Is this what leads so many in the US to wave flags, wear T-shirts with one-liners, and affix bumper stickers, and hold our heads proud that we have chosen a side, despite not having made any effort to confirm the stories we are told?

Rather, shouldn't people apply logic and reason to establish what are the important facts in any given instance?

Oh well, I'll keep spreading the word and can't wait until the tide begins to rise to the long overdue crest we here can see coming on the horizon.

HODL

 

[unk45]

I neglected the Gold Standard of retail auto sales promotions that:
-enhance, not damage, creditworthiness of borrowers;
-have value to consumers that vastly exceeds cost of Tesla;
-can be widely positioned as enhanced value, not desperation;
-is simple to do.

The product:
-two three and four year options;
-includes all service, tires, wipers, even washer fluid;
-has driving limit per year of 20,000 miles/35,000km, per unit change above those;
-include Supercharging per year to support 25% of distance limits;
-include either home charger, with installation (Mobile only if home not possible);
- if and only if, this can be structured to avoid lease accounting add options to;
- trade car at end of second year for a new one, keeping same monthly terms, or
- return car with no penalty.
-Such a product can be designed to effectively match straight lease term pricing.
-in jurisdictions permitting insurance bundling it is quite feasible to include comprehensive, liability, collision and property damage insurance as options.

This is only one example of easy to understand high value products that are designed to have significantly high value to a customer than it does cost to Tesla, while attracting more creditworthy customers. Approaches similar to this have been highly effective with diverse customer segments.

Above all Tesla should avoid any financing option that would attract lower credit quality customers.

 

[2daMoon]

Here is the response I got from my friend who I sent "more information about electrification" as requested.

i read your lengthy message . i do not particularly agree with everything ..the electric car thing has been shoved down our throats by the oil and gas hating portion of the government ...we can agree to disagree..OK ??

... and my brief reply... yeah, yeah, I know where is the beating a dead horse emoji?

It turned out as a fairly comprehensive tome that might be useful for others, so I'm sharing it with y'all too.

Enjoy

(begin copy)

If you would take time to read though this and consider the info I'd appreciate it.

I'm sharing it because you are a friend, not because I'm on a soapbox. I don't have anything to gain by taking time to do this.

You have my promise this will be the last novel you will see about this from me. If it inspires you to learn more, you will find plenty of information elsewhere.


Electric vehicles:

• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is less expensive over 5 years than the best selling ICE vehicle (Toyota Corolla)
• have fewer maintenance hassles
• offer higher reliability
• improve throughout ownership with over the air updates (most recalls, performance increases, new features, etc. are automatically updated via software without leaving your garage)
• have better performance (the fastest production vehicles are electric and the least expensive BEVs outperform most of the ICE fleet)
• have more useful features*
• don't require advertising to sell the product**

(edit: not sure why the below got formatted as a quote, it isn't)

*for example, Tesla has "Dog Mode" that will maintain the inside temperature of the locked vehicle while parked with a pet inside. Daisy (edit: his dog) would like this.

**advertising costs must be included in the purchase price from any manufacturer that advertises.

Tesla has never advertised their products. They depend upon word of mouth only. It is difficult to imagine how this one auto maker whose stock has the largest market cap of all auto makers, and whose profit margin is the highest of all auto makers (ICE and BEV) is somehow being "shoved down" anyone's throat. Particularly when all of their profits are being spent on research and development, expanding production, and streamlining their manufacturing processes.

The oil and gas industry:

• spends a significant portion of their profits on advertising and on the lobbying of legislators (as do the legacy auto manufacturers)
• receives more billions in annual subsidies from state and federal government than do all the sustainable energy groups combined

These facts indicate the exact opposite of your statement. They don't call the US Dollar the "Petro-Dollar" for nothing. Oil, and the industries it supports have been the most significant controlling factor of US government policy for decades.


Despite this level of influence and control over the policies and narrative that Big Oil and Big Auto wield, more and more of those shopping for and purchasing new cars are finding a better value offered by electric vehicle manufacturers. This is not a fad. Gas cars are going away. They are going away now. Here's why.

They are going away because there is an alternative that has a lower TCO, is more reliable, and provides a better ownership experience.

As of Q1 of this year the best selling (gas or electric) SUV in the US and Europe is the Tesla Model Y.


The fastest growing segment of the auto industry is the battery electric vehicle. The BEV percentage of all cars sold globally is growing exponentially, not linearly.


Battery Electric Vehicles share of global car market over time:

• 2% share in 2018;
• 4% share in 2020;
• 8% share in 2021;
• 14% share in 2022

This growing trend is doubling the BEV share of the global auto market every 1 to 2 years. At this astounding rate BEV sales will be at 50% share of new cars sold in only three or four years, and is expected to be 80% of the new vehicle market by ~2030, if not sooner.

The really crazy thing is how, back in 2013, Elon Musk outlined a plan to reach these exact goals and has been spot on with hitting those targets for ten years. This transition away from fossil fuel cars is based upon a decade old plan with an unprecedented success rate over the long haul.


The ICE vehicle manufacturers have been stagnant in their research and development for decades, riding on technology that has not taken advantage of new developments. This is why there was a "chip shortage." The chip manufacturers have significantly reduced production of old technology chips that the ICE OEMs depend upon. The chip manufacturers shut down those lines when the ICE OEMs canceled orders during COVID, and they replaced those aging lines with modern chip production facilities making modern chips for other customers. The ICE manufacturers and their supply chain were using ten+ year old tech and did not have the necessary talent to create replacement modules using current technology electronic components.


Heck, I've been waiting on Ford to deliver a Transmission Control Unit for my car since October of last year for a warranty repair on a 2015 model. They tell me that maybe this month it may finally arrive. I'm fortunate the car can be driven, else I'd have been doing without a vehicle for seven months while waiting on parts from the factory. Legacy OEMs are struggling in this new age.



Electric vehicles are becoming dominant simply because they make sense. Electric vehicles cost less over their lifetime, have 90% fewer moving parts to fail, you can fill it up at home while you sleep, and in the not too distant future they may not even have a steering wheel and will carry us to our destination autonomously. This is what drives sales of BEVs without even mentioning the climate, or the health benefits.

A similar change is happening in the production of energy. Use of solar panels, wind generation, and large scale battery storage are replacing fossil fuel power plants all over the world at a growing pace, simply because it costs less to make power this way. Getting away from the pollution is just a side benefit. Texas and California are the leading states in this transition in the US.

These are facts that are easily verified. Those who are aware of this will be in a better position to benefit than those who won't take time to verify whether there are any actual facts supporting the stories they base their decisions upon.

Hopefully you will see this more clearly as the evidence of this change stacks up around you. The numbers tell the story for anyone willing to set aside preconceived notions and rhetoric such as "gas hating portion of government" and who will give the information an honest look before dismissing it out of hand.

Thanks for taking the time. I'd rather try to share this now than look back someday wishing I had.

Let me know if I can help with more info, otherwise I'll let it be.
(end copy)

 

[heltok]

I guess the main takeaway is that they are working on manipulation of small objects. Something Boston Dynamic Atlas has not been seen doing and we see very little of from bipedal robots. They manage to move pretty fast but not crush the egg showing haptics, so if the robot accidentally would step on a cat tail or something it might be able to stop before the cat screams. Imo very impressive. And also this helps a lot when interacting with soft objects.

They show a basic feature extraction/detection algorithm used to learn the environment ie SLAM.

Note that most keypoints are in smaller inner square of the images. Maybe they just crop the image at this point. The images seems distorted likely optimized to operate on shorter distances than cars.

Here we can see the camera setup of the robot:

So basically 3 forward facing cameras, 2 sideways facing cameras and 2 downward facing cameras. No rear view, I would have thought that could be handy but I guess the robot will just turn the head/torso to make sure it will not hit anything if it's moving in that space. Seems like an Elon solution, the best part is no part. Anyway an interesting solution, God should take notice when he design humans 2.0.

Later we see some instruction:

Not unlike this work... You can see that the human moves his legs when he is manipulating the objects, but the robot's legs remain fixed. So the robot has translated the movement to only use the upper body. We know that this method works, even just in small scale it quickly learns to master many tasks such as tying shoe laces. Tesla can scale this up and take it to the next level. The industry will need some time to process that this will happen and a lot faster than what most people think.

This image is a gold mine of information, we will see hours of youtube videos dissecting it:

Those kids are living the dream, getting to play with some very expensive toys! They show that the robot finally managed to grab the soft object by itself and celebrate so I assume this was one of the first times it actually worked. Then they need to teach the system to do it repeatedly, I would guess the success rate is an S curve that their data engine is built to solve.

Later they show a setup where the robot is more successful so I guess now the robot has become better at manipulating objects and is training itself:

Note the egg in the background. Clearly they thought eggs are very useful to test the system. Maybe an actual development goal is to be able to cook some eggs. Do I see a smiley face on the egg?! Maybe the egg is like a crash test dummy they are trying to protect, if they can avoid harming an egg then humans should be safe!

It seems like the robot is doing some slightly wasteful moves. I think for now they rely on imitating human moves from its movement library rather than optimizing for energy/time. Basically [how would a human return from this position to the start position], not [NN guided monte-carlo tree search to find the optimal path from start to end]. They will get there eventually, but for now it's imitation.

Finally we see the robots marching and there are more of them. I think that's the message they want to send. There robots are coming and there will be more and more of them:

 

[Sunlight]

As a Tesla shareholder since 2014 and an avid follower of TMC and all things EV, I watch the current situation and the share price with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Of course our earlier investments are still in good shape and only a few later added(during the last drop) are under-water.

It feels to me as if Tesla has launched and cleared the tower(Model 3 ramp) and is now experiencing Max Q – a time of greatest stress before getting to orbit.

People who are here or who have done proper investigation of the fundamentals of Tesla know that it is solid and primed for big growth and success. My feeling is that Tesla is driven now solely by optimising profits to invest in new facilities and R & D to improve margins; efficiencies and so on. Everything is decided on this premise, however odd it may make some decisions appear (Service centres; superchargers; advertising; options; demand/pricing etc).This may have the effect of feeling cold-blooded and lacking in dreams and magic – so be it! Even if it reflects on the depressed share price......

In some ways this is a high-wire act as Tesla is growing hugely virtually based on two models in a few colours and versions! If these hadn't been so successful (or they suddenly fall out of favour),Tesla would be in a little bit of a pickle – which is, I suspect, why so many cautious investors seem to be staying away at present.

Then there is the issue of the Tesla shine which has dimmed a bit with FSD, Cybertruck, revised Model 3 and Y; 4680 battery production; service centres and superchargers and so on lagging a bit on expectations.

But as long as demand is good enough to support growth then all is well and Tesla has a huge number of demand levels to pull should the need become urgent. Including advertising/information supply; greater options in colours/trims/prices/models; upgraded interiors (incl HUD/drivers screen if deemed beneficial); higher profile signage at Superchargers and Service centres; more Service Centres (and Superchargers); additional models if the numbers stack up(hatchback/estate Model 3; boxy Model Y and so on); Cybertruck; Roadster (Halo car if required) and, of course, a cheaper Tesla Model2 (better and cheaper than the best value Model 3) etc etc...

I suspect each and everyone of these options has been assessed by Tesla against cost and need and demand. As so many posters note ,Tesla has mountains of data and little is left to chance.

As a Tesla investor/fan/supporter I also get frustrated by some of the directions Tesla seems to being taking but have faith that none(or very little) is arbitrary and ill-thought out....

Let's clear Max Q and get to orbit – may take a while yet (Cybertruck; big Semi ramp; Model 2 and revised/extended Model 3/Y range)

Last thought – I do find the emotional helter skelter here tiresome sometimes – like a bunch of manic depressives; unadulterated Bulls and determinated Bears.........There are, however, magnificent posters here who are always moderated and informative – useful information.

You know who you are!! Thanks

 

[Sancho]

Ford and GM adopting the Tesla charging standard could be a pivotal moment in how WS perceives Tesla.

Most WS folks I know have been dismissive of Tesla from the start. They have always assumed that legacy auto would eventually overtake the upstart. And for a decade they have twisted every Tesla positive to fit their worldview. For the vast majority it’s not malice, it’s just cognitive rationalization.

Tesla profitable? Only because of energy credits. Highest customer satisfaction? Early adopter fanboys.

But THIS NEWS is mind shifting for WS types, because the recognition of Tesla superiority is not coming from fanboys, but from Big Auto. Their peeps.

Once the veil is pierced, WS may be open to re-examining everything we talk about here. Hmm, MY is now the top selling car. Hmm, M3 costs less than many popular ICE cars. Hmm, drivers using FSD have far fewer accidents. Etc.

Our minds protect ourselves from cognitive dissonance. Until they can’t. And then paradigms shift.

 

[Cosmacelf]

We could conclude many legacy car makers are not that good at making cars.

We are seeing the same destruction in the auto industry that SpaceX delivered to ULA, Boeing, ESA, Roscosmos, etc. It's fascinating that people can look at SpaceX's 85% market share and say "Huh, that's interesting", and not even think that the same CEO, who runs both companies in very a similar manner, could possibly destroy the entire auto industry (save the parts that will be propped up by governments).

SpaceX outcompeted the world with a single heavy manufacturing plant in Los Angeles of all places. Not exactly a cheap labor pool. Not exactly devoid of regulations.

Tesla became extremely competitive with a single plant based a stone's thrown from silicon valley. Again, probably the worst location to site a car manufacturing plant, except maybe Manhattan, but they more than pulled it off.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that with plants in Shanghai, Berlin, Texas, and soon Mexico, Tesla will absolutely obliterate the entire industry. And I do mean obliterate. The only reason they are still standing is that Tesla isn't big enough yet to have a fully fleshed out product line. And of course, we are now seeing the legacy manufacturers calling in their political chips to save their asses. GM and Ford in the US, and even China is now slow rolling Tesla's Chinese expansion plans. It's not going to matter, of course. They can play around at the margins in their government 15% market share sinecure while Tesla eventually owns the lions share of the market.

This assumes, of course, that Elon continues living and/or his management systems have become embedded enough to outlive him. The effective takeover of the auto market will still take another 10+ years, but unless things change drastically, that is absolutely where we are headed.

 

[EQC_]

I disagree with his claim that too many batteries are wasted in EVs that will rarely travel long distances as just about everyone needs to occasionally travel long distances. The proposed solution of hybrids for those occasional long distances disregards the complexity and increased cost and maintenance of hybrid cars. It also ignores that many with hybrid plug ins never plug in.

The biggest issue with the hybrid argument is: they have had their chance, and manufacturers didn't bother to ramp production. That includes Toyota, the biggest hybrid proponent.

Hybrids have been on the global market for over 25 years (Prius in Japan in 1997) and in the US for over 20 years (Prius in 2001), and every manufacturer still produces more basic ICE vehicles than even regular hybrids. The numbers for plug-in hybrids are even more sad.

If my googling is accurate, Toyota sold 2.6 million hybrids globally in 2022. Toyota sold over 10 million vehicles in total in 2022...so after 25 years they are only willing to commit 25% of their production to hybrids. Even Toyota isn't even really trying to push hybrids.

All manufacturers combined was only 2.9 million hybrids, out of 80 million vehicles total sold worldwide in 2022. Under 4%.

Meanwhile, Tesla produced 1.3 million EVs in 2022, will probably hit 1.8-2 million in 2023, and will almost certainly exceed 3 million EVs in 2025.

These numbers should be embarrassing for anybody, especially Toyota, saying hybrids are the solution or that hybrids need more time. Toyota has had 25 years and are only at a 25% hybrid share of their own production. Embarrassing.

Even more cognitively dissonant: Toyota's own materials (their flawed 1:6:90 rule) argue that you can produce 90 hybrids or 6 plug-in hybrids with the batteries required for 1 EV. If that's the case, why didn't or couldn't Toyota secure more battery supply for their hybrids?

Apparently, Toyota's 2.6 million hybrids in 2022 is the equivalent of only 29,000 EV batteries, by their own calculation. Hybridizing the entire Toyota annual production of 10 million cars should only require the battery equivalent of 120,000 EVs, but apparently Toyota can't or won't do it. Tesla puts that many EVs on the road in less than a month.

Continued pushing of hybrids sounds like Toyota admitting either incompetence or a complete lack of caring enough to try.

By Toyota's math, Tesla securing enough batteries for 1.3 million vehicles in 2022 should have been more than enough for every vehicle sold globally to be a hybrid.

I'd be willing to bet that while Tesla grows their EV production 40+% in 2023, Toyota won't grow their hybrid sales by anywhere near those numbers...all while Toyota and the assorted journalists who fall for Toyota's marketing continue to claim hybrids are the solution.

Hybrids *were* the best solution in 2005 or so...but Toyota and everybody else (due to incompetence or by choice) slow rolled it for too long. Now EVs are readily available, desired, and selling in numbers that the hybrid promoters apparently think are impossible.

Toyota's own marketing really is some strong evidence of how much more capable Tesla is....

 

[petit_bateau]

My early thoughts:

1. Lucky accident that in my forecast I got the GAAP EPS correct at $0.78, mainly because of the bump of $328m in the other income line, as auto GM% was below my forecast. But a win is a win, nailed it.

(see the Quarterly Projections thread if you want to stay abreast of that stuff Near-future quarterly financial projections )

2. GM% on energy is now broadly equal to GM% on automotive, i.e. 18% or so in round numbers for illustrative purposes. A 500k/yr vehicle line consumes about 40 GWh/yr of cells. The Lathrop megapack storage line is currently consuming approximately 12 GWh/yr of cells (after allowing for some cells to go into Powerpacks, Powerwalls). This means that the Lathrop line is now the equivalent of about 150,000 vehicles/yr in both revenue and profit terms. You can see that Lathrop now is almost contributing as much revenue and profit as Berlin is now, as Berlin is at about 200k/yr now. When Lathrop reaches 40 GWh/yr it will be equal to about 500k/yr vehicles, i.e. that is the same as the fully built and fully ramped phase 1 of Berlin. It is not obvious whether Berlin phase 1 will get fully ramped to 500k/yr=40GWh/yr before Lathrop reaches the equivalent fully ramped situation. This means that there no longer needs to be any hesitation in selling/ramping/etc storage vs vehicles and that makes overall business strategy decisions so much easier. Well done Lathrop. That makes LFP cell capacity allocation and negotiations so much easier. Plus of course there is the long tail of service/etc income from storage.

This table sets out the approximate situation and the broad equivalency between a 40GWh vehicle line and a 40GWh stationary storage line.

3. This means that decisions on Megapack factories are as important for recipent nations as automotive factories, but that they involve less technology exposure than automotive. That is good as they don't need as much labour/etc as an auto factory. This has huge implications for ability to scale overall business in a way that manages sovereign / political / strategic risk.

4. Berlin capacity is now significantly ahead of Austin capacity. The cell supply situation out of China has perked up now that Shanghai has gone fully LFP, clearing the way for the LG 2170 stream to go to Berlin. As yet the 4680 ramp in Austin has not caught up with the Chinese stream into Berlin (and into Lathrop). Well done to the Chinese LFP suppliers. It is still all about the cells.

5. The improved 4680 for CT sounds to me like same external 4680 can, maybe with decreased wall thickness and perhaps (?) tweaked chemistry. The 4680 ramp is likely the pacing factor for CT launch, and since there is still plenty to do on vehicle shakedown and cell side they don't seem in any hurry. Pencil in Q4 deliveries in low volumes.

6. Volume expansion and operating at full capacity is still the overriding target. Forget all about the waffle in the Q1 call about targetting operating margin. Or in previous calls about any other margin. Or about maintaining positive cash flow. though happily things are - and will continue to be - cash generative and so fully internally funded. Or share price stability. Or anything, except ramping as fast as possible and keeping the lines full. It is quite clear from the actual observable facts, that Tesla will reduce prices and throw in whatever promotional stuff it takes to keep the lines full.

7. This means that the real determinant of Tesla price is - wierdly - the extent to which there are competitive BEVs available from other automakers. The market will obviously take as many credible BEVs as the industry can produce, provided they aren't outrageously priced. So if Tesla has limited competition then Tesla can pretty much hold its own price up to a reasonable extent, with the result that Tesla obtains a (now) 18% or so GM%. And since (at the moment) the competitor BEVs are not as compelling a customer proposition (and their CoGS are higher) then the competitor OEMs are forced into low or negative GM%. It is really difficult to get those numbers, but let's just posit they range from +5% GM to -5% GM with an average BEV competitor of 0% GM. This is why demand for BEVs is collapsing at VAG etc, and they are in a cash crisis. The implication is that Tesla is probably near the bottom on pricing for the time being. Only if the competitors start bringing better products to market in a manner that is financially sustainable for them, will Tesla need to reduce prices. Of course that will happen, and so there may be further Tesla price reductions. But hopefully by then Tesla may have been able to make further CoGS reductions, and obtained further scale benefits, and so stay ahead of the game. But note - in an odd way - given that Tesla prizes capacity expansion above all else, then it is competitor products that now determine Tesla GM% and that is a new realisation for me.

8. Actuators are the pacing constraint on Optimus. Software is constrained by hardware. The hardware cycle is many months, that is the pacing constraint at this stage.

9. FSD will go to market in USA first. One day. Maybe.

10. Yeah, Q3 won't be a lot of growth. We are pretty sure the 3 lines (Shanghai, Fremont) will get a full rebuild and a next-gen 3 product. We don't know how fast they will ramp coming out of that. We don't know what will be done to the Y lines to keep them in lockstep (Berlin, Austin, Fremont, Shanghai). It seems to me that there is no reason for cell production to slow during Q3 (except of course for cell factories to do their hols and line maintenance & updates) and so they can build cells to stock, then that gives excess cells to mop up in Q4. Since vehicle line capacities seem to me to exceed cell line capacities that means that Q4 should be good. FSD-switch promotion to keep deliveries up during Q3 and avoid Osborning. I'm sure they will find enough promotions t keep it going - Herz etc.

11. So 1.8m for the year plus storage.

12. Very steady growth in S&S, nice.

 

[kengchang]

Mod: edited for this thread to emphasize that this is from 2018, not current. --ggr

Been cleaning up my hard drive and came up with this gem. UBS Model 3 Teardown report

 

[Words of HABIT]

Over time, it is almost a guarantee that history will prove you wrong because the Stephenson indicator is linear while the stock market is exponential in nature. Even our covid incentive bubble-fueled period will look tiny fifty years from now.

This is why I like this forum so much. There are people a lot smarter than I posting. After reading the above post from @JusRelax I thought his statement did not apply during periods of euphoria. So I plotted the trend line during TSLA's incredible run-up of 2013-2014 which still feels like yesterday.

I'm thinking no way can this trend line be maintained over the long term. It took six years, however quite to my surprise the 2013-2014 Price Run-up Trend line is completely eclipsed by today's TSLA share price. Interesting that the $102 low of January 2023 marked the bump off the 2013-2014 trend line. So my last post was wrong. The Stephenson Indicator will become the new 2013-2014 low. I'm not expect this tomorrow or even this year or next, but years from now I will look back and again be equally surprised at TSLA's valuation.

Now I'm going to sit back, jusrelax and enjoy the ride.

 

[MC3OZ]

This is a Super Bull post.

What if Tesla spins up all aces on technology under development, what I mean by that is everything under development works in the next 2-3 years.
The end result is greater than the sum of the parts.

1. Single Crystal Cathode - Tesla has a patent on a way of making Single Crystal Cathode and there is the relevant Jeff Dahn research.

Tesla Researcher Demonstrates 100-Year, 4-Million-Mile Battery

One of the biggest concerns about EVs is that the batteries will need replacing after a few years, at great expense. But a Tesla researcher has demonstrated batteries that could potentially outlive most human beings.

www.forbes.com

IMO it seems at least possible that Tesla could make Single Crystal Cathode material in the Austin cathode plant, that requires 2-stage sintering, but as far as I can tell 1-stage sintering is needed to make cathodes.
So the additional costs might be more lithium consumed, and more energy consumed, but the cell lifetime gains probably more than pay for the additional cost. One consideration is NMC-532 might not be sufficient energy density, for Cybertruck, but I assume this also works for higher energy densities,

2. V2G - if Single Crystal Cathode happens at Austin, the cells are a good fit for Cybertruck, Cybertruck has a large battery pack and 1,000 volt architecture then V2G would be a very good fit. Considering that some Cybertruck owners might have off-grid power, it would be a valuable back up for those applications., Battery pack warranties are not a consideration. At one time Jeff Dahn was also researching improving the longevity of LFP cells, we don't know if Tesla would be as happy to support V2G with LFP. If Tesla decides to not do high nickel V2G, it probably isn't for any technical reason,.

3. More Silicon in the Anode - This is probably one of the harder things on the list, I don't expect it before 2026, Tesla had already done some R&D before battery day, IMO this will work, but will take time. But eventually the energy density improvements will make a significant difference to EVs,

4. 4680 production and yield, this is a reason why 3. above may take a back seat for a while. IMO progress is being made and being bullishly optimistic I don't see why 4680 production will not eventually be working smoothly, perhaps as early as 6-12 months, but certainly no later than 2-3 years assuming no unexpected problems. Once it is working well, new factories are essentially a cut-and-paste at least in terms of the equipment, staff recruitment, staff training and raw materials may be the bottleneck.

5. Total picture on batteries, in combination 1.,2.,3.,4. provides high volumes of low cost batteries with good cycle-life and good energy density.

6. 48V architecture, wiring harness, 1,000? volt charging, etc, Higher voltage has advantages for fast charging, probably V2G and probably the electric motors. 48V architectures save weight and copper, but IMO also works well with HW4, steer-by-wire, variable ratio steering and brake-by-wire.

7. $1,000 drivetrain - rare earth free motors, I'm interested to know if this leverages or requires an 1,000 volt architecture, if this is just limited to Gen3 vehicles or if similar principles can be applied to higher spec models.

8. Steer-by-wire, variable ratio steering - Cybertruck may have this, it is a good fit with a 48V architecture and rear wheel steering, the next question is if/when it migrates to other models.

9. Brake-by-wire again this is good fit with a 48V harness with redundant ethernet paths, In particular it seems like a good fit with the Gen3 unboxed process.

10. Cybertruck - most of 1..9 above may be part of Cybertruck or a future upgrade to Cybertruck, it is a distinctive vehicle which is a moving billboard and I think the off-road and towing specs will stack up.

11. Model 3 Highland - possibly not V2G but most of the list above could apply, it could also have Gigacastings and a structural battery pack. All improvements made to Model 3 will also be done to model Y/S/X possibly as early as by the end of 2024.

12. Gen3 - 1..3 probably don't apply, but most of the rest of the list including perhaps 4680 production may apply. FSD is also relevant for Robotaxis. While there may be some teething problems, I expect the unboxed process and the Gen3 production ramp to be a success.

13. FSD - IMO Robotaxis seem possible 2024/2025, that looks like a good fit with the Gen3 ramp, and the Tesla solution seems superior to Cruise and Waymo,

14. Semi 4680 cell production volumes is the main issue. But most of 1..4 may be relevant, and some of 6..9 may eventually be relevant, This is already a good product but further improvement seems possible,

Most of the other areas of the business like energy storage may get some benefits from 1..4, but that isn't essential, no particular technological breakthroughs are required. but some may happen.

We may also see new products like heat pumps, but they are not on this list as it is mainly focused on automotive.

 

[growler23]

I just bought 20. I was planning to holdout until it went under 220 but it's gone down 5 days straight and most of the last month. Had to step in because, you know, it can't keep going lower.

That is my back-of-mind concern as well, particularly given Ford's recent proclamations about the "bright future of Ford Hybrids!"

My spidey senses are telling me there is a lot of fear and concern around my favorite Tesla forum, likely due to the many factors, but amped up to 11 due to the recent stock price slide.
Let me say that I still believe (due to great likelihoods, not a crystal ball) that all is well, and all will be well:
1) Ukraine will win before the West tires of support. The postwar rebuild, while daunting, will enable far faster green tech infrastructure (I have seen articles about these efforts already, even as missiles and shells still fall) that may act as a proof-of-concept for deep green rebuilds elsewhere.
2) The former US president will lose again in 2024, continuing a streak of losses due to the deadly combination of unbeatable single-party-base support that cannot translate to the full electorate. This will lock in, at a minimum, continued existence of the BIL and IRA, and allow the possibility of even more electric transition support in the US level.
3) Europe, with a fire having been lit under it's collective butt by Russian gas extortion and invasion, will continue to expand their lead over the USA in green grid and electric transport.
4) Tesla will release a Cybertruck that is unmatched by anything on the market, continuing Tesla's expansion of awareness into the dark recesses of the mind of the Average American.
5) Tesla will continue to expand the Supercharger network at breakneck pace, with unmet areas eventually being backfilled in the laggard USA by the NEVI-funded chargers, with the plug wars now largely won by NACS, thereby nixing one of the two major hurdles the Average American has against switching to EV (charger availability).
6) Tesla will finish the Monterrey plant in due time, with the massive price drop nixing the second major hurdle the Average American has against switching to EV (price).
7) Tesla will continue its already-set course to build on its massive success in the Megapack market, spreading risk from the vehicle sales market and greening and stabilizing grids everywhere.
All of this is not to mention any of the around-the-globe rumors of additional battery and/or vehicle factories, or the potential for solving human labor as we know it via Optimi, or selling Dojo services, or any other stuff that we bandy about here. In other words,
Be of good cheer y'all, and for the love of Pete:
HODL

--Growler out

 

[Krugerrand]

What was unusual was Tesla making money on new car sales, but the price cuts are backing that out and Elon understands this dynamic + is willing to sell at zero margin like everyone else. Elon believes the combination of autonomy and electrification is necessary to pull this off.

Well, that’s about as big a misrepresentation one can throw out there of what happened, what will happen, and why.

There was nothing unusual about Tesla making money on new car sales. It happened because they made it happen;

-by being a scrappy startup and doing more with less
-by concentrating religiously on efficiencies and cost reductions in every aspect of the business
-by eliminating the middlemen
-by vertically integrating their business in as many ways as they could
-by being business savvy and know how to grow the business and at what speed
-by taking necessary and calculated risks
-by not being unionized and delay monetarily rewarding their employees via stock options thus keeping wages in check and incentivizing them to work hard
-by delay monetarily rewarding their upper management with stock options thus eliminating bloated executive wages and incentivizing them to work hard
-by cultivating a specific culture and living it
-by not being burdened by legacy costs
- and so on

Tesla has hardly given back profits on new cars. They’re still making money hand over fist. How convenient of you to have forgotten what happened in the world the last 3 years as well the rate of growth and expansion of the company and what they’ve done with their money in totality.

Lastly, the driving reason for reduced prices and thus reduced gross margins is to fix the last barrier to the end goal - affordability for ALL.

 

[unk45]

Threads of the day:
The demise of the OEMs Rotating? strikes start any minute now
FSD discussion Douma and DaveT on V12
Elon Musk Biography By Walter Isaacson Walter and Rob chat
"Unboxed" Gen 3 manufacturing Process Single base gigacasting?
Tesla Energy and utility scale projects Autobidder profits
Tesla Optimus Sub-Prime Robot 6-10 weeks? until production ramp starts

https://twitter.com/x/status/1702494684130476494

https://twitter.com/x/status/1702483812016349354

CT event soon?

50,000th:
View attachment 973944

With @Buckminster's always helpful threads of the day as partial context I make this my first post in about three weeks. During that time I have been busy, being asked to drive a 'new' 2023 Kia Niro for more than a week in Corfu, then was induced to hold discussions regarding several related issues; 1. Solar and wind power, 2. reusable rockets and space exploration, 3. labor policy for EV production, 4. EV technology evolution, 5. winners and losers in each.
I was to find that all these interconnected topics were in part raised together due to the early readings of Mr. Issacson's latest tome.That background was conveniently facilitated by offering me an uninterrupted, more or less, 24 hours to read and absorb that book.

Needless to say my head was rapidly spinning. Following my 30 hour long airplane journey I was treated to the Automotive News issue excepts of the day:
UAW launches historic strike against all 3 Detroit automakers; Barra hopes for quick resolution

Tesla closes in on car manufacturing breakthrough

Tesla appears to have solved the "gigacast dilemma," which will allow the automaker to slash EV manufacturing costs.

www.autonews.com

So, I will list in order my tentative conclusions. Other than the two Automotive News links I will not provide other references since each has dedicated threads. The conclusions I reach are that we are reaching the inevitable clash between the past and the future, unlike any other since the Industrial revolution. 'Reaching' vs 'reached' only because denialism is overwhelming facts at this point.
1. Solar and wind- It is now simple, clear and obvious. Solar and wind combine with storage to make other options all more expensive and less dependable. Resistance is formidable even in transparently obvious situations, such as islands. No question!
2. Reusability and rapid iteration are inevitable BUT no 'established' players are capable of doing either. As with '1' above, the formidable resistance is tottering, but still capable of learning.
3. Ah, labor policy. Everyone seems to ignore the singularity rushing in except for the IG Metall/UAW people who both insist on 'protecting' engine and powertrain workers, while nearly everyone discusses the wag demands. Right now we're negotiating to 'protect' farriers and whip makers and resisting any progress at all.
4. EV technology. Automotive News captured the issue succinctly without saying anything explicitly. The two links are on opposite sides fo the front page. The Unions was a richer status quo, while Tesla is riveting new vastly cheaper ways to build cars.
5. Winners and losers: That is now obvious Tesla/BYD/CATL/Vestas/LONGi et al are the winners, Legacy are the losers. SpaceX vs everyone else. Will that change?

As Mr. Isaacson explains, with extreme capability and accomplishments come demons. It remains to be seen if conquering demons is enough. Still, from Mr Isaacson's other books comes the fundamental dilemma between success and destruction, but the changes have been already begun, and time does not regress but stagnation or regression in humanity is always plausible.

Next, trivially. That Kia Niro is proof positive that really excellent ICE engineers will produce a very nice vehicle that minimizes crucial things such as regenerative braking but impresses anybody who knows nothing about how to build elective vehicles.
So, it works, but is not a Tesla! Oddly my conclusions were surprising to the audience, none of whom had actually driven a modern BEV, i.e. Tesla.

My conclusions about the presently evolving labor crises are that politicians will invariably fail to understand fundamental issues so can be related upon to make the wrong choices, especially when they are very, very old.
This should be a time for massive effort to stop worsening fires, floods, droughts. Given the present political conditions of the world nothing much will be done.

I'm old enough that shareholdings will fund my life easily. For young people today I shudder to think of the horrors they'll face.
Am I prejudiced by being so recently surrounded by fires, floods and ignorance of available technology? Influenced, yes. Prejudiced, no!

Stay long TSLA!

 

[EQC_]

This seems to... really misunderstand....like, all parts of how either thing works though?

Lithium does not fuel your car.

Lithium helps you store fuel for your car. Which is electricity (and which is still largely created via fossil fuels today, though an increasingly smaller % of them over time).


None of which changes the fact the mining and environmental impacts of gas cars are vastly worse than EVs, but the lithium=fuel analogy you give, and I've seen many give it, just...should not be a thing.

The battery isn't fuel, it's the fuel tank.

You're indeed correct...but the folks on the other side of the argument comparing lithium to gas might be better convinced (if it's possible to convince them) just comparing mining to mining, or weights to weights, even if the items aren't exactly analagous. The real trouble is that they literally have no idea about the current state of things in terms of the mining or mass of stuff the ICE economy requires.

For example:

Comparing an entire lithium ion battery vs gasoline:
- That battery weighs about 1000 lbs (very round number estimate). People have a feel for what 1000 lbs is, and they think it is a lot.
- Well, how much gasoline does your car burn? Most people literally never see the gasoline that goes into the car, or where it goes, and have no idea how much it actually is. Make them realize the numbers and MAYBE they'll make a connection. My first line on this: the Tesla's battery is warrantied for 120,000 miles (or whatever it is for your car), and is expected to last much much longer. But, sticking just with that 120,000 mile warranty -- how much gasoline does it take to go that far? If their car gets 30mpg, then it takes 4,000 gallons of gas to go 120,000 miles. 4,000 gallons of gas would weigh about 24,000 pounds...and it just gets burned up and sent into the air as ~75,000 pounds of CO2, plus other worse things. Hey Mr. EV_Hater: are you really comparing a recycleable 1000lb battery to the 24,000 lbs of gasoline your car is going to burn up to go 120,000 miles?

Realizing that lithium isn't the fuel, comparing green electricity vs gasoline:
- Yup...but another 1000 lbs of solar panels (probably a big over-estimate?) on my roof will last 25+ years and provide my EV with all the "fuel" it needs, plus power my house. Honestly...if the average driver only goes about 40 miles per day, that requires about 10 kWh of electricity each day, so about 2 or 3 kW of solar panels. So, about 8 of Tesla's 400 Watt panels? A few hundred pounds?
- No, seriously Mr. EV_Hater...how are you going to seriously compare a 1000 lb battery plus 1000 lbs of solar panels to the 10,000+ gallons, or 60,000+ pounds of gasoline you're going to burn in the next 25 years?

 

[dfwatt]

Book has just been published today. This is a previous non-investor thread:
Isaacson Biography of Elon Musk

Reactions of this biography of course are going to be all over the board. As someone in the behavioral sciences who has done empirical research on the psychosocial and behavioral territory that Elon occupies, and who has also clinically treated folks with similar abuse histories, you have to be concerned about both the victim of abuse but also how committed they are to the very painful emotional repair work, which is the only path that avoids the abused becoming a new generation of abuser. That's still very much an open question in my mind, and although Elon appears very devoted to his kids and determined not to go down his father's path, in other ways he appears seduced by the notion that becoming an authoritarian and a powerful bully is the best way to avoid further abuse, particularly the ways which his stormy professional trajectory has involved recapitulations of the abuse, including esp. in the media, where he is like a moth to the flame of trolling and mutual bashing.

The book will likely serve to both increase awareness about the long-term consequences of child abuse but also about how genius, trauma, and extraordinary accomplishment may be much more tied together than we typically appreciate. While these connections have been long appreciated in the arts, perhaps they are true for many if not all forms of Genius.

I do believe that much of the noise in the media about Elon and Tesla (intensified by the book) however miss a few key points, And since I've had this discussion so many times with friends alienated by Elon and some of his less than admirable behavior, I decided to boilerplate it:

Top 8 Reasons to Buy a Tesla Even If You Don't like Elon Musk - Why We Shouldn't Miss the Forest For All the Trees

• If your notion is that CEOs of major companies need to be philosopher kings or show high levels of empathy and prosocial behavior to feel good about buying their products, it's doubtful you could buy anything, including toilet paper. When was the last purchase you made where this question was even relevant? If you're honest, most people answer that the purchase of an EV is one of the few times they've ever even thought about this – largely again because of Elon's polarizing personality and views. 99.99% of the time, people don't even bother to look up to see who the CEO might be for the corporation whose products they are purchasing – and outside of locally sourced food, it's not clear that much of consumer goods (forget about anything technological!) or anything else that you need day-to-day is produced outside of multinational corporations. As a general rule, their CEOs are narcissistic personality disorders or worse – and many of them make Elon Musk look like Citizen of the Year. Forget about GM – Mary Barra just makes *sugar* up all the time and is caught lying and exaggerating on a regular basis, and is relentlessly self-aggrandizing, claiming that she deserves her record high salary because she's done such a great job, as GM sales tank and they miss target after target around EVs. GM killed the original electric vehicle, despite owners loving it because they were concerned it was going to cut into their profits on gas vehicles. So please don't even think about GM! VW group has the grossly sociopathic diesel gate scandal which they have not fully repudiated and where they are still actively acting out their distaste for being sanctioned and being forced to underwrite Electrify America by making all of their chargers unreliable. Ford actually looks the best in this metric, with Jim Farley taking regular helpings of humble pie and being frankly more honest than almost any other automotive CEO in outlining the deep *sugar* his company is in, so I suppose if your criteria for technology is that you have to buy the tech from the nicest CEO, the person you'd most like to have a beer with on a Friday afternoon, he would be your guy. Carlos Tavares of Stellantis is borderline crazy and certainly more grandiose than Elon – at least Elon produces winner after winner, while Carlos just runs his mouth and self-aggrandizes, and blames everybody else for his company's massive electrification failure and non-competitiveness. You absolutely can't support Toyota, because their CEO is drunk on hydrogen bullshit and lying about electrification, and trying to get emission standards rolled back so that he can get a fig leaf to cover the failure of Toyota around electrification, a case of betting on the losing horse big time because the government was paying you to bet on that losing horse. So Toyota and their hydrogen BS is a classic case of not being able to expect somebody to understand something because their salary depends on their not understanding it. Not exactly intellectual or scientific courage in that sense. Honda pretty much ditto. Mitsubishi, Mazda, and almost everybody else in Japan gets docked for denial/obfuscation of climate change urgency and for profoundly underestimating both Tesla and the disruptive technology they are selling, which is driving exponential adoption of electric vehicles. Even such trans-corporate entities as the French National Automotive Manufacturers Group is joining in the sociopathy and outright lying around simply making *sugar* up, claiming that Tesla's and now other companies Giga castings are bad for the environment, unsafe and should be legislated away! The fact that all the French automakers are so far behind Tesla is bad for France, but that's not quite what they're saying. Long story short, how many other purchases do you consider the putative character structure of the CEO in your purchase considerations? And frankly I could make a strong case that although Elon has problems with narcissism, he's not sociopathic and he is if anything honest to a fault. And is that question of CEO character structure really and truly more important than how good and reliable the technology might be, or how committed the manufacturer is to making it the best technology and value that they can for the money? Are you buying a product to do virtue signaling or as vote for the corporate CEO or are you buying a product because you believe it does the job and is well made, and even perhaps class leading? Of course, Tesla is far from perfect, and there are horror stories about Tesla's poor service but just about every car company has those horror stories. We've had nothing but great service, but again anecdotal reports don't mean anything. Tesla for sure has major work do on the service side but that's another story for another time.
• Speaking of caring about the customer, if a corporation consistently makes the safest product in its class that wins all of the crash and other safety tests, year after year after year, it's pretty hard to conclude that the CEO of that Corporation doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody. Driving is after all the most dangerous thing that we all do daily. Tesla's cars and most especially the Model Y win crash test after test, and that's before we even get to the question of active safety, (accident avoidance) where I'd argue they are even farther ahead of most of the competition, quirks of autopilot and FSD aside. So, the product itself contradicts the notion that the Corporation and its CEO don't care about anyone else.
• Speaking of which, Tesla and Elon Musk have done more to advance the cause of sustainable transportation and energy than anybody – and in case you haven't noticed, global warming is accelerating and our transition to sustainability is flagging, excepting around the disruptive technology adoption of electric vehicles and rooftop solar, in good part due to the popularity of Tesla vehicles and the declining cost of solar, again that in part associated with downward pressure on system prices once again coming in good part from Tesla. Electric vehicle sales are on the exponential ramp of the sigmoid curve demonstrated by all disruptive technologies. Where would that transition be without Tesla? In the toilet, or at least a whole lot further behind.
• If you're planning on getting an electric vehicle that does not use the Tesla supercharging network, don't bother driving it on a road trip until you can actually use the Tesla charging network – which is probably at least a year or two away in terms of everybody adopting the NACS charging connection standard. Don't even think about driving cross country and using Charge Point, Electrify America, etc. etc. You'll wish you didn't have an electric vehicle.
• In relationship to the most critical numbers of range, performance, usable space at a given price point, Tesla is still way out ahead of the competition, and they are driving prices down for everybody, in relationship to electric vehicles. Admittedly they have yet to produce a $25,000 vehicle – the so-called Everyman’s car – but that's coming. And their base models of their most popular vehicles (3/Y) are now well under the average purchase price of a new vehicle, even without federal EVs subsidies.
• For all the crap Elon gets, and for sure some of it is deserved around his authoritarian acting-out and intolerance for dissent, he deserves a lot of credit for creating a culture of continuous improvement and refinement at Tesla, pushing back against all the obfuscation and widespread industry bullshit (the so-called ‘accepted wisdom’) about how electrification of transportation was impossible, and being simply unrelenting in his vision of how to create and implement a sustainable future. His ‘algorithm’ as outlined in his recent biography by Isaacson is nothing less than a radical application of the scientific method – question every assumption, and show me the evidence! It's not novel but then again, the ruthless application of these core tenants of the scientific method to the every single aspect of the design and manufacturing process is novel. So, although he has clear problems with pathological narcissism and major problems with empathy, and for many people distasteful political opinions, you have to take the good with the bad or, the bad with the ingenious. He's done more to advance progress towards sustainable transportation and energy than anybody. Yes, he's benefited enormously financially in that process, but I honestly don't believe that he cares that much about being a billionaire, except that it gives him resources and street credibility (and of course the endless media attention that he rather enjoys too much) to tackle his next impossible technological goal – in this case, getting to Mars. Once again, people may consider all that crazy, but people who underestimate Elon and how capable he is of getting nearly impossible technological objectives completed have been proven wrong over and over – see the reusable rockets story. I do think he will find it a whole lot harder to stay on Mars than to get to Mars . . . but that's another story.
• Tesla's software is simply industry-leading in so many ways – and electric vehicles are basically electric drivetrain skateboards with a whole lot of computing power. Tesla has made us take for granted the notion of a full operating system revision . . . .in cars! Once again, a massive disruption of the establishment meme that the car you got five years ago is exactly the same today as when you bought it. No longer true. While on the subject, vertical integration and doing things in-house – something that the legacy automakers can't do because they're getting dozens and dozens of controllers from different sources with different software operating each of them – is clearly the way to go. Ford can't even do a true operating system update because of this. They wish they could but they can't, at least not yet.
• Tesla cars are simply lots of fun to drive. While this is trivialized, it keeps people engaged in what is otherwise a boring task. An engaged driver is a lot safer than a bored one. As somebody once said, your job in life is to just remain at least moderately amused most of the time! So this is a big plus even though people trivialize it.
• And while were on the subject of this, although there are for sure problem with autopilot and the full self driving beta that isn't really full self driving, these computer-based driving aids make long distance driving less tiring, less stressful and therefore less dangerous. Tesla is also way closer to solving the deceptively complex puzzle box of full self driving than anybody else. Way closer. And although you can argue about whether single modality visual processing is the way to go on this, there is absolutely no question that Tesla taking a neural network approach is a far smarter pathway than what other folks are doing.

 

[EQC_]

Please, do share the details about how the Corolla is better, if you would be so kind.

...might be one possible response.

And we all know what the answers will be:

- I heard about a Tesla that caught fire, so I assume it happens constantly. I have never googled "car fire" for any other brand, but I assume it never happens.

- My friend told me Teslas have panel gaps. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad. I have never inspected any car's panel gaps or checked for perfect gap symmetry around a car before, and don't actually care about this.

- I was once passing time watching videos on my cell phone all day, and the battery only lasted 8 hours. I can't have a car that has a battery that dies only 8 hours into the day! How will I get home from work?

- I heard that batteries wear out. I get a new cell phone every couple years, and I'm pretty sure if I kept it longer than that the battery wouldn't hold a charge anymore. I don't want to replace my whole car every two years because the battery becomes useless!

- I heard that EV battery weighs 1000 pounds and takes a lot of energy to mine and manufacture and then you throw it in the landfill after a few years. I have never looked into actual battery life or recycling. I also have no idea that driving 15,000 miles a year in my 30 mpg gas car means that I am buying and burning 500 gallons a year...literally 3000 pounds of gasoline burned up and spread into the atmosphere EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR I drive my gas car. If pushed on this issue, I might pretend I would buy a 50 mpg Prius to "fix" this problem...and fail to realize that still burns 300 gallons = 1800 pounds of gasoline every year.

- My friend told me that he heard that his cousin's friend's coworker has a Tesla and it has been in the shop for weeks. He crashed it into a tree. Also, it's actually a different EV, but we call them all Teslas. And he sometimes drinks and drives.

- I heard the autopilot will kill you. I assume autopilot is mandatory on Teslas, and I can't trust a computer to drive while I supervise and can regain full control in an instant. That's crazy! However, I do occasionally go out drinking and pay a random stranger to drive me home in an Uber...while I am impaired and can't even reach any of the controls.

- Elon said a bad thing on Twitter! And let other people say bad things on Twitter! And he called somebody pedo guy! And he went "union busting" by pointing out UAW workers don't get stock options. And some factory workers did racist things and Elon wasn't everywhere stopping them all! And he grew up in South Africa so I blame him for everything bad that happened there. And that emerald mine! It's like blood diamonds! He was born so rich and just used his daddy's money to build cars and spaceships! And that tunnel company will never work because my friend Chuck told me so.

 

[2daMoon]

And I don’t buy the “they’re already selling every car they make” argument either. If that was true, why have prices dropped so much?

Perhaps you don't have the necessary security clearance to access the Secret Tesla Master Plan.
If that is the case it would be understandable how you could be out of the loop on the bigger picture.

Here's the relevant bit, taken from the document linked above, published in 2006.
Don't tell anyone I've shared this secret information publicly, my Secret-level clearance could be revoked.

​

"The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model."​

Maybe this will help to grok the concept that there may be other, valid, documented reasons for lowering prices that have absolutely nothing at all to do with any alleged absence of demand.

The reason why Tesla prices have "dropped so much" is simply because they are making more of them. Economy of Scale allows them to bring prices lower as production capacity grows.

Tesla's goal isn't to maximize profits, it is to get as many of these cars in the hands of drivers as quickly as they possibly can. To accomplish this, they closely monitor supply and demand and frequently adjust prices, both up and down, in order to regulate the flow of vehicles from factory to consumer.

The more vehicles Tesla makes, the lower the prices will be.

If you see prices going down on Tesla vehicles, that is but a sign that everything is going according to plan.


Suggested reading:

Master Plan Part Deaux​

​

Master Plan Part 3​

 

[JusRelax]

Japanese automaker Toyota is close to being able to manufacture solid-state batteries at the same pace as existing batteries for electric vehicles, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Monday. Toyota says that mass production of solid-state batteries may start by 2027 or 2028.
I literally CANNOT wait…

Here's a list of Toyota's announced solid state claims dating back to 2011:

Toyota Solid state claims

Announced Estimated commercial production date Link
2011 2015-2020 https://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/10/toyota-20111019.html
2017 2020 Toyota's new solid-state battery could make its way to cars by 2020 | TechCrunch
2019 2020 Toyota May Introduce Solid-state Batteries for Electric Cars By 2020 | Digital Trends
2021 2025 https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-battery-bev-hev-solid-state-future-investment/
2023 2027 Toyota's Solid-state Batteries Will Offer A Range Of 745 Miles And Charge In Under 10 Minutes!