Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[Perfectlogic]

@Perfectlogic
What would it take for you to change your mind?
Also - how certain are you that you are right on a 0-100% scale?

It's a healthy exercise to be honest to oneself about what it would take to change a position.

How certain I am that the residential solar model isn't financially viable and won't be for at least 5 years? I would say 90% sure. 99% that it isn't viable today. 80% that it won't be viable even in 10 years time.

What would change my mind about its viability today is someone pointing out something I have missed which seems very unlikely to me, I have spent a lot of time on this. In the future residential solar will somehow need to reduce cost much faster than utility scale even though it is the same tech. Or both would have to drop extremely low in price, something like 80%+ so the distribution savings that could be made would be significant enough to tip the scales.

But of course, even though the residential solar isn't financially viable it can still be a success, and SCTY could be a success. So far SCTY has grown a lot on the back of the large subsidy of net metering on top of the 30% ITC. As long as the large subsidies continue residential solar demand will be alive and kicking. But if net metering goes away, SCTY is gone the next day, we saw this in Nevada.

 

[Papafox]

Am I missing something here about Powerwall economics? A daily cycler Powerwall will be able to time shift 7kWh of power every day.

Assuming that a 7kWh Powerwall costs $9K installed price and lasts 10 years (kinda generous assumptions), a Powerwall thus costs $9000 / (365 days * 7 kWh * 10 years) = $0.35/kWh.

There is currently no state that I know of that has a $0.35/kWh difference in price between peak and non-peak, or between wholesale price and residential price. Even in a state that doesn't have NEM, Powerwalls don't make sense?

I've considered the Powerwall but I'm waiting for a lower-cost version, such a 3.0. The main advantage of such a battery is that it allows a house to continue functioning when the grid goes down. In locations such as Hawaii which see more than their fair share of blackouts, the Powerwall would be a welcome addition to a house. At present, my rooftop solar panels are useless when the grid is down, but the Powerwall works as a buffer and would allow solar panels to continue providing power during a blackout. Load shifting would just be another use for the battery, rather than its primary use, and I believe many other homeowners share this philosophy.

 

[landis]

Assuming that a 7kWh Powerwall costs $9K installed price and lasts 10 years (kinda generous assumptions)

Generous, really?
This is where the 'synergy' actually comes into play. Inverters built into the storage with direct DC for charging storage at higher efficiency, and lower equipment and installation cost.

Maybe go back and listen again or read the transcript from Thursday morning call. I found it interesting that the written form (without the halting delivery) is at odds with much posted up thread. ;-)

 

[landis]

Load shifting would just be another use for the battery, rather than its primary use, and I believe many other homeowners share this philosophy.

Exactly, If you remember, at the original Powerball reveal, its cost was (correctly IMO) compared to whole house generator backup. This 2-for-1 is yet another 'synergy'.

Edit: fixed typo (to house)

 

[Sparky]

Unlike Nevada, though, Hawaii grandfathered in existing rooftop solar installations, and so Solar City will continue making money on their existing installations and people such as myself will continue selling back excess electricity at attractive rates, rather than at ridiculously-low rates. I am fortunate because federal and state incentives paid for 2/3rds of the installation cost and I reached break-even at the 4 year point.

I'm in agreement although somewhat reluctant to post since I think much of this generic solar conversation belongs in a different thread (but it's the weekend!).
I just received a letter from my local water and power company explaining that due to the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility leak and shutdown, I should expect rolling blackouts this summer and possibly in winter also. So, how valuable to the utility is is my rooftop solar now? I'd like them to answer since I'll bet they're very glad to have it in the mix.
In 2008, my roof was doing nothing but keeping the rain and wind out of my house. I had a new guest bathroom add/makeover which cost around $10k. I did a self-install of 3kW solar on my Spanish-tile roof for a net cost of $8.5k. That investment netted about 18% annual return. The bathroom, not so much, until we sell.
I'm a big proponent of solar rooftop PV in addition to utility-scale PV. In drought-stricken SoCal it's also a water-saver (gas-gen uses steam) I just wish the utility would see it the same way.

 

[pGo]

Generous, really?
This is where the 'synergy' actually comes into play. Inverters built into the storage with direct DC for charging storage at higher efficiency, and lower equipment and installation cost.

Maybe go back and listen again or read the transcript from Thursday morning call. I found it interesting that the written form (without the halting delivery) is at odds with much posted up thread. ;-)

So how much do you see the combination will help save?

Most people will switch only when they see savings that is long lasting and sooner and provides improvement over existing systems like utility. I don't see that happening in Florida for next 5 years. At least . The potential residential market seems limited to me. Utility and huge commercial installation using power packs can be huge.

 

[Vitold]

[...]
With solar + battery, payoff will take even longer time.

There are markets where more subsidies make installation possible, however going completely off grid is not something most people will rely on from solar+ battery unless it's proven for long periods of time.

In mature markets, Solar city spends more money acquiring customers than actual panel cost. This doesn't sound too good for Tesla IMO.

That is a good argument for converting Tesla EV customers into solar customers. Battery payoff will be a lot shorter once solar+batteries will be integrated into the grid so Utility can control it.

 

[JBRR]

How certain I am that the residential solar model isn't financially viable and won't be for at least 5 years? I would say 90% sure. 99% that it isn't viable today. 80% that it won't be viable even in 10 years time.

What would change my mind about its viability today is someone pointing out something I have missed which seems very unlikely to me, I have spent a lot of time on this. In the future residential solar will somehow need to reduce cost much faster than utility scale even though it is the same tech. Or both would have to drop extremely low in price, something like 80%+ so the distribution savings that could be made would be significant enough to tip the scales.

But of course, even though the residential solar isn't financially viable it can still be a success, and SCTY could be a success. So far SCTY has grown a lot on the back of the large subsidy of net metering on top of the 30% ITC. As long as the large subsidies continue residential solar demand will be alive and kicking. But if net metering goes away, SCTY is gone the next day, we saw this in Nevada.

Can you define viable in a quantifiable way? Would be interested in making a bet at those odds.

 

[techmaven]

Am I missing something here about Powerwall economics? A daily cycler Powerwall will be able to time shift 7kWh of power every day.

Assuming that a 7kWh Powerwall costs $9K installed price and lasts 10 years (kinda generous assumptions), a Powerwall thus costs $9000 / (365 days * 7 kWh * 10 years) = $0.35/kWh.

There is currently no state that I know of that has a $0.35/kWh difference in price between peak and non-peak, or between wholesale price and residential price. Even in a state that doesn't have NEM, Powerwalls don't make sense?

How are these generous assumptions? Generous would be 20 years. Average is likely 15+. Installed price is more like $7k, and much less if installing as part of an existing plan for a SolarEdge SE7600 inverter based solar setup. The parts addition is then $4k or so, maybe $500 in specific labor and setup (generous amount). Using generous assumptions, the price is closer to $0.102 per kWh.

Of course, we are using existing pricing with LG supplied cells. And residential is the least interesting of Tesla Energy's products.

 

[Perfectlogic]

Can you define viable in a quantifiable way? Would be interested in making a bet at those odds.

What I meant was that given a level playing field, residential solar would be the cheapest option, for it to be financially viable.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Yeah agreed - however, I feel like only signatures and founders editions have been issued and it seems like the majority have been manufactured (maybe not delivered).

No, go look at Mod X orders and deliveries thread for EU. A lot of production versions, both P90D and 90D have gotten vins in the past weeks. I know a friend in Estonia who got a VIN to his production P90D two weeks ago, I myself still hope for a VIN in the coming days. Neither of us sees the car before end of Q3, if even then...

And I have no better predictions, but I'd take 1-2k cars off the VIN accounting to be on the safe side on the estimate based on EU assignment rates.

 

[JBRR]

What I meant was that given a level playing field, residential solar would be the cheapest option, for it to be financially viable.

Cheapest option compared to all other forms of energy production? Including externalities?

 

[Perfectlogic]

Cheapest option compared to all other forms of energy production? Including externalities?

I was just thinking compared to utility scale solar, not that that makes much of a difference, I think it is very unlikely fusion comes online in the next 10 years. Not interested in betting though.

 

[gene]

I'm arguing for utility scale solar instead of residential as I don't like wasting money, so the air quality would be just as good in that case.

I argue against utility scale solar based on loss of critical wildlife habitat, use of ugly transmission lines and waste the resources going into those lines. Solar power should be produced on the rooftops of buildings in the location that the power is consumed.

 

[FredTMC]

U.S. Market Futures started about 20min ago. Currently only down 0.5%

 

[Perfectlogic]

I argue against utility scale solar based on loss of critical wildlife habitat, use of ugly transmission lines and waste the resources going into those lines. Solar power should be produced on the rooftops of buildings in the location that the power is consumed.

You can't always get everything you want, we don't have infinite ressources. Right now residential solar is literally 4 times as expensive as utility scale, transitioning away from FF as fast/efficiently as possible is priority #1, we can worry about the desert scorpions when we done destroying the planet for all life.

 

[VanE]

I was just thinking compared to utility scale solar, not that that makes much of a difference, I think it is very unlikely fusion comes online in the next 10 years. Not interested in betting though.

I don't think that the first commercial fusion reactors will be operational within the next 30-50 years. ITER will be fully operational in the late 2020's (hopefully!) and than it will take at least another 20 years to build the first commercial reactor! I really hope that we will see the first large commercial reactors in the 2050's.

 

[sub]

I live in California and put an 8kw system on my house 4 years ago, haven't paid a cent for electricity since. I calculate roughly an 18% return on my investment. I put off buying for a year because I didn't want to spend available cash at that time and I wanted to own, not lease a system. However, statistics say that a small minority of home owners have the cash to pay for a system up front. If I had a battery also it would only take me 2-3 more years for the system to pay for itself without using any rate arbitrage (current payback time ~6 years).

BTW, I like that the forum no longer shows ignored posters content when they are quoted (I think?) but it looks like people are arguing with themselves . I had to show blocked content a couple pages back to see which a--clown was spewing FUD today.

 

[gene]

You can't always get everything you want, we don't have infinite ressources. Right now residential solar is literally 4 times as expensive as utility scale, transitioning away from FF as fast/efficiently as possible is priority #1, we can worry about the desert scorpions when we done destroying the planet for all life.

Thank you, you are making my point. We do not have unlimited resources. Rooftop solar puts the power generation closest to where it is being used. Utility scale solar uses huge amounts of resources for transmission and politically still allows "the man" to control our lives. In Denmark, you have 400% the population density of here in the USA. In the USA, our wildlands have great value to us and the wildlife who live there. I've lived in a few European countries and found them quite lonely in the sense that all there is is people everywhere. Zero wildlife, zero true nature. We can save resources with rooftop solar, we can save our wildlife as well by not scraping clean and fencing their lands to profit the utilities. In European countries there is little to zero public lands so I think Perfectlogic, it is not in your culture to comprehend this. We in the USA with our wise choice to save lands for the public, administered by BLM, USFWS, NPS, and USFS would like our public lands to remain public, not be parted out for utilities to panel up, while we easily could have paneled the houses and buildings in cities.

Environmental impacts of utility-scale solar

Utility-Scale Solar’s Impact On The Land

 

[geneclean55]

Yeah agreed - however, I feel like only signatures and founders editions have been issued and it seems like the majority have been manufactured (maybe not delivered).

No, go look at Mod X orders and deliveries thread for EU. A lot of production versions, both P90D and 90D have gotten vins in the past weeks. I know a friend in Estonia who got a VIN to his production P90D two weeks ago, I myself still hope for a VIN in the coming days. Neither of us sees the car before end of Q3, if even then...

Looking at it through the lens of q2 deliveries, i would say that you are both correct. Certainly VINs for European customers with production MXs have been given. But looking at the EU MX deliveries thread these seem to be mainly in the 8000 and higher VIN range. Personally, I would say its a crapshoot whether VINS in the range of 7-9000 get delivered by end of q2 even in the US. If i saw lots of VINs in the 3-7000 range scheduled for European delivery then i would be concerned about q2 numbers. It is true however that some Europeans who were scheduled for June deliveries got pushed back , which is unfortunate.
China on the other hand is a complete black box to me at this stage regarding MX deliveries apart from the picture of 6 vehicles that i saw posted.