Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[tinyrodent]

Sorry if this has already been posted, but does someone have a link containing all of the Battery Day slides?

Tesla Battery Day Slides 2020/09/22

 

[Artful Dodger]

Roadrunner is building high nickel cells only for now:

Whole Mars Catalog @WholeMarsBlog · 1h
Replying to @elonmusk

"elon, are you guys making 4680 cells with three different cathodes? or when you talked about a diversified approach were you talking about your external suppliers?"

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 1h

"Suppliers. We’re only doing high energy nickel ourselves, at least for now. Also, maybe the presentation wasn’t clear that we’ve actually had our cells in packs driving cars for several months. Prototypes are trivial, volume production is hard."​

Cheers!

 

[Boomer19]

We still don't know whether those cells in those packs are counted as prototype or production

does it matter much at this point?

drew said they’ve done 10s of thousands of cells and 1000s of kilometers of electrode

did the plaid at laguna seca have 4680s?

protype/pilot/production - important thing is:
elon said volume production will need some time, in his tweet prior to BD, and in the BD presentation.
- benchtop to lab to pilot to volume production - with new problems to solve at each step, i’d guess known unknowns, unknown knows, and unknown unknowns
(sorry for the mcnamara rumsfeld lingo)

 

[Mokuzai]

Whole Mars Catalog @WholeMarsBlog · 1h
Replying to @elonmusk

"elon, are you guys making 4680 cells with three different cathodes? or when you talked about a diversified approach were you talking about your external suppliers?"

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 1h

​

"Suppliers. We’re only doing high energy nickel ourselves, at least for now. Also, maybe the presentation wasn’t clear that we’ve actually had our cells in packs driving cars for several months. Prototypes are trivial, volume production is hard."​

I gathered that they had the batteries in production based on the event...I mean they showed the plaid S dominating Laguna Seca...

Is wall street really this dense? Stupid question I know...clearly we all know the answer.

And the institutional investors got a tour of the actual production line confirmed by Gali. There's no excuse...the stock should be to the moon now.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Yeah, it’s good for some laughs. StMP vs GJ.
https://youtu.be/VhXjbavkuJQ

edit: Hint: Competition is coming next year.

 

[mickle]

Just wanted to be a bit more precise so did this drawing. I'm sure there's some math that could calculate it but I'm into hexagons:

 

[Artful Dodger]

Silicon anode 5% improvement - Ranking last because very little was said about this step, and it's a bit out of left field. Nobody was expecting some sort of elastic polymer to allow for silicon expansion.

Yeah, it's in the scientific literature:

Huang, Q., Song, J., Gao, Y. et al. Supremely elastic gel polymer electrolyte enables a reliable electrode structure for silicon-based anodes. Nat Commun 10, 5586 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13434-5​

This year old paper shows its still a work in progress, but colombic eff. is already over 99.9% and it is an active topic of research.

Cheers!

 

[AudubonB]

i hit disagree by accident instead of funny.

my tmc trigger finger accuracy with comment reaction choices is ~70% on the iphone. am i the only one who can’t hit the broad side of a barn with likes, funnies, etc, using mobile? and i’m only 41, with good vision and motor skills. jeeze
(sorry, weekend thoughts)

If yer only 41 yer not a Boomer. If yer motor skills & vision are going, then maybe you are, but that is coincident with forgetting how old you are.

 

[Boomer19]

If yer only 41 yer not a Boomer. If yer motor skills & vision are going, then maybe you are.

perhaps. but the handle is because my dog Boomer.

as far as me, i’m 41 going on uncle junior

(from sopranos - as far as ornery...
less the criminality and sociopathy, of course)

 

[CaliBear1]

It just occurred to me that the survival rate of aircraft accidents will go up significantly when jet fuel is eliminated from the equation. Some of our resident aviation experts can disabuse me of this notion, but I believe most accidents occur at landing and take off and it’s the burning jet fuel that causes the most damage. I know batteries burn, but usually not instantaneously, thus allowing for precious minutes for survivors to evacuate. I hope this is another way Tesla’s battery innovations can benefit society.

They surveyed the land and liked the lithium content of the clay, the silicon rich sand and adjacent salt deposit. They'll be doing research, loads of cells, materials processing - oh and they might need an airport for SEVTOL - Supersonic Electric Vertical Take Off and landing.

It's interesting that most of the electric plane research projects are low altitude light planes, when it might be better for an electric (or hybrid) plane to be optimised for high-latitude, thin air, less drag flight. You need lots of power for take-offs, aborted landings, otherwise you want efficient cruise. Optionally at a high speed if you want supersonic, less important if replacing Boeing's MBA-optimised failures.

 

[Chenkers]

I think the 'solar panels' are actually thermal hot water tubes. If you look closely you can see through the 'panels'. These tube are mostly manufactured in China and afford excellent energy efficiency.

They appear to be Evacuated Tube Solar collectors for generating hot water. Usually used in domestic hot water situations and very common in China. This type of collector generally generates much hotter water than a flat panel, beyond boiling pooint in a pressurised system. The amount of panels they have would generate a trivial amount of hot water for a facility of that size so not sure what they would be used for. Possibly to locally boost the water temperature from hot water produced using a heat pump.

 

[tinyrodent]

Texas factory update. Includes a flyover of the newly acquired plot of land.

 

[Prunesquallor]

It just occurred to me that the survival rate of aircraft accidents will go up significantly when jet fuel is eliminated from the equation. Some of our resident aviation experts can disabuse me of this notion, but I believe most accidents occur at landing and take off and it’s the burning jet fuel that causes the most damage. I know batteries burn, but usually not instantaneously, thus allowing for precious minutes for survivors to evacuate. I hope this is another way Tesla’s battery innovations can benefit society.

Accident Statistics

If I interpret this correctly, then no, most accidents are loss of control inflight (LOC-I) and controlled flight into terrain (CFIT). Fatalities probably don’t depend on fuel load.

 

[Chenkers]

"Suppliers. We’re only doing high energy nickel ourselves, at least for now. Also, maybe the presentation wasn’t clear that we’ve actually had our cells in packs driving cars for several months. Prototypes are trivial, volume production is hard."​

I expect they would be using the CATL LFP cells for shorter range applications while they build 4680 production capacity. Troy had noted a rumor that the current 10 day shutdown in Shanghai will be used to change the SR+ packs over to LFP. According to CATL their LFP packs are also meant to be used in cars outside of China, so possibly Fremont SR+ at some point.

But I can't see CATL continuing to scale LFP production to meet Teslas long term production needs. Especially with SR+ constitutuing nearly half of Model 3 production. Once Tesla has scaled 4680 production facilities they will likely introduce their own LFP cathodes in 4680 cells for shorter range products. Possibly as early as sometime in 2022.

 

[Todd Burch]

It just occurred to me that the survival rate of aircraft accidents will go up significantly when jet fuel is eliminated from the equation. Some of our resident aviation experts can disabuse me of this notion, but I believe most accidents occur at landing and take off and it’s the burning jet fuel that causes the most damage. I know batteries burn, but usually not instantaneously, thus allowing for precious minutes for survivors to evacuate. I hope this is another way Tesla’s battery innovations can benefit society.

I think most fatalities in aircraft accidents are a result of going from 300 mph to 0 mph in an uncomfortably brief period of time.

 

[Mo City]

Texas factory update. Includes a flyover of the newly acquired plot of land.

Good stuff. The new plot fits like a piece in a puzzle and makes the far northern area Tesla already owned more useful.

Looking at the size of the current area of construction as compared to the entire land mass Tesla owns shows they could easily build two additional equal-sized facilities (and probably a third). Based on Battery Day, no doubt we could have a legitimate terafactory before 2030.

Go to 14:00 to specifically see the new plot.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Roadrunner is building high nickel cells only for now:

Whole Mars Catalog @WholeMarsBlog · 1h
Replying to @elonmusk

"elon, are you guys making 4680 cells with three different cathodes? or when you talked about a diversified approach were you talking about your external suppliers?"

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 1h

"Suppliers. We’re only doing high energy nickel ourselves, at least for now. Also, maybe the presentation wasn’t clear that we’ve actually had our cells in packs driving cars for several months. Prototypes are trivial, volume production is hard."​

Cheers!

Yes, and I think “for now” means until Giga Berlin is operating. I think Giga Berlin will make 4680 cells with nickel manganese cathode based on this slide,

and Elon’s Berlin interview (6:10) where he implies Berlin Model Y will use the new 4680 structural pack.

 

[SPadival]

Roadrunner is building high nickel cells only for now:

Whole Mars Catalog @WholeMarsBlog · 1h
Replying to @elonmusk

"elon, are you guys making 4680 cells with three different cathodes? or when you talked about a diversified approach were you talking about your external suppliers?"

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 1h

"Suppliers. We’re only doing high energy nickel ourselves, at least for now. Also, maybe the presentation wasn’t clear that we’ve actually had our cells in packs driving cars for several months. Prototypes are trivial, volume production is hard."​

Cheers!

Thanks Elon. I have been arguing about this on Twitter

https://twitter.com/s_padival/status/1309055897919016962?s=21

Further, I don’t think suppliers will switch over to the new format. It just doesn’t make business sense. Pana only recently started making a profit on their multi billion $ Giga 1 investment. Why would they spend capex now only to see Tesla making all of their own cells in a couple of years time.

Voicing this because I think it is important for investors to set their expectations clearly. Otherwise, I would never discuss these things in public and be seen as a Debbie Downer.

 

[Big Time]

There’s a huge demand problem for batteries. Who’s going to buy these new low cost long range batteries? And why would they when they can just go to the Pump n’ Munch.

 

[brianhn1]

It just occurred to me that the survival rate of aircraft accidents will go up significantly when jet fuel is eliminated from the equation. Some of our resident aviation experts can disabuse me of this notion, but I believe most accidents occur at landing and take off and it’s the burning jet fuel that causes the most damage. I know batteries burn, but usually not instantaneously, thus allowing for precious minutes for survivors to evacuate. I hope this is another way Tesla’s battery innovations can benefit society.

Have to separate into two groups: general aviation (GA) and commercial airliners. Airliners had gotten very safe with nearly zero fatality accidents for the past decade except for a few recent high profile accidents (eg. 737 MAX).

GA on the other hand is almost all the other aircraft from gliders, experimental, Elon's G650, to Bill Gates' two Gulfstreams. Most common GA accidents are because of pilot error due to loss of control (eg. low altitude stall or spin) or controlled flight into terrain (eg. Kobe's CFIT). Typically nobody is going to make it alive out of accidents like those unless you have an ejection seat or airframe parachute (eg. Cirrus SR22, Cirrus Vision Jet SF50, etc.).

Other common causes are engine or fuel related. Yes not noticing fuel tanks are running empty happens quite a bit.

Elon has aspirations for an electric VTOL and he likely has a design somewhere with Tesla 4680 batteries, Tesla prototype motors, SpaceX avionics (for navigation, auto land, auto takeoff), SpaceX airframe design, and SpaceX emergency backup propulsion via Super Draco thrusters. He can solve those three issues above easily by having only autopilot and having redundant propulsion. The problem is the market is going to be quite small as a personal aircraft even if he decides to aim to replicate the performance of his own current aircraft (large GA subsonic long range flying sofa queen) and a fighter jet. Certification will take years since the FAA is the most efficient gov't agency (sarcasm).

Y'all better hope TSLA stock goes up 100x so ya'll can afford to put down a deposit on one. That would be one hell of a humble brag post that would put all the Plaid S deposit posts to shame!