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

[Beltsbear]

Sure they do. Even if they don't keep the car a 500K mile interior and exterior means more resale value. I kept the first new vehicle I purchased for twenty years (no idea how many miles as the odometer c c c c c stopped working around 150K). You shouldn't have to purchase a new car every few years. I would not have traded in the 2013 S this year were it not for the additional safety features and ease of entry in the X.

Wut? If I own a car that is 10 years old but has a crazy high resale value it means it is easier and more likely for me to buy a new car. On top of that more cars at 15 years will be disassembled for batteries. In the extreme, conversation companies may source 15 year old cars in mass. There may be a market to actually refurbish cars as well, especially for popular cars like the 3 and Y will become.

TLDR: long battery life will only reduce new car sales a bit , not nearly as much as the lifespan would indicate. FSD is a very different story and that might hurt new car sales.

 

[mrdoubleb]

They said Berlin will start with Y, but you can bet 3 won’t be far behind. They have to be careful about the Osborne effect.

Sure, but they haven't even started building the buildings for phase 2 they just started clearing the trees for that. So far they said phase 1 is for Model Y. That may or may not be true.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Not sure there is any urgency for producing 3 in Berlin. The 3 production capacity in Fremont and Shanghai is probably sufficient for the world market. If the $25k smaller car (better suited to the European market) is only 2 years after Berlin starts model Y production then it seems likely that the focus will be on that as the second mass market vehicle produced in Berlin. It would be nice if some Semi production (and possibly the European version of Cybertruck) came prior to that.

I for one would love to buy a Model 3 for as much as the Americans do (plus our beautiful 27% VAT) but right now would be paying net 9k USD extra on top of the US price. This also means the car falls outside the upper limit of our EV incentives... So a Model 3 SR+ costs exactly 2x the VW ID3 base (smaller battery) here.

 

[Jack6591]

The Tesla trade is the best way to invest in a solution to global warming

Overcoming climate change.

 

[gabeincal]

Good Morning from a Bay Area Supercharger!

Notice the closed retail mall store behind. Their name was Last Call. Ironic...

 

[jw934]

The Tesla trade is the best way to invest in a solution to global warming

.

FUD from that Business Insider article published 2 hours ago:
"It also happened when Tesla was operating essentially one factory, selling one or two models at a time, struggling to validate a home-solar business, and delivering fewer than 500,000 cars a year. Over the next couple of years, Tesla should cross that 500,000 mark.
"

 

[hobbes]

GF1 getting more solar panels
Tesla Gigafactory Nevada ramps installation of new rooftop solar panels

View attachment 599375

Just spotted what looks like solar panel mounts to me on the roof of the drive unit building of Giga Berlin in The Wolfpack´s latest drone footage .
View in this pic is east. Maybe someone with solar installation expertise can chime in if that makes sense?

 

[CorneliusXX]

Wut? If I own a car that is 10 years old but has a crazy high resale value it means it is easier and more likely for me to buy a new car. On top of that more cars at 15 years will be disassembled for batteries. In the extreme, conversation companies may source 15 year old cars in mass. There may be a market to actually refurbish cars as well, especially for popular cars like the 3 and Y will become.

TLDR: long battery life will only reduce new car sales a bit , not nearly as much as the lifespan would indicate. FSD is a very different story and that might hurt new car sales.

I wonder about the second life question for batteries and how they will be affected by pricing.

We've seen the path to a 50% cost reduction in cells on battery day - that puts an upper limit on the resale valve of a second life pack (And that's just what we know about so far). So max price for a used pack is current new price x .5 for innovation x .7 for remaining cell capacity × .75? For shorter remaining lifespan.

It might turn out that recycling is going to be the economic choice over second life if the pace of innovation continues at the new rate set by battery day.

 

[Singuy]

FUD from that Business Insider article published 2 hours ago:
"It also happened when Tesla was operating essentially one factory, selling one or two models at a time, struggling to validate a home-solar business, and delivering fewer than 500,000 cars a year. Over the next couple of years, Tesla should cross that 500,000 mark.
"

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

.....Sometimes a timeline acceleration happens because a disrupted technology reaches a point where it becomes unviable and collapses early. Those early collapses can be sudden and hard to predict, one week the doors don't open on Monday, the bank will not extend a loan, or they have to close the factory because products are not selling.

All great points. Here’s an example: Who still uses a landline phone? Mostly older folks. My parents both have cellphones and one landline. They haven’t been able to receive or make calls on the landline for weeks. In the past few years, it’s only been telemarketers. Soon, even they will drop it due to maintenance issues.

 

[Tslynk67]

Why the S&P 500 Can’t Afford to Keep Tesla Out | Barron's (20 min ago)

"Tesla (ticker: TSLA) qualified for inclusion in the S&P 500 when it reported a GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profit for the second quarter of 2020."​

Cheers!

Nice if true, should knock that out of the park: "For Tesla, Wall Street expects a GAAP profit of 32 cents a share from $8.2 billion in sales."

 

[Knightshade]

Then take 5% of the consumers away.

I don't think you have to go very far before half the gas stations close.

Not sure the math really works there...

If they all go away from 5% of the stations, then 5% of the stations close.

If they all go away from 0.25% of 20 stations the prices either all go up 0.25% everywhere, or you lose... about 5% of the stations as customers consolidate.

I could buy the consolidation at 5% customer decline is greater than 5% of stations closing, but I don't see the math where it's 5%=50% unless the market was already massively oversaturated anyway

Probably what you end up with is fewer stations with 8 pumps, and more stations with 20 pumps and more.

There's a project in the planning phases near me right now to build a 120 gas pump station with a giant store attached right off the interstate.

It's gonna be like 1000 feet from a station that exists now and has 8 pumps and a small little store attached.

I expect that small one will be out of business soon regardless of EVs growing share, and the giant place will have plenty of business for quite a few more years... (they do plan to add some chargers too, but no details available on them yet)


That's the kinda consolidation I expect to see... larger better funded stations sticking around or expanding, while smaller more on the edge economically ones fade away... and the better funded places will add chargers as they go, since their profit is mainly on you coming into the store anyway.... and EV charging is BETTER for that currently since it takes longer.

Maybe... except the US OEMs can't bail out of the small-car market fast enough. It's not good for them to subsidize small-car losses with pickup profits, and small cars aren't going to be getting more profitable if they need higher efficiency and better tech and all the rest. The OEMs will just dump the small cars and stick with the pickup profits, maybe offset by a handful of compliance EVs as usual. Or they'll make their stand on large SUV profits, if EV pickups turn out to be a thing.

As emissions standards go up (and again they may not do so depending on election results, they continue to need smaller cars (or EVs) to offset emissions of the profitable trucks.

But let's say the EV F-150 is huge, and Ford can afford to just stop making festivas.... other companies still make a profit on small cars, and now they'll make a better one with less competition from Ford.

Again- consolidation, not elimination.

They are obsolete. Nobody is building fossil fuel based peaker plants any more. Well, perhaps a few are just finishing construction, ordered up when it still wasn't quite obviously moronic.

This is factually incorrect

Dominion seeks permits to build new power plant in Chesterfield | Chesterfield Observer

From 10 months ago about permits being filed to [B}start[/B] build a fossil fuel peaker plant in Virginia for example.


Overpowered: Why a US gas-building spree continues despite electricity glut

Mentions over 200 new natural gas plants are planned or in development in the US alone.

The story mentioned that many are likely to be shut down far earlier than their expected 40 year lifespan.

But they're still actively being permitted, developed, built, from scratch, right now...

Because the batteries to fix all the need and demand simply do not exist today.

 

[Knightshade]

People who live in The City still take road trips, don’t they?

Sure.

But it makes no economic sense to keep a car around JUST for that. Especially when parking in NYC can cost more than your new car payment.

It'd be far, far cheaper to rent for the occasional road trip (especially when you're also right next to 3 major airports and in the middle of the one place in the US even trains are a viable travel option to get to other cities)

Tony uses the example of the transition from the horse to the car as that is the best example we have.

FWIW I don't object to using the horse->car transition as an example at all.

I object to him suggesting the timeline seen in NYC (which even then he misrepresents as faster overall than it really was) applies EVERYWHERE- when in fact it took decades longer for the country as a whole to reach majority cars than it did NYC.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Well, we are Canadian but for the last 17 years live anywhere from 3 to 5 months of the year in Palm Springs. This is our local costco. It is like this every time we go by it regardless of the time of day. Sometimes it is backed up to the street and they need cops to assist. I have no idea how much they save because its costco but it must be worth it for the 20 to 40 minute line ups they endure...with their motors running the whole time. At some point people are going to figure out its easier to charge at home while you are sleeping. We figured it out 5 years ago when we got rid of our last gas car.

Just sayin.

 

[Knightshade]

Well, we are Canadian but for the last 17 years live anywhere from 3 to 5 months of the year in Palm Springs. This is our local costco. It is like this every time we go by it regardless of the time of day.

Costco is weird.

I get that the gas is cheaper- but yeah ours always has lines too (not NEAR as bad as yours though).... despite there being 10 stations with NO lines within a mile of the place, just 10 or 20 cents more expensive.


Given it's in FL in your shot I can only assume it's old people whose time isn't worth anything to themselves and they're ok wasting 40 minutes in line to save $2 on a tank.

Same folks who'll waste half an hour arguing with the grocery store manager over their expired 10 cent coupon being honored or not.

 

[Words of HABIT]

$7.4 billion per year for the last 7 years? If true, what a tragic failure of leadership by Mary Barra. She can blather all she wants about GM's "all electric future" but she's completely blown their wad and has no credibility.

How can they have spent 5x more on R&D than Tesla over the last 7 years and not have a lot more to show for it by now?

I've been hesitant to put GM in the same category with Ford but maybe they belong there.

GM's R&D spend is 5X that of Tesla, yet their realized improvements appear to be 1/5th that of Tesla. At GM's current R&D spend they should have flying cars by now. Is it possible GM's R&D spend is simply a method used to avoid paying taxes?

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Costco is weird.

I get that the gas is cheaper- but yeah ours always has lines too (not NEAR as bad as yours though).... despite there being 10 stations with NO lines within a mile of the place, just 10 or 20 cents more expensive.


Given it's in FL in your shot I can only assume it's old people whose time isn't worth anything to themselves and they're ok wasting 40 minutes in line to save $2 on a tank.

Same folks who'll waste half an hour arguing with the grocery store manager over their expired 10 cent coupon being honored or not.

Yah probably.

Note. This is Palm Springs California. Et especifiquement the Costco in Rancho Mirage.

 

[ammulder]

Not sure the math really works there...

If they all go away from 5% of the stations, then 5% of the stations close.

Isn't that the point, though? If N% of the customers leave the market, it's not just that N% of the stations close. At first, there's no difference -- the gas stations just absorb the difference and find some way to cut costs or raise prices. But as the market continues to contract, at some stage you hit a tipping point. Once the margins get cut enough and stations start going out of business, it will hit more than N% of the stations at once, and also the experience gets worse of the rest of the (100-N)% customers. Remaining stations are farther away and more crowded. Maybe it does come down to consolidation and only the super-stations survive. They have to be farther apart almost by definition, because they have to draw on a larger area to make sense. But if they do offer a notably better experience (in terms of reduced waits or better food shop or whatever), then they drive still more of the smaller stations out of business, and the experience gets still worse for all the customers who are in the area of the super-station but not as close to it as they were to their old one that went under.

Where are all the hardware stores when there's a Lowe's and a Home Depot within range of every town?

It's not like I think there will be no gas stations left. It's that I don't think it will take a 20-30% decline in the ICE fleet to make operating an ICE a notably unpleasant experience compared to operating an EV. I mean, we already gripe when we have to gas up the minivan. If gas stations become still less convenient, that would be the nail in the coffin.

 

[Cape Coddess]

Then take 5% of the consumers away.

I don't think you have to go very far before half the gas stations close. As an owner, why do you want to be in a market with 20 options to service a declining number of customers? If your convenience revenue drops, you have to raise gas prices, and then people will happily go 5 minutes out of their way to the "Super WaWa" (it's a Northeast US thing) with better food AND cheaper gas.

Gas stations would be would be wise to integrate electric pumps along with their gas pumps, as Wawa is doing. As one grows the other can fade away.

"Fast Facts about Wawa’s Electric Vehicle Charging Program:
Wawa began hosting Electric Charging Stations at its first store in 2017. Wawa hosts Tesla Superchargers, and EVgo and Electrify America CCS and CHAdeMO chargers. To date, Wawa hosts 33 Electric Charging Stations, including 31 Supercharging sites and 2 CCS and CHAdeMO stations. In 2020 – Wawa made history with the opening of our first non-fuel prototype in Virginia with only electric charging stations."

(IMO, whole article not worth reading. It's an ad for a sweepstake.)
Wawa Announces Tesla Model 3 Lease Sweepstakes for Virginia Residents

 

[Bet TSLA]

This is factually incorrect

Dominion seeks permits to build new power plant in Chesterfield | Chesterfield Observer

From 10 months ago about permits being filed to [B}start[/B] build a fossil fuel peaker plant in Virginia for example.


Overpowered: Why a US gas-building spree continues despite electricity glut

Mentions over 200 new natural gas plants are planned or in development in the US alone.

The story mentioned that many are likely to be shut down far earlier than their expected 40 year lifespan.

But they're still actively being permitted, developed, built, from scratch, right now...

Because the batteries to fix all the need and demand simply do not exist today.

You might be right. But what you quote is a year old, and relies on data older still. Can you point to new peaker plants currently being funded and built? I just keep reading about cancellations. Current information is especially important when processes are exponential rather than linear.

I don't see that that Chesterfield plant has been approved.