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

[zzziii]

Steve Jurvetson has posted the following on his FB account.

 

[Khamul]

Interesting, but why spend anything on this exceedingly costly idea when it so very, very likely to be obsolete in a year or three?

Seriously, the Tesla Semi economics are so massively overwhelming that such expensive, boondoggle projects are a complete waste of money. I really wish had the battery capacity to be making them now--it's going to be such a game changer.

Agreed, it’s complete bollocks. I read all EV articles on the danish engineering unions newspage, and it’s amazing and frankly scary how misguided most comments are. Instead of EVs, people there claim that we should just - “just” - electrify all roads, or use hydrogen or what about when you have to haul a boat 1000 km uphill both ways. You have to be an engineer to comment there (I’m not, I just read), and many of them are either completely clueless or keep getting involved in all these elonroad things and hydrogen and what have you.

One person there keeps hijacking threads to discuss his amazing RUF-system. It’ll solve ALL problems with cars. It’s perhaps the most hilarious bad webpage I have ever seen, including 1995 geocities pages.

Anyway, I’m really, really happy to have found this forum.

 

[SO16]

It was even worse than that. Sandy pushed back on even that not great statement of Elon's pointing out that Sandy's car was built last fall, well after initial production problems. Elon was forced to admit that they probably had a design change which cause quality problems all over again. Basically Tesla is always tweaking something on their cars, which is why you have random quality issues.

It is what it is with Tesla.

If they just had someone spend a few minutes reviewing the vehicle before contacting owner for delivery, they would catch the most glaring issues. Sandy’s passenger door was hard to miss.

 

[SO16]

Ashley Vance also mentioned how difficult it was to get in touch with Elon/Tesla during the writing of his Elon-biography. I recall he stated Elon was always against the book, scared of having no control over what was printed. He only wanted to help if he had editing rights or something. (I read it years ago, was something along those lines.)

So not surprised by your experiences @tinm ! Good luck with your project.

I can’t blame Elon here. I sure wouldn’t want a book written about me or my company if I didn’t have direct say on final product. Even if Elon gives all the time in the world to the author, nothing is preventing the author from adding in something just for the controversy.....to sell books.

 

[petit_bateau]

That is a mistake, you cannot compare market cap and GDP, it is a bit like comparing kW and kWh. The world economy may be double that of today (7% growth rate), and Tesla revenues would be about 1/40 of the world GDP, which is still ludicrously high.

Taking that further one could ascribe a P/E of 7x-10x (or whatever) to global GDP to calculate a global capitalisation (of which global mkt cap would be lower, as not all the global cap would be traded).

Looking at the revenue (i.e. GDP) side of things, and turning to automotive share of global GDP one could use a 3% share (Read @Kearney: The contribution of the automobile industry to technology and value creation), in which case a Tesla 2030 revenues of 1/40 in 2030 would be 2.5%, i.e. 83% of automotive. However I think that by 2030 I estimated non-auto would be about 40% of Tesla revenues so that number implies Tesla would be 50% of global auto by 2030. Seems somewhat high but becoming more believable. Dive by 2-4 so as to dilute away some of the optimism and one starts to get numbers that one might throw darts at, and which can be compared with the 20m cars/yr in 2030 streeetch target (i.e. 20-25% of global light vehicles production).

 

[heltok]

Anyway, here’s a small, fun thing:
In Sweden, they’re working on a project on electrical highways, så semis can charge while driving. In Swedish electricity is called “el”. But in tech everything has to have english names, so they have made a mashup: el on roads. Or, as they call it on their webpage, elonroads It took me a while to figure out what that actually means.

Haha, lol. They actually are making this lol. I spent 10 weeks on this project while at University a lifetime ago. We did the mechatronical system for one of the prototypes, this version they have now have way much easier control system than our prototype. It was not trivial to set up the holonomic constraints and get the lagrangian for this system...

 

[brantse]

Sandy was just behind the times. A 42V standard was indeed proposed, but that fell by the wayside a while ago.

42-volt electrical system - Wikipedia

It's semantics. The voltage will fluctuate, just in the same way that 12v batteries usually produce about 12.5-14 v. Yes, it would be given some nominal value, but what's important is that it is less than 50 for classification for insulation and exposure purposes.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Have not posted since September 2020 due to moderator threats and harassment and repeated deleted posts (no doubt this will vanish too). I’m still around TMC but refuse to participate anymore because of you know who.

Been working on a Tesla book for 3 1/2 years. Seen and have learned a ton that is not widely known about many facets of the Tesla story. Bizarrely, Tesla has been completely uncooperative, lied to me since day one, they seem intent on sabotaging the project at every opportunity even though it is a very pro-EV, pro-Tesla Mission, pro-Tesla, “Pravduh” type book. Utterly unlike Higgins’ book. Elon himself has been a complete d***, toying with me for at least a year about an interview but remaining steadfastly uncooperative while granting shallow interviews with fanbois but rarely any serious journalists. So it goes. Onwards.

Love to you all (minus a few).

There are probably 100+ people writing a book on Elon/Tesla/SpaceX or considering doing so. I'm not sure If I would want to make myself available for all those people. He is not obliged to give interviews and maybe he just prefers to use the little spare time he has for shallow interviews with 'fanbois', or for talking to interesting people like Sandy Munro or other tech entrepreneurs.

 

[MikeAtkinson]

First robot delivery to Gigafactory Austin (I guess for the paintshop), installation of first casting machine almost complete, now seem to be roofing over casting area before commissioning.

 

[SwTslaGrl]

The Shanghai giga press have a second automated step after casting; removing excess material. First pic with excess material and second pic with it removed,

Check Out How The Single-Piece Rear Casting Joins The Tesla Model Y

 

[mongo]

It's semantics. The voltage will fluctuate, just in the same way that 12v batteries usually produce about 12.5-14 v. Yes, it would be given some nominal value, but what's important is that it is less than 50 for classification for insulation and exposure purposes.

I think it's more than semantics.

Spoiler: 48V tech discussion

42V was based off lead acid batteries. Like you mention, charge voltage is higher than nominal. A standard car battery is called 12V, but gets charged at up to 14.4V or so. Scaling that out (and limiting charge voltage slightly):
42/12*14.3 = 50V (well 50.05). UL uses 50V and SAE J1128A uses 60V as the upper limit which helps in low temperature conditiond where charge voltage needs to be higher for lead acid.

My thought is that the 48V architecture will be based on a well regulated 48V rail generated by the pack via a DC-DC converter(s). This is likely backed up by a small lithium pack. (Possibly with its own DC-DC converter for charge and voltage control. Otherwise, there is still voltage variation. A lower voltage secondary pack (always below 48V) with boost converter allows this while also automatically handling droop due to load steps.)

 

[Nolimits]

I'll believe that when I see it. Not saying it won't happen, but Legacy Automakers have been promising these things for so long now that they really have lost credence. And as a Chevy Volt owner earlier on (and a very happy one at the time), when they stopped manufacturing what was truly a successful product, I lost respect for them altogether. I just don't think their heart is in it. My opinion. Maybe this will change, but I will need to be convinced.

Agreed. “Producing concepts are easy. Volume production can be hell” -EM

 

[wombat9]

More good news from Switzerland (1:1 DeepL translation as the original article is in German):

"New DDPS directives: electric vehicles for the federal administration

Bern, 04.02.2021 - The head of the DDPS, Federal Councillor Viola Amherd, has issued new regulations for the procurement of vehicles for the federal administration. In order to reduce CO2 emissions, the DDPS will in principle only procure purely electrically powered vehicles for the departments from this year. This measure was adopted as part of the Federal Council's climate package for the Federal Administration.

The Federal Administration has civilian registered vehicles for the performance of its tasks. These vehicles are ordered by the individual administrative units from the Federal Office of Armaments armasuisse as the central procurement agency, which belongs to the DDPS.

Measures to reduce CO2 emissions
In order to sustainably reduce the CO2 emissions of these vehicles and to increase environmental protection, the DDPS adapted the directives on the ecological principles of procurement and use of administrative vehicles at the beginning of the year. In principle, only purely electrically powered vehicles will be procured. According to the directives, the term "purely electrically powered vehicle" includes purely battery-powered vehicles and fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen or methanol. Equivalent to these are vehicles that are operated with another, equivalent CO2-neutral technology.

The purchase of fossil fuel vehicles remains possible in justified cases, especially where electric vehicles that meet the requirements are not yet available. For exceptions, approval must be obtained from the relevant General Secretariat of the departments.

The federal administration currently has a total of around 1500 civilian registered vehicles. Of these, around 40 are currently purely electrically powered. Between 150 and 200 administrative vehicles are procured each year, of which nine were purely electric in 2019.

Climate package for lower greenhouse gas emissions by the federal administration
The revision of the DDPS directives was triggered by the Federal Council resolutions on the Federal Administration Climate Package of July 3, 2019 and December 13, 2019, in which the Federal Council committed the civilian Federal Administration to a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2030 compared to 2006 and the DDPS to a reduction of at least 40% compared to 2001."


Neue Weisungen des VBS: Elektrofahrzeuge für die Bundesverwaltung

 

[Cobbler]

It’s Memes vs. Regulators

I think this article was the reason Elon tweeted memes about Doge/destroying shortsellers/...

 

[Nocturnal]

It’s Memes vs. Regulators

I think this article was the reason Elon tweeted memes about Doge/destroying shortsellers/...

It gave me an excuse to post my crappy "Elonan the Contrarian" meme to twitter.

This guy seems. . . a bit optimistic. His ultra-bullish model has Tesla growing to a market cap twice the size of the entire global economy by 2030. Well it’s a fun listen anyway.

Indeed. The natural reaction is to brush this off as crazy, but that's not solid thinking. The model itself does make sense. I suppose I just see market or governmental forces intervening before any company could possibly become that large. I guess I'll just stick to the bear case where TSLA hits 10k by 2030.

 

[Big Time]

It’s Memes vs. Regulators

I think this article was the reason Elon tweeted memes about Doge/destroying shortsellers/...

I think he’s tweeting crypto stuff due to planned bull attack at 9PM eastern later today.

Tesla is looking good premarket, was reading Gary’s post about Biden’s EV infrastructure plan that he’s going to release on the 15th of this month to be implemented on the 23rd? I expect a rise around then if the credits return in full, but what do I know!

 

[Boomer19]

It’s Memes vs. Regulators

I think this article was the reason Elon tweeted memes about Doge/destroying shortsellers/...

there you go! they aren’t going after the
whale manipulators. too hard. costs too much money. the small fish are easier to fry, and they send a clear message to other small fish.

nor will they review and improve market mechanics, enforcing trading and settlement regulations,
including making them stricter or more transparent (or even the small task of making everyone play by same rules when it comes to locate and short- at the very least), or, how about tidying up disclosure rules a bit.

let’s fry some smelts, the smoke will draw everyone away from the obvious so we can move on to the next topic in the news cycle


the problem with upsetting the establishment is that all the players pretty much have to be beyond reproach. kinda like EM so far. or even a rogan, like him or not. weinstein and lex said it best when discussing rogan. loosely quoted
‘ he really doesn’t have secrets (smokes pot on air, etc) nor does he care/have anything to lose’ kinda scenario. there’s little chance to utilize Achilles heel
tactics to discredit or snuff out (at least that’s how it’s played this far with both)

when your player(s) technically “break the rules” then the whole movement is discredited, legit or not

 

[InDaClub]

Have not posted since September 2020 due to moderator threats and harassment and repeated deleted posts (no doubt this will vanish too). I’m still around TMC but refuse to participate anymore because of you know who.

Been working on a Tesla book for 3 1/2 years. Seen and have learned a ton that is not widely known about many facets of the Tesla story. Bizarrely, Tesla has been completely uncooperative, lied to me since day one, they seem intent on sabotaging the project at every opportunity even though it is a very pro-EV, pro-Tesla Mission, pro-Tesla, “Pravduh” type book. Utterly unlike Higgins’ book. Elon himself has been a complete d***, toying with me for at least a year about an interview but remaining steadfastly uncooperative while granting shallow interviews with fanbois but rarely any serious journalists. So it goes. Onwards.

Love to you all (minus a few).

OT:

I'm no expert in these matters, but would you say you have anger issues? You seem to be at odds with everyone. In this one post alone, you:
1) Called Elon "a complete d***"
2) Referred to Tesla supporters as "fanbois"
3) Are at odds with the moderators. You have this in your profile "tmc moderators are horrible people with too much power"

Here's a tip, if you would like to get an interview with the world's busiest CEO, don't call him "a complete d***."

I've glanced at some of your posts, and in all honesty, if I were Elon, I would never give you an interview. If you are part of the mission "to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy", you are doing it wrong. Good Luck.

 

[marvinat0rz]

I call it as I see it: that’s the cause, so it only helps.

Elon can participate or not, cooperate or not; his choice. But he doesn’t get to complain he didn’t have an opportunity to confirm/deny/clarify facts, stories, and viewpoints. He’s had three years of ample opportunity to, and has so far chosen not to. (Elon if you’re reading this my hailing frequencies remain open but I’m not gonna beg.)

Interesting thoughts. Hope you get your book finished, looking forward to read it

 

[Todd Burch]

I'm sure the thought has already crossed everyone's mind, but with the castings eliminating 600 robots (300 each for front and rear--wow is that right?!?) that means that new factories, aside from being cheaper, also come up more quickly. Don't have to wait for those robots to be delivered, or to calibrate each one. Relatively easier to just get a single casting machine set up. So every manufacturing improvement there pays dividends in the future.

Improve the wiring system...now what other machinery is no longer needed for future factories? Optimize. Improve the rate at which you can manufacture. Take over the world. Then Todd cashes in his stock and buys a bunch of girlfriends islands.